Chapter Fourteen

'A god? An actual deity?' Harry asked.

'Well no,' Tom admitted, 'not really, but you must admit it sounded good.'

They were leaning against the barricades now. In the shocked silence which had followed Tom's pronouncement Heather had dragged them back, down through the town to the market place where the defenders were gathering behind thick defences. The old and the young were packed and huddled in the centre around a smouldering bonfire. Someone had set up an emergency hospital in one of the houses around the square. The townsfolk were quiet, speaking in whispers when they spoke at all. The few fae who had reached the centre had been driven back with few losses, but occasionally there were cries from somewhere out in the streets beyond as the horde swept the town clear.

'Then why did you say it?'

'I required your attention. Anyway, for the purposes of killing him he might as well be,' Tom said. 'Who is the woman with you?'

Malvine stood on top of the barricade, sword planted into the wood between her bare feet. Her rich-blue flapped around her, almost like a pair of wings. The other defenders seemed to go out of their way to avoid approaching her, all save One-Eye who sat next to her on the wall of tables, chairs and brik-a-brak.

'A friend I picked up along the way,' Harry said. 'Who is this "god" then?'

'The reason we parted ways. He captured me. I gained his trust, and I meant to lead him into a battle, observe him and kill him, but then you arrived.'

'Tom, you disappeared ages ago. You couldn't just have poisoned him?' Harry asked.

Tom shifted irritability. 'I wished to ensure that when I struck he would die. He had hidden his life away.'

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose trying to stem the oncoming headache. 'Naturally. A horcrux of some kind? Can't you ever do anything simply? I assume you started this mess to see him fight then?'

'I may have had a hand in it. I really do not understand why you're so worked up about this,' Tom grossed. 'If you aren't going to help then I ought to get back out there. I want at least a small demonstration of his powers.' He stood, stretching.

'They are coming,' Malvine called from above them.

Harry waved his wand and the wood of the barricade shifted, forming a stair for him. He dashed to the makeshift parapet, Tom strolled after him.

Down the main street they came. At their head came Hyrne, veiled in glamours as a tall man of aristocratic bearing, dressed in a neat grey suit, his cane clacked on the cobbles. Those who came beside him wore no glamours. Some were almost human, but Harry's eyes watered when he looked at others.

Hyrne stopped, raising his hand. The fae host halted. Hyrne stopped and regarded the barricade and its defenders coolly. 'Surrender and I will give you a quick death.'

'Does that ever work?' Harry wondered aloud.

Tom stepped up onto the rampart and looked over. Hyrne started at the sight of him, trembling as if struck. The blood drained from the fairy's face leaving him as pale as the snow on the street around him.

'Wait. Give me that man and I will spare your young,' Hyrne said, pointing his cane to Tom. The cane shook in his hand and he took half a step forwards.

Tom stepped in as the others hesitated. 'I beg your pardon, but they refuse to release me. I fear they will kill me,' he apologised.

Harry kicked Tom's shin, earning him an aggrieved look, before turning back to Hyrne. 'Not quite …'

Hyrne's lips curled in a snarl, 'I swear, Tom, if they slay you I will make you a shroud from their children's' pelts. I will leave them bound to this place so that their screams will echo hear for a thousand years hence! I will make them eat their own living flesh. They will know nothing but suffering …'

'Sorry, I really have to interrupt,' Harry interrupted. 'That could all happen, but we only refuse to release him if you do not withdraw from the town immediately. We will meet with you for talks tomorrow.'

Hyrne turned his gaze on Harry, 'I will remember you. Very well. Noon tomorrow, before the town. Tom, hold firm, I shall bring you home.'

Tom nodded, watching as Hyrne spun on his heel and strode through the horde. The fae bared their teeth at the defenders and licked their lips with long red tongues, before creeping after their lord. The dead twisted on the ground before lurching to their feet, shambling after the rest of the host. Soon the snow would cover the last signs of the battle.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. 'Right, you need to tell me exactly how valuable you are to him,' he said to Tom before turning to one of the townsmen who had been watching the exchange, 'You, go and fetch whoever's in charge.'

'Who put you in charge?' The man asked.

Harry glanced at him, 'Silencio.' The man opened his mouth, but whatever he had intended to say, no sound came out. The man's eyes went wide, a dark patch spread over his breeches. 'Yes,' Harry said, 'yes, I'm a sorcerer. A wizard. One of the bloody wise. Now go and get whoever is in charge. Argue again and I may forget how to break the charm were I to use it again. Nod if you understand.'

The man jerked his head. 'Good,' Harry waved a hand. 'It will break when you're out of my sight. Quickly now.'

Tom regarded Harry. 'You do not seem yourself. Are you quite well?'

