by Ann Marston
His next swing would kill me. I grabbed at his sword hand, gripping his wrist tightly between my two hands, and lashed out at his legs, hooking my foot around his ankles. We fell together. I swung my elbow and caught him on the jaw.
While he lay, half-stunned, I staggered to my feet and reached for his sword. But as I touched it, the icy cold of the hilt seared my hand like fire. I cried out and dropped it.
He laughed unsteadily, his breath coming in short gasps. “You cannot take it from me,” he said. “The sword of a Sombre Rider is quenched in blood.” He grinned. “This one was quenched in Celae blood. It burns any hand but my own.”
I stumbled away from him, the wound in my side staining my shirt and kilt scarlet. Even as I staggered back, he got to his knees, then to his feet. I turned to run, looking around frantically for another tree, for anything I could use as a weapon. I heard his laughter behind me as I ran, but his footsteps were nearly as slow and heavy as mine.
Even as I ran, the small spark of hope and anger began to die and despair took its place. I could not win against him, not here in this bleak and lifeless place. The thick ash dragged at my boots, and the wound in my side drained my life into the cinders. With every step I took, I knew he was gaining on me. Black tendrils of the darkness he carried with him reached out to drag me back, insinuating themselves around my arms, around my legs, my throat.
The air ahead of me began to shimmer. For an instant, it effervesced slightly, like dust motes sparking in the sun. I heard a voice. Cullin’s voice, faint and remote, but completely recognizable, speaking from an unthinkable distance. “Give it to him. Quickly.”
Then Kerri stood there in the midst of the sparking air, and she carried my sword. “I cannot enter farther,” she whispered, her voice as thin and attenuated as fine gold wire. “I bring you this.” She jammed the sword, point first, into the ash so that it quivered there, gleaming and bright. She stepped back, nearly transparent in the wan light, but the sword stood solid and gleaming in the ash. Even as Kerri faded and disappeared, green spread around the tip of the sword, eating away at the colourless ash in a growing circle.
My heart leaped in my chest. “Don’t go, sheyala,” I shouted. “Don’t go.”
“I could not find you until you began to break the spell.” Her voice was no more than a rustle of sound on the breeze. “But I cannot stay….”
The tip of my enemy’s blade tangled in the hair at the back of my neck. I surged forward, my hands stretched before me, reaching for the sword planted in the middle of the circle of green. The ash and cinder sucked at my boots and I fell, but my hands found the cool, fresh grass. I rolled desperately as the black sword slashed down into the ash where my hips had been only an instant before.
I came to my knees, and my hands closed around the hilt of the Rune Blade. The darkness within me shattered and spun away in crumbling fragments as I lifted the blade. It was as if the sun had come out after a storm, and massive shackles fell from my arms and legs. The sword felt light and alive in my hands, singing with power. The runes along the blade glowed and sparked, and the words they formed leaped out at me. Take up the Strength of Celi.
I shouted in triumph as the words burned in the feeble light of the sunless sky. The wound in my side still leaked blood as I spun to face my enemy, but strength flowed into me from the sword in my hands. The blade radiated brilliant light in coruscating colours as I raised it to meet the black, light-absorbing blade of my enemy. Weakened I might yet be, but now that I held the sword, we two were evenly matched again.
Back and forth across that small area of life in the dead land we battled each other, neither of us able to gain advantage over the other. But this time, I was not always on the defensive as I had been in our last two encounters.
My breath came in painful rasps and the sword cut in my side spread icy cold through my chest. The face of my enemy paled until it was puckered with lines of strain, and his breathing became as uneven as mine. He lifted his sword as if it were made of lead, and his arms had wasted to threads, but my own blade was no less heavy, my arms no stronger.
Then I lunged at him, using the last dregs of strength. The tip of my sword sliced deep into the muscle of his right arm. His sword fell from nerveless fingers as his blood, black-red and viscous, flowed down his arm in thick ropes and clotted against his wrist and hand. The sword vanished as it hit the ground, once again swallowed up in its own darkness.
