Requiem for the Wolf

by Tara Saunders

  The Grey One smiled with her eyes. "I'll remember."

  "Where will you go?" Not the Tiarna.

  "North. To the other towns, if they'll have us. If not, we'll make a place of our own. No more grovelling for us. Time to make our own terms."

  Breag believed her. This one had the bones that great things were built on.

  "You'll make something good, I know it. If the Tiarna doesn't work out for us, could be you'll see Sionna and me in this new place of yours before long."

  "You'll be welcome, both of you." The Grey One turned from them, her voice crisping. "Now, time to get you to Tearmann if there's any chance at the pass this season."

  She was gone before Breag could answer, chivvying dispersed Daoine into a tight group of Namhaid.

  "You'll have to tell me that story before we part with them." Sionna's murmured voice had iron behind it.

  "Yes, I have questions for you, too. About Laoighre." The boy's absence left a hole where there should have been chaos.

  Sionna's face pinched. "Some of it. There's more I can't speak, for now."

  She would tell him. No peace until he knew it all. It could lie for now, though. "Then let’s get on the trail."

  "It'll take us two days to walk back to Tearmann in this." Sionna spread her arms wide to enclose the snow. "Odds are the pass will be closed before we get there."

  "I'm not wintering in Tearmann." There were rumours of fishermen who would carry Daoine for half a kingdom’s gold. All they needed to do was make it to the coast. And find something to pay with.

  It was Heliod who remembered the horses. Tethered south of the Glór-Hunter camp, half-maddened by the sound of Daoine and the scent of blood. Useless for the most part, although there was hope that at least the ones who had carried Breag and Sionna for so long could be calmed enough to bear them again.

  Who would have thought he'd choose a horse's back over his own two legs? So much changed. Was anything left of what he had been before?

  The pride Breag felt when his roan turned with a soft blow to lip at the sleeve of his tunic shamed him more than a little. A relief when Sionna's gelding followed the mare's lead and they could finally be gone.

  The sun had almost reached the centre point of its day's journey when finally Breag and Sionna rode out, Cú and the Namhaid bounding behind them on four legs and Heliod gone in some direction of his own. It felt good to leave the thick scent of blood behind them.

  The trail to Tearmann was short and the need to hurry nipped their heels until the town lay before them in the cup of the valley as it had only two days before.

  It wasn’t often a man could lay his finger on the day that changed his life’s direction.

  Their return was expected, it seemed.

  Either that or the Ceann had stood in the open gateway, rooted and tireless, from the time Breag had freed the Namhaid and led them to freedom.

  Breag’s Marbh gut screamed trouble. “We should have circled round and ridden hard for the pass." His roan dropped her pace even before the reins tightened.

  "It might have been easier." Sionna pulled up beside him, a hand raised against the glare masking even a hint of her expression. "The easy way is seldom the right one, or so it seems to me."

  She had the right of it, this woman of his. Better a bonfire of his past than the slow burn of its sparks drifted into his future. He had something to live for this time.

  A quick look placed the Namhaid, wolf-shaped, a dark mass on the pristine white. Only the grey female, two steps ahead of the others, seemed to borrow from its purity.

  Not guardians; witnesses.

  Breag stretched a hand and grabbed Sionna's, revelling in the warmth that grabbed him back. For this he would burn down Tearmann and the Tiarna, and anything else that stood in their path. "Let's do this quick."

  For an answer she dug her boots into the gelding's ribs and guided him along a path she had travelled twice before.

  The Ceann stood, unmoving, to meet her, and behind him his people.

  Breag noticed first that the old man had grown black circles under his hungry eyes. His white hair floated in the unpredictable breeze, an insufficient halo. His focus flicked from their faces to the weight of Namhaid waiting in the sun-glittered snow. His expression didn't change.

  There was nothing left to say. A single word more would be as useful as a sword rammed into an already rotting corpse.

  They waited for him; the weight of their expectation compressed his ribs and hindered his breathing. The Ceann, head bowed. Odran, eyes bright with cautious welcome. The Naomh, a half-step behind The Ceann and pulled tight as the noose from a hanging tree. Eithne, her son tucked close and held with both hands.

  "I made a mistake." Breag's words were for Sionna. “There's nothing here for us."

  "Wait."

  Breag froze in his saddle. On the slope he could see the Namhaid, unmoving. He didn't turn.

  "There are some things we can give you." Desperation seeped into The Ceann's voice, making them all uncomfortable. "Things you need. Call the Namhaid in and talk with us."

  Breag's eyes found Sionna's. Here was everything he needed. The Ceann's power had faded with time and distance until the coin he clenched had powdered into dust.

  "Re-supply, at least. The crossing won't be easy." Odran reddened as every eye turned to pick him out, but he held his head high. Beside him Eithne moved closer, supporting her husband.

