Gavran’s scream echoed behind her, and she skidded to a stop. She turned back. She shouldn’t leave him to face it alone, but he was right—their only hope of defeating a supernatural monster was to use fae magic against it. And the only fae magic they had was the wishes.
She looped her skirt up into the belt around her waist and, bare-legged, ran as hard as she could away from the clearing. She had to get far enough away before the nuckalevee hurt Gavran so badly he couldn’t fight.
The nuckalevee’s front hoof gouged through the skin across his ribs.
Gavran tried to bite back the scream but couldn’t hold it in. Each blow felt like stinging nettle rubbed into an already ragged wound. And he’d swear on the holy book the monster grew stronger with every blow, like it was feeding off his agony.
He dove into the underbrush, ducked under a low-hanging branch, and ripped the sling off his injured arm. The sling made him clumsier than he could afford. If he was to have a chance of hanging on until Ceana ran far enough away for the power of the wishes to return, he couldn’t afford anything slowing him down.
He rolled back out into the clearing. The nuckalevee seemed to track his movements even when he couldn’t see it and reared up directly in front of where he landed. He jumped to his feet.
The nuckalevee charged. Its shoulder clipped him, and he corkscrewed through the air. He smashed into the ground on his injured shoulder. Daggers of pain trembled through his body like a mild seizure. He staggered upright. He had to hang on a little longer.
He glanced over his shoulder at the underbrush. How determined was the nuckalevee? Was it defending itself because they attacked it, or would it have attacked them if he hadn’t struck first? Based on what it’d done to the people and land, he’d guess it wouldn’t simply disappear if he gave up the offensive and made himself harder to reach.
The nuckalevee charged again. Instead of trying to dodge it, he leapt behind a tree. The nuckalevee slammed chest-first into the truck.
With a boom like a cracking stone, the trunk snapped. The tree groaned and swayed, then tipped slowly back.
He scrambled out of the way of the branches. It toppled into the trees behind it, and leaves rained down. The nuckalevee shook its head as if disoriented. Blood gushed from a gash above its eye.
The trick wouldn’t work again, but now it’d be half blinded by the blood at least.
Gavran shifted the broken Lochabar to his injured hand. His hand trembled, and he had to concentrate to close his fingers around the staff.
The nuckalevee turned toward him again. He grabbed a low-hanging branch of a young whitebeam tree with his good hand and jumped. He landed belly-first on the branch and swung one leg over. Branch by branch, he crept up the tree. The nuckalevee paced in front of his perch and snorted like a thunderclap.
Maybe Ceana was far enough away at last. Now he needed to figure out where the monster might be vulnerable.
Ceana doubled over and vomited from her prolonged sprint. Her stomach heaved long past emptiness, and her lungs ached.
She had to keep running. Keep running until she hit Duntulm Castle, if that’s what it took. At least Gavran would think to look for her there if he managed to survive.
She forced her legs to move into a jog. The ground seemed to shift underneath her, buckling and folding. She lost her footing and tumbled back the way she’d come. She crawled to her knees, then back to her feet.
She scrubbed at her eyes. The ground in front of her was flat as a table and twice as level. Exhaustion and thirst must be making her dizzy enough to trip over her own feet.
She loped forward again and again the ground appeared to rise up, creating a slope too steep to climb. She slid backwards, grabbing at grass. It ripped from the ground, and she somersaulted feet over head.
Her heart quivered in her chest like it might stop beating. This could be only one thing. She’d reached the edge of the boundary where Gavran’s wishes canceled out her curses, and because she wanted to stay past it, she couldn’t. One step beyond was all it took, and when the curses gained control, they threw her back.
Which meant Gavran wouldn’t have more than a few seconds at a time of the wishes’ power, and he’d only have those for as long as she could physically keep bashing herself against the boundary.
