Chapter 12
It is strange that I feel his absence so acutely when I haven’t long known his presence.
* * *
The noise of horses’ hooves on stone woke Cuchulainn and he immediately told Caitir that he would very much like to bid the Shadow Guard and Scáthach farewell.
The healer proclaimed that his fever had broken during his nap, so she allowed him to leave the infirmary, but only if two students helped him and he sat with his leg elevated as the guard departed.
Cuchulainn surprised the healer as well as Fergal and Lonán when he did not protest at all, but used Fergal as a crutch while Lonán followed their limping progress, carrying a chair and stool.
Then he sat like a perfect patient while Scáthach led the Shadow Guard from Dunscáith with Uathach and Tabiti at her side.
The guard was a magnificent sight dressed all in black with the addition of scarlet-lined capes.
They exuded power and confidence. Many members of the guard hailed Cuchulainn by Cu, the nickname they’d begun calling him, telling him to heal well so he could join them next time.
The Queen of Shadow met his gaze, smiled, and nodded.
Leannan broke from trotting at Scáthach’s side long enough to come to him.
He ruffled her ears and laughed when she licked his face.
“Take care of her,” he whispered to the big dog, who barked as if she understood before returning to follow her mistress from the castle.
“Come on, Cu,” Fergal said after the army had left the castle. “Let’s get you back to the infirmary.”
“It’s hard for me to breathe in there.” Cuchulainn slung his arm around Fergal’s shoulder.
“Could you help me up to the west tower instead?” At Fergal’s frown he added, “Lonán can carry my chair and stool. And you may come back and collect me whenever you wish.” He grinned.
“Or perhaps I’ll take another nap and wake completely healed. ”
“Ha!” Lonán slanted a look at Cuchulainn’s heavily bandaged thigh before he picked up the chair and the stool. “I don’t think even the son of a god can heal that quickly.”
Fergal began helping Cuchulainn to the stairs that led to the west tower. “But perhaps after a good night’s sleep you’ll be ready to show the rest of us up tomorrow.”
“One can only hope!” Lonán laughed as he followed the two men.
Cuchulainn settled heavily into the chair and then yawned widely and thanked his two friends, who told him to rest well in the sun and that they’d be back to collect him before the evening meal.
After they left and he could no longer hear their boots on the stone stairs, Cuchulainn stood and limped to the balustrade.
He leaned on it as he squinted, trying to spot the tail end of the Shadow Guard, but Scáthach’s army had been swallowed by the craggy hills surrounding the castle.
His gaze slid to Dunscáith proper. After the morning’s flurry of activity, it seemed unnaturally quiet.
There were sentries stationed above the entrance and a lookout watching for sea vessels, but no one else was visible.
He glanced up at the ball of light blazing in the cloudless sky. It was directly overhead.
Cuchulainn drew a long breath and took out the seer stone from the inner pouch of his breeches.
His fingers played over the smooth, flat piece of marble with the hole in the middle.
He’d planned on lacing a leather tie through it and wearing it around his neck, a talisman that carried the magick of his time on Skye—of his day with the Queen of Shadow.
He sighed. He didn’t want to give up the gift, but that was exactly why it made the perfect offering.
Cuchulainn placed the stone on the flat top of the balustrade. He took a step back so that he no longer leaned on the waist-high wall. He forced himself to straighten—to put as much of his weight as he could bear on his wounded leg.
There was no point in waiting—no point in readying himself. Cuchulainn would never truly be ready.
He fisted his hand. Using it like a hammer, he brought it down on the seer stone, shattering it. The shards of broken marble cut into his hand’s meaty flesh so that blood and stone mixed together. Lifting his scarlet fist to the sky, he tilted back his head and called to the sun.
“Lugh, shining, golden god, Lugh of the Long Arm, peerless in battle, mighty oath-bringer, God of Justice—I, your son Cuchulainn, call you with a sacrifice of something I hold dear and our shared blood. Come, Father, shine your divinity upon the Hero of Ulster!”
Then Cuchulainn waited. He rarely called his father but on the few occasions he had, Lugh had made him wait.
Cuchulainn knew better than to sit down and elevate his throbbing leg.
It was bad enough to be wounded. Showing weakness around his father did nothing but evoke the god’s disdain.
So, Cuchulainn waited. And waited. And then waited more.
