creature with his arms raised, Bran roared defiance. It did not matter. The beast rose up, eyes flaming and a snout filled with teeth leering over him.
“Finalleeee,” the bodach snarled venomously.
It reared up, its claws extended and glinting. It was happening all too quickly. Richard could do nothing but watch. The digesting dead in the opaque body were clear to the knight, stark in relief and reality.
Bran would become a part of it; Richard had failed.
Just as the claws fell, a blur of silver screamed in front of the creature’s face.
The bodach swatted with both forelegs at the apparition but could not connect. With a flurry of flashing wings and chittering screams, it kept between the creature and Bran, blinding it from its prey.
“Snedeker!” Deirdre cried in surprise.
Gossamer wings a blur, zipping around so quickly Richard could barely distinguish it, the fairy flung dust at the bodach. The silver grit landed on the creature’s face and the fiery eyes dimmed. The beast shook its head back and forth, trying to dislodge whatever had been thrown upon it, snarls of anger now replaced by snorting and hissing.
“Run, you doltish idiot, run!” the fairy shouted at Bran.
As Bran gained his feet, one massive ghost paw swatted the unaware fairy.
Snedeker disappeared into the night like an insignificant insect.
It was enough. As the bodach bunched to attack Bran, Connal was there, the clurichaun swinging his war hammer broadly, his face livid. He gave no ground. The head of the hammer passed through the bodach as if it were smoke, the creature laughing with dark glee. It ignored the ineffective attack. In one swift motion it lifted Connal from the trail. The hammer dropped from his fingers and he yelled out in pain as the shadowy beast squeezed.
The flaming eyes sparked—and then tore the clurichaun apart at the waist.
“No!” Kegan roared.
The halves of Connal flew apart in a crimson mist, the clurichaun dead before he hit the ground.
Inhuman laughter ricocheted off the cliff.
Ignoring his growing weakness, Richard drove Lyrian straight toward the bodach. Not expecting the attack, the Unseelie creature had nowhere to go. Blue flames lit the night as Richard brought Arondight down in a raging arc. The bodach tried to evade it but was too slow; the sword cleaved one of its legs. The howl of the beast deafened the air. As it shrunk into an inky mass, it retreated toward the only area it could—the cliff edge and the open air beyond.
With as much will as he could muster, Richard sent his power into its chest. Fire exploded, a torrent of magic. The bodach fought for a moment, still cradling its lost leg, before the flames sent it flying off the cliff into the black abyss below.
All went still.
Arondight dissolving, Richard nearly blacked out atop Lyrian; he managed to remain horsed, if barely. Silence fell over the Snowdon. Deirdre aided Lugh. The remaining warriors of the Long Hand helped her as well and looked after their dead.
Kegan cradled the remains of Connal, weeping audibly.
“What was that thing?” Bran breathed.
“Part shadow, a death machine given life,” Richard mustered, wiping his sweaty brow and gulping the mountain air. “It is a pure hunter, one of the Unseelie Court. Given a scent, it will never stop…never stop until its prey is dead.”
“Whose scent did it have?”
“Yours, of course,” Richard snapped.
“Why me? How?”
“It could have been anything.” Richard shook his head. “Your coat. Some scrap of torn clothing. There are few bodachs left, those who exist are imprisoned and only released as assassins. Someone wants you dead—badly.”
“Did you kill it?”
“No,” Richard said, dismounting and barely keeping his feet. “But it will be gone for a few days.”
“How can that be? It can’t be more than a few hours behind us.”
“It landed on the other side of the river,” Richard said, pointing over the edge toward the ravine. “Bodachs can’t tolerate water. It will have to find some kind of bridge or fallen tree to cross for it to begin its pursuit again. That should take several days, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless we are very unlucky.”
The knight turned to Kegan. The clurichaun sat with what remained of Connal in his arms, the tears cascading down into his beard. Richard didn’t know what to say.
Such grief had left him long ago.
“We will bury him here, my son. My son, my son,” he repeated in a whisper as he rocked back and forth.
With Snedeker returning, Willowyn, Lyrian, and the rest of the Rhedewyr surrounded Kegan and Connal. All of the horses