Din Eiddin
Lady Ruth sat alone in the Comhairle chamber, back in her tall stone throne with her eyes closed. She sat like this for a very long time, the shadows in the chamber shifting and the flames in the braziers dying to ash. On her brow was a simple circlet of silver, with a milky blue stone set in the very centre of her forehead. After many silent hours, Scatha stole into the chamber and came to kneel by the Red haired Enchantress’s feet, waiting with her head bowed for the Lady to stir.
“There is much fog in the world beyond us Scatha, I cannot see far. What does Hazel see beyond the Glean?” the Lady said suddenly, not opening her eyes, but sensing the Warrior-Woman’s presence.
“King Nechtan of Alba moves the Stone of Destiny to his eastern seat of Din Eiddin. Hazel sees it is weak there, exposed to the motives of the Wild Hunt. She says she thinks much of what takes place in Din Eiddin is being obscured by the ones who follow the Cailleach,”
“That would tally with all that I can see, save one thing. I see a man who is the King of Alba, but he is not Nechtan, I see this man giving a crown to an Angle born of Din Eiddin, and I see him turning his back on the screaming stone. I cannot fathom him,”
“We must decide our course, whether the portents are clear or not,” Scatha told her bluntly.
“Direct as ever to the point, my Warrior Flame. Yes we must go on, blind as we are to all that will take place. Din Eiddin will be the centre of this drama, so you and Hazel must go there and offer the King what help you can. Find this other King and do whatever you can to keep Lia Fall from the Wild Hunt,”
“I shall have to take the boy with me, he cannot be left to himself without Hazel or I,” Scatha told the Red Enchantress.
“Aye that is so, but he will be as much mischief there as here – guard him well Scatha, you must not inadvertently place him in the Wild Hunts path,” Lady Ruth warned the Warrior.
“As ever, Lady Ruth, I do what I can,” Scatha told the enchantress, rising to her feet.
“May it continue to be enough, Lady Scatha,” Lady Ruth replied, finishing the traditional exchange and closing her eyes once more.
“What else can we hope for?” Scatha whispered softly, before sweeping from the Comhairle chamber.
Scatha stood beside King Nechtan and looked down on the square where the men of the Garrison were training. The King’s son stood fidgeting as he leaned over the wall, his pale eyes watching the garrison. His Angle blood was very apparent and he seemed ill at ease among his father’s kin.
The men, honed and lean, seasoned fighters all, threw weapons and fists against Hessian sacks stuffed with straw, wooden pillars or sparred each other with wooden swords. Stalking among the garrison was an exceptionally tall man, with dark, grey-tinged hair that brushed his jaw. Often he stopped to talk with the men, or to correct the movement someone made and always he was listened closely to, and men worked harder beneath his gaze. Scatha sensed that the loyalty the men showed was born of love and respect.
“That is Bran Mac Muir, my greatest swordsman and rider. I have never seen his like with a blade,” the King commented in her ear, noting how she marked his passage across the square. At her side The Answerer sang softly, as if it had heard a challenge in the King’s voice. Scatha smiled wryly to herself and then turned a serious face to the King.
“Would you like to see his mettle truly tested, my Lord?” she asked in a careful tone.
The King did not reply immediately but looked down thoughtfully at his captain, Scatha caught a glance of the Prince scowling behind his fathers back. While she awaited Nechtans response, she took a measure of this Prince, and decided that he looked a little too soft and well fed, carrying much of his puppy fat into his later youth. He was much doted on by his mother, this next king of Alba who was neither Scot nor Cruithne. She saw his weakness and decided that he would not be a great king. She counted back the span of years and brought many kings to mind and she found that all those faces reminded her of this Prince had been king but briefly, falling to treachery or more commonly greed. Iolair had long been in the habit of assessing what manner of King a Prince would be, and she retained the custom to herself still, though now many years had passed since his death.
The King stirred himself from thought.
“Perhaps my Lady it will be a test of your mettle, though I confess I am not qualified to pass such a statement on stories alone, ” he said with a friendly smile.
“Then let me meet this Captain of yours and I shall let you decide if the stories of me are true,” she replied, returning his smile and meeting the sparkle in his eyes.
The King led her down amongst the men, who stopped and nodded their heads at his passing.
“Captain Bran, come over to the sparring ring. The Lady has consented to giving you a test on my behalf,”
The Captain approached, taking a place at the Kings side. The Prince, who hung a few steps behind his father, seemed to shrink between the two tall Cruithe men, and he seemed a ghost in comparison to Bran’s dark hair and wind darkened skin.
“My Lady wishes to spar with me?” he asked. His voice was deep and husky with an edge to it that seemed as intense as the directness of his gaze. Scatha stared as directly back, un-intimidated by this tall warrior, but not unaffected, for she found her blood heated just a little in response.
“I wish to see you spar with her,” Nechtan told him, the lightness in his voice diffusing the moment passing between the Captain and the Danann Warrior.
Bran bowed to his king, then to Scatha before stepping unto the sparring ground, in the centre of the courtyard. It was marked off with ropes and a post on each corner, and the floor had been covered with the sand of a nearby beach. It was well used, sand scuffed to the cobbles below in several places, and dirtied by muddy boots and spills of blood. They faced each other across it, and the men began to gather at the ropes to watch. Scatha drew The Answerer slowly, it’s challenging ring silencing the chatter of the garrison. She brought the hilt to her chest, the blade before her eyes, and blew softly on it. Again it rang out, and all eyes were on it.
“The Answerer, the Answerer, “she named the blade for everyone. She lifted it high so that it caught the light of the sun and it seemed to flash like a bolt of lightning. It’s song grew louder as the breeze caressed it’s Danann steel. Then she turned it to read the flowing script etched in green along the centre of the blade.
“It was made by the smiths in Tir-Na-Nog before the Cailleach first blended the blood of men and the Buachaillean to forge the Beastlings race. Here, along the blade it says, ”I answer all challenges, hear my voice,” and never has a lord of my people fallen with this sword in their hand,”
There was not a man among them who had not heard the Bards tell of The Answerer and the deeds of it’s keepers. As the men stood in awed silence, craning their necks to look at the fabled blade, Scatha looked past it into Brans dark, unreadable eyes.
“And yet…” she let the blade fall,” And yet for all it’s artistry it is still nothing but a sword and it’s art lie’s in it’s edge. To the first blood, Captain Bran Mac Muir, I shall use none of my Art, only the Answerer’s,”
Bran drew his own sword and nodded to her. They touched blades, the voice of The Answerer clear in the continuing hush of the courtyard. Scatha took another look over Bran, circling with him now, their eyes as locked as their blades. She could see in his unflinching gaze that he was a man of great courage, which was enough to make him a fierce challenge. They continued circling, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
Then Bran dropped back a pace, taking advantage of his greater reach, but Scatha kept with him, wheeling The Answerer down in a swift slash that Bran moved quickly to block. She turned in to his block and went to dig her elbow into his ribs but he was spinning away from her already. She met the blade that would have scored her back and danced away. He followed her, sword coming in for a low thrust, then a high backhand sweep, then another jab, but she met each attack with a parry. They broke apart and he dropped into a crouch, intending to sweep at her legs, but she jumped the arcing blade and brought her own round above him. He parried, his balance awkward and then rolled back to his feet. Around them some of the men cheered, and a chant broke out for Bran.
So they danced, sword to sword, to and fro for some time, neither gaining the advantage of the other. The chant went on, rising and falling with the pitch of the battle on the sparring ground. Then Scatha rolled under a sweeping cut from Bran and danced back close to the ropes. The only sign of exertion on her was a slight flushing of her cheeks, but Bran seemed even less affected.
“Don’t push her so hard, she’ll start using her magic on you!” one of the younger warriors called out to Bran and Scatha laughed. Bran smiled wryly, quipping back at the young man.
“The Lady has not even lost breath in the fight!”
“I am sure you spare me Captain, for I expected more as well,” she countered with another laugh, then she spun in with three lightning fast attacks, forcing him back a step. She feinted then slashed in low, aiming to score him very lightly across the belly, but he blocked with force and she had to spin away quickly to keep her footing.
He waited for her, seeking eye contact, but she turned straight back into the attack, pushing him a little harder and faster this time.. The Answerer flashed in a flurry and Bran met and blocked each strike before twisting away himself.
She leaped to follow him, but found herself forced to defend as he reined a flurry of blows down on her. She felt her footing give for a heartbeat, turned under her sword as it blocked his and jammed an elbow into his ribs. She heard him grunt and wheeze, but he was ready for her when she came back at him. They locked blade to blade and she saw flames leap up in his eyes. She pushed him away with a defiant roar, which was met by an answering roar from the men. Their blades met again mid-air with a great clash, the Answerer’s cry harsh and defiant. She fell away into a crouch bringing her sword in an upward swipe, but Bran dodged backwards from what was an almost certain scoring. He wheeled his sword above his head to catch her back, but she rolled clear. A cheer went up though, for he had sliced a lock of her hair from her head.
“First blood, not cut,” he reminded the men as he paced back from her. She laughed softly, shaking out her hair, then turned back into the attack.
They danced a few more turns, blades flashing and singing. A hush fell among the men, breaths were held because the balance of the duel was so fine, and the skill of the duellists was so great. They broke apart again at last, pacing and taking breath. A chant began of the Captains name.
Time slowed, though she used no Art to make it so. She stared across the space between herself and Captain Bran, meeting his eye. The voices of the chanting warriors began to fade behind the slow throb of her own heartbeat. His eyes were so dark, like the colour of the cold, cold sea that lay east of Din Eiddin, that as the sound of her heartbeat began to fill her ears, she found herself for a short time lost in those dangerous depths. He became the centre of all existence, and she felt a renewing of her strength and focus. She moved very suddenly forward, her sword low. Her eyes did not let his go, and she felt her blade clash with his, and twisted her wrist quickly, turning her blade beneath his and freeing it, bringing the tip of The Answerer up beneath his chin and pressing it to the flesh there. His eyes flashed, his jaw clenched and she eased back, stepping away. The chant died entirely, the watchers falling into tense, puzzled silence. She bowed deep and low to him then, flourishing her blade as the Sun glinted on a thin trickle of red running down the centre. The blood melted away and The Answerer sang no more.
“Well fought, Captain Bran. I would fear to meet you on a battle ground. Your King may give you the title of his Greatest Swordsmen with my consent, for I have fought none better,” she told him in the silence.
“Thank you my Lady,” he replied with a deep bow of his own, “It has been an honour to be defeated by you,”
And then the men began to cheer his name again, led by their King.
Hazel twisted on her bed and groaned. It truly was morning, and the sounding of the First Watch was not lying to her. Dragging herself up onto one elbow she looked across at where Scatha had slept, but the Warrior woman’s bed was already empty. Kieron would probably be with her already.
Just then a slight, dark haired woman entered the room and dropped into a deep curtsy as soon as she saw that Hazel was awake.
“Lady Scatha sent me to make sure you woke with the First Light. She needs you to join her on the tour this morning,” the woman told her.
Hazel sighed, but nodded pleasantly at the woman. Sitting up in the bed, she swung her feet round to the floor. The early morning chill hit her and she shivered. She sang softly under her breath a song of fire, to take the chill away.
“Do you need anything, my Lady?” the servant asked her.
“No, you may go on about your own business,” she told the woman with a smile.
The woman curtsied again, and closed the door on her way out. Quickly Hazel threw off her gown and strode naked across to the chest where her clothes were. She pulled out a long white gown and a thick, sky blue cloak. She seized up some silk undergarments and turned to throw the dress and cloak on the bed, then stopped suddenly, feeling a blush rise from her toes to the top of her head in an instant.
Kieron stood casually just inside the door, and was smiling brightly at her. Tall for his thirteen summers, his eyes were not quite level with hers, but at the moment she was conscious of the fact that they were actually sweeping her unclad form up and down.
“Dhorn! Teach this pup some manners!” She snapped angrily, and the huge hound leapt up from his place at the foot of her bed and put his heavy paws on Kierons shoulders, pushing him back against the wall. It snarled right in his face, completely blocking his view of Hazel. Kieron exclaimed and tried to wriggle free, but the hound growled fiercely.
“Serve you right, Kieron Mac Lachlan! You’ve no business sneaking in on me as if I were some serving girl. A fog be on your eyes, so you can take the telling I’m going to give you and I can keep my dignity to myself!” And there was such a strong edge of Art in her words that a fog fell instantly over his eyes and he could no longer see anything. Dhorn let him go then, and padded back to his place by the foot the bed.
