“What are you on about?” asked Maddy.
“Think about it. Seamus Hegarty happens to amble along just after you put blood on the mound, and before we all blacked out, I could have sworn he was wearing a massive pair of antlers. Then a stag lets us in here—anyone else joining the dots?”
“Seamus Hegarty is Cernunnos?!” said Roisin. “If that’s true, why is he in our world, and why has he sent us to do his dirty work?”
“In our world he is a white stag in the Winter, returning to animal form so he can be closer to the old magic while it sleeps with the earth. It is an ancient rite, but it makes him less powerful,” said Fionn. “The longer Winter lasts, the stronger Liadan grows and the weaker Cernunnos becomes. I don’t know why he is in your world too.”
“Well, I say we head back to Blarney and get Seamus, Cernunnos, whatever it is he calls himself, to sort this out,” said Danny.
“But I just told you, in our world he is a stag for the Winter,” said Fionn. “He can’t help us.”
“Fine,” said Danny, through gritted teeth. “Then we go to plan B and get the Morrighan to help.”
“The Morrighan sleeps in the arms of the earth,” said Fionn. “No one may disturb her.”
“Danny’s right. We’ll wake her up,” said Maddy, shrugging. “Once she knows Liadan is stirring things up, she’ll get everything back to normal.”
“But the Morrighan never wakes,” said Fionn.
“Never?” yelped Danny.
“Not since she left your world. I told you, she created the Land with her dreams, and it is her dreaming that keeps our world alive.”
“She NEVER wakes up?!” asked Maddy, incredulous. “You’re telling me she has been asleep for thousands of years?”
“Yes,” said Fionn.
“But how did she interfere in the war? How did she make Liadan a queen?” asked Roisin.
“If you cause ripples across her dream, as Liadan did, then the Morrighan’s mind will turn toward you.” Fionn shuddered. “That’s not something you want.”
“It is if it gets us out of here any quicker!” said Danny. “So what do we have to do to make her notice us? Is what Liadan’s doing not enough?”
“Not yet,” said Fionn sadly.
“Then we have to wake her,” said Maddy. “This has already gone too far.”
“No one wakes the Morrighan!” said Fionn.
“But—” Roisin began.
“No one! Waking the Morrighan is not something anyone should do,” said Fionn, glaring at them before turning her back on them and marching off.
Maddy looked at Danny and Roisin, stunned at the anger shown by the normally timid little dryad. Roisin raised an eyebrow.
“It looks like there’s no plan B,” said Danny, turning to follow Fionn.
The trees began to thin until they petered
out to a stony, snow-covered beach. A frozen lake lay still and quiet under the sullen weight of ice. The sun still peeked over the edge of the horizon, the dying light staining the surface of the ice with its blood.
Rising above the flat glass of the lake, the White Tower twisted and turned in on itself as it reached toward the sky. Fionn and the children clung to the bark of one of the trees that marked the boundary between the forest and the shore, hunched in its shadow. Maddy tucked her bare hands into her armpits and squinted into an icy wind that scoured her face and made her lungs burn with the cold.
If Liadan’s home reflected her personality, Maddy was worried the Winter Queen was seriously nuts.
The base of the tower was nothing more than a jumble of caves tumbled upon one another. As Maddy’s eyes rose up the rock face, a smooth tower began to form. But it also expanded, spreading out from its ugly base until it looked like it was defying gravity. Spiky little turrets shot off into the air from the main building like fireworks, growing more numerous as the structure spread. They also grew more decorative, until the very top ones were smothered in balconies cut into filigree patterns, statues, and gargoyles and multipaned windows that flashed in the evening rays.
It looked, Maddy decided, like a toy faerie tale castle dreamed up by a small child with no taste, who then got bored and took a blowtorch to its plastic base.
It also looked completely deserted, which struck Maddy as being more than a bit suspicious. She could imagine Liadan crouching like a spider in the middle of that mess of stone, waiting for them to come closer.
“How do we get there? I can’t see a bridge,” said Danny.
“Liadan makes one from ice, but you’ll have to walk,” said Fionn.
“You must be joking!” said Roisin. “That ice could break under our weight. We’ll drown.”
The dryad shrugged. “No other way. I must stop here. I cannot go too far from my tree—it needs me.”
Danny walked to the edge of the shore and crouched down to sweep snow from the surface of the ice. “It looks pretty thick,” he called back over his shoulder. “I reckon
we could walk across it.” He stood up and took a tentative step on to the ice, then another, and then he jumped up and down. The ice didn’t make a sound or splinter.
