The Hounds of Avalon

In a bower of ivy and roses, Hunter and Laura lay in a post-coital glow that belied the freezing temperatures outside. Their refuge was well insulated, the ivy covering a layer of interlacing living hazelnut, encased in elder, then Russian creeper, and finally densely packed hawthorn at least two feet thick. The warmth of their bodies kept the interior temperature nicely balmy. Even the sound of the howling blizzard failed to penetrate.

Hunter plucked one of the blooms and examined it. ‘Roses. Didn’t quite picture you as the romantic type.’

Laura stretched like a cat. ‘Actually, it masks your body odour. When was the last time you had a bath?’

‘If you think I’m going to frolic around in water in sub-zero temperatures, you’ve got another thing coming. Even if I could crack the ice. No, I’m quite happy reeking, thank you very much.’

‘For your information, I am romantic. It just has to be the right person, and you’re not it. What we have here is sex, pure and simple. Of the moment and not to be considered the instant our bodies separate.’

‘I’m in heaven.’ Hunter put his hands behind his head and surreptitiously sniffed his armpits. ‘I don’t get how she became a hero.’

Laura knew exactly who he meant: Ruth had been on both their minds since they had left Lincoln. Laura had not been parted from her since the Fall, and for a while had thought she never would be; they had never really been the closest of friends, but they were kindred spirits, bound by the Pendragon Spirit, hope and sacrifice and struggle. Though she would never tell Hunter, Laura was feeling a loneliness she hadn’t experienced for a long while.

‘You don’t know anything about her, so keep your trap shut,’ she said.

‘I know that she’s supposed to be a champion of life or humanity or whatever you want to call it, and when it came to the crunch, she turned her back on her obligation.’

Laura hovered over him, eyes blazing. ‘You have no right to judge her. Don’t ever do that again.’

The chilling hardness of her expression made Hunter reconsider his approach. ‘All right, I don’t know her. But you must accept that her decision could mean the end for all of us.’

‘And maybe it’s all over because you lot fucked up. We’ve done our bit. We fought and sacrificed. Your Five were supposed to pick up where we left off. Now you’ve come crying back to us-’

‘OK, back off. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight-’

Laura wasn’t about to let him off the hook. ‘Ruth loved Church more than anything. She’d earned her right to be with him. But this life isn’t fair, is it? We went through all we went through at the Fall and there’s still no happy ending for her. They deserved to be together, just so that the rest of us could see what true love is really all about.’

Hunter grabbed her shoulders and gently pushed her back. He was a little disturbed at the way hawthorn shoots had started to burst out of the ground all around him as her anger increased.

‘I’m not saying she hasn’t had a raw deal-’

‘Worse than that!’

‘Whatever. But sometimes you have to rise above your own suffering. Duty, responsibility, call it what you will. Everybody’s relying on us.’

‘You’re perfect for this job, aren’t you?’ she sneered, rolling away.

They lay separated by a gulf for ten minutes, until Hunter tenderly reached out to stroke her bare back. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Forget it.’

‘We’re going to do our best. No blame. That’s the job, too, isn’t it?’

‘Suppose.’

Hunter kissed her shoulder. ‘So if you’re all plant, how do you still get pleasure from this? Wouldn’t you be happier photosynthesising or something?’

‘I get pleasure from my clitoris, and yes, like all my other organs, I have one. I can, if I like, eat and drink, but I’ve given up on the periods.’

‘Don’t you miss being human?’

‘Overrated. And I told you — I’ll never be on the rag again. You tell me one woman who wouldn’t rather be a nature spirit than have to go through that every month.’

Hunter watched her as she dressed. Her personality wasn’t the easiest thing to like, but he admired her, and there weren’t many people about whom he could say that.

He rolled over and propped up his head so that he could get a last look at her body. ‘So was this plant thing written in the stars when you became a Sister of Dragons?’

‘You ask a lot of questions. Can’t you just go to sleep after sex like a normal bloke?’

‘Stop avoiding.’

She sighed. ‘Being a Brother or Sister of Dragons is about freeing the potential inside you. Didn’t you get the manual? You run around, leading your day-to-day life, and then somewhere a switch gets thrown and you’re activated. Over time, as you do your duty, you learn, you’re changed by hardship and all the nightmarish things you face, and gradually all those hidden qualities you never dared believe you had are teased out into the open.’

‘So you always had a bit of vegetation deep down inside.’

