36

The Horned Man emerged from the trees.

The fight with the magus had been unexpected. He had believed this place entirely drained, the land soured, but it would seem there were some few still connected to ancient leys and sacred sites they connected, able to tap into what little magic remained of Mother. That was worth remembering, as it might make all the difference as the night played out. He wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking he was the only one in touch with the old ways.

As the sun began its arc toward the horizon, a trail of sparks blew away from Arawn’s staff, each one burning brightly for a fraction of a second before falling to the ground in his wake. They marked his passage through the ancient wildwood. With a single word he stirred them back to life, creating a wall of fireflies at his back. At first it was just one or two that rose again, then more, gyring up into the air until a hundred points of light lit the dark wood, then it was a thousand and a thousand more, each one emitting a discordant hum. The sight was dizzying, conjuring thousands of constantly shifting eddies in the shadows the fireflies cast. It was as though his presence was enough to ignite the stuff of the air, forming a curtain of fire behind him. His antlers were blacker than black against the flames.

Arawn walked barefoot across the black tarmac.

He let the warmth flood through the soles of his feet into his toes, and that warmth in turn bled into the tarmac softening it until the black became molasses, bubbling and sticky beneath his weight. The tarmac spread away from his feet, slowly parting around them to offer a glimpse of the scorched earth beneath. With a word he brought forth a root, the green shoot rising between his toes. With another word he brought forth two more green shoots that budded quickly into summer blossoms. All around him the roots buried deep beneath the road began to respond to his call, rising up. The paving slabs buckled, cracks between them opening wider as they were pushed apart. It was like a tidal wave surging beneath the surface, rushing away from him deeper into the city he was about to reclaim. On the verges, the grass grew wild; weeds, clovers, and foxtails sprouted up, flourishing in seconds as nature began the painstaking process of reclaiming the land for its own. The soft asphalt of the road itself split along the white line as huge roots forced their way out into the fading light.

The trees lining the roadside budded and blossomed, overflowing with the spiky shells of horse chestnuts that cracked open and spilled out the ripe brown conkers, while on the other side of the road cherry blossoms erupted into color and fell, blanketing the road in brilliant hues.

This was always my land, he thought, and ever will be.

He breathed deeply, hating the filth he tasted in the air, but knowing now that it was only a matter of time before it was clean again.

Vegetation tangled around the wheels of parked cars, weeds running wild as rose bushes grew up the sides of houses, thorns digging into the weeping grout between the bricks. Where there had been concrete and stone there was life.

With every step he took along the deserted road, more shoots of grass and shrub somehow found a way through its surface.

By the time Arawn had walked the distance to the first corner the forest had spilled out into the street, reclaiming it.

It was just one street, a few hundred yards of stone, but it marked the opening salvo in the war to come.

“Hwaet! Áríseaþ!” he bellowed, demanding they hear him now, demanding they rise up in answer.

He heard their whooping chorus in the distance. Robin Goodfellow had marshaled his army of innocence. Now to march them off to the slaughter. Their blood would spill through the cracks even as they tore the streets asunder, bringing down the man-made monoliths to vanity and greed with their bare hands. Their sacrifice would feed the land, their lives nourishing the dead earth until perhaps enough would finally seep into the earth to stir the magic of Mother and breathe life back into the Great Beast of Albion.

The time was now.

The Hunters were abroad.

With the fireflies trailing in his wake and the green shoots of a better tomorrow rising up around his feet, the Horned God walked resolutely toward the inescapable conflict; the most ruthless warrior the land had ever known taking up arms one final time.

It was his fate to restore Albion.

The May Queen had damned him with it. And saved him with it. That was the other side of the curse. It offered balance. Fate.

Let the scourge burn away, he thought grimly, as he traversed the road, reaching a narrow alleyway between houses, which he followed through to the heart of the Rothery and the lightning-struck tree on the green in front of The Hunter’s Horns. The ancient tree called out to him. It should have died a long time ago, but like Arawn himself clung tenaciously to life. It wasn’t ready to go. I feel your pain, he told the oak, reaching out his right hand to lay it upon the still raw wound in the trunk. He let the thrill of Mother’s magic flow through him into the tree. Once, hundreds of years ago, it had stood at the center of things.

He had been here before—stood in this very spot—with his hand pressed against the trunk of the same tree. The memory was dim, the darker truths of it locked away from him.

I know you.

The thought wasn’t his.

The voice sent shivers through his soul.

It was as old as time itself. It spoke to him in the language of suffering; all of the sins of mankind inflicted upon its source.

It was the voice of the old gods.

Albion spoke to him.

With its recognition, the veil drawn across the memories of betrayal fell away and he remembered:

They had been summoned by the May Queen. She had ensured their presence at the moot with the enigmatic message that the fate of the land was at stake. There was something disconcerting about the sacred grove and the world tree at its center. The old woman had invited Arawn to place his hand against its rough bark and feel it for himself, feel the souring.

