“I don’t suppose I need to ask whether she’ll know to be there to greet us.” Brighid tried to keep her tone light, but she was still struggling to get her breathing under control, and the intermittent flashes of lightning clearly showed how hard her equine body was trembling.
“Mother will probably have dancing girls and a parade all prepared for us,” he said, attempting to match her tone, but he guided his gelding close to her. His face was drawn and his eyes worried as he studied the Huntress. “Let’s rest here. We have some time.”
“We have no time,” Brighid said. Fand came panting up to them and Brighid bent, pouring water in her hand for the wolf to lap. “There’s a brave, good girl,” she told the wolf. Then she glanced up at Cuchulainn. “You lead. I’ll follow.”
Cu nodded tightly and pointed the gelding’s head to the north again, and kicked him into a steady lope. Suddenly lightning forked the night with brightness, clearly illuminating the shape of a lone centaur moving almost parallel to them. In the white light his coat shone gold and silver, an exact copy of his sister’s.
“Give me your bow,” Cuchulainn said.
“No. If it’s to be done, I’ll do it.” At a gallop she notched the bow and waited for the next strike of lightning. When it came she sighted and let fly an arrow, which embedded itself in Bregon’s flank, causing him to stumble and fall hard to the ground.
At a flat run, Cuchulainn’s gelding beat Brighid to her brother, and the warrior leaped from the horse’s back, drawing his sword and pressing it against the centaur’s heaving chest so hard that it broke the skin. The next lightning flash illuminated the scarlet drops that trailed down his colorless chest as if he was a half-finished painting.
“This is just so that you don’t doubt that my sword works in this realm,” Cuchulainn snarled.
“Don’t kill him, Cu,” Brighid said quietly, putting a trembling hand on her husband’s arm. “At least not yet.”
But her brother was ignoring the warrior. Instead he was staring at the rope burns and teeth marks that had left red, angry wounds on his sister’s body.
“What happened to you?”
Cuchulainn’s growl matched the wolf’s low angry rumble. “The centaurs you left behind did as you ordered them. They captured her. They bound her with ropes so that if she moved she would choke herself. Then they began to rape her.” With each sentence he pressed the sword more firmly into Bregon’s chest and fresh blood welled under the razorlike blade. “I made certain they didn’t complete your orders.”
“No,” he said faintly, eyes widening in shock. “They were just supposed to hold you until I returned.”
“Until it was too late to stop the war!” Brighid cried. “How could you do it, Bregon? How could you cause such bloodshed and hatred? Wasn’t our mother’s hatred enough to fill you full for a lifetime?”
A shudder passed through his body. “I just wanted to make her happy.”
“That was an impossible task for anyone, Bregon,” she said. Then the pitying look in her eyes hardened. “Have you done it? Have you freed Fallon?”
Bregon closed his eyes and nodded.
“Open your eyes and look at the man who is going to kill you!” Cuchulainn ordered.
Again, Brighid’s hand lightly touched her husband’s arm, and with obvious effort he stopped himself before plunging the blade the rest of the way into Bregon’s chest.
“Where did Fallon go?” Brighid asked.
“Into the mountains. That’s all I know,” Bregon shuddered again. “She was horrific.” His expression of shock was receding and an arrogance that reminded her of her mother was creeping into his tone. “How can you defend those creatures? They are evil. Even pregnant she ripped and tore the guards with her hands and teeth to get free. Taking their form, even temporarily, was a ghastly experience.”
“They’re not like Fallon! The New Fomorians are gentle and kind. Epona has even gifted them with the ability to nurture life.” Brighid shook her head in disgust, feeling thoroughly sick and so weary it seemed every word was a struggle for her to form. “You’ve always been like this, Bregon, unable to see beyond your immediate needs and desires.”
“I don’t believe those winged creatures should be allowed to live,” he said.
“It’s not your choice! And what of the Guardian Warriors? How many of them did you kill? And how many more did Fallon kill?”
