Druid Master Read online

“Don’t look so shocked,” the Dark Druid said as he skittered first left, then right, covering twenty feet or more with just a few, lightning-quick steps of his insectile appendages. “It takes more than a washed up, second-rate death god to hold me captive.”

  I noted that he’d be hard to hit with speed like that, deciding to hold my most potent spells in reserve until I could slow him down. “Well, look who it is—the Full Dork. You’re not looking so good these days. A little—” I ran my free hand in front of my face “—green around the gills, so to speak.”

  The Fear Doirich ran his gaze across his humanoid and arachnid limbs, taking them in with a look of admiration on what remained of his hideous face. “Oh, I rather like it,” he said as he flexed his humanoid arms. “I can do things in this body I could never do when I occupied a human meat sack. For example, I can sense exactly where you are, simply by feeling the vibrations of your movements through hairs on my legs.”

  “Let me guess—Fuamnach’s work?”

  “My design, but yes. The woman adores me, and she delivered on my every request,” he replied as a fireball appeared above each of his hands. “Of course, this is only a temporary shell. After I’ve killed you, she and I will find a way to transfer my spirit into your corpse. Then will my revenge be complete.”

  “All I hear is talk,” I said, drawing Dyrnwyn as I sprinted toward him. “But can you back it up?”

  It was clear now why Hideie had made me spar with Mei. The crafty old tengu possessed a measure of supernatural prescience, and he’d obviously known of this battle beforehand. Thanks to him, I’d learned a few things about fighting giant spiders during that sparring session.

  First, keep moving. Spiders can and will pounce, and quickly, when given the opportunity. Second, don’t get bit. Their venom can paralyze you, or worse, rot your flesh right off the bone. And third, watch out for their webbing. Mei had used hers to great advantage, slowing me down considerably in our first few matches.

  Because of the knowledge I’d gained from fighting Mei, I had no interest in closing the gap and using Dyrnwyn. I just wanted the Dark Druid to think I wanted to go mano a mano, cubed. Fortunately, he took the bait, loosing those fireballs as he skittered to meet me, full steam ahead.

  I dodged one fireball, deflecting the other with a burst of cold, compressed air that I cast in front of me. As the flames from the fireball scattered on my makeshift force shield, the conflagration obscured my intended attack—a massive fireball of my own. And the Dark Druid walked right into it.

  Fire licked across the Dark Druid’s spider limbs as my fireball caught him mid-step. The flames splashed harmlessly off his chitinous exoskeleton while scorching away those precious hairs he’d boasted about moments before. He screamed in rage and pain, roaring at the sky as he sent several near-invisible blades of compressed air hurtling my way at head- and waist-level.

  Ah ah, I know those tricks already, I thought as I did a baseball slide across the muddy ground to avoid the attack. I shoved Dyrnwyn into my Bag as I skidded to my feet, legs bent and weight sprung. Kicking off with all the Fomorian strength I possessed in this form, I launched myself up and over the Dark Druid, somersaulting and landing softly behind him.

  I paused momentarily, both to gauge whether the Dark Druid could sense my location and to check in on Ásgeir. The troll seemed to be doing a good job of avoiding the Dullahan’s attacks by rolling out of the way at the last second each time the Headless Horseman charged. Satisfied that my friend was okay for the moment, I turned my attention back to the Fear Doirich.

  The thing that was once the Dark Druid sprang at the spot from which I’d leapt moments before in a blind attempt to capture me. When he came up empty, he began stabbing the stinger on his scorpion tail deep into the soft ground, over and over again at random. When that approach failed, he cast his gaze right and left in an attempt to figure out where I was hiding.

  “Tell me, McCool—do you like the way I decorated Maeve’s lawn? While the goddesses were ripping her house apart, Maeve sent wave after wave of her forces against us, so she’d have time to make her retreat. It wasn’t the storm that destroyed them, but me. I took great pleasure in ripping them limb from limb.”

  Fighting the urge to attack, I remained silent. I wanted to wait until he was close enough to kiss before I unleashed my spells. It had been a mistake to let him live—no way was I going to miss the opportunity to take this clown out for good. So, I watched and waited.

