The Sword of Feimhin (47 page)

She shivered, unable to suppress it, as the starry constellations whirled and flowed around and through her spirit.

She had forgotten the shaggy arm around her shoulders, but now it squeezed her tight to remind her.

Fear of what was expected of her impaled Mo's heart like the coldest, sharpest splinter of ice.

She felt herself flow, just like the stars, along the course of a gossamer thread of black, strung out like a silk, but constructed out of the finest crystals. They traced its course upwards through the swirling weave and through one of the spines of the sea urchin, to arrive at the bleak surface above. There they abandoned the thread as it emerged from a pyramid, there to become part of the weave that splayed against the sky.

The landscape rumbled with latent volcanic energy. Alan lay awake, listening to the splitting and cracking of the rocks that passed for the dawn chorus outside the tanned leather walls of his tent. How invitingly easy it had seemed when Iyezzz had flown down to warn the company that a mere fifteen leagues was all that separated them from the outer defences of Ghork Mega. A rising tide of excitement had carried them through most of that distance in a single day of hurry, through a landscape that had remained arid and windblown, but devoid of military threat. Admittedly the going had become tougher on the second day, and markedly so as they neared the fosse that brought them out into a wide gorge, the ground gritty with slag. The smell of brimstone was very strong here, just a couple of leagues distant from the defensive wall and fortress up ahead.

He had been a member of the advance party that had crept forward during the evening to scout out the defences. He had
looked across a steeply-pitched gorge, perhaps half a mile wide, to the most fearsome bulwark that he had ever seen: a grim curtain wall of pitch-black rock rose a thousand or more feet high, capped by giant dagger-shaped spikes. At the heart of it was a fortress built out of the same rock, its black turrets bristling with hundreds of cannon trained down on any enemy foolish enough to come within range.

Even the approach to the defences had been gruelling: a six-mile trek over uneven ground pitted with sharp edges and chasms. How could they possibly overcome it? There had been much discussion among the advance party about potential weaknesses in the slopes to either side of the fortress, but from what he saw, the apron walls merged seamlessly with the sheer mountain slopes to either side of it. It seemed that even with an army of a hundred thousand Shee the task was going to be formidable.

He had woken in his tent while it was still dark, his mind preoccupied with the looming conflict, his thoughts going over and over in his head. To add to his worries, he remembered something from a conversation he'd had with Magtokk two days earlier.
‘Your enemy is capable of great subtlety as well as ruthlessness.'

What if the Tyrant was corralling them into a trap?

As he lay awake, the light of dawn crept over his tent and he heard a low-pitched humming noise nearby, as if a fly were trapped in a bottle. He heard shouts – the warning roars of Shee. Then a series of cries …

Qwenqwo's head poked into his tent. ‘We're under attack.'

‘What sort of attack?'

‘A swarm of biting vermin.

Alan left his tent in the company of the dwarf mage, gripping the Spear of Lug in his right hand. Not that the Spear would be much use here, but his instincts bade him keep hold of it. He looked into the pallid sky. Huge clouds of insects wheeled and twisted in the air above him. They were three or four times the size of any wasp he had ever seen and their numbers were so colossal that what sounded like the roar of the wind was actually the beating of their wings. They soon blotted out the rising sun, pitching the camp into twilight.

‘Aides!' He heard the roar of the Kyra.

Alan accepted the fine veil shoved into his hands by one of the aides and threw it over his face and head, already bleeding and blistered from stings. Qwenqwo was trying to light a pipe for the benefit of its smoke, cursing and swearing under a similar veil.

‘Bloody hell, there must be trillions of these things. Where are they coming from?'

Qwenqwo shook his head. ‘It's no accident of nature in this barren place, and too closely timed with our attack on the fortress.'

Was it some kind of a distraction? If so it was the most annoying distraction Alan could imagine – enough of those stings and the bugs would put half their army out of action. He hurried ahead to the northernmost periphery of their camp, trying to make out what was happening with
preparations to march on the fortress, but the air was so full of bugs he could see nothing of the landscape ahead.

