Chapter 11 - La Chasse: Part 2

"The Hunt – Part 2"

Nuada knew the moment she had stopped fleeing from him and brought his head up suddenly at the sound that echoed out across the moor. It was a sound he knew well; a sound of pure anguish, pure despair, at the Truth of what they faced. And he knew that it came from Ailith.

With a shout, he spurred the Hound into a fast lope. The Hill was almost in sight.

Part 2

The Hill of Tara was well-known to the royal houses of the Summer Court. He knew it as Teamhair na Rí, the great complex of ancient ruins that once held the seat of the High King. In the human world it lay in the far reaches of County Meath near the River Boyne in Ireland, and still contained a few vestiges of the six-thousand-year-old temple that had once stood there. But in the Dreaming, Teamhair na Rí was a terrifying place. So much had been the death, despair, and destruction wrought upon it, it was now something akin to a void; an abyss that drained all hope and joy from anything that dared come near it.

And Nuada knew, more by instinct than memory, that somewhere inside or near the Hill was the Lia Fáil; the Speaking Stone of oracular legend before which all High Kings had been crowned. It was where the Name had once been contained and where it would, should he succeed, be contained again. But before all of that could come to pass, he would have to ascend the Hill, find Ailith, and close the Wound. Deep down, Nuada knew he was in for the fight of his life.

As the Hound galloped on, the Elven Prince's fingers tightened on the grip of the SilverHand. The blade was almost singing with the anticipation of battle but he checked himself thoughtfully. He would also need to be cunning and to keep his wits about him. This was no time to lose himself to bloodlust. The Dead that guarded the Hill would not allow him to pass on martial skill alone.

And then, it was in sight: The Hill of Tara rising above the murk as a hideous stain set unmoving against a roiling sky. A charcoal smear blemishing the lines of a pristine page; like a beautiful word that someone had tried to unfairly erase but instead of wiping it out, had only left indelible evidence of their cruelty.

Nuada slowed the Hound and coaxed it into a cautious pace; stalking the base of the Hill to better ascertain the path upwards. It was a mess. Streams of blackened water rushed through mud and debris before fanning out into the heavy tussocks, making the entire slope dangerously slick and unstable. One wrong step, and the both of them would instantly go tumbling down the embankment and into the swamp below. Even now, the Hound had to step carefully onto thick pads of moss or risk dropping a paw into the gulley and then being sucked down into the mire. High above them, the branches of the ancient oak scattered the sky a hundred ways; into a crackle-wear surface nearly shattered by the destruction of a war that had never really ended.

Nuada pressed the Hound again, who snuffled and turned; now to make their way up the lee of the Hill, using the rolls of grasses and weeds as footholds while avoiding the bleeding ichor welling up out of every ditch and channel. He could still feel Ailith close by and shared with her the pain and sorrow that now surrounded them but he also did what he could to reach out to her gently; to try and reassure her that she wasn't alone. To tell her that he was coming for her. That she would not be abandoned to this place again.

At the summit, the wind picked at him and the Hound whined with trepidation. Only a few hundred yards ahead, the trunk of the white tree creaked and groaned against the storm. Nuada surveyed the field. There were at least six corpses he could recognize jumbled amongst the peat, each lying face down and encased in mud. Each bore weapons marking their former stations: A Knight, a Crusader, a Cavalier, an Archer, a Ranger, and the Prince of great house, like himself. They may once have been great heroes, and he had no doubt that they likely were, but they were all Nameless now; conscripted into the vanguard of the Wound. The remains of horses and dogs were scattered about them as well and the last tattered remnants of a banner snapped angrily on the branches overhead. He could no longer hear his Corvids in this place but he had expected that. It was too dangerous. They would have to keep their distance.

Nuada straightened on the Hound's back and slowly released the breath he had been holding as he dismounted and left the Cŵn Annwn safely in wait at the edge of the bough's reach. The Hill was too treacherous to navigate for a creature as large as a Dog of the Underworld, especially if it was to be in combat. With deft fingers he raised the cloth bundle from his side and tied it securely to the knot of his royal sash. He could already feel a deep, resonant, kind of vibration emanating from the object within. It too was anticipating what came next.

