Bloodstone

by Gillian Philip

The Lammyr leaped for Eili’s back, clutching her lovingly as it sank its teeth into her shoulder. Roaring, she rose from Torc’s body, lifted both swords and jerked them in an arc over her head. The Lammyr dodged, snaking its head and torso sideways.

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ it hissed. ‘Cooperate!’

  Its bloodied mouth bit into her again, closer to her neck, lips curving around her flesh in a wide smile as its teeth went harder and deeper. Clenching its wounded fist, it squeezed its own colourless blood into the bite. It must have found better nerves on its second attempt, because Eili dropped her swords, scrabbling at the thing that clung to her, and her tormented scream merged with Sionnach’s yell of terrified fury.

  Skinshanks dropped off her, licking its lips as it admired the blood flow. Jed, staggering to his feet, saw her lunge for her swords but two of Laszlo’s men had seized her almost before she moved. One jerked her head back to hold his dagger to her throat.

  ‘Back off, Sionnach. I don’t want to hurt her.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, Lus-nan-Leac,’ said the other dryly.

  Sionnach, watching his twin, lowered his swords slowly.

  ‘Sionnach, no,’ Eili growled, her eyes dazed and filmy. Digging her trembling fingers into the Lammyr’s bite, she clenched her teeth. The second swordsman, eyeing Torc’s dead horse, gave its head a savage sidelong kick. He had only two fingers on his left hand.

  A shout of contempt drew all their eyes, silence falling. Conal crouched before Laszlo, clutching his sword hand, blood running freely between his fingers. The sword itself lay ten feet from him, where Laszlo had struck it from his grip as Conal turned towards Eili’s appalling scream. Now Laszlo’s sword was at Conal’s throat, already pricking blood from the hollow of it.

  ‘Filthy mortal,’ snarled Eili, her bloody hand clamped inside her shoulder. ‘Sionnach!’

  ‘Sionnach, if you even move in Cù Chaorach’s direction, I’ll cut her throat myself,’ said the second man calmly. ‘My pal here used to be fond of Eili, but for me it’d be a pleasure, so don’t tempt me. Drop your swords.’

  ‘Sionnach, no!’ she screamed. ‘Go to Conal!’

  Watching his dark eyes, Jed saw the exact moment Sionnach’s heart broke. Meeting his twin’s gaze, he shook his head very slightly. The slender curved swords rang discordantly as they clattered to the stones.

  In the silence something sounded like rock scree tumbling, but it was only a dry mocking sob from the Lammyr, perched on a granite outcrop above them all.

  ‘This is so touching,’ it hiccupped, wiping a fingertip delicately under a dry eye. It used its hurt hand, lifting the dead finger with its good hand by way of a macabre joke.

  Lus-nan-Leac shuddered, his blade scraping Eili’s skin. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

  ‘Tsk! Where’s your honour, Nils?’ Skinshanks sprang down, darting to Conal’s sword.

  Conal’s gaze never left it as it picked up his sword. There was absolutely no hope in his fixed expression, only a dead-eyed loathing.

  The Lammyr raised the sword high, smiled, and drew the blade down through the ugly split of its hand, cutting even further into the gaping wrist. It tossed the weapon to Conal, who caught it reflexively by the hilt and studied the ooze that coated it, flicking the blade with a finger.

  Laughing, Laszlo rose and withdrew the tip of his sword from Conal’s throat to give a mocking salute. ‘Come on then, Cù Chaorach. Let’s do this the chivalrous way.’

  ‘Let’s do it my way,’ said Conal, and tossed his sword high into the air.

  They all watched it spin, glittering in the snow-light. Even Laszlo gaped at it, hypnotised. It had yet to touch down when Conal took a running leap and fell on Laszlo.

  Dodging the man’s flailing blade he slipped round his enemy like a python, grabbed his head and locked a forearm round his neck, struggling for the leverage to snap it. In the awful breathless stillness Laszlo snatched grunting at Conal’s arm, jaw clenched, straining with the effort not to die.

  Then Conal’s sword finally came to earth, plummeting into the peat point-first. Where it should have stood quivering, it shattered into razor shards, showering both men.

  Starred with pinpricks of blood, Laszlo seemed to recover his focus. His sword arm swung back hard, the blade biting into Conal’s side deep enough to loosen his hold. Laszlo flung him off.

  Conal looked once towards the group at the foot of the hill. Seeing Eili still alive he turned away, smiling, but his eye caught Jed’s.