‘Damn! It's worse than a blizzard.'

He went searching for the Kyra in the thickening swarm, discovering her not by sight, but through localising her commands through his oraculum. She was calling out to the Shee and aides, instructing them to light fires and brandish torches. It was a good idea, so Alan grabbed a flaming torch from one of the aides and waved it over his head. It had little effect beyond a few feet of his flailing arm. He spoke to the Kyra, shouting over the noise. ‘The enemy is up to something. I worry that we're facing a sneak attack.'

‘If so, we are ready for them.' The Kyra metamorphosed within moments into the form of a giant snow tigress. All around them Alan saw other Shee do the same. Presumably the thick pelts were more resistant to biting and stinging than the less hairy skin, but it could only protect them to a limited degree. He saw the great cats clawing at the air and snapping all around them.

Qwenqwo said, ‘What of the Gargs? Can they get above them?'

‘I don't think they'd be able to fly in this. We're going to have to sort things out for ourselves.'

The aides were passing out more blazing torches, but it didn't help very much from what Alan could see. He probed the valley with his oraculum, turning it in the direction of the towering fortress. He sensed change there, some movement, but one he couldn't make out clearly. It felt more
like a gathering thunderstorm, a force of violence invading the landscape.

The Kyra, in cat form, growled mind to mind.

The Shee began their attack formation with six miles between their current position and the fortress. Alan was joined by Qwenqwo and an armed guard of one hundred Shee as he forced his own way northwards. He pressed onwards with his oraculum blazing through the long twisted
blade of the Spear of Lug, cutting paths through the wheeling, thrumming swarm. His progress was very slow. He peered through the thick veil of insect bodies, his boots slipping and sliding over the inches-deep mass of writhing forms on the ground. All the while the airborne masses continued to envelop and sting them in impenetrable numbers.

The Shee army had closed its eyes for better protection. They would be led by the oraculum of Bree alone. Mind-to-mind Alan heard the Kyra order an increase in pace. He turned to look back. He could make out a glow some few hundred yards in the distance that was the vanguard – aides coming up the rear with a huge wall of blazing torches.

What a terrible risk the Kyra was taking, to go in blind under the noses of the enemy. They already knew the Tyrant had hundreds of cannon and other weaponry on the fortress wall. The Shee would draw that fire not knowing what they might face to either side of it. It demanded such bravery that he felt a lump in his throat.

I've got to find a way to help them
.

He felt a hand grasp his shoulder. Turning he found himself confronted by an exhausted-looking Mo, accompanied by her guardian Shee, Usrua. Mo ignored the swarm of biting insects to take hold of his hand.

‘What is it, Mo?'

‘Magtokk took me to see my birth mother, Mala.'

‘He did what?'

‘It was a dream journey, like when Qwenqwo took us back into the past at Ossierel. Tell him, Usrua.'

Alan turned to look at the experienced Shee warrior. ‘Last night – and three nights earlier – I slept with Mo in her tent. I wake at the drop of a feather. On the first night I woke to find Mo calling out in her sleep. She spoke a name, Mala, which she now explains is the name of her birth mother.'

‘Usrua – Mo! I don't have time right now to talk about dreams.'

Usrua shook her head. ‘I would not disturb you with a dream. But last night she became restless again in sleep. She cried out, more than once. Then when I sat by her I saw a star appear out of the Torus she wears.'

‘A star?'

‘It hovered over her all the time that she was restless, as if protecting her. I believe it was the magician, Magtokk, adopting the form of a True Believer.'

Even in the confusion of the insect attack, and with the Kyra and her army already heading out for the fortress, Usrua's words troubled Alan.

‘Mo – what the hell is going on?'

‘Magtokk took me on a second dream journey.' She was apprehensive, her fingers toying with the Torus, as if seeking comfort there. ‘We returned to the Valley of the Pyramids. We explored the labyrinth underground.'

‘There's a labyrinth under the valley?'