I had no strength left. I could not raise the sword for the last, killing blow. The sword lowered of its own accord, point going deep into the soft, living turf. Gasping for breath, my enemy stepped back toward the rim of the trampled grass.
“Next time we meet, you will die,” he panted. “Next time we meet, I shall be stronger.” He faded into the blackness that swirled up swiftly around into claim him.
I fell to my knees, clutching the sword for support. When I found the strength to lift my head, I saw the gently rounded hill before me, its summit crowned by the stone dance. The Watcher on the Hill stood in the opening of the inner horseshoe of menhirs, but he did not look at me.
The runes on the blade blazed up brightly in front of my eyes. Take up the Strength of Celi. My head sagged forward. I leaned my forehead against my wrists as I held onto the familiar worn leather hilt, and I closed my eyes in relief and thankfulness, muttering my gratitude to the Duality, the seven gods and goddesses, and even to the Watcher on the Hill.
***
When I opened my eyes again, I still held the sword, but I lay on my back one hand clutching the hilt to my breast, the fingers of the other spread along the deeply engraved runes above my belly. I looked up and saw Kerri kneeling on the hard-packed earthen floor, her face drawn and worried. Cullin hovered behind her, looking no less distressed. I smiled. “Hellas is not so bad,” I murmured and drifted back into sleep.
XXIII
I lay bemused on the pallet of bracken and furs in the semicircular room, watching a splash of sunlight creep slowly across the beaten earth of the floor. Dust motes danced lazily in the sunbeam—pure, golden sparks of light in the cool dimness of the room. The way the narrow ray of light arrowed through the chink in the wall told me it was close to mid morning. I lay quietly, content and relaxed, knowing myself to be healing quickly now. My beard, growing in after—how many?—days of illness, itched fiercely and I badly needed a bath to sluice away the sweat-stink of fever and fear, but it would wait quite safely. There was no hurry.
I had awakened some time ago to find myself alone in the chamber, but I heard Jeriad muttering to himself on the other side of the hide curtain. For now, I was not unhappy to be by myself. I touched the narrow ridge of scar tissue along my ribs, thinking of the dream. I had not killed my enemy this time, but I had fought him to a draw and beaten him back once more. If we met again—when we met again—I thought I might be strong enough to defeat him once and for all. In the dream, I had regained my sword, and I had read the runes spilling along the blade.
I remembered dreaming of Cullin and Kerri, too. They had looked not like shades, but warm and alive, as real as I. If they were in that strange land by the towering dance of stone, I was more than willing to return as many times as I was able, if it meant I could speak with them again. Small comfort, perhaps, but I’d had little enough of comforting things for the last while.
Jeriad came through the hide curtain, humming and chuckling merrily to himself. He carried a wooden bowl between his gnarled hands. The scent of venison and vegetable stew came into the room with him, and my stomach awoke abruptly, complaining violently and clamouring for food. I sat up as Jeriad crouched by the pallet, grinning widely as the little rodent skull dangling from his earlobe.
“That smells suspiciously like food,” I said, smiling as I gestured toward the bowl.
“Look at ye,” he chortled. “Look at ye, now. Bright eyed and chipper as a squirrel, ye be. Ye be healing well now. I knew it would work. I knew it.”
He thrust the bowl into my
hands. I was right. Venison stew. I wasted little time in diligently employing the horn spoon to transfer the stew from the bowl to my mouth. It was unutterably delicious, the plentiful chunks of meat tender and perfectly seasoned, the gravy rich and thick. Jeriad sat there pleased with himself, and watched me eat, still grinning, and bouncing like an excited child.
“The darkness be gone, boy,” he said happily. He placed one finger on my breastbone and chuckled. “See? The darkness be gone from ye. It be gone. Ye be fresh new and clean. I knew it would work. I fetched them for ye, I did. Fetched them and they came right off.”
I looked up at him, but didn’t stop eating. “You brought my friends into the dream?” I asked around a mouthful of stew.
“I fetched them I did,” he said, nodding and grinning. “Be not so mad, old Jeriad. Be not so mad.”
“But how—?”
