“So as I stood there before the pulse these words bubbled up in my mind. It wasn’t anything I was familiar with, but they were there just the same. So, I spoke the incantation out loud and the pulse grew in size.” Oscar looked away from the others. “I hate to admit it, but it was so exhilarating when I found it and forced it to do what I wanted it to do—well what Elathan wanted it to do, anyway.”
“What about this poison, Oscar?” Frank asked.
“Oh, yes, well once it got to a large enough size for me to put my hand inside it I took a sort of coin that Elathan gave me and placed it the center. I’m not sure why but this ring of light shot out from the pulse in all directions. It passed right through me harmlessly and continued until it was out of sight. Then…” he stopped short of telling them the next part, feeling particularly ashamed of his actions.
“Dad, we need to know everything,” Lizzie encouraged.
“I would turn and locate the being that was to become the realm’s Watcher and I would bond them to the pulse through blood.”
“Blood?” Frank asked.
“Yes, somehow I was able to extract blood from their body and transfer it into the pulse. This puts them in command of the realm while keeping it connected to Elathan.”
“So after the blood transfusion, what did you do?” Frank asked.
“This shadow would take me to get another coin and then to find another dominion pulse.”
“Do you think you could find them again?” Garnash asked after a moment of thought. “I think it’s logical to assume that if we can find them again, then we can somehow remove the poison, you know.”
“It doesn’t works like that,” a deep and heavy voice declared from across the way on a small bump of a hill.
Lizzie’s attention was drawn to the large man on the hilltop. He was massive with a bushy beard and bulging muscles. A trident was resting across his shoulders where his hands were lazily draped. “Who are you?”
“Why don’t you ask the Seeker?” the big man replied.
“Oh, no,” Oscar gasped. “It’s Lir.”
“Lir?” Frank repeated.
Oscar nodded. “He’s the Watcher of Tech Duinn and a god of war.”
“He doesn’t look too welcoming,” Rohl added.
“I’m not,” Lir snarled.
…
The Scottish moon showed half of its face, reflecting a modicum of light over the moors and lands. Crannog had been on these lands for centuries hunting humans, fighting in magical wars, and trying his best to survive. It was a harsh existence to be a Súmaire, especially when vampires became all the rage with the publication of Bram Stoker’s ludicrous tale about a vampire. Only in recent times had Crannog noticed a revived interest in his clan from the humans, only this time there seemed to be more of a sick obsession rather than an internal fear associated with them. As a consequence, Crannog had seen more and more vampire hunters—humans with cameras and computers—trying to track down the Súmaire legends that roamed the lands of the Celts. He had only crossed paths with a few of them, but they never had a chance to report their findings. Their disappearances probably led to more curious inquiry, but that came as an occupational hazard for Crannog.
Already the thought of blood was making his mouth water, but he knew he needed to concentrate. Finding the Crown was an urgent matter for Elathan, and that made it an urgent matter for Crannog. The golden god was not forgiving when it came to failure. Still, how was he supposed to be an effective servant if he was starving?
Finding the Emerald Crown of the World was becoming a daunting task, a nearly impossible assignment that was yielding no rewards. The puzzle of what the Crown was and how anyone could find it was beginning to drive Crannog insane. He was going to need help—but from whom?
It was then that the image of a scared yet defiant little girl in a forest came to mind. A normal human wouldn’t bring very many useful skills to a partnership, but a human who was of her genetics and influenced by a Súmaire, now that just might have something to it.
…
As they walked, Brendan couldn’t help but observe with curiosity the snow-white deer with the silver antlers. Something about him was off, not in an alarming way, but off still the same. He knew that it was normally odd for a deer to speak, but after all he, Dorian, Lizzie, and the others had been through, what was a talking deer?
“Who are you?” Brendan finally asked as they reached a particularly dark section of the cavern.
The deer’s antlers glowed naturally with a similar shine to Brendan’s own magical glow to create enough light for them to see their footing and what was immediately around them in the cavern.
