by Lexi Ander
“Aye. Your guardian alluded to such even as he told me his lies.” Master Yingjie had sipped his tea, his gaze steadfast upon Ewen’s.
If Granda had lied to Master Yingjie, then he came not here for help, Ewen had concluded. Aright or wrong, Ewen had confided in Master Yingjie the legend of the bearwyr curse, voicing his suspicion that the curse altering was the reason behind his people being lost to the forest afore their time.
Once he had finished relaying the tale, Ewen found it hard to stay still under Master Yingjie’s hard gaze. The male had only grunted and poured more tea. Servants brought a light repast of sweetbreads, and Ewen had harnessed his patience, knowing the more he questioned Master Yingjie, the longer he would be made to await an answer.
A slight smile had ghosted across Master Yingjie’s lips. “For a child of the western heathens, you have learned well. A pity I cannot take you into my clan as an apprentice.” He paused, and somehow Ewen had heard an implied ‘yet’. “What you have told me, I suspected as much when your guardian explained what he wished for me to accomplish.” His dark eyes dropped to Ewen’s chest where the knot he had created lay. “I suspect many more things now, and you be only the beginning.”
Ewen had dropped his eyes, scared. He had wanted to ignore what Master Yingjie implied, but afeard he was correct.
“You know there be a price to what you seek.”
Ewen had nodded. “I suspect it will be high, yet know not if I have the means. I could trade a favour…” The offer had felt inadequate, but there had been little else of his own Ewen could offer.
Waiting for a reply, Ewen had sipped his tea so he would not chatter needlessly. Master Yingjie would choose either to accept or decline Ewen’s offer. He had needed only wait.
“Eight be a lucky number, Prince Ewen. When your guardian brought you to me, his pretence be false. He believed that because I come from a foreign land and spoke French poorly that I be a person of rude or modest background.” Ewen had stared, astonished at the insults Granda had given. Master Yingjie had spoken French perfectly, fluently. “He once dared called me a lowborn, yet he needed the magicks I could perform. He paid well, and I listened with care. At his behest, I placed the marking upon you all the while he played his game. Your guardian accounted not for you, did he?” Master Yingie had asked.
“Forgive me, Master Yingjie. I do not understand,” Ewen had replied.
“It be for you to learn this game he plays, young prince. Afore you came to me this day, I had seven reasons to help you, but eight be a most fortunate number. You sought me out, thinking for yourself, asking the correct questions instead of being led like a docile farm animal. I like you well enough, despite your savage upbringing. A lucky number has been achieved. I shall help you, Prince Ewen, and a favour you shall owe me at a time of my choosing. Keep in mind, though, that what I can do for you shall not be what you expect, for I cannot break the curse a goddess set upon your people. Only you have the ability to do such a thing, and it is for you alone to puzzle out the way.”
For the next two months, Ewen had met with Master Yingjie as he devised the visage of a beast upon Ewen’s shoulder and arm. Some would call it a dragon, the Norsemen would name it wyrm, but Master Yingjie said the fiercesome creature was a loong. When he had finished, he told Ewen one day someone might look upon the loong and see it for what it was. That person would be destined to assist Ewen with his people’s curse. At the time, Ewen had believed him wholeheartedly.
Soon after, Ewen’s father had summoned him home. When he went to tell Master Yingjie, Ewen had found his home a barren shell. Master Yingjie had gone as if he had never been there. Granda had come to collect Ewen and, once home, the grief of losing his father without a farewell, followed by his courtship of Caitriona and donning his da’s mantle of kingship, had taken precedent. For a time, Ewen had forgotten Master Yingjie and his words.
Until now.
Until Roi had noticed the loong and asked his probing questions.
Knowing he had utterly disappointed Master Yingjie left Ewen disconcerted. Disappointing Granda had never left him feel this chagrined. What did it say about his granda that a man Ewen had known but a few years held more sway over him? He cursed himself for a coward; how could he not when he had never pushed his questions and doubts to the fore? Master Yingjie had known more to the story existed, had hinted to Ewen, even. Now Roi did the same with his tentative queries.