“They be searching for ye,” he continued, paying no more attention to the last question than to the one before it. “I found them and fetched them back for ye.” He gave an odd little skip of glee, still crouched. “They bringed the sword for ye. Did ye see it, boy? They bringed the great sword for ye.” He gestured over his shoulder, chuckling again.
I glanced up, then almost dropped the bowl of stew. My sword in its battered leather scabbard hung on a stout wooden peg pounded into the undressed stone of the wall on the opposite side of the room, behind the pallet. It was my sword. Unmistakably my sword. The worn, leather-bound hilt carried the stains my hands had placed there. I knew it as well as I knew Cullin’s face.
“Where did you get that?” I demanded, my voice sounding rusty and rasping, all thoughts of food banished. “Where did that sword come from?”
Jeriad laughed. “I told ye, boy. I fetched them for ye, and they bringed the sword. Didn’t I tell ye so?”
An arm swept aside the hide curtain across the door. Cullin stepped aside to let Kerri enter the room first, then followed her in. They stood there, side by side, faces grave and solemn. The shaft of sunlight slanted down across their heads and their hair blazed molten gold and copper flame in the dim light. The blood drained from my head, leaving me dizzy and giddy. The room spun dangerously for an instant. Jeriad snatched the half-empty bowl from my suddenly nerveless fingers as I sat there and simply stared for a long, timeless moment.
“He told me you were dead,” I said hoarsely. “Drakon told me you were both dead.”
Neither of them spoke, but Kerri crossed the small room slowly and went to her knees on the edge of the pallet. She reached out a hand and put gentle fingers to the side of my face, running them delicately down my cheek and jaw. I couldn’t tell if she were trying to assure me she was alive, or satisfy herself that I was still alive. Cullin walked across the room behind her and sank to a cross-legged position by my shoulder. His eyes were peculiarly bright and my own eyes stung suspiciously.
“We thought you were dead, too,” he said quietly. “We could hardly believe Jeriad when he came bounding out of the reeds along the riverbank like a wild man and insisted we go with him because you needed us.” He reached out a hand and I gripped it in mine. It felt warm and solid and comforting, and too real to be another dream. “When we got here, you looked as if you were dying. I didn’t think you were breathing until Kerri put the sword in your hands. Even then, it was half a day before you began to look even halfway alive.”
Questions welled up and overflowed, but I had not the voice to ask them. All I could do was look from one to the other in wonder. I was foolishly close to tears. I turned to see Jeriad nearly dancing with delight, still crouched and holding the wooden bowl.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
Everything about him curled upward in mirth—mouth, hair, beard, the sun-creases at the corners of his eyes. “Ye beat the darkness,” he sang. “I be fetching your people, but ye beat the darkness, boy. Ye beat the black sorcerers.” He leaped to his feet, frowning suddenly. “But ye need rest, boy. Rest.”
“In a moment,” I said to him, then turned back to Cullin and Kerri. “But how did you find me?”
Cullin laughed. “A long story, ti’rhonai,” he said. “And time enough for the telling later.”
***
We sat together, Cullin and Kerri and I, in the small half-circle of the underground chamber. Jeriad flittered and fussed about for all the world as if he’d hatched us himself, until Cullin’s big hand on his arm brought him down to a dubious perch next to him.
“Roost there a wee while,” Cullin said firmly, “and I’ll no be worrit about you stepping in the wine.”
Jeriad settled, thin arms wrapped tightly around his upraised knees, watching Cullin through the fringe of hair across his forehead.
“How did you find me?” I asked. I looked at Kerri. “What happened after you got back into the carriage?”
Kerri had reverted to normal since Jeriad shooed her out of the chamber earlier in the day. She glared at me. “Got back into the carriage,” she repeated. “Listen to the man! You threw me back, you imbecile. By the time I got the driver to stop the stupid horses, I was ready to strangle you, even if I had to go through all four of those thugs to do it.”
I had more than enough strength to glare back. “What exactly was I supposed to do?” I demanded. “What could you have done in that fancy gown? Walloped them with one of those ridiculous satin slippers?”
