Temptation of the Warrior

by Margo Maguire

  He had to save Jenny.

  ’Twas necessary to act quickly, for he could move only a few minutes forward or back, and he needed as much time as possible before the accident to prevent the damned sìthean from pushing Jenny into the road.

  Still leaning over her, he exerted the power and muttered the words that would take him back. “Fèath cian mo aimsir daonnan a rec astar.”

  And with those words he was suddenly back on Moghire, but this time, he knew what was about to happen. Jenny was hurrying toward the dragheens near the church and Usher was not far behind her.

  Merrick had just enough time to ride into a narrow alley and move ahead of the runaway horse cart, coming out in front of the galloping vehicle. He dismounted just as a sìthean jumped from its perch on Torin’s shoulder with the intention of tripping Jenny.

  Matthew got to her first and kicked the beast away.

  “Matthew!” Jenny cried as Merrick caught her in his arms. “Usher had my locket!”

  Merrick pulled Jenny far from the road and the lurching wagon. He held her tightly, relishing the healthy, whole feel of her body against his. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “Jenny, moileen…”

  “A pickpocket took it, and now he’s getting away!”

  Merrick took a deep, shuddering breath. “Aye. Wait here!”

  The thief was fast. Merrick could stop him with just one magical word, but he was reluctant to push his luck. He’d already used magic to assure himself that Harriet Lambton had not lied to him, and then he’d displaced. So far, Eilinora had not found him. He could not risk any more magic until he had the stone in hand.

  The rum dubber turned a corner and tried to slip into a narrow doorway, but Merrick grabbed him and swung him ’round. But just as he took the locket from him, a piercing, inhuman screech paralyzed him, and he realized he’d been found. His entire body burned, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, the fiery sensation making him feel nauseated, weak, and powerless. A bright flash blinded him momentarily, and an odd, acrid smell irritated his nose. When his vision cleared, he saw that he was standing in a barren landscape of gray and white.

  A blast of luminous lòchran, more powerful than any Merrick had ever seen before, surged toward him. He ducked, but the lòchran caught his shoulder, knocking him to his knees, dislodging the locket from his hand. Merrick reached for it, but another blast came toward him, and he had to move quickly to avoid being seriously injured or killed.

  “You will regret being born, Eilinora!” he muttered.

  “Not Eilinora,” said a male voice. “Pakal dei Mestarre.”

  The new adversary wasted no time, but used his power to yank Merrick off his feet and throw him in the air, rocketing him into the trunk of a tree, knocking the breath out of him.

  Merrick’s vision cleared, and he saw the imposing figure of a man, dressed in a black loincloth, his upper body and face covered with ink designs of red and black. A ring of gold dangled from his nose, and his black hair was cut straight across his forehead. Gold bands encircled both his ankles. He was no jinni nor a seunn, but Merrick realized he must be the creature who’d freed Eilinora.

  He crouched and moved toward Pakal, gathering all his powers to mount his own assault.

  The driver of the wagon jumped off before it smashed to bits, and Jenny watched him chase after his runaway team. In a morning full of disasters, the wagon accident might be the least of it.

  “Danger,” said a rough, deep voice that seemed to come from nowhere. Jenny turned around and saw no one and nothing but the two stone statues near the church.

  “Is someone there?” she asked, thinking she’d heard the word with both her ears.

  “He comes. Beware.”

  Reverend Usher came around a corner, wielding a knife. Jenny’s instinct was to run, but when she sensed the heat of those powerful strands emanating from her chest, she stood and faced him. Usher seemed not to notice the silvery threads streaming from her breastbone, and Jenny gathered them in one hand and threw them at the headmaster, stopping him in his tracks as yellow sparks fell all around her.

  He doubled over, apparently in pain.

  “She is Druzai, Torin!” said the deep, gravelly voice in an expression of surprise. And though Jenny did not understand the words Druzai or Torin, she was certain she’d heard them with both ears, the same way she’d heard the voice in the woods, days ago.

  “Are ye, lass?” said another rasping voice. “Druzai?”

