Chapter 16
Sentanta had known something was very wrong. Nothing made sense.
She called herself Scáthach. She appeared to be Scáthach. He very much wanted her to be Scáthach. But the pain in his head was a white-hot dagger piercing his mind and lacerating his thoughts, and the bitter taste in his mouth choked his words.
Then there were two of her and he knew the truth.
He wished Aife and her men had killed him.
* * *
Scáthach raced into the fort with her Shadow Guard.
She tucked herself against the wall, careful not to get in the way as her warriors, led by Tabiti, engaged the enemy.
It all seemed very surreal. The fog made the battle dreamlike as the Queen of Shadow’s black-clad army brought retribution to Aife’s warriors.
Scáthach wanted to join them, but her intuition told her she must find and free Cuchulainn first. She made her way to a dark place against the wall, free of fighting and torchlight.
There she called shadow to her. “Find Cuchulainn,” she commanded, and the searching darkness slithered from her.
“Mother!” Uathach jogged to her. Her quiver was empty and her sword was bloodied. “There you are. Do you know where he is?”
“The shadows do.” Scáthach jerked her chin at the inky darkness that spread like a spider’s web from her feet. “They’re heading to the keep.”
“Then we follow.”
Mother and daughter ran after the shadows, cutting down any warrior who tried to stop them. At the front of the keep, the only stone building in the fort, the shadows slid under the wooden double doors and disappeared inside.
Holding their weapons up and ready, Scáthach and Uathach wrenched open the doors to a wide entryway that led directly into the great hall.
Uathach made a low sound of disgust. The hall was deserted, but the long tables that used to gleam with care and polish had been strewn with old food and spilled drink.
Benches were upended. Garbage littered the room, and it smelled as if men had been urinating in the corners.
Shadows pooled between sputtering wall torches, slithering from darkness to darkness as the two warrior women jogged around piles of debris, following the darkness to a narrow stairway that curved up to the second floor.
Scáthach was familiar with the keep and with the second floor, which held the personal chambers of Lord Kintail and his family.
She’d had dinner privately with Lord and Lady Kintail in their suite more than once.
Scáthach wasn’t surprised Aife had locked Cuchulainn somewhere on that floor.
The stone walls of the keep were thick and unmovable and much more easily secured than any of the roundhouses.
Scáthach paused as they reached the top of the stairs that emptied into the hallway leading to the family’s private chambers. She and Uathach pressed into the shadows as booming knocks sounded from the hallway.
“Aife! Open this gods-be-damned door! The fort is under attack!” a man shouted, followed by more pounding.
Scáthach recognized the voice before she peered from the shadows into the hallway. Then she stepped back to her daughter, who mouthed the name Drest. Scáthach nodded.
Uathach touched her empty quiver and shook her head.
Her mother’s answering smile was feral. She was glad Uathach was out of arrows. She wanted Drest for herself.
“Aife! Now!” Drest shouted as he pounded on the door again. “I need to get you to safety! They’re overrunning the fort!”
Scáthach stepped out into the hallway. The shadows she’d been following disappeared under the door on which Drest pounded.
Her senses expanded into a darkened room with them.
Scáthach could not concentrate long—could not take the time to sift through the images she saw through the sense she shared with them.
She only knew there was something very wrong happening in that room.
Scáthach released her connection with shadow and cleared her throat.
Drest whirled around, unsheathing his sword. His eyes widened. “Scáthach!”
“Don’t act surprised. You chose to ignore my reputation, but that doesn’t mean you invalidated it.
” She began stalking toward him as he stepped away from the door, lifting his sword.
“I am fair. I am merciful. It is known that I do not glorify violence and death.” Scáthach continued to close the space between them.
“But I believe in retribution for wrongs committed against me and mine.” She pointed the tip of her sword at him.
“Drest, with the authority given me by Ardgeimm, Jarl of Lethra, I name you traitor and sentence you to death.”
“You have no authority over me!” Drest said as they circled each other.
“And with those words you prove you are what I named you—traitor.” Scáthach was done speaking.
The Queen of Shadow did not taunt or tease.
She was a deadly weapon. She saw Drest’s eyes when he understood he could not beat her and she was glad he did not lower his sword—glad he did not beg for mercy she could not grant.