The nuckalevee whirled and kicked the tree with its back hooves. Shockwaves rippled up the tree, and the branch Gavran straddled bounced. He slipped to the side, grabbed the tree trunk, and lost his grip on the Lochabar. It tumbled to the ground. He hauled himself upright again using the trunk. His fingernails were torn and bleeding, but the pain throughout his body had become so all-consuming he couldn’t tell if his actual fingers ached or not.
He wrapped his arms in a bear hug around the trunk, and the nuckalevee kicked again. The tree’s trunk snapped and groaned.
Something was wrong. If Ceana made it far enough away that the wishes became active again, he shouldn’t have lost his hold on the Lochabar. And the tree he rode shouldn’t have been creaking, its trunk about to surrender and send him careening through the other trees.
He swung down a branch. The nuckalevee struck again, and the tree tilted and crashed into another tree. Gavran pitched sideways, his grasp slipping. He dangled from the branch by his good arm. The bark scored his palm.
The nuckalevee’s hindquarters heaved in another kick. Gavran swung forward, then back, and pushed off the tree trunk with his feet. He plunged down and grabbed on to a lower branch of the nearest tree. His good shoulder burst into flames with the impact, and his already-injured shoulder sent searing heat licking out through his back and up his neck.
He hooked his armpits over the branch. The pain eased and almost disappeared, then returned again in a fresh blaze. It was almost as if the wishes flickered like a candle, helping guide him one minute, then snuffing out under a strong wind. Whatever the reason, if he was right, he’d only have moments at a time.
The pain ebbed again, and he dropped down two branches. When it returned, he paused to breathe. The nuckalevee redirected its attack to the new tree.
The tree shuddered beneath him. He hung over the edge for a clearer look at the monster.
Lord MacDonald warned them not to underestimate it. Its hide might look vulnerable with its exposed veins and muscles, but it was more impenetrable than the castle walls. If the outside of the beast was hard like armor, perhaps the only vulnerable spot was inside, inside its jaw and up through its brain.
The nuckalevee bucked against the tree, but this time the trunk didn’t even wobble. Gavran slid the rest of the way to the ground, snatched up his Lochabar, and sprinted back into the open center of the clearing while he still had the protection of the wishes.
The nuckalevee stalked after him, but slowly, picking each step with the care of an animal who knew traps were set. How intelligent was it? Lady MacDonald seemed to think of it as if it had human-like intellect, but Lord MacDonald spoke about it more like a blood-crazed beast.
The nuckalevee stopped well out of reach of his Lochabar, even if the staff wasn’t half its original length. It opened its mouth, and the same gray mist it shot at Ceana earlier rolled out.
His lungs convulsed, and his throat closed. He had to hang on until the next time the wishes took over.
The mist tightened around him, and the nuckalevee closed on him. Saliva dripped from its fangs.
He fought to swallow and failed. Black spots teased across his vision, and his legs morphed into punky wood, bending when they should have stayed straight.
The nuckalevee’s gaping jaw was almost within arm’s length now. If Ceana could give him one more opening with the wishes…
His lungs opened, and the mist was more like breathing in normal fog than gas from a sulfur pit. He wrapped both hands around the staff of his Lochabar, leaped forward, and jammed it through the roof of the nuckalevee’s mouth.
Chapter 29
Ceana pressed her sweat-soaked forehead into the grass. Running had q
uickly turned to jogging, then walking. If she wanted to charge the barrier again, this time it would have to be on hands and knees. Her whole body quivered. Surely Gavran had killed the nuckalevee by now. But if he had, why hadn’t he come looking for her?
Unless he was dead.
A gust of air chilled her damp skin. She lifted her face to the sky. The stars had faded. Dawn wasn’t long from coming. The nuckalevee wouldn’t stay in their world once daylight came. She had to go back and find out if she’d given Gavran enough time to kill it or not.
She pushed up to one knee. To her feet. There’d be no running back, and if the nuckalevee were still there, feasting on Gavran’s corpse, she’d be its next meal.
She dragged herself forward one step at a time, stubbing her toes and tripping with near every step. Her body ached in a way she’d never experienced, not even after the beating a fishmonger gave her for trying to steal roe from a gutted fish after she hadn’t eaten anything in four days.