Kieron had always been a handful but lately a new mischief had seized him, a mischief which had maidens falling over their own feet for him. His sparkling, slightly dangerous smile and his “roguish” temperament were partly to blame, as were his looks that as he filled out and grew older were certainly becoming eye-catching. He loved all the fuss and attention he was receiving from the girls. Scatha had nearly skinned him a few days ago when she found two girls scrapping over him, and she had had all three sorely punished for the incident. This though, was the greatest mischief she had seen from him of all.
“Remember that I am your teacher and guardian, Kieron Mac Lachlan. I am no girl, and you are still a child!”
To her astonishment he replied.
“No, Hazel, you are no girl,”
He was still blinded and she knew it, but she felt as if he were looking at her again as he said that.
“Get outside and wait there!” she snapped at him. He turned and felt for the door with his fingers and stepped cautiously outside. Hazel waited until the door fell closed and she began throwing her clothes on quickly, muttering furiously under her breath. Quickly she stopped by the basin and washed her face and scrubbed her teeth with a brush and the snatched up a bottle of perfume, applying it to herself liberally. Finally she dragged her tall riding boots on and swirled her cloak around her, then stormed outside.
Kieron was still standing there, he had no real choice in the matter being unable to see, but he seemed so relaxed and calm that no-one in the castle could have even guessed that he was in disgrace. She stalked up to him them and slapped him hard across the cheek.
“You are the most ungrateful, disrespectful and insolent boy I know!” she snapped at him, “I shall discuss what we are to do with you with Scatha, but until then you will follow me a pace and a half behind as is proper for student to mentor. I will grant you your sight back, but if you speak a word, I shall stop up your tongue,”
He nodded slowly, and blinked rapidly as she lifted the bar to his sight. She set off without another word, and he fell in behind her, easily matching his pace to hers.
She found Scatha out at the stables, making sure the horses were well tended and exercised. The older woman nodded in acknowledgement of her arrival and Hazel fell into step with her as they walked. They must have been an imposing site walking through the castle together, Hazel often thought. Two Danann women taller than most men, both with ground eating strides, though Scatha’s held more menace and strength than Hazel’s purposeful grace. Scatha’s hair fell in a long black mane down her back, her green eyed gaze made people look away whenever she turned it on them. Her left hand, as always, rested on the hilt of The Answerer.
By contrast, Hazel had long ringlets of ash blonde hair and cold blue eyes that seemed to read the soul of anyone they were turned to. Her figure was a little softer than Scatha’s, though that could not be hard. She bore no weapons and never needed any. And of course, behind them, was Kieron, a startlingly handsome boy with black eyes, black hair in tight curls around the edges of his face and the same leonine grace as Scatha. Broad at the shoulder and strong, he seemed a few summers older than he actually was. He still had height to gain though and would catch the two women for height, likely pass them.
They cut through the castle, stopping often to talk with soldiers and commanders. At the kitchens, Scatha imperiously ordered Kieron to wait outside them. The serving girls worked here and he was still banned from being near them.
“Are you going to tell me what he’s done this morning Hazel?” Scatha asked as they ducked under one of the canvases that kept rain from the camp stores.
“He walked in while I was dressing this morning, well, before I was dressed in fact, and there was no accident to it,” and she continued to explain the little incident as Scatha bent into a crouch to inspect the quality of a recently acquired batch of grain.
“That boy is more hot blooded than two full grown men!” Scatha said at the end, but there was more than a little amusement in her voice.
“We have to do something with him though, he tests us enough without this little complication,” Hazel pointed out. Now that her rage had subsided she was not embarrassed by the mornings incident.
“Yes, we do,” Scatha said absently – her eyes looking out toward the part of the castle grounds where the refugees who fled before the Beastlings hoard were camped. They worked in the castle like everyone else, but kept themselves a little apart. Something or someone in there had caught her attention for a second, and Hazel scanned the line of tents and campfires outside the city walls.
“Hazel, I think the Beastlings are going to strike soon, and I think they will make for the Stone of Destiny. They are not here to destroy the city, but they will kill as many as they can when they break through ,”
Hazel nodded, still trying to find out what it was that Scatha had seen.
“You want me to take keep him at my side when they come?” she asked.
“He’s too young yet for battle, but he won’t like it one bit. I don’t want to abandon you to him in one of his…moods but….” Scatha looked at Hazel, hoping that she would understand.
“One day Scatha, that boy is going to be such a powerful Mage that we don’t want to risk him now. I should be here to write the saga of the battle, but I will make him stay,”
Scatha reached out and laid a hand on Hazel’s arm.
“Thank you,” she said gratefully.
Hazel smiled at her friend. Scatha looked away back at the camps with a puzzled frown on her face, and Hazel bent close to her.
“What’s over there? I don’t have eyes as keen as yours,”
Scatha looked back over her shoulder at Hazel and shrugged.
“I don’t know yet, but I will find out, I spoke to the King and he wants me to talk with the refugees. Let’s go to the Garrison now, I want to speak to Captain Bran,” she said.
Hazel threw a curious look at the Warrior woman then. She had not been there when Scatha had fought the man, but Kieron had given her a voluble account, being very proud at how his teacher had bested the Captain. Yet none the less she had noticed the Captain often had his eyes on Scatha when they were near each other, and Scatha would not speak of the man at all, not even to give her account of the dual. Right now, Scatha was again looking intently in the direction of the refugee camps, and her face was unreadable even to the Bard. They left the kitchens and went round to the entrance of the Barracks of the Garrison, with Kieron once again at their heels. A young warrior was lounging at the door, whittling wood with a dirk in the afternoon sun. He straightened at their coming, in obvious awe of Scatha.
“Can you go and tell Captain Bran that we would like to talk with him?” Scatha asked him
The young warrior glanced quickly over the three of them and nodded, and turned through the door into the barracks.
Captain Bran appeared at the doorway and strolled slowly towards them. He was a very tall man, taller than either woman with shaggy dark hair that brushed his shoulders. He was dressed just in a thin white shirt, untied at the front still, and black leather breeches as if it were a warm spring day. The sword on his hip was in a plain brown leather scabbard which was well worn, but well oiled.
Scatha stood with her arms folded across her chest, watching him closely as he strolled to a halt in front of them. He bowed just a little, brushing his hair from his eyes and keeping them on her. His eyes the colour of stormy seas were not without awe as he looked at her, but they told her he knew her measure and that unsettled her just a little. His lips were curled up into a thin smile. He stood up straight again, his eyes flicking quickly to Kieron behind them both, then over Hazel and finally back to Scatha.
“A fine pup you’ve got there my Ladies, but perhaps a little young yet for a bodyguard,” he said, his voice deep and cracked. Scatha chuckled softly, her eyes flashing dangerously, Hazel’s mouth formed a thin tight line of irritation and Kieron stood up straighter, folding his arms.
“He’s more than fair with a sword captain, but he should be as I trained him myself,” Scatha told him in her own deep, husky tones. He checked the sword on her left hip and grinned. It looked a little wolfish on that cold, strong face.
“To what do I owe this rare honour, my Ladies?” He asked, directing his question at Scatha.
“Captain, the King gave me leave to go and talk to the refugees from the farms, but he bid me come and ask you to accompany me, for he thinks the Sassanach farmers might be afraid of me,”
“It will be an honour my Lady,” he replied, bowing low again.
He lead them off round the camp, with Scatha walking beside him and Hazel falling back to walk with Kieron. They stopped often and spoke to a good many people, but every time they stopped, Hazel saw Scatha’s eyes sweep the camp again, searching. They came at last back to the Captains room where Scatha fell into discussion with the Captain on the motives of the Beastlings. Hazel took her leave, taking Kieron with her, and left Scatha deep in conversation with the Captain.
“Hazel, I am really sorry. I don’t want you to be angry with me,” Kieron suddenly said.
Hazel looked at him sharply, really the first time she had regarded him directly all day. Her icy blue eyes narrowed.
“We will discuss this in my room. Go and find one of the serving women and ask her to bring us some food – an extra portion for you seeing as I made you work so hard today, then come straight to my room. If I find out you have been troubling those girls again I’ll strap you every day for a week,” her tone was passionless as she spoke, a tone she reserved for her greatest anger. Kieron paled a little in spite of himself.
He nodded acknowledgement to her and strode off to the kitchens. She turned herself and headed for her room. As he reached the kitchens, one of the girls smiled shyly at him as he passed, but he didn’t stop. Hazel’s mood was making him too anxious to allow his usual mischief, he would face a thrashing ten times over from Scatha rather than face one of Hazel’s cold moods.
Why? The question struck him and he wasn’t sure he knew the answer. Scatha was everything he wanted to be himself, a blade master, a mighty general, an immensely powerful and respected hero. Hazel would order him bluntly to do things, like this morning, that he did not understand the purpose of. He would never be a bard, he didn’t have the affinity for it, but she persevered with teaching him the old lays and histories. She was as powerful as Scatha, though in a different way, a way he knew was not open to him.
He found one of the older serving women, not willing to chance anyone thinking he was flirting with the camp women, and relayed Hazel’s orders to her. The woman nodded and told him it would be brought along soon.
Walking now back to Hazel and Scatha’s sleeping quarters, he began to dread this “talk”. She would probably want him to explain to her why he had done what he had done that morning, but he didn’t know. He did know it was possibly one of the most foolish things he had done, and all day he had had to struggle to keep thoughts of it from tormenting him. He stopped at the door before opening it and knocked. He would not make that mistake again so quickly.
“Oh come in Kieron,” Hazel called out, sounding very irritated.
She was sitting at the table that dominated the middle of the room. She had taken off her cloak and brushed out her long golden hair. It spilled in gleaming waves down over her white dress, following the curved line of her breasts. The smooth, pale gold skin of her brow was drawn into a slight frown, her red lips were slightly pursed and her sea blue eyes watched him steadily. At the same time as that cool expression made the dread rise inside him, he realised for the first time in his short life that she was a very beautiful woman, even among her own kind. He felt his face warm at that, and suddenly he very much wanted to turn and walk back out of the room. Already this was far, far worse than any thrashing, and she hadn’t even spoken yet.
“Sit down, Kieron. You and I have a lot to talk about,”
He walked very slowly across the space, his head down. He sat down in front of her, but kept his eyes on the table. Hazel regarded him silently for a few moments, then reached out across the table to brush his hair from his eyes. She put her fingers under his chin and lifted his head so he had to look directly into her eyes.
“You’ve been so quiet all day, utterly unlike you. Did you finally overstep yourself?” her voice was soft and smooth, tinged with concern.
“I…”he hesitated, finding looking her in the eye intensely difficult, ”Yes,” .
Now she was smoothing his hair with one hand and holding his chin still with the other. Those cold, cold eyes of hers were boring into his soul, reading him.
“Why?” she asked him. That single word made his brain fizz while he struggled to find the answer to it.
He’d walked into the serving girls rooms before, deliberately to catch them. The squealing and panic had amused him, and the girls seemed to love him all the more for his impudence. Had he given a moments thought to how Hazel would really have reacted, he would not have walked in on her that morning. He guessed that he was getting a little too accustomed to the fawning of the serving girls, but it was so unlike the elegance and cool of Glen of the heart here, there was so much life, human life, that he was half entranced by it all.
“I didn’t think about it, I just knew you would be.. um.. dressing,” he felt the heat in his cheeks again.
She let go of his chin and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest.
“Scatha believes the battle ahead will be a bloody affair. We both believe that you are to young yet to be in this battle, so you will stay with me and the women and children, until you have learned to cool your blood.”
The range of emotions that ran through him were more than a little confusing. Stay with the women and children? That made him angry and indignant. He had been sure he was going to be allowed to fight before the end of the siege, he was no child to be shepherded to safety. Yet riding along beside these feelings the notion of being alone with Hazel nearly terrified him. How on earth could he live with all these new, confusing feelings, forced to face them every day? He swallowed and found his courage to speak, though he wasn’t sure where from.
“You can’t make me stay away from the battle, you would have to tie me down!” he growled.
Hazel arched one golden eyebrow, his stomach burned with all the wild emotion inside him. He carried on talking though, his anger and indignation shading all the rest of those feelings just enough.
