by Jane Stain
He felt it, and he embraced her heart with his.
Right. He was still here with her. He deserved better than her sadness. Nadia gave in to his embrace and willed Ciaran to feel all the love she had for him, all her yearning to have him with her always. Tears burst from her eyes, and she started sobbing, trying her best to do it silently and not wake the others, unable to trust them not to give him away to the Cameron warriors.
He gathered her into his physical arms and held her close, using his elbows to rock her softly in a soothing motion and speaking to her in their shared consciousness. “Nadia, dinna cry for me. I resigned myself tae an early grave days hence. Allow me tae see ye safe." Again, he imagined her getting up and taking his hand and allowing him to lead her away.
Quietly, in their minds, she told him, "I wull na hae ye blaming yerself fer my death, sae I wull na flee, lest they catch me. We love each other, sae let us be together as long as we can. If 'tis ainly this one night, then sae let it be. Make the best o’ it, the time we hae here under the stars in the Fae Wood, where anything is possible."
An idea formed in his mind like a seed sprouting, slowly at first, but growing greener and taller every moment. “We bide in the Fae Wood,” he thought at her, “surrounded by the faeries, magical creatures who may indeed hae what it takes tae save us.” He thought back in his mind to his childhood and summoned a song his mother had taught him about the faeries.
...What makes you pull the poison rose?
What makes you break the tree?
What makes you harm the little babe
That I have got with thee?
Oh I will pull the rose, Tam Lin
I will break the tree
But I’ll not bear the little babe
That you have got with me
If he but were a gentle man
And not a wild shade
I’d rock him all the winter’s night
And all the summer’s day...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3yTEUnyYDA
(YouTube: Folk Alley Sessions: Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer - "Tam Lin (Child 39)")
In their mingled minds, she joined in with him singing. The song was a familiar one, and they sang the many verses together.
It was an odd plan his mind had formed, singing about the fae to make them appear, but If druids could visit them in their dreams and hear their thoughts, then how much more likely the unearthly Fae could hear their thoughts in real life within the Fae Wood, being far more magical?
After a time, she thought she heard the Fae answer. Their musical voices had an ethereal beauty, sounding like an orchestra made entirely of stringed instruments not quite loud enough for her to make out the words. Was it real, or was she imagining it?
“Aye, ’tis real,” said Ciaran’s thoughts. “That be the fae. Their answer grows stronger. Listen, and soon we wull hear."
Hope filled them both as they lay in the darkness under the wagon, holding each other close and listening for the song of the faeries. Hope lent an eerie beauty to the moonlight streaming through the clouds and trees to land on the grass. It made the cold air feel bracing, rather than deadly.
When the faerie song grew loud enough for them to discern, hope fled. "Nay,” sang the faeries in their wispy melodic voices. “We wull ne’er help the likes o’ ye! Ye are na worthy, and furthermaire, ye hae na suitable sacrifice in yer power tae give."
Faerie laughter erupted nearby. Cacophonous as a room full of toddlers singing out of tune, it grew louder and louder, until Nadia knew the fae were very close.
And then someone else caught the faeries’ attention. Too far away for words to come clearly, Tahra called out to the fae with a surprised but eager voice.
Nadia was gripped by fear.
Ciaran was as well, but he fought through it and articulated thoughts to her, once more full of shame. "Nadia, forgive me. I brought them upon us!" He withdrew his arms from around her, imagining himself flat on his belly in front of her feet while she looked down on him with a grim frown.
She threw her own arms around him, willing him to feel all her love, assuring him it had not diminished one bit. She imagined herself lying next to him, just as they were, fusing the mental and the physical together into a strong reality as she hugged him tight in both realms, crooning to him in her mind silently, "I love ye, I love ye, I love ye with all my heart."
He struggled in her arms, reverting to the image of the two of them getting up and running.