“I am Sabd,” the deer answered simply. “Be careful in any cave. Dewi’s dragons could always be lurking about.”
“Noted,” Brendan replied.
“I’ve never seen a creature quite like you, Sabd,” Dorian said.
“No, I suppose you haven’t. I’m alone in my plight, Earthling,” Sabd replied sadly. “Stick close to me, humans. I will protect you.”
“Hold on, Sabd. I think we need to talk a little bit about who we are and what we’re doing here,” Brendan suggested.
“Fine, but not here. Dewi’s scouts are always prowling. I will take you to my safe haven and then we can exchange stories.”
“You said you’d take us where we wanted to go, remember?” Dorian reminded the majestic animal.
“So I shall,” Sabd answered but offered no more of a reply. “Mind your heads. The path gets windy and a bit tricky from here on in.”
…
“Arawn!” a funny sounding voice that seemed too far off to be real screeched into Arawn’s mind.
“Arawn, can you hear me?” the voice called to him.
The Celtic warrior’s head begin to throb again.
“Wake up!” he heard just before a shocking cold jarred him into consciousness.
“What! Who? Huh?” he managed to say as icy water dripped down his face and soaked his clothes.
“Get up, Arawn!” Argona ordered as she dropped a metal bowl.
Arawn wiped his face and then slung his hair back and out of his eyes. “What do you think you’re doing, Argona? I was just starting to feel more like myself when you pull something like this.”
“I would say that I was sorry, but I’m not,” she huffed a reply. “You nearly let Elathan kill me—and for what? The Earth?”
Arawn pulled himself up and sat on the stone bench. He leaned his face down into his hands and tried to rub rational thought back into his fuzzy mind. “He left me with little choice; besides, I don’t think he really cared if I told him or not. He knew that he was going to be able to get it from me once he had his ultimate power. He was going to torture you because he wanted to see me suffer.”
“You suffer? Were you the one being smashed around or shocked with so much energy that you could feel the air around you sizzle and burn?” She moved closer and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look her in the eye. “You enjoyed watching me in that much pain, didn’t you?”
Arawn didn’t reply. He didn’t have to because she could see the answer in the depths of his eyes. There, in those pools was his soul barred for her to see; in them she saw then that the love he felt for her had never diminished, never faltered. He had known pain for so long, all she had known was anger.
“I had to buy time,” he said finally. “I had to buy time for the Protector. I owed him that.”
She took a step back and found comfort in holding her arms close around her body. Argona looked away from him,realizing that she owed Arawn her suffering. She had been a fool even though he had warned her.
“Unfortunately, the Protector is too late,” Arawn said as he sat back and leaned against the cold wall. “Now, Caoranach is free and the Earth is condemned to die.”
…
The Fortook Sea was rough and choppy on most days—more so than the Numrum and Poyfrag Seas for certain—but today there was an unusual calm on
the surface that Faolan didn’t trust. It was a rare day that the Fortook didn’t threaten to topple over and consume open sea vessels, but the pair of ships that Faolan and his bride had been trailing along the shoreline appeared to be in complete control and would remain eternally upright.
“Odd, wouldn’t you say?” Faolan asked offhandedly as he watched the first of the ships dock at the Fortook Southern Pier.
“The whole realm is odd, my love,” Aine countered.
As the pair of Ossorians stopped to hide themselves within a hundred and fifty meters of the pier—well within earshot for them to hear as long as they were in their werewolf form—the niseag stuck its head out of the cargo hold and then slunk its way into the sky. The creature flapped its leathery wings and began to circle high above the bay, the pier, the sea, and the surrounding lands. Aine and Faolan instinctively dropped into the coverage of the trees and bushes but kept their eyes and ears pointed at the ships.
“Who do you think owns those ships?” Aine whispered after the niseag had done a flyby overhead.
“I think we will find out momentarily.” Faolan fell silent while a few crewmembers began to scurry about anchoring the ship to the pier and lowering a boarding ramp. “Looks like Goblins—a few different clans of them, really.”