‘With some work, you could almost be funny. I was an environmental campaigner, a member of a radical green group. Tree-huggers, the right-wing wankers called us. So it was there. And maybe Cernunnos saw that when he turned me into this. It was my potential, to be a champion of the green, living world.’

‘And Ruth became the Uber-Witch.’

‘Right. From pain in the arse to the most powerful woman on the planet. Shavi became a magician or a seer or whatever he used to call himself. He could contact spirits, see the other side, like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Veitch. Poor, pathetic, useless Veitch. He went from a jumped-up petty crook to some kind of Conan the Barbarian warrior. And Church…’ Despite herself, her voice took on a hint of deep respect. ‘He became the kind of leader you’d always want in a fight. And like the kings in the old stories, he sacrificed himself so that everyone could live again. End of fairy story.’

Hunter lay back, musing. ‘Wonder what I’ll become.’

Laura eyed him dismissively. ‘Probably some kind of insect hybrid, if there’s any justice.’

‘You’re just playing distant because you’re secretly broken-hearted that we can never be together.’ He sat up, scrubbed his hair and cracked his knuckles. ‘Right. I’ve eaten as many vegetables and fruits as I can probably cope with. I’ve had sex. I think I’m ready for the rest of the journey.’

They hadn’t seen a single soul on their travels south from Lincoln. Much of their route took them across the flat eastern lowlands, now a desolate frozen wasteland. Flurries of snow blew across it in little tornados and the wind cut through their thick clothes. There was no sign of any birds or wildlife. During the day, the sun blazed so brightly off the drifting snow that they had to keep their heads bowed to avoid blindness. At night it felt as if they’d been stranded on the surface of the moon.

They never spoke about what dangers lay ahead or whether they had any hope of survival. They lived for the moment, seeking what little pleasures they could, knowing full well they might be their last.

Ten miles from Oxford, just as Mallory was leading a strange group of gods through the deserted streets of the city, Hunter and Laura finally allowed their darkest thoughts to catch up with them. They looked out over a force that left them breathless with its size. The Lament-Brood numbered millions. Several miles deep, the enemy force now encircled Oxford completely, the purple mist streaming out from them in the darkness. The waves of despair that washed off them made Hunter sick to the pit of his stomach.

‘Looks like we shouldn’t have made that last pit-stop, big boy,’ Laura said. ‘Now who’s the fuck-up?’

‘Bloody hell. I never expected them to reach here so quickly. Before I set off they were taking their time, wiping every population centre clean. They must have put on a spurt.’

‘As if they knew that the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were gathering. So they got straight to the source of the only opposition.’

‘But how would they know about us?’

Laura pushed her hood away from her face; her shock of blonde hair glowed spectrally in the dark. ‘Things like that, they can smell us. See us on some kind of level we don’t understand. The Pendragon Spirit is like a beacon in the night to them.’

Hunter surveyed the extent of the Lament-Brood, his mind racing.

‘Looking on the bright side, at least it means we’re a threat,’ Laura added.

‘Why don’t you divert your brain away from your mouth and come up with a way to get through them and into Oxford?’ Hunter said humourlessly.

‘Ask and you shall receive, little one.’

Hunter looked at her suspiciously, unsure whether her sarcastic sense of humour was at play again. She grinned, revelling in her position of strength, but gave nothing away. ‘Just give me a while to prepare.’

‘Take all the time you want. I’m going to scout around, see what other options we’ve got.’ Hunter spurred his horse back down the road and rode for half an hour, hoping there would be some gap in the enemy lines, knowing in his heart that it was not to be. It was impossible for a human army to defeat this demonic force; any rational observer would have said that the situation was hopeless. But Hunter didn’t feel that way at all. Since he had learned of his destiny as a Brother of Dragons, he had come to believe in the Pendragon Spirit and all that it represented with a faith he had not previously thought existed inside him. His life had made him cynical about human values. He had killed and seen killing, relentlessly. He had witnessed murders committed on a whim, or because someone was in a bad mood, or because of political ideology. If that was the norm, then human existence was pointless and the quicker the infestation was eradicated, the better, so that nature could get on with its benign job.

Yet the Pendragon Spirit had shown him that there was some essential structure underpinning all life, an intelligent plan, though he was loath to consider it in such a way because of all the baggage that concept carried with it. But he knew from his training that it was impossible to make judgments based on the small details — a death here, a defeat there. Only by viewing the vast, strategic plan could any decision be made about the value of what was happening. And for most soldiers on the ground, that grand plan was never visible; they simply had to trust.