  Jenny did not turn to see who had spoken, so amazed was she by her control over Usher. “I am English, same as you!” she said breathlessly.

  “Ah, but we are no’ English. Nor could ye be, lass, no’ with the lòchran lights comin’ from yer breast.”

  They’d seen her threads! Jenny whirled around to determine who had spoken. One of the stone statues moved slightly, putting Jenny momentarily off balance.

  “Aye, lass. We be dragheens.”

  The threads disintegrated, and Usher recovered enough to come at her again. “Evil one!” he shouted. “You will not—”

  Jenny quickly gathered her strength and pierced him again, using better control than she’d been able to do until now. She knocked the knife from Usher’s hand. “You will hang, Reverend Usher,” she said quietly, “for Norah Martin’s death.”

  The headmaster went pale. Jenny tried to bind his wrists behind him with the threads, but something pushed her off her feet. The breath whooshed from her lungs as a terrible sound pierced both her ears. She felt hot, as if someone had tossed her into a fire, and she could not save herself.

  Everything suddenly went silent, and she found herself lying facedown in a strange forest of dark trees and gray grass. Thick black beetles crawled in and out of a nest not far from her eyes, and the smell of camphor assailed her.

  She pushed herself up and away from the ugly insects and looked around her. It was a horrible place without any color at all. Even the sky was a dark gray. Huge, black birds that hunched over like vultures sat silently in the branches of the dark, shadowy trees, waiting, their white eyes watching while their sharp beaks twitched. There were massive, black, mosslike growths hanging from the trees like curtains, preventing Jenny from being able to see much more of the bleak landscape. It seemed to be a swampy area, although it was only mud, not water beneath her feet.

  A loud crash sounded near her, and she jumped to her feet, poised to run. The sound came from a fearsome painted man who’d dropped from the air to land heavily on the ground in front of her.

  Jenny blinked her eyes. First, talking statues…now, what? She could only think she was dreaming, that Reverend Usher had been a mere illusion in a dream.

  “Jenny lass, run!”

  She turned toward the sound of Matthew’s voice. It sounded real, if distant, but she could not see him through the black moss.

  “Get as far away as possible, Jenny!”

  Another loud crack rent the air, and Jenny recoiled from the sound.

  “Do not move, human!” said the painted man, now on his feet, and Jenny was suddenly very worried that this was not a dream. She started to back away, but tripped awkwardly as the painted man disintegrated before her eyes.

  She swallowed. “Matthew?”

  “Hush, lass. Doona call attention to yourself.”

  “I-is this r-real?”

  “Aye…Hush now.”

  Jenny saw her locket lying in the mud, dented and cracked. She took hold of the chain and slipped it around her neck just as Matthew crept stealthily across the muck and came into view. Jenny started to run toward him, but screamed when the painted man appeared behind Matthew. The stranger lunged and knocked Matthew down, then slid one muscular, painted arm around his throat and pulled up, hard enough to break his neck. “Where is the stone, Druzai?” he demanded.

  Matthew made a quick move and threw the other man off him. An ax suddenly appeared in the painted one’s hand, and he swung it at Matthew, who seemed to melt on the spot, his
body turning into a stream of…of water!

  Jenny felt her heart stop as he took his familiar form again, several feet away. When he reappeared, his suit of clothes was gone. Instead, he wore loose, dark blue breeches and soft leather knee boots. His shirt had disappeared, leaving him bare-chested, looking like a primitive warrior of old, with his copper bracer at his wrist. He wasted no time, but pointed two fingers at the painted man. A thick beam of luminescence shot from his chest toward the enemy, and threw him down, yet Matthew had not even touched him.

  Jenny could barely catch her breath at the sight of Matthew’s unearthly power, and she realized the thick, shimmering light he’d sent toward the painted man was a mass of luminous fibers, the same fibers she’d used to stop Reverend Usher.

  Jenny’s thoughts were a jumble of confusion. The painted man had called Matthew Druzai—the same word used by…Oh dear heavens…Had the stone man actually spoken to her?