“What would they be doing in Mag Mell?” Aine wondered.
Faolan let the idea sit as a taller bunch of figures became visible on the deck and then on the ramp.
“Never mind the Goblins, why would fachen be here? They rarely ever leave the mountains in Caer Wydr.”
Aine spotted the niseag patrolling on the other side of the bay and stood up on her knees.
“Careful, dear, those nasty things have keen eyesight,” Faolan warned.
Aine squinted her eyes and found one more figure on the deck. This one was more diminutive than the fachen, more feminine. The female came down the ramp flanked by two Brags and a pair of Bendiths that flapped their demon-like wings to stay aloft. She got to the bottom of the ramp and Aine finally got a clear look at her.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she asked, almost a bit too loudly.
“Shhhh. That thing will hear you.” Faolan took his eyes off of the niseag and pointed them at the female who was in the company of the Goblins. “That can’t be right. A Banshee? But, I thought…”
“Apparently at least one survived.”
“The area appears secure, Madame Meghan,” a taller- than-average Redcap informed the Banshee.
Meghan didn’t reply. She looked around briefly before she smelled the air. “The air reeks of Ossorian filth, Targ. Can’t you smell it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“All those years ago those furry cretins sat smugly by, refusing to offer up the proper respect to the Banshee superiority.” Meghan glared down at Targ in disgust. “I want the Ossorians hunted down and killed like the dogs they are.”
Targ cackled. “Ossorian blood is such a delicacy, Madame. We humbly accept your decree,” he said with a bow.
Faolan was nearly blinded by anger at the thought of the Banshee reign from so long ago. He had only been a young lad at the time of their occupation, but the stories of absolute horror and night terrors that haunted his dreams in the years that followed were enough to perpetuate his anger. Faolan rose to his feet and he began to move quickly through the cover of the trees and brush.
“Faolan! Wait!” Aine said. She began to follow him but a horrible screeching made her freeze with fear. “Run, my husband. Run,” she whispered.
Faolan knew the creature had spotted his movement as soon as he heard its cry. He cursed himself for being so careless and for letting his anger make him act so brashly.
There was no point in stopping now. He had one aim and that was to rip the Banshee apart and take as many of her Goblin horde along with her as possible. He moved incredibly fast alternating between running on two and four legs, allowing the terrain to dictate his stride technique. He bounded along the shoreline parallel to the pier and the ship. He finally emerged from the cover of the trees releasing a horrific roar. Two Bendiths happened to be hovering too low and in a matter of seconds the Ossorian tore through them with a single slash of his front claws.
“I’m coming for you, Banshee!” he growled.
Meghan’s eyes shot wide open and her beautiful façade melted away to her true Banshee visage. Her skin grew paler; her hair whipped about her as if she were caught in a harsh wind. Her nails lengthened into talons, and her skin squeezed in on her ribs to give her a deathly, bony stature. Meghan’s feet lifted into the air and she hovered six feet above the hard-packed sand of the beach.
“Kill him!” she ordered.
Faolan never stopped running. Sand was tossed behind him in sprays. Goblin blood was splattered along his single-minded path towards the murderous Banshee. The wolf had taken over his thoughts and his conscious mind. Images of his beloved Aine flashed through the red haze, but he pushed them aside; the feral side of him was thirsting for blood.
A large Brag transformed its body into a large-bodied creature with the head of a ram, like a Goborchind had somehow tripled its size, and stood in between Faolan and his target. The Brag brought two heavy fists down at the werewolf, but Faolan’s agility and quick reflexes saw him launching himself up and over the shape shifter into a perfectly executed roll until he stood face to face with the femme fatale.
“Murderer!” he spat.
“So says you,” Meghan retorted with a sinister grin.
No more words. Faolan bounded forward and hopped into the sky intent on burying his claws deep into her midsection, but the Banshee had other ideas. Meghan unleashed a concentrated wail, one that vibrated the air molecules in a straight path and hit the werewolf square in the chest dropping him from the air like a stone. Faolan fell to the ground and made a dent in the hardened sand.