He hoped Existence wouldn’t let him down. That somehow a handful of flawed men and women burning with an inner fire could take a stand against the hordes of hell and win. That the source of their victory would be presented to them. That he — that all of them — were up to the job, with no weak links anywhere.

The alternative was unthinkable.

When he returned to Laura, she was sitting cross-legged in the snow, her head bowed. What little he could see of her skin was as white as the icy blanket that lay all around. At first he thought she was sick — or worse, had been killed by the enemy. But when she heard the crunch of his boots, she raised her head and forced a smile. Her face was filled with a debilitating exhaustion, as if her life had been sapped from her.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, dropping to his knees to put an arm around her shoulders.

‘It’s not easy being the saviour of the moment. One thing you learn in this business, there’s always a price to pay. For everything.’

Hunter could feel heat radiating off her, and when he pulled her closer a tingling sensation ran from her body into his, as though she was generating electricity. It was then that he noted the new green shoots breaking through the snow all around.

‘You’d better stand back,’ she said. ‘I’m ready now.’

‘What are you planning?’

‘Wait and see.’ As she bowed her head again, Hunter moved away from her to calm the horses, which had grown jumpy. He stroked their noses and whispered in their ears while he watched Laura. A tremble ran through her, then she bucked as though in the throes of a convulsion. A second later she pitched forward, slamming the palms of both hands down hard through the snow to the ground beneath. There was a discharge of blue light that slowly faded to green.

The horses’ whinnying grew more insistent. A rumble like thunder rolled across the land. The ground beneath Hunter’s feet began to shake, gently at first, but then with more and more force. He held on to the horses’ reins tightly, and watched waves roll out from Laura’s epicentre.

The tremors built until the ground was rent open in a line running from Laura towards the Lament-Brood. From the churning soil sprouted shoots, rapidly growing into saplings, then soaring up into trees, rushing to meet the sky, leaves erupting from the branches. Thirty years of nature’s growth condensed into a few seconds.

Laura bucked and writhed in a frenzy that could have been pain or ecstasy. Sparks, blue becoming green, fizzed around her fingers where they dug into the earth. Hunter was rooted in shock. He had been astounded by her abilities ever since they had met in Lincoln, but he had never guessed she was so powerful.

As the frozen soil tore apart, the noise was deafening, and the land rippled like water in all directions at the upheaval. The flourishing trees formed a densely walled avenue ten feet wide, the branches meeting high overhead to form a natural arch; the leaf cover was so thick that no sky could be seen through it.

The row of trees rushed out across the countryside through the ranks of the Lament-Brood. Though the detail was lost in the dark, Hunter imagined the trees tearing through the massive force, throwing those twisted, once-living bodies to either side as the avenue ploughed on towards Oxford. The sheer scale of what Laura had accomplished took his breath away, and left him a little uneasy at what she could have done to him if he’d pushed her temper a step too far.

After ten minutes, the sparks stopped arcing from her fingertips and she pitched forward into the snow. Hunter ran forward and lifted her up in his arms. Her eyelids fluttered; she was completely drained. ‘Match that, soldier-boy,’ she said hoarsely.

Hunter knew what had to be done. As Laura slipped into unconsciousness, he sat her on her horse and did his best to lash her to the saddle so that she wouldn’t slip off. Setting her mount off ahead of his, he urged the horses into the dark avenue and then forced them to gallop as fast as they could manage. He didn’t know whether the trees would soon start to wither and die or disappear as magically as they had grown. The last thing they needed was suddenly to find themselves stranded in the middle of the Lament-Brood army.

But Existence hadn’t let him down yet. Oxford beckoned and the last stand was only hours away.

The Damask brothel on St Michael’s Street was packed to the brim. In the ground-floor office space, in the sprawling first-floor lounge and the many bedrooms on the two floors above, the Tuatha De Danann moved like golden ghosts, aloof, introspective, silent as the night, while the girls gaped in awe or ran giggling to discuss the new arrivals in the confines of their changing rooms or the torture dungeon.

Mrs Damask wrung her hands, repeatedly dashing to the velvet-curtained windows to peek out into the deserted street. ‘I would never have agreed to this if Jeffrey had told me what he was planning,’ she wittered in her Scottish accent.

