Death or collar. Sionna would have chosen death.
Breag felt the screech in his jaws and the bones of his nose, a noise too elemental to be merely sound. It shivered through him, freezing along pathways that had only ever burned with Bliss. When it passed it left silence behind.
The room churned with Eolaí, moving and flailing in the half-light. He abided inside the silence; encapsulate, whole. Sionna was there too, beating inside him like the thump of his heart. Free.
How? Breag opened his eyes, finding her in chaos and dark. She stood, unharmed, the Namhaid Collar in two pieces at her feet. And, at her throat, an unexpected glitter.
The promise knot. A pledge to Odharna from her Daoine. A prayer too many years unanswered.
Sounds leaked slowly back into Breag's ears; the first of them a hoarse-voiced Ceann shouting for somebody to come. Confusion eddied into long white hands that stretched for Sionna, reaching to hold her and to own her. The ghost of movement at Breag's right side and the Fiacal Knife was gone.
The Naomh held it high in both hands. Still his words where muffled by the after-echo of the collar's death, but his meaning shone clear from cold blue eyes.
In the centre of them Sionna drew Bliss close. Awareness of it crackled from Daoine to Daoine like branches in a single fork of lightning. Breag gasped as it banded his chest, unmanning him. The short hairs rose on his arms and the back of his neck. Behind him he heard the Fiacal Knife clink to the floor.
Sionna's change called to him, familiar and yet new-minted every time. The joy in her pulsed strong and intense, the feeling of rightness as she slipped into the wolf's shape.
Sleek muscles clenched and flexed under a grey-dappled pelt as Sionna-wolf leaped delicately over bowed and kneeling men. Two bounds took her to the door-slit. Here she paused, her nose working until she found Breag in the darkness. The promise knot glittered at a wolfen throat, the only thing to survive the change.
Strong hands still held him to the ground. All around the frozen change-trance faded from the faces of Eolach young and old, the traces of Bliss transubstantiated to shame and the rawness of righteous anger.
A thump and scrape from behind Breag could only be the Naomh finding his feet. Without sight or scent or sound, Breag knew that the old man had reclaimed the knife.
"Go." Breag's words were muted by the weight pressing on his back. Sionna-wolf heard them.
Her eyes had no look of woman in them, but they were Sionna nonetheless. Without words she told him that she would not go.
"I need to do this." Too many Eolaí. So much to make up for.
She understood.
An arm and shoulder pushed through the slit in answer the Ceann's call, blue and yellow cuff visible at its wrist. Sionna met him with her teeth stripped. The leather-faced Eolach fell back. And Sionna was through the narrow door and into honest sunlight.
The weight on Breag's back eased a degree. He heaved, humping his shoulders to dislodge the parasite, and jabbed sharp knuckles into sensitive ribs. It worked. He found his feet and zigzagged towards the door. Daylight called to him.
"Hold him!"
He managed three steps before an Eolach hand hooked around his legs. He threw himself towards the door-slit, forcing his head and shoulders through and into the light. More hands grabbed his thighs, his calves. They swarmed him, these holy men, smothering him with their weight and their fervour.
Sionna would have come back, but she had her own troubles. Outside, the bead-braceleted Eolaí headed a mob that waved sticks and spades and hoes. All of Tearmann. Through the sliver of doorway Breag could see them force Sionna-wolf backwards until she had no more room to retreat. The thorns of climbing rose-plants, flowerless, jabbed into her flank. And still the crowds came.
Then blackness. Black from the sky, cruel beak darting at Eolach eyes and tearing Eolach flesh. Black from the ground, his anger a roar, planted in front of Sionna with teeth as long as a man's hand stripped and ready.
Heliod. Cú.
"Get going!" Breag ended in a choke as his mouth was forced into the dirt.
When they dragged his head upwards again she was gone.
"You’ll pay in her place, then." Iron-grey hair straggled around the Naomh's face, framing the tightness around his eyes and the set of his mouth.
"This is my payment and I make it gladly. I owe you nothing."
