The White Horse Trick Read Online Free

first place?’
    ‘Tír na n’Óg?’ said the boy. ‘Is that where we are?’
    ‘It is,’ said Jenny. ‘So what are you doing here?’
    ‘We were sent,’ said the boy. ‘We’re running out of everything. If we don’t get new supplies soon, we’ll all be finished.’

7
    The general looked over his gathered army. It seemed to him that every day the men were more dispirited, but when he called them to attention, they made some kind of an effort at least, standing a bit straighter, pulling their heels together, shouldering weapons.
    He walked along the rows. The soldiers were in desperately bad shape. Many of them were ill: coughing or sneezing or running temperatures. Their uniforms were rotting on their backs, their boots letting in water, and there was only one waterproof jacket for every three men. None of it was their fault. It wasn’t his, either.
    ‘Present arms!’
    They did. The general retraced his steps, checking the rifles for cleanliness and safety. Some of them were worn out or broken, and others were useless because there was no ammunition left to fit them, but all the soldiers carried them anyway, because the people they aimed them at were unlikely to know which ones were working and which ones weren’t.
    When he had completed his inspection and arrivedback where he started, the general stood up on a concrete block and addressed the army.
    ‘A-Troop on terrace duty.’
    There was a moan so faint that it could barely be heard, and it certainly couldn’t be identified as coming from any one individual. The general ignored it.
    ‘C-Troop to Tubber for tax collection. D-Troop on castle guard. B-Troop to Carron under the command of Colonel Crowley, to bring back any remaining people from the settlement there. And I’m going to want four volunteers to accompany those people on a raiding party through the old fort when they get here.’
    There was a sudden and total silence. All the coughs and the running noses and itching heads and feet were suddenly forgotten, and not one soldier moved a muscle.
    ‘Come on,’ said the general. ‘Four volunteers.’
    The men were so quiet that everyone could clearly hear the rats on the rubbish tip, rummaging among the empty cans.
    ‘Right, then,’ he went on. ‘Since there are no volunteers I will pick the men.’
    He began to walk along the lines again. The youngest or the oldest? The fittest or the frailest? He had been bothered by the same problem the last time and the time before. He knew he hadn’t planned his campaign well. He ought to have sent the raiding parties through much closer together, instead of leaving so much time between them, before the men began to realize that the first lot might notbe coming back. So should he pick the most reliable men or the least reliable? The ones he liked best or the ones he liked least? It was going to be a hard decision, but there was no one who could make it except him.
    There was a whipping noise in the air above and he looked up. A massive raven flew low over their heads, quite clearly looking down at the men gathered there below it. The general held his breath. There were plenty of ravens up there in the mountains – they were one of the few species that were doing well out of the changing weather patterns. But there was something disturbingly different about this one.
    ‘Dismissed,’ he said to the army. ‘Get ready for your operations. We’ll sort out the volunteers later.’
    The men ambled off through the rain towards their quarters, but the general stayed where he was. The raven had circled and was coming in again, right over his head. It had a knowing look, and he was struck by a powerful sense of recognition that he couldn’t quite bring himself to accept. A raven was a raven, after all. Just a bird.
    Under normal circumstances it was, anyway.

8
    Aengus Óg was pondering over a sense of recognition as well. He had seen that tall old man somewhere before, but he couldn’t for the life of him