The Shadowmagic Trilogy

‘I don’t like this place,’ Fergal said.

I was just about to make some sarcastic quip to Fergal about the obviousness of his statement, but then I saw his face – this place was really stressing him out.

‘None of us does, Fergal,’ I said. ‘We’ll be out of here soon.’ I hoped that wasn’t a lie.

The path here was easier to follow and obviously well used. Fergal took the lead, anxious to have this stretch over with. He was a good three lengths ahead of us when he reached a stretch of the path that was black instead of brown. As soon as his horse’s foot touched it, the black surface seemed to lift off the ground. The path had been covered with flies. Fergal was instantly surrounded by a swarm of black insects. He flailed his arms and kicked his horse into a gallop, trying to outrun them.

We sped after him. It was a terrifying sight. Fergal tried to keep his mount in control while swatting uselessly at his own personal black cloud. It must have been maddening. The sound of incessant buzzing from those oversized bugs was loud from behind – where Fergal was it must have been deafening.

The road ahead forked – we needed to go right if we wanted to get to the border of the Fililands, but Fergal in his panic kept going straight. We followed, not daring to shout. Fergal’s breakneck speed was finally working – the swarm was diminishing. The flies couldn’t keep up. When his vision cleared, Fergal slowed to a halt. I was quite impressed by the fact that during the whole ordeal, he had never shouted out. It didn’t make any difference though – they had seen us.

Fergal and the rest of us were in plain view of a major camp of Banshees. A handful of them were standing around a small fire in front of about fifty tents. They were obviously surprised that the four of us would just gallop into view, but their confusion didn’t last long. One of them let loose a scream and, not unlike the flies, the camp suddenly came alive. Hundreds of black-haired Banshees poured out of their tents. All of them armed, many with bows.

‘I’m not an expert or anything,’ I said as calmly as I could, ‘but I think we should – get the hell out of here.’

‘Good plan,’ Fergal said, and we took off like four mice in a cathouse.

Luckily they were on foot, or we would have been dead meat. As it was, they covered a lot of ground for guys that had just gotten out of bed. We pulled ahead of them, but not as much as I would have liked – these guys were quick as well as handy with the old bows and arrows. I have never been shot at with a gun but I think I would prefer it to being the target of an archer. This was the third time this week someone had fired an arrow at me and I knew it was going to produce nightmares. At least with a gun you can’t see the bullet come at you – arrows you see all the way until they either hit you or miss. It only takes a second but it’s the most frightening second in your life. The other problem is that the relief you feel when one misses you is short-lived, because there are usually more arrows following. After seeing three shafts over my shoulder just narrowly miss me as I galloped at full speed, I turned my attention straight ahead and waited for one to plant itself in my back.

We got to the fork where Fergal had taken the wrong route, and went left. The Banshees were out of bow range and falling behind but we could see that they were not giving up. They let loose an ominous yell when we took the left fork.

Essa slowed down. ‘This path seems to be going in the right direction. If we can get into the Fililands, we can lose them in the forest.’

‘If?’ I said. ‘Can we get a bit more positive here?’

‘I can’t be sure that there is no blackthorn fence bordering the Reedlands,’ she said, ‘it’s just a guess.’

‘At the moment it’s very important that you are right.’

Our pursuers were out of sight but we could still hear them scream periodically. On either side of the path was a deep, foul-smelling swamp – there was no turning off this road. If the path ended in blackthorns – we were done for. I remembered the Banshees’ yell when we took this route and wondered if they knew something that we didn’t. We rode in silence, straining our eyes and trying not to let the others see how scared we were.

We rounded a hill and saw it. The path led straight into – a wall of blackthorns.

‘This is not a good thing,’ I said.

Araf and Essa sped ahead, Fergal and I followed.

‘You won’t be too bad with that snap spell protecting you,’ Fergal said.

‘It only works with relatives,’ I said, without thinking.

‘What?’

Me and my big mouth – ah, what the hell, we’d probably be dead soon anyway. ‘My mother told me that my protective spell only works with relatives. So, Fergal, I guess that means you and I are related somehow. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before but I wanted to talk to my parents about it.’

