by Jules Watson
“Thank you for reminding me,” Maeve said over her shoulder.
“So we hide our spearmen up the slopes as agreed, draw them into that narrow throat and then hit them as they charge.”
Maeve lifted her head, tracing the black ridges up to a cleft of glittering sky. It was before moonrise, and the stars were bright. “I’ve changed my mind. Higher up, the valley spreads out again. We can march overnight to get there first, form up, and charge them as they sleep.”
“Maeve, we don’t have enough men! We must wait for the lords behind us.”
“And what if they don’t come?” She whirled to face him. What if they abandon me, as all have before? “Idath’s men will pile upon us, climb the slopes and surround us. I cannot be trapped by them—never again!”
“Ach, enough!” Garvan swept past her out of the tent. “Perhaps daylight will return not just the scouts, but your senses.” He stomped a few steps and turned, glowering. “You would have done better to couple with me, Maeve, because tomorrow this fool plan will kill us both!”
After he left, Maeve threw herself on her bedroll, an arm across her eyes.
Maeve dreamed of lips hovering above her own. She arched her neck to lift her mouth to his.
“Come.” He did not touch her, his breath tantalizing. “You must come.”
She reached to wind her fingers in the ruddy hair at his nape, to pull him down, anchor him to her.
“No. You have to let go, and see.”
Let go? She thought he took hold of her hand, the urgency in his voice rousing her. “Now, Maeve.” A tug came that was not flesh but an invisible hook in her chest and belly. The hook pulled, and she was lifted up and out. She floated.
The world outside the tent should be black, outlining the looming hills that were now imprinted on her mind. Those shadows hid men who breathed mist, readying themselves to kill her.
It was not dark, but glowing. She drifted through iridescent veils, currents of radiant air. His hand around her wrist pulled her skyward. He was also made of silver—a bright, soaring bird, his face hidden by streaming hair.
“Where do we go?” She was lifted by exhilaration.
“Higher.”
She flew, weightless and free. Nothing was hurtful or heavy anymore. Shackles fell away—duty … fear. She could be this light forever, soar through it and feel it inside her. It was real. This was what she glimpsed past all of her darkness and pain. Ruán would fly with her, far over the swells of glowing sea and on past the stars. Peace …
“That is death, Maeve, and not your path yet. By the gods, open your eyes!”
Maeve was caught by the desperation in his voice. Only then did she remember her name. It brought back to her the density of her own body, her pulse. She was Maeve of Connacht. Here, now.
She and Ruán were treading on the earth again, then, climbing the spur of a hill. Where their feet tore the undergrowth, a familiar scent rose, musty and wet. Dark slopes fell away around them; the spangled sky spread above. Ruán’s hair blew in the wind, its warm hue turned black by night.
He dragged her to the crest and turned. She already knew the dips beneath his cheekbones, the little tilt at the corner of his lips. Her fingers touched the familiar sweep of tendons between neck and shoulder, and traced the dark scar below his throat.
But for the first time, she now looked into his eyes. They were long, the lower lid straight across, the arch a narrowed sweep, as if they peered intently, saw deeply. They had gathered the moonlight, the irises glowing so she could see no other color.
“You came,” she breathed. “My hurt brought you.” Every nerve and muscle reached for him, and she clung to his solid-seeming body and claimed his mouth as if she was starving.
He broke away, pushing her from him. “Look up,” he demanded. “I cannot stay long. I am already drawn back …”
Forcing her attention to sharpen, Maeve bent back her head and gasped. Where stars had swung like steady lamps, they were now falling, a shower of them streaking across the sky. And then more came, trailing threads of fire before winking out.
They arced down to the dark horizon, and took her gaze with them.
Three ridges reached out from higher mountains beyond, the ravines between threaded by silver streams. Maeve remembered the scratches in the ground: three valleys.
The western ravine in which her men now camped was speckled with light, as if the falling stars had come to rest there. Campfires? She had forbidden all fires.
Ruán breathed into her ear. “They are men, each one a soul-light.”