“And what of the Clan MacCallan?” Cuchulainn said between clenched teeth.
“They killed my mother!” Bregon cried.
“You young fool, the men who were on the Centaur Plains had broken with the Clan,” Cuchulainn told him. “Why else would they have been there trying to forge a new life?”
“And no one killed our mother, Bregon. It was an accident—an accident which would have been avoided if she had given the little group of people permission to settle in one small part of our land.”
“They had no right to be there! They cannot trespass upon the herd’s land!”
“No!” Brighid made a violent cutting motion with her hand, and the sudden, violent motion made her feel light-headed. “The plague of hatred our mother spread ends now. You will come with us to Epona’s Temple. There you will tell Etain what you have done and let her decide your punishment.”
“I won’t go!” His breath started to come in hard, shallow pants and his eyes darted around, as if searching for aid in the smoky darkness that surrounded them.
“If I have to hamstring you and drag you behind my horse I will,” Cuchulainn said.
Brighid’s skin began to tingle just before the sound reached them. Then the roar built. It was thunderlike, but more living—more intense. The earth beneath them began to vibrate.
“Bison,” Brighid said, staring at her brother incredulously. “You have an affinity with animals, too.”
Her brother returned her gaze steadily. “We do have some things in common, sister.”
“What’s happening?” Cuchulainn said.
“He’s stampeded the bison. Get mounted,” she said quickly, carefully keeping the panic from her voice. “We’ll deal with him later.”
Cuchulainn didn’t move, but kept his blade pressed against the centaur’s bleeding chest.
“Cuchulainn! If we don’t move and move fast we will be killed.”
“We’ll lose him.”
“We may, but he cannot hide from Epona.”
With a frustrated snarl, Cuchulainn stepped back. The instant the sword was no longer against his chest, Bregon surged up. He turned to his sister.
“Forgive me,” he cried, stumbling toward her.
Automatically her arms went out to catch him, but instead of embracing her, his hand snaked out, grabbing the rolled up bison skin from her back. Before Cuchulainn could react, he spun away, and melted like a blond spirit into the smoke.
Cuchulainn swung aboard his gelding, who was restlessly skittering to the side, ears cocked at the rumbling darkness, and made to go after him.
“Let him go,” Brighid said heavily. “He’s not worth your life.” With a mighty effort, Brighid scooped Fand up and tossed her over the saddle in front of Cu. “Keep her with you or she’ll be trampled!” She had to shout over the growing noise. “Keep a firm hold on the gelding. He’ll want to panic, but you’ll be safe as long as you’re mounted on him.”
An enormous dark shape thundered past them.
Brighid met her husband’s turquoise eyes and smiled. She was near the end. The shape-shifting, and then her abduction and fleeing from the grass fire had depleted even her deep reserves of Huntress strength. She would not be able to keep up with the stampeding bison, but she would not have his last living memory of her be of tears and regrets. “I love you, Cuchulainn,” she said, and saw his face soften in response.
“And I you, my beautiful Huntress.”
Another beast rushed past them and Brighid drew a deep breath before slapping the gelding on the rear and shouting, “Now ride!”
51
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GELDING AND CENTAUR leaped forward together and then they were consumed in the mass of stampeding creatures. Their scent hit Cuchulainn—musk mixed with smoke and panic. He could hear nothing except the pounding of their hooves. Frantically he tried to guide his gelding so that they remained beside Brighid, but it was impossible. The ocean of bison separated them until all he could see was her silver-blond hair as it streamed behind her. And then he was pulling too far ahead of her and he lost her completely.
Fear exploded within him. He couldn’t lose her! Slowly he managed to angle his gelding so that they were very gradually cutting through the running creatures. The horse was more agile than the lumbering bison and they finally made it to the edge of the herd. He slowed the horse to a steady trot and scanned the dark beasts for any sign of Brighid’s silver hair.
