The Black North by Nigel McDowell Page B

here!’
    Did he sound, Oona thought, like he was enjoying it all?
    â€˜Faster!’ shouted Billy O’Riley. ‘Quicker now! We’ll not let them get the better of us!’
    But no matter what commands the Lough-Master tossed, Oona knew it was only chaos ruling Innislone. Just someone hadn’t told Billy O’Riley. So she ran back to the Lough-Master and told him, ‘You need to stop this. It won’t work. There’s no way to stop the fire. We’ve seen it from farther off, so believe me!’
    O’Riley heard, but hardly half-turned to smirk a little and say, ‘Is that right? And you’ve some better ideas mebbe?’
    â€˜Your men aren’t good with guns,’ said Oona, remembering Bridget’s words.
    â€˜And you are?’ said O’Riley.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Oona. ‘I am.’
    â€˜Look,’ said the Lough-Master, ‘I’ve no time to babysit, and if that creature there on your shoulder can’t be helping then I’ve no more to say to the either of you!’
    And Billy moved to leave.
    Oona needed him to listen, and she had only one way, so she told him: ‘Bridget was taken by the Invaders and we’re going to try to rescue her.’
    It did the job – the Lough-Master stopped.
    â€˜Bridget was my best friend,’ said Oona, all concentration on Billy. ‘I tried to help her and would’ve done anything I could but I couldn’t do a thing. There was no saving her. But now I’m trying. I’m trying to find my brother and Brid too if I can, and we’ll need your help to get us on our way to the Divide.’
    Billy O’Riley said nothing, did nothing: just stood in his unshiftable way, breathing shallow. His hands for the first time were loose at his sides, shoulders hunched.
    â€˜I thought,’ said Billy O’Riley, and from a man so large issued a voice suddenly small. ‘I thought, when I saw you running on down into the hollow there, in the shadow of that thing – I thought mebbe it was herself come down to fight, mebbe Bridget. Would’ve been just like her, doing something so stupid.’
    â€˜It would’ve indeed,’ said Oona. ‘But I can be just as stupid.’
    â€˜You can say that again,’ Merrigutt said.
    Then another explosion and everything cowered. A curtain of flame was drawn, crossing the wall that surrounded Innislone. And Oona saw in Billy’s eyes the same knowledge she had: it wouldn’t be stopped, there was no way to save the town.
    Billy looked to Oona. His head fell forwards, his mouth grappling with something unpleasant. Then he said, at last: ‘All abandon. There’s nothing we can do now.’ He said to Oona, ‘Come with me, quick. There’s only one way to escape from all this now.’

27
    Oona ran with Merrigutt flying beside and Billy O’Riley a bit ahead. Oona didn’t spot a single house untouched by fire. Everything was folding, boards beneath her feet groaning, opening to drop buildings into the lough. Figures were faint in their flitting between places, shrouded by smoke.
    Billy O’Riley shouted back to Oona, ‘Close! Stay close now!’
    â€˜Look out!’ called Merrigutt. ‘Follow the way I fly, my girl!’
    The jackdaw made a swift turn left and Oona followed, only avoiding falling flame by a few steps as a fireball dropped, exploding, spreading itself.
    â€˜Almost there now!’ the Lough-Master told her.
    They arrived at a row of buildings on the edge of town: flat-roofed, small, more like sheds than anything, but with people and more people all piling in.
    â€˜Here now,’ said Billy, and he opened the door of one for Oona.
    Inside, a small window on the far wall showed the lough – it looked alight. But Oona was more struck by smell than seeing and pinched her nose shut. She stood in a storeroom filled with fish: packed into crates, pale bodies stranded among