Red and yellow tendrils crawled up from the horizon line, and a kestrel’s squa-ua-ua jarred her ears. Two mounted figures broke the smooth hilltop to her right.
She dropped to her belly in the long grass. She didn’t need to catch anyone’s interest and have them follow her. A wounded or dying Gavran would be hard enough to explain, a nuckalevee’s body near impossible.
The figures cut across the hillside. Something about them looked familiar.
She waited. They moved out of the back light of the sunrise. Allan and Tavish. They still stood watch for him.
She crawled forward, low to the ground. It’d take her twice as long to make it back this way, but she couldn’t risk them spotting her. She wasn’t in any shape to evade them if they recognized her.
Rocks bruised her knees even through her skirt and tore at her palms. She couldn’t see how far she’d come, making it feel like she edged her way through an endless tunnel. Perhaps she did. If Gavran had died, the wishes would have her in their clutches once again. Forever.
Shade stretched over her and she looked up. The trees of the nuckalevee’s clearing towered above. No sounds came from inside. The fight was over, and either Gavran had left to look for her or…
She stood and forged her way into the clearing. The nuckalevee’s body lay crumpled at the far side, a Lochabar spike poking up through the top of its skull.
She swayed and grabbed a low-hanging tree branch. Gavran did it. He must be out looking for her. While she waited, she’d see if there was some part of the nuckalevee they could cut off and take back to Lord and Lady MacDonald as proof. She wasn’t taking any chances.
She shuffled across the clearing. A grin stretched her lips and filled her heart. The people here were safe, and in a matter of days, she’d be free of this curse. Perhaps once she found her brother, Lady MacDonald would hire her to work in the kitchens of the castle. That wasn’t too much to ask. She’d always been a fine cook, able to make much from a very little, and they could no doubt use another undercook to supervise all the children.
The nuckalevee’s stench triggered her gagging reflex again, and she breathed through her mouth. Not that she had anything left in her stomach to heave.
The beast’s golden eye stared emptily toward her, and a sticky looking stream of blood pooled under its cheek…and around a boot.
Her vision tunneled down. The trees vanished, even the nuckalevee vanished. All she could see, all she could think about, was the boot.
Gavran wouldn’t have left his boot behind.
She tried to force her legs to walk forward, but they refused.
The nuckalevee was dead, but if Gavran were dead as well… Nae, he couldn’t be. She’d managed to come back here, which meant the wishes and curses were still canceling each other out. He had to still be alive.
She careened forward and skirted the nuckalevee’s corpse. Gavran lay crumbled on the ground on the other side, leine stained with red.
She dropped to her knees and pressed her fingers to his lips. A shallow breath pulsed against her skin. Very shallow.
She tore open his leine. A wound gaped up over his ribs and across his chest, nearly exposing the bone. Bits of dried blood formed an imperfect crust, oozing around the edges. He wasn’t dead, but he would be if she didn’t get him to a physician.
“Help! Help me!”
She clamped a hand over her mouth. She’d forgotten that the nearest souls likely to hear her were Allan and Tavish. They wouldn’t take him back to the MacDonald’s castle. They’d take him home, away from her. If they allowed her to live after all they believed she’d done. Maybe they’d string her up from one of these trees for witchcraft.
She had to get Gavran into the bushes where she could hide him until she figured out how to bring him aid.
She scuttled around behind him, and looped her arms under his armpits, pulling him tight to her chest. His head flopped back against her neck. His skin scorched hers. Blood soaked through the front of her dress, hot and sticky. Was he bleeding from the back, too? There was too much blood.
She tilted her head so that her cheek rested against his forehead. He wasn’t going to make it. Even if she managed to get him back to the castle in time and into the care of the MacDonalds’ physician, he wasn’t going to make it. No one recovered from wounds this severe, setting aside what further damage the nuckalevee had done inside. Each breath she took still burned like swallowing boiling water thanks to the nuckalevee’s poison mist.