"I am Nuada, Prince of Bathmoora." He called out. "Who was called Airgeadlámh. Who is macBalor, mac Gíallchad, Llaw Eraint. Once and again, Finn Fáil, Tiarna an Claidheamh Soluis. I come now to Teamhair na Rí by right of the Hunt and claim the Name of Neachtain. To be shown as Tiarna an Dál nAraidi and to abide by he who is Maine Mórgor. By the rule of Geas, I bid you to reveal the Name that is yet to come. Reveal yourself, and be Challenged!"

A shiver passed through the grasses all about him as something deep in the bog breathed its first in a thousand years. The Hill around him trembled awake and something in the depths of the unconscious mind of the world rose up to meet his demand. He heard a voice, rasping but somehow sonorous, carried on the wind, but emanating from the grey water everywhere.

"Níl fáilte romhat anseo." (Gaelic: You are not welcome here.)

"Never the medicine is." He replied. "It brings only pain in the moment but remedy in time."

"Tá an leigheas nimh." (Gaelic: The medicine is poison.) The voice intoned, shaking the great tree overhead as it rattled the bones of the Fallen ominously.

Nuada considered his words carefully, knowing that the riddle could change at the slightest misstep.

"But only when given too much. What is medicine and what is poison is only a matter of measure." He answered.

"Ní féidir an fhuil a thomhas." (Gaelic: One cannot measure the blood.)

"But only does the blood bring healing." The Hound tensed behind him at this, having sensed a change in the air.

The voice spoke once more but remained an ominous, halting, sound. "Má thairgtear fuil ansin tógfar fuil." (Gaelic: If blood is offered then blood will be taken.)

Nuada replied quickly. "Only that which was written in blood, can now be made plain."

The voice sighed, a strangled noise that heaved a dying breath out of the earth. "Tugann Ainm do Ainm an saol." (Gaelic: A Name for a Name brings life.)

Nuada took a breath and steadied himself. The answer to the trial was hidden in the words of the fen. He need only now decipher the meaning of the phrase and begin.

"Now apt, now obscure." He recited; an admonishment and a warning from his father from before the wars has split their house forever. "All those who run in the Hunt know what must follow them. All Hunters remember the Battle of Trees. All Victors must answer the Riddle of the Lady of Achren."

He thought back to his schooling and to his many teachers, and all the stories he had been raised to remember. The key to answering just about any Fae-bound enigma was to apply the rules of the bardic Cad Goddeu, the epic poem within which had been woven the mystic meanings of the Ogham alphabet. The Riddle of the Lady of Achren, a section of the poem wherein the secret Names of Heroes were hidden, came easily to him and he parsed the necessary verses in his mind as quickly as he could.

The tops of the beech tree
Have sprouted of late,
Are changed and renewed
From their withered state.

When the beech prospers
Through spells and litanies
The oak tops entangle,
There is hope for the trees.

I have plundered the fern
Through all secrets I spy,
Old Math ap Mathonwy
Knew no more than I.

For with nine sorts of faculty
God has gifted me:
I am the fruit of fruits gathered
From nine sorts of tree.

The Hound growled, low in its throat. They were coming.

A specter rose up before him, peeling its limbs from the embrace of the swamp with a sickening ingurgitation. The twisted, mummified, form clanked loudly in plates of brass and steel armor before raising a rusted claymore in both of its gnarled hands. The armor bore the remnants of etching on the breastplate and Nuada could discern a shape like that of the World Tree, with roots below as branches above. This was the Knight, and he advanced now on the Prince's open position.

Nuada raised the SilverHand and immediately lengthened the weapon to a spear. It was all he had time for as the first sweeping blow came straight at his head. He ducked the swing and parried lightly, testing his opponent's strategy. A second, over-extended, arc came at his midsection and he used the opportunity to slant the strike and sink the tip of his spear into the Knight's side. When he pulled it free, he bit back a snarl in noting that the creature was blithely unaffected. There was hardly even a mark where he had pierced its ribs. The Knight shambled forward and swung again; this time with more precision and the Prince was forced to take a step back and block the sword. The hit was jarringly hard and nearly knocked him to the ground but, by the grace of years of training, he maintained his footing and responded with a series of forward strikes the Knight knocked sideways. They exchanged more blows, each attempting to unbalance the other. Then, to Nuada's even greater concern, he heard a noise.