Mallory smirked. ‘So Hunter has a first name.’ He was sitting back in a plush armchair, boots up on an antique table, a crystal goblet of brandy in his hand. Washed, fed and dressed in clean clothes, he felt renewed.

‘If the authorities investigate, they’ll close me down for certain.’

‘The authorities have more important things on their minds,’ Shavi reassured her soothingly. He leaned on the mantelpiece next to the roaring fire, occasionally tipping back his head and closing his eyes as he smelled the perfume that wafted through the room.

‘I’ll expect to be well paid for this. Well paid,’ she repeated, glaring at Mallory as she flounced out.

‘Humanity’s on the brink of extinction and only the privileged few know,’ Mallory noted.

‘What would it benefit the rest to know?’ Shavi said. ‘There is nothing they could do. Better they enjoy some normality in their final hours, if final hours they be.’

The ornate clock ticking away on the wall showed that it was just after one a.m. Mallory swigged back his brandy. ‘I’m going out to look for Sophie.’

‘This is a big city. I would think she has probably already sought shelter somewhere.’

‘I know. But I need to see her again before everything blows up.’

Mallory acted blase, but Shavi could see the emotion coursing through him. ‘I understand,’ Shavi said. ‘But take care in those dark streets-’

The door swung open and Lugh and Ceridwen marched in, their mood intense. ‘Brother of Dragons, please come with us,’ Lugh said to Mallory. ‘Time is short.’

‘What’s up?’ Mallory looked from one god to the other.

It was Ceridwen who answered. ‘There are many of our kind already here in the Fixed Lands. They can help us in the coming battle. Indeed, their presence may be vital, for they count amongst their number some of the most powerful of the Golden Ones. We must contact them. But we need your help.’

‘How can we help?’ Shavi asked.

‘There is a ritual,’ Lugh said, ‘known only to our kind. It calls to the ties that bind us, however far apart we may be. Now that there are so few of us left…’ He paused, letting the words sink into his own mind. ‘Now that there are so few of us, those ties may be stronger. And our own brothers and sisters may be summoned to fight for the cause.’

‘Why do you need me?’ Mallory asked, with one eye on the clock.

‘The fire that burns inside you will give strength to our call,’ Ceridwen said.

‘The Pendragon Spirit is the key,’ Shavi said to Mallory. ‘The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons are like batteries. Sometimes that power heals them; on other occasions, others may tap into it — if you so allow.’

‘All right,’ Mallory said, not attempting to mask his irritation. ‘Get on with it.’

They collected the items they needed from Mrs Damask and then Lugh and Ceridwen led the way up a back staircase to a vast, dark attic room that had been knocked through into the houses on either side. Mallory shivered, pulling his cloak around him. Ceridwen marked a circle on the dusty wooden floor with a piece of dressmaker’s chalk and then lit candles at the four cardinal points. Mallory was intrigued by how closely the gods’ ritual resembled Sophie’s work with the Craft.

‘Is all this necessary?’ he said to Shavi. ‘They’re gods. Can’t they just snap their fingers or something?’

‘Magic,’ Shavi said with a strange smile, ‘is the cheat code of reality. We are in a vast program of repeating patterns, a superstructure of encoded rules. Reality has been constructed, and once you know the code that underlies that construction you can change it.’

‘And thereby change reality?’

‘Reality is not fixed, Mallory, even here in what the gods call the Fixed Lands. It is less changeable than their home, but it is still possible to unpick the construction. Sound and symbol are the keys. Words of power. Arcane marks. In our literalist, rationalist society, we see those sounds and symbols only as what they are on the surface, but their true power to break through the inherent programming of reality is hidden behind them.’

Mallory shook his head dismissively. ‘If reality can be altered, what’s the point?’

‘That is the point, exactly: that the world out there is not important. That it is what is inside us that truly matters. What we do. Who we are. The Chinese call it chi, spirit. It cannot be altered. It is the bedrock of everything.’

Ceridwen summoned Mallory and Shavi into the circle. They all sat cross-legged facing the centre, where another candle flickered. Lugh’s face was determined, and Mallory had the strange impression that the god had altered his appearance, had somehow grown more heroic; something about his features, his bearing. Ceridwen, her dark hair falling about her beautiful face, forced a smile to put Shavi and Mallory at ease, but a deep sadness was etched into every aspect of her being at the devastation of her people.

‘If only the Extinction Shears had not been lost,’ Lugh said. ‘They would have cut through the warp and the weft and the Devourer of All Things would have been destroyed.’ He bowed his head in contemplation.