“I can fight as well as any of the men here, better! Why should I be coddled?”
“You think you can match Scatha do you boy? She fought for her life every day from her 11th summer in the Arena at Ben Cuil. You could be as good a swordsman as she, but you do not have the discipline that she has!” Hazel countered, snapping the words out while her eyes flashed.
The words stung, mostly because he knew it was true. Hazel went on in a lower voice.
“And if you escaped, and in your recklessness found a sword buried through your chest or your head swept clean from your shoulders, I could not mend you as I have done before, though Dana knows I would try so hard it might kill me!”
This time Hazel flushed, clearly having said more than she meant to. She looked away for a second, recovering her composure and Kieron was left admiring her unwillingly. The flush had softened the cold look of her eyes and taken away some of the starkness between the red of her lips and the paleness of her cheek. Then she swung her face back round to look at him.
“Kieron, for my part, I ask you that you stay with me. Caring for you has been most of my life these past 5 years, and I couldn’t stand it if you did something I couldn’t save you from,”
Kieron was stunned. This was not the hard voice of command he was used to, but a gentle entreaty. There had been a shift between them, but he found even as the wild thought of telling her no occurred to him, that he could not do it. His voice came out in little more than a whisper.
“For you, I will stay,” and with that, the life he had known before died.
There came a loud knock on the door of Captain Brans small chamber, disturbing the Captain and the Danann Warrior from their heated discussion over a map of the valley surrounding the city.
“My Captain, my Lady, the King wishes to speak with you both, in his chambers,” the errand boy told them hurriedly before dashing off, apparently to distribute more summons. They left together and cut as directly to the Kings chambers as they could through the grounds. In the courtyard before the Kings quarters three horses were tethered, each of them with a fresh sheen of sweat on their sleek hides. They hurried inside, sensing important tidings.
The King was sat in the centre of a mixed group of men, his son on one side, his other captains on the other and before him the three riders who had just arrived. They wore the colours of western clans and looked weary from hard riding. Each man already clutched a cup of wine in his hand and even as Bran and Scatha arrived food was being brought to them. The travellers stood up suddenly seeing Scatha, bowing their heads.
“Lady Scatha, Captain Bran. These are messengers from my brother and the clans,” the King told them, gesturing at them to be seated.
“You have no need to stand, I am sure you have important things to tell us, but do so while you take refreshment,” Scatha told the men who had stood for her.
Gratefully the exhausted men sat back down and the most senior of the three began to recount his tidings.
“We rode out with a large body of men from Dunadd , under the command of your brother my Lord, and they are some 3 or 4 days behind us now. Your brother sent us on ahead to spy out how the Beastlings lie across the land and bring the tidings to you,”
“And what news do you have to bring to me?” the King asked.
“It is not good my Lord, the Beastlings must have had scouts in the land and spied us coming, for even as we slipped past their camp we saw that they were making preparations for an imminent battle. They seem to swarm out of the woods on the western most slopes of the valley,”
“That ties with what the farmers are saying – many reckon that the Beastlings can pop out of the air in those woods,” Bran added thoughtfully, though most of the men in the room turned slightly disbelieving stares on him.
“It is what they say in the camps, and perhaps they have a way of tearing through the veils, though that would be dangerous indeed,” Scatha added, and the faces began to look graver.
“You say it will take three or four days for my brother to lead the clans to us?”
“More, My Lord, they have a camp full of Beastlings to cut through to get to here, there is no way they can avoid it,” one of the other scouts explained.
“Then tell me of their camp, what are we going to face?” Scatha queried as the others fell to silent brooding.
“I can’t tell you their number exactly, My Lady, for they are still gathering. There are certainly thousands of them, and yet not as many as tens of thousands. Among their number I saw some of those madmen in the red robes, the ones who claim to follow the Cailleach,” the youngest man told her.
Scatha made no response, she had thought that they must be there, they had the power to tear the veils and lacked the sanity to care about the danger. What worried her though was that they would not be here just to serve the needs of the Beastlings, for there was great antipathy between the Cailleach's followers and the wild Beastlings. In her heart she knew the danger the Red Robes represented, who and not what they had come for.
“What have we to fear from those fools?” the Kings son spat suddenly, making everyone turn to look at him where he had stood silently at the edge the circle of firelight in the Kings chamber. His pale features were twisted with scorn, but the hardness of the stares turned toward him seemed to make him think a little better of his outburst.
“Necromancers. They are necromancers, not fools. It would truly be a fool who did not fear them,” so spoke Bran Mac Muir into the ensuing silence. Scatha turned and looked at him afresh, hearing the weight of painful experience behind his words, and she caught the eyes of the King on him, an expression as bleak and pained as Bran’s own in them. She saw then they shared some hard memory, some deep pain.
The doors to the Kings Chambers were opened, and one of the Kings men called out to the King.
“Hazel Morningsong comes my Lord,” he said.
Hazel, followed by Kieron, whose head was down as if ashamed, and shadowed as ever by Dhorn, swept into the Kings Chamber. The soft jingle of the tiny bells on her ankles and the rustle of her silken gown were easily heard in the subdued room. She came and curtsied down low before the King, and Kieron bowed at her side.
“I apologise for my lateness my Lord King, your message has only just reached me. It seemed to go astray in the Castle halls,” she told him as she stood.
She took a seat by Scatha and sent Kieron to sit behind them, out with the inner circle of the King. The King bade the messengers from his brother repeat their tale for the bard, and as Scatha had grown stilled at the mention of the Red Robes, Hazel also grew thoughtful. In the shadows behind her though, Kieron tucked his knees to his chest and hugged them close to him.
“What are we to do then? We have many days now to wait before the Clans can possibly reach us, and I fear the Beastlings will move long before that into attacking the city, “ Nechtan addressed the assembled company, his normal confidence severely depleted, “Lady Scatha, Lady Morningsong, What counsel have you?”
“Would that I had time to send for the Feans from Eilen Cridhe, but there is not and doubtless they remain yet in Erin aiding the wars there. It is ever thus that we must face dark times without all the aid that we could wish for,” Scatha responded to the King, mostly speaking aloud the thoughts she had been brooding upon since she had arrived.
“What would aid us more is to know what it is that the Beastlings are here for,” Hazel continued after Scatha, ”If they are here to take Din Eiddin for themselves they are ill-equipped for that. Great though their numbers are they would need ten times what they have to take the city from us then hold it against the arrival of the clans,”
“Do they not mean to starve us out? There would be no need for force in taking the city, so they could spend their numbers on the clans in battle in the Valley outside the city,” Nechtan countered her, leaning forward.
“Never in all their black history have the Beastlings laid siege to a city for that long. It is said that even the Lord cannot hold back their bloodlust, for battle is all they live for. They will attack Din Eiddin before much longer,” Hazel responded firmly.
“Why then, My Lady? Why is it that they muster forces on our doorstep?” Nechtan asked, sounding tired and worn in patience.
“They come to humiliate us and steal our women to mother more of their foul ilk,” cried out one of the captains, Drust Mac Fergus. The other men in the room muttered their agreement, for this was one of the fears that most of the city held.
“That strikes not far from the heart of their purpose, but mind this,” Hazel began over the sound of the men, ”Lately it has been the practice of the Lord of the Hunt to gather to him as much of the magic as the world possesses, as if already he did not possess more than any other. Here in this castle lies a mighty magic, the Stone of Destiny,” she continued her voice commanding their silence, “We must expect that when they attack, they will try to take the stone,”
“Then why don’t we give them the stone and have done with it? Surely our lives are worth more!” the Prince exclaimed, his pale face flushed with his frustration.
“You know nothing of what you say!” Nechtan turned on his son, rage in his eyes, “You speak as if the Stone were but a trifle, and it would seem you are willing to cut off your nose in spite of your face. Without that stone, no clansman of Alba will follow you after me! The Stone proclaims the rightful King, you must be crowned upon it!”
The room had fallen into silence as father and son stared hard at each other. Nechtans was the greater will, his stare hard and unmoving while the Prince stood beneath it trying to stand firm in defiance. The young mans eyes wandered the room looking for support, but found none and after a few moments he gave in.
“I am sorry father, I did not understand and now I do. Forgive me,” he said simply, casting his eyes down in shame. His father glared at him for a moment, then seemed to calm himself, before turning to Bran.
“When do you expect their attack to come, Bran Mac Muir?”
While every other eye was turned on Bran, Hazel saw the dark scowl that crept across the Princes face. It seemed to her that he reserved special distrust for the Kings favoured captain, and Hazel watched him with interest as Bran spoke.
“They will attack at night, and I think it will most likely be tonight, my Lord King. If we suffer more than another day of this siege I shall gladly take that back,” he told his King quietly, his outward calm belying the starkness of his words.
“Tonight?” Nechtan was taken aback, and for a moment satisfaction began to warm the Prince’s features, but it was cut short by Scatha, who leaped to the defence of the Captain. Hazel read it now as jealousy, and found that even more of a puzzle.
“Their numbers are rising more steeply today than before, they are bringing in many fresh men. They are growing restive too – I have seen them drinking deeply from their War Cup from the battlements. I have fought the Beastlings in more battles than I can recall, always they sup the War Cup on the eve of battle,”
“We have been discussing our fears this morning, ready to bring them to you when we were assured in them,” Bran added, seeking to assure the King that they had not held back from him.
“Then that is certain, they shall attack within the day,” Nechtan pronounced in heavy tones, “And we should expect them to hide their true numbers under the veil of night. We shall not sleep, but we will drink and feast, the Last Feast of War, and meet them without fear,” he continued, addressing all the men, then turned to the servants that waited by the door, ”Rouse the Castle and prepare the feast, then make ready the deep caves for the women and children!” he ordered, and they scurried to obey.
Grim and yet strong, the company went out of the Kings Chambers to begin the preparations about the castle for the Feast, and for the battle.
The Hall of Nechtan grew to restless silence as the feast went on into the night. None of the feasters felt entirely at ease, the siege weighed heavily on their minds, as did the prospect of imminent attack. Many had greeted the announcement of this “Last Feast of War” with silence and pale faces, fearing that their King invited disaster with it. Meat must be eaten before it spoils and poisons the city, he had declared, so they sat at this feast like it was a great task, not a pleasure.
At the high table, Nechtan sat with his pale queen and son to his right hand and Scatha, Hazel and the Druid sat to his left. Kieron had been placed among the younger warriors, much to his pleasure and Hazel's displeasure, but the King had insisted that Kieron had earned the placing. At least he was placed where she could observe him.
All night Scatha had found her eyes wandering to the table of the Kings Captains, and to Bran Mac Muir, only to find that he was looking in her direction. He did not look away when their eyes met, but after a moment would bend to eat again allowing Scatha to look away. They had spent a long time in discussion earlier that day, and often she had caught a look in his eye that stirred her in a way she had never expected to feel again. The Kings voice drew her from this contemplation as it filled the gloomy quiet of the hall.
“My Lady Morningsong, would you grace us with your Art? I see my men might do well to hear a tale to rouse their hearts and I do not believe we shall again have the chance of a tale from a bard of your people,”
Many stirred and turned their faces to the high table. Hazel saw the expectant looks on those faces, and felt that she could not refuse, though she was tired from a very long and difficult day.
“Of course, I never pass by a chance to practise my Art, my lord King,” she said, standing up. A happy murmur rippled round the hall and Scatha saw many faces brighten as Hazel walked her way to a stool placed by the fireside. Among those faces she caught the haunted look of Kieron's face as the bard passed near him on her way. Scatha sighed as she added that look to her growing list of problems. This new mood of Kieron's would certainly lead to trouble. When Hazel signalled to him to attend her, he paled but moved sharply to her summons as if eager to please, and Scatha felt her heart sink a little. She hoped Hazel would deal with him sensibly.
Kieron left the hall at a trot, sent to fetch Hazel's harp while the Bard turned to her audience and began to tell a tale, one which Scatha knew instantly had been chosen to provoke her to thought.
“Hear now the tale of Scatha and her finding at Ben Cuil by Iolair, Silver Mage of the Tuatha de Danann.