The crowding Eolaí drew back until Yellow-Hair stood in front of Breag. He held an unbroken Namhaid Collar in soft white hands.
"The Lady speaks but you can't hear her. This will help." The Naomh himself clicked the collar into place.
Breag fought with arms, legs, head, heart. But not spirit. Inside, where he should have found strength, was chill and empty.
The collar is death. Nothing can remove it before the final end.
After eight long years, Breag was finally home.
26
Sionna lay on her stomach under a curtain of winter scrub. Huffs of steam plumed skyward with every breath. Above her the sky lightened with the new day, but on the ground darkness clung like treacle to every blade and bush. Alongside, Cú aped her posture with outstretched forelegs and a lowered head.
"Anything?" Laoighre hunkered behind her, his voice morning rough.
Sionna shook her head and sat up. "Nothing yet. It's still too early."
The town still slept. Just as Laoighre had until a moment before. Sionna had had enough of sleeping.
The burn of ice-cold air on warm skin invigorated her, made her want to laugh and stretch and sing. So joyous to be whole after so many weeks on the cusp of death. Sionna could feel the Daoine soul inside of her, unfolding, brightening the dark places. This was more than a life returned all unexpected. It was the crystal purity of winter's first snow.
I forgive what they took. They gave back so much more.
What Breag took. But she had come to terms with that even before he bought her freedom with his own.
Heliod circled above, his deep voice calling to something inside her. Cú raised his head to follow the bird's path. A coincidence that both had come together to her rescue?
"Can we really do this, Sionna?"
A deep breath. "I don't know. We can try."
No easy answers. No promises. She owed Laoighre more than that.
His face said that he would have preferred the lie.
"Tell me again."
"Like when we got the horses. We wait until we know where Breag is, then you and Cú make a diversion and I sneak him out. Simple."
Simple, but not easy. Breag had said that when the only stake wore manes and tails. He had made her a promise. Almost. She would hear him complete it. She wrapped her hand tight around the promise knot that had returned her life, symbol of Breag’s regard.
This would be different if she was on her own. A fast horse, another tethered in the scrub. No life but hers to wager on the plan.
"Are the horses ready?"
"Saddled and warmed up, like you asked. Yesterday's run didn't wind them much, far as I can see. They'll take the same and more today."
Pray Breag’s Lady they would be asked to. And that they would find it easier to get around the gates from inside than from out.
Cú whuffed low and urgent. He hadn't moved from his place in the scrub, a sable-pelted gargoyle watching over the town and its people.
Not many on the streets. Sionna spotted Breag immediately. He shuffled hunch-shouldered between two big men in blue and yellow wristcuffs, his hands bound at his back. Even at this distance Sionna could see the unhealed darkness of a new bruise purpling his left cheek and a tenderness in the way he dragged his left leg. The frigid winter sunlight coruscated from a burnished iron collar, engraved in a pattern of complex whorls and chevrons.
They collared him in my place.
Of his spirit there was nothing. Not occluded; gone. Not even a hole in the place where he should have been. The terrible completeness of it shivered Sionna's bones.
Heliod circ
led, tighter this time. He grated a final ka-rrk and angled downwards, his long, mobile wings beating strongly to carry him into Tearmann.
Cú whuffed again, on his feet this time. He growled soft and rumbling, his body taut, ears pricked. His head turned from the town of Tearmann to the place where the horses were tethered.
"I know. I feel the same." Sionna dropped a hand to his shoulder. "But we need to be smart about this. Running and shouting like children won't get him out."
"What? I can't see!" Laoighre shaded his eyes with a hand, but his vision had nothing of Daoine in it.
"They're leading him like a beast. Not far; to the long building near the north edge of town. The only one not painted white."
"Sionna, if he's in so close-guarded a place then we'll never pull him free."
Damned Laoighre, always giving voice to the thing she already knew.
"No, not the building itself. They've walked him past it, into a smaller place next door. Somebody's home, looks like." Best not to mention The Ceann, who stood at the door and ushered them through. That risk was hers, after all.