The wind died suddenly. “Thank goodness for that,” said Roisin. “That wind was freezing.”
“OK, let’s think about this,” said Maddy. “I think we need to spread out in case something happens—that way at least one of us is more likely to get through.”
“What, in case one of us needs help?” said Roisin.
“We can all swim,” said Maddy. “I’ve got the backpack, so I’ll go first. Roisin, you keep hold of George and give me a ten-minute head start. And Danny, you follow Roisin in another ten minutes. That way we spread our weight across the ice.”
“Do you really think that’s going to help?” said Danny.
“It can’t do any harm,” said Maddy.
Roisin tucked her jacket into the waist of her jeans and tucked George inside, zipping it up so only his head was visible. Then they all turned to say goodbye to Fionn, who stood wringing her hands.
“Thank you, Fionn, for getting us this far,” said Maddy.
The dryad smiled. “I’m glad I didn’t hide in my tree,” she said. “Walk fast and leave quickly. Then Winter will end.”
“We’ll do our best,” said Danny.
Maddy took a tentative step on to the ice, then another, and another, until she was walking gingerly
across the lake’s surface, her feet slipping underneath her as she walked.
“Try and step on drifts of snow. It will give your sneakers something to grip,” Danny shouted from the shore.
“Ta very much, genius. I’ll bear that in mind,” muttered Maddy through gritted teeth. She did not dare turn around in case she fell. Her legs were aching with the effort of trying to keep her balance. She wished there was a breeze now. She was feeling warm from the effort of walking on the ice, and sweat was beginning to bead on her face. The shadow of the tower reached out to her across the ice, splintering the rays of the hovering sun against its thick lower walls.
Suddenly Roisin screamed, and Maddy nearly fell as she turned to see what was going on.
Fionn was running on to the ice, shouting and waving her arms. A long crack ran ahead of her silver feet, and the noise of the ice ripping apart tore through the air. Maddy’s breath froze in her throat as she watched the crack reaching out for Danny, who was slipping and stumbling along just behind Roisin—too close. Maddy strained to hear what Fionn was shouting. Then the undergrowth in the forest behind the dryad shook, and dark shapes burst from the trees and raced on to the ice. Wolves. Maddy screamed, her voice mingling with Roisin’s and Danny’s as the pack ran on, barking and yipping with excitement, their huge paws not troubled by the slippery surface. Three silvery gray wolves were
running at the head of the pack. Maddy watched, frozen, as they caught up with Danny and pounced, pulling him on to his back. He shouted and struggled and staggered back to his feet, but they locked their jaws on to his wrists and clothing and started to drag him back to shore. Maddy watched in horror as he fell to his knees and tried to beat them off with his fists. He punched one animal in the snout, and it backed off for a second, its lips curled in a snarl, before it lunged forward, sunk its teeth into his jacket and dragged him along.
Five more were bounding across the ice toward Roisin, who stood with her arms wrapped around George. “MADDY! DON’T LEAVE ME, MADDY!” she screamed in terror. Maddy started to run, her sneakers slithering on the glassy surface of the ice, slowing her down. As she strained to reach Roisin, the wolves surrounded her and Roisin went down among the furry bodies.
Maddy cried out in horror as Roisin struggled in among the pack. She could see the white soles of her cousin’s sneakers flash as she kicked out at the wolves’ legs, one arm wrapped around her head and the other holding George tight to her chest. The animals sidestepped her kicks neatly, their paws dancing as nimbly as ballerinas.
Then Maddy saw a wolf run away from Roisin and head straight for her, followed by some of the pack. The leader was the big black male who had attacked them earlier, his eyes glowing with green fire and his fur flecked with saliva, his red tongue lolling from between
his teeth. His eyes locked on Maddy, and he put on a burst of speed.
Panicked, Maddy tried to run faster toward Roisin, but she slipped and fell face first on to the ice. Blood gushed from her nose, and she choked as the hot, salty liquid filled the back of her throat. The ice groaned, and cracks shot out around her spread-eagled body, and as she tried to get to her feet, her knee went through the ice. She watched transfixed as icy water spread like a stain through the denim of her jeans. Beneath the palms of her hands, tiny cracks spread lazily. She fixed her eyes on them and tried to calm her breathing. Blood roared in her ears, but she could still hear the pack bearing down on her. The thud of their paws on the ice advanced each crack by a millimeter, and their excited growls rasped the frosty air. She had to move, or they would scoop her off the ice and rip her apart between them as easily as a rabbit.
Gently she lifted her knee from the hole. The ice creaked and skittered beneath her. She slowly got to her feet, as the cracks began to flake and yawn wide. She tensed her calf muscles, hoping to leap clear of the damaged ice, but it was too late—the whole lot gave way beneath her just as she felt the breath of the black wolf blast her face and she fell into the icy waters.
The cold drove the breath from her lungs, and she gasped, swallowing water as she thrashed about in panic. The current grabbed her and started to tug her away from the hole in the ice. Desperately, she gripped the
edge of the hole with fingers that felt like sausages. The freezing water tore at her savagely, making her muscles judder with pain. Above her, the wolves milled excitedly, blocking the last of the daylight and casting her into crushing darkness. She couldn’t climb out into their waiting jaws. But her body was succumbing to the cold. Numbness began to creep over her, and she struggled to move her legs to tread water.
She was also running out of air—her lungs burned, and black spots danced in front of her eyes. She lifted her head to take a breath, keeping as much of her face underwater as she could while the wolves scrabbled at the edges of the ice with their paws, making the hole bigger. Maddy was relieved that she wouldn’t be sucked under the ice, but now she couldn’t kick her legs with any power, and she began to feel her frozen body sink into the depths as her useless fingers couldn’t grip the ice. She cried out as the big black male sank his head under the water, closed his jaws around her neck, and pulled her up on to the surface. She screamed with pain, and as more teeth bit down on her arms, Maddy sobbed with fear, dreading the agony of when they would start to rip her apart. She tried to curl up, to protect herself from their jaws, her skin red raw from the cold. But instead they dragged her face down across the ice as it cracked around them like gun shots, all the way back to the rocky shore, where they let her lie down to cough blood and mucus on to the snow.
She stared at the wolf’s paws in front of her. He made no move to attack her, and she twisted in pain as her numb body began to warm up again. The pack whined and yipped around her, and she got to her hands and knees. She shook uncontrollably with cold as she vomited in the snow. She glared at the black wolf as he cocked his head to one side.
“You don’t seem much of a big bad wolf to me,” she mumbled through blue lips. The animal narrowed his eyes and laid his ears flat against his head. She tried to tense herself for his spring, but her exhausted shaking muscles didn’t listen.
“You’re no Red Riding Hood yourself,” said the wolf.
Maddy sank down into the snow, too tired
to care about the wolf talking to her, and she curled in on herself for warmth. She clamped her teeth against the painful spasms in her body and closed her eyes.
I’ll try to sleep
, she thought.
I’ll deal with all this when I feel a bit better.
Sharp little hands dug into her sodden clothes and yanked her to her feet. Fionn was there, struggling with the zip on Maddy’s coat and crying, bright green tears glistening down her face.
“My fault, my fault,” she sobbed. “The air was getting warmer, but I was scared, so scared, and my tree was calling me. I went away, and when I came back, it was too late! Fenris saved you instead, good Fenris!”
Relief pricked sharp through the fog of tiredness that cocooned Maddy’s brain. The wolves had been helping. She was not about to be dinner.
“Who’s Fenris?” mumbled Maddy, as Fionn yanked her stiffening jumper and T-shirt over her head. The black wolf looked at her disdainfully. “Oh. Right. Why are you taking my clothes, Fionn?”
The dryad yanked Maddy’s jeans around her ankles and pulled Maddy forward into an awkward hop. “Your clothes are freezing on to you, and you’ll get very sick if you don’t get out of them. Liadan did this. She can’t touch you herself, but she can make the weather harm you. She warmed the ice on the lake enough to make it dangerous, and now the temperature has dropped again—can’t you feel it?”
Maddy stood in her bare feet in the snow. “Actually, no. I’m feeling much better now, a bit warmer. Very sleepy though.”
“That’s bad,” said Fenris, as Fionn pushed Maddy toward a knot of wolves lying among the trees. Roisin’s and Danny’s pale faces gleamed up at her from a swirl of gray, brown, and cream fur. Fionn pushed Maddy down, and the knot contracted around her, sucking her deep into the warm soft mass to float beside her cousins.
When Maddy woke up, the first thing she smelled was damp dog, and the first thing she felt was the pain
in her face and hands. Her whole body hurt, but her scraped and bloodied fingers screamed the loudest as she tried to uncurl them. Her nose and lips felt huge. The wolves were a breathing wall of fur around her, and they were wrapped around each other so tight it was hard to see where one wolf started and another ended. That is, apart from one pair of green eyes that were beginning to look familiar.
“Sleep well?” asked the black wolf.
“I might have slept better if you hadn’t dragged me around on my face,” she mumbled through bruised lips.
“We did not have time for finesse or a more dignified return to shore,” said Fenris. “However, I still think ‘thank you’ would be the gracious thing to say, rather than a complaint about the service.”
“I’ll thank you when I know why you saved us,” said Maddy.
The wolf growled and bared his teeth. Feeling his mood, the pack began to unravel, leaving Maddy shivering in the snow. As some of the pack stood up, her clothes dropped from their backs and stomachs, warm and dry and smelling to high heaven of the sharp, wild scent of wolf.
She grabbed them and dressed herself quickly. Danny, Roisin, and Fionn got up too, bleary-eyed. George was stiff with fear and looked as if he had not slept a wink. The pack gathered behind Fenris, who lowered his shaggy head and glared fiercely at Maddy.
“What’s happening?” said Fionn, yawning.
“It seems that our help is not appreciated and we made a mistake when we saved your friends,” he growled.
“No, we appreciate it,” said Roisin quickly. “It’s just that . . . well . . . you know . . .” She wilted under Fenris’s baleful stare.
“It’s just that you attacked us in the forest,” said Danny. “Which makes us worry about why you helped us now.”
“We know you belong to the Winter Queen—everyone calls you the wolves of the White Tower,” said Maddy. “She just tried to drown us, so it’s a bit weird that you guys came to the rescue.”
The wolves stood so still there hardly seemed to be a breath shared among them. They looked back at Maddy with their long eyes. Another moment and she knew they would melt back among the trees. Some gesture needed to be made, a word said, that would smooth the raised hackles on Fenris’s broad back, but she did not have a clue what to do.
It was Fionn who broke the silence. “They are only saplings,” she said to the wolves. “There is a world of things they don’t know.”
“Can
you
not trust in a good deed?” growled Fenris.
Fionn shrugged. “You’re not faerie,” she said. “I don’t know you.”
A silver-colored female, her belly swollen with pregnancy, glided up to Fenris and rubbed her face against his. She nuzzled his ear, and the tension went out of his
huge body. He sat down in the snow and leaned into the female’s shoulder.
“I am Nitaina, the story keeper of my pack. We were of your world once,” she said to Maddy. “We came from a fertile land of tall grasses and herds of beasts for plentiful food. We shared it with people too, and we lived in peace—there was territory enough for all. But then new people came, with pale, hairy faces, and the herds grew more scarce. We decided to leave, to head north to the ice lands where we could live away from people. One night, when we were trying to slip by a wooden mountain that the new men slept in, we got lost in a snowstorm. We couldn’t hear or see anything; we could smell only each other. We lay down and huddled together to wait for the storm to pass. When we woke up, we were here. The Winter Queen offered us sanctuary, if we became her eyes and ears.” The wolf lifted her head and looked down her long nose at them. “But we do not belong to her. We are free, and our will is our own.”
Maddy shuffled her feet and felt embarrassed to meet Nitaina’s cool, proud stare. Her soft, clear voice and the knowledge that she had risked her unborn pups on the melting ice made her feel ashamed of quarrelling with the wolves. But something about the answer still bothered her.
“I am sorry that your tribe has suffered, I really am,” she said, “but you still haven’t explained why you went to so much trouble for us.”
“We have seen the children the Winter Queen has tired of,” Nitaina said. “They slip away from the tower, and they wander the forest with their minds broken. They are ugly, feral things, cast out from their own kind.” She looked at Fenris, who lowered his shaggy head to the ground and sighed. “It is not right,” she said to him softly. “We know it is not right.”
She turned back to the children. “Young ones should be with their mothers. We have heard you are seeking a young child, to bring him home. I will not stand by to watch another child broken. We are the Amaguk tribe, and while we may be exiles, we still know what is right and what is wrong.”
“That’s all great, but I’ve got teeth marks in my arm from one of you lot,” said Danny. “If you’re so noble, then how come you sneak around playing storybook wolves?”
A shaggy gray wolf glided up to Danny. His eyes glinted, and as his tongue lolled from his mouth, he looked as if he was laughing. He cocked his head and examined Danny’s torn sleeve. “I could have sworn I got a better hold than that,” he said.
“That was you?” said Danny.
The wolf bowed his head. “Nero, at your service.”
“You could have had my arm off!” said Danny.
“Mmmm, if I’d wanted to,” said Nero. “Rather remiss of me. Shall I have another go?”
Danny scowled at him.
“How are your ribs?” asked Maddy cheerfully.
The wolf’s teeth snapped shut, and he didn’t look like he was laughing anymore. “Sore, as a matter of fact,” he growled.
“That makes us even then,” said Maddy.
“Um, thank you anyway,” said Roisin, as Nero and Maddy eyed each other. She looked at Fenris. “Honestly, thank you.”
Fenris inclined his shaggy head in acknowledgment.
“Have you seen Stephen?” asked Maddy.
“Yes,” said Nitaina. “He passed through here with the Winter Queen and a hunting party. He slept in her arms as she rode by.” She looked at Maddy. “He was very pale. You need to find him quickly.”
“Is there any way to get into the White Tower other than across the lake?” asked Danny.
“No way by land . . .” said Fionn.
“But there is a way, right?” said Danny.
Fionn twisted her hands and looked about her.
“Fionn?”
“Only one way to get to the tower now.”
“And?” snapped Maddy.
“You fly.”
“Of course,” said Maddy. “And how are we supposed to do that?”
Fionn looked at the wolves nervously. Their gimlet eyes stared back at her, but they didn’t make a sound.
“There is a faerie, a strange one, in the mountains, who could help you,” said Fionn.
“How is she strange? Doesn’t like doing nasty things to people, does she?” asked Roisin.
“No, lives on her own too much, gone a bit rotten in the head,” said Fionn. “Too many squirrels nesting upstairs. If the Amaguks bring you to the foot of the Skyring, a mountain range just a little beyond the tower, you’ll find her.”
Maddy narrowed her eyes at her. “Why—where are you going?”
“Home,” said Fionn, as she wrung her hands. “I need to go to my tree. Need to sleep. Tree is already sick, won’t last long if I stay away.”
“Please don’t, dear, sweet Fionn,” pleaded Roisin. “We can’t do this on our own. You said it yourself—we nearly died on the ice, and we only made it this far thanks to you. You can’t leave us now.”
“No,” said Fionn, shaking her head. “Liadan will see. She knows everything.”
“But if we don’t help Stephen and break Liadan’s grip, then Summer will never come. You said so yourself,” said Danny. “What will happen to the forest then?”
“We will live to see Summer,” said Fionn, as she backed away from them. “There will always be trees.”
“I don’t reckon this weirdo faerie is going to help us unless another faerie speaks for us,” said Danny. “No offense to the Amaguks, but the locals seem to be as suspicious of them as they are of us. I don’t see how we are going to make it without you, Fionn.”
But the little dryad just shook her head and continued to back away.
“Wait, Fionn,” said Maddy. “Can’t you do this for Stephen?”
“My tree needs me,” she said.
“I know but . . . think about it,” said Maddy, struggling to keep the desperation from her voice as she watched Fionn’s eyes dart around. “You were so pleased that you were doing something. You knew you were helping your tree when you helped us. Do you remember?”
Fionn nodded, her eyes wary. But she stopped sidling away.
“You were so brave when you helped us,” Maddy continued, her voice soft. She was pleased to see a green blush stealing through Fionn’s cheeks. “Stephen means as much to me as your tree does to you. But he can’t last as long on his own. He’s already been away from home for much too long. He’s not even a sapling—he’s a tiny, tiny little seedling. You know how fragile they are, don’t you?”
Fionn nodded. Her body looked tense but her head was cocked to the sound of Maddy’s voice. “So many bad things happen to seedlings,” she said. “Animals eat them, elves crush them. That’s why they need their dryad.”
“I know, I know,” said Maddy. “Only Stephen doesn’t have a dryad. He’s got a mom, back in our world. She can’t come in here, and he can’t get out without us. Can you imagine how much danger he is in? What his
mother is going through? Can you imagine if you were locked away from your tree?”
Fionn shuddered.
“You were brave to help your tree, but if you help Stephen, you’ll be more than brave,” said Maddy. “You’ll be doing something pure and good and noble because you’ll be doing it for someone else. You’ll be a hero.”
Fionn didn’t say anything, but Maddy was sure that she saw her stand a little straighter and puff her chest out a little as she thought about this.
“And I’ll keep you safe from Liadan,” said Danny. He walked over to the little dryad and took her tiny hand in his. “I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you because you helped Stephen.”
Fionn blushed a deep emerald as she looked up at Danny and sighed. “All right, I’ll help your seedling,” she said, gazing into his eyes.