Sweat beaded his face, which he kept tilted toward the sun.
Eventually sweat began to slide down his neck and darken his tunic.
He did not lower his fist, not even when the blood on his hand dried to rust. He focused on not allowing his arm to shake and on remaining standing, though he could feel every beat of his heart in the wound.
The sun had traveled from overhead to a gradual descent into the west when golden light finally exploded around him.
He blinked the spots from his vision and the god was there.
Lugh was tall, taller even than his son.
His beauty was rugged. The sharp lines of jaw, nose, and cheeks led to a thick neck that tapered to an even thicker body radiating power and confidence.
His hair was golden fire. His eyes the same amber as his son’s.
His skin seemed to have been caressed by sunlight, gilded with the same fire as his hair.
He and Cuchulainn were obviously father and son, even though, as Lugh liked to say, Cuchulainn’s mortal blood had diluted his divinity as well as his beauty.
Cuchulainn was glad of the dilution.
Lugh didn’t seem to notice his son at first. His gaze swept around them, taking in Dunscáith, the island, and the sea, coming to rest on the shattered fragments of the blood-soaked seer stone.
The god strode to the balustrade and blew on what was left of the seer stone.
As if his divine magick reversed time, the stone knitted itself together again.
Lugh picked it up. His smooth forehead furrowed as he studied it before finally turning to his son.
“Cuchulainn, I can feel that you are attached to this . . . pebble, but I am confused by it.” Only then did he look at his son.
Cuchulainn lowered his raised fist to bow respectfully before replying. He kept his face a mask of indifference—his voice bland and unconcerned. “It was a gift.”
One of Lugh’s golden brows lifted sardonically. “Someone gifted you a pebble? It appears you are easily impressed.” Then his gaze sharpened as he studied his son. “Oh, I see. This gift is from a woman.”
“Thank you for answering my call, Father,” he said.
“Always the tight-lipped one, aren’t you?
” Lugh sighed and slapped his palms together.
There was a clap of thunder that boomed across the sea, and when the god opened his hands, the seer stone had disappeared.
His gaze slid over his son, this time taking in his heavily bandaged thigh.
The god frowned. “Let me guess, you got that wound because you didn’t call the berserker. ”
Cuchulainn had to force his jaws to unclench before he could reply. “Father, while I appreciate the gift of the berserker, I prefer to enter battles as myself.”
Lugh threw up his hands in exasperation. “You are the berserker and he is you!”
“He is the worst of me! Rage, violence, death, and destruction—that is all the berserker is, all the berserker knows.” Cuchulainn bit out the words.
“So you called me here with your prize pebble and our shared blood to once again take up this tired old argument?”
Cuchulainn drew and released several deep breaths, hearing in his mind Scáthach’s voice telling him to calm, to quiet, to find himself. When he replied to his father, his words no longer cut and his mask of indifference was firmly in place. “Forgive me, Father. I do not wish to argue with you.”
“Huh,” Lugh huffed as he crossed his arms over his muscular chest and leaned against the balustrade. “Then why did you call me, Hero of Ulster?”
Cuchulainn ignored the familiar taunt in his father’s voice.
The Ulstermen may consider him a hero; his father never would.
He met Lugh’s amber eyes, the same eyes he avoided in every reflective surface he passed, and spoke his request, careful to frame it in words his father would find pleasing.
“I called you here to ask you to heal my wound so that I might join the Queen of Shadow and her guard. They march to defeat Aife of Lethra, and I do not wish to miss the glory that battle will bring to our names.”
Lugh’s eyes narrowed, though he said nothing. He leaned forward, closer to Cuchulainn, and sniffed, like a dog scenting game. The god wrinkled his nose. “The wound smells rank.”
“The spear tip was coated in shit, which is why I need your help. I heal quickly, but because of the foulness of the wound, not quickly enough to go into battle with the Shadow Guard.”
Lugh leaned back against the balustrade and skewered his son with his eagle-eyed stare.
“And if I heal you, will you give me your oath that you will go into that battle as the berserker, laying waste to all who come against you so that for generations to come bards will sing your name and mine throughout all the great halls of Alba and éire and beyond?”
“What if I am enough without the berserker?” Cuchulainn tried to keep his voice calm, but frustration and anger joined to sharpen his words. “Would it not bring more glory to your name if your son was victorious without turning into an uncontrollable monster?”