Harry nodded brusquely, 'Yes, but I have no time to suffer fools. Tom, this is serious. I met Death, and forgive me if I'm being paranoid, but I can't help but think something significant is going to happen here.'

Tom paled, turning away so that Harry could not see his face. 'Death? That sounds rather unlikely, I assume you mean you nearly died.'

'No. I met the anthropomorphic personification of Death, you know, the Grim Reaper.'

'That still sounds like sarcasm.'

'Just trust me on this, please. I somehow ended up with the bloody Resurrection Stone!' Harry said, pulling the black pebble out of his pocket, holding it on the palm of his hand. It bore a triangle surrounding a circle, divided by a vertical line. Tom flinched as he noted the mirroring scars on Harry's hand.

'A maudlin piece of junk, if it ever existed,' Tom said, but he drew back despite himself. 'So, you have a stone with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. Why do you think it is even the real thing? I trust you haven't used it. It seems almost designed to ensnare you, of all people.'

Harry shook his head. 'I know the legend, I'm not stupid.' He looked up as a small group came towards him, led by Heather and the man had sent off to find his superiors. 'Stay here. Keep out of trouble. I'll be back soon. Malvine, do you want to come?'

She nodded, leaping down from the top of the barricade to join him. They walked away, joining the group. Tom stood staring after them for a little while before he looked down at the wand in his hand. Cut into the grip, almost worn away by many hands lay a familiar sign: a triangle surrounding a perfect circle, divided by a thin line. He shivered and slipped the wand inside his robes before levitating over the barricade and strolling down the street to watch the townsfolk as they tried to shore up the gate and repair the defences.

'We have thirty-six wounded amongst the Brotherhood; one-hundred and two of the townsfolk are wounded; around a hundred and eighty of the Brotherhood are missing, presumed dead; we have no idea how many of our own people are dead or taken; I would not be surprised if it were close to a thousand. Our stores of food are uncertain. I have sent parties to recover anything they can, but some may already have been tainted by the enemy,' the head of the council, a woman with long, braided white hair, said.

'We had better store anything from an unlocked house separately,' Heather said, 'the last thing we need is outbreak of madness, or the dancing sickness.'

'It isn't going to matter to last long enough to matter,' Harry pointed out. 'They have no reason to besiege us. If they had they would not have continued to assault your town unless they had no care for their losses. They must have lost four times your number, but they showed no sign of breaking. They've retreated for now, but they have taken the dead with them, and you can bet that they'll be in the front line of any new attack.'

'Then we must flee,' one of the council members said. 'At least we must send the children and elderly across the river, they could take the boats.'

'In this weather?' Malvine asked. 'Your kind would freeze to death, starve or worse. Better to let them die with honour. Give them the weapons of the fallen and let them stand upon the walls.'

'You must be mad,' a councilman said, looking at her aghast. Malvine almost caught his eye before Harry caught her hand, breaking her concentration.

'Please,' Harry said, Malvine ground her teeth and relented turning her gaze away from the man. 'She's right,' Harry continued, 'they would die if you did that.'

'We could try to bargain with them, a tribute of some kind,' a council member suggested.

Heather's dagger slammed into the table around which they sat. 'No. No more bargains. I was sold to their lord by my father when I was small. I had seen them persuade my mother that she wanted nothing more than to eat stones, she chewed them till her teeth cracked and her mouth bled, she chewed them till my father chocked her to death. He sold me to them to save the rest of my family. When I escaped, many, many years later, I could think of nothing else but killing my own kin. Only the fact that they'd died of the plague a week after I was taken stopped me.

'If you sell them your children to save your own hides you will only have bought yourselves a fate worse than death.' She stopped breathing hard. Small white dots rose on her flushed cheeks. The council watched her in silence, eyes flicking towards one another nervously.

'So, what do you suggest, Mother?' Argenta, who sat at one end of the room, said.

'Fight them. Kill them. We gather every town, village and city of men and we purge them from the earth. If we die at least we'll take some of them with us,' Heather said, plucking her dagger from the table. With a wave of her hand the gouge in the wood sealed over itself.

'We can't fight them …'

'And we shouldn't aim to commit genocide,' Harry added, folding his arms.

'I meant to say that we can't fight them fairly,' one of the councillors said. 'There aren't enough of us. We can't take to the field.'

'Then we cheat,' Harry said, 'but only here, only now. This doesn't spread, this ends when this town is safe.'

'When will we be safe, Traveller, or should I call you Harry?' Heather asked. 'How can we be safe until they're all dead?'

'If that were the only solution then you might as well kill every human too. We all have the potential to kill, even if we choose not to. A great man once said that we had the choice between what is right and what is easy, let's not decide that killing is right.'

'Look, isn't all of this a bit beside the point?' the elderly councilwoman asked. 'What do they even want? Why are they here?'

