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Fire Arrow

Edith Pattou

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

What Has Gone Before...

Crann's Map

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

Copyright © 1998 by Edith Pattou

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address:

Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc. , 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

First Magic Carpet Books edition 1999

First published 1998

Magic Carpet Books is a trademark of Harcourt, Inc. , registered in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.

The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition as follows:

Pattou, Edith.

Fire arrow: the second song of Eirren/by Edith Pattou.

p. cm. —(Songs of Eirren)

"Magic Carpet Books. "

Summary: While on the trail of her father's murderers, the young archer from Hero's Song discovers her birthright—a magical arrow—and the sinister doings of an evil sorcerer.

[1. Fantasy. 2. Revenge—Fiction. ]

I. Title. II.

Series: Pattou, Edith. Songs of Eirren.

PZ7. P278325Fi 1998

[Fic]—dc21 97-40634

ISBN-13: 978-0152-05530-1 ISBN-10: 0-15-205530-4

Text set in Granjon

Designed by Kaelin Chappell

Map by Barry Age

E G H F D

Printed in the United States of America

For Vita

I am a wave of the deep.

— from The Song of Amergin

Irish poet, ca. 1270 B. C.

(translation by A. P. Graves)

What Has Gone Before...

On a small farmhold in the land of Eirren there lived a gardener named Collun. He dwelt quietly in the village of Inkberrow with his mother, father, and sister; and his prized possession was a trine with a lucky blue stone embedded in the handle. When his sister, Nessa, went to visit her aunt in the city of Temair, seat of the royal family, she mysteriously disappeared, and it fell to Collun to find and rescue her.

Forging his trine into a dagger, Collun set forth, accompanied on his journey by the aspiring bard Talisen; Brie, a female archer with a quest of her own; an Ellyl prince called Silien; and Crann, the wizard of the trees.

As Collun and his company made their way through Eirren, facing many perils, they learned that Medb, ruler of the evil kingdom of Scath, which lay to the north of Eirren, had kidnapped Nessa and was in pursuit of Collun as well. Medb believed the brother and sister to be in possession of a shard of a great stone of power called the Cailceadon Lir.

Back in the days of the hero-king Amergin, there was an evil sorcerer named Cruachan, who by trickery and murder acquired the Cailceadon Lir. With the stone he created a host of malformed, deadly creatures that laid waste to Eirren; among these creatures was the loathsome Firewurme, Naid, which ultimately turned, on and destroyed Cruachan himself.