C. E. Murphy - No Dominion - A Garrison Report

He didn’t, though. He just grinned, and through that grin, hissed, “He comes. We must not be here when the battle meets, else he will hold the advantage. Ride. Ride !”

We burst outta the hellmouth like the Hunt was after us, not like we were them at all, an’ careened through the sky with dogs howling and birds screeching and all of us roaring from the bottoms of our souls. Roaring defiance at the dark god that was coming to mow us down, roaring triumph at having bound his cauldron into uselessness, roaring out our fear and our hope and our determination to go down like warriors. I felt like a kid again, a damned dumb kid back in Korea, usin’ my voice to scare away my own fears ‘cause I knew I’d never scare the enemy otherwise.

Brigid rode beside me, the boy tucked between her and the horse’s neck. She wore a leather breast plate over her white robes like it wasn’t worth commenting on that it had just appeared outta nowhere. But then, Jo conjured the sword I was currently wearing outta nowhere all the time, so it prob’ly wasn’t worth commenting on. I gave a shout meant to be a question. She glanced at the kid, yelled, “It’s to safety I’ll bring him now!” and peeled away from the rest of the Hunt, the gold mare thundering through the sky.

Cernunnos tried ta look like he wasn’t watching them go, but I caught him glancing after them anyway. He scowled. I shrugged, and under the howl of the Hunt, said, “You gotta do what you can to keep ‘em safe, Horns. It don’t always work, but we gotta try.”

“I do not need your understanding.”

“You got it anyway.” That was as much time for talk as we had, ‘cause all of a sudden we were above Knocknaree, an’ there was a hell of a fight going on below.

I’d run across a couple of demons in my time. Some of ‘em Joanne had unloosed on Seattle, and another one we’d gone hunting. That one had been slippery, half in this world and half outta it. The army of monsters down below looked more like the first set: conjured up outta nightmares, but solid as the earth itself. I recognized a lot of ‘em, just like anybody with a working knowledge of European mythology would. There was everything from minotaurs to dragons and anything you cared to think about in between: chimeras and griffins, centaurs an’ trolls, giants and little people.

It was easy to tell which side was whose, ‘cause the Morrígan was leading the bad guys, and I wasn’t gonna forget her any time soon. Her black hair was tied back just like Brigid’s, an’ she wore black armor over her blue robes. Blood had been painted over the tattoos on her arms, making ‘em shine purple. Only two ravens were on her shoulders, but not ‘cause she’d killed one to escape Jo. The third had come back to life, or its spirit had been bound to a new shape or something, ‘cause the black horse she rode was just about feathered, an’ when it screamed it had a raven’s voice. Every time it cried, the ranks of monsters came together a little more.

But not all the living myths were behind her. A whole bunch were on our side. Aos sí rode centaurs into battle. Others were just standing and fighting, blades so fast and bright I couldn’t see ‘em as more than a blur even with the borrowed Sight. Ichor and gore splattered all over the place. A cat-like critter with nine lashing tails, all of ‘em on fire, jumped from one bad guy to another, disemboweling ‘em and leaving them to die messily. A ghost-colored horse without a rider slipped through places too small for a mouse, an’ kicked the brains outta the folks taking up its space when it stepped out again. I wondered if Imelda could do that, but she snorted. I took it as a no, and patted her neck right before we hit the ground and joined the fight.

There was no wasting time struggling toward the front lines. We crashed into them, horses and hounds smashing down from the air. Rooks flew at the Morrígan’s ravens, dozens against two. Black feathers rose and fell on the fight’s heat, birds shrieking loud enough to be heard over the sounds of swords and hooves. The dogs went through Morrígan’s army like a pack of wolves, hamstringing and taking out throats, then moving on like they’d come back later for the feast. I drew Jo’s rapier, and for a while the world was nothing but tryin’ ta survive.

War ain’t a straight picture in the mind. It ain’t the battlefield they show in movies, where things make a kinda macabre sense. All it is is flashes, moments when something far away comes crystal clear, or something up close burns itself into your memory forever. It’s noise, even if horses and monsters and swords made a whole different kinda noise than the guns I’d heard in Korea. The screams were still the same, and dead was dead no matter if you got killed by a bullet or an ax. A lotta the smells were the same too, blood and dirt and the purity of fresh air when wind blew some of the stink away. There was the smell of horses here, too, and nothing of gunpowder, but it was close enough to remind me of things I tried not ta think about.

I saw bits of what was going on around me. People an’ creatures dying, plenty of ‘em thanks to me. Every time one of ‘em died I thought about the cauldron, and imagined it being unbound. If we lost, the spell we’d put on the thing would get broken, and the Master would bring every single critter who died here back to life.

It was a hell of a reason to fight, the idea we were keeping the world from getting overrun by zombies. I figured we had to win, ‘cause on my end of time we weren’t all zombies, but knowing that didn’t make the fight any less urgent. My arm got heavy after all, even if the sword was magic, an’ time and again I was grateful to Brigid, ‘cause I was pretty sure she’d pulled our army together and got ‘em up here on this hilltop to meet the Morrígan’s army before it got to us and the cauldron. We were better off fighting in the open daylight instead of the twists and dark tunnels where the cauldron was hidden. I reminded myself of that every minute, an’ breathed deep, an’ once in a while felt a crazy grin stretch my face. I was on the wrong end of time fighting a battle for the future, an’ I might die any time but if I did, it was a damned fine way to go out.

The riders of the Hunt spread out from each other, all of ‘em finding a stretch of battlefield to call their own, but all of ‘em had the same look of ferocious glee smeared across their faces. It wasn’t so much joy in killing as it was joy in living on the edge.

Of all of ‘em, Cernunnos was the only one without that smile. He was fighting his way back to the front, heading for the one enemy combatant that mattered. I turned Imelda to follow him, focusing hard on staying alive. More’n once I knew it was the chain mail under my shirt keeping me that way. The sword was easier to use than I expected, my arm not getting tired the way it should. I turned the Sight on the blade and saw a dull blue glow, like even through the distance an’ the years, Jo’s magic was holding on.

It wasn’t more’n half a second I’d taken my eyes off the fight, but it was enough. A whistle caught my attention an’ I looked up to see a thing about eleven feet tall and branchy like an evil Ent swinging a massive tree club at my thick skull.

A bolt of lightning stopped it. Stopped it and everything else within five yards, too. I couldn’t see anything for a couple seconds, the world whited out from standing too close to the light, but the stink of burned flesh rose up, and when my vision cleared it was just me and Imelda in a smoking black circle.

Me and Imelda and Brigid.

I hadn’t even seen her coming. She was only just now touching down, the gold mare carrying her and her alone. There were sparks flying off her hands, bits of lightning left over, an’ for a couple seconds my heart took a break from beating. Joanne pulled down a lotta mojo, but she’d never thrown lightning, an’ I didn’t know if somebody human could do that at all. Made me real aware that Brigid wasn’t human, even if she mostly looked it. Her horse stopped over the tree creature’s ruin, Brigid with her head bowed, breath coming hard and blood dripping from her sword. She lifted her eyes, as much fire in ‘em as in Cernunnos’s, and she saluted me in greeting. I straightened up as tall as I could, feelin’ more weight from that salute than anything I’d given or received in Korea. She looked pleased.