Ewen rubbed his palm over the knot upon his chest, feeling only skin and hair. Enchanted, Roi had said, though Ewen could not discern the magick. It reacted only to Roi’s touch, none else’s. He wondered sleepily what that meant.
Dozing fitfully, he came half-awake when Roi climbed under the furs next to him, wrapping around him. Warm lips pressed to the base of his skull, grazing the hairline.
“Shhh, I be here now,” Roi whispered.
With those words, Ewen settled and finally fell into a deep sleep. In the morn, they would head back to the cottage where he planned to woo Roi to his bed many times over.
XIX
THE LIGHT FROM the sconces upon the stone walls flickered, lighting the eventide in the great hall. At Donn’s barked commands, servants in bedclothes and hastily donned robes rushed about stoking dying fires, whilst others moved the long tables from the wall to the centre of the cavernous room.
Donn had woken to sounds of calamitous confusion, kinsmen running to and fro yet not going anywhere, yelling nonsense about phantoms. The cloying scent of magick had hung in the air, filling his mouth and nose with its noxious reek. Only the handful of human mates had been oddly clearheaded, unaffected by the spell of confusion released into the keep and courtyard. Precious time was wasted gathering the sane to search the keep with Donn, seeking the means to break the hold the magick had upon his kinsmen. Maidens had thrown open shutters to move the foul air from the main hall, thereby lessening the effect of the dark magick. Once the men began to calm, Freya had brought the news that Ewen’s eldest had been taken.
Even though the hour was late, men-at-arms swarmed the castle securing the interior as others searched the rooms for any lagging brigands. God help them if any were found. The men’s mathans were roused to a frenzy and close to the surface, ready to maul any who dared harm the household of their king, Donn’s brother Ewen.
He gathered to him a score of kin, the best of their trackers, grouping them together in twos and threes. The captain of the guard would secure the keep, whilst Donn, along with Arailt, would leave to follow the pungent trail of the robbers who dared to impugn the hospitality of Ewen’s house by stealing someone so precious to Ewen.
“Donn?”
Freya approached, the front of her dressing robe clutched close in both of her fists, her reddish blond hair partially pulled from her braid to float about her face lending to her frazzled countenance. Her large, blue eyes glistened with unshed tears. The sister of Catriona’s mother, Freya was the only kin from Catriona’s family that Ewen’s children knew. Since Catriona’s death, Freya had filled the void, pushing back the gloom left by Catriona’s absence to care for the wee ones.
Freya’s normally stern countenance slipped, bespeaking the worry she put no words to. “Brigid be but a child.” Her voice broke with a choking sob.
“And we shall have her returned, hale and whole,” Donn replied softly, unsure how true his words would prove to be at the end of the day. Arailt appeared in the doorway to the courtyard, signalling all was readied. “I beg yer pardon, Freya, I would bid ye farewell for now. The men-at-arms be ready to give chase to the brigands. The captain of the guard shall safeguard the keep until my return.”
Brun, Donn’s mathan, bid him hurry, but he awaited Freya’s shaky nod, her chin tilting as she seemed to set aside her fright, a hard glint replacing the anguish in her gaze. One child had been lost; she did not need Donn to remind her there were three others who had need of her care.
As he strode away, he clutched the hilt of his sword, the need to spill b
lood thrumming through his veins and heating his blood. Donn’s kin followed him from the great hall into the keep’s dirt-packed courtyard. The stench of sorcery hung in the air like a thick and heavy fog, staining his senses against all else. He could not discern with the eye from whence it came though it clung to his tongue, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.
The men-at-arms had already been exposed to the noxious spell, the hold it once had over them broken by charms he had pulled from safekeeping in Ewen’s chambers. Even now, Donn’s senses told him the spell weakened. The wise women of the village worked to protect the people whilst the captain’s guards sought and destroyed the origin of the dark magick.