‘So you and I are blood relatives?’

‘I think so.’

‘Like cousins?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I never had a cousin,’ he said.

‘Me neither.’

‘I’d like it, Conor, if you really were my cousin,’ he said, flashing me one of his famous Fergal smiles.

‘Me too.’

The closer we got, the worse it looked. These thorns were more menacing that the ones bordering the Hazellands. Araf and Essa had dismounted by the time we caught up.

‘This is not a good thing,’ I repeated.

‘There are only two options,’ Araf said. ‘We try to make it through the swamp or we stand and fight.’

Fergal got down and went to the edge of the path. It was definitely not a pretty swamp. The water was black, and choked with unhealthy-looking white roots and reeds, pale imitations of real vegetation. Fergal took a rope out of his pack, tied it around his waist and handed the other end to me.

‘This is not a good thing,’ he said and smiled.

‘I’ll keep a good hold on this end – cousin.’

He didn’t hesitate, he just jumped right in. I thought it was the bravest thing I had ever seen. I had an instant vision of him disappearing under the black ooze and never being seen again, but the water only came up to his waist. The stench that wafted up from the disturbed water almost made me retch – how Fergal didn’t lose his lunch I will never know.

‘The footing on the bottom seems pretty solid,’ he shouted. ‘If you can stand the smell I think it might work.’

So my choice was: fight to almost certain death, or go in there. It smelt so bad I was still leaning towards stand and fight when my mind was made up for me. All of the vines and roots in the water were converging on Fergal.

‘Fergal, get out!’ I yelled.

I didn’t have to ask him twice, I think he could sense that something was wrong. He got to the bank before the vegetation took hold. The vines that had been creeping up on him seemed to realise that he was trying to escape. They wrapped around him with the speed of a striking snake. He was dragged back into the water with such force, I was almost pulled from my saddle. Araf and Essa ran to the edge of the swamp. Fergal went under. I wrapped the rope around the pommel of my saddle and told Acorn to pull. Sometimes Acorn could give me a hard time, but when the chips were down, I had no better friend. Acorn pulled and Fergal broke the surface with his Banshee blade in hand. He hacked and scrambled onto the road, spluttering, sore and stinky – but unharmed. I jumped off Acorn.

‘Are you alright?’

He nodded, trying to get back his breath.

‘I thought I lost you there,’ I said and hugged him. Boy, did he stink.

Araf and Essa started digging a shallow gutter. For a moment I wondered if it was our graves. They ripped buttons off their clothes and threw them into the trench.

‘Do either of you have any gold?’ Essa asked.

‘No,’ I said, ‘my mother gave me an amulet but I used it.’

‘I have some,’ Fergal said, getting to his feet.

He took off his shirt and removed the gold wire that held his Banshee blade in place and handed it to Essa. Her eyes lit up.

‘Perfect!’ she exclaimed, and kissed Fergal on the cheek. From the look on her face you could tell that she instantly regretted it. Other than not dying, getting Fergal into a bath was our top priority.

Essa and Araf stretched the gold wire along the trench along with the gold buttons. Essa dropped to one knee and incanted a spell that caused the gold to glow and then hum. She stood up, sighed and then she and Araf covered the gold over with earth.

‘This should take care of the arrows for a time,’ she said.

‘And then what?’ I said, and instantly regretted it. We weren’t going to make it through this. ‘There has to be a way through these blackthorns,’ I said, drawing my sword.

Araf was on me in a second. I am always amazed at how fast that Imp can move. He took the sword out of my hand. ‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘you would not last a heartbeat.’

‘Well, at least let me talk to them.’

‘Go ahead, but it will do no good.’

I’ve mentioned before, communicating with a tree is a wonderful experience – most trees, that is. A conversation with a blackthorn is like trying to talk your way past a junkyard dog. It’s just no good. The spikes bore down on me as I touched a branch.

‘You have to the count of ten before I run you through!’ The voice of the tree exploded in my head.