And then Lugh and Ceridwen began to speak quietly, the words passing back and forth, interweaving, overlaying, the rhythms and cadences gradually forming a complex chant-song.

Mallory couldn’t understand any of what they said, but the words had a strange effect on him nonetheless; in that instant he understood exactly what Shavi had been saying.

Still chanting quietly, Ceridwen and Lugh put their heads back, their eyes rolling under the upper lids so that only the whites were visible. Within seconds, Mallory was disturbed to see a clasp at Ceridwen’s shoulder begin to move of its own accord, echoed by the shifting of an ornate dagger on Lugh’s belt. The two items ran like water, becoming silvery, then white and finally forming into eggs, which then sprouted legs and scurried to the candle at the centre of the circle.

Mallory was fascinated but repulsed. Shavi saw his reaction and whispered, ‘They are known as caraprix. All the gods have one. They are living creatures, but infinitely mutable.’

‘Pets?’

‘Much, much more than that. They appear to have some kind of symbiotic relationship with the gods.’

In the flickering glow of the candle, the caraprix altered shape once more, stretching and entwining, forming themselves into one object, a globe that slowly raised off the boards and began to spin.

Ceridwen’s brow furrowed, her voice becoming more intense, and though Mallory still didn’t recognise the language, this time he understood. ‘I call to you, my brothers and sisters, here in the Fixed Lands. This is a time of crisis. You are needed to stand with us against a power that would wipe us all from Existence. Come now.’

In Mallory’s mind, images began to appear, so richly textured that it was as if he was watching them on a movie screen, his emotions linked to what he was seeing. Before he was swallowed up by the evocative experience, he saw from Shavi’s face that his friend was experiencing it, too. And then he was lost to the rush of visions and sensations as though carried along in the flow of a swollen river: he felt deep, abiding peace as he saw Cernunnos, his body a hybrid of flora and fauna, stag’s horns protruding from his head. Mallory’s emotions shifted to unease, then fear as the nature-god strode out from a grove of oak trees, altering his form as he moved, growing bony ridges on his head and greenish scales, becoming the Erl-King of myth. Somewhere a horn sounded eerily.

‘The Wild Hunt has already been summoned by an ally,’ he said. ‘We, of all our brethren, are close enough to do battle.’

A black dog appeared from the undergrowth, accompanied by the sounds of horses and finally other hounds, smaller, red and white in colour. Mallory remembered the old stories of the Hunt tearing across lonely moors hunting lost souls and he hoped he would be nowhere near when the riders descended on the Lament-Brood.

There were other gods he didn’t recognise — one that appeared to be made wholly of water, breaking through the ice of a deep, dark pool, another one soaring through the clouds with a face like a human hawk — but there weren’t many of them and they all announced that they were too far away to be of help.

He was shocked out of his vision by a sudden sharp query from Lugh. ‘He is here? In the Fixed Lands?’

Mallory had an image of a man in long red robes, his face half-covered by what appeared to be a surgeon’s mask. With it came a spike of unease, perhaps fear.

‘He resists,’ Ceridwen said. Then: ‘Gone.’

Any further discussion was disrupted by a sharp intake of breath from Lugh and Ceridwen together, at a vision of a thousand crows flying chaotically.

‘She is here, too!’ Ceridwen said. This time the note of dread was much stronger; so the gods were not equal, Mallory thought. Some were even feared by their own.

He had no idea what the birds meant, but then Shavi was tugging at his sleeve anxiously, his eyes rolled upwards, watching his inner visions.

‘It is the Morrigan!’ he hissed. ‘And see… see! She hunts!’

Mallory slipped back into his own trance-state and saw more clearly: the birds were now transposed over a woman, somehow occupying the same space. The woman was carrying an axe and had another strapped on her back. She was rushing through a snowy street — Oxford, he guessed — pursuing three figures, a woman and two men.

The Morrigan, so dreaded by the others, was drawing closer to her prey, moving in for the kill. Mallory’s attention was drawn to the hunted, instinctively concerned for their safety. He realised why a second later. The woman was Sophie.

Thackeray and Harvey were yelling something, but Sophie couldn’t tell what it was. All she knew was that her lungs were filled with acid and her legs were on fire; her mind, pummelled by exhaustion, wandered back and forth, her vision snatching single images like a slow parade of still photographs: a piece of ornate stonework; a silhouetted tree, twisted like a praying mantis; a wide expanse of crisp snow bisected by a row of footprints. The part of her that still clutched on to consciousness didn’t know how much longer she could keep going.