Heather shifted uneasily. 'I made a bargain with a temporary ally. A lady of … of old fame, to draw this lord out. He came to kill us all. I had to force the issue.'

'Why?' Argenta asked. 'What did you bargain?'

'She walked in my skin for a day and felt age and weariness,' Heather muttered. 'As for why, I think we've already covered that.'

'But why here?'

'There was a prophecy. He can only be slain under particular circumstances. I could most easily arrange for those conditions to be possible here.'

For a moment it looked as if one of the town council wanted to strike Heather, and Harry wondered whether he would do anything to stop them. The question was moot though as the others calmed them and silence settled over the table.

'Well then, I suppose we must wait to see what this fairy lord,' Harry said, pausing as the others flinched, 'wants. Who will go with me to meet him tomorrow?'

'Who are you, any of you three to speak for us?' A woman asked.

Harry cast a weary gaze at her, but Malvine answered for him. 'We are folk with the strength and power you need,' Malvine said. 'You need us.' The woman tried to rise, blood rushing to her face, but Malvine leaned forwards and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, pushing her back into her seat. 'Do not bother to stand.'

Slipper groaned as someone shifted the rubble. She blinked in the torchlight. A hand reached down and felt for a pulse. 'This one's alive!'

They dragged her out of the rubble slowly, prying her hands away from the Boy. He had been taller than her and the falling rubble had struck him first, but his misfortune had saved her. She sat looking at him once they had realised they could not take her away from him. She had not even known his true name to say farewell to him. She pressed her hands against his chest, unable to draw herself away.

Eventually they came back for him, they were burning the dead. They said, though she could scarcely believe it, that the dead had risen and joined the fae host. They wondered out loud, as they took him from her, if they Boy had been spared because he had been buried. Slipper knew the truth, when the dead had passed he had still been alive. If they had only been faster, he might have lived. If she had only been able to move, to unearth them. It was too much.

She looked around after they had taken him from her, gradually recognising the cold as it bit into her knees. She heaved herself to her feet and staggered as her blood pressure changed. Then she saw him. Standing by the gate in a neat black robe stood the man who had broken the gate and killed the Boy. She stood, staring, unable to believe her eyes. She rubbed them, but he was still there. She drew the flick-knife from a pocket and opened it. How far was it? Six, seven steps perhaps. She tip-toed, not daring to breath. Three steps and she could strike. He shifted, her heart almost stopped in her chest. Then she was there and in one smooth motion she stepped up onto her tip-toes and drove the knife into his neck, dragging it across his jugular and wind-pipe. He stood still for a moment, almost absentmindedly raised a hand to his throat as the blood burst outwards, choked and collapsed.

Voldemort awoke. His eyes flashed open. His throat was raw. The taste of blood was thick in his mouth and his cheek lay against the snow. He pushed himself up to his knees and looked around. He did not think much time had passed, but he suspected it could not have been long. He rubbed his throat. The skin was soft and tender, although his fingers came away sticky, with a little dried blood upon them he was whole. He tried to speak, but his throat rasped, blood clogged his mouth, clinging to his tongue. He checked himself for any other stab wounds and carefully patted the thin leather wallet with the steel envelope he had made for the playing card. It was there still there, tucked safely away. He began to smile, grimaced as the motion pulled on his throat muscles and smiled anyway.

Who had stabbed him, he wondered? He turned around looking for traces in the snow. There was nothing. Footprints criss-crossed one another. There was no way to pick out anything in the slush and mud. He shrugged to himself, there would come a sign, he would have revenge. He waved his hand and the ice and mud fell away from his robe, before it dried out. He must have looked terrible, he realised as a townsman, carrying wood and a hammer towards the gate stumbled backwards as the torchlight lit Voldemort's face. Voldemort's smile broadened.

The clouds hung low over the fields, almost touching the tops of the trees when Harry walked out of the broken gates. Midday was as dull as dusk and the ground was a torn mass of brown mud and hardened snow. Heather, Malvine, Argenta, and two others from the counsel walked beside him, although the town counsellors were in the lead. They trudged across the broken earth to the ragged black canopy which had been hung between the burnt husks of the rowan trees.

The fairy, Hyrne as Tom had called him to Harry, sat waiting on a tall black throne. He was dressed in a neat old-fashioned suit, to Harry's eyes, though he thought that by the standards of the others it must have seemed strange. There was something feline about the fairy's delicate features and cold black eyes. A group of courtiers surrounded him, for a moment Harry thought they wore masks, some with porcelain-esque skin, decorated with golden filigree, others with curved bird-like features, but a second glance suggested that they were no masks. There was another, standing a little way from the others, a guard, Harry assumed. He carried a vast sword of black metal and was robed in red velvet. Their head was bowed though, and Harry could not get a closer look.

