Blazing Earth

by TERRI BRISBIN

  “Tolan! Thea!” William called out to them. “Do not do this.”

  “I have no choice,” Tolan said quietly and with a sad tone of resignation. Truly, what else could they do?

  “One to open, one to close,” Soren called out. “There is always a choice, Tolan!”

  The other bloodlines approached from all directions, but Tolan did not give them a chance to stop the three of them. With a tilt of his chin, he forced the earth beneath their feet into a wave that spread out from the circle and knocked everyone to the ground. Grabbing her hand, he pulled Thea with him as he shoved Geoffrey into the stones. With one last glance back, she stepped with him between the stones.

  * * *

  A white flash of light surrounded the circle now, swirling around it, preventing them from seeing out and the others from seeing in. It stopped them from passing through the stones as well. Tolan released Geoffrey and walked around the inside of the circle, looking and listening for some sign of what they must do. When he tried to get a glimpse of what was happening without, he could see only shadows, some moving, some still. Pressing his hand between the stones did no good. The light was some kind of barrier of its own now.

  The altar stone gleamed sheer white now in the light and caught his attention. Tolan walked to it and beckoned Thea over. Lord Geoffrey stood where Tolan left him, with shock and fear covering his face. He tried to speak several times, pointing at Tolan and murmuring unintelligible sounds.

  Tolan guessed that the journey through the ground might have upset the lord’s sensitivities somewhat. He could feel the man as he tunneled through the ground, holding on to enough of his own form to protect Geoffrey as they moved through the soil there. It was a strange and yet terrifying moment, being in the ground, part of it, for Tolan, too.

  “Tolan?” Thea asked as she walked inside the circle. “This was not here when I saw this place. The sacrifice was laid there.” She pointed across the clearing to a different spot.

  “Sacrifice?” Geoffrey stuttered out. “Another sacrifice?”

  Tolan strode over to him and grabbed him by his tunic, pulling him up close. “Have there been others?”

  “Aye,” he said, shaking his head several times.

  “When?” Tolan asked, tossing him back onto the ground.

  “All his life, he has worshipped the goddess. Sacrifices were part of that,” Geoffrey admitted.

  “Like my cousin?” Tolan asked, remembering the terrible sight.

  “Aye, though it was worse for any woman chosen.”

  Tolan did not even wish to think of the depravity that could be involved, but he did see Thea shudder at the words.

  “So, what do we do here, my lord?” Tolan asked, infusing the title with sarcasm. “If you are marked, if he sent you in here, you must know.”

  Tolan did not take his gaze from the man who’d ruled his life, but he did walk to Thea and pull her close, entwining their fingers.

  “He said we must spill our blood on the altar stone. And we must break the altar so that our mixed blood flows . . .” Geoffrey stopped and looked around the area, searching for a place. “He said the barrier is in the center there.”

  “And then?” Thea asked.

  “Then she will be freed from that place.”

  “Come,” Tolan said, approaching the center of the circle with Thea at his side. Geoffrey remained next to the altar as though afraid to move near the center.

  “Is this the area you could feel but not penetrate, Tolan?” Thea asked.

  Tolan looked into the ground and nodded. Even now he could feel the outline of it. It ran deep into the earth, so deep he could not reach the bottom of it. “It is surrounded by stone or something so hard that I cannot even sense through it.”

  “Hugh said Cernunnos created it with a thought,” said Geoffrey.

  Tolan and Thea turned back to the nobleman. His ancestor was so powerful that he could carve this immeasurable abyss with a thought?

  “What more do you know of it? Of what we are supposed to do?” Tolan asked, stalking back toward Geoffrey.

  He threw his hands up before Tolan, ready to fend off any blows. Used to having guards to protect him had turned the lord soft, so all Tolan would need was one well-placed punch to take him down. But if they were to open this barrier and Tolan was to save his son, he needed this man.

  “You must know more!” Tolan shouted. “He is burning my son inch by inch. What must we do?” He ran his hands through his hair, trying to figure out the rest of it.

  “If a priest is needed, there must be prayers? A ritual of a sort?” Thea asked softly. “My lord, do you know these prayers? Or are they here somewhere to be found?”

  Geoffrey pointed to the altar stone, and Tolan realized the man had been searching it the whole while.

  “Is it there?” Tolan asked.

  “I cannot see anything now, but Hugh said to mark it with blood and the words will show.”

  “Then do it!” Tolan yelled.

  He and Thea watched as the man pulled a small dagger from his belt and tugged back his sleeve. Holding his hand out, Geoffrey made a quick slash, deep enough to make the blood flow freely. As it dripped, he spread it over the surface of the altar. The pristine white stone seemed to reject the blood at first, but then the droplets filled in channels cut into it.

  These were not words in their language, for Tolan could read and write and recognized none of them. These slashes and cuts were not familiar to him. Another language?

  “Do you recognize these? Are these Norman or Breton? Latin?” he asked Geoffrey. Tolan’s skills at letters was basic and he knew nothing other than the language of this area. Geoffrey shrugged and shook his head.

