War For The Oaks Part 22

The queen took up the dreadful morsel and held it out. Eddi remembered another part of the phouka's words that afternoon: she would do what she did here of her own free will, but she would have to do it just the same. And there was that fragrant, gruesome cake....

"Open your mouth," the queen said, as if to a recalcitrant child. She was frowning.

Eddi had promised the phouka that she would go through with this. And he had warned her about the dangers of broken promises. No, she couldn't do it. To h.e.l.l with the consequences. But the phouka had said that the consequences would fall to him. What would they do to him? And she had promised, after all.

She opened her mouth. Let me not gag, she prayed.

The cake evaporated like smoke on her tongue and left behind the flavor of burnt toast. All that agony and it doesn't even taste good, Eddi thought vaguely, then had no time for thought or nausea. Pain swatted her to her knees, a blazing hurt all over her. It was the force she had felt stinging in the air only minutes before, but magnified.

It's magic. The magic of all these people, inside me, doing whatever it is they want done.

How do I know that?

chapter 11 Helter Skelter.

There was cold gra.s.s under her, and someone was supporting her head. She opened her eyes (though she couldn't remember closing them), and found the phouka looking down at her. It was one of his knees she felt under her head.

"Hullo?" she said faintly.

He looked relieved. "Sorry. Had I known that would be the result..."

"Finish your speech, do," said the queen of Faerie politely.

Faerie? Eddi wondered. Now where did that come from? She turned her head a little and saw the pale queen, whiter still with fury, her eyes so cold they burned. The full strength of her rage was directed at the phouka.

"What would you have done, manikin, knowing the results of your actions?" the queen continued, her voice still tea-table calm. "Left well enough alone? Give us leave to doubt it. Perhaps you would have compounded your error instead, and told your little mortal all you knew. Perhaps you would have given her a stronger medicine than simple truth."

The phouka closed his eyes, as if in pain, and Eddi saw his teeth clench. "Lady, in spite of me she has done all we would ask of her. We are none the worse for it."

"Is that now yours to decide, manikin?"

He bit his lip. "No, Lady."

From somewhere on the hillside above them came a piercing call. It laid silence over the crowd, and yanked the queen's gaze away.

"Saved," whispered the phouka. "Up, my primrose, and dust yourself off." He helped Eddi to her feet.

Her legs felt a little too flexible, and her thoughts seemed inclined to chase each other through her head, but the pain was gone.

The armored figure who had given the queen her knife stepped forward. "Sentry, Lady," he said. "They come."

Eddi saw a subtle transformation in the queen-she became, through some inexplicable change in posture or expression, a martial figure. "Aye, they would have scented this. Commanders, order your troops as we have instructed. Oberyc.u.m, see to our cavalry, and be our marshal, that we may know when all are in place."

The armored man bowed, and joined the scattering men and women of the court. Eddi saw many of them dressing in light armor, and some buckling on scabbarded swords.

The queen's attention had returned to the phouka. "Go," she said coldly. "You have done a merry bit of work this night. Should it go awry, I shall see that you eat first of whatever fruit it bears."

The phouka bowed, and the queen whirled away and strode down the hill.

"Swords," Eddi muttered. "These people have swords. What am I doing here?"

"For the moment, nothing more demanding than staying alive," the phouka replied. "And to that end, I suggest we remove from this indefensible bit of gra.s.s and find a rock to hide under."

"Does that mean I don't have to be right in the middle of everything?"

"By 'everything,' I a.s.sume you mean the fighting? Then no. You only need to be on the field, and we fulfilled that requirement as we came down the stairs."

Eddi followed the phouka toward the side of the bowl. Around them the creatures of the Seelie Court bustled, arming themselves, hurrying to their positions. None of them had the leisure to pay attention to Eddi.

"Oop," the phouka said. "Move quickly."

She heard them even as she dashed the last few steps to the bottom of the slope-the sound of many horses' hooves.

They poured like white-crested water from behind the mound, as if they'd come out of the hill itself.

After a moment Eddi realized that there were only twenty or so of them, that their constant motion, their size, and their glowing whiteness multiplied them. But she could not dispel that first impression, that this was a host that might ride out against any army, and barely notice as it fell beneath those s.h.i.+ning hooves.

The horses were the color of heavy cream, and big as the Belgians that shook the state fair horse barns with their tread. Their manes were long, and their tails would have dragged the ground like brides' trains if they hadn't carried them so high. Their saddlecloths were banners of satin, richly colored and trimmed, and their tack was of gold and silver and bright-dyed leather.

Their riders were armored in the broad-shouldered, vaguely Oriental style that Oberyc.u.m wore-and in fact, he rode at the head of the cavalry. Eddi recognized his green-and-gold, and the symbol inlaid in his breastpiece, a disk of some golden metal with three green disks inside it, like a three-petaled flower.