When they had first emerged through the portal from the Watchtower, she had thought that they would have some respite. But it wasn’t long before Caitlin had burst through in their wake. Sophie recalled the chill she had felt when she had first heard those familiar footsteps crashing like hammer blows into the crisp snow somewhere behind them.

And so they had run, through bleak woods, across frozen fields, making their way towards Oxford. But the Morrigan never slowed, never deviated. And Sophie knew she never would. It was all simply a matter of time and the depth of the reserves Sophie had inside her.

It seemed so unfair. She wasn’t the warrior; she wasn’t supposed to engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat just to survive. Her skill was the Craft, manipulating from afar, perception, wisdom. She hadn’t even done anything wrong. All she had tried to do was help, selflessly, and she had been punished again and again.

She skidded down a snowy bank and found herself on a hard surface. As she tried to run, her feet went from under her and she came down hard, stunning herself for a few seconds.

When she came round, her cheek was burning where it was pressed against ice. Sophie pushed herself up, slipping and sliding. Through her daze, she realised she was on a frozen river; that was why Thackeray and Harvey had been calling out to her. It was the Cherwell.

She couldn’t go back, so she pressed forward across the ice, hoping to get to the other side where she could lose herself in the city centre, find a place to barricade herself in. Not that it would do any good.

In the centre of the frozen watercourse, she slipped again, and when she looked back a dark figure was coming down the bank. It slowed when it saw Sophie defenceless, but still advanced, now with measured, intense paces, an axe at its side.

It might have been an illusion in the gleam of the streetlights off the snow, but in that instant there was no sign of Caitlin at all. Sophie saw a woman of terrible beauty, long black hair streaming in the wind, white, white skin and lips as red as blood. Her eyes burned. They said: I will hack and slash and drench myself in your blood and even then I will not be done with your body.

Sophie had a shift of perception and it was Caitlin again, but this Caitlin still bore traits of the Morrigan, was still as terrible and elemental and filled with an insatiable lust for blood. The axe beat out a steady rhythm against her leg.

On the other bank, Thackeray and Harvey jumped up and down, urging Sophie to get up and run. Desperately, Harvey had begun to make snowballs to hurl at Caitlin, the only weapons he had left to drive her away.

Sophie dug in her heels, forcing herself backwards, away from Caitlin, with the last vestiges of her strength. She slid across the ice for a few feet, then came to a halt.

‘Caitlin. Remember who you are,’ Sophie said feebly. ‘Why you’re doing this.’

Caitlin marched forward, head bowed, eyes glowering.

‘You’re a good person, Caitlin. Don’t let yourself be corrupted. This isn’t you. This-’ But Sophie didn’t have the energy to continue. It was too late. The end. She lay back on the ice and looked at the vast sweep of stars in the dark vault of the sky. So beautiful. Warmth enveloped her at the knowledge that she could finally rest.

Caitlin loomed over her, blocking out the stars. She raised her axe high.

In a last act of defiance, Sophie closed her eyes.

In the dark of her head as she waited for the blow, somehow she sensed movement. A sudden jarring clang of metal on metal made her snap her eyes open. Caitlin was sprawling across the ice. A figure in black was moving with balletic grace and strength, swinging a sword that left a trail of blue flames searing through the icy air. It looked like some hero from myth, larger than life, filled with epic determination and uncanny bravery. It took a second or two before his real identity registered.

‘Mallory?’

Caitlin rolled and sprang to her feet, attacking in a fluid movement so rapid she was almost a blur. The axe would have ripped open Mallory’s chest if he hadn’t bounded backwards, keeping his balance on the balls of his feet and plunging the sword past Caitlin’s defences. A shower of golden sparks burst where the sword skidded off the axe-blade. It continued through, slicing into the top of Caitlin’s shoulder.

She didn’t cry out, didn’t register any pain on her face at all, even though a spurt of blood shot out from the wound and splattered on the ice. Cold and determined, Caitlin attacked Mallory again.

They battled back and forth that way for several minutes, two jungle cats sparring with grace and savagery, neither gaining an upper hand. Sophie realised how much Mallory had advanced since their first meeting, from a novice with a sword to someone who could keep a goddess like the Morrigan at bay.

