He suggested Skaaha resume their morning routines together. ‘If you also join me in the evenings,’ he added, ‘then you miss no weapons training with the others.’
On the field, her companions already worked on unarmed combat under Fion's cheerful instruction. Time, he taught her to take it, the pleasure in the doing. Days, lengthening in the renewed sun, spread out before them. He was her man, she would tell him that, and if he lay with another woman now, she would kill both of them. The rap of Ruan's stave brought her back.
‘Be in the moment,’ he reminded. ‘Is that not all there is?’
*
The vernal equinox arrived, a propitious balance. Far out in the bay of Bracadale a foreign ship struck its ochre sail and dropped anchor, waiting. It did not wait long. A coracle put out from the shore, bringing safe passage to Ullinish. A ransom was delivered to Doon Beck: gilded jars of coin, jewelled ornaments, fine wines and exotic foods. In the shy light of morning, Mara walked her captive down the beach. His language was not so difficult once she made the effort. He looked well fed now, dressed in fine robes made by her weavers, for a price. The deal struck for his release cheered her, the ransom more than adequate.
‘You have the map?’ she asked, as he stepped into the coracle that would row him to the waiting boat. But she knew he had, the instructions impressed on him over the last three moons. There was no need to trust him. His people had given much for his return and, for pride alone, he would act. All she need trust was human greed.
Above the tide-line, her warriors waited. It was the end of the first quarter. Before mid-day, the Ardvasar men would arrive for another week of training. Gila, the archer, stood with Corchen. In her hand she held a painted egg.
‘This one's for you,’ she told Mara. It promised new life. The eternal knot that covered the shell was drawn in red and gold, life through fire.
‘A good omen,’ Mara said, accepting the gift. Debts were paid on quarter days. She turned to watch the coracle bump against the side of the enemy ship, her captive climb aboard. Oars dipped, flashing, in the water. The ship moved slowly out to deeper water. The ochre sail rose, caught the breeze. Peace was all she wanted, peace from the vengeful haunting of Kerrigen through her dangerous daughters. By tomorrow morning, she would have it.
In Glenelg, the inhabitants raced hares or rolled their decorated eggs down the ancestral mounds. Bets were taken on both, all previous debts safely settled. Although their girls already bled, and they had no boys, a feast was still laid out in Doon Telve. A whole porker roasted on a spit. Falling between Imbolc and Beltane, this equinox was when first signs of adulthood were marked. It balanced day and night, another pinhead on which time stood, and changed.
At sunset, Skaaha and Ruan trained together on the hill. Around them, yellow gorse and broom blazed like fire. It was treasured time, silent apart from the thump and smack of staves, the air shifting as they leapt or spun. Birds, busy all day with breeding, settled to their evensong. The sky painted itself in red shades of sunset, clouds gilded with gold.
‘You did well,’ Ruan said when the session ended.
‘Better,’ she agreed. Always one step ahead, he advanced her ability without humiliation. Pleasure in her increasing skill replaced urgency. ‘I drew first blood with Fion today.’
‘And Jiya?’
‘Not yet, she's faster in her madness, but soon.’ She squinted at him against the last sunlight. ‘So your days are numbered.’
He laughed. ‘You boast like a warrior, at least,’ he teased.
She blushed, smiling. ‘We'll see.’
Screaming – screams and smoke, the flash of blades, burning thatch, the sharp thrust of a spear, and blood – blood that bloomed on opening wounds. Skaaha gasped upright, hands clutching her gut, expecting to see blood ooze through her fingers. There was no blood, the only fire the flicker of night-lamps, the sound of Fion's steady breathing beside her. Rising, she padded across the skins to the hearth, poured a horn of the druids' beech cordial left over from the feast, and climbed the stairs to the walkway to watch the stars.
The colour of the night sky promised dawn was not so far away. The watch-keeper cracked an eye at her and resumed dozing. An owl hooted among the trees. Overhead, Danu, the warrior, strode westward. Stars split the heavens, countless beyond imagination. A waning gibbous moon grinned in the east, lighting fields and forest. The sounds of night stirred, scatterings, shrieks, the soft whoop of owl wings, birds shifting in branches, a wolf howling far away, and the distant all-too-human cry of foxes that wasn't quite in the right place.
A shiver ran across her body as if the skin shrivelled on her bones. Dropping the drinking horn, she ran back round the walkway till she could see north. Fire glowed beyond the kyle. A pall of smoke drifted across Ben Aslack.
