Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

A group of around forty people cowered in one corner of the room. Thackeray and Harvey were doing their best to calm them, and were looked upon with a touch of awe, as if they were emissaries between the heroic, almost god-like defenders and the ordinary people.

Hunter observed them and felt a touch of humility at the task that had been presented to him. For the first time in his life he was in a fight that felt completely just, where death was not simply a matter of political expediency. ‘There’s a second storey housing the library,’ he said. ‘Let’s get up there. And bring Ceridwen.’

As they crossed the floor, Thackeray grabbed Caitlin. ‘You’re not going out there, surely?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘I’ve got a big responsibility invested in me, Thackeray. I can’t turn away from it.’

A huge weight of emotion lay behind his quiet sigh. ‘I followed you from this world to T’ir n’a n’Og, put my life on the line… bloody hell, put Harvey’s life on the line, which he’ll never let me forget. You’re a very special person, Caitlin. I’ve never met…’ His words faltered. ‘Look, I’m a soft old romantic and I don’t want you holding that against me. I just wanted to say that I love you. I’ve never loved anybody the way I love you.’ He let out another sigh. ‘There. No going back now.’

Caitlin leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘I know.’ She smiled, turned to leave, then paused. When she looked back, her eyes were bright and free of the Morrigan’s coldness. ‘I love you, too, Thackeray. And given time… when my husband’s death isn’t so raw

… I’m sure that love would grow. I know it would.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said with faux-lightness. ‘Then you’d better make sure we get the time together that we need.’

His eyes never left her as she joined the others and then disappeared in search of the stairs. Even then, he concentrated on the ghost-image she had left in his mind, until Harvey urged him to return to help the frightened group of survivors.

From the first-floor window, Mallory and Hunter looked out on a street where purple mist almost obscured the packed bodies of the Lament-Brood pressing against the Divinity School. The sheer weight of their bodies would soon break down the doors. Further along, the King of Insects rose up above the seething mass. Whatever power lay within it disrupted Mallory and Hunter’s thoughts with mind-images of a world swarming with nothing but cockroaches.

‘We’re mad, aren’t we?’ Mallory said quietly.

‘Not mad,’ Hunter replied. ‘We simply don’t have a choice. This is what we do.’ Hunter glanced at Mallory, reading his secret thoughts easily. ‘She’ll be all right.’

‘I’m glad you’re so confident.’

‘She’s as tough as us and probably significantly smarter. She’ll be hiding out somewhere.’

Mallory nodded, but didn’t meet Hunter’s eye. Caitlin led Ceridwen up to the window; the goddess was broken, barely able to cope with the devastation that had been inflicted on her people.

‘We need your help,’ Hunter said bluntly. ‘There aren’t many of your kind left out there, but we need the ones that are. Specifically, we need the Wild Hunt. Can you contact them?’

Dazed, Ceridwen nodded slowly. Hunter explained to her exactly what he required, then sent her off to perform whatever ritual she needed to carry out to reach the Hunt.

Before she left, she paused and turned back. ‘Watch the dogs carefully,’ she said.

‘The Hunt’s dogs? Those weird red and white things?’ Mallory said.

‘Your kind used to call them the Hounds of Annwn, but they are also known as the Hounds of Avalon. Though they appear as hunting dogs to you, that is not what they are. Like many things from the Far Lands, your limited perception gives them a form you can understand.’

Mallory opened his mouth to ask a question about the dogs’ true nature, but Hunter interrupted him. ‘Why should we watch them carefully?’ he asked simply.

‘They know when everything is coming to an end. When all of this — ’ she made a broad gesture ‘- is falling apart. When the time comes, they will band together and their multiplicity of howls will become one — a sound of sadness that will rip into your hearts. It is the cry of dying.’

Ceridwen left and the others returned to the window. ‘I don’t like it that we’re weakened,’ Mallory said. ‘The Five who fought at the Fall clearly have some of the Pendragon Spirit left in them, but it’s not enough. We need the Five who are supposed to be here, standing shoulder to shoulder.’

‘There’s still time,’ Caitlin replied. ‘We need to be united to defeat the Void and we still have no idea where it is.’

‘I wonder who the fifth is,’ Mallory mused. ‘When I was on the road, I met a woman who was in tune with the original Fabulous Beast. She told me that Existence, or whatever you want to call it, had been a bit cannier this time in bringing the latest Five together.’

‘How so?’ Hunter asked, intrigued.

‘Three of us are different this time.’ Mallory peered into the distance through the falling snow, waiting for the Wild Hunt to appear. ‘It was an attempt to mask us from the Void, so that we would have a chance to get together before it wiped us out. Me,’ he looked at Hunter, ‘I’m dead. Died in another world, then was resurrected here. I can’t begin to get my head around that. It’s too big. But the Void still picked up on me pretty quickly. Then there’s one called the Broken Woman…’ He glanced at Caitlin; she nodded.

‘I went over the edge for a while.’ She smiled tightly. ‘Some might say I never came back.’ She tapped her head. ‘Different personalities in here. But the Void sniffed me out quickly as well.’

‘The other one was described to me as the Shadow Mage,’ Mallory continued. ‘I don’t know what that means, but if he or she is still below our radar, maybe that bodes well.’

‘Who could it be?’ Caitlin said. ‘They must have been drawn here. Thackeray? Harvey?’ She shook her head, knowing it was neither of them.

They had no more time to ponder the conundrum, for the Wild Hunt suddenly burst into view, tearing their way through the Lament-Brood like a hurricane of knives. In a matter of seconds, they had cut their way past the King of Insects and reached the Divinity School.

‘No more talking,’ Hunter said. ‘Time to do the business.’

The chaos the Wild Hunt had caused in the ranks of the Lament-Brood prompted the King of Insects into violent activity. The towering creature lurched forward, surrounded by a cloud of wasps and flies that surged out in all directions.

Hunter was the first to drop from the window into the melee, followed swiftly by Mallory and Caitlin. The instant they hit the ground, they struck out for the King of Insects, ruthlessly chopping down any Lament-Brood that fell in their way. Mallory’s sword was a blaze of Blue Fire, lighting the way for the others. Caitlin hacked savagely with her twin axes, while Hunter darted and thrust with power and grace.

In the thick of the transformed warriors, the air of despair was palpable, but Hunter, Mallory and Caitlin kept the sour emotions at bay by sheer force of will.

Within minutes, it became apparent that they would not succeed. Even with the Wild Hunt carving a path for them towards the King of Insects, the Lament-Brood were so numerous that Hunter realized that the three of them would not be able to get back to a position of safety even if they did kill it. They would fall and die there, in the middle of the walking-dead army.

It was not something they had time to consider; their world was confined to inches around their bodies and their lives were counted in seconds as they survived one attack and prepared for the next.