Source, burning in a human spirit. The druids spoke of it.
There were two whirlpools of stars in that valley, one Maeve’s own camp of Connacht-men, the other farther up—Idath’s and Felim’s warriors, who waited for her.
“There is no time!” Ruán cried. “Have courage and seek farther!” His arm stretched black against the rising moon.
Maeve’s head lifted to the east, and her sight cleared. There. A tide of flame swept down the deserted eastern valley. Hidden men, hundreds more.
“It is not brightness, but death, Maeve!”
Shock shivered through her, and she was falling. She spun like a broken bird and plunged into that far river of stars. And it was not light but black, filled with the stealthy creep of bodies and the hiss of harsh voices. She heard the jingle of weapons and glimpsed men crouching, shoulders swathed in shaggy furs.
Maeve jolted awake.
All the hairs on her neck and arms had lifted, and her pulse thundered. She flipped onto hands and knees, clawing open the tent flap and throwing herself outside. She got to her feet, shaking her head to rid herself of that terrible dream. A nightmare, that’s all it was.
Panting, she gazed at the stars. Are you so desperate for his body that you would conjure this? She paced, gulping the icy air, then stopped. Not his body. Gods, not his body alone. The twist in her breast was unfamiliar. She put her hand to it … and then something caught her eye.
Maeve glanced up.
Where all had before been still, streaks of light now filled the whole sky—a hail of stars falling all across the horizon.
She stopped breathing and forgot all else.
CHAPTER 16
“Idath and Felim have split their men.” Maeve pressed her tongue against her teeth to moisten her parched mouth. “They field two forces, not one.”
Her commanders had been dragged from their beds, some still yawning, others scowling blearily.
Maeve shifted on her haunches among the wet ferns by a tumbling stream, chosen to cover their voices in the clear night air. “The first war-band was to tempt us up the valley. While they hold us, the second is circling to fall upon us from behind.”
A voice rumbled from the dark beneath the overhanging trees. “The scouts did not report this.”
“They didn’t go far enough. Idath has been clever. He must have sent the others out days ago along a hidden path. He knew we would chase after the first battle-group, giving the second time to outflank us. We have to be clever now, too.” She peered into the shadows, picking out each man in turn. “We must strike camp, tonight, and head across the ridges. Then we fall upon their larger force at dawn.”
Mutters and curses. “It is madness to risk this in the dark!”
“The moon has just risen,” she replied, “and the hills are bare heather higher up. We have the light. There are deer-paths everywhere.”
“We cannot make exhausted men fight after scrambling over the hills.”
Maeve licked her cracked lips. “We have the advantage of surprise—and we’ll be charging down from higher ground.” She arched a brow with a cold smile. “Are your men really such weaklings, Lonan? Their blood should be tinder, easily set alight. Is that not so?”
Lonan pursed his lips. “Of course that is so. My lord will not have it said his warriors shirk from battle or hardship.”
The rumbling voice broke in. “But how do you know any of this?”
Maeve uncurled to her feet, lifting her chin. She had donned her war-helm, the raven outlined by moonlight. “The sídhe sent me a dream. They showed me these stars that fly across the sky and burn with fire. I dreamed them, and now they come. They are the sign!” She flung up her hand, and another scatter of stars streaked across the black, as they had been doing on and off since she roused her men.
Their mouths hung open, and there was awe in their eyes when they lowered from the sky to her face.
“I took my sword from the sídhe veils. They made me strong enough to kill a man twice my size and win over many chiefs, including your own. So will you now question me—and the sacred message of the Shining Ones?”
Garvan broke the silence. “She is Macha of the Red Hair,” he said softly. “She is the strength the Ulaid once possessed, now reborn to us. If the war goddess speaks in dreams, do we not listen?”
In the end they did.
The cold shadows of the night lightened to gray.
Her hands spread on the rocks, Maeve gazed down into the eastern valley. There.
Stray glints of metal, as dull light combed the forest. A murmuring like wind, though the budding leaves hung still and dripping on the branches in the dawn. Hundreds of men were bedded down in the undergrowth.