The herd thinned and as stragglers staggered past him a new sound reached his ears. It was a distinctive crackle and popping that was followed by an ominous whoosh of air. He turned his head as a sudden updraft cleared the smoke and the gelding squealed and fought to lunge away as the wall of flames materialized. From within the orange fire, Cuchulainn could see a young bison calf and its mother being consumed.
He spun the gelding around and began crisscrossing the flattened grass path left by the herd.
“Brighid!” he yelled, eyes searching for a spot of silver in the empty plain.
He would have passed her if Fand hadn’t begun to whine and wriggle frantically to be free. Brighid had fallen to her knees and was bent forward at the waist, resting her hands against the ground and gasping for air.
He raced to her and dropped from the gelding to her side.
She raised her head and looked up at him, her eyes large and glassy.
“No,” she whispered. “You were supposed to be safe.”
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you,” he said. Turning quickly to the gelding he grabbed the water and held the skin to her lips. She gulped and then turned away to cough.
The whoosh and crackle of the fire had her head snapping around. “Get out of here!” she yelled at him.
“Only if you come with me,” he said.
“There’s no point.” She gestured to her right foreleg, which was bent at the wrong angle along the ground. “It’s broken. Quickly, Cuchulainn. Leave me!”
“I will not! Where you go I go—if you die I die! I will not lose you, Brighid. I could not survive it.”
“Please don’t do this,” she said brokenly.
Then his eyes widened. “Shape-shift!”
“Cu, I—”
“You can! You must. Shape-shift and the gelding can carry us out of here. If you don’t, we die here.”
Live, child…
The gentle, familiar voice of Epona drifted through her mind, calming and soothing her. Brighid bowed her head and began whispering the words as she steeled herself for the pain of the Change.
Her skin had barely stopped glowing from the transformation when Cuchulainn lifted her to the gelding’s back. The fire was so close that the heat seared their skin and sparks rained around them.
“It’s going to catch us,” Brighid panted against his ear.
Cuchulainn leaned forward and dug his heels into the gelding, who lengthened his stride, but they couldn’t pull away from the flaming monster that pursued them. Brighid closed her eyes and clutched the turquoise stone that dangled from around her neck.
I need you again, my winged friend.
The hawk’s cry sounded above the spitting flames and her mighty wings beat against the smoke that surrounded them as she circled over them once and then dove like a plummeting star to their right.
Come…
Cuchulainn reined the gelding to the right, and followed the soaring bird to the riverbed.
The water was shallow—only reaching just above the gelding’s hocks. And they weren’t alone. They had joined an odd assortment of deer and coyotes, all of whom were cringing into the water and staring with hypnotic fascination at the approaching wall of flames. When Fand leaped the bank and splashed to them, not even the timid deer spared her a glance.
“Get the skin off the gelding!” Brighid yelled over the thunder of the flames. “Let him go. He can outrun it without us.”
She gritted her teeth against the pain in her broken leg as he helped her from the horse’s back. She balanced on one leg in the muddy water while he tugged off the saddle, packs, and bison pelt, and shooed the gelding away. Then Cuchulainn lowered her with him as he sank into the water and called Fand to them. Wrapped in each other’s arms with the wolf pressed closely, Cuchulainn covered them with the bison pelt and their world went black.
They lost all sense of time, and knew only the heat and the terrible, deafening sound of the feeding fire. The water around them hissed and steamed. Brighid held tight to Cuchulainn and tried to control the instinctive panic that made her want to fling off the oppressive bison skin. Her pulse beat painfully in her broken leg and her body felt horribly weak, and amidst the heat she began to shiver and she knew that shock was setting in. That could kill me as surely as the fire. The thought was detached from her, and she knew she should force herself to care—to struggle to stay conscious and aware…but it was so much easier to sleep…and it was so very cold…
Then she heard the singing. Her lips tilted up as she recognized the voices of the winged children and remembered that it was the song they sang the day they began their journey from the Wastelands.
Greetings to you, sun of Epona
as you travel the skies on high,
with your strong steps on the
wing of the heights
you are the happy mother of the stars.