Meghan hovered over his trauma-filled body and cackled. “Foolish animal. There was a reason the Ossorians did nothing all those years ago, and you can now attest to the truth of the statement.”
She landed next to him, her gorgeous human form returning. “We’re not so different, werewolf. We both prey on the lesser beings of Mag Mell, do we not? It’s just that for me, every species is inferior.”
“We’re nothing alike,” Faolan wheezed, his chest collapsing in on itself.
“I would kill you now, but you need to be educated, Ossorian.” Meghan glanced up at the niseag that was hovering above monitoring the situation. “Freeze him, but don’t kill him. He’s my new prize.”
The niseag blew out its cold breath in a solid stream and encased Faolan in a dense block of ice. The Goblins cheered and raised their weapons in victory.
“Load him onto the ship. I want a dozen niseags and a thousand Goblins to take the Ossorians into custody. We will make a public example of our furry friend here.”
The niseag zipped in and snatched the block of ice that held Faolan and placed it on the deck of the ship. The Goblins began to disperse into the lands leaving the sea behind.
Aine looked on in horror from a distance. How could he have let this happen? Why was he so foolhardy? None of the answers really mattered. There was no changing it now. The only way to help her husband now was to find help for them all.
She only hoped that the council of elders would believe her.
…
“Morrigan?” Brendan said, confused by her presence in Brugh. “What are you doing here?”
The Morrigan acted like she didn’t hear him. She walked towards him but looked through him as she walked.
“Morrigan, what are you doing here?”
The mysterious Morrigan strolled right past him without acknowledging his presence. “You sent for me?”
Brendan was a bit confused. “Nope, I…”
“Yes, thank you for meeting me,” a deeper voice replied from behind Brendan.
Brendan turned instinctively to look for Nuada since the sound of his voice had been etched into
his brain. He wanted more than anything to see his benefactor’s face, but just like in the prior visions, Nuada’s face appeared blurry to Brendan. He was dressed in what Brendan would call daily attire as compared to the war ensemble the silver god had donned against Dewi, but even so, Nuada voice held a grave tone.
“My time is precious, Nuada. What is it that you need?” the Morrigan asked.
“Your time is never ending, Morrigan, but your advice is truly what I seek,” Nuada said as he stepped closer to her. “You see, Elathan has become a bit of a problem in recent years.”
“As I warned you he would,” the Morrigan reminded.
“Yes, you did,” he said, lowering his head. “I fear that his brashness on Earth will jeopardize the living creatures of the planet. I’ve already had to use Arawn and Argona to dispatch many unruly Otherworld beings that Elathan thought made good additions to Earth.”
“Forbid him from using the tether, Nuada. That should end his foolishness.”
“It’s not that simple, Morrigan. His powers—they’ve grown to equal my own. He’s had some sort of metamorphosis.” Nuada looked away from her momentarily. “I fear a war is coming, one which could potentially destroy the Earth. I cannot allow that to happen. The Earthlings didn’t ask for us to go there.”
“No, they did not, but you are there. Many of the Otherworld clans have settled in and made good partnerships with the humans, Nuada. Your venture there has not been for naught.”
The Morrigan walked closer to Nuada and stood. Brendan could feel the temperature around them cool as she approached. Her green eyes fixated on Nuada’s face but showed no signs of compassion or empathy. They were cold and set, though not callous or harsh.
“I could show you a way,” she claimed. “But it would come at a great cost.”
Nuada folded his arms across his chest and considered her words. “What do you mean?”
“You have no doubt heard of the Emerald Crown of the World,” she said, pausing for affirmation from Nuada. “The Crown exists between worlds, between realms. It is possible for me to create such a nether purlieu, but nothing to the extent of the Crown. Anything I generate would be confined and inescapable.”
The Bloodline Inheritance Page 6