“All the gods above,” Garvan breathed next to her.
Maeve caught the eyes of the two warriors who had argued against her. One bent his dark whiskers in a respectful nod. Lonan’s smile was feral as he gestured to his warriors crouched behind them in the rocks. In silence, they reached for their packs.
Maeve’s men had stowed away every piece of metal—buckles, brooches, and armbands—and muffled spear-tips, sword-fittings, and daggers in torn cloaks. Now, they unwrapped their weapons with knuckles bloodied by that cold scramble up and down stony paths in the night. A small group had been left to hold the western valley behind a barrier of felled trees, throwing spears in all directions to convince the enemy they were still there in force.
Beside Maeve, Garvan laid his sword along his knee and smoothed the edge. All the humor had fled his battered face. His features hardened, the warrior-self turning inward to gather strength. Maeve watched the transformation of the Garvan she knew into one she did not. Before her the hound who scrapped playfully with her became a lean dark wolf, his eyes intense and glowing.
Dry-mouthed, she glanced along the line of warriors as they stealthily armed up. It did not matter they had gained no sleep. Facing death, their blood quickened anyway, hearts pumping. They strapped and laced their clothes tight, bound their hair and muttered prayers.
Soon they would be diving into chaos. For some those moments would carry them through the barrier of Thisworld into the Otherworld and they would barely notice, charging on through a timeless place, spears flying through a colorless sky.
They would either live, or feast at the table of the gods. There was no reason for them to fear. Utter freedom.
Maeve tasted it, envied it. For her belly still gurgled, and she placed a fist on it, breathing out. She feared not only fighting, but the gods themselves. She knew they would not welcome her to the Blessed Isles—how could they know her, when she had closed her heart against the sídhe years ago, turned her face from the goddesses in the temples?
But Ruán came for her.
“Come,” she ordered through cold lips, clinging to that hope.
As the dull light washed into gold, a flock of spears took flight. Iron beaks glittered, wood shafts hissed.
The deadly lances struck sleeping bodies rolled in hides, slashed through tents and skewered the men rising from their beds, yawning. Screams and shouts floated up from the valley bottom as Maeve’s war-band all rose to their feet.
A sliver of bloody sun broke over the rim of the hills. Maeve thrust her sword into the air along with all the warriors around her. “Connacht! Connacht!” the men began shrieking.
Guilt wove a dark thread through Maeve—they were all of Connacht. Then she reminded herself that these warriors below had broken a sacred peace to betray fellow tribesmen. This was not about her alone, for Idath knew that many Connacht warriors supported her and would be drawn here to fight.
The guilt remained.
She had to force her way past it now. Live, or die. As she prepared to charge, however, Garvan slammed an arm across her chest. “You stay back.” Those wild eyes were not the Garvan she knew. His face was high-blooded, sweat already beading his lip and wetting his dark mane.
Another volley of spears staked scores of Idath’s men as they scrambled for cover among the trees and rocks. Maeve’s swordsmen were beating a storm on their shields, opening their throats to the dawn sky as they worked themselves into a frenzy before they ran.
Maeve swung her sword up so it locked on Garvan’s hilt.
“If you die, this is for nothing,” he snarled.
If I do not show bravery, I deserve to. She had to do something before she retched all over his feet. She forced Garvan’s blade down and dragged the raven helmet from her head, raking her hair out.
“They will crawl over each other to get to you.” Garvan’s horror was clear. “You are their ultimate prize!”
Yes. She could not forget the cold trail of the knife that slit her dress. But Idath would do worse—give her as a slave to men. A stab of fury thrust the guilt aside and made her at last catch alight. “You called me Macha of the Red Hair, brother. How can the men believe it if they don’t see me fight?” Her grin was savage, her blood now racing. “You can cover me, though.”
Turning her back on Garvan, she danced out before her warriors, flinging her unbound hair into a flurry, sword aloft. “Connacht! Connacht!” They must catch alight with her or they would die.