“The carriage whip was weapon enough to stop the only thug who tried to get into that carriage,” she said with smug satisfaction. “I took one of his eyes out, and he won’t be seeing too clearly out of the other for a good, long time, if ever.”
Cullin held up both hands, one palm facing each of us, and cut off my retort before I could take the breath to begin. “Enough,” he said quietly. I knew that tone in his voice. He didn’t use it often, and he seldom had to use it more than once. Kerri recognized it, too. She transferred her glare to him, then subsided into grudging silence. “If you two canna refrain from going for each other’s throats, this telling will take most of the night, and Jeriad will likely thump the both of you on the head with a large stone to get some peace and quiet.” He paused significantly. “If I dinna do it first, ye ken.”
Jeriad chuckled. “See?” he said knowingly to Cullin. “I be telling ye he be better.”
Cullin looked at me, looked at Kerri, then nodded. “Right,” he said. “Now, if you’ll hold your peace, I’ll get on with this.”
“Please,” I said.
“When Kerri got back to the palace, I was in with the Ephir again,” Cullin said. “That weasel Tergal had set a man on the second floor to skewer me with an arrow as I left. Fortunately, Sion foresaw the distinct possibility Tergal would do exactly that. He grabbed the archer by the scruff of the neck and the poor wee fellow couldn’t blame Tergal fast enough. We took him to the Ephir, and the Ephir called Tergal. When I accused him of ordering his man to kill me, Tergal went into a towering snit and tried to say I deserved the arrow because of what I’d done to his nose.” He looked at me and grinned. “Actually, I believe it was your fist he encountered so abruptly, ti’rhonai.”
“It very well may have been at that,” I said. “The tavern was not what might be described as very well lit.”
He laughed. “Tergal is not, I understand, one of the Ephir’s favourite kinsmen, but kinsman he is, and the Ephir was caught between loyalty to his youngest cousin and a possible alliance with Tyra.”
“He chose the alliance,” Kerri said dryly. “That was about when I came storming into the Council Room and demanded something be done immediately about those four thugs.”
Cullin reached for the wineskin that lay in front of his knees. “The Lady Kerridwen can throw a fairly impressive royal rage herself,” he said. “Within half an hour, the Ephir had guardsmen scouring every inch of Honandun, and they were quite prepared to take the city apart, brick by stone by board, to find you.” He took a sip of the wine and offered it to me. I shook my head. I didn’t feel quite ready to test the sta
ying power of my belly just yet.
“It was Cullin who thought of the sword,” Kerri said. “We left Sion calmly suggesting to the Ephir that Tergal’s head on a pole would perhaps be minimal retribution for his dishonourable act of attempting to kill the son of the Clan Laird of Broche Rhuidh. I swear I saw Tergal’s knees trembling, and the Ephir was certainly not a happy man.”
“We had a wild ride in that carriage going back to the Inn,” Cullin said. “We had surmised by then that it was Mendor and Drakon who had taken you. Tergal swore innocence to that, and it sounded like the ring of truth to me.”
“You were right about Mendor and Drakon,” I said. “They were taking me to the General. And Drakon had scheduled some entertainment for himself.” I grinned wryly at Kerri. “It would have spoiled me for next Beltane Eve.”
My attempt at humour fell remarkably flat. Kerri shuddered and Cullin’s mouth lengthened to a grim line. “One more thing to add to their account then,” Kerri muttered.
I reached out and touched her hand. “That fight is mine,” I told her. “There’s no need for you to risk your life and the search for your lost princeling over that.”
She snatched her hand away and glared at me. “Don’t you go telling me which fights I can’t choose to take up,” she said coldly. “The experience with Mendor and Drakon certainly hasn’t made you any more brilliant. Your head is just as thick as ever.” She snorted. “Solid bone. Or rock.”
“If you two are finished, mayhap I can continue?” Cullin said. He waited, but neither Kerri nor I had much more to add. Cullin nodded and went on. “We went back to the inn to get the swords and our horses. Kerri changed out of her ball gown while I got my sword, then got yours, too. I couldna do anything with it, of course, and for a while, we thought that Kerri might not be able to, either.”