“Do you hear them,” she whispered to Cuchulainn.
“I do,” he said, his voice hushed. “I hear them even though they can’t be here.”
“They aren’t—” Brighid’s voice was choked with tears “—but their love is. Gorman was wrong, Epona still cares about what happens to her High Shamans.” As she listened to their disembodied song of praise she felt the strength of love fill her body and expand around her as she tapped into and focused it, blanketing them in a mother’s protective touch.
You sink down in the perilous ocean
without harm and without hurt.
You rise up on the quiet wave
like a young chieftain in flower,
and we will love you all the days
of our lives!
“It’s over,” Brighid said quietly when the singing stopped. “The fire has burned itself out. I can Feel it—its anger is gone.”
Slowly Cuchulainn raised the thick pelt from them and gazed into the alien dawn of a much-changed land. He stood and lifted Brighid, with Fand following closely, and carried her from the riverbed that had dried to little more than a puddle and was littered with the scorched bodies of animals. He climbed the eastern bank to stand on the rise amidst the blackened corpses of trees. The series of tributaries that fingered into the Centaur Plains from the main river had finally broken the line of the fire, and the green that still covered the ridge behind the last of the waterways looked bizarrely out of place in a world of black and gray. Before he could turn to face the south and what was left of the Centaur Plains, Brighid spoke.
“Let me stand,” she said. “I want to Change back.”
He lowered her feet to the ground. When she had her balance, he took a half step away from her, and then shaded his eyes as the brilliant light of the Change engulfed her body. Back in her natural form, she stood awkwardly on three legs, but she met his eyes resolutely.
“I’m ready to see it now,” she said.
Together, the two of them turned to face the south. Brighid could hardly comprehend what she was seeing. The sun was rising over the eastern edge of the horizon, casting cheery pink and gold into the sky over a sea of ruin. The plains were gone. In their place were still-smoldering ashes that clumped in grotesque charred formations. Trees were indistinguis
hable from bodies. Nothing moved except small trails of rising smoke.
“Oh, Goddess.” Brighid pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from sobbing aloud. Could anything survive it?
“Yes, child.” Etain’s voice came high and sweet from behind them.
They turned to face the Goddess Incarnate and Brighid gasped. Etain sat on the silver mare at the edge of the blackened line. Midhir stood to her left. To her right were Elphame, Lochlan and Ciara. And stretching behind them were all of the winged children.
“Now tell me, my daughter, how could anything survive such devastation?” Etain asked Brighid.
The Huntress’s eyes went from the Goddess Incarnate, to Elphame, and then to Ciara and the unusually silent children and, finally, her gaze lifted to her husband’s turquoise eyes. With a rush of clarity, Brighid finally understood—and it was at that moment that the Huntress fully became the High Shaman.
“With hope and love anything can be survived,” she said, and her words rang with Goddess-enhanced power so that they carried not just to all the children, but spread like ripples in a still pool across the Centaur Plains.
Etain smiled her approval.
Suddenly there was shouting from behind the children and dark-clothed warriors appeared with their bows and swords drawn. Brighid felt Cuchulainn tense at her side, and she opened her mouth to call a warning, but Etain raised one silk-clad arm and the sun glistened off the palm of her hand as if she had called its rays to her.
“Hold, Guardian Warriors!” she commanded without glancing behind her at the approaching army. “I did not allow you to follow them here for misplaced retribution. You are here to witness rebirth. Stand silently and observe.” Then her voice changed, and softened and she finally did glance behind her, but not at the warriors. The High Priestess smiled at the children. “Come,” she said.
The group descended from the green ridge and crossed the fire line without hesitation. When they reached Brighid and Cuchulainn, they halted. Brighid wanted to greet her friends, Elphame, Ciara and the small winged figure of Liam, but the preternatural tingling was back all over her skin and it seemed that her blood hummed with a sudden surge of wordless desire—something that was just beyond the reach of her mind and spirit—but something she wanted…had to have.