  “We are missing something,” Thea said. “It must be a combination of things. These words, the blood, and something else.” Tolan thought on her words. “Your family passed down a great power to you, Tolan. And the stories of the ancient past. Is there anything they told you that referred to this place or this ritual?”

  Tolan could remember bits of his grandfather’s old stories and prayers and those, too, from his father, but what he remembered most clearly was the songs. As they worked the fields, his grandfather would sing songs of the earth and the plants and the . . . stones!

  “Thea, I think you are right!” he said, pacing around the altar stone trying to pull those memories. “There were prayers I heard as a child. And chanting, hours of chanting as we worked the fields.” He rubbed his face. “I thought they were like the waulking songs used by the women to keep up their pace in their work, but now I wonder.”

  He began to hum one of the tunes he did remember. Memories of warm summer days in the fields grew stronger, as did the sound of it. His grandfather would begin it, his father would add his voice, and then Tolan would wait and join in when they told him. The melody and words woven together helped the lands, his grandfather explained.

  One song to open the furrows and one to close them.

  As the sound of the song echoed around them, a vibration began under their feet. Then, coming from the center of the circle, a stronger motion started and it felt as though something was beginning to shudder inside the earth.

  “Wait, Tolan.” Thea grabbed his arm and tugged. “Do not sing it!” She pointed at Geoffrey and the altar. “If it begins, it must end correctly or we are all destroyed, along with the circle. Be certain before you begin.”

  As though a last warning, a scratching noise followed by something that sounded like a large animal panting emanated from within the barrier. Tolan swallowed deeply, his throat dry with fear now as he, as they, contemplated releasing that.

  “He will kill the boy,” Geoffrey said. “And everyone else out there if you do not do this.” The nobleman lost the color in his face then, telling Tolan that worse was coming. “He will raze the village and burn the fields, too. No o
ne will survive and nothing will grow here for generations, Tolan. His fire cannot be withstood.”

  Tolan must have worn a mutinous expression, for Geoffrey continued with his warning.

  “You, she, the others do not have the power that he has. He has honed it under the tutelage of his father, who learned it from his. He has practiced it for his whole life, since it rose in his blood. It would take you years to gain the ability to wield it that he has now. And you, we, they”—he pointed with his chin outside the circle—“do not have that kind of time.”

  His hopes to avoid this dashed, Tolan glanced at Thea one last time. She would do as he asked to save his son and the others, no matter the risk. Her smile, on trembling lips, spoke of her love and her agreement. Tolan closed his eyes and thought of the last time his grandfather had worked the land with him. He thought about the huge, strong man whose hands dug into the ground and turned it. He remembered watching the earth begin to churn and the furrows appearing as they made their way through the rows.

  He opened his eyes and looked for one final time at the woman who was sun to his earth. Whose heart and soul held his own. And offering up one last prayer to the Old Ones for forgiveness and strength, he began to chant.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  “Father, could you not choose another prayer?” William asked the priest as they stood outside the circle, unable to get in or stop the abomination that would be released now.

  “Do you think they will open it, then?” Brienne stood at his side and he could feel her warmth there.

  “Aye,” Will said to them. “Look there.” He turned his gaze on her father and watched as the fireblood continued to hold and torment the boy. They’d tried everything they could to free him and break the hold de Gifford had on his father, but to no avail. “Tolan believes his son will be safe.”

  “Corann, what do we do then?” Soren asked. “What do we do if the goddess is freed? What will she do?”

  No one spoke for several seconds and then Brienne did. She’d encountered the goddess in her father’s secret chamber and had shared only bits of that with him or anyone.

  “She will rise as an unholy creature and will seek vengeance against all those who kept her prisoner,” Will’s mate said. He tamped down the warblood’s need to protect her, for there were other problems to face first.

  Father Ander murmured his favorite prayer once more, under his breath, and William suspected that most all of them, save Corann and Aislinn, joined in silently now.

  “So we will be her first targets?”

  William needed to understand what could happen and prepared his men and the rest for it. Nay, what would happen, for each passing moment spoke of Tolan and Thea’s compliance with Hugh’s demands. He was an experienced warrior, partaking and winning a number of battles against human enemies while serving his king and liege lord. And though the warblood gave him superhuman strength and abilities, sometimes it was the human warrior who could see patterns and make plans better.

  “She may not attack the sunblood and earthblood, believing them to be allies,” Corann said. “You heard the fireblood’s words—he wants both Tolan and his son at his side.” William scoffed, but Corann continued. “Cernunnos was one of the most powerful of the Old Ones, William, and Tolan’s family have kept to the faith, making him stronger than most of you. Belenus was another and though the sunblood is unpracticed, she will be of great value. So, to keep them with him would give him a huge advantage in the coming times.”

  Coming times? From the sound of this, none of them would survive to live in the coming times.

  “I do not believe they will stand at Hugh’s side,” Aislinn whispered. “They are forced to this by . . .” She glanced off in the distance as the boy whimpered now in ungodly pain from de Gifford’s burning touch.