‘Ten!’

‘You have got to let us in!’ I pleaded.

‘Nine!’

‘I’ll buy you some plant food.’

‘Eight!’

‘We’re gonna die out here!’

‘Seven, six …’

‘I have to see Deirdre!’

‘Five, four …’

‘She’s my mother!’

For a second I could have sworn the countdown stopped – then …

‘Three, two …’

I backed off. I didn’t want to find out what happened after One. I have no doubt that that tree would have enjoyed perforating me.

I turned back to the others, expecting to see them busying themselves with some sort of plan, but they were just standing there.

‘The thorns won’t let us pass,’ I said. ‘What do we do now?’

After a long pause, Araf said, ‘Surrender.’

‘What!’

‘We wait behind the arrow shield. When the Banshees come in sight, we drop our weapons and put up our hands.’

‘They didn’t look like the prisoner-taking type,’ I said. ‘What if they attack?’

There was another pause. This time no one said anything.

We stood in a line. Our eyes fixed on the rising path before us. I have always hated waiting. Even if it was for something unpleasant like getting a tooth drilled, I prefer to do it and get it over with. That was not the way I felt now. I had a feeling that getting it over with would be the end of me. I wanted these moments to last forever – and they did. Our pursuers were not hurrying to catch us, they knew there was no place for us to go. I thought about my parents: a mother that I had only briefly known, and a father that I was only now truly starting to understand. If only I could see them again. I had so many questions to ask, so much to say.

I think Fergal must have seen my despair. He leaned into me and said, ‘If you get killed, can I have your shoes?’ And then he flashed me a Fergal smile.

Well, that was it. I tried to keep a straight face but I matched Fergal’s smile and then my shoulders shook and before we knew it, Fergal and I were bent over in hysterics. Araf kept his eyes straight but even he was laughing.

Essa was not amused. ‘Stop it. We have no time for this,’ she said.

‘This is exactly what we have time for,’ I said, while trying to get my composure back. ‘Laughing is as good a way as any to spend your last minutes. How would you prefer to spend yours?’

She looked at me. Our eyes locked and her pupils dilated. At that moment I read her mind and knew the answer to my question. I grabbed her by the shoulders and planted on her the kind of kiss you see in old black and white movies. As usual with women, my mind reading was all wrong. She pushed me back and swung. Not a slap, like in the movies, a left hook that decked me!

I looked up from the ground to see Essa standing over me with her banta stick high in her hand and her eyes raging. ‘We are not going to die!’

I looked past her and saw the Banshees crest the hill. ‘Tell them that.’

SIXTEEN

BIG HAIR

The Banshees approached slowly. They knew they had us cornered but I think they weren’t sure if we had any long-range weapons. The four of us stood shoulder to shoulder, watching their approach. The closer they got, the less I liked the look of them – it was a motley crew. I doubted any of them had ever signed the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war – as they got closer, I doubted any of them could sign their name. A wild-haired Banshee in the front raised his hand and they all grumbled to a stop. They were close enough now that they could see us clearly. Araf undid his sword belt and dropped it and his staff to the ground. He held his empty hands out in a peaceful gesture. We all did the same.

The Banshee with big hair seemed to be in charge. He saw our surrender and bowed to us formally. He then turned to his troops and barked something. A group of twenty archers jogged to the front and nocked arrows in their bows. Hair Guy turned to us, smiled, and yelled, ‘Fire!’

A wall of arrows came straight at us. I didn’t move a muscle. Partly because Essa said we would be safe behind the shield, but mostly because when a couple of dozen arrows are coming at you, there is no place to run.

The afternoon’s light highlighted the chief Banshee’s hair – it grew straight out of his head, like too much cotton candy. I remembered a pencil I owned when I was a kid. It had a troll doll with hair like that sitting on the top of it. If you rubbed the pencil in between your hands the troll would spin and its hair would shoot straight out. I wished I had a pencil big enough to impale him on. Under that mop of white-streaked black hair I could see the glee in the Banshee’s face. All of this and more went through my mind as the flock of arrows came at me. It felt like an eternity before the missiles hit the shield wall. Just two arm lengths in front of my face, the arrows burst into flames. For a second I thought I was going to be engulfed in fire, then the flames instantly dissipated. I shot a look at Essa who was breathing a sigh of relief. It made me think she wasn’t quite as confident in her wall as she said.