"Let's do this." Laoighre stood, fear and determination tangled in his face.
Yes. No sense in waiting for the streets to fill. Now, or it would be too late.
They would free Breag. She would hear the promise he owed her.
A rumble in his throat, Cú darted ahead through the close-woven tree-cover. Pity the man, or the Daoine, who blocked his path. Burned into Sionna's memory the sight of him galloping to her side as the Eolaí circled her. Without him, without Heliod, she would be collared alongside Breag.
Somewhere unseen Cú's growl deepened to a roar. The intertwining scrub prevented her from running, but Sionna slapped through bare branches and winter green as fast as she was able, her heart pounding. Downwind; no scent to bring the story.
Cú's voice shrilled into a yelp and trailed to nothing.
The Eolaí had followed them. Their escape had been a momentary delusion.
Stupid to run into trouble. Sionna pulled up short of their camp. Winter-bald growth offered less cover than she would have liked. Laoighre padded behind, his breath puffed in short, sharp bursts of fear.
Only silence from Cú. Where was he? Nothing to see from Sionna's cover of bare brush. Her nose told her nothing. No booted crashing towards her, or away.
Hide or advance? Fight or run? No time!
The crack of a broken branch sounded a warning, too late.
Sionna tried to turn, but something hit her from behind. No pain, but her limbs tangled in a mesh of rope. She struggled, frightened. Every thrash twisted the net tighter around her body. From someplace nearby she could hear Laoighre's calls for help.
This time she didn't withdraw. This time she threw herself into the deep places. Bliss called to her and she plunged into it. The wolf was there. She drew it to her in triumph. She had known too much of this. Men, soldiers and Eolaí; they would no longer find Sionna an easy mark.
"Change if you want to, filth. All the easier to ram my sword through a wolf's breast." The rough burr of a voice.
Sionna believed him.
She released the wolf, reluctantly. This time she would face trouble in her own shape. Wolf or Sionna, neither one a victim.
Five men stood in a circle around her. Each had his sword in hand. Each wore the Glór-Hunter's pale blue. From where she lay on the ground, they looked huge.
Big, big trouble.
"Are we in control?" A shout from where she had last heard Laoighre. A man, not a boy.
"Perfectly." Burr-voice again. Thick wrists flexed a part of the net, pinning Sionna's arms tight to her body. She tried to wriggle free, but each movement meshed her more tightly into the snare.
They've done this before.
"Let's move them out."
Rough hands grabbed Sionna. She didn't struggle; no sense in it. Now was for watching. Fight would come later. She would be ready.
* * *
Blindfolded, Sionna was thrown over the back of a horse--a stranger. The animal's sweat filled her nostrils. Its hair clogged her mouth until she thought she would vomit. Straightening her back to lift her face clear of its hide was possible only for seconds, then the strain made her slump again.
She thought about allowing the wolf-scent to come. A stupid idea. Falling blindfolded and bound from a frightened horse's back could kill even a Daoine. And if she lived, what then? The Glór-Hunters would lift her bruised body and force her onwards.
She would bide her time. From Proinsis she had learned how to wait.
Laoighre's scent came to her, entangled in the smells of horses and other men. Of Cú there was nothing.
They could be moving Breag, doing anything to him. Regret scalded her. She should never have left Tearmann without him.
Hard to know how long they rode, or how far. Her shoulders screamed for release from the awkwardness of the binding and her neck ached from its efforts to lift her mouth clear of horsehair. When ungentle hands lifted her to the ground her anxiousness came well leavened with relief.
Sionna's nose and ears told her that she stood in an encampment of men and horses; fresh-made to judge by the newness of the latrines. Twice as many more as had taken her and Laoighre.
One of them seemed familiar, a scent she had known before. Back in Dealgan. So little from that time boded well for her, and this one’s presence in a camp of Glór-hunters said that he’d be no exception. No sign of a face to match his scent, but that would come, no doubt.
"Report." A softly-spoken man, whose tone left no room for refusal.