She ran her fingers through his hair, down his jaw line, and suddenly it was like watching the life they’d spent together played back in front of her eyes.
Gavran planting their fields, long after the sun left the sky, his back already aching from helping his own dadaidh, when hers passed out drunk. Gavran standing at their door, snow clinging to his hair, with a smoked mutton in his arms the long winter they almost starved. Gavran paddling through the water, dragging her dead weight behind him and refusing to let her go, the night he came to bring her in from collecting cockles and they almost drowned.
The warmth of his smile and the loch-blue of his eyes and the way he said her name and how safe it felt to be held by him.
Pressure built in her eyes. She dug her nails into her palms deep enough to bruise, fighting against the tears, but they pushed their way out, unstoppable, carrying the force of all the times she’d wanted to cry in the last fifteen years and hadn’t allowed it.
Breaking the wishes meant nothing if Gavran died.
She had to draw the attention of Allan and Tavish and let them take Gavran away from her. The wishes would take over again. They’d heal him. It was his only chance to survive. She’d endure the cursed side of the wishes if it meant he’d survive. If given the choice a thousand times, she’d always choose to save Gavran over herself.
Because even when she’d hated him, she’d never stopped loving him.
She eased away from him and lowered him to the ground as she would have laid a bairn in its crib. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks.
And, finally, gently, to his lips.
She slid his sgian out of its sheath and tucked it into her belt. If Allan or Tavish spotted her, brandishing a weapon at them might be her only chance of escaping.
“Help!” She screamed as loud as her poison-burned lungs could handle. “Someone please help!”
This time the beat of galloping hooves sounded clearly in the distance. She hid in the bushes.
Allan and Tavish burst into the clearing on foot. They stuttered to a stop, and Tavish gaped open-mouthed towards the nuckalevee’s corpse. She could only imagine what they were thinking. She’d been prepared to face a monster when they camped out in the clearing. The men responded to a call for help and stumbled upon a monster.
“What is it?” Allan asked. His voice carried the tone of someone who’d walked onto the scene of a fatal accident and whose mind couldn’t comprehend the tragedy before them.
Tavish swore low under his breath. Ceana couldn�
�t hear the invectives, but she knew the sound.
They drew their swords and parted, creeping up on either side of the nuckalevee.
Ceana flattened herself to the ground. She must stay invisible. They had to find Gavran and focus on saving him rather than on hunting her.
Tavish cursed again. He dropped to his knees next to Gavran’s form. “Allan, it’s Gavran.”
Allan’s sword sagged, and he sprinted around the nuckalevee. He ripped a strip off his leine and applied it to the wound in Gavran’s chest. “He still breathes.”
“You don’t think…” Tavish poked the nuckalevee with his sword. “You don’t think this is the girl, do ya?”
Allan smoothed a hand across his sun-wrinkled forehead as if trying to press the wrinkles out. “It must be. He broke the hold she had on him, and she showed her true form. It was worse than we thought.”
“What do we do with it? We can’t leave it here. What if it’s not full dead and hunts him down?”
“We have to burn it.”
If they burned the corpse, she’d have no proof for Salome that they’d killed the nuckalevee at all. Ceana compulsively picked at the dirt under her fingernails, the need to move rushing through her body and finding release in the only avenue that wouldn’t give her away. What if the MacDonalds didn’t believe her?
“We won’t be able to carry Gavran out on horseback,” Allan said. “While you collect wood for the fire, I’ll build a sling. If we can bring him to Duntulm, we can send for a physician from there. I won’t take him back to that castle. From the way she protected the girl, Lady MacDonald might’ve been in league with the monster all along.”
Allan bound Gavran’s chest wound and carried him away from the nuckalevee. Together, Allan and Tavish chopped two large branches from a tree. She could only guess that Allan planned to use them to build the sling so they could haul Gavran to Duntulm behind one of the horses. Allan disappeared out of the clearing and returned with a blanket. Tavish foraged the tree line, building a pile of sticks in the center of the clearing.
Cursed Wishes Page 19