  Sionna squeezed Breag's arm in agreement. Stupid to risk their lives on a reckless gesture to the past.

  "Thank you, then. But the Namhaid want nothing of yours and we can't stay long." The words pooled into his stomach as he spoke them.

  This is wrong. No good can come of it. The thought reflected from the Naomh's red eyes.

  The Ceann's cry snagged Breag's attention, discomfiting him. The old man didn't show emotion, ever. Sorrow or gladness? Or did it matter?

  This didn't feel right.

  Odran met Sionna as she slid from her horse, and together they talked trail-bread and blankets. Breag remained mounted, watching. Like the Namhaid, a witness.

  "You were wrong, you know." The Ceann's voice, spoken from Breag's stirrup.

  Against his better judgement, Breag looked down. The old man had aged a decade in a single night. His lips trembled with an old man's emotion as he struggled to straighten his words.

  "What you said about the choosing, you were wrong. You weren't sacrificed in Odran's place. There was never any doubt for us. The best of the generation, that's what the Marbh should be. That's why we chose you."

  "It doesn't matter now." As close to absolution as the Ceann would have from him. Watching Sionna pick over winter trousers with Odran made it easy to forgive.

  A scream of mortal hurt drowned the old man's answer. No telling if it came from man or beast. Breag's eye found Sionna and the Namhaid unmoved. No sign of Cú or Heliod.

  "Behind the Plas Teanga." Odran led the way as he spoke.

  Breag pushed past with his roan, uncaring. Not one of his, please. Lady spare him the loss of any more.

  Cú lay straddling the entrance to the pen where Namhaid had been held. He lay in a pool of blood, most of it his own. Whoever had killed him had been frenzied--narrow-bladed stab-marks puckered the left side of his ribs and down onto his belly. His eyes were already glazed, and the lolling angle of his head made Breag's stomach churn.

  "More than one." Breag's own voice startled him. "Even injured, Cú would have made a good showing with a handful."

  "Maybe he did. Seems these tracks were covered well." Sionna's face was set as an image carved in granite.

  Breag would have expected tears. Likely they had both lost too many on this road for soft grief.

  "I warned him of this. He knew to stay back with the Namhaid if he wanted to live." Heliod was there, naked and snarling.

  "What do you mean?" More secrets. The thought made Breag heart-sick. How could there be more he didn't know?

  "The Gadhar,
the First-Dwellers." Heliod was in no mood for explanation. "Your Holy Men would overturn everything before seeing them cosied up with Dílis. It caught their interest when those old witches tried to have him taken with the girl on the mountain." He turned his head towards the massing crowd and spat. “Daoine games. That’s why I came away from Caislean.”

  "My fault. I should have watched his back as close as he watched mine." Sionna's voice was ashes.

  More games. Cú's life lost to a children's challenge of crossed sticks.

  Breag turned to the Ceann. "Find out who did this. Find it out, if you have any hold left over your people."

  "If these are still my people then I'll see it done, I promise it." The Ceann's eyes already spoke failure.

  "Go now. Stay together, delay for nothing."

  Breag's very bones solidified at the urgency of Odran's hiss, but he gave no outward sign. First to flinch was dead--a Marbh knew the rules of this one.

  No blankets, no trail-bread, no woollen trousers. Just a slow backing towards the horses, a subtle flinching under hard eyes and rising mutters. They would not be in time.

  Breag could see Aonghus, his thick-knuckled hand fisted tight around a narrow-bladed knife. And Uaine, armed with scissors glistening wet and red. And, behind the Ceann, the Naomh taller than any. Red-eyed, with full lips pulled back from bared teeth.

  They should have ridden two hundred miles out of their way. They should not have come back here.

  Welcome as Planting rain the Namhaid were there. Thirteen of them, unlucky, the number of the beast. Wolf-shaped and slavering, but not for long. Shoulder to shoulder they stood. They Changed.

  Irresistible as the flood of first thaw they changed, and Breag changed with them. Bliss brought his wolf-self and he reached out to share the glory of it with Sionna. With the Namhaid.

  And more, so many more. How could they resist the call of the Lady, these people of Tearmann? These Daoine Glór na Gealaí? Images flashed on the inside of Breag's eye; wise men writhed part-way through the change; a wolf-cub black as himself wrapped in Eithne’s arms; more cubs tangled in play-wrestling.

  One by one they Fell and were lifted up, only to drag down their fellows. One by one they listened to the Lady's whisper in their deepest places and became themselves.

  "Not this, Murra." The Ceann begged from his knees, his words slurred through a lengthening muzzle.

  The grey female stood over him, fully human, the still centre of the Lady's song. "You should have listened, Da. It should never have come to this."

  Hand in hand, Breag and Sionna turned their backs on the past and walked into the future.

  The End