‘Sound the alarm,’ she yelled, shaking the slumbering watch-keeper. ‘Kylerhea's burning!’
Before the war horn of Glenelg blared, she was downstairs, dressing rapidly. It was her lead the others followed, crashing down the stone steps to arm themselves while wakened workers saddled up their mounts. The druids came running to meet them outside the doors.
‘They're under attack, Ruan,’ Skaaha yelled, leaping on her horse.
‘I hear it.’ He caught hold of her bridle. ‘Let the rest of us go. You and Eefay can't cross the water!’
‘Come or stay,’ she screamed back at him, drawing her sword to take his hand off if he didn't let go, ‘but they won't die for want of me!’
For answer he leapt up behind her. ‘Go!’ He slapped the horse away.
Riding hard, rounding the hill, they confronted an orange glow. A dark pall of smoke stained the dawn. Across the sound, Kylerhea was in flames. Every roof blazed. The ride along the shore was longer than a lifetime. At the ferry, leaping from her horse and into a coracle, Skaaha pushed off with her spear as Ruan took up the paddle. Behind, a string of small craft followed. The current carried them rapidly over the water, into the crackle and roar of flame, to air thick with shrieks and moans, the din of terror-stricken beasts trapped in pens.
Pelting up the jetty, running low to avoid sparks and smoke, Skaaha stumbled to a stop. A body lay beside the path, forearm hacked open to the bone. Unfamiliar in death, neck bare of her strings of beads, Kenna lay like a broken thing, skirts ripped aside, a bloodied gash where her malformed male genitals had been. The noman's dead fingers still gripped an iron ladle like a club, the only weapon to hand in her home at night.
‘Raiders,’ Ruan muttered. ‘They might still be here.’
Passing him her spear, Skaaha drew her sword and they ran on. Erith's roundhouse was in flames. Clumps of flaring thatch fell into it, setting beds and screens alight. Skaaha ran into choking, acrid smoke, eyes smarting.
‘Cover your face,’ Ruan yelled, tearing strips of cloth, soaking them quickly in the cold cauldron to wrap around his mouth and nose.
Erith lay on her back in the doorway of her chamber, dead eyes staring up at her burning roof, nightshift slashed across her swollen belly. The wound gaped, wet and bloody. Skaaha snatched up Freya's daughter from her cot, staggered outside, on to her knees, wheezing for breath, retching.
‘Stay here’ – Fion's voice in her ear – ‘we'll get the rest out.’
Someone moaned, a body beside the path propped on a rock. ‘Skaa-ha.’
She scrambled over, laid the gasping baby on the grass. It was Ard, face blackened, hair singed, one arm flung awkwardly behind. The other hand clutched his gut. He raised it towards her. Blood bloomed from the hole in him, where a spear had gone in. She pressed her own hands down. The warmth of his life oozed between her fingers. ‘Ruan!’ she screamed. ‘Ruan!’ Behind her, Lethra's blazing roof collapsed inwards.
They worked till daylight, dragging out the wounded, dead and dying. Gern was found unconscious near the forge. Lethra, pulled from her ruined house with just a knock on the head, cursed her survival. Yona, the druid, lived, but only just, her two fellows killed. Mish
a freed the animals from their pens, slaughtering those with injuries. Kenna's roof was the only one saved, a trick of nature helped by the sea-water Jiya and Terra carted up ladders to pour on to the smouldering thatch. The growing light brought the small group of charcoal burners down from the forests. Wakened by the first screams, they'd lit the beacon on the hill then run away.
‘There were too many,’ Erith's youngest husband whispered, looking down at his wife's ruined body. ‘They came in a great ship with yellow sails.’
When there was no one left to save, Skaaha ran back to be with Ard, bandaged now by the druids. She held his head in her lap, stroked his tormented, beloved face, and told him lies, all the lies that might make life beautiful again before he died.
‘Erith?’ he groaned, trying to rise.
‘Is fine. Rest easy.’
‘She had’ – he shuddered – ‘birth pains.’
‘She's fine, and the baby. A boy it was… is. You have a fine son. She's on the green, with him, sleeping in a blanket. Hush now’ – when he tried to turn to see. ‘When you can be moved, we'll lay you with her. There are not so many hurt’ – she kissed his forehead – ‘it was the forge they came to raid.’ That, at least, was true, the stores emptied. ‘Things only, you'll make more, and more beautiful.’