"Caught this pair and the baneling, black now like you said it'd be. No sign of the other one."
"What did you do with the beast?"
"Ran a sword through it and left it to rot." The voice from her camp, this time mingling authority with deference.
Sionna had half expected it, but the shock of grief still drove the breath from her lungs with a whimper. Cú, most steadfast of friends. The only one to see her as she really was.
"Blindfolds?"
"I thought it best they have no advantage. Can't be too careful with the likes of these."
"Take the blindfold off. Leave the bindings."
The blindfold tightened and released. Sionna blinked. The sun was still high in the sky; no later than noon. They hadn't travelled as long as she had guessed. Beside her, Laoighre rubbed his eyes. He hunched, trying to make himself invisible.
Sionna was reminded of a Caislean alley. He hadn't fared well at keeping himself out of trouble that time. No Tarbhal to save him now. No Breag. No Cú.
She clenched her teeth on another whimper. Blinking couldn't clear the grit that had somehow found its way into her eyes.
Cú. Hunt well, my friend.
"So, this is the one." That soft voice again.
The man was taller than her and slender, with fine blond hair cut shorter than any man she knew. Bright blue eyes watched, and they saw everything. He wore a Glór-Hunter's pale blue robe, this one cinched in black. Sionna felt his power even before she noticed the belt.
Tánaiste.
This is bad.
"You've put me to quite a bit of trouble, little girl." The Tánaiste's eyes fixed on her, making her shiver.
"You should have stayed in your Citadel and left us alone." Sionna wanted to ask about Dealgan. About what was left there, and who. But Cú. Not after Cú.
The Tánaiste ignored her. "Where's the other one? The male? This isn't him." A flesh-stripping look at Laoighre, who said nothing.
The Glór-Hunter beside him--taller, freckled like a sparrow’s egg--hissed through his teeth in frustration. He raised his hand and Sionna hunched under the coming blow.
"No need for that, Garbhan." The Tánaiste's smile revealed the long slash of a dimple on his right cheek. "The skinny one will tell us."
Laoighre made himself smaller. Sionna would have wrapped him in her arms if she had not been bound. Instead she planted herself in front of hi
m, soaked up the power of the Tánaiste's eyes in his place.
"Laoighre knows nothing. Ask me your questions instead of him, although I don’t promise easy answers."
The Tánaiste laughed, a low sound of triumph. "In such a hurry to be put to the Question? Sadly, I can't oblige you. I misplaced my Allsayer somewhere on the road."
Sionna reached for Bliss. Feeling the wholeness, the wolf-shape ready to loan her its strength, straightened her shoulders.
"We don't need your buck, lucky for you. With a nest of Lupes there for the taking, your cowardly one can duck and hide to please himself."
A knot slithered from Sionna's stomach to lodge in her chest. What hope for Breag if the Glór-Hunters took Tearmann? The collar named him enemy to either side.
The Tánaiste smiled again, a tight stretching of facial muscles. From a sheath at his side he slid a double-bladed knife; straight, no longer than his hand. He moved towards her.
Sionna strained at the bonds that fixed her hands behind her back. No use! Her legs were free. Nothing else stood between the knife and Laoighre. She held her ground.
She had no more cause to be afraid of knives.
The Tánaiste moved around her. Laoighre's eyes quartered the Glór-Hunter's face. There was something in them that Sionna didn't understand. She made a sound in her throat, question or answer she didn't know.
"You have my thanks." He reached behind Laoighre and cut the leather cord that bound the boy's hands. "Without your reports we wouldn't have found this place."
Sionna didn't understand the words, or the slow leech of blood from Laoighre's face. Betrayal, that she knew very well, but never from Laoighre.
"I even forgive that your spying was sent to the Allsayer instead of me. The workings of the Citadel can't be held against you." Again the stretching smile of triumph.
Sionna's brain numbed under the weight of his words. She turned to Laoighre, reading the truth of it in the white strain of his face.
Requiem for the Wolf Page 27