Each rider wore his own color: scarlet, deep blue, gray-blue, wine, poppy-orange, violet, b.u.t.ter yellow, and every shade of green. There was even a rider in black, made bright with liberal dashes of white and the three interlaced silver crescent moons on the breastplate. They wore scabbarded swords and carried long white lances that gleamed in the moonlight like a forest of sapling birches.

They pa.s.sed with a din of hoofbeats and jingling harness, with a smell of clean horse and oiled weapons.

"Good G.o.d," said Eddi, watching after them.

"Appropriate enough. They were called G.o.ds, once."

"What are they called now?"

"Why, what they've always been. They are the Daoine Sidhe-or a sampling of them, anyway-the high lords of Faerie. You see them in their working clothes tonight, my heart. The sight of them on hol- iday, with bells and whistles in their horses' manes, jewels on their harness, and all their fine clothes on, would quite strike you blind."

"Are you jealous of them?" Eddi asked, surprised.

"Wouldn't you be? Come along, I don't want the slope at our backs."

Eddie hurried after him, and nearly b.u.mped into a little brown woman with nothing on. "Och, mind how ye go," scolded the apparition, squinting up the length of her enormous nose. Her accent reminded Eddi of her grandmother's. "b.l.o.o.d.y grrreat oaf," she muttered as she stalked off, bony elbows jutting, drooping b.r.e.a.s.t.s swinging furiously.

Eddi caught up with the phouka and grabbed his jacket. "Yo-what about her?"

The phouka looked where Eddie pointed, at the little woman disappearing into the crowd. "What about her?"

"n.o.body expects her to fight, do they?"

The phouka grinned. "Silly girl. Believe me, you'd rather face the cavalry. That's Hairy Meg. She can reap a field in the s.p.a.ce between midnight and a summer dawn, carry home a lost cow over her shoulders, and chop the winter's wood before a strong man can split the evening's kindling. There aren't many like her here-brownies prefer to choose a household or a territory and not stir from it, not even on the orders of the Sidhe."

"Why is she different?"

The phouka nodded at a low stone wall, part of the bottom section of a stairway. "There," he said. "In the angle of the wall and that fallen tree. We'll be un.o.btrusive, but we'll be able to move as well, if we need to."

They settled in behind a mat of brush. Before them the army of the Seelie Court spread out across the gra.s.s, perhaps two hundred of them, arrayed for an attack from the far slope. They moved restlessly, like grain in the wind, but except for a horse's nervous whinny and the occasional clatter of weapons, they were quiet. While Eddi picked a burr out of her sock, the phouka said, "Meg had a farm in Strathclyde that she watched over-"

"In Scotland?"

"To the best of my knowledge, though I suppose they might have moved it." It was half-hearted sarcasm; the phouka's attention was on the distant hillside. "Unfortunately, there is very little for a brownie to tend on a stretch of motorway, which is what the farm is now."

"Oh dear. But how did she get to America?"

"There are ways. Head down, sweet!"

Then the drums began. Eddi couldn't see the drummers, couldn't even tell if they were in the hollow or on the hillside. The rhythm was a wild, rolling march, quick as a racing heartbeat. Like the best dance music, it sent a thrill through her like an electric current, made her restless to move. A shrill battle-yell went up from somewhere in the front of the army, and suddenly the air was full of howls and shrieks and bellows from those ill-a.s.sorted throats. With a wail that transformed itself into music, the army surged forward up the slope.

"Bagpipes?" Eddi whispered in the phouka's ear. He nodded.

The far slope was wooded, and the trees kept Eddi from getting any clear view of the front ranks. But there was a terrible din suddenly, of shouting and shrieking, of sounds less human but with the same meaning. Horses neighed like furious trumpets, and metal rang against metal. She saw flashes of light through the branches, and knew that some of those were moonlight on swords and lances. But there were lights too bright for that, and Eddi wondered what other weapons were being wielded on that slope.

The phouka's hand came down hard over hers. "s.h.i.+t," he said precisely and with uncanny calm. She looked and saw what he had seen.

Past the mound with its twin trees, deep in the upper end of the bowl, a column of dark figures slipped through the trees toward the army's flank. They were too far away to show much detail, but there was no doubting their intention.

The Seelie Court had no rear guard; all that wild army's attention and effort was bent on the slope before them. The phouka's gaze swiv-eled desperately between the two forces. Then with a strangled cry he was on his feet. He threw something, a stone perhaps, at the rearmost soldier in the swarm of the Seelie Court. It was too far, no one could throw so far-but she remembered the strength in the phouka's arms. The missile struck the soldier lightly between the shoulder blades, and he turned. Eddi could see his expression, the change from anger to shock as he saw the advancing enemy troop. He shouted. Others turned, and a drum changed beat, and another.

Then the phouka staggered and dropped to his knees next to her. He half fell against her shoulder, a hand pressed to his left temple.

"What is it? Are you-"

"Sorry," he gasped. "I'm afraid I've given away our position."

