Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,88
her voice barely a whisper. She’d seen something leave Muirin’s hand, and heard a faint pattering sound as something hit the icy unbroken crust of the snow, but she wasn’t sure what Muirin had thrown. She knew she didn’t have to whisper out here—no one from Oakhurst could hear them, and whatever else was out here was something they wanted to hear them, but in the utter silence she couldn’t help it.
“Shoeing nails,” Muirin said, and Spirit noticed that Muirin was whispering, too. “You know, like for shoeing horses? Soft iron, and the lore mentions horseshoe nails—specifically—a lot. There’s a whole big keg of them down in the stable. They won’t miss a few.”
Muirin stopped to scatter them again when they’d walked on for a few more minutes. “We’re going to feel pretty stupid if all that happens is we end up walking all the way to Radial,” she said.
She was about to keep walking when Spirit grabbed her arm. “Wait,” she said. “Listen. Do you hear it? Horns.” The sound was so faint she could barely hear it, even in the silence: a mellow sweet sound that reminded her of French horns. It was so beautiful that she took a step toward it, wanting to hear it better.
“There aren’t any roads out here,” Muirin said, suddenly sounding rattled.
“Not car horns,” Burke replied grimly. “Hunting horns.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Addie said nervously.
“Doesn’t matter,” Burke answered bleakly. “I do. And so does Spirit.”
Suddenly Spirit felt the first faint breath of wind touch her cheek. The horns sounded again—louder, closer—and abruptly she felt a wild stab of panic. They were doing this all wrong! They’d never stopped to think—if just meeting up with the Wild Hunt drove you insane, how were they supposed to destroy it?
“Only the Wild Hunt’s actual victims can hear the horns of the Hunt,” Loch said. He didn’t just sound nervous, Spirit realized with another pang of fear, he sounded terrified. “I never counted on one of us hearing—being—” He gulped. “Look. We might be in real trouble here. We’d better—”
“Listen!” Muirin cried, her voice cracking.
In the distance they could hear the sound of engines.
A lot of them.
We need to get back to the trees!” Loch cried frantically.
The current of air Spirit had felt earlier wasn’t just a faint breeze now. It was an actual wind, ice cold and skin-numbing, blowing straight from the north. She glanced at Burke. He looked grimly determined.
“No,” she said quickly, hating the way her voice shook. “If we turn and run, we’re doing just what they want. If we run, we’ll panic, and if we panic, we’ll forget what we have to do. We can’t give in to fear. We have to—” She broke off as a chorus of howls filled the night, momentarily drowning out the sound of engines. The howls seemed to echo inside her skull, half wolf-howls, half too-human screams of agony. “We have to see what they are,” she finished in a shaking whisper. But inside, it felt like everything was turning into cold water. They know about us. They’re coming for us.
Only Burke stood still. Loch was edging back the way they’d come and so was Muirin. Even Addie looked as if she was going to drop her Super Soaker at any moment.
If they broke and ran—
Every horror movie she’d ever seen told her what would happen. Separate and run and everyone dies. She dug deep inside herself and found one tiny crumb of courage. Maybe I’m going to die, but I won’t let them get the others!
“Come on!” Spirit shouted at the top of her lungs, turning to face the other three. “We came here to do this! We have to! Loch! The wards aren’t going to protect us! Not tonight!”
It was as if her shouting broke the spell of fear the approach of the Hunt had cast over them. Spirit saw Addie draw a deep breath and take a firmer grip on her squirt gun. Loch nodded. And suddenly Muirin screamed—a high wavering fingernails-on-a-blackboard sound—and pointed.
The Hunt was here.
Spirit turned back just in time to see them appear. “Appear” was the word for it: One moment there was nothing on the endless white moonlit snowfield, and the next moment there was a line of vehicles heading right for them. They left no tire tracks in the snow, and they were running without lights.
As the vehicles got closer, the five of them could see they—Jeeps, SUVs, a couple of pickup trucks—were all rusted, burned, and half-wrecked,