Each in turn, the figures began to rise: a Crusader with a longsword and a shield of iron, a Cavalier whose forearms and chest were bound in thorns, an Archer with an oak and holly bow, a Ranger with the head and jaws of a wolf, and the Prince left murdered, with his throat still cut and brandishing a blade of silver starlight. Unhindered by the mud, they began to circle him; closing in on every side until the smell of the moldering grave was overwhelming.

Nuada, however, did not wait for them to trap him. He was quick to strike the Knight hard enough in the shoulder to turn it so that he could block the first volley from the Archer. At a dead run, Nuada then closed the distance with the Cavalier, avoiding the first blows of thorns, to turn his position about and put a few extra steps between himself and the Murdered Prince. He was not quite fast enough though. The rotted sovereign caught him hard to the right. He was able to reflexively side-step the worst of it but, unwittingly, it left him wide open to a full bash from the Crusader's iron shield. He felt it connect with his shoulder, felt his collarbone break, before the follow-through sent him rolling into the tussocks. It was a terrible misstep and Nuada had barely a split-second to right himself before a lash of mistletoe, covered in three-inch thorns, nearly took out his throat. But once on his feet, he cursed at himself and rallied. He would need to be better than this.

Nuada went for the Archer first, catching the tip of the bow in the back-hook of Claidheamh Soluis's trailing edge. The Archer responded by raising the bow but before it could fire, Nuada lunged past the string and stabbed the spear directly into the Archer's upper chest and then straight on through its ribs to embed the point into the shoulder blade behind; effectively breaking the bone and rendering the bow arm useless. Pulling Claidheamh Soluis free, the Prince then turned on his heels to meet the expected blow to his back, parrying the Cavalier's buffeting strikes with the spear-handle. He shifted then, avoiding the claymore now on his left and slashed his blade low against the Knight's legs. The heavily-weighted corpse buckled and landed in the muck with a wet slap. The Cavalier engaged him again and through multiple traded blows, Nuada managed to cut the thorns from both its forearms and was about to snap the vines from its torso when searing pain lanced through his neck. He withered and lurched to the side, avoiding a second strike by mere inches. The starlight blade of the Murdered Prince had gone partially into his chest, just beneath his right arm, and the wound was bleeding. Badly.

He dodged the next round of oncoming strikes with a tumble and then stumbled backwards towards the outer edge of the Hill to get his bearings. To his consternation, he observed as each of the Fallen shook off their injuries, set their bones, and rose up again. They hardly seemed bothered by him really. Nuada growled, low in his throat, in part from uncertainty and partly from pain (again, he felt he was going to owe Nuala an endless number of apologies for this. If he survived). He was still missing something.

He thought back again to Achren's Riddle. The last of the great Heroes to have used it was none other than Gwydion himself; the very first to have called the Trees into battle against the forces of Annwn; the Otherworld of the Dead. From there, Gwydion had come to the realization that no warrior of the Otherworld could be vanquished unless his opponent could guess his Name. Such a thing Gwydion then did; using the Ogham Tree rhymes to guess the name of Brân Fendigaidd, the Blessed Crow, who was both a giant and once a king. In the end, he had done so by discerning the marks of the Alder branches on his shield and knowing him to be the Vanguard of Annwn.

The alder leads the attack, while the aspen falls in battle, and heaven and earth tremble before the oak, a "valiant door keeper against the enemy."

Nuada drew a sharp breath. That was it. Therein was his answer. He faced now the Nameless of Annwn. To defeat them, he would have to Name them and in Naming them, know the method of their undoing.

He turned and studied them as they bore down on his position. The Knight came ahead first, raising the claymore high in the start of another devastating sweep. But what more could he see? The creature charged him outright; never flinching or feinting and coming directly at him with nothing in its soulless eyes but the intent to kill.