  The painted man extended both hands in front of him, palms up, and a long, ornate rod of gold came to rest in them. It appeared to be a scepter of sorts, and he took it in one hand and pointed the plain end at Matthew, aiming it as though it were some kind of weapon.

  It was no firearm, but just as lethal when a dark gray haze emanated from it, enveloping Matthew, choking him…killing him!

  Jenny grabbed her locket and screamed, “Stop!”

  The locket burned her hand, and she let it go. She ran toward Matthew, who dropped unconscious to the ground as the painted man snapped his wrist in Jenny’s direction. Something hit her hard in the face, incapacitating her, keeping her from reaching Matthew’s side.

  Catching the locket in her hand once again, she willed the fibers of her own power to emerge and disable the enemy, just as she had done with Reverend Usher. Instead, a bright red beam of light appeared, and tiny, lethal needles shot out at the painted man, wounding him and knocking him senseless.

  Jenny went to Matthew then, and crouched beside him. “Matthew, we haven’t much time!” She looked back at the painted man, who was starting to move again. “We must get away!”

  Matthew came around and looked up at her, puzzled and frowning. “I doona know how you got here lass, but—”

  “Come on—we’ve got to get away! He’ll soon be after us!”

  Chapter 14

  Merrick saw that she wore the locket ’round her neck. ’Twas an unprepossessing trinket of silver with a band of etchings, worn almost smooth ’round the middle. A poor ornament, ’twas dented and cracked, and Jenny deserved much better.

  “Hide the locket, moileen!” he whispered as he took her hand and started pulling her through the bòcan woods. Pakal did not know that was where the stone was hidden, and he’d never believe Merrick would give possession of it to a Tuath lass.

  She slipped it inside her bodice. “Matthew, what is this pl—”

  “’Tis a dead forest, moileen, and no’ a fit place for you. We need to get far away from Pakal and then I’ll be able to shield us.”

  “The painted man? Who is he? How did we—”

  “Ach, lass. No time to explain. There will soon be others. Run!”

  They needed to get far away from Eilinora’s mentor so that when he summoned the witch and her followers, they would not be able to follow Jenny and him from the bòcan woods. If only Jenny had not come, Merrick would have faced the strange sorcerer alone. He had no doubt he could wield the blood stone and defeat the painted man himself, but Jenny was a distraction as well as a liability. He would not risk her safety here and now. He had to get them to Coruain, to the very place where he had decided she could not go. ’Twould be the only reasonably safe place for her.

  Jenny pulled her skirts out of the way and ran through the trees alongside him until they reached a gray meadow covered with foul-smelling plants with spiky white leaves. “What do we do now?” she asked, just as the villains Merrick had hoped to avoid took shape before them. At least twenty Odhar rose up from the spikes, materializing from a dark haze that rose out of the ground. But there was no Eilinora.

  The Odhar were mostly male, and they looked like any other Druzai, but for the malevolent gleam in their eyes and their boastful, warlike stance. They were fully confident of destroying him.

  Merrick felt Jenny’s fear, and he pulled her close, while wondering if he alone could overcome all these sorcerers together, even with the brìgha-stone. He doubted it. For now, he had to elude Pakal and these foul warriors, get back to Coruain, and unite all the Druzai’s strength behind him. With luck, Brogan would already have found the other stone and returned home.

  The Odhar formed a long, eerie line merely fifty yards ahead, advancing toward them in silence. Merrick did not doubt that Pakal was somewhere nearby, and Eilinora would soon appear.

  “Hold on to me, lass, no matter what happens.”

  “Matthew?” Jenny whispered.

  “There is much to tell you, Jenny.”

  He risked a glance behind him, and saw more of the Odhar advancing toward them as Pakal appeared among them, walking at a leisurely pace. As well he might.

  Jenny turned her head slightly to look at him. “You’re n-not from Scotland, are you?”

  “Nay, lass, and I am no’ Matthew Keating, either.”

  She was pale and worried, yet her expression was one of resolute strength.

  “I love you, lass. Always remember that.”

  Merrick squeezed her hand tightly as the plants on the ground began to shudder and wave as if tossed by a powerful wind. The ground softened, and he and Jenny started to sink into it.