The joy of not being killed by arrows was short-lived. The Banshee archers put away their bows, drew their swords and casually came for us. There was no need to hurry. They had us. I felt like I was in a scene in a cheap movie and I was some helpless girl in a dark alley surrounded by a vicious gang (I always wondered what those girls were doing wandering in dodgy alleys so late at night), but there was no superhero in a leotard to save us, this was the real deal. These guys were coming to kill us.

I know it’s a cliché but my life flashed before my eyes and it annoyed me because it was so dull. The most exciting time of my life had been in the last week – before that, the biggest thrill I had ever had was in a bicycle accident in the sixth grade. I was actually more annoyed than scared. I was annoyed that I wouldn’t see my father again. I had a lifetime of my father making no sense and I was finally understanding him. Sally would never know what happened to me and I would never know whatever happened to her. Maybe she hadn’t even missed me. And I wanted to see my mother again. Finding a mom after all these years was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me – one more hug would have been nice.

Bad-Hair-Day Banshee stopped his troops about twenty-five feet away. He smiled at me and I smiled back.

Fergal leaned in to me and whispered through his teeth, ‘If I go, I’m taking him with me.’

‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ I replied.

Bad-Hair Banshee ordered his troops to split and come at us from the left and the right. At first I thought it was a tactical move, then I realised that they probably thought that our arrow wall would burn them as well. Well, I wasn’t going to tell them their mistake, it was better than a frontal attack – not much, but you take what comfort you can get in a situation like this. Araf and Essa squared off to meet the attack from the left, Fergal and I turned to face the right. I looked at Fergal and he was grinning from ear to ear, we both were. We were definitely related.

When Hair Guy pointed behind us, no one looked. We weren’t stupid enough to fall for that old trick. So I jumped when I heard, from the rear, my mother’s voice shouting my name. She may not have been there for me when I was a little kid but she sure was making up for lost time now. There she was, in all of her animal-skinned splendour, yew wand in her hand, standing next to a V-shaped gap in the blackthorn wall.

The Banshees were almost on us. I grabbed Fergal by the collar and called to the others. As soon as we jumped through, Deirdre raised her wand and invoked something to close the thorns behind us. Seven Banshees dived through the gap before it closed with a sickening scream on the eighth. Araf, as usual, was ready for action. He instantly knocked out the Banshee that went for Deirdre. I didn’t have time to thank him because one came for me.

If I close my eyes I can still see his face, I can still picture the stripes embroidered on his tunic and can still see the eyes – young eyes. I can remember everything about him – he was the first man I ever killed. I didn’t want to. As soon as the fight began, I knew I was a much better swordsman. After a couple of parries, I saw that he had almost no defensive skill. One counter-strike would have drawn blood, so I tried the Dahy manoeuvre in hopes of knocking him out with my elbow. He parried the feint just as he should have, but when I went in with the elbow I lost my footing and went down. My opponent was not as gracious as me – he came at me with a coup de grâce, and I had only one option. From the ground, I beat the point of his sword to the outside and planted my blade in his chest. I will always remember the shock on his face. I’m sure that when he woke up that morning this was not the way he imagined his day would end.

I stood up and saw the second one coming at me and did nothing. I was in such a daze about actually killing someone that I just stared with almost amusement as this screaming Banshee ran at me with an axe cocked over his head. I probably would have just watched him until he split my head open, but that didn’t happen. Like it was in a dream, I saw a shadow step in front of me and the flash of a blade. The next thing I knew, I was casually watching the Banshee run past me – minus its upper arms and a head. I turned to look at my saviour and said, ‘Thanks, Dad.’