Uncouth and savage was the fir,
Cruel the ash tree
Turns not aside a foot-breath,
Straight at the heart runs he.

Nuada set his heels and stood his ground. If he was wrong, this was about to end very badly for him. A full attack from the Knight, even partially blocked, would still likely result in at least a few more broken bones and he could not afford the detriment at this point. The Knight reached him and swung, the blade screaming downwards towards the Prince's neck but Nuada was ready and dropped to one knee just as the blade completed the arc. As it hurtled overhead, he called upon Claidheamh Soluis, gave his command to the SilverHand, which slid instantly back into its shorter form. And with that, he leveled the blade directly beneath the heavy breastplate and shouldered it into the moldy flesh and bones it found there. With a flick of his hand, the spear extended again, shooting up through the Knight's ribcage and impaling the creature completely through its center.

"Nuin, the Ash." Nuada whispered, still bearing most of his opponent's weight as the corpse suddenly stilled.

A moment passed and Nuada recalled the SilverHand, allowing the now restful Knight to slide limply to the ground as the blade returned. As the body fell, the tussocks of grass reached out and spread around it, the water rose up to meet it, and in seconds, the figure was gone. Back into the mire. But Nuada did not have long to celebrate his victory before an arrow landed squarely in the moss between his feet. The rest of the Fallen had reached him.

Several more arrows nearly made their mark as Nuada dashed for cover in the taller grasses. The Cavalier caught him there and a pitched battle between spear and thorn-wrapped fists ensued. Twice he was forced to take the hit or be shot through by the clothyard bolts whistling past him. And once, thankfully only once, he was glanced by the longsword, leaving a searing new cut from the rise of his cheekbone to the curve of his jaw and nearly taking off his ear. But three times he was able to force both the Cavalier and the Crusader back onto lower ground, keeping them at bay while still managing to dodge the incoming missiles.

Their battle ranged all over. Each of the Nameless was clearly skilled in their own discipline and Nuada was forced to change tactics and strategy repeatedly just to keep ahead of the blades and points constantly seeking to wound him. During one particularly tense exchange, the wolf-headed Ranger had managed to bite down onto his left arm and had it not been for the fact that the creature had chosen to throw him rather than attempt to swallow him, he was left with two additional broken ribs and several lacerations rather than a missing arm (How oddly fitting that would have been, he would later think).

With foot beat of the swift oak
Heaven and earth rung;
'Stout Guardian of the Door'
His name on every tongue.

But the toss and tumble gave Nuada an opening and he was quick on it before the others could regroup. The Wolf Trees of his homeland were the names given to White Oaks, called Dair. When the Ranger turned to snap at him again, he did what the creature did not expect and leapt from the hillock onto the top of the wolf's head. It was a bit of a struggle but Nuada managed to wrap his legs around the Ranger's neck just as it attempted to scrape him off, used one hand to grasp onto its floppy left ear, and yanked its head back with as much strength as he could manage without leverage.

The Ranger yowled with a terrifying, hollow, sound but Nuada did not hesitate and plunged the SilverHand into the wolf's mouth, severing its tongue. And then it too, fell into the bog.

Nuada took a pained breath as he hovered over the vanishing corpse of the Ranger. The battle had gone on for nearly half an hour. He was tiring and was already a little light-headed from blood loss. The wound beneath his right arm was continuing to bleed and if he wasn't careful, one or both of his broken ribs could move and puncture a lung. And he still had a long way to go.

The holly, dark green,
Made a resolute stand;
He is armed with many spear points
Wounding the hand.

The dower-scattering yew
Stood glum at the fight's fringe,
With the elder slow to burn
Amid fires that singe.