  Merrick whipped ’round and faced Pakal, throwing a bolt of lòchran that pulled tangling ropes of black moss from the trees and wrapped ’round Pakal and his line of Odhar. ’Twas nothing like the powerful, luminous strands that had held Eilinora for so long, but enough to give him the opportunity to harden the ground, to pull Jenny into his arms and leap.

  Jenny felt as though she were flying when Matthew carried her through the air, although the sensation was not nearly as frightening as facing the painted man and his followers. Matthew made a movement with his hand, and she saw a cluster of silvery threads shoot through his fingers to the air below them, causing filmy gray walls to appear around them. He set them down on the murky floor.

  “Moileen, there is no’ much time,” he said. He cupped her face and bent to take her mouth in a kiss that melted her bones. When his tongue mated with hers and he dropped his hands to her hips to pull her tight against him, Jenny could not think about where they were, or where they’d been.

  He suddenly broke away. “Mo oirg, I’ve needed to taste you…”

  “Matthew, what—”

  “Pakal is enemy to my people, the Druzai.”

  “Druzai? Then the stone creatures actually…” She felt as though the strange, shadowy floor was collapsing beneath her feet.

  He cupped her shoulders in his hands. “I am Merrick Mac Lochlainn, high chieftain of the Druzai people. I came from Coruain to England for the stone that’s hidden within your locket.”

  She pressed her hand against her bodice and felt the locket inside. “A stone? There’s no…”

  “Aye, lass. I doona know how it came into your possession, but ’tis a magical talisman.”

  “And when you have it, you will return to your people?” She swallowed tightly. The locket pressed heavily upon her chest, against her heart. Now that he had what he needed…

  “We canna get to Coruain from here, but they will soon find us.”

  “We?”

  “Aye, lass. You doona think I’ll be leaving you now?”

  Emotion welled in Jenny’s breast, and she slid her hands up his chest and around his neck. Meeting his lips with her own, she poured all the passion she felt for him into their kiss.

  “Ach, Jenny, what you do to me.”

  She felt fortified by his dark gaze and by his touch, but it was clear they could not remain where they were. He’d said there was not much time. “What can we
do, Matt…Merrick…” It seemed so strange to know his true name, to call him by any name but Matthew.

  “We must get back to Tuath…to England. How did you get here, Jenny?”

  “I don’t know.” She frowned, considering all that had happened before Merrick had arrived in the Lanes and gone after the pickpocket. “Reverend Usher had come for me…He was going to kill me to keep anyone from learning about Norah. But suddenly I found myself in that black forest, and the painted man—Pakal—told me to be still.”

  Merrick let out a deep breath. “We are shielded for the moment, but I sense Pakal’s probing. We must get back.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Just hold on.”

  Since there wasn’t time to ask him about the luminous fibers she’d seen him use, she closed her eyes tightly and felt the same burning sensation that had accompanied her to this place. When she opened her eyes, she discovered she was back in the Lanes of Carlisle, right beside the stone men who’d spoken to her. Moghire stood quiescent with his reins looped inside one of the stone hands.

  Someone snatched her arm and pulled her ’round. Jenny flinched away from Reverend Usher, who looked down at the knife in his hand. He suddenly lunged at Jenny, but Merrick intervened, grabbing the man’s wrist and holding tightly until the knife fell. Then he took the headmaster by the throat and squeezed while Usher struggled and gasped for air, his gnarled fingers pulling desperately at Merrick’s hands.

  Merrick suddenly released him, and Usher collapsed to the ground. “A quick death is too good for you, old man. You will soon suffer the consequences of your sins.”

  Merrick spoke a few quiet words, and Jenny saw a tiny trail of bright sparks encircle the headmaster. They fascinated her, but Merrick drew her away and lifted her onto Moghire’s back. He pulled a brown waistcoat from his pack and put it on, then mounted behind her. He spoke again in Gaelic—no, Druzai—to the horse, and the animal took off at a gallop. Without another word, they passed the astonished residents of the Lanes who’d come to see the accident with the horse cart, and the disturbance with the old man near the church.