She quickly doused that idea, showing him the crowd of faeries nearby as best she could imagine them, waiting for a tasty sacrifice the druid child would be all too happy to give them tonight, rather than in the morning. She insisted again she would not be a source of grief to him. She would not allow him to lead her to Tahra and the faeries. "Let them come take us," she told him firmly, “but I will na gae tae them.”
He quit trying to get her to run, but he still wasn’t relaxing in her arms.
She changed the subject. "How did ye get here under this wagon, anyway? They canna hae left ye tae wander the camp as ye wulled." She imagined just that, them all going off to their fire together to carouse and have fun and just leaving addlepated lame Bixby standing there by himself, unguarded. She added a touch of laughter.
Slowly, her good humor ate through his anxiety until it was gone. Hope bloomed in him once more, and with it the ability to accept her affection, and to return it. He did so warmly, renewing their embrace both physically and mentally. "They did na. They bound me and shoved me under a bush withoot even a plaid tae lie on, ‘twixt me and the damp earth."
She kissed his cheek as she lay there in his arms. "Sae how did ye get the bonds untied?"
Excitement bloomed in Ciaran, making him perk up like a kitten who’s seen a string dragged by his face. "’Twas the halberd. I willed the halberd tae dissolve my leather bonds."
She let the excitement bloom in her as well, but she imagined herself more like a kitten who sees food coming and jumps up to go where it will be. "Sae ye can get the halberd tae dae some aught, just na whisk ye away."
"Aye," he said, his excitement growing. "Aye, that I can."
in her mind, she sat back and looked up at him with pride, like the kitten who saw another kitten kill a mouse.
They shared all the love they felt for each other in a dizzying dance of happiness and hope regained.
18
Ciaran awoke to the rude shoving and voices of the Cameron men. “Get yer sorry selves up and intae the wagon. Tahra wull hae yer hide if ye dinna."
He wanted to call their bluff. Tahra planned to kill them all in her ritual, and these men had to know that. But they were shoving Nadia as well. He couldn’t bear to be the cause of harm to her at their hands, so he took out his walking stick, kept quiet, and limped in between her and them so that only he would get pushed and shoved.
‘Attack them!’ the warrior in him screamed.
‘’Tis twelve on one,’ he told his inner warrior, ‘and pinned against the wagon am I.’
This was not the time. It would come, he knew it, and so he shielded Nadia long enough for her to get in the wagon, and then he held fast to his walking stick and got on the wagon with her, making sure to crawl in close to her so that the two of them would be able to speak in their thoughts.
She was worried for him. "Dinna fight them, Ciaran. Gae where they tell ye, for my sake."
“I wull for now, but be on yer watch. Ye must away at the first chance.”
“I wull watch for my chance, but ye must come along.”
He couldn’t bear to voice his plans to her, not even silently in their minds. So he showed her, letting it play out in his musings like a daydream. Sometimes, he ran at Tahra and used the halberd to chop the druid child in half. Other times, he stabbed her in the back.
Once everyone was underway again, Sorcha passed him a large skin of something warm with a look of appreciation. "’Tis beef broth."
He passed it first to Nadia and let
her drink her fill before taking his and passing the now empty skin back.
Nadia kept showing him her own daydreams, which always had the two of them leaving together. “We canna allow Tahra tae perform the ritual,” Nadia admitted to him in her mind. “We must find a way tae stop it, aye. Howsoever, we hae the book now, and sae ye must na throw yer ownself away. We wull stop her.”
“We wull,” he told her, but he knew she could hear his true thoughts: I wull attack Tahra and kill her the first time I get the slightest chance, and I dinna mind what happens tae me.
“Ye dinna need tae gae alone,” she told him, trying a different tack. “Dinna keep from telling me how the rest o’ us can help.” She imagined all sorts of impractical helps. The milkmaids all cracking the warriors over the head with porcelain vases was his favorite.
The motion of the wagon was hypnotic, and he must've passed a terrible night. Even though he was greatly afeared for everyone's safety and determined to stop Tahra’s ritual before she got her magic back, he fell fast asleep.