By now, however, he had discerned the Names of the others approaching him. He had only a moment to rest though, and then the fight was again upon him. The Cavalier he would take next, having figured out that he needed to cut off the creature's hands to defeat it. The Archer fell several minutes later, as Nuada first fought it back onto the edge of the Hill and then took out its eyes as the bones of its feet became tangled in the exposed roots. The Crusader then took him the longest, raining blow upon blow down on him as he set the edge of the SilverHand against the iron shield, over and over again, dragging metal against metal until the sparks of their battle at last lit the straw hair and cracked fibers of the corpse's threadbare tabard on fire. As it burned, the armor and shield melted away and were snuffed in the blackened water. Nuada spit a mouthful of blood into the grass. Only the Murdered Prince now remained.

Nuada turned and regarded the last of them, standing near the center of the Hill, graced in fine if moldering clothes in red, purple, and gold. His skin was the same color of dark brown possessed by all the Bog Dead but his hair was still long, pale, and bright. His eyes were white and empty, his mouth twisted into a grimace just showing a hint of yellowed teeth and congealed black gums. Around his throat, stretching nearly from pointed ear to pointed ear, an open and weeping gash that still leaked grey muck and lichen. He raised his blade, still a pristine shard of glittering light, unmarred by blood, age, or battle.

The birch, though very noble,
Armed himself but late:
A sign not of cowardice
But of high estate.

The heath gave consolation
To the toil-spent folk,
The long-enduring poplars
In battle much broke.

It was clear that the younger Prince of Bathmoora was profoundly wounded. Though he kept the SilverHand still at the ready in his right hand, his left was clasped around the deep cut beneath his arm. His breathing came in a strained wheeze and the stridor of blood in his lungs could be heard with each labored breath. But as the Murdered Prince advanced, he did not find Nuada to be yielding.

"Hello, Brother." Nuada spoke out. The Fallen stopped, canted his head almost thoughtfully, but raised the starlight blade with menacing intent.

"I know what they did to you." Nuada went on, noting only in passing a trickle of blood that was now slowly moving down his back. "I know that Men came and they took her. They broke her and there was nothing you could do. Because you were already dead, were you not? They came for you first, because they knew you would defend her. And you did. You did, Brother."

The Murdered Prince slowly began to lower his blade, continuing to regard his counterpart in silence.

Nuada took another pained breath and continued with what he had left. "And for that reason, I give back to you what they took. The reason you cannot leave this place. I give you back the Memory, the Name, that has been all but almost forgotten. You are Fénius Farsaid mac Boath, are you not? The Prince and the Scholar who once traveled as far as the lands of Scythia to learned the secrets of the Poet's Language? You were the one who first wrote Ogham into books so that others may learn it and are likely the very reason Mankind knows of our stories at all. You painted tomes that, under the light of the moon, come to life and tell their stories without need of storyteller. And then the last Hunt was called, she came to you, and then you were never seen or heard from again. But she knows you, Brother. When I met her, she spoke of nothing but stories and fables and that's how I knew it had to be you. You must have been the one who told her, you must be the reason that she loves the old tales so very much. It is because she remembers you, she remembers you still in her dreams. And I promise you, she will remember you for all the time that is still yet to come."

The Murdered Prince looked sad, his blank white gaze drifting off into the moor as though he were contemplating something of unspeakable sorrow. There was a great and wondrous story here that Nuada didn't know, but he suspected it was a beautiful one.

"But I am here now and you no longer need to remain." Nuada stated, with as much vigor as he could muster. "Your trial and your vigil are over. You were murdered unjustly and your Name was stolen. The crown that was rightfully yours was destroyed and they left you to the Bog as they have left so many others who would not submit. Left you, to mind the Wound. But it is over. I am Nuada Neachtain, Tiarna an Dál nAraidi, Maine Mórgor of the House and Line of Bathmoora, son of Balor, heir to the Forge Throne and the Golden Army. Mine is the Birthright of Kings and I have come to heal it."

With care born of both injury and caution, Nuada pulled the cloth bundle from his sash, flipped the tie free of it, and let the linen fall away to reveal the alicorn singing out blindingly in his hand. "I have come to heal our people."