  Jed’s pride and reserve were all gone now. Conal was the closest thing he had to a father, the only father he’d ever known, and he was standing down there alone without a sword. Jed let Conal into his head, pleading. Please win. Please win. Please live.

  All Conal could give him was a wry smile. Then all his attention was back on Laszlo, who was striding confidently forward, sword held back for a vicious sidelong slash.

  Conal sprinted forward almost into the teeth of the blade and just as it swung to disembowel him leaped high, twisting in the air like a cat. Laszlo stumbled with his own impetus, rolling as he fell, and saw Conal fall towards him with hands outstretched for his throat. Yelling, he grasped his sword two-handed.

  There was a fraction of time, and he snatched it. He wrenched up his weapon, thrust it up savagely into Conal’s belly. As the weight of Conal’s own body bore him down, Laszlo twisted the blade sideways and upwards till it ground into his breastbone.

  He grunted in pain as Conal thudded onto him, then heaved hard and shoved him off. Staggering to his feet, Laszlo grinned down into Conal’s face, seized the sword-hilt, and yanked out the blade in a spray of blood. Conal’s body arched upwards, sank down, and he sighed almost dreamily.

  ‘God, but you’ve been a troublesome vermin,’ said Laszlo, trailing the tip of his sword down Conal’s ribcage and back up to the hollow of his throat, where the pinprick wound of his first attempt was beaded with blood.

  ‘Shall I finish what I started, Cù Chaorach? Or shall I obey my queen, and let the buzzards do it?’

  Jed barely knew he’d run until he was stumbling forward across Conal, knocking Laszlo’s blade away and splaying his cut arms across the body. ‘Get off him! Get off!’

  Laszlo rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, not you again. Well, well, I suppose it saves the effort of coming to you. Two birds with one stone. Is that the expression, mate?’

  Jed scrabbled at his belt, hauling out the pistol and pointing it at Laszlo’s chest. For an instant the man’s eyes dilated in fear, and then he laughed.

  ‘So. I guessed you had that. Ten out of ten for effort, but you know it’s wasted.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  ‘The safety isn’t even off!’ Laszlo bellowed.

  Jed thumbed it quickly. ‘It is now.’

  Laszlo eyed him, lips twitching. ‘It doesn’t work, you stupid kid.’

  Jed could feel his pulse beating so hard in his throat he almost couldn’t breathe. He’s right. You tit. And now you’re dead. You tit.

  ‘Look, can I get on with my work? We’ll talk after that.’ Smiling, Laszlo lifted his blade and winked.

  Superstitious. Seth said Laszlo was superstitious. He believed in idiotic prophecies. ‘It’ll work on you. Kate told me. You killed somebody with it, so it can kill you. See? It’ll kill the one who’s murdered with it, she said.’ He hoped that sounded vaguely like Kate. ‘Part of its—um. Its charm.’

  ‘That’s a good one. You’re a liar as well as a thief. Skinshanks!’ he roared. ‘Deal with this whelp!’

  ‘No, no. He’s quite right, you know.’

  Laszlo snapped his head round, briefly, to stare at the Lammyr. Reclining on a rock, it laughed and wiggled its mutilated fingers at him.

  ‘What?’ Laszlo’s eyes, for the first time, held sparks of fear. ‘Skinshanks, don’t piss with me. This is serious.’

  ‘So am I, Nils. You’re on your own. I’m interested to see how this turns out. Besides, I’ve told you already: I like the
boy.’

  Disbelief and betrayal darkened Laszlo’s face. ‘So you have a new pet. It doesn’t mean you need to kill me.’

  ‘Would I? Nils, you wound me.’ Pouting, Skinshanks nodded at Jed. ‘But it’ll be terribly funny if he does.’

  ‘The bloody gun doesn’t work.’

  ‘Oh, it’s like a movie!’ Skinshanks clapped its hands. ‘Will it go off in your face? Won’t it go off in your face?’ It folded its arms, looked brightly from one to the other.

  Jed stood up, levelling the gun at the bridge of Laszlo’s nose. ‘Get away from him.’

  ‘I think I’ll take my chances.’ The man took a step forward.

  Jed made himself smile. Like a Lammyr, he thought. Smile like a Lammyr. And he saw Laszlo pale.

  ‘I’m going to kill you. I’m the one. But if you back off now I won’t do it today.’

  ‘Oh, so what?’ Laszlo looked once more at the gun, then stepped back, trembling, and spat in Conal’s face. ‘You’ll be a long time dying, Cù Chaorach. But you will die.’

  Not a muscle moved in Conal’s face as Laszlo backed away, then turned and loped to one of the dead men’s horses, treading on the corpse of his own. ‘Bring the twins back to Kate,’ he shouted over his shoulder as he mounted. ‘The boy to me; you hear me, Skinshanks? Leave Cù Chaorach to the crows.’ He kicked the horse into a gallop, his yell sharpened by humiliation.

  Leaderless, Laszlo’s men exchanged glances, their eyes quicksilver-bright. One, in an indigo shirt, took a step towards Jed, but Lus-nan-Leac, his blade still at Eili’s throat, shook his head. Indigo Shirt halted in his tracks, gave Jed a single pitying glance, then averted his eyes.

  Conal was staring at the sky, motionless, but when Jed fell to his knees beside him his left hand moved very fast, gripping Jed’s jaw and forcing his face round to look at his own. The other hand, his right hand, was clutched across his torn belly, holding in his innards.

  ‘Don’t look down,’ he whispered, eyes wide.

  ‘Okay.’ Sniffing, Jed rubbed the spittle from Conal’s face with his bare hand, his tears blotching the skin, and smoothed back the sweat-stiffened hair from his forehead.

  ‘Look up, Jed. Look at the sky. It’s lovely.’ Conal’s eyes blurred, then his lips moved again, inaudibly. For a moment Jed thought he was praying, before the hope came to him that Conal was muttering some magical Sithe incantation that would mend the hole Laszlo had put in him. And then Jed knew suddenly that he was only swearing through gritted teeth at the pain of it. When Conal looked at Jed’s face he fell silent.

  ‘Disobedient pup.’ He half-smiled. ‘Brave lad. Thank you.’

  ‘Conal. Oh, God. Conal.’ Jed began to cry in earnest.

  ‘Gun didn’t scare him, Jed. You did.’

  ‘You can still talk,’ said Jed desperately. ‘You’ll be okay.’

  ‘Be talking for a while. Y’ll be begging me to shut up.’ Conal grinned, the corners of his mouth flecked with bloody spittle. ‘But’m not going to be okay.’

  Jed opened his mouth to argue, but Conal silenced him with a beautiful smile of genuine happiness. ‘He’s coming,’ he whispered. ‘I knew he’d come.’

  The scream of a horse split the air and hooves thundered on peat and rock.

  ‘Oh, what now?’ said Skinshanks testily. It raised itself on one arm, then got to its feet just like an interrupted moviegoer. Turning, it was in time to see the blue roan gather itself mid-gallop, and spring.

  ‘Tiresome!’ was all it had time to say before Seth’s sword split the air and its head flew from its shoulders. The figure clinging to Seth’s waist gave a short scream and pressed her face between his shoulder blades.

  Jed was surprised to feel a little sorry for Laszlo’s six surviving men, who swore and spun and panicked as Seth cut through them like some insane reaping machine. The Lammyr dealt with, sheer surprise allowed him to kill Indigo Shirt with barely an argument. By the time the rest had realised he was not here on some incomprehensible errand of Kate’s, his own impetus was carrying him forward in such a red rage that the others stood no chance.

  Only one of them survived. Eili, finally free to move as her guards leaped to defend themselves, slammed her forearm back into Lus-nan-Leac’s face without looking at him. He reeled back, stunned, and slumped to the ground. Eili did not even look at her other captor. Taking her hand from her ragged half-healed wound, she walked away from him without a backwards glance.

  Casually Sionnach lifted his swords and flung them as one. Eili’s captor slammed against the rock wall, impaled, as the light died in his shocked eyes.

  Then Eili was running, sprinting past Seth as he hacked the last man down, heedless of the blood soaking down her jersey, running like a hunted deer. She didn’t spare Jed a glance as she fell to her knees and stroked Conal’s hair, smoothing down the spikes of sweat and gore.

  ‘You’re alive. You’re alive.’ It was the first sound she had made since she’d seen Conal fall to earth, but her throat oozed a red line where she’d strained against the blade. Hesitantly her hand hovered over his gaping wound, and he gave a single sobbing cry as she lowered it. Blinking hard he clamped his mouth shut, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner.

  Something like a laugh wheezed in his chest. ‘You ’kay, my lover? You can run.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Eili said distractedly. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry I screamed like that.’

  ‘Don’t. Couldn’t help it. Told me it was a trap.’ He was the colour of ash but he grinned as a shadow fell across his face. ‘Hey, Prodigal. Knew you’d be back.’

  Seth fell to his knees, letting his sword clatter to the ground and laying a hand against his brother’s cheek. Leaning forward he pressed his forehead to Conal’s, then kissed his pale skin. Jed thought he saw a tear fall from his eye onto Conal’s cheek, a single spasm of grief tightening his face.

  Conal’s eyes widened. ‘Seth, no. Please.’

  Jed’s head snapped up. He would have flung himself at Seth and dragged him away, but Finn grabbed his arm, holding him back. One angry glance told him she was Finn again. He put an arm tight round her waist.

  ‘Get out,’ whispered Conal, and his brother jerked back as if he’d been flung away. Seth clutched his belly in agony and sucked in a silent breath.

  Conal’s voice grated against his throat. ‘Don’t risk it. This one’s mine, Seth.’

  ‘Conal, I’m sorry.’ Finn shut her eyes, against tears and the sight of him.

  ‘Not your fault, love, ’s my own.’ Conal let go his grip on Jed to reach for her, but all he could manage was to stroke her cheek once with a finger. ‘Saw my fetch, toots.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to see it. I didn’t want—’

  ‘Course not.’ He bit his lip hard as a shudder went through him, and his voice dropped to a rattling whisper. ‘Listen. The things you thought? Kate had you spell-bound. Poor Finn. Where’s your stone?’

  ‘I lost it.’ She wanted to say it wasn’t Kate, it was herself, she’d thought terrible things without Kate’s help because she’d been so pathetically grateful to be One Of Them. She bit her tongue and blocked it out.

  Eili gave a strangled shriek of frustration, then. Pulling her bloodied fingers from Conal’s innards, she eased back the edge of the wound and slid both her trembling hands inside.

  Conal’s grip closed on her arm and her tears fell onto his hand unhindered.

  ‘Eili.’ It was barely audible. ‘Too much. Please stop.’

  ‘You said you’d stay,’ she howled. ‘You said this time you’d stay! You promised!’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Eili. Please stop. Please.’

  Slowly she took her hands from the gaping mess of the wound. For the second time that day Jed disobeyed Conal, and looked. His gorge rose.

  ‘Forgive me, Eili,’ gasped Conal through gritted teeth. ‘Stop.’

  ‘I don’t want you to die!’

  ‘Don’t want to die.’ His smile was stretched thin. ‘Ach, Eili. Don�
��t want to die badly.’

  ‘You couldn’t,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘Not if you help.’

  Wind stirred like a breath on the moor. Close by the black horse stood, head lowered, its breath deep and guttural. A white shadow moved, whimpering as she limped to Conal and lay down with her muzzle on his sprawled foot.

  ‘No. I can’t.’ Eili shut her eyes.

  The sound of a dagger being drawn was a rip in the stillness. Eili’s eyes snapped open. ‘No. Don’t you dare touch him again.’

  Seth put his hand to Conal’s face, his eyes lightless ‘I’m his brother.’

  ‘You’re a traitor!’ she shouted. ‘It’s my work, not yours!’

  ‘I’m cold, Seth. Gods, ’m so cold.’ Conal’s teeth were clenched hard.

  Both Seth and Eili fell silent, and Conal’s head lolled towards Eili, a gout running from the corner of his mouth to join the rest of the blood that soaked his hair. He spat more of it, shivering. ‘He’s my brother, Eili. Deny him this, he’s paid. Understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ She spoke levelly but her hands trembled. ‘What do you – which – your heart or—’

  ‘Not my heart.’ His lips were white. ‘Oh, Eili, not my heart. Not when it’s you.’

  ‘No.’ Her hands were shaking violently now.

  ‘Eili.’ The pitch of his voice had risen. ‘I need. You. To do this right.’

  She took a breath, and her hands stilled. Stroking his face, she rested his head on the palm of her left hand, then bent down and kissed him till he stopped shivering. Her right hand moved to the sheath on her belt. Conal smiled into her eyes.

  Jed grabbed Finn and tugged her face against his neck, but the motion of Eili’s hand was barely visible anyway. She never let her gaze drop from Conal’s as the blade in her steady grip flashed bright across his throat.

  Blood spurted across Jed’s cheek; he heard the suck of breath in an open windpipe, the squirt and gurgle of blood. There was awareness in Conal’s eyes for interminable seconds, and he spent it looking into Eili’s.

  Then the silver light faded, and went out.

  PART FIVE