Chapter 22 #2
Drest shook his head back and forth, back and forth.
“No! No, she commanded I bring you to her chamber and stand guard so she could interrogate you. She said you knew a secret entrance into Dunscáith. When she had that information, we could take the castle. I did not know she . . .” Drest shook his head again.
He looked sick and spit on the ground. “I would not have stood there guarding the door had I known what she was truly doing within.”
“Just so you and your army know,” Scáthach said loudly.
“There is no way to take Dunscáith. It was hewn from rock by my mother, the goddess Béfionn, and gifted to me. The castle is sentient. It can only be gifted to another by me—not taken from me. Aife knew this as well, as did my father. She lied to you, to the Wolfskins foolish enough to follow you, and to this army.”
Drest met her gaze and Scáthach saw misery and pain in his blue eyes.
“The truth . . .” He sighed and ran a hand across his face before he continued.
“The truth is Aife was incapable of love, and I was incapable of accepting that truth.” Drest dropped his sword and shield and went to his knees before Scáthach. “Forgive me. I was wrong.”
“What else?” asked Scáthach.
Drest drew in such a deep breath that his shoulders heaved. He stood and turned to face the army. “I led you to your deaths even though I knew many of you had begun to question Aife’s leadership. That you are here is my fault, my responsibility, and I should pay the penance for it.”
The Wolfskins were the first of the army to kneel. They did not look at Drest. It was as if he’d ceased to exist. They looked to Scáthach instead. One Wolfskin spoke up. “Forgive us for following Drest’s lead instead of honoring the wishes of our Jarl. We are most sorry, mighty queen.”
Like water rippling from a pebble thrown into a still pond, the rest of the army knelt and turned their pale faces to Scáthach. Drest joined them. All was silent when Cuchulainn spoke.
“Will you help them, Queen of Shadow?”
“I will try,” said Scáthach. “Let me consider.” Leaving the still-kneeling army, she strode along the base of the mammoth cliff, wishing her mother were there to advise her.
She knew how to guide spirits from the mortal realm to Annwn. She could open the veil from the Autumnal Realm to the Summerlands. But Scáthach had no idea how to guide the dead from Annwn to Valhalla.
Water always helped when passing from realm to realm. Scáthach gazed around her. “Would water show them the way?” she asked the realm.
Nothing changed. The Autumnal Realm looked exactly as it had before she’d asked the question.
Scáthach sighed and tapped her chin as she thought.
Often she’d used her blood, but that was only effective because this was her mother’s realm.
She didn’t need to open the veil to Annwn; the army was already here.
Mistakenly. They needed to get to Valhalla and there was no god there to whom her blood attached her.
“In Valhalla I’m only connected to Father,” she reasoned aloud as she paced.
“And he’s definitely mortal, which was why he’s in Valhalla, where these two hundred spirits need to be . . .” Scáthach halted. “That’s it!”
A waterfall suddenly manifested before her. It cascaded from the top of the cliff, disappearing into the ground at the base of the huge wall of stone. She smiled, turned, and shouted, “Cuchulainn! Bring the army to me!”
* * *
Scáthach commanded that the two hundred dead warriors form a double column facing the strange disappearing waterfall.
Drest was at the front of the line, standing before the double columns.
Scáthach stared into the flowing water. She had the conduit and the person to whom she would call, but she knew she needed more.
It was like conjuring her mother. Scáthach could shout across the waters surrounding Skye and maybe Béfionn would hear her—but maybe she would not.
She glanced at the two hundred spirits, who watched her every move. Maybe wasn’t good enough in their current situation.
Cuchulainn joined her as she turned her back to the dead army. Chewing her lip, she stared at the waterfall, hoping the answer would come to her.
“Ahem.” Cuchulainn cleared his throat.
She glanced at him and whispