The Hound at the Gate (10 page)

Finn hurried over. He bent down for a stick when a foot stomped on its handle, almost pinching his fingers. He looked up.
Son of a goat, not again!

Ennis stood there. A bruise darkened his temple. “Get your hands off my stuff.”

Finn straightened. Before he could speak, a man wearing the mark of Knighthood on his shoulder and the torc around his neck appeared behind Ennis.

“There a problem here?” the Knight said. About the same height and build as Gideon, but younger and with sandy-brown hair long enough to pull back into a ponytail, he took a stance next to Ennis. Finn tried not to stare at his flattened nose and the scar running across his left eye and halfway down his face, causing the lid to droop in a permanent wink. Tattoos depicting knives and fantastical beasts covered both his bare arms like sleeves.

“He was stealing my hurley, sir,” Ennis announced with a smirk.

“No, I wasn't! I was just going to borrow one for the game.” Something about the way the man eyed him made Finn's gut tighten. He reached for another one and picked it up.

“This your cousin?” the Knight asked. “The halfer who's apprenticed to Lir?” At Ennis's nod, he spat to one side. “Get a stick and get out of here. And I better not find you touching my apprentice's stuff again. Got it?”

Without a word, Finn turned away. A hand clamped down on his shoulder and yanked him back around.

“Don't you walk away when a Knight's talking to you.” Steel fingers dug into Finn's muscles. “
Boy
.”

“Jack Tully.” Gideon sauntered over. His hurley was balanced on one shoulder in a casual manner that fooled no one.

“Gideon Lir.” Tully let go of Finn. His lip curled as he looked the older Knight up and down. “Back again, eh?”

“As are you,” replied Gideon lightly. “Once again, my apologies about your face.” With a nod, he gestured toward Ennis. “Your apprentice?”

“Yeah.” Tully sneered, the scar bunching up like a badly sewn seam. “Looks like I got the pick of the litter and you got the runt.”

“You did well for your first apprentice, to be sure. The MacCullen clan has a long lineage of fine warriors.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Finn caught a look of surprise on his cousin's face. It quickly vanished.

“Hey!” O'Donnell called. “You guys are holding up the game!”

“Come, Finn.”

Grateful for his master at his back, Finn hurried back to the group, legs more wobbly than he would have ever admitted. He took a deep breath, then another, trying to calm his thundering heart.

Ennis sauntered past to join the other team. To Finn's dismay, Tully followed a few moments later. “Is
he
playing, too?” he asked Gideon.

“It appears so.”

“Do you know him?”

“Aye.”

Deciding this wasn't the best time, Finn cut short the rest of his questions.
What's going on between that other Knight and Gideon? Had they had some sort of fight?

After a reshuffling, each team ended up with eight, a mix of Knights and apprentices, on each side. After a brief conference with the other captain, O'Donnell waved his team over to one side. They huddled in a circle, heads close together. Finn could almost
smell
the enthusiasm of the group. He tightened his fingers around his stick, praying to Danu that he wouldn't screw up.

“Okay, here's the plan. With my speed and Lir's accuracy, we'll score more points if I can get to the
sliotar
and feed it to Gideon as much as possible. The rest of you do everything you can to block the other players.” After a round of nods, he continued. “And we're Skins, since the other team has all the women and girls.” O'Donnell
glanced up at the early-afternoon sun blazing overhead, its rays intense in the thin air of nine thousand feet above sea level. “Good thing we've got a warm day.”

“How come we're Skins just because all the women and girls are on the other…” Finn's voice trailed off when Gideon peeled his shirt off and tossed it to one side. “Oh. Right.” He grinned sheepishly.

Other team members followed. Celtic knots tattooed on the men's right shoulder muscles proclaimed them all Knights of the Tuatha De Danaan. Finn caught glimpses of the same tattoo on the female Knights as well, most of whom wore short-sleeved shirts or tank tops. Following suit, Finn removed his own T-shirt. He threw it in the pile with the others.

“Here.” Gideon dug into a pocket and pulled out the small plastic bottle he had placed there earlier. He handed it to Finn. “Tops of your ears as well.”

This is what comes from having a doctor living across the street
, Finn thought as he applied sunscreen to his face and arms and shoulders. He blushed when Gideon made him turn around so the master could get his back as well.

“This is embarrassing,” he mumbled. He kept glancing over at the archery competition, hoping Tara wasn't looking his way.
So far, so good
.

“Why?”

“Because…because… I don't know.”
Because it makes me feel like a little kid
. “It just is.” He sighed in relief when Gideon finished up with a final swipe on the back of his neck.

“There. I've kept my promise to Susanna Steel.” Gideon tossed the bottle on top of their shirts, then scrubbed his hands dry on his jeans. “Remember, no using the Song.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And mind the river. The green runs right up the edge of the chasm. It would be the end of you if you tumbled over the side.” Grabbing their hurleys, they hurried to join their team.

Each player took his or her position, fanning out on either side of the ball as it rested on the ground in the middle of the field. Off to one side, in a wing position, Finn waited as Gideon jogged over to join the other three midfielders, two for each team. He knew those four would be the first ones to touch the
sliotar
, or ball.

“Since we don't have a ref,” Dennis O'Donnell called from his midfield position as he pointed to the ball, “does anyone have an objection to me starting us off?”

“Try not to miss,” the other captain joked.

With a flick of his hurley, O'Donnell scooped up the
sliotar
, bounced it once on the end of his stick, and then smacked it as hard as he could, straight up into the air. Finn's heart rose with the ball, a white dot against the blue sky. For a moment, the ball seemed to hover. Then, it plummeted back to earth.

And war broke out.

Blocking the other midfielder with his body, Gideon snagged the ball in midair and tossed it sideways to O'Donnell. Then he lowered a shoulder and rammed his opponent with a teeth-jarring strike. With a curse, the other player brought his hurley up and clipped Gideon on the side of the jaw. Head ringing, he staggered, then spun around at the shout from his team.

He watched as O'Donnell pounded away down the field, juggling the ball on the end of his hurley before passing it to a fellow teammate. The two of them were just a few strides ahead of the mob made up of both teams racing behind. Running hard after them, Gideon spotted Finn sprinting alongside of the rabble as fast as he could. Another apprentice, an older boy with longer legs and deeper stamina, was coming up fast behind O'Donnell. Before Gideon could shout a warning, Finn looked over his shoulder, then faded back and flung himself at the other apprentice in a NFL-sideways body block.
Except in American football, they wear pads and helmets
, Gideon thought.
Not simply cotton T-shirts. Or in Finn's case, no shirt at all
.

The Knight winced as both apprentices crashed down on the grass in a tangle of limbs and hurleys. Dust rose from the force of
their impact. He raced along, torn between stopping to make sure Finn was okay, and fighting to help his team. As he drew even, a quick glance out of the corner of his eye showed Finn staggering to his feet, hurley still in one hand. Gideon grinned when he caught a
son of a goat
as he ran past.

Speeding up, Gideon threw himself into the knot of Knights and apprentices packed around a trapped O'Donnell, who stood in the center of a defending circle of Skins. The Shirts were trying to trip him with a hurley or whack him on the head while Skins swung their own sticks in defense. The mob tightened as both teams pushed and shoved into each other. Hurleys became wedged between players. Or in a few unlucky cases, between legs. Elbows, knees, and knuckles battered unprotected ribs, kidneys, and faces in a free-for-all that would have made seasoned rugby players quail.

Voices roared when the ball flew up into the air. Hands and hurleys flailed for it. One stick managed to whack it free. It sailed back toward the center of the field.

O'Donnell broke free. “Gideon, be ready!” he shouted as he tore after the ball, both teams hot on his heels.

Gideon faded back, panting while he waited near the goal markers. Wiping the sweat stinging his eyes, he shook his head in amazement at his friend's speed.
If I didn't know how blazing fast Denny was, I would swear by the Goddess he was using the Song
. He raised his stick in triumph when his friend reached the ball first.

As O'Donnell scooped it up, the rest of the Skins surrounded him in another protective ring. Shirts barreled into the circle. Off to one side, Gideon spied Ennis MacCullen battling with another apprentice. Both of them were swinging their hurleys double-handed like broadswords. On the other side of the throng, a female Knight went down, out cold. As another competitor dragged her free of trampling feet, two other players dropped their hurleys and began punching away.

Things are getting ugly
, Gideon thought. His heart lurched when he spotted Finn dancing around the outside of the skirmish, trying to
help. Even from his position at the end of the field, Gideon could hear Finn's boyish voice screaming at O'Donnell to
throw it, throw it
.

Suddenly, the ball popped out of the top of the pack like a grape squirted out of a clenched fist. Finn took off running back toward Gideon, his head turned over his shoulder. As Gideon watched, the ball arched through the air toward the running apprentice. The boy slowed, eyes fixed and hurley held ready.

His eyes, too, fixed on the ball, Gideon caught a blur out of the corner of his vision. A figure was converging on his apprentice. Fast. Too fast.

Jack Tully was running toward the boy, a hurley held aloft in both hands. Something in the twist of his mouth made Gideon's heart lurch.

“Finnegan!”

At the warning in his master's voice, Finn whipped his head around. With speed born of the blood and honed by hours of training, he dropped flat just as the hurley whiffed past his head. As the Knight raced past him for the ball, Finn stuck out his stick.

Tully slammed into the ground. He skidded across the field, dust and bits of grass billowing up around him. With a scream of triumph, Finn leaped to his feet and scooped up the ball. A wild light was in his face as he ran toward Gideon, hair a flame around his head.

“Go, lad!” Gideon waved his apprentice toward the goal, then turned. The rest of the players flooded past him, parting around the Knight like a stream around a boulder. He caught a glimpse of Ennis MacCullen as he ran past, the older apprentice's face red with anger and exertion.

A faint smile flitted across Gideon's face when a shout of triumph rose behind him. The smile faded when he spotted Tully staggering to his feet in the center of an empty field.

Now, it could be Tully was simply trying for the ball
, Gideon thought.
But my instincts tell me he was trying to remove Finn's head from his shoulders
. He glanced down at his own stick, tossed it aside, and started toward the younger Knight.
And I always listen to my instincts
.

Gulping for breath, Finn careened from side to side as his team passed him around with one hearty thump on the back after another, their hands managing to find every bruise and scrape on his exposed skin. He beamed at their praise, trying not to wince. A hand snaked through the mob and grabbed his arm.