  “Anyone who can pray the ritual or prophesy will be her first targets,” Roger said, spitting on the ground. “You said there is still the fourth circle to deal with, Corann? So those who will know where to find it are in danger?”

  Even if the worst happened here this day, even if the goddess was freed, there was still a fourth gateway. One that she would need to destroy to protect her from the possibility of ever being returned to the abyss where she’d spent the last hundreds of centuries. And it was, as Aislinn and Corann explained, the last remaining place where the goddess could be captured, if they knew how to do it.

  Will did not wait for more. “Roger. Brisbois. Take Aislinn and Corann to safety.”

  Aislinn began to argue, but William would hear none of it. She was too valuable. More than a priest, she was the most powerful seer among all of them and she had some destiny that none of them understood yet. Marcus had revealed that much before he died at Hugh’s hands, so now it was William’s and the others’ responsibility to see that the young woman survived—whether or not she agreed mattered not at all.

  “Corann, you may stay. Aislinn, go with them now,” he ordered quietly. “Roger, give the order to the men as we’d planned.” Roger nodded at him and escorted Aislinn away from the circle, with Brienne’s uncle at her back. He faced the priest and spoke, not mincing words or possible outcomes for what would happen.

  “You need to do what you can, Corann. Now and in the coming hours, for I fear we may not be enough to do battle with this goddess.”

  “Brienne, you must protect those you can from the worst of her attack. She will go for those humans who cannot fight back, won’t she?”

  “Aye, she will,” Brienne said. “I pray that what I saw in the abyss was a mirage, a false vision projected to keep us unaware. For if she comes into this world in that form, I fear . . .” She said no more, but the shudder that made her whole body tremble said more. If a fireblood feared the goddess . . .

  “What should we do?” Ran asked, touching Will’s arm then.

  “Water and storm to fight fire,” Corann interrupted. “Protect the others.”

  “Mayhap they will have a change of heart and not open it?” Brienne asked, though none of them believed it would be true.

  Something happened then, something Will could not describe as anything other than a shift in the ground around them. It took only one glance at Hugh’s glee-filled face to know it was not good. In fact, it was bad. The air grew still and the white light around the standing stones pulsed brighter and brighter until he had to look away. When he looked back, it was the warblood who now stood in his place.

  “Prepare!” he called out in a growling command.

  His blood flooded now with the need to fight, and so he stalked off toward the groups of soldiers readying for the attack. He paused before his mate and lifted her up to him. Closing his eyes, he inhaled her scent and rubbed his face against her cheeks and neck, marking her with his.

  “You will have a care, Brienne,” he whispered to only her.

  He could not lose her. He could not. He whined out in a moan that came from deep within him, from that place that feared she was in danger. That she would not . . . He leaned his head back and growled his fear loud and long into the air. Her hand, touching his cheek softly, stopped his anguish. He gazed into her eyes and saw her love for him there.

  “Aye, William. You have a care, too, my warblood.”

  He placed her carefully on her feet and then ran off to take his place near the circle. He raised his weapons in the air and screamed out his battle cry once more.

  And then he waited for the coming fight.

  * * *

  Thea could only stand and watch as Tolan began humming some melody she’d never heard before. His voice grew stronger and he added some words to it, chanting in a pattern like what the monks at the abbey did during Matins. But these were not the words the monks used. They were guttural sounds, primitive in some way that her blood recognized.

  Heat bui
lt within her and she could not contain it. Bursting forth, she lost her form and became like the sun there in the circle. She could see and hear as though still a person and she watched as Tolan approached the altar and Lord Geoffrey.

  As he sang, the carvings on that stone grew deeper and more precise and the blood filled in the etchings. Geoffrey stared at them until his eyes rolled back into his head and he grabbed hold of the edge of the altar. Rather than preventing him from seeing, somehow, not only could he see what was written there but he could also now read it.

  Geoffrey spoke then, a language she did not understand and yet she could. The words were about the Old Ones, the gods who’d been worshipped eons ago and who had left behind their descendants. It called on the earthblood and sunblood to sanctify the altar anew and open the barrier.

  A terrible wave of pain struck her, taking her breath away and filling her with such fear and trepidation that she could barely think or watch. Tolan’s voice rose, the chanting becoming some kind of chimes that echoed around the stones.

  Nay, not around the stones. The stones themselves now chimed in chorus with Tolan’s chant. Louder and louder, Tolan and Geoffrey sang and prayed, one and then the other, as the chiming became screaming. But it was not the stones screaming. It was the being that lived in the abyss underneath their feet.

  Then that thing began scratching the barrier, a dreadful sound of claws or talons scraping along stone that made Thea’s blood go cold. What was the goddess, truly? Thea wanted to look in the center to see if she could see anything and yet the sound made her unable to look.

  Though both Geoffrey and Tolan stopped their song and prayer then, the sounds echoing across the circle grew louder and louder. Tolan nodded to her and held out his hand for hers.

  “Tolan,” she whispered. “This is our last chance.”