Chapter 12 #2
Dance the steps our mothers show,
Hand in hand through life we trow.
“What is this?” laughed Belis, swooshing past me. “The dead sing children’s rhymes?”
“It’s older than that,” I called, when the circle took me back to her.
“It’s a counting song, humans have been singing this song since they came to the island.
The living—” I broke off as we parted again, waiting for the rings to turn.
“The living world has forgotten its origins but the dead have a longer memory.”
The rings of dancers were wheeling faster now, bellowing out the words
Sing the songs our fathers know,
Dance the steps our mothers show,
Hand in hand through life we trow.
The song finished and about half the dancers stopped with it, gasping for breath.
The others kept going and all was cheerful chaos.
I could see Arawn still spinning in the centre, holding hands with a pair of young children and wheeling them around until they were breathless with giggling.
Behind him a man was forcing himself towards the king, elbowing his way through the dancers.
I focused on his expression and frowned.
None of the joy of the festival was visible on his face, only grim determination.
“My lord,” the man called, shoving his way forward through the exhausted crowd.
Arawn turned and I watched as the mirth left his face. I dropped the hands of my companions and hurried forward. The man had reached Arawn now and was reaching up to say something in his ear. I stopped beside him. The Lord of Annwn looked grim, his skin greying as the blood faded away.
“Ill tidings indeed, Luc,” he said, nodding to the messenger, “you must have ridden hard to arrive ahead of them.”
“What is it?” Belis reached my side. Around us the souls of the dead were still celebrating but here in the centre the air had chilled with the arrival of the messenger.
“News from the borderlands,” Arawn said, keeping his voice low so that I had to strain to hear him. “I need Rhiannon, she— ah!”
The witch queen had appeared beside him, the pleasure of the dancing already leaching from her face.
“A breach, along the border. Luc says they’ve tricked it into the canyon but it won’t stay there for long.”
Rhiannon nodded. “What kind of breach? I can be there by daybreak.” Arawn shook his head, and I was shocked to see fear creeping into his eyes.
“It is beyond any of us. Come, let’s get somewhere we can talk more privately.”
Arawn and Rhiannon strode quickly away, the revellers parting before them like a bow wave.
I grabbed Belis’s hand and tried to follow.
The dancers were less eager to get out of our way and by the time we had broken free Arawn had vanished from view.
I looked around, trying to see where they might have gone. Belis tugged at my hand.
“Over there.”
I spun to see Rhiannon vanishing beneath the fronds of a weeping willow. We hurried after them, slipping between the trailing branches.
Arawn sat on an upturned log, his left hand gripping the long scythe he had been wielding when we had met him in the fields.
It seemed sharper now, cleaned of the chaff of the harvest, more a weapon than a tool.
Beside him Rhiannon was peering into a pool of water at the foot of the willow’s trunk.
The messenger was gulping down a mugful of something.
“I can’t see it,” Rhiannon said, bringing her face so close to the water that her nose almost touched the surface. “The corruption must be hiding it from me.”
Arawn ground his teeth.
“Try again, try to see the path of where it was. That should help us a little.”
“It cut quite the swathe of destruction,” Luc interrupted, putting down his cup. “I’ve never seen anything like it. When it flew it almost blotted out the sun.”
“It flew?” Belis said, then put her hand over her mouth. The others turned to look at her, seemingly just noticing that we had followed them. “There’s trouble at the canyon, isn’t there, Arawn? Tell us what’s happening, we’ve earned the right!”
Rhiannon’s nostrils flared and she half rose but Arawn waved a hand.
“Go back to your scrying.”
Arawn rubbed his forehead. “This beast on the borders, Luc, this shadowbitten monster, tell our guests what form it has taken. What horror has befallen one of my charges.”
The messenger looked startled to be called upon. “My lord?” Arawn nodded at him. “The shadowbitten has taken the form of a great white wyrm. A fire drake, winged and sulphurous. It crossed over from the shadow side of the rift and has been tormenting the surrounding lands.”
A dragon. I had never much taken to the beasts, though they were common enough in the wilder parts of the island.
Vicious, smelly creatures which had occasionally chased us away from their lairs when I had ventured close enough to retrieve the souls of their prey.
I had no wish to repeat the experience in this human form.
Belis nodded, not even flinching. “A dragon. So we must drive it back or defeat it.”
“You say it like it would be an easy task,” Arawn said.
“The drake is only a symptom of the problem. Of the poison. As long as it infects the land such creatures will continue to be twisted from the souls of the dead. Even should you succeed against this dragon we cannot hold out forever. More and more will come.”
“We’ve a better chance than you,” Belis retorted. “I’m willing to try. Maybe if we buy more time then one of the high fae will notice.”
“I have a different suggestion,” Rhiannon said.
“No,” said Arawn. He stood up, leaning his scythe against the tree trunk. “I know what you want to do. It is too soon. You have only just returned to us.”
“The dragon is a worrying development. We cannot leave this problem much longer. Instead of going in numbers we should slip into the shadowlands, make for the centre and see if we can cure whatever is causing it once and for all.”
Belis narrowed her eyes. “Why have you never tried it before?”
“We have,” rumbled Arawn. “No one has made it more than a league across the canyon before being corrupted or overrun. There are simply too many of the shadowbitten and my own powers are useless against those I am sworn to protect. Rhiannon has never been strong in martial magic. I doubt you’ll have better luck. ”
“I think we could, Arawn.” Rhiannon moved in front of him. “You’ve seen the bramble field. I think they can cut down the shadowbitten, just like mortals in the living world can. No other guards you could send can resist the corruption.”
She knelt down and sketched another rough map in the sand. She built a mound of dirt and tipped over her scrying bowl so that the water formed a moat around it.
“Here, this is the point where the poison first started. If Belis can get me there then I can break us free of it.”
“Just you and Belis?” Arawn folded his arms. “I don’t like it.”
“And me,” I cut in. “I’m not staying behind.”
“You’re not a fighter,” Rhiannon said, “you’ve spent your whole life chasing death, not facing it. You’d do better to wait here.”
“Annwn is my responsibility, too,” I said. “Every soul I have brought here is my responsibility. I will not shrink from battle.”
Belis cut Rhiannon off before she could respond. “Mallt comes, too.” She looked over at me. “I need someone to watch my back.”
I smiled. Rhiannon didn’t look pleased, but Belis’s tone had a finality to it, a command. I wondered if she’d learned it from her mother.
“It’s settled then.” Arawn stood up. “Belis, Rhiannon and Mallt will head south from here, crossing the ravine near the vineyards. We can rush you to the canyon, then it’s two days’ walk on the other side to reach the hill.
I’ll field a company to raid the north. Maybe that will draw more of the shadowbitten out of the heartlands. ”
“Arawn, that’s terribly risky,” Rhiannon said.
“If you are cut down by a creature who could otherwise have been attacking us then all hope is lost. We have one roll of the dice left. I am prepared to stake everything on it.” Arawn’s face was fierce but he laid a gentle hand on Rhiannon’s arm.
“We have been waiting years for a chance. I will not miss it.”
The witch took a deep breath and nodded. She bent down, swiping the map in the sand until there was nothing left.