‘I was shown my purpose in being brought to Tír. I saw extraordinary things, Alan. You and I – we have to talk.'

‘Mo!' Alan hugged her exhausted body to him.

‘It's really important.'

‘We'll talk. I promise you, at the first opportunity. But right now the Shee are about to attack the fortress.' He turned to Usrua. ‘Take Mo back to her tent and seal it off from the swarm. Guard her well, every waking and sleeping moment, until we can get together again.'

There was a look on Mo's face, a sense of urgency that tugged at him, but he really didn't have the time right now to talk. The Shee nodded and withdrew, with the fretful Mo looking back at him even as she was led away.

Alan felt Qwenqwo's hand on his shoulder. ‘Man! I don't need some additional worry about Mo when I'm already out of my mind with worry for the Shee.'

‘You must focus your mind on what needs to be done.'

‘You really believe that the bugs are a distraction?'

‘I do.'

Alan pressed on through the battering thuds of solid little bodies, with their stings and biting mouths. Qwenqwo was hurrying along beside him. Alan tore the bugs out of his hair, where they were stabbing at his scalp.

He heard a command mind-to-mind. The Shee were moving forwards in three great pincers and gathering speed. Ainé's plan was so risky. He calculated just how long it would take them to cover six miles in their cat forms: perhaps ten to twelve minutes. That was how long he had to find a way to help them. He thought hard about that while still moving forward in their wake.

The Shee's battle horns were sounding out through the thrumming and buzzing. Up ahead, Alan heard alien
sounds: the groans and squeals of heavy machinery. He could smell sulphur more strongly now.

Qwenqwo said, ‘I don't like the sound of that.'

Alan didn't like the smell either. He heard the thundering of hundreds of thousands of paws beating determinedly against the stony ground.

‘Qwenqwo, what can I do?'

‘Use your oraculum.'

‘But how do I use it against the swarm?'

‘Make one storm to destroy another. Remember how you controlled the elements back at the ice-bound lake.'

Alan took a deep breath. He tore the veil from his head and looked up through the obscured heavens above them. He lifted up the Spear of Lug, directed its spiral blade into the sky and drew on the power of the land. The triangle in his brow flared a blood red, the fire of his power rising in a crackling sleeve of lightning to become one with the blade. The Ogham letters of magic on the spear, carved by his grandfather Padraig, burst into flame and the expanding sleeve of red lightning rose, tearing through the wheeling blizzard of flying bugs, igniting everything in its path as it burst into ground-shaking thunder. Storm clouds swelled to fill the sky from horizon to horizon, their black bellies crackling and spitting with lightning.

Staring up into the funnel of clear sky created by the rising torrent of power and lightning, he began to twist the spear in his hands, creating a vortex. There would be damage to the camp and tents uprooted and torn, but it
couldn't be helped. He spun the heavy spear round and round, causing the vortex a mile or more above the ground to wheel and gather force. The gale of wind caused him to narrow his eyes as it whipped at his hair. Suddenly the focus of the swirling clouds, wracked with blood-red forks of lightning, exploded. A cyclone tore across the sky, rippling across the valley and sucking the air up into its vortex. The vast swarm of bugs were sucked up into its gaping spout, whirling higher and higher before spinning away into the distance. Qwenqwo tore the veil from his face and shouted, ‘Look up ahead – the fortress!'

Alan stared into the distance at a sight that made no sense. Something lurid and glowing was creeping out from beneath the black cliff wall that supported the tall angular outline of the fortress. Something glowing, fiery and red …

‘Shit! What is it?'

‘A lake of fire.'

Alan used his oraculum to look at it more closely: through the forbidding vista of black rock and moiling vapours crept a broad snaking river; a seething, crackling furnace of magma hissing and spitting flames. Gases ignited from the tormented rock at its banks while with white hot wavelets moved across the molten flow – a river of no return crossed the path of the charging army.

‘That's what we've been hearing and smelling, Qwenqwo. They must have dammed back the magma from an underground volcano and now they've opened the gates. They're flooding the valley.'