Ciaran awoke in the wagon —but his hands and ankles were tied together with a leather cord that tied him to all the other people in the wagon, including Nadia, who had been moved away from him. That broth had come from Sorcha, so he hadn't questioned it, but where would she have gotten it? Tahra was clever, and he would do well to remember that. She had put something in the broth to make them all sleep.
Nadia was safe, only just waking up as well, bound hand and foot but unmarked and no distress on her face. But her eyes grew wide, and she looked over toward the end of the wagon.
He followed her gaze. The wagon was inside another one of those sacred groves, this one inside the Faerie Wood.
Tahra was already performing her ritual. Eyes closed and moving about in circles with her hands moving up and down, she half sang, half chanted all the while, asking the fae to return her magical powers.
It was now or never.
He glanced around to see what he was up against. The dozen Cameron warriors waited nearby on horseback, their weapons undrawn but at the ready, their horses fidgeting about in the way steeds do when their riders are ready for battle. Ruadh was among them, and he looked the other way whenever ‘Bixby’ looked at him.
Tahra stopped her dance and turned to look straight at Ciaran, with recognition. She knew full well who he was, likely had the whole time. Her gesture took in the whole wagonful of people. "Glory tae the Fae! I offer ye this fine batch o’ flesh as a sacrifice, in exchange for the return o’ my magic. Take them, be glad, and show me yer gratitude." Looking at Ciaran with haughty derision, she raised her hand to signal the warriors.
The Cameron warriors charged through the trees on horses with manes and tails flying, drawing their swords and making dirt clods fly.
With the certainty of his immediate death in his mind, Ciaran grasped the halberd tightly and wished toward it.
Strength drained from him, but as he had wished, all the leather in the area dissolved. The leather that bound him and the others. Everyone's belts and scabbards. Every saddle on every horse. And Tahra’s leather hair band.
Tahra’s hair fell down, and the wind blew it in her face, making her movements unsure.
The men all fell from their mounts, calling out in the agony of feeling their limbs broken from crashing into the trees. Horses skittered and reared. Terrified by the unexpected feel of losing their riders, they trampled them.
Ciaran frantically gestured toward the back of the wagon, gently urging everyone out. "Run for yer lives. Run. Dinna stop until ye canna gae any farther."
Nadia was scurrying around in the bed of the wagon.
Ciaran turned to urge her out as well, but when he saw what she was after, he stayed to help, kneeling by her side in the wagon bed and grabbing the hundreds of papers which threatened to blow away on the faerie wind. The history book with his name in it had been leather bound, the book they had risked so much to obtain.
Nadia was certain these papers contained the secret to breaking the halberd’s curse on him. His name was on these papers, and they were magical, from what little Kelsey had told them. She stuffed them all down the front of her dress.
Ciaran saw one of the Cameron horses nearby and called it over by clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
It came to him readily, lowering its head for Bixby’s customary neck pat.
He steadied it with a hand on its soft nose.
Nadia got on bareback, then pled with her eyes for him to get on with her and ride away.
But Tahra was still a threat. She had been momentarily confused by the chaos of all the frantic horses and screaming warriors, but she now resumed her ritual. And the fae could grab the fleeing servants even as they ran, if their desire was made strong enough by the druid child’s song.
Un-disguising the halberd to make it more terrifying, Ciaran charged the druid child, raising the war axe up in the air to smite her head and cleave her clean in two, roaring with all the aggression he had kept inside all these days in the Cameron fortress.
But Tahra drew her sword and took her battle stance.
How had he forgotten sword-fighting with her before? And this time, he didn’t have Meehall and Baltair to help him. But his weapon was superior. It had much more reach. He lowered the blow that should have ended the druid child’s life.
Tahra fell to the ground an instant before he made contact. She rolled toward him, knocked his feet from under him, and sliced the flesh between his boot and his knee.
Screaming in anguish, he felt her grab the halberd.