Earlier in the eventide, men had come seeking an audience with Ewen. They smelled not of witchery, but others must have been hiding outside the keep walls, waiting for all to retire for the night in order to abet the robbers when they escaped with Brigid. The overwhelming stench of magick still hid the scent of the practitioners. With luck, they would be able to track the magick, but they needed to make haste lest the wind carried away the lingering magick clinging to the users. He suspected that buildsears imbued items with magick so that once the item was placed or bestowed, the sorcerer could rouse the magick at any time with chanted spells, pouring their will, their life force into the words. Luckily, the magick the practitioner released would cling to them, leaving a trail Donn hoped would lead to the culprits, and answers.
The stable boys had the horses ready and waiting, but Brun grunted in displeasure. He wished to hunt in his own skin. The hunting party tracking Brigid had already changed skins, pursuing the brigands in their mathan form. But those pursuing the sorcerers could not run the chance of being espied in their other form, despite the fact that those who had stolen from Ewen would live not another day to bear tales to outsiders. The buildsears would likely find shelter amongst men, and Donn and his kin refused to needlessly slaughter the innocent along with the guilty just to keep a secret better kept by using caution.
In one fluid movement, he and his kin mounted the horses. Donn’s steed, tall, leggy, and black as night, stamped and twirled, sensing his urgency. With a dig of his heels, the black lunged into a run, its mane snapping in the wind as they passed through the gate house, its hooves pounding the wooden planks of the bridge that spanned the water of Loch Raineach to the shore. The sound gave Donn thoughts of thunder upon a stormy night. After the rearmost rider left the walls of the courtyard behind, the massive doors would be closed and barred. None would enter until he returned.
At the end of the bridge the scent split into separate trails. None carried a hint of Brigid. He glanced back, worried about the safety of those barred within. The keep had been built upon a crannog, the edifice three stories high, towering over the protective outer walls lit by the glow of torches. How could he look his brother in the eye and tell him his daughter was stolen out from under their noses when they had such defences? Donn prayed she would be found quickly and unharmed, for he did not wish to confess any injuries caused by his shortcomings.
“Arailt, I bid ye come with me,” Donn said afore dividing the others into groups. “Once ye run the quarry to ground, one of you must keep hidden to watch the buildsear whilst the others return here to gather assistance. Be forewarned; sorcerers be wily. They would be daft not to imagine they would be pursued. Do not engage them yet. I want them alive.”
Waiting barely long enough for nods of assent, he spun his mount and followed the diminishing trails of magick scent. Arailt said naught, his long red hair drawn together at the nape of his neck and tied with a string of leather. The fashion lent him an unforgiving countenance when he did not smile. Riding silent, their eyes and ears strained to find the hints the buildsears left behind in their flight from his wrath.
The scent trail followed the shore of the loch, heading east for a bit afore it abruptly shifted southwards to follow a berm into the Black Woods in the shadow of the peak of Meall a’ Mhuic. Within, the light of the moon was caught by the weave of branches overhead, reducing sight considerably. The path they followed was little more than a game trail and they slowed, allowing the horses to pick their way through, not wishing to cause either mount to strain or possibly break a leg upon an unseen obstruction.
It escaped not his attention that the Black Woods teemed with the otherworld this night. The female lynx Donn had scented the night Roi was treed now shadowed them. A pack of wolves, curiously quiet, oft crossed the sorcerer’s path as if they, too, were upon the hunt. And there was something… someone else in the forest who did not belong—
“The trail be gone.” Arailt’s declaration drew Donn from his musings.
It was as if the scent hit a wall of a sudden and halted. Dismounting, he handed Arailt the reins to his horse whilst he investigated. Lifting his nose to the air he gulped down long draws, searching for the scent of the men behind the magick. The more he moved forward, following the stench, the more confused he became.
There were no other odours to be had. Not the loame earth or the sharp scent of pine, not even the natural forest smells. Naught reached beyond the place whence the trail of man and magick halted. It was as if the ground rose and swallowed the stench of foul magick, leaving naught behind to tell of sorcerer’s passage. Donn trudged to and fro over the trail, searching for some clue as to what had happened and whence they had gone.