  “You had friends here, did you not? At least one that I’m aware of, had being the operative word. Sabine was her name, yes?” With his back turned to me, he lowered himself close to the ground, then he picked something out of the mud with one of his giant, humanoid hands. “Ah, yes, the half-breed. Such a pretty girl, she was.”

  This has to be a trick. Sabine’s not dead—she’d have been evacuated while Maeve’s frontline troops covered their retreat.

  I watched as the Dark Druid rose to his full height again with something cradled in his hands in front of him. He raised it up, high overhead, gazing on the object at arm’s length. My eyes were drawn to it, although I didn’t want to see what it was—a decapitated head with short, purple hair, full lips, a delicate nose, and sapphire blue eyes. The face of a living doll, contorted and frozen into a look of sheer terror.

  No. No, no, no, no—

  “Nooo!” I screamed as I rushed at the Fear Doirich’s back, loosing every spell I had at the ready. My ball lightning spell, ice spikes, and Mogh’s Scythe. The Fear Doirich glanced back, rotating his head unnaturally to survey the scene.

  “Ah, there you are,” he said as he leapt out of the way.

  Each of the spells flew past him harmlessly, spending their energy on the ward wall that Badb and Fuamnach had left behind. Undeterred, I charged after the Dark Druid in a blur with Dyrnwyn raised and bloodlust in my heart. The bastard held Sabine’s head by the hair in one hand, scrutinizing it as he danced deftly away from me, matching my speed step for step.

  “Hmm, but you were a pretty one,” he said as he neatly dodged a swipe of Dynwyn’s blazing blade. “Such a waste, but I would wager Fuamnach and I could reanimate you yet. You’d make such a lovely paperweight, something to decorate my study after I’m back in human form.”

  “I’ll fucking kill you, you inhuman pile of diseased buggane shit,” I hissed as I darted after him, swinging Dyrnwyn in dizzying arcs and slashes, always missing by mere inches. “I’m going to make you wish I’d killed you the last time we met, you hear me? I’ll make you wish you’d never been born!”

  He chuckled as he scampered out of range, Sabine’s head dangling from his outstretched hand. “Do you know what I think I’ll do, McCool? Once I’m wearing your skin, I’m going to reanimate this skull, yank out her teeth, and copulate with it daily. After all, it’s not necrophilia if it moves.”

  Roaring with hatred and fury, I leapt at him with Dyrnwyn held high over my head in a two-handed grip. I intended to cleave him in two as I landed, but the Dark Druid’s rotting face split into a self-satisfied smile as my feet left the ground. He sprang forward to meet me, trapping my hands between two of his spider legs and stabbing the claw of a third leg into my chest to stop my momentum.

  Then, he dragged that claw down the front of my torso, unzipping my flesh as he gutted me like a fish. Hot, wet blood ran down my legs as my intestines slid out of my body, trailing to the ground in long, ropy strands. For several seconds the pain was excruciating, then a numbness spread out from the gash, through my body to my limbs, neck, and face.

  Poison.

  The Dark Druid dangled me there, eight feet off the ground and bleeding like a stuck pig. “Like the child you are, you played right into my hands. I told Fuamnach you would, but she said I awaited my death here. Ah, but she doesn’t know you like I do, does she? I know all your weaknesses.”

  He brought Sabine’s head close to his face, close enough for him to stick his unnaturally long, gray tongue into her mouth and out her t
rachea. I wanted to scream, but all I could do was watch helplessly as he defiled her remains.

  Oh, Sabine. I am so, so sorry.

  The Dark Druid withdrew his tongue with a long, slow slurping sound, smacking his lips as he pulled it back into his mouth. “Mmm, tastes like fear and despair.” He turned his cold, dead eyes on me and cocked his head to one side. “Now, what am I going to do with you? Ah yes, I’m going to inhabit your body—”

  The Dark Druid was interrupted by a long, leaf-shaped spear blade that exited his back. The spear emerged just behind the spot where his neck met the canine torso that joined his hodgepodge of body parts together. The spear blade disappeared, then it spun around in a neat circular motion, severing the Fear Doirich’s rotting head from the rest of that nightmare creation.