While the Morrigan-powered Caitlin could attack with never-ending ferocity, it was Mallory’s human cunning that gave him his edge. Where Caitlin expected a thrust from Mallory’s sword, instead he jammed the blade between her knees and used it as a pivot as he threw his full weight at her. She slammed down on the ice, wide open for Mallory’s killing blow.

In that instant, Sophie saw clearly the Caitlin she had first met in the Court of Soul’s Ease: sad, broken, hopeful, decent. ‘Mallory! Don’t hurt her!’ she called out, pushing herself to her feet. Mallory stopped mid-blow, half-turned. But what surprised Sophie the most was the startled expression on Caitlin’s face: it was almost human.

The crack that came from beneath Sophie was like a gunshot. Radial lines shot out across the ice from her feet. She didn’t have time to think. A split second later she was falling into the bitterly cold water.

Mallory saw the ice break and Sophie plunge through the hole. He couldn’t react. Half his attention was on Caitlin, knowing that she would kill him from behind if he went to Sophie’s aid.

In the end, he couldn’t help himself. He ran as close to the edge of the fractured, fragile ice as he dared, but Sophie was already gone. Falling to his knees, he tore at the hoarfrost until the ice was as clear as glass. Framed in the white window, he saw the horrific image of Sophie’s pale face, her eyes wide, drifting slowly by, her cheeks inflated with her last breath, her hands scrabbling on the underside of the ice, unable to break through. Drowning. Freezing.

The blow to the side of his head made him see stars and he knew as he fell that Caitlin had recovered and attacked. But there was no blood. As he jumped to his feet, Caitlin had the axe over her head, and then brought it down with such force that she was obscured by the eruption of ice.

Before Mallory could move, she was on her knees. She raised one fist and smashed it through the remnants of the ice furiously. Somehow she latched on to Sophie’s drifting hair, yanking her upwards, then hauled her through the hole she had made. Blood streamed down her wrist, spraying over Sophie’s face.

Mallory grabbed hold of Sophie and helped to haul her out. She was shaking violently, but still conscious. Quickly, Mallory pulled her away from the dangerous ice to the bank where Thackeray jumped in to help, his face white with desperation.

Mallory threw his cloak at Thackeray to wrap Sophie in, and then turned back to Caitlin. She was herself again. Hot tears burning down her cheeks, she bared her throat. ‘Kill me now!’ she ordered. ‘I can’t control her!’

Thackeray stepped in and grabbed Mallory’s sword hand. ‘Don’t hurt her!’ he pleaded, with so much desperate love in his voice that Caitlin’s eyes grew wide with realisation.

Mallory threw Thackeray off and swung his sword towards Caitlin, her eyes now closed, the long white line of her throat ready for the killing blow. Thackeray knew he would remember that image until his dying day: Caitlin looked like a saint preparing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good.

Thackeray yanked his gaze away just as Mallory’s sword made contact. Hot tears welled up in his eyes. But when they had cleared, he saw Caitlin lying on the frozen river and no blood staining the ice. A raw lump marked her temple where Mallory had struck her with the pommel.

‘Pick her up,’ Mallory barked. ‘Let’s get her back before she wakes.’

Next to the blazing fire of Mrs Damask’s lounge, Mallory hunched over Sophie, rubbing her frozen hands gently. She looked like a little girl bundled in his thick cloak. Somewhere on the journey back she had lost consciousness and he feared the worst.

But as he watched intently for the slightest muscle tremor on her face, her eyes flickered open, dark and searching, and then a small smile crept to her lips.

‘You saved me,’ she said in a weak voice. ‘My big hero.’

Mallory fought back the lump in his throat. ‘I thought you were dead. I thought… I thought I’d never see you again.’

‘You can’t get rid of me that easily.’ She was racked with a coughing fit and when it passed, a shadow briefly crossed her face before her smile returned.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, concerned.

‘When I was in T’ir n’a n’Og, I gave up something very valuable to help Caitlin. I thought I’d regret it till my dying day.’

‘And?’

‘It wasn’t important after all.’ She gently touched his cheek as she searched his face. ‘This… here… is like meeting you for the first time all over again. How many couples get the chance to experience that same first moment again, with all its power?’

Mallory had no idea what she was talking about, but it wasn’t important: she was alive; they were together. A single tear filled the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. Mallory wiped it away; he couldn’t believe how happy she looked.

‘It wasn’t a punishment at all,’ she said softly. ‘It was a blessing.’