Many years ago, the Lord of the Wild Hunt decreed that like the Emperors of long lost Rome he wished to have an arena of battle where slaves would fight for his entertainment. The Beastlings and the Firbolgs obeyed his decree and cut from the side of the great red mountain Ben Cuil, the Mountain of Blood, an arena of magnificent size. They tunnelled far into the mountain to make the training rooms and cells where the slaves would be kept. They gathered many fierce creatures, bulls fiery tempered and black from Iberia, wolves of the wild woods, bears of massive strength and size, hounds of Erin, boars of Alba, they brought also Ogres and Giants, serpents and giant cats, fire breathing horses and the dragon Thunderer, whom the Firbolgs chained deep in the heart of the mountain. The rage of Thunderer was great at this indignity, and he roared day and night, until the day on which he was killed.
Finally the Beastlings and Firbolgs brought slaves from far and wide, all from ancient warrior clans or of great renown in battle. The prize among these slaves was a sorceress of the Tuatha de Danann. Her name is long lost, though some do hold that she was the Lady Dana herself. This was at one of our darkest times, Tir-Na-Nog had just fallen and we still do not know who died in those tumultuous days, who fled or who was captured.
Whoever the lady was, it is told that she fought many times in the arena, using her magic against fell beasts and gangs of warriors and the Wild Hunt jeered, delighting in the humiliation of a sworn foe.
Hope is the greatest gift to any slave, even one in a living hell such as Ben Cuil was, and hope came to the Lady in its most bittersweet form, for she fell in love with a Warrior of Erin who was also a slave of the pits. After a time the lady was with his child and she feared greatly for the kind of life the child would be born to, so she poured all of her spells and protections into her unborn, to keep it safe even from her own death.
Unfortunately, it became known to the Slave Masters that the Lady and her Warrior were lovers. So they arranged a great sport for the Wild Hunt. Setting the warrior as captain to a band of men, they pitted them against each other in the arena, before the lady grew obvious with the child in her belly.
They knew nothing of the sport until they stood on the sands, whereupon he battled against his own men for her, killing every last man. When he was ordered to fight against her then, he fell on his own sword and died, for he would not harm her. Heartbroken yet mindful of her child, she lived on, bending all her remaining Art to keep herself hidden while she grieved and waited.
The day came that she gave birth to a girl with hair as black as her fathers and eyes as brilliant green as her own. The Sorceress named the girl-child by a secret name for her protection and gave her to one of the slave women. Then she passed on from her life of misery and went in search of her lover beyond the veil.
As the girl grew, the slave women hid her and kept her safe, fearing any harm to one of her blood. But soon she grew too much and was too full of mischief for the slave women to keep hidden and the Beastlings discovered her, guessing at her parentage. Beastlings are truly wicked creatures, for they put this girl of no more than 11 summers onto the sands with a pack of wolf cubs, for the fun of seeing her being torn limb from limb by them. But she did not die. Clutching a small stone knife she fought the cubs with all the rage of a wildcat, but possessed of her fathers quickness and mothers wits and a cunning born of long hours hiding in the dark from ruthless slave masters. At the fiercest moment of her battle with the cubs it also seemed that she had the way of Danann warriors in quickening her senses and limbs.
They put her back to the Slave pits and set her to training, for she was to become a gladiator of the arena. Many tales could be told of the battles she fought and the things that she suffered at the hands of the Slave Masters and jealous slaves alike, but they are for the Lady to tell herself, and not for warm open halls likes these.
It happened that when the girl was some 15 summers old that an alliance of the remnants of the Tuatha de Danann and the free men of Erin and Alba was formed. The allies chose to attack Ben Cuil to show their defiance of the Wild Hunt. With whips and the points of Beastlings swords the Slaves were driven against the allies, though the allies would not fight them. It was she who lead the charge of the slaves against their masters, realising the chance before them.
Iolair of Tir-Na-Nog saw her lead the charge, marked her blood and the power she used with her blade, but then the madness of battle swept him up.
After the battle had been fought and the arena had been smashed and the Ravens began their feasting on the numerous dead, the Silver Mage scoured high and low across the battlefield for a sign of the Warrior Maiden who had lead the charge of the slaves. A long time passed and he had not yet spotted her, when his keen eyes saw a hawk that hovered above some quiet spot in the field. It dived down and seemed to tug at something, then flew up high, hovering. He watched it do this several times and decided to go discover what it worried at.
As he approached the hawk flew off to watch from a nearby branch. There it was she lay, the warrior maiden, who had charged into the Beastlings ranks like a flame in the heart of battle, kindling it into the full tumult of clashing swords and cries of war. He found her alive, though wounded, and was amazed at her beauty.
Just then a terrible roar split the air, and the Warrior Maiden awoke. She knew well that sound and marked the danger they were in.
“Thunderer!” she yelled, springing to her feet to the amazement of the Silver Mage.
For the Beastlings Captain, seeing that all was lost, had unleashed the dragon from the heart of the mountain. The Dragon was now flying down upon the battlefield, tearing left and right at the victors as they tried to flee. He roared as he flew, and people fell to their knees clutching their ears at the thunderous sound.
Iolair notched his bow and the Warrior Maiden drew her sword once more. Thunderer beat his wings, stirring the hair of the dead and scattering the last brave Ravens who had not yet fled him. He saw the approach of the mage and the warrior and screamed a challenge to them that shook the sky.
Iolair struck at the beast with an arrow, but it bounced away from his stone hard skin. The Warrior Maiden closed with the beast, wheeling her sword and running swiftly on light feet. She had seen many men die fighting Thunderer, and had seen the Dragons weakness, a chink in his armour about the belly. He would rise on his hind legs to strike with flame then bring down his claws to finish his prey, leaving that soft spot open. None had yet been fast enough to strike before the dragon did.
Now she paced and waited, as Iolair picked a spot to shoot into the dragons eyes. The arrow of the Silver Mage was true, and in blind rage the beast reared up to strike out. The Maiden rolled away from the gout of white hot flame just a breath before it hit and dived forward to drive her blade into the Dragons gut. Its red hot blood spewed forth and she sprang back, losing her grip on the hilt of her sword. As the beast tumbled towards the ground, its claws raked across her and she fell screaming.
Iolair rushed forward to her, fearing that she had died. She lay beneath the dead Dragons forepaws, bloodied but whole and breathing. He pulled her free of Thunderer's corpse and began to pour all his Art into her healing.
When at last he roused her, he begged her to give him her name, but she explained that she did not know what her name was, for she had never been told it. So the Silver Mage named her Scatha for the hawk that lead him to her, and took her back to the Glen of the Heart,”
The men cheered and then raised their glasses to the health of Lady Scatha. Scatha toasted theirs in turn and the cry went out for a song from the Danann Bard. Hazel took the harp from Kieron where he sat at her knee and sent him back to the table. Soon the hall was under her spell again as she sang a lay for the lost land of Tir-Na-Nog.
Scatha though was lost deep in thought and remembrance of Iolair. He had told her many times how he’d loved her from the moment he saw her, but she herself, being unused to the very notion of love, had taken her time to come to love him. Yet she had loved him, very deeply and his death had hurt her very soul. That day was long distant now, she realised, and she felt herself to be much changed by the long years since. As she sat with Hazel's voice washing over her, she remembered again her life with him, taking joy in the memory again because it was no longer obscured by the sadness of his death. Her grief was ended, and she was glad of it, so she raised a silent glass to Iolair a Tir-Na-Nog.
The glass drained and back in its place, she felt weary for the long day she had had, and for the longer one ahead, so she bid the king and his family good night and left the hall, not to sleep, but to be free to think. She crossed a moonlight courtyard high above the city. The night was soft and the moon very bright, so she made her way to the walls to look to the Beastlings Camp outside the city.
There on the terrace she met Bran Mac Muir, watching the fires dotted over the landscape beyond the city walls. He seemed to be counting them, for his eyes swept the whole scene very slowly.
“I make it three thousand fires, or so it was earlier before we came to the feast,” she said quietly as she took a place at his side.
“The number grows steadily, for I make it 2 dozen more now. They seek to add to the confusion in the city, lighting the fires to make wild stories of their numbers grow, and the fear with it,” he answered, leaning further forward on the terrace.
Scatha had believed that herself when she saw them begin to light fires at twilight. Concealing it would mean that dawn’s arrival would take the heart from many of the men, as they saw for the first time the true number they battled.
A wild yell tore through the night, and in reply came the cry of perhaps a hundred others, ululating and full throated in its madness. Scatha looked out and saw the gestures and crazed dancing of the Beastlings about the leaping flames of their many fires. With her keen eyes she saw their faces daubed with blood and woad, hair soaked and matted with wine. The enemy was preparing, but not yet ready to strike.
“Such a display. They mean to leave no man alive with his courage if they can help it. They mean to tear through this city and soak the streets with gore, and leave it but a shadow and a ruin,” she breathed into the chill air, giving voice to the horrors of the battle she foresaw, to the only man in the city she felt could perhaps bear it.
He turned his face toward her, but he didn’t seemed surprised by her words or attitude. Instead she saw that there was pain in him, and that her words echoed his own fears.
“Aye, and in those shadows there will be motherless children and wifeless husbands left to fend among the ruins and with them there will be torment for the captive women that it would steal all my courage to bear,”
She felt his anger, and understood how he took this threat to his people to his own heart. She looked at his face, and saw a shadow of the Kings face within it. Now she understood what it was that she had seen every time Bran was with his King, the King’s blood flowed strongly in the Captains veins. With her eyes lingering on him thus, he returned a calm but lidless stare. Even in the moonlight she could see again the odd fire that lit his eyes, a fire that stirred her somehow, as if it were a kind of challenge. A truth struck her then, so she put it to him.
“You are the Kings son,”
“His bastard, what of it?” he replied without a change of expression. The challenge remained, unconnected with his words, “I would not have him acknowledge me. I am no Prince and would make a poor King,”
“Power is often most humbly kept in the hands of those who do not seek it,”
“I shun it, power is a bind that would tie me to a life I do not want,”
“Yet you love your people enough to be their King, I have seen it every day since I came here, how much you give to their protection,”
“I have love for them, but I do not think they would have love enough for me. I shall be a restless spirit for the rest of my life and they would see it,”
“A restless spirit? Whither would you go if not among your people?”
He looked away again, out beyond the fires of the Beastlings Camp, then he looked back at her.
“My Lady…” he did not finish, but held her with his eyes. That kindling flame she had seen before in them was stoked to an intensity that was mesmerising and his dark grey eyes seemed now to be seas torn by wild storms. She felt as if she reached out to touch him now that it would feel to her like the electric caress of Wild Magic, and she found to her dismay that the longing to reach out and do just that was stronger even than the pull of Wild Magic. It took all the strength in her heart to speak and risk breaking the spell he worked on her.
“You would go with me?”
He took a step toward her, reaching out to brush the tiny black shape of the hawk on her left cheek with his fingertips. A sigh escaped her, his light touch had all and more of the startling power of the touch of Wild Magic. He stared at the hawk for a moment, then looked back into her eyes, drawing nearer to her again.
“Scatha,” a whisper that seemed to send a shiver through her senses. Emotions left long dormant inside her were wakening, surprised that they still lived. His fingers trailed across her cheek, down to touch her lips, then to cup her face, leaving a wake of sensation. Caught in his spell, she realised that she had freed her heart from it’s grief for this, for Bran. So she made no move to stop him as he drew his lips to hers, and she accepted his kiss. She closed her eyes and had a passing vision of Iolair, smiling on her. She was content then that she made no insult to his memory in falling in love with Bran Mac Muir.
They kissed as the moon rose above the castle walls and then they stole through the shadows of the night to seek a place to lie in each others arms, and pass the last hours before the storm broke on the city walls.
Kieron walked under the moonlight near the lowest walls of the city. Here he could see the fires of the Beastlings camps outside very easily, and he could see the Beastlings dancing wildly round their fires, but he could not count how many there were from this low point in the city. Hazel would not like him being so close as this, but he could not get close to sleep yet with all that was preying on his thoughts.
Two things rolled over each other in his tired mind, the bitter disappointment of being kept back from the upcoming battle, and the thought of being alone with Hazel among the women and children. They would give him no peace tonight, so he paced along the line of the city wall.
A soft sound like the ruffling of silk was all the warning he had. As he turned his head, a hand came over his mouth and a sharp, overpowering smell filling his nostrils and then everything faded to utter darkness.
He found himself waking a short while later, being carried between two people he could not see properly through cobbled streets. Instinctively he tried to draw on his Art to give him back his strength, but the drug that had knocked him out made it too difficult to concentrate.
A hand came up to his face again, and the smell took away consciousness again. He felt mildly sick before the light went out.