To Nuada's surprise, the Murdered Prince simply dropped his blade and left it to disappear in the mud as he stiffly turned and began to walk towards the trunk of the great tree. When Nuada failed to follow, he turned back and looked over his shoulder; silently beckoning the other to come with him. Nuada was circumspect but obeyed, walking carefully over the still visible remains of the battle and the other skeletons in attendance. Fénius did not take them far however, and stopped beneath the outstretched branches at the back of the white tree, at the foot of a makeshift stone wall of roots and boulders. There he reached out his hand and laid it gently onto an exposed skull. Nuada did not need to second-guess himself. It was the skull of a unicorn, wedged into the spaces where two granite lodestones were split apart by the taproot.

Nuada felt his breath shaking as he approached. He felt so many things all at once and hardly knew where to begin sorting them out. His vision was hazy with both pain and sorrow, mourning for the Murdered Prince and for the Unicorn, hope for his people and their restoration, pride in the warriors and heroes that had come before him, and something like gentle affection for the girl who had brought him all this way in such a short time. He startled when Fénius reached out a cold hand to him and motioned for him to draw closer. When he did, the Murdered Prince reached out again and touched the wound at his side, appearing to gather some of Nuada's blood into his leathery palm. When he had done so, the Prince watched as the other poured it out onto the skull and gave a few last fleeting touches to the bridge of the nose and the curve of the empty sockets. With that, Fénius nodded and stepped away, shuffling quietly back out onto the precarious mosses of the moor without so much as a gesture of farewell.

Nuada watched him for a time. Surprised that he did not see the other Prince sink into the swamp again, but rather, he continued to walk towards the horizon, as though he were going off to meet the sunrise.

Nuada turned back to the rocks, roots, and skull. He wasn't sure precisely what would happen after this but he knew what it was he was supposed to do. The jagged splinters of horn still attached to the center of the skull were already animate; shifting and clicking together as they seemed to anxiously await the joining he would bring about. The Prince raised the alicorn, whose light shone all the brighter, nearly dazzling in its intensity, for where they were. The broken edges at its base had also come alive; its fibrous spirals at the bottom slowly beginning to unravel and taking on something of the appearance of roots themselves, reaching out towards the bone pate only inches away. With a sigh, Nuada stepped forward and brought the two halves together, releasing the alicorn as soon as it had grabbed ahold of its destination.

A brilliant flash followed and a sound like a rushing roar filled his ears. The rocks shook and tumbled. He slid backwards and dropped to his knees, the pounding in his head was more than he could take and the pain in his chest began to overwhelm him. His heart was pounding frantically. There was heat and light and a cacophony of sounds everywhere around him. The world felt as though it were burning away and somewhere in the distance, he heard a voice calling out to him. Someone was calling his Name.

Nuada was unsure how long he was unconscious but when he awoke, he was rather surprised to be staring upwards as a starry sky, looking up through the branches of a great oak tree in full summer leaf. Slowly, painfully, he sat up. Quick stock of the situation told him that, not only was he still alive, but he was still quite seriously injured; though it appeared that he had finally stopped bleeding. Moments later he also came to realize that he was sitting cradled in the roots of the tree, with a light litter of acorns piled around him. He picked one up and examined it briefly but he did not have to glance elsewhere to know that he was not alone. There was someone watching him.

With little preamble, Nuada looked up. Sitting at the base of the tree, on a pile of fallen rocks, staring down at him with a somewhat inappropriate expression of amusement, was a young woman he knew well. She was different though; with smooth, unblemished, pale-white skin and long, silken, white hair in gently curled tresses nearly to her waist. Where cracks and fissures had once scarred her, there was nothing now but a kind of lavender shadowing around her eyes, the tips of her fingers, and a star-like marking on her forehead. She was clad in a simple cotton tunic-dress, barefoot, with only a silver chain and an ugly metallic stone to adorn it. Her eyes were the same, though. Flecked with light and blue-grey as pure water. He could see her clearly, in what he now understood were the first sun-lit rays of dawn spreading out across the flowering meadow behind him. As the sun touched the mosses near his hand, tiny pink flowers began to appear and spread from the bower where he was seated, up along the roots and boulders, to tickle at her outstretched toes. He coughed sorely and smiled.

"Hello, Ailith."

"Hello, Nuada."