Free No Dominion (The Walker Papers: A Garrison Report) by CE Murphy Page B

What’s happening to me?”
    He clenched and loosened his jaw, but it’s hard to pick a fight with a guy who’s apologizing. Which was what I was doing, even if not in quite so many words. Most humans didn’t like sayin’ I’m sorry very much, and I didn’t figure it got any easier if you were a god. Didn’t hurt my ego any to back down, and besides, I was on his territory. I guessed Cernunnos figured all that out too, ‘cause after a few more seconds of being cranky he flared his nostrils and muttered, “Two things, old ma—”
    “All right, now look, Horns. You don’t call Jo “little shaman” anymore, so how ‘bout you stop callin’ me old man? I’m a spring chicken compared to you. Call me Gary. Or Muldoon. Somethin’. Just not “Old man.””
    A buncha the riders looked the other way. Or in a lotta other ways, which made me think they were tryin’ not ta look at each other for fear of laughin’. Probably weren’t used to people saying “No” to their boss, but hell, I didn’t have much to lose, and there was nothing like being told you were old to make you feel that way.
    Cernunnos said, “I shall endeavor to find something suitable to call you,” through clenched, pointed teeth. I gave him a nice big smile with my own pearlies on display, and asked once more for good measure: “So what’s goin’ on?”
    “First,” he said, still through clenched teeth, “we are getting you a horse. The boy is right: in the battle that I see coming, being double-mounted would be a killing disadvantage.”
    “All right. And second?”
    “You can ride, can you not?” Cernunnos asked. “Unassisted?”
    “Been through a rodeo or two.”
    His expression went blank. I said, “Forget it. Point is, yeah, I can stay on a horse. What’s the second thing?”
    “You are not yourself an adept. A magic user, one of the connected. Therefore the Hunt cannot long abide you unless you belong to my home, to Tir na nOg. In this moment, with the Sight visited upon you, with the spirit creature living within you, you may be bound to the land because it knows she who gave you those gifts by a gift she will give it in the future. You may belong, a denizen of Tir na nOg, and as such ride with the Hunt. Welcome,” he said more softly. “You are of my people now.”
    A sharp twist pulled at my heart. “You mean I ain’t human anymore?”
    Quick as that, the gentleness fled. He snapped, “All the riders are human. All but myself and the boy, and he is half of one. Do not forget that.”
    “All right. All right.” I raised one hand to accept it, and the boy twisted to look at me with an expression that said “Are we done now?”
    I nodded. He urged the mare through the low surf up onto the damp sand. The Hunt followed, even Cernunnos, all of ‘em spreading out along the shore and half-disappearing into the mist. At the back of my heart I knew the land, an’ I said, “There’s no stables around here,” aloud.
    “No, nor anywhere in this place. On your feet, Master Muldoon. Walk into the forest. You will not lose yourself there, but you may find a steed.”
    Feeling a lot like Jo, I muttered, “Steed. Who says things like that?” But I dismounted, gave the mare a pat on her nose, and let my feet do the walkin’ up a quiet beach into a voiceless forest.
    Forests sang, back home. They twittered and chirped and whistled, an’ they buzzed and whispered and cracked. Here all I heard was the sound of my own feet pressing against moss that sprang back again as soon as my weight left it, and my own breath sighing in and out of my chest. Cernunnos’s country was empty, lifeless, an’ felt like it’d been that way a long time. I said, “C’mon, sweetheart,” to the space between trees. “You out there waiting for me to ask nicely? I’m askin’. How ‘bout you and me go for a ride with Horns, and kick a bad guy in the teeth?”
    A nicker that coulda been a laugh bounced through grey-greenery, light enough I