Kieron woke, this time he was lying on a bed in a room that was flooded with candlelight. His vision was blurry and moving his head made him feel sick. He moaned at the sensation when he tried to lift his head.
Kieron felt rising alarm and he tried to struggle up, but nausea and fatigue stopped him and he simply thrashed on the bed.
Old, dark memories rose up inside him. Memories of his mother crying, memories of a dark house that stank of death, memories of the dark creature that had once murmured in his mind. Anger burned into him and he found that he could draw in spite of the queasiness with it. Art seemed to boil up inside him, but with his vision so blurry directing it was difficult. He wove a thread of fire and spun it round himself, then let it roll out across the hazy room. There were screams and curses, curtains on the bed his was lying in caught fire. A third time a hand caught him round the mouth and blackness rose up. The last thing he heard was that someone yelling “Block him! Block him!”.
“That’s the third watch – only a few more hours to dawn,” Scatha murmured. She lay on her side, propped on one elbow, looking down at Bran as he lay with his eyes closed. She knew he was not sleeping, “The alarum bell will toll soon, or I am no judge of the tactics of Beastlings,”
She did not want to return her thoughts to the impending battle and difficulties, she longed to stretch their time on this island they had found in the storm, but life and war do not make allowances for the desires of lovers. The Beastlings awaited them and the King would need them both before the dawn.
“High above us, there is a raven flying through the night,” Bran spoke suddenly, not opening his eyes, “His heart is heavy, he sees a battle but does not rejoice in it as the other carrion do. He is old and wise, he has seen many battles, and he does not like the wild dances of the Beastlings. He sees also the Red Robes who serve his former mistress,”
“The raven does not serve?” Scatha asked, fascinated by his words and sensing the trance he was in.
“No, his mistress dreamed of power over men and he could not share that dream. He sailed away on the wings of the night and wandered for a long, long time,”
“What else does the Raven see?”
“It is dark, and he is turning high in the air. His eyes are not as sharp as an eagles, nor made for night like an owls, but I see tall shapes moving steadily through the mass of Beastlings. They are not living shapes I think. He recognises the scent of Firbolgs in the air, and small, dirty creatures, Boggarts he thinks,”
“There will be siege towers and archers then. There is strategy behind this attack,”
“Something stirs in the lower city. He feels it, sees it as a deeper darkness. He is drawn to it…”
Suddenly a heavy, urgent pounding came on the door to Brans Chamber. Brans eyes snapped open and he sat up, even as Scatha leaped from the bed, gathering up the clothes she had strewn across the floor.
“Captain Bran, please I must speak with you, I must speak with Scatha if you know where she is,” Hazel's voice came through the door, panic obvious in it.
Without stopping to ask Bran, Scatha threw open the door and let the bard in. Hazel's face was ashen and there were tears in her eyes, and instantly Scatha knew something awful had taken place.
“Does the attack begin?” Bran asked, rising with his bedclothes wrapped round him. Hazel shook her head and rushed toward the warrior woman, throwing herself into her old friends arms and weeping. Dhorn padded slowly in after her, his head down and belly low to the ground, as if afraid of a beating.
“Hazel, what has passed?” Scatha asked her, worry tightening her voice.
“Kieron, he is not in his room,” Hazel managed.
“A young lad will wander, particularly on a feast night,” Bran put in, surprised by the emotional state of the bard. Hazel shook her head and breathed deeply to calm her sobbing.
“I had Dhorn track him when I realised he had not come back from the feast. We planned to have his hide for sneaking off,” agreeing with his mistress, Dhorn lay down and put his large head on his paws and whined softly. Hazel whimpered also and Scatha’s expression grew graver.
“We followed him to the outer walls, and there was… there was sign of a scuffle. Kierons sword was left lying there, some of his blood spilled, and Dhorn took fright at the scent of his attacker,”
“The Red Robes?” it was Bran who asked this, and both women turned their eyes on him. Dhorn lifted up his head and tilted it sideways, looking on attentatively as if he understood what was passing.
“Your lad, he is touched in some way by otherworldly Arts. You are his protectors as much as his teachers, is that not right?”
“Aye, he is, and the Red Robes have come for him before. You have keen eyes and a sharp mind, Bran Mac Muir,” Scatha told him, “Hazel freed him from the possession of a Changeling when he was a small boy but it’s taint was strong on him,”
“They have him though, Scatha, they have him, and can’t you feel the Dark Arts stirring in the night?” Hazel broke in, panic again rising in her voice.
“Then with Dhorn's aid we will find him now, before it is too late.” Scatha said calmly, leading the shaking bard to the doorway, “Let Captain Bran make himself decent, I fancy he can help us with this too,” she added.
Dhorn leaped suddenly to his feet, his hackles high and a growl behind his teeth. A distant cry and a clash of swords could be heard, then the Alarum bell began to toll, sending a ripple of shouts and thumps through the garrison building. Scatha gripped Hazel by the shoulder and turned to look at Bran.
“We must defend the castle,” Bran said quietly. Hazel opened her mouth, her face flushed and stained by a sudden bout of fresh tears, but could not speak.
“Hazel, we are sworn to this. Lady Ruth sent us on this errand and we cannot, must not, break that oath. With the battle raging, we must believe that the Red Robes will not have time to move Kieron. We sense their Arts in the air, we have means to find them as soon as we are able. We will not leave Kieron to this fate, I swear that to you on my honour, but other oaths bind us first,”
“They may try to use him against us, Scatha. You know what might happen if he is provoked!” Hazel burst out, finding her tongue again.
“I know, my beloved bard, I know. I can give you no comfort in this,” Scatha replied quietly, looking directly into the Bards blue eyes.
The two stared at each other then, Hazel struggling for control while the Warrior woman held her impassively by the shoulders. Behind them the Alarum still tolled, and Bran waited, his breath held. He closed his eyes briefly and swayed a little, but the two Danann women did not notice him, not until he spoke.
“They are inside the city, in one of the lower districts. Most of the people that lived there came up to the castle proper for protection when the siege began and the houses stand empty. They are doing something in one of those houses, something using Dark Art,”
Scatha made a decision, and let Hazel go.
“You will not be needed till after the battle Hazel, and we can spare Dhorn his share of the fighting. Go where Bran instructs you to go and watch. Call to me any way you can should it become dangerous, or should something happen. I will know, and if I can, I will come. Go quickly, and please, please, take care,”
Hazel seemed to still, her colour returning to normal and her emotions in check. She leaned forward and kissed the Warrior Woman on the forehead, then turned and ran from the room, Dhorn swiftly behind her.
“I hope she is safe alone in that quarter of the city,” Bran said to Scatha as he began to dress himself.
“With Dhorn with her, she will be safe. Hazel is no fool, however much she lets her heart guide her,”
Bran nodded then reached for Scatha, catching her hand as she went to tie her belt about her waist.
“Is harking your hearts guidance for fools, Lady Scatha?” he asked her, his dark eyes holding her fast.
“No, but it is a fool who does not know when it is wise to hark it,” she replied a little sharply, but then she softened her tone and continued, “I am bound to you now, on the will of my heart, and I do not regret it. We have duty, let us fulfil it together for the King awaits us both,”
He let her go, satisfied and dressed with renewed haste.
Bran leaned close to Rioghails neck, urging the Bay to go faster with his heels as he braced himself to leap for the siege tower. He was aware of Scatha and Darkfire peeling away from him, aiming for another of the towers. Behind him his horsemen charged down the ranks of the Beastlings. Regal leaped high over the front rank, Bran slicing at the pikes the threatened to impale his steed. Then the great war horse was level with the Firbolgs who heaved on ropes to pull the tower forward and Bran leaped clear of the saddle as Regal reared high. The horse clattered its iron shod hooves down hard on one of the ugly giants heads. The force of the stallions blow coupled with the burning of the iron collapsed the firbolgs skull, and it fell, tangling with the ropes and legs of it’s fellows. The tower wobbled to a halt, and the Boggarts inside yelled and cursed.
Bran clung toe the side of the tower, flinching and twisting as Boggart arrows tried to pick him off. He put his dirk between his teeth and began to climb the moving tower. Behind him he heard the clash of his men meeting the hoard and he uttered a word of thanks to Lugh for courage.
A Boggart squeezed itself out of one of the windows and tried to cut at him as he passed, but he swung wide of it’s lunge and stabbed at it’s grubby, squashed looking face with his dirk. It twitched and gurgled, and some of the Boggarts inside the tower tried to pull it back in, but the body seemed to be jammed, so it was left dangling.
Kieron woke with the sudden realisation that he was going to vomit. The effects of the potion that had kept him unconscious were mingled with a frighteningly familiar dizziness.
Wiping his drooling mouth with the back of his hand to find he was alone in the same room as before. Char marks were on the floorboards and the curtains and covers of the bed were singed. The burnt smell in his nostrils made him retch and he leaned over the side of the bed and emptied what little there was in his stomach.
“Awake are you boy?” came a rasping female voice from behind him.
He rolled over slowly and saw that a door on the far side of the room was open and a Red Robe Witch was standing there, a thin strand of straw coloured hair escaping the red cowl over her head. He knew her of old, for she was girl from his mothers village who had tried to lure him to the Red Robes there. It seemed that the Cailleach had been pleased enough with her trying, for she was powerful, and he saw how the light of the flames shied away from her.
“Bitch,” he growled at her, feeling anger quicken his blood again. He tried to pull himself up in the bed, but he was still too weak, so he toppled back onto his back.
She laughed, a sound that froze his blood, and strolled over to the bed. She grabbed him by the hair and dragged him up into a sitting position, all the while he was yowling and trying feebly to fight her. His muscles felt like water.
“Weak as a kitten,” she said with a smirk.
He snarled at her and tried again to fight, hoping that his anger would lend him some strength, but his efforts were little better. In his fury he tried to draw on his Art again, but the potions he’d been given made that impossible, the effort making pain lance through his head so forcefully that he was vomiting again. A slap landed hard on the side of his face and he heard an angry screech.
“You filthy little boy!” He must have vomited on her, and in spite of the pain he felt some satisfaction at that.
He sensed suddenly a fiery prickling, almost like nettle rash, emanating from her. Then something wound itself round him, a tendril of creeping ivy that made the air shimmer around it, and as it touched his skin it burned. He tried to fight it, pulling away from it even though the sudden movement brought a fresh wave of nausea to him. Yet he was still too weak and it caught him entirely, winding tight round him and dragging him from the bed. He was still struggling and jerking as it pulled him across the floor and slowly towards the door.
“You have a lot to learn, boy. Let this be your first lesson, you cannot defy me,” she said following him, her face reddened with anger and caught in a bitter twist.
She took him to another room a little way along a long, dark corridor, where a steaming bath tub was waiting. She ripped his filthy clothes from him while he hung in the air and plunged him straight into the tub. The burning of the ivy tendrils gave way to the scalding of the water and he felt too weak to thrash or even to lift the sponge to wash when she commanded. He struggled his way through the bath, forced on by her caustic comments and the occasional creeping touch of the ivy. When he toppled back into the bath as he tried to rise to get out she wrapped him once more in the burning tendrils. He felt utter humiliation as tears sprang into his eyes.
Sitting naked at a small table, she forced him to eat though his stomach roiled in rebellion. She mocked him mercilessly for his tears. After eating he felt much stronger, but he was too frightened of her now to try and fight. He could not use his Art and still did not have the strength to pick up a sword if one came to hand. He was helpless.
“They are waiting for you boy, so we’d better hurry along there.”
She made him walk this time, and lead him back along the dark corridor, still naked, and down a thin, steep staircase. He shivered with the cold, his wet hair still clinging to the back of his neck and feeling like tendrils of ice to his skin. Finally after walking along another corridor she opened a door into a very large, almost empty room.
Empty except for one thing that filled him with utter revulsion. At the far end of the room there was a large iron cage, not quite high enough for someone of average height to stand up in and not quite long enough for Kieron himself to lie down in. The cage though was not meant for him, he understood that immediately, as it held a small group of naked, weeping girls. They clung to each other in such a way as it was hard for him to tell how many there were, but it seemed they were tightly crowded into the confined space.
“Fresh blood for the Cailleach,” the Witch told him. The girls in the cage wailed at her words and he felt nausea rising in him again. He stared across at the girls, wondering how he could free them, knowing with a sick heart that he could not. He felt her cold hand on his shoulder pushing him down to his knees. The candles that lit the room seemed suddenly to burn more fiercely and the girls cried more desperately.