‘Go,’ he gasped. ‘Keep’ – a great gulf between each breath – ‘safe.’
‘I will,’ she promised more black lies, ‘soon as you sleep.’ His body relaxed in her arms. ‘Soon as the tribes come to mend the roofs, soon as…’ She was talking to herself. ‘There now,’ she said. ‘Lie with Erith. I told you it would not be long.’ Gently she laid his head on the ground, put a kiss on her fingers and pressed it to his mouth. Then she crawled away, hunched over the earth and beat her fists on the grass, thumping down over and over as if ferocity of feeling might kill the world.
‘Skaaha.’ Ruan's hand touched her shoulder.
‘Do not give me pity,’ she snarled up at him.
‘I need your sword,’ he said, his smoke-stained features bleak. ‘There is a man and a child badly burned.’
She went with him. The adult writhed, unrecognizable, naked skin blackened, cracked, his lips and eyelids gone, just a patch of pink flesh against his chest. The toddler, one pink arm against crusted burns, jerked. There was only one boy that age in the village, Kaitlyn's foster-son. His mother crouched near by, rocking, coughing, a tattered bandage on her arm.
‘Hanick went to fetch him,’ she sobbed. ‘They didn't come out.’
‘They won't live,’ Ruan said, his voice hoarse, ‘and their pain is great.’ He held his hand out. ‘Let me cut off their breath.’
‘They're my people,’ Skaaha said. ‘I will do it.’ She drew her sword.
When it was done, she walked away, sword glued in her hand, dragging through drifting ash beyond the ruined buildings to the foot of the hills. Weapons were made to defend their clans, not for this. Not for this. Her spirit could not hold what was happening here. Great circles of stone that had been homes smoked like hearths. Bodies lined the playing ground. The wounded huddled on the drying green. Among them, the druids worked, stitching, cauterizing, providing sips of brewed bark and herbs to dull the pain. Harsh coughs and howls of agony mingled with softer weeping. Nearby, a child whimpered.
She turned to look at the untouched hazel shelter of a latrine. Crossing to it, she pulled back the wicker screen. The boy inside drew in a sharp, frightened breath. His arms gripped his chest protectively. Tracks of tears ran down his face.
‘Calum!’
‘Don't cut me,’ he squealed, covering his face.
‘No.’ Realizing she still held the sword, she sheathed it, dropped to her knees and held out her arms. ‘You're safe now.’
‘Bride,’ he breathed, throwing himself at her. ‘I knew you'd come.’
Thunder, there was thunder on the hill. Horses, so many horses, each with a warrior on its back, galloped down it. The boy in Skaaha's arms shook.
‘It's all right,’ she said, setting him down. ‘Just stay behind me.’
The lead mount pulled up in front of her. Vass leapt down.
‘What happened?’ he demanded, gazing past her at the destruction.
She threw herself at him, beating on his chest. ‘How did you let that ship pass?’ she screamed. ‘Look what they've done!’
‘Raiders?’ Vass gripped her arms. ‘That makes no sense.’ His warriors milled, dumbstruck. ‘Mara returned their hostage only yesterday.’
‘You didn't come,’ she raged. ‘They lit the beacon and you didn't come!’
‘We rode from Bracadale’ – he sounded bewildered – ‘as soon as we saw smoke. Mara’ – he waved a hand – ‘called us up for training.’ His voice changed. The grip on her arms tightened. ‘You shouldn't be here,’ he warned, pushing her away. ‘Run.’
37
Skaaha stepped back. Women she knew rode among the men of Ardvasar. A horse edged through them. Skaaha's skin tightened till it might snap. Mara, haughty and arrogant, sat looking down at her. There was a strange light in her cold eyes.
‘Well, well,’ the warrior queen observed, ‘our little renegade.’ The edge of delight in her voice cut like a shard of glass. ‘Take her!’ she barked.
Skaaha drew her sword. The slash of steel echoed beside her, a second sword. It was Eefay's, her sister standing now at her side.
‘Both of you?’ Mara crowed. ‘Better and better.’
Ruan leapt between them, arms raised to forbid attack. ‘The ground of Kylerhea is sanctified for healing,’ he shouted. ‘You cannot pass.’
Mara's warriors hesitated. Jiya bounced up and down on Kenna's roof.