Scáthach’s sword arm blurred. She feinted right, tossed her sword from that hand to her left, and then she struck, sliding the blade between his ribs to slice through his heart.
Drest looked down at his chest. His brow furrowed.
Scáthach pulled the sword from his body and a torrent of blood followed.
The Wolfskin traitor coughed blood once before he collapsed to the floor.
“That was quickly done,” said Uathach as she joined her mother. “Though I think his end was too clean. He should have suffered.”
“Agreed, but we don’t have time for that.
And he will suffer. Valkyries will not escort him to Valhalla.
They want nothing to do with traitors. He will not feast with the All Father.
Instead he will be lost, languishing in darkness as his spirit struggles to find the way to his Underworld.
Perhaps it will teach him to have more honor in his next lifetime.
” Scáthach tried to open the door. It was barred from within.
“Is Cu in there?” Uathach asked.
“It’s where the shadows led, so yes.” Scáthach sheathed her sword and took the last dagger from the leather holder strapped to her thigh.
“Do we break down the door?” Uathach rolled her shoulders, preparing to ram the door with her mother.
“I do not believe we’ll have to.” Scáthach slid the blade of the dagger between the doorframe and door and then slowly lifted it.
As she did, it caught the drawbar, raising it out of the handles that secured it.
As the wooden bar clattered to the floor, Scáthach pushed the door open and she and Uathach entered the room.
“Oh, goddess!” Uathach gasped.
Scáthach said nothing. At first she didn’t understand what she saw and thought she had actually disturbed Aife and a lover.
The room was dark, lit only by a low-burning hearthfire.
Thick woolen curtains covered the one large window.
The curtains, the stone walls, and the fog muffled the sounds of fighting in the fort.
The room stank of sweat and sex and something bitter that made her want to sneeze.
Aife was on the bed—her naked back to them.
Scáthach could see she straddled a man who was bound tightly to the frame of the bed pallet by his wrists and ankles.
She could not see who he was but she didn’t have to see him. She knew.
“Aife.”
Her half sister got off the bed and turned to face Scáthach. Her naked skin was slick with sweat. Cuchulainn’s seed painted the inside of her thighs from the apex between her legs down to her calves.
Aife stretched languidly, her arms above her head. She smiled. “Your timing could be better, Scáthach.”
“Scáthach?” Cuchulainn’s voice was weak and gravelly.
Aife stepped aside so that he had a clear view of the Queen of Shadow.
Cuchulainn was bound so tightly that he could only lift his head and blink rapidly.
Even from a distance Scáthach could see his eyes were unusually glassy.
His pupils were so dilated that his eyes appeared black instead of amber.
“Scáthach?” he repeated as his gaze went from her to Aife.
His sweaty, flushed face blanched white. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Aife laughed at him. “Yesssss.” The word hissed from her swollen lips.
Cuchulainn’s bleary gaze found Scáthach again. “But . . . you’ve been here the whole night.” Misery filled his ruined voice.
“No,” Scáthach said gently. “Not until just now. Forgive me for not arriving sooner.” Two strides took her to the chemise discarded at the foot of the bed. Scáthach picked it up and threw it at Aife. “Get dressed.” She glanced at her daughter. “Watch her.”
Uathach nodded and went to Aife as Scáthach used her dagger to cut through the ropes that bound Cuchulainn to the bed.
He sat and then tried to stand, but with a groan he sank back on the bed before he turned his head and vomited a torrent of vile liquid onto the floor.
Then he collapsed back onto the pallet, where he curled into himself and began to shiver and gasp for breath between dry heaves.
Scáthach strode to Aife, backed her sister against the wall, and put her dagger to her throat.
She met Aife’s shocked gaze and realized she’d been wrong.
Her sister’s eyes weren’t the brilliant blue of her father’s—they were too corrupted by hatred to be that pure.
Scáthach’s voice was iron. “As with Drest, I use the authority granted me by Ardgeimm, Jarl of Lethra, to name you traitor and sentence you to death by my blade.”
“No! You can’t! You have no—” Aife was silenced as Scáthach’s knife pressed against her flesh, drawing a bead of blood. The Queen of Shadow looked into her sister’s blue eyes and saw no remnant of their father in their cold depths.
“Mama.” Uathach’s hand rested on her mother’s shoulder. “You cannot kill her.”