Seemingly from nowhere they came, figures deep within the cowls of red hooded robes. The red was dark, like wine or blood. The robes flowed and rippled, gleaming so that they looked wet. Before him two of the figures walked together, one holding the arm of the other, which shuffled a little. They came to a halt a few feet in front of him.
“Nathair, you may go now,” the figure being led said, and Kieron shivered involuntarily at the coldness in that voice. Hazel had told him of the Blind Man who led the Red Robes, who had torn out his own eyes as sacrifice to the Dark Hag, and he realised that this was the same man.
The Witch bowed deeply and swept from the room, leaving Kieron trembling on his knees in the centre of the room. Inside he began to pray that Scatha and Hazel would come quickly, though hope was fading.
Someone walked over to the cage and the girls cowered back as one, whimpering and sobbing. Kieron watched them, tears of his own trickling down his cheeks, biting his lip. The cage door was opened and the robed figure by it reached in and grabbed a girl by the ankle. The girl screamed and thrashed as she was dragged from the cage and emotion bubbled up within Kieron wildly.
“Let her go, please. Don’t do this,” he heard himself beg.
“Very touching, lad, but you will soon learn that the Kine are here just to feed our power. She is merely performing the service she was born for,” the Blind Man spoke in tolerant tones.
“No, no, I don’t want to learn that,” he babbled as the girl was dragged across the room towards them. A knife suddenly flashed from within the robes of the Blind Man, clutched in his gnarled hand. The girl was laid between them and Kieron found himself struggling back to his feet, his eyes glued to the writhing girl, her face contorted with fear. The other robed figure who had held the Blind Mans arm was moving round to grab the girls arms and pin her to the ground. Kieron lurched forward and made a grab for that one, only to find two strong pairs of hands grabbing at his shoulders and pushing him back to the ground. He fought them as fiercely as he could, but he was quickly back on his knees and staring into the wild grey eyes of the girl before him. He felt utterly helpless.
The Blind Man raised his arm high, the knife tip glittering against the silk of his red robe. At his throat a blood red jewel blazed suddenly and then he drove the knife down the way, slashing the girl with remarkable precision across the belly. Kieron cried out in anguish as the girl screamed in pain as her stomach swelled open beneath the gash, blood gushing free from an unnatural, red lipped smile of a wound. The girl before him still lived, she screamed and with each scream more blood came forth, she thrashed and her innards threatened to fall onto the wooden floor. The Blind Man raised the knife again, and slit her this time across the throat, and the girl fell silent. Not even Hazel's healing could have saved her now.
The Red Robes came towards him at all angles then, chanting slowly in their own tongue. He became aware that they were attacking the protections Hazel had woven around him, aware of a presence growing in the room, a presence he knew, hated and feared. The Changeling who had possessed him as a child, and it was here, using the Dark Arts of the Red Robes to recapture him for the Wild Hunt, the blood of the poor girl feeding it’s strength.
Hazel stared at the Raven. It had landed across the silent street from her some time ago, flying up to one of the nearby rooftops when Dhorn had made a move to chase it off. The hound distrusted carrion birds and always tried to scatter them. He lay beside her now, looking up at the Raven with her, his teeth bared and the occasional growl coming from his mouth. The Raven had peered down at them with its bright eyes, its head bobbing almost like a pigeons as it watched. It made low trilling noises in its throat, punctuated by the occasional click but made no move either closer or further away.
Then Hazel noticed a thin trickle of blood running down the guttering of the cobbled street. Her heart began to quicken as she traced it back to the door of the low house the Raven sat atop, where it trickled out from within. The Raven watched her keenly still, as she sent Dhorn across the road to check the scent of the blood. The hound walked stiff legged across to it, obviously irritated by the watchfulness of the Raven, but a sniff of the blood did not distress him as it would have if it had been Kierons blood. Still Hazel felt tense, knowing the portent of such blood, particularly when it was so close to the source of such a cloud of Dark Art.
“Do they have him there Dhorn? Is that blood being spilled to work evil on him?” she asked the hound in a whisper, afraid that the Raven was watching for unfriendly eyes. She laid her hands on his wiry coat and sensed his tension. Closing her eyes she caught a few brief images, of Kieron, of frightened women and blood on wood, and curiously of Bran, leaning over the shoulder of the Raven. The brief wave of fear and suspicion she felt brought a distinct sense of confusion from Dhorn. Bran was worthy of trust then, it seemed, but it remained curious to her that Dhorn connected him with the Raven. She dismissed those thoughts and concentrated on what she caught from the hound of Kieron.
The way he quivered at her touch was enough to tell her Kieron was close. The hound doted on the boy almost as much as his mistress and had been distressed all night since discovering him missing. Hazel concentrated hard, allowing her brain to follow Dhorns logic, which was dominated by an acute knowledge of the subtleties of scent. The image that she formed was that Kieron was very frightened and very sick, though there was an undercurrent of frustration. The blood smell was not his, but it did suggest to her a great deal of violence being done. The pervading smell was one of bleak terror though, which made her heart race.
She let go of the hound with a gasp, and he lay down, head on his paws, watching her expectantly. She snapped open her eyes and stared wildly round the street, then again her eyes lit on the Raven, which now sat silently watching her. The image of Bran behind it swam back up to the surface of her panicking mind, and she struggled to regain the breath that felt knocked from her.
“Go to Bran,” she yelled suddenly up at the Raven, “Get him to bring Scatha to me,” It bobbed it’s head but made no move to take to the wing, “Get the stormy eyed man and the hawk woman here!” she yelled, projecting as much of the image of the Captain and the Warrrior woman at the Raven as she could. The Raven leaped into the air, wheeled the street once and flew off toward the sound of battle.
Through the clash of steel, the thunder of horses hooves and the roar of battle cries she heard his voice call her name. She cut her way across a seething mass of fighters to find him, cutting left and right and leaving neither room nor time for retaliation from her foes. The Answerer was a lick of green fire, its singing voice jubilant as it cut through the death cries of the Beastlings that fell beneath it. Darkfire’s hooves pounded and his teeth bit, crushing and tearing a path before them.
A cry went up. To the King! The men of Bran’s garrison bellowed, and men all across the field rallied to the cry. Scatha saw Bran standing tall in his Bay’s saddle, the Kings steed to his back, but the King slumped low in the saddle, and she renewed her every effort to close the space between them. Bran and his men held the crest of the Castle hill, where a small chapel occupied the highest point of the city. Here the garrison had fallen back to defend the Stone of Destiny with the King, and there the King had evidently taken a wound.
A wild eyed captain of the Beastlings, wielding an axe with a wicked notched and twin bladed head barred her path. His broken teeth were bared in a humourless grimace, blood daubed his brow and matted his thick hair, gore was splashed upon his chest and arms. He spat at Scatha’s feet.
“I’ll use yer corpse well after my axe is done with ye, ye Danann she-devil,” he told her.
Scatha said nothing but flicked The Answerer contemptuously, the sword voicing it’s own disdain. Darkfire put his head down and charged at the Beastlings Captain, swerving at the last moment as the axe head began to arc downwards in anticipation. Leaning out of the saddle and using the momentum of her steed, Scatha hewed beneath the reach of the weapon, scoring the armour and the skin of her opponent. The Beastlings Captain roared, and swung his axe wildly. The deft feet of Darkfire kept the stallion out of reach of the blades and he reared up, twisting on his hind legs to let Scatha attack again. The Answerer locked with the axe-head, and Scatha clearly saw the leavings of hewn skulls smeared on it.
A sudden tumult behind her opponent almost made her look away. On the edge of her vision she saw a tight group of some twenty or thirty Beastlings warriors cleaving their way away from the chapel. A fury built inside her, for she realised just what that could mean, and she broke away from the Captain, wheeling Darkfire round as tightly as the Black Stallion would go. The horse whickered in shock as the axe scored his exposed flank, but it pained him only a little. He reared again, ready to bring his heavy shod hooves down on the Captain, who dodged away, loosing his footing and overbalancing. Quickly Scatha drew a dirk from her belt and threw it, piercing the Beastlings through the throat. Even as he was falling to the ground clutching in vain at his torn throat, Darkfire was soaring over his head and galloping towards the chapel and the band of Beastlings who were between her and it.
Three of the warriors came rushing to meet her, but the others turned aside, running and cutting as hurriedly as they fled the hill. Again Darkfire leaped, Scatha cutting one down as they sailed over them, cleaving his head in two, but many more Beastlings swarmed to block her path from the fleeing group, forcing her back, so she turned Darkfire again and headed back towards Bran and the King.
“They have taken the stone, Lady Warflame!” one of the men cried at her approach, and her heart sank.
“The King has taken a grave wound, my Lady. We must get him to safety,” Bran added, yelling over the tumult.
“Then there is no point in holding this place, they will soon drop back to cover their retreat with the stone. You and I will bring the King to safety, but the rest of your men must pursue the stone as far as they can!” She ordered as at last she came face to face with Bran, where he stood behind the line of his men. Without even looking to see if her orders were followed, she looked to the King and grabbed the reigns of his horse. The Kings skin was greying with loss of blood, and he was bent double over his wound, which seemed to be a long slice across much of his belly and chest. He was breathing in ragged gasps, but was fully alert despite his agony.
“My Lord King, let me lead you from the battle,”
The King shook his head and tried to straighten in the saddle, but she saw his knuckles white about the pommel of his sword, and the clenched line of his teeth and knew he struggled against enormous pain.
“The stone is more important, without the stone there will be no kingdom for my son,” he said, though it seemed to cost him much to speak.
“Then let me bring you to him where he rests, for you will be safe there and I shall summon Lady Hazel to tend your wounds. Please sire, you cannot continue to fight thus,”
She was surprised by the level of anger she saw in his eyes, and when he spat on the ground she wondered at him.
“That is no Prince, and that is not my son. We must not tarry here any longer, we must pursue the stone!” and the King took up his sword and made ready to charge from the crest of the hill, leaving no time for Scatha to consider his words, “I will die fighting!” he shouted now for the benefit of his men, with blood spilling from the corner of his mouth as he cried it out. The straggling remains of the garrison carried the cry, raising their swords above their heads and turning to face the battle waging beneath them.
“Bran, ride at my side!” Nechtan demanded of his captain, “My Lady, at my Left, we shall recapture the Stone, or fall trying,” he continued. Scatha touched her heels to Darkfire and obeyed the Kings order. She took one last glance at the King, and though he was grey in pallor he held firm now in his saddle, his eyes burning with his resolve. Bran, his features set in a similar expression to that of the Kings, looked very much the Kings son. He stood high in his saddle and gave the signal to his men to charge.
“For the honour of Alba!” he cried, and the charge began.
Before them Beastlings scattered, fleeing rather than being trampled, despite the barking orders of their chiefs to stand their ground. The garrison poured down the hill, less than a hundred swords in number, but with a fierceness that counted for many more. Finally they met a line of Beastlings warriors, among whom fought the fragments of the Firbolgs that the Albannach had already routed early in the battle.
“Bran, Lady Scatha, follow the stone, we will take the fight!” the King cried. Regal and Darkfire took flight again, the Bay on the tail of the Black Stallion, both weaving through the battle as their riders fought from the saddle. There was no thought in their minds but the pursuit of the Stone and its captors. As they reached the narrow bed of the valley, Scatha spotted their quarry ahead of them, disappearing toward the trees and the main camp of the enemy. She pulled Darkfire up short, and Regal had to twist to avoid him. They were instantly surrounded by Beastlings, who approached with caution none the less.
“They have gone into the camp, it would be folly to follow,” she told him.
“What other choice have we?” he replied, as the circle around them tightened, the enemies blades nearly close enough for them to attack.
“None, but it is well that you know,” she replied, before spurring Darkfire into another wild plunging flight through the battlefield, sailing for a third time over the heads of their enemies, and this time with Bran and Regal following.
“Ride to my right!” she yelled over her shoulder, slowing her mount a little to let him catch her. So as she cleaved to the left, he did to the right, each protecting the other’s weaker side, and carving a bloody path through toward the camp. The runes on the blade of The Answerer glowed like emeralds as it drank deeply of Beastlings blood, and many of the Beastlings fled it in fear.