'Welcome,' Hyrne said, waving a hand towards the cushions which lay scattered over the ground, 'sit.'

'Thank you,' the head of the envoys said, casting around before taking a seat on a cushion. Malvine stepped to one side, refusing to sit.

'Allow me,' Harry said as Argenta eyed the cushions, shifting her walking stick around. He waved a hand and broken parts of the rowans arose around them and shifted together into a throne of sorts. A second wave and it smoothed itself and straightened. Hyrne's eyes flicked towards Harry, but he said nothing.

'Thank you,' Argenta said to Harry, who positioned himself at her left hand, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. Heather glanced at him, nostrils flaring for a moment before she mirrored him, standing by her daughter's shoulder.

The other counsellor hesitated for a moment and then copied his fellow, sitting by Argenta's feet.

'So, your lordship,' Argenta said, 'what will it take for you to leave?'

'I will not leave. You will give me my friend and surrender to my will.'

'We cannot do that,' Argenta said, placing both her hands upon the head of her gnarled white stick. 'We will return your friend if you swear to leave us in peace forever.'

'It is not enough. I will not back down.'

'Then we are at an impasse,' she said and moved as if to leave.

'But …' one of the counsellors started, only to fall silent at a look from Argenta.

Hyrne held up a hand to halt her, 'Wait. Think on this, if we wait you will starve, my forces surround this burgh, settlement, town, whatever you wish to call it. My fingers are already upon your throat.'

'If we starve your friend will starve with us.'

'If he dies I will put you all to a death beyond suffering,' Hyrne said. 'You dare not kill him for fear of my wrath.'

'Tell me, your kind are known for your power games. How will your brethren take it when they hear you were forced to a stalemate by one human town?' Argenta asked sweetly, settling back down.

Hyrne's face hardened. 'Then you would leave me only the option of sacrificing my friend and putting you to the sword? Imagine how much worse it might be for me, if I were to allow you to win? You have argued for your own extinction.'

Argenta's shoulders slumped, but she rallied. 'Well then, you require some form of surrender then? A ceremony, with oaths that we shall not be harmed, could be arranged.'

Heather shifted, her hand closing on the hilt of her dagger. The courtiers froze and slowly turned their motionless faces towards her. Long thin hands slid out of the robes' sleeves. A breathless silence fell. Then Heather's hand left the dagger. Hyrne smiled.

'I think not, it would be too obvious. How about we even the odds? You will not accept a unilateral surrender, but you cannot win. I cannot accept anything less than complete victory, but I cannot win without losing my friend. Therefore, I suggest we give you an opportunity to win, and give me a chance for a true triumph,' Hyrne said, gesturing grandly and around him the air shimmered.

'What do you suggest?' Argenta asked.

'A duel. A single champion from each army shall meet on the morrow.'

'To the death?'

'Naturally.'

'Who would your champion be?'

'Why, I would represent myself.'

'Would you give us a few minutes to confer?'

'By all means. Consider though, you will have no better chance to survive.'

Argenta nodded and stood, leading the group a little way from the pavilion. Harry made a few passes, guarding against eavesdropping, and turned his attention to the elderly lady.

'So, this is, I think, our best chance,' Argenta said, 'but who should our champion be?'

'I will do it,' Heather said. Her face was grim and her hand was once more on the hilt of her dirk.

'Mother, you are too rash. You would do anything to kill him. Anyone could see that. He would have no trouble taking advantage of your rage,' Argenta said. 'We cannot risk the fate of thousands upon your temper.'

'I would …'

Argenta turned on her mother, glowering, 'Mother, you brought this down on us. I do not trust you.' She turned to Malvine, 'Lady, there is a power about you. Would you take this upon yourself for us? We could offer you all the wealth of the town.'

'I may not,' Malvine said. 'My people are bound by ancient oaths not to shed the blood of the lords of the Hills, unless they strike against one of ours. He has broken no such oath, and unless he were to I cannot act.'

'Argenta,' Harry murmured, 'you read my fortune once. You said I could choose to make a stand. I think this was meant to be my fight.'

'Are you certain? Your lady companion has strength such as I have never seen before, but no-one has slain a lord of the Sidhe in living memory,' Argenta said.

'I have seen his power, Daughter,' Heather said, 'and his spirit has only blossomed since then. He may be our best chance, if you will not allow me to fight and the lady will not.'

'If I remember the runes correctly, then if I don't make a stand now this will become everyone's fight. Best to walk out to meet your fate, rather than being dragged to face it. I am your best hope.'

She nodded, exhausted. 'You're a good man.'

'I will set to work on weapons and armour for you,' Heather said. 'Let's get this sorted.'

Harry turned back towards the fairies and dropped the privacy charms. 'I accept your challenge,' he said.