He felt the halberd choose the druid child over him.
Felt the cursed weapon leave his hand and leap into Tahra’s hand.
Needing to keep the druid child’s attention on him so that she didn’t turn on Nadia, Ciaran hollered in pain while grabbing his injury, then rolled away from Tahra, cursing the cursed weapon.
19
Nadia nearly fell off the gentled horse when she saw Tahra grab the halberd out of Ciaran's limp fingers. But then she saw his chest moving, and her heart beat once more. He was alive. If she could just get him up on this horse with her, she was pretty sure she could get them back to Eoin’s tree.
The Druid child stared aghast at the powerful magic weapon in her hands, probably communing with the cursed thing.
Nadia had to move now, before Tahra left this halberd-induced trance. Stealing glances at Tahra, Nadia used a small amount of leg pressure to coax the horse through the green trees of the sacred grove. She went around the broken bodies of the fallen Cameron warriors to where Ciaran lay.
Oh good. He was but knocked out. There was no blood. None of his limbs were positioned at impossible angles. She could see his chest rise and fall with his breath. Aye, he would recover. She just needed to—
Oh no.
A pleased wicked smile spread across Tahra’s face, and the druid child changed her tune. No longer singing to the faeries, Tahra now crooned to the halberd. "Och, sae many o’ ye. Aye, I ken ye are the lost souls o’ Druids imprisoned by this here halberd. Release ye? Mayhap, but first, as ye are, ye can summon the magic for me. Fortify me. Give me strength. Let me work the magic once more..."
Terrified that Tahra would wish the halberd’s magic onto her, Ciaran, or any of her fleeing friends, Nadia did the only thing she could think to do. Squeezing the horse as hard as she could with her legs, she urged him on with her voice while holding onto his mane for dear life and charged him straight at Tahra, hoping he would trample her and put an end to the druid child.
But Tahra brandished the halberd in front of her. A wicked gleam in her eye told Nadia the druid child knew full well what that evil conduit to the afterlife could do and was about to unleash that force. Nadia’s only consolation was the shock she saw on Tahra’s face when the halberd drained energy from her in order to power whatever spell now lashed out in Nadia's direction.
Nadia’s life flashed before her eyes. How had her desire to see the Highland
s of Scotland come to death at the hands of a madwoman?
She saw herself studying her Gaelic so hard in school, with a mind only to come and work at the prestigious Celtic University. All the parties she had missed and heard about the next day haunted her. Likewise, the dances and the plays she hadn't attended, but had seen photos and reviews of later, so intent had she been to be chosen by Celtic, to be worthy of Celtic. Several guys had asked her on dates, and granted, she hadn't really been interested, but she now wondered if...
She might've had so much fun in her life, had she not been so intent on what she had thought would be adventure, excitement, and beauty.
Aye, the Highlands were beautiful, but they were so much more so out here in the wild than at Celtic. She could have enjoyed them without going to Celtic. She might have just come to Scotland on vacation, gotten a job anywhere else but at Celtic, and applied for a work visa so she could stay.
Why had she been so intent on the acclaimed institution that she only later found out was run by druids? What had possessed her to waste her youth on studying?
Paralysis hit her, making her fall off the horse.
She landed in the soft green grass. But although she knew nothing was injured, she had to wait there, able only to breathe and think, completely paralyzed by the halberd's magic.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ciaran crawling toward her. She wanted to cry, to cling to him and beg him not to leave her. She knew he would do as she asked, and it was so tempting. More tempting than anything else in her life had ever been.
But when he got close enough, she urged him with her eyes, "Save yerself. Flee from here. I canna move. I am done for, but ye hae a chance. Take it. Dinna let her kill us both with one swing o’ that cursed weapon!"
He didn’t budge. If anything, he drew closer to her, taking her hand in his.
She had done what she could. His love, pure and strong, was a balm to her despair. She relaxed into it, letting it soothe her last moments with the bliss of being close to him.