  Ásgeir dropped Gae Dearg as he stepped away from the creature, just in time to catch me and avoid being crushed by the thing as it collapsed. He lowered me to the ground, then he stuffed my guts back in my body, allowing me to heal. Keeping guard with the spear in hand, he watched over me in silence as my Fomorian metabolism dealt with my injuries and the Fear Doirich’s venom.

  Minutes later, I felt well enough to struggle to my feet. The troll observed in silence as I stumbled over to the Fear Doirich’s body, where Sabine’s head was still clutched in his grasp. Gently, I pried his fingers from her hair, then I dropped to my knees with her head in my hands, sobbing softly.

  Ásgeir had the good manners to wait several minutes before speaking. “Others will come, druid. We should go.”

  I nodded once and closed Sabine’s eyes. Then, I carefully wrapped her head in an old t-shirt I found inside my Craneskin Bag. After I’d tucked her safely away in the Bag, I searched for additional remains but found none.

  I turned my attention back to the Dark Druid. His head rested on its side several feet away, laughing silently and leering at me. Without a word, I summoned ball lightning and incinerated him, skull and all. I burned the pile of ash again, until only dust remained. Finally, I summoned a breeze to scatter his ashes to the four winds.

  When I was done, the ward wall disappeared. Apparently, it had been his work, and not the goddesses’ doing. As if it mattered, now that he was gone.

  Yet another mistake I made, and someone else paid the price.

  Standing over the spot of scorched earth where I’d given the Fear Doirich his last rites, I hung my head in shame. “What happened with the Dullahan?”

  Ásgeir grunted. “One taste of this spear, and he fled. I’d have come to your aid sooner, but he proved to be a worthy foe.” I heard the troll approach and felt his plate-sized hand on my shoulder. “I am sorry, druid. At least you avenged her loss.”

  “Not yet, I haven’t. Badb and Fuamnach had as much to do with this as he did.”

  “Be that as it may, I would remind you again that we should go. The soul taker will soon return with the goddesses, and you are not yet prepared to face them both. It would be best if we were not here when they arrive.”

  With a nod, I sent him back to Mag Mell with the others. Instead of returning with him, I went to the Grove to be alone and think. Once there, I pulled out the journal Finnegas left me. I sat by his grave with the thing in my lap, wondering why the hell he left it and what it contained.

  “Damn it, old man. Why’d you have to leave me so soon? I’m fucking things up left and right, I can’t figure out how to open this stupid book, and I have no idea how to defeat Badb and Fuamnach.”

  Of course, Finnegas remained silent on the matter, so I spent the next several hours alternating between weeping and examining the wards on the journal. The wardwork itself was simple, and not complex in its function or design. Unlocking it wasn’t a matter of complexity, but power, in that it would require an incredible amount of druidic magic to open.

  And druidic magic was the key, as the wards were attuned to it, obviously to prevent anyone else but me from gleaning the contents of the book. Yet I didn’t have enough juice to do the trick, nowhere close. Even using the power I could access through the Oak and Grove, I doubted it’d be enough to break the seals Finnegas had placed on the thing.

  While I was messing with the journal, Roscoe and Rufus sauntered over to keep me company. Rufus curled up at my feet, and Roscoe laid beside me, plopping his head in my lap. I scratched him behind the ears with one hand as I ran my fingers over the journal’s embossed cover with the other.

  I’d bet dimes to donuts a druid master would be able to crack the seal. Finnegas cast the wards, after all, so it made sense that an equal amount of power would be required to unlock his wardwork. But I couldn’t channel that much power. And without The Dagda’s help, I’d probably never be able to open the damned thing.

  “Damn it to hell, but this is so fucking screwed.”

  19

  When I arrived back in Mag Mell at Tethra’s fortress, the place was abuzz with activity. I’d portalled in atop the outer wall to avoid having to run into anyone. However, my plan backfired. Mom and Hemi were already there, testing out one of Tethra’s war machines.

  “I’m tellin’ ya’, it doesn’t need it,” Leanne complained as she watched Hemi apply some kind of goop to the main pivot shaft of a trebuchet. “It needs friction to keep the damned thing from breaking itself in two when it fires.”

  “Won’t get many shots off,” Hemi replied calmly as he continued to apply the grease. “More range this way. Make those shots count.”