“Donn,” Arailt called. When he glanced up at his cousin, he followed where Arailt pointed to a tree nigh to him. “A script has been inscribed into the bark.”
Upon closer inspection, Donn noted a single symbol burned deeply into the base of the tree trunk, and then another farther up the trunk. Looking into the branches, he beheld the sickly droop of the limbs, an unnatural twisting, as if the symbols somehow warped the nature of the tree. The area around the symbol oozed a thick, dark sap, the stench of rot only discernible once he stood afore it.
In the dim light of the gloom under the boughs of the trees, he searched for more of such markings. Brun pushed forward, lending his senses as much as he could. With the aid of keener eyesight, the cursèd trees stood out like glowing beacons in the forest’s dark.
As far as his eye espied, the marred trunks ran in a straight line roughly north and south from whence he stood. How long had a buildsear lived so nigh to them, and they knew nothing of his— their presence? He watched as Arailt attempted to coax his steed beyond the line of befouled trees, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a silent snarl when the animal shied away.
“The devil take it! My mathan is more reluctant than my horse to pass such spelled trees.” Arailt wheeled his mount around and moved away to whence the trail of magick stopped. Donn followed him afoot, worrying for his cousin, for Arailt was one of the bravest amongst them. Arailt swiftly dismounted, his hands trembling as he gripped the reins, sweat beading upon his brow, his rounded eyes making Donn think he perched precariously upon the edge of sanity. That something repelled him with such vehemence was vastly disturbing, but Donn could not turn back.
From the corner of his eye Donn caught sight of movement deeper in the forest, but afore he could focus his gaze to discern the form, it was gone.
“Did ye see?” he asked Arailt in a low voice. Someone, someone he could not sense, hid from them in a stand of birch.
“This place be vile, Donn. It be tainted. The sickness of the forest befouls the air.” Arailt tied the reins of the horses to a low branch and came to stand beside him at the place Donn had stepped off the trail, searching for the creature. “No good can reside beyond this unnatural barrier.”
Donn agreed but said naught, for he finally found what he sought as he stared into eyes of a being not quite human. Standing about waist high, the creature resembled a small boy. He clung to the trunk of a birch just this side of the tainted wood and wore a thick cloak of lichen, the hood pulled so most of his face fell in shadow.
“A gillie dhu,” Arailt breathed, his voice rife with a child’s wonder. “Of all the t
ime we have spent in the Caledonia Forest, never have I espied one such as him.”
Neither had Donn, for he had thought ghillie dhu to be merely a Highland folklore. It was said they were kind to children but wild and shy. Now one had allowed himself to be seen. From whence did he come? What need had he of them?
Acting a hunch, Donn took a couple of slow steps towards the ghillie dhu. The fae creature moved to the next tree, glancing over his shoulder to see if Donn followed. He knew not how long they trailed behind the woodland faerie who always stayed to the untainted line of the trees. Did the magick bar the ghillie dhu from that section of wood just as it repelled Arailt and the horses?
After a time they halted, the ghillie dhu’s movements leading Donn to believe he was agitated, though he never spoke. Following the pointed direction of the ghillie dhu’s thin, crooked finger past the line of cursèd trees, Donn espied nothing unusual. What did the ghillie dhu want them to see? Arailt grabbed Donn’s arm at the same time that Donn descried something moving in the distance. They dropped to the ground, finding cover on the forest floor behind shrubbery budding with the promise of spring. The massive creature moved slowly, as if injured or wary. Donn and his cousin shared a look of awe, for coming their way was a mathan like no other. The size was so grand Donn had never before witnessed nor heard of the like. And it was black, not the brown of Donn’s kin.
Brun whined at the sight of the mathan that stood as tall as Donn’s horse and almost twice as wide. If he had not known the history of his people’s origin, in that moment he would have believed there afore him was the forbearer of all wyrbears, Fordel.
Donn tested the wind, hoping the black mathan’s scent would be found there. Nothing crossed the line of dark magick burned into the trees. The mathan stumbled, falling to its belly, a red line where the mathan’s hide had been torn from his flesh showing afore he rose to its feet once more and stumbled on.