‘You did this!’ she howled. ‘Slime-ridden bog bitch, I know you! I see you. Spawn of the swamp, I see what you do!’
‘Shoot her down,’ Mara ordered her archer.
‘I can't.’ Gila hesitated, unnerved. ‘She's crazed.’
Still screeching obscenities, Jiya skittered down the roof, pelting over to join her nieces. The priests of Glenelg, stained with dirt and blood, hurried to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ruan. Misha and Terra, reeking of smoke, lined up with the two sisters, swords drawn. Fion stood alongside, axe in hand. In the morning light, skin blacked and eyes red-rimmed, they made a pitiful small band. The warrior queen leant forward over her horse's neck, glaring at Ruan.
‘You can't save them with sanctuary, druid,’ she said. ‘By the ruling of your own court, their lives were forfeit when their feet touched this island.’
Skaaha sheathed her sword. The time had come. Pushing past Ruan, she gazed up at Mara's hated face. ‘You will have my life,’ she said, strong and clear, ‘if you can take it. I claim the right of combat.’ A gasp of surprise or shock rippled through the mounted warriors. Beside her, Ruan tensed. Night and day, on the hill while they trained, they had planned for this. Now his hand touched hers, afraid it came too soon.
‘Skaaha…’
‘Is long dead,’ she stopped him, still watching Mara. ‘I am the instrument of vengeance’ – her voice rose with her courage – ‘Danu incarnate!’
Uncertainty flickered in Mara's eyes. ‘You delude yourself,’ she scoffed.
‘That you fear me?’
‘Ha!’ the warrior screeched. ‘Name the day.’
‘The place of heroes,’ Skaaha declared, ‘after the wake for Kylerhea. If there is one shred of honour left on the Island of Wings, you'll meet me there.’
‘Aye-yie-yaa!’ the warriors shrieked. It was a powerful challenge.
‘If my queen allows,’ the archer, Gila, spoke, ‘I will fight as her champion.’
‘Then I stand as champion for Skaaha!’ Jiya trumped her.
Mara waved her archer's offer away, gaze fixed on her challenger. ‘The honour,’ she spat the word, ‘is mine.’ A tight smile touched her mouth. ‘You will need more than words, daughter of Kerrigen.’ Her hands gripped her horse's reins. ‘Bury your dead.’ She pulled the animal round, kick
ed it away.
Several of the Bracadale chapter followed their queen. Others hesitated. Help was needed here.
‘Go,’ Vass said. ‘This is our work.’ His men dismounted.
‘Thum!’ Calum shrieked, darting out from behind the Glenelg line-up, running to embrace his brother.
Skaaha was surrounded. ‘Stop,’ she begged, refusing questions or concern. ‘This is a wake.’ The men of Ardvasar drifted away into the horror of Kylerhea, Thum to discover the loss of both his mothers, Vass of his brother. They would all of them find grief here, dead lovers, children, kinsfolk. Her life was the least concern. Mara expected her to be here, had delivered up her hostage to the raiders just the day before. The echoes with Beltane rang loud and clear. Mara's duplicity was without end. Sour smoke blew past Skaaha's face. The cold knot in her gut grew to encompass her heart, excising grief. Like Danu, the avenger, she was pitiless. Her challenge was not made too soon but far, far too late.
The ride north to the place of heroes took three days. They travelled at walking pace up the east coast of the island, overlooked by the hills of Alba across the water. Suli led the way, with priests from the cell of Bride, hand drums marking time. There was no joy in the procession to deliver up their young goddess. The Glenelg chariots, fetched over the kyle, carried Skaaha and her three companions. Standing upright, hair greased into coils, she was dressed for battle, torc round her throat, naked beneath her cloak and fully armed, the shield Ard had made shouldered on her back. Fion and Jiya, who rocked chanting in the saddle, rode with the Ardvasar men. Blaring war horns announced the challenge to the island people. Behind them, Lethra and Gern drove the fittest survivors from Kylerhea in a cart. Other clans followed on.
Ahead, the arena of champions lay hidden behind jagged walls of rock, a place of gloom and shadows where death was done. At the ridge of sentinels, the druids stopped. Skaaha glanced around at her companions in their chariots.
‘Mind what I said.’ She gripped her spear, leapt down. Ruan waited to speak with her. This was his land, the place of his birth and youth. He came on ahead, three days earlier, to prepare the ground. Before he left, she had him tattoo her left breast, erasing old scars.
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