I’d done my time in the Army. I knew how much noise a dozen men could make when they put their minds to it. The Hunt outdid that, thanks to the baying dogs and calling rooks and the horses stamping their feet and raising their voices too. The only one not shouting was Cernunnos, who looked kinda like a captain whose troops had decided to take that hill over there whether he thought they should or not. I figured we were all gonna get court-martialed in the end, but what the hell, even a soldier’s gotta do something crazy once in a while or they’ll all go nuts. The kid swept his mare around, Brigid’s braid bouncing down her spine like a beacon, and the whole damned Hunt rode after them, cheering and waving their swords.
For once Cernunnos took up the rear. I nudged Imelda up next to Cernunnos’s stallion. “You said somethin’ about ‘your line’, meanin’ Jo and Bridey there?”
He answered like a man who thought he wouldn’t get any rest ‘til he did. “Brigid and the Morrígan are sisters, and Joanne is the Morrígan’s granddaughter, many times removed.”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
Cernunnos arched an eyebrow, wrinklin’ the flesh over his budding horns. I twitched, trying not to let it turn into a shudder. “All right, so you’re not kidding. Is that why you want Jo? ‘cause her great-aunt turned you down?”
In seventy-four years I’d never met anybody who could do disdain the way Horns could. His lip curled and he looked at me like I was somethin’ he mighta scraped off his shoe. “I hold her in higher esteem than that, and I would hope you do too.”
Smug with satisfaction, I let Imelda fall back from the stallion’s side. I didn’t mind a god being taken with my girl, just so long as it was her, and not some
cloud-chasing memory he was after.
After a couple minutes, the cloud-chased memory circled back around to me and let Cernunnos take the lead. I watched him ride forward, then gave Brigid a hairy eyeball. “Thought you were the one who knew where we were going.”
“There is no hole in the earth that doesn’t contain at least a few beasts, and he’s the master of them all. They’ll guide him there, whether they mean to or not.”
“And his fragile male ego is soothed by taking point?”
She gave me a perplexed glance that turned into laughter. “Something like that, aye. Is that a turn of phrase from your time? The ‘fragile male ego’? It seems appropriate.”
“Shh. We hear it alla time, but we don’t like to believe it. Ain’t good for our egos to think they’re fragile.”
“And yet,” she said, and I said “Shh” again. She smiled and nodded, but her smile faded faster than an old man wanted to see. “I had counted on Joanne Walker. Not that your presence isn’t appreciated…”
“But I’m no magic man.” I shrugged and nodded toward Horns, up at the front of the host. “He says I’m the next best thing. ‘course, I coulda told him that anyway.” I winked, and she laughed, quick as her smile had come. Least I could still get that out of a pretty girl, even if it was mercurial. “Jo put a whammy on me,” I said a bit more seriously. “Gave me her Second Sight, an’ it ain’t faded yet. Dunno why, ‘cause I thought it was only gonna work til sunset, but I’m still seeing straight into the bones of the world if I try to.”
“And what do you see when you look at me?” Brigid wondered.
I glanced at her, tryin’ ta will the depth of sight back on. Glimmers shone all around her edges. Then it was like falling into a pooclass="underline" her aura, all red and gold, splashed deep inside her, but when it hit her core it turned black an’ blue like somebody’d been beating on her. I blinked an’ the colors got clearer, until I could see the blackness was eating her away from the inside. I took a sharp breath, and she lifted her hand to stop me from talkin’. “So you do See,” she said like she’d been verifying it for herself.
“Darlin’…”
“Have no fear, Master Muldoon. I have the strength for what must be done.”
“But not more.”
“It will be enough.”
“You saved Jo’s life, didn’t you. By taking that hit.” The longer I looked, the easier it was to see how the magic inside her belonged to the Morrígan. It was death magic, dark an’ ugly, and I didn’t think an ordinary human, even one with Jo’s skills, coulda survived it. “Saved mine, too, by keeping her alive. Thanks.”
Brigid nodded an’ changed the subject. Guess I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t like thinking about my own mortality, an’ I was damned certain she had a lot more years to regret losing than I ever would. “You have the Sight,” she said, “and I see within you the strength of a spirit protector. You may not work magic, but you are imbued with it. What else might you know that will serve us in binding the cauldron? You know its eventual fate, but do you know how it comes to its end? How it is bound? How we might ourselves cast a spell to last through the aeons?”
I rubbed a hand through my hair and thought about it. Cernunnos looked over his shoulder at us, green fire magic pounding into my skull when his eyes met mine. I flinched up straight in the saddle, scowling hard at him. “Damned if I don’t. Jo and me came across a binding spell way back when this started. She don’t use magic like that, no spells and chants and stuff, but I think it’s ‘cause she don’t, not ‘cause she can’t. Anyway, this one…” Cernunnos turned away, shoulders thick like he was becomin’ the stag already. “This one we set in his name.”
“In his—in his name?” Brigid clawed her voice back from sounding like a fishwife and cleared her throat. “In Cernunnos’s name? You know a binding spell that calls on the god of the Wild Hunt?”
“No. I mean, yeah, it does ‘cause he’s the one we called on. Jo told me not to say it, not even joking, but—well, hell, darlin’, he was the only god I’d ever met. Who else was I gonna mention?”
“Was he there? At the breaking of the cauldron, was he there?”
“’a’course he was.” It took a couple seconds to catch up on why that might matter, an’ then I sat back into the saddle deep enough that Imelda pranced sideways. I said, “’a’course he was,” again, except this time I wasn’t feeling quite so pat. “Not when the binding was broken an’ the cauldron got stolen, but yeah, he was there when Jo destroyed it. That’s…that ain’t coincidence, is it.”
“I think it is not. And now the urgency seems greater to me than before.” She shouted a name I couldn’t grab hold of, some kinda harsh liquid sound that didn’t leave any kinda repeatable syllables in my mind. Cernunnos reined up hard, an’ Brigid snatched the reins from the boy rider’s hands to urge their mare forward. She and Horns started shouting at one another. Imelda pranced uncomfortably again, and I sat there like a damned fool for a minute before kicking her forward so I could hear their argument.
Turned out I didn’t get a chance. I rode up to ‘em, Cernunnos roared, “Enough!” an’ the whole of the Hunt leapt about forty miles in one step. The landscape changed, Knocknaree left far behind and low green mountains rolling up in front of me. A black pit opened up in the earth like a hell hole, and that, a’course, was where we were heading.
CHAPTER FOUR
Normal caves got a transition area, where sunlight slips through and fades until you’re standin’ in the dark. I rode into this one a few steps behind Cernunnos an’ Brigid, and watched ‘em disappear in front of me like they’d gone through some kinda portal. Same thing happened to me: one second I was in daylight, the next it was darker than night, no ambient light at all to soften the darkness. I only kept going forward ‘cause I knew there were another dozen guys behind me and I didn’t figure a pile-up at the cave mouth was on Bridey’s agenda. She and Cernunnos musta decided the same thing, ‘cause I could hear their horses on the rocky ground even if I couldn’t see a damned thing.