Everywhere the men paused in the grip of their own battle-fury, staring at her with white eyes. Instantly, the battle-chant changed, rising and falling in waves. “Macha! Macha!”
The cry pounded Maeve’s body, broke her down, possessed her. Garvan hesitated and then gave in to his madness, swinging his sword about his head with a feral grin, his shout merging with all the others.
Maeve put her head back with eyes closed, the flame of the battle-frenzy licking at the edges of awareness. Her sword-arm was on fire, and finally something was pure and bright.
Live, or die.
And so the war-goddess charged down the slope, her hair a flying banner to lead the way. The hillside seemed to collapse around her as men flung themselves into a shrieking tide, and she was caught in the flood and there was no going back.
Remember who you are. As she ran, Maeve’s heart screamed the warning.
Surrounded by the churning limbs of men, it was easy to feel she was them, arms bundled with sinew, muscled thighs pumping. But that way, she would die.
You are something else. Maeve tried to summon it, until the charge broke upon the enemy with a crash, and she was flung into a dark world that stank of blood and she forgot.
She was sucked into a maelstrom. Shrieks and bellows hammered her ears. Bright iron flashed through a morass of dark hair and fur, leather and bloodied flesh. Spears reared and plunged all around her, the claws of a many-headed beast.
Wildly, Maeve jabbed beneath the tangle of arms, bumping Garvan as he fought to shield her. Reflexes made her duck whenever anything came at her, her feet sliding in mud. The roars of fury and pain were deafening. Her blade met metal and toughened leather, and sometimes the give of flesh or bite of bone, but she was snarling to survive and had no room to absorb it.
A mist of blood thickened the air. It coated her, until she felt she was seeping into that stink, ankle-deep in filth. A hilt cracked her skull and she staggered, blinded by agony. Garvan shrieked and hacked her attacker down. “Around her!” he cried to the men nearby. “Back-to-back!”
They clustered in, heaving and grunting as they sought room to wield their blades. Maeve saw a dripping axe descending and jabbed up in panic, snapping the tendons of the wrist that braced it. Unabl
e to bring her sword about in the crush, she dragged her dagger from her belt and stuck the howling axeman in the belly.
Blows were being turned from her neck and back by the men around her. “No,” she panted. She could not die here, crushed by male bodies.
Let go, Maeve. She heard Ruán’s voice again.
Light. Breathe light … surrender. She had to melt outward and expand her senses, not coil up in panic. She closed her eyes, imagining. There … the glow of her dream-flight with Ruán. The shining currents that held her when she fought Innel. She remembered. All went silent as she slipped under bright water.
Time slowed.
The trees over the men’s heads flickered with silver fire. The movements of the warriors were waves of radiance, breaking into crests. Her men needed her to fill them, lift them.
Maeve darted from Garvan’s side, twirling beneath the blows of these lumbering men, the clumsy bludgeon of blades. Ahead was a barrow topped by a crumbling cairn, a grim tomb all the men were avoiding.
Sweeping up a lance, she bounded up the cairn. “To me!” she shrieked. “Me!” Holding the spear two-handed, she thrust it above her head, her hair tangled around the shaft like a scarlet battle-banner.
Her men raised their faces and saw their goddess rallying them to victory, and a brilliant tide of light washed over them. “Macha!” they screamed.
Yowling in fury, the enemy warriors also saw her and came running, but Garvan and his swordmates were there before them. The two tides met, and molten waves crashed about Maeve’s feet. She leaped down into that flood, every nerve exquisitely alive.
From the corner of her eye she glimpsed an enemy warrior, his intent to strike somehow sending out a flare of light before he even moved. She saw him coming and was already turning. His arm was only just bracing itself when Maeve stuck him in the hollow of his throat, and he fell at her feet.
Panting, she realized the chants of her war-band had changed again. They were now screaming her own name. “Maeve of the Red Hair! Maeve!” Their frenzy filled her, and her scalp rippled, the hairs on her neck standing up.