"Sorry? My G.o.d. Are you all right?"

He gave his head a dismissing little shake. "We have to move, quickly-"

It was too late. Above the trunk of the fallen tree rose a grinning yellow-gray face, its eyes crazy-wide, every dirty tooth in its manic grin pointed as a shark's. There was a jaunty red cap atop it, like a gruesome joke. The thing gave a rasping shriek, jumped onto the trunk and launched itself and its enormous knife at Eddi.

The phouka flung himself between them. The knife flashed somewhere above his upraised left arm.

Eddi grabbed a rock, dashed under the phouka's other arm, and brought it down as hard as she could on that red cap. The creature sat down hard, fell backward, and lay still. Eddi stared at the rock in her hands.

"Good G.o.d," she said weakly.

"Don't stand there!" the phouka roared. "Get behind me!"

Two more red-hatted horrors leaped up from behind the tree. The phouka s.n.a.t.c.hed one of them up by the neck, and Eddi heard an awful crack. It dropped limp from the phouka's grip, mad eyes staring and blind. The last redcap received the first's knife in his belly, and with a look of mild surprise, he fell backward and out of sight.

The phouka whirled, grabbed Eddi around the waist, and half carried her down the slope. Several things whistled through the air close to them.

"Can you swim?" the phouka shouted over the racket of battle. He dodged as one of the white horses flew wildly out of the struggling ma.s.s of creatures to their left. It ran unevenly, trailing its reins. There was blood streaked on its shoulder that did not seem to come from any wound.

"Yes-"

"Good."

Then Eddi caught sight of the s.h.i.+ning stain on the left side of his face. "You are hurt!"

"Take a deep breath and keep your mouth shut," the phouka advised, and threw her into the creek.

The water that closed over her head was fast and barely above freezing. She tried to go limp and float, but her lungs were empty and her heart seemed stilled with cold. She thrashed and prayed for the feel of night air on her face.

Her jacket pulled up around her neck with a yank, and a moment later her prayer was answered.

Breathing made her sane again. Then she realized that more than the current was pulling her downstream.

"Phouka?" she gasped, and got a mouthful of water.

"'Iet. And don't t'rash avout." It was the phouka's voice, very close to her ear-and furry. She felt the shape of him against her shoulder, his dog shape. Of course-he had the collar of her jacket in his teeth.

She concentrated on keeping her nose above water.

The sound of fighting was loud and horrible. There were none of the bloodless screams of Hollywood warfare; each cry from the bank, however inhuman the throat that made it, seemed to describe to Eddi a wound or a killing stroke. There was a stink of burning in the air that she couldn't account for.

A face rose suddenly next to hers, and she choked on creek water. Sharp, witchy white features and wet white hair that spilled down behind... The creature opened its mouth to speak, and Eddi saw the delicate little fangs. The glaistig.

"Well, Dog," said the glaistig in a voice like water boiling, "are you reduced to carrying the Court's baggage?" She laughed, turning her ice-colored face up to the moonlight.

The phouka's growl shook Eddi's collar.

Something like an animated tree limb, twisted and vivid green as moss, lashed out of the water, and the glaistig's face filled with dismay and rage. She arced up like a leaping fish, like a waterspout, and fell upon it. They disappeared beneath the surface. Eddi saw the turbulence subside as the current and the phouka surged on.

Something blocked her view of the sky, and they stopped moving. She put out her hands, found slippery stone under them, and hung on.

"Bridge," the phouka said softly. "We may rest here, though not for long-they, too, have taken to the water, it seems. Would you mind holding on to me for a moment? I swim fairly well in this shape, but I tread water badly, and if I stop paddling long enough to change, the current will have me halfway to the river."

Eddi put an arm around his neck and back. "Shut up and change."

She found herself holding on to something not quite solid, that p.r.i.c.kled even through her jacket and sweater like a series of small static shocks. Then the phouka's human head was in the crook of her arm, his thick black curls sleek with water.

She hadn't realized, when he'd been in dog form, that she'd end up hugging his human shape against her, or that his face would be so close to hers. Moonlight reflected off the water and into his eyes, and they seemed deeper than the creek. Eddi knew she should let go of him, maybe say something. But the moment when she could have done that went past. He opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, and s.h.i.+vered under her arm. "Ah, well," he whispered, with a little catch in his voice.

Then he pulled away and ducked under the water. His head broke the surface again and he shook the water out of his hair with a snap. "I'm a fool," he said calmly. "Come along, my nemesis. If we stay here, we'll freeze to death. Or perhaps worse." He let the current pull him away from the bridge piling, and Eddi, after a moment, did the same.

The creek diverged suddenly, and they held to the right-hand fork, where a gravel bank promised shallows and safe footing. The phouka scrambled to sh.o.r.e and stood still for a moment, listening to the sounds of fighting on the far bank. He shook his head as Eddi came out of the water.