  Mom frowned as she rubbed her chin. “Have it your way, lout.” I cleared my throat to announce my arrival, but she didn’t even bother turning around. “I knew you were there. Smelled the blood the moment you arrived.”

  Hemi pulled his head out of the device to look at me. “How’s the other fella’ look?”

  “Dead,” I replied as I walked to the inner parapet. Far below in the courtyard of the keep, people were moving to and fro, carrying crates of arrows and ammunition up the fortress walls. “Who are they, and where did they come from?”

  Mom replied disinterestedly as she checked the trebuchet’s release mechanism. “Oisín showed up with his whelps in tow not long after you left. Said he owed you. Brought their fiann with them, as much good as it will do.”

  Just that many more people to die for my cause.

  “Might come in handy,” Hemi said. “Never can tell.”

  “Hmph,” was all Mom said in reply.

  I walked to the other side of the wall to see what Maureen, Maki, and Hemi had cooked up. The killing fields had been crisscrossed with spells, wards, and traps, enough to stop a whole army if they were triggered all at once. The problem was, if I could see them, so could Badb and Fuamnach.

  “Looks like you’ve been busy,” I remarked.

  “There’s more, hidden,” Hemi replied. “Tons.”

  I was just about to remark that it still wouldn’t be enough when I sensed a magical disturbance nearby—deific magic, in fact. As I was reaching into my Bag to draw Dyrnwyn, Mom placed a hand on my arm to stop me.

  “Calm yourself,” she said. “I’d know that magical signature anywhere. He’s friendly, or friendly enough.”

  With the events at Maeve’s still fresh in my mind, I kept my hand on Dyrnwyn’s hilt just the same. Seconds later, a portal opened a few feet away from us on the walkway, and a handsome, athletic, blonde-headed man of average height stepped through. He wore an embroidered green tunic over loose brown pants tucked into soft leather boots, and he bore a scabbarded short sword on a wide leather belt at his waist.

  With his curly hair, bright blue eyes, lean build, and cocksure swagger, there was no mistaking the Celtic god of overachievers. That wasn’t his actual designation, but it was how I’d always thought of him, seeing as how the myths made him out to be the best at everything. When he stepped through the portal, he craned his neck this way and that to take in the fortress.

  “Well, ya’ can’t say the fooker was shit at fortress buildin’, that’s fer’ sure,” he remarked as he walked
up to Leanne, bowing to kiss her hand. “Hail, màthair.”

  Mom nodded regally, “Hail, son.”

  Cold as fucking ice. At least I’m not the only one who gets that treatment.

  Lugh turned to me, his expression softening as he met my gaze. “I am sorry, druid, fer’ the losses ye’ve incurred of late.”

  Mother gave Lugh an arch look. “Losses? I take that to mean someone else died. He’s always losing someone.”

  Hemi shook his head, while Lugh gave Leanne a look that could curdle milk. My half-brother must’ve seen something in my expression because he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off down the walkway. Temporarily flummoxed into indecision, I followed along, silently fuming at my mother’s callous remark.

  “Ignore her, druid,” Lugh said under his breath. “She’s a product o’ her upbringin’, and she were raised by the most blackhearted scoundrel ever ta’ walk the Earth.”

  “Balor,” I cursed.

  “Aye, Seanathair. Though I took no pleasure in slayin’ him, t’would have been better fer’ all had someone done the deed afore I were born. By the time I came along, her heart had already been poisoned by her da’s hatred. Cian’s love softened her fer’ a time, but she became hardened and cold once again after his passin’.”

  I leaned against the outer wall, staring out across Tethra’s killing fields. It was the only place in the land where plant life had not yet returned, a fitting reminder of the Fomorian way.

  “What brings you here? Don’t tell me you came all this way just for that.”

  “In part,” he replied. “Been many years since I could visit. As her son, ’tis my duty to pay my respects.”

  “Look, I know she’s my mom and all—our mother, that is—but I just can’t understand what my dad saw in her.” I looked over at Lugh, pausing to marvel at the fact that he was my half-brother. “Colm was a good guy, you know? Always laughing and joking, quick with a bandage for a scraped knee, that sort of father.”