Then over the crest of the Seat came the Garrison of Drust Mac Feargus, for he had circled the battlefield, to cut the Beastlings who attacked the Chapel on the Castle Mound from the camp. In the thick of the forest they had run into a large party of the Enemy and been delayed. Now they charged into the unsuspecting flank of Beastlings, their spears sharp and voices fearsome, giving Bran and Scatha more freedom to make for the camp, for the Beastlings rallied to fight them off.
On they plunged, heedless of exhaustion, heedless of the blood which soaked the flanks of their steeds and their own arms and faces, heedless of anything except their goal. Then they passed from the battlefield and rode under the cover of the trees.
Too deep in her battle rage to feel the taint among the trees, it was not until a thick branch threw her from Darkfire's saddle that she realised what was dwelling among the trees. Bran fought against another branch that sought to unsaddle him, the twisted black limbs tangling his sword and grasping at the mane and tail of Regal.
“Ghilli Du!” she cried, then looked and saw that more than a dozen of the black hearted trees barred their path. Leaping forward she drove The Answerer into the gnarled trunk of the tree that was attacking Bran. The tree jerked it’s branches and shied away – bending its trunk as if blown by a mighty wind. The others leaned towards them, blocking out the light, and creaked and wheezed, their long tendril fingers reaching out to the warriors. Darkfire had been knocked and stumbled, but now the Stallion reared up and pounded down on the trunk of his attacker, which gave out a creaking scream.
“How do we get past these?” Bran asked her, hacking wildly at the Ghilli Du as he spoke.
“I’ve no Art for this, we will have to keep using our swords as axes,” she replied, hewing a limb from one of the tall dark trees. A branch swung hard at her back, knocking her from her feet. The number of waving branches around them was growing thick and they leaned in even further to strike at the prone warrior woman. Bran leapt from the saddle with a shout and threw himself between the Ghilli Du and Scatha, bringing his sword up to block them while she regained her feet. Regal and Darkfire snorted and reared, beating back some of the trees.
“By the time we are free of these the Stone will be long gone through the veil!” he told her as another of the tress shrieked at the bite of her blade.
“Shall we return to Nechtan empty handed?” Scatha countered.
“What of Hazel's hound? Could he not track the stone so that we might follow wherever they take it?”
Scatha stopped and thrust her sword into the ground before her, then she leaned heavily on it, closing her eyes. As the trees began to reach for her, they each bent back again as if recoiling from something in pain or horror. Bran could feel the hairs on the back of his arms and neck standing on end and he looked at her curiously.
“Dhorn can track the stone but then we must not leave Kieron in the hands of the Red Robes, so first we must find Hazel and retrieve Kieron,” she sighed heavily and opened her eyes to look at him. He was taken aback at the odd way her eyes blazed, for it seemed that her pupils blazed like the burn of lightning across the skies, “I have many things to tell you, but now is not the time, for all our lives depend now on taking the boy back from the Red Robes,”
“We juggle many different threads in the one fate, I understand that. Your lad has something fey in him and I can be content enough with that explanation, for now,” Bran replied.
“Where then does the Raven lead us?”
It was Brans turn to close his eyes.
“He circles above us, she has already sent him to find us and he tells me that our time is short,”
“Then we ride with all haste to Hazel, but first I must ask you to do something,” she began, plucking a dirk from her belt and drawing its blade across her palm, “Mingle your blood with mine so that I can know where you are by my Art. I do not ask any oath of you with this blood,” and she held the dirk out to him, blood dripping steadily from the slash to her hand. He took it without a word and made the cut to his own palm, then reached out and clasped her hand.
It shocked her almost as much as it shocked him, and they both collapsed to their knees. Scatha had not expected the sudden painful coursing of Wild Magic in her blood, because Iolair's ring had always protected her from it, but she had also not expected the sudden torrent of memories and thought coming from him. It felt to her as if all her soul were exposed through the mingling blood and she knew that he saw her as fully as she saw him. The air around them became frigid, and it cracked with sparks of static. The horses began to panic as the Ghilli Du closed tightly over them all, though they moved as if pulled and they groaned loudly. She saw her breath smoking with the cold before her, and heard a rasping groan torn from her throat, then she realised she couldn’t tell who it was that had groaned because the voice had sounded too deep to be her own, yet she had felt it formed in her throat. Black and white spots began to cloud her vision and she felt herself tipping forward, falling into unconsciousness.
Then she found herself lying on the ground next to Bran, whose eyes were closed. She no longer felt the torrent of images between them, but she felt the presence of his mind like a shadow within her own – dimmed by his unconscious state. A link had been forged between them, their Art woven together irrevocably. With a gentle stirring of her Art in her blood she roused him, and as he woke she realised she knew him almost completely, there being shadows still on parts of his mind, things he himself knew only a little. Warmth had returned to the air, and the Ghilli Du, frightened by what had taken place were standing well back from them now, though still barring their way. The horses had calmed, though their coats were flecked with sweat.
“We have no time,” she told him and he nodded, letting go of her hand. They mounted up hastily and rode hard, following the Raven and skirting wide around the battlefield. Soon they approached the lower levels of the City, where the outer wall had been breached many times that day to allow the Beastlings to pour through. Here Bran reigned in Regal and signalled to Scatha to stop.
“The city is crawling with Beastlings and Red Robe spies. Follow the Raven, I will go hunting the spies,” he called to her, dismounting before she could reply.
“You will know if we have need of you, take care,” she replied before going after the Raven.
She galloped along the broad main street, but dismounted as soon as the Raven turned to lead her into the winding back streets. She set Darkfire loose, knowing he would find his way safely back to the stables, if they still stood, and followed the bird, flitting from shadow to shadow on silent feet. She rounded a corner after a few minutes and saw Dhorn, who sprang to his feet, ready to welcome the Warrior Woman.
Hazel looked round and Scatha saw in her eyes the depth of the Bards agitation. She signalled with a swift hand gesture for Scatha to join her, then turned her eyes back to a doorway some way along the street. Scatha saw the thin trickle of blood in the gutter, and felt with a shudder the thickness of Dark Arts that lay about them. The silence of the street seemed far from natural, muffling the sound of fighting from the still raging battle and Scatha could see the tension in both hound and bard. They were waiting in fear for something, and Scatha waited tensely with them.
Time seemed to stretch as he lay writhing in pain. Another girl was dragged from the cage and rent in the same fashion as the first girl died. And all the while he was aware of that wild boiling power just out of reach, the power that had filled him briefly with lightning. Desperately he tried to reach for it, but the awful pain from the 13 made taking a hold impossible. He ground his teeth and arched his back, fighting against the pain and scrabbling for a grip on that elusive power. Wild Magic.
Then suddenly there was an explosion of light behind his eyes. The Changeling dived for him as the protection of Hazel’s Art dissolved. He felt it’s darkness filling his mind, smothering his memories, he could feel it’s foulness like the stench of death and he fought harder still to touch the Wild Magic he could sense.
“You can’t resist, this was our destiny, you and I,” he heard its whispering voice in his mind. He found himself snarling through gritted teeth in reply, flecks of white foam dribbling onto his chin. It seemed to have stolen his tongue from him, and that made his anger double. He fought like an animal against the power of the Red Robes and the Changeling, scrabbling and tearing frantically at the binds they were placing on him.
Suddenly he broke through, and the Wild Magic poured into him like dam waters from a burst dam into a River. He was awash with it, the odd, exhilarating, agony of this raw power in his veins. The Changeling screamed and began to twist and turn within him, seeking a hiding place, but he went after it with a vengeance. He tangled it about in lightning threads and cast it from him, shrieking and wailing, where it rent a hole in the veil in it’s terror and plunged through, fighting and writhing in Wild Magic.
“Now,” he said, control over his own tongue regained, though there was a wild edge to his voice, ”It’s time for you to realise just what you have done,” and he turned to face the Red Robes, shoulders squared and eyes blazing with Lightning.
Scatha had her eyes closed for a moment, reaching out with her Art and feeling for Bran across the city, watching through his eyes. Suddenly the air all around became frigid, and Scatha could sense a great stirring of Dark Art in the air. Her eyes snapped open and she heard Hazel groan softly near her ear.
“Hazel?” she queried in a hoarse whisper.
“Kieron, oh dear Kieron, what have they done?” was the reply that came. She sounded on the verge of breaking down.
She closed her eyes and prayed that Bran would hear her, and then let it be known the danger they were facing. Then she opened her eyes and looked, seeing the deeper layers of reality beneath the world of the material, and at the same time she reached out and caught Hazel, who seemed to be unsteady on her feet. Her sense of urgency peaked as she saw how much of the Taint of Dark Arts mingled with Wild Magic in the air around them – some great and foul rite was underway. Her sense of Brans location was becoming muddied, she guessed because he was close at hand to the rite, and that worried her. The hair on her arms stood up, and she felt static in the air suddenly.
“By Dana, Kieron no!” she heard herself yell, as she broke into a run in the direction where she knew Bran was. Behind her Hazel exclaimed and tried to run after her on shaky legs. Scatha spun and caught hold of her friend, giving her a second to catch her breath and feed strength from her Art into Hazel’s muscles. Without needing to discuss it, they dropped together out of the normal beat of time, feeling the world slow to a crawl and then the two of them turned to run as one.
Scatha kept herself moving toward Bran, plunging blind down streets and alleys she had never seen before. Bran was moving towards her, but in the normal stream of time so it seemed as if he were barely moving at all. Hazel was hard on her heels, clutching her skirts in her hands, hiked up to her hips to let her run without restriction. Scatha ran with one hand on her sword, ready to draw it.
With every passing heartbeat, Scatha felt the static charge in the air building. Wild Magic seemed to hover around her, swirling and brooding, tempting her with it’s electric caress, but she could feel it slipping over her, being drawn away from her. How much longer did they have before he unleashed it?
Turning another corner she ground to a halt. Bran was moving up the street towards them, his head down, running as if he was ready to throw himself to the ground at any second. Further down the street the air was crackling visibly round one of the rickety old buildings, and Scatha could also feel the centre of the pull there. Hazel was running passed her and Scatha shouted after her.
“Hazel, it’s too dangerous, stay back!” but Hazel didn’t even slow.
Torn between going after Hazel and getting under cover, Scatha ran for Bran and knocked him off his feet . As she rolled with him she let herself drop back into the normal stream of time.
Hazel rocketed into the small door at the front of the building, knocking it on it’s hinges. She uttered an opening charm and it blew open in front of her. She was aware of the charge in the air – no-one could have missed it now, but she felt the Dark Arts more easily. She knew both the texture and intensity of that keenly, recognised the taint of the Changeling who had possessed Kieron.
She poured more power into her aching limbs, until she was saturated and unable to work another thread, and was moving so much faster than time that she could see insects hanging like motes of dust in the air. Even so, she knew she had no more than a few seconds left to find Kieron. Tearing down the corridor with her eyes closed to help her concentrate on the pull, she hit a wall hard and bounced off. She was suddenly aware of the smell of fresh blood in the air. Spinning on her heel she saw a door in front of her. A prickling feeling spread over her skin, goosebumps raising all over her flesh. Not a second to spare to drop a beat and no power left to use on the door she had to throw herself at it. She took a step back and launched herself at it with as much force and speed as she could muster over the short distance. She let out a little yelp of pain as her shoulder crunched into the sturdy wood. It groaned on its hinges. She drew back quickly and threw herself at it again, as the air in front of her began to flash and spark with static.
“Kieron!” she screamed as she hit the door again. The hinges burst beneath her, sending her flying into the room beyond.
He was kneeling in the centre of the room, the corpses of two girls ripped open in front of him and all round him, cowering back from him, Red Robes. His entire body was covered in writhing threads of lightning, and inching outwards from him, at an ever-increasing pace, was a great blinding white ring. Jagged tendrils were leaping out from it, playing along the floor and ceiling. At the far end of the room Hazel could see a cage with a handful of terrified girls. Within a couple of heartbeats, everyone in the room would be dead, except for Kieron.
Hazel jumped as much of the space that she could between herself and Kieron, ignoring the pain in her shoulder.
“Dana protect me!” she cried out, and rolled herself into the smallest ball she could. In the midst of the madness, she felt the Goddess touch her, shielding her with her ancient magic.