One of Big Hair’s troops on the other side was stupid enough to take a swipe at the blackthorns with a sword. The air filled with flying thorns and screams. The Banshees backed off – fast. Araf, Essa, Fergal and I were miraculously unharmed. Four of the seven attackers that had followed us in were dead, three were unconscious. Deirdre used her wand again and the thorns opened enough for Araf to throw the dead and unconscious Banshees through.

I watched all of this as if in a trance. I was a bumbling idiot. It felt as if my mind had left my body and I was floating above it all, watching with an uncaring attachment. Basically my mind snapped – that’s it – no more thinking. I had been seconds away from my death and then I had caused the death of another. I reached inside and switched my head to the OFF position. I recalled a T-shirt I once saw that read, Don’t bother me, I can’t cope. That was me. I wished I was wearing it.

Mom and Dad seemed to understand, or maybe they were just patronising me. Either way, they spoke to me in calming tones and got me up onto Acorn. Acorn treated me nice too. He nuzzled up to me before I got on – maybe he wasn’t being nice, maybe he just wanted to check if I was the same guy. I sure didn’t feel like the same guy.

The Fili forest was dense and dark green. My parents rode on either side of me, stopping branches from swiping my face. I don’t know how long we travelled like this and I didn’t care. I was in La-la land – completely mindless. I have no memories of riding into the Fili village, all I remember was Mother taking me into a hut and putting me to bed. I slept and didn’t even dream.

I awoke the next morning with all of my wits intact. I guess that was a good thing but I couldn’t help remembering how nice not-thinking had been. That way I didn’t have to see the face of the Banshee I killed in my mind’s eye and I didn’t have to relive the sensation of my sword piercing his chest. I lay in bed wrestling with the memories. I had no choice, I said to myself. He was about to kill me. I didn’t want to do it. It wasn’t my fault. I had convinced my head that I had done no wrong, but my conscience would take time to heal and I knew it would always leave a scar.

Mom woke me up. She sat on the edge of my round bed in a round room and pushed the hair back across my forehead. It was like she had been doing it all of my life – I guess in both of our imaginations, she had. ‘Are you up for some breakfast?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m OK. Sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

She smiled and held out her hand. ‘Come.’

The reason I didn’t remember entering the Fili village is probably because I hadn’t seen it in the first place. The door of the cottage opened into what first appeared to be an empty wood. When the door closed behind me, I turned and couldn’t see a door. I couldn’t even find the cottage until I stopped and looked closely. The huts had been built in and among the trees. They were small and round with bark for outside walls. The trees had grown over them, providing roofs that almost made them invisible to a casual glance. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone walked straight through these woods without ever even noticing a hut, just a sensation that something was strange. As we walked I got the feeling that we were being watched, but saw no one.

Deirdre touched a tree and surprisingly a door opened in it. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ she said. ‘After a while you see everything and wonder how it fooled you in the first place.’

‘It’s not just camouflage, there is magic working here, too – isn’t there?’

‘Of course,’ she said.

Inside was a long table. Fergal, Araf, Essa, my father and a woman I didn’t recognise were already there, having breakfast.

Dad jumped up and put his arm on my shoulder. ‘How are you this morning?’

‘I’m fine.’

He looked me deep in the eyes, to see if I was telling the truth. I smiled at him. He laughed and gave me a hug.

‘What about you?’ I asked when he released me. ‘Last time we were together you had an arrow sticking out of your chest.’

‘Oh yes, I did, didn’t I?’ He waved his arms around. ‘I’m fine now. There is nothing like Fili nursing. The best medical magic in The Land.’

Araf coughed.

‘Except maybe Impwife magic,’ he said quickly, and winked at me.

‘What happened? Nieve was about ready to kill both of you.’

‘There is plenty of time for catching up,’ Mom said. ‘Sit down and have something to eat, and I want you to meet someone.’

My companions stared at me like I was a Martian. ‘I’m fine, guys,’ I said, ‘I just got a little freaked out yesterday.’

‘Conor,’ Mom said, ‘I would like to introduce you to Fand – queen of the Fili.’

I stood and bowed. ‘Your highness.’