He remembered.

He shivered as time marched across his grave.

This was the place where the essence of magic that fed the land had first failed.

He knew the tree for what it was.

This was the spot where Albion had first begun to die.

The Wild Hunt had gathered in the sacred grove, lighting the torches that would burn for the duration of the moot. Across the circle, the enemy sat cross-legged, studying them silently.

There were three of them: pale-skinned creatures of fae origin. Dwellers from beyond the mist. Arawn studied their albino complexions and delicate features, committing them to memory. The blue labyrinth of veins just beneath the surface painted a map across their skin. Their eyes were akin to lava pits that burned with their abhorrence of all things human. He knew them for what they were. He knew them for the fate they promised.

The Bain Shee.

They were her prisoners.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you will understand, my love, because in my place you would do the same. We exist for this place. For the land. Our land. We would do anything for Mother. Believe me when I say it is the only way. Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be. Take the knee—bend your head and offer your necks—and pray that your blood is potent enough to save this place. Look at me, my love; see me, and know that this was always meant to be.” The moonlight changed the shape of her face, stripping the mask of humanity away from the old woman’s face and offering a glimpse of the pale-skinned creature that lurked beneath.

“I know you,” Arawn gasped, disbelieving.

“I should hope so, my sweet. After all this time I’d be offended if you didn’t recognize me. After all, you are pledged to me: body and soul. You are mine, Arawn. You always were and always will be.”

The Badb, the warrior goddess, known by three aspects dependent upon the penitent’s need: Macha; the Morrigu; and Anu, her tender earth maiden’s face. He knew many of her names, but she owned many more: the Raven Queen; the Great Queen; the Queen of Phantoms; the Specter Queen; Fury; and in this place at least, the Summer Queen. Wherever there was war, wherever there was dying to be done, she could be found, feeding off the blood of the fallen. Her damned birds were ever present. They scoured the land for carrion to feed her sick appetites. She was a parasite, nothing more. A parasite with a thirst for blood. Whilst all those that came into the presence of the Badb spilled their guts and blood for her, she prevailed. She lived. And lived. She was a cuckoo in their nest. And yet, for so long she had succeeded in fooling them. “Now, I ask you again, will you die for me, my sweet, sweet man? It’s the last time I will ask anything of you in this life. I am this place and it is me. And we both need you to die. Without your sacrifice there won’t be the raw vitality in the land to withstand them. You are Mother’s champion. To fight for her you must die.”

He closed his eyes, content.

It was her.

It always had been.

It always would be.

He felt her presence as she came up behind him. Felt her hands move around him. Felt the touch of her lips on his neck. Felt the bite of her teeth as she tore into him. Felt the blood spill from the ragged wound, hot on his throat, even as it soaked into the dying earth.

“Bleed for me,” she breathed in his ear.

They were the last words he ever heard. The rest—her curse—that came as his consciousness faded.

The Babd held him close as his body bucked against dying.

“This is your fate,” she told him again, lips close to his ear. “Your curse. Your commitment. You die here. You have already experienced this moment, but now you understand that death is not the end for you. Your entire being is bound forever to this place, this land you saved once with your sacrifice, and now, when her need is greatest you have found your way back from death. You are Mother’s protector, my love,” she cursed him, and sounded almost sad as her words wove their spell around his soul. Finally, the May Queen let him fall, and he experienced his death all over again.

She had traded him for the land. His magic would sustain her for a while, but not long enough. Not for eternity. Their enemy would never be sated by a single death when there was a world of souls to feast upon; they both knew that.

This time he was aware of the sour land beneath him, and understood that he had fallen where the magic itself had first begun to die. His blood—the blood of a god—was never going to be enough to nourish the land, but it was enough to feed the May Queen and sustain the ancient oak through the decimation of the great wood, alive centuries beyond its natural span.

Arawn concentrated on drawing out the rot first, healing the black wood at the heart of the tree.

He took the poison into his own flesh.

Sickness threatened to overwhelm him, but he refused to break contact with the lightning-struck tree. The black rot attacked his blood. There was so much of it. It just kept coming and coming, oozing out of the wounded tree into him. He drew it up through roots that stretched far, far beyond the height of the tree itself, all the way under the green, under the cellar of the pub across the street, beneath the foundations of the houses built around it. This was the dying heart of the Rothery, but more than that, the rot tapped into the heart of Albion itself, the black tarlike poison dripping through the corpse of the great beast. He felt the splinters of wood begin to knit and reknit; slowly healing the broken limb. It would take more than his newly woken earth magic to restore the ancient tree to anything approaching bloom, but it would not die and that was more important than anything else.

He could feel her presence.

She was near.

Awake.

The May Queen. The Badb.

The woruldgewinn could not be stopped.

The earthly war.