“Thank you my Lady,” she whispered and braced her body for impact. She let herself drop back into the normal stream of time. Lightning arched round her, heating her shield so much that her skin felt scalded. She could do nothing but hope she could endure. The room was filled with screams as Red Robes and the caged girls alike were burned and electrocuted by the power of Kieron’s Wild Magic. She heard the roaring and rumbling of the walls being torn apart and finally she blacked out as something large and dark fell on top of her.
Bran grunted as they hit a wall together. Scatha peeled away from him and was up on her feet in a low crouch.
“Move!” she hissed to him and he was on his feet, one hand against the wall as they both scurried into a doorway. Her need for urgency burned into him, even as his skin was prickling with the static in the air. Suddenly the air was split with a roaring coming from inside one of the buildings at the other end of the street. He felt Scatha drawing power, he could feel the surge of it through her, and then he felt the air immediately around them thicken.
At the other end of the street one of the buildings exploded, sending a huge shower of stones and dust out into the air. Wrapping himself around Scatha and pushing her head to his chest he threw them both down as close to the ground as they could crouch in the doorway, with their backs to the blast. Around them the static sensation increased to the point where it was raising painful prickles on his skin and sparking in tiny blue flashes in the air.
The dust swept by them, then suddenly the side of the building they were sheltering in began to explode. Scatha’s mind seemed to be fixed with concentration, but he felt the prickle of her fear none the less. Walls slid to the ground around them with ear-splitting crashes. He closed his eyes, concentrating hard on what he was feeling from Scatha to help him keep his cool and waited for the end. The seconds stretched out and the building continued collapsing. Jolting sparks of static ran up his exposed spine, dust and whirling debris battered him. Then the air all round him filled with a sound like thousands of angry wasps swarming and every hair on his body stood on end. Scatha murmured a soft assurance in his ear.
“We’re safe, we’ll live, don’t worry,”
After a few moments the buzz died away, but his ears rang from it still for a few minutes. The lashing storm of exploding building began to die down, although there were crashes and roars of unstable buildings falling in on themselves. He felt his knees buckle and Scatha stiffening to support him.
“What….” He tried to speak, but his throat was choked with dust and raw emotion.
She didn’t speak in reply, only closed her eyes and let her head rest against his chest, letting all the feeling inside her pour out. He understood, her worst fear realised, the thing she had been so desperate to prevent, had happened. They had both survived, but it had been too late to save Kieron from what the Red Robes planned to do to him. She looked up into his eyes, hers red but tearless.
“We have to go and find him, now. We have to hope that Hazel is still alive, ”
Slowly, together they stumbled out from the door way into the wreckage of the street.
It was Scatha who saw Kieron first, standing pale-faced among the ruins, clad only in threads of crackling static. A long gash ran down his left cheek and blood trickled from it freely. Bran felt a prickle of fear when he saw the boys eyes, glowing like the bright blue-white of lightning and flowing with tears. There was also something nearly manic about the way his head whipped from side to side as his mouth opened and closed over the same single word in a nearly constant stream. Hazel.
Bran felt Scatha’s sudden shock as Kieron loosed a thread of lightning and vaporised a large block on the ground in front of him. Her fear set his own heart pounding.
“Kieron, let it go!” She barked, holding her outward composure.
The boy looked up, aware of them for the first time. Bran saw confusion and defiance warring across the boys ravaged face as Scatha stalked down the street towards him. Bran took a few long, quick strides to catch up with her, determined to stay close.
“Hazel, she’s under this,” the boy said in vague tones, spreading his hands to indicate the rubble around him.
“You’ll kill both of you for sure if you don’t let that Wild Magic go!” Scatha shouted at him as she stopped suddenly where the arch of a doorway could still be just discerned. Bran stopped right behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, tense himself with the anger and fear boiling inside her.
“The Red Robes, the Changeling…got to keep it out… so… so many dead…” Kieron stammered, shaking visibly.
Pity and sympathy suddenly welled up within Scatha, yet it did not replace the fear. Bran realised just how much his cold, beautiful warrior cared for this boy.
“Kieron, let go of it. I can keep the Changeling at bay, but none of us are safe while you hold that Magic in your blood,”
In the centre of the ruins, Kieron sagged to his knees. The lightning that crawled over his skin began to fade, and the light in his eyes waned slowly. He groaned loudly as if it were a great loss to let go of this power. Scatha’s emotional tumult reflected that impression.
The trick she had used to cross the city at such speed must have exhausted her.
Squinting across the space between Kieron and Scatha he thought for a moment that he saw something reaching towards the boy. Shaking his head quickly he decided it must be some trick of either the light or his bond with Scatha. The boy relaxed and colour began to flow back into his face as at the same time his breathing eased.
Bran watched as Scatha picked her way through the ruins to the boy. Kieron seemed to be shivering as Scatha threw her arms around him, a few sobs bursting from him. Bran undid his cloak and stalked across the ruins towards them, spurred on by Scatha’s worry for the boy. She smiled at him gratefully as he dropped the thick cloth round Kieron’s shoulders.
“Close your eyes, Kieron, and concentrate on where Hazel is. We have to get her out,” Scatha murmured in the boy’s ear. Kieron swallowed his sobs and his shivering seemed to still as he closed his eyes. The tableau held for a few moments, then finally with a shaky hand the boy pointed. Following his finger, Bran saw a long beam jutting out of the rubble, broken about halfway down by a large granite block. The block itself rested mainly on thick dust and debris.
He felt a little disorientation when a moment or two later he became aware of a pulse other than his own or Scatha’s. He couldn’t be sure where it came from, though he suspected he felt it through the bond to Scatha. It was steady, but slow.
“She’s alive,” Scatha told them both, without turning away from the rubble, “She’s unconscious and losing blood. Bran, can you come and move some of this rubble?”
All of Scatha’s concentration was focused on holding the power she was already wielding, and Bran was careful not to even brush her as he walked round to crouch in front of the hole.
He peered inside, straining to see if any of Hazel was visible in the poor light. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a flash of grimy white cloth and a pale shape that could have been a hand. Slowly and carefully he began to pull away the rubble at the mouth of the hole.
The sound of a step behind him made him pause and glance over his shoulder. The boy had moved forward and was crouching beside him, barely noticing the sharp rocks against his bare skin, it seemed.
“You should be resting, boy,” Bran told him, his voice a little softer than his words. The boy turned his dark, glittering eyes on him and Bran shivered in spite of himself. There was a wildness in them that quite matched the awesome destructive power the boy had used on the city.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” The boy said in reply to Bran’s shiver, his voice weak.
“No-one is blaming you,” Scatha said from behind them and Bran felt a wave of calm coming to him from her. He sighed and rolled his shoulders quickly, then went back to picking away at the rubble around where Hazel lay.
Scatha began to get agitated as the other pulse began to slow, and Bran felt spurred to work faster. Kieron kept pace, and eventually there was enough of a hole for Kieron to wriggle into on his belly.
“Can you reach her?” Scatha asked impatiently.
“Only just,” Kieron’s voice came out muffled by the rubble. He shifted a little, pushing himself further in, “There isn’t enough room in here to pull her out,” he said.
Scatha bit her lip, paling visibly. Anxiety was hitting him in waves from her now, Hazel must be getting very weak. The boy twisted again in the hole.
Scatha swallowed and Bran got to his feet to stand beside her. She smiled weakly at him, but seemed to calm at his closeness. He could tell she was not used to the emotional tension running through her and she was at the very edge of her endurance with it.
There was a shift in the air and Bran felt the pull on his scratches. Scatha swayed beside him and he put out a hand to steady her. She leaned into him, unsteady on her legs, so he wrapped his arms round her to give her more support, and she sagged gratefully into them.
“Be very careful Kieron, Wild Magic does not bend itself easily to such tasks,” Scatha raised her voice to warn him, sounding a little stronger again.
Kieron didn’t answer and after a few moments the rubble above him began to move very slowly upwards, revealing his prone form. The pull seemed to increase and Scatha groaned in his arms, while his own scratches began to throb. The pile of rubble floated up until it was clear of the broken beam. He let it float over the ruins for some ten feet and let it drop with a crash. Hazel lay exposed in front of him now, a wide gash ran along the hairline above her forehead, sticky black blood fusing her golden blonde hair together. But it was across her belly that the most blood was seeping, from a deep cut partly concealed by the fabric of her dress. It pooled underneath her, staining most of the pure white silk a muddy pink.
Kieron drew himself up onto his knees beside her, licking his lips nervously, then he reached forward. Scatha went almost rigid in Bran's arms, catching her breath as Kieron laid his hands on Hazel.
As Bran watched, unable to take his eyes away, the gash on Hazel’s head began to close, both sides of the wound seeming to melt into each other. Within seconds there wasn’t even a mark to be seen. Across her belly the flow of blood ceased, and finally there was only the slash in her dress and smooth white skin beneath it.
As the pain receded, Hazel felt the darkness recede too. The fog on her mind lifted and she reached up towards consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open, as if reluctant, and she saw Kieron leaning over her. His hair was falling in lank locks across his eyes, so she reached up and brushed it aside, gasping at the gash that was revealed on his cheek. His eyes drew hers, so dark and gleaming with tears, but her hand reached up instinctively to the gash to mend it. He caught her fingers with his hand and smiled.
“I need a reminder,” he told her softly, meshing his fingers with hers, “Besides, you need to keep your strength,”
She understood. A stray thought running through her mind just then shocked her though, murmuring that these sensations were as much to do with Kieron himself as the Wild Magic still danced about him. She forced those thoughts firmly away.
“No-one needs to know exactly what happened here, and I promise you, no-one will ever know,” she told him quietly.
He bent forward and gathered her up in his arms. He staggered a little, but stoically refused the help that Bran and Scatha offered him. It pained her that he took such responsibility for what had happened, but she knew she had lost a lot of blood and was too weak to walk. So instead she tried her best to make her long body as light as possible in his arms as he carried her away through the ruins of Din Eiddin.
The battle was ended by the devastation that Kieron had wreaked. Those of the enemy that survived the storm of Wild Magic fled, being much more vulnerable to its ravages than the men of Din Eiddin. Kieron carried Hazel back to the castle and back to her room, but Bran and Scatha went to look for the King, the report to him all that had passed.
The castle was not alive with any joy in victory, it had been a bloody day and the King had ridden back from battle only to slide from his saddle in the forecourt before the throne room. His men had rushed to him and carried him to his ;quarters, laying him on his bed. He had called for his son and when the Prince came the men grew afraid that their King was deluded, for he sent the Prince running from the chamber, declaring that this was not his son.
Scatha and Bran came to him there and the King immediately sent his men from the room. He was greyer now than he had been when he led the charge, and his skin and hair were slicked with sweat. Hazel could not have helped him, Scatha knew, even if she had had the strength for healing.
“You could not get to the stone?” Nechtan whispered to them and not waiting for their report.
“No, my Lord King,” Bran replied, taking the Kings hand in his own. The weight of Brans sudden grief pained Scatha and she bowed her head and stood back.
“She knows the truth, what is the sense in preserving the pretence now, my son?” Nechtan asked of him.
“There is none, father,” Bran answered.
“Then listen to me – the Cailleach beckons and I must accept my fate. I can only hope she will spare me her service among the Bocan,” Bran shuddered, but the King tightened his grip on his hand and continued, “We have lost the stone and we have the honour of Alba to protect. I cannot play any more part in this, except to charge you with redeeming our honour, as my son. My Queens child does not have the strength nor the blood for this task, while the blood that flows in your veins is of ancient and powerful stock. When the life has left me, Alba passes into your care, and to be King you must have the Stone,”
“I do not wish to be King, father, you know this,”
“Wish it or not it is what you are destined to be. Give the care of the throne to another if you wish it, but not until you have retrieved the stone and heard its cry with your foot upon it,”
Bran bowed his head then kissed the signet ring upon Nechtans finger, accepting the quest laid upon him with a heavy heart.
“Take the ring, it will grant you paths that only a King can use,” Nechtan said, his voice very faint now as his strength was almost spent. Bran obeyed with trembling fingers.
“My son, the Prince who should have been. Your loyalty has never failed me, I know you will not let it fail our land,” It was a whisper so faint that Scatha barely heard it where she stood.
“I shall not, father, not while my honour holds,” Bran told Nechtan, looking a last time into his fathers eyes.
Nechtan sighed softly and closed his eyes. Bran looked on for a time in silence as the Kings breathing lessened and then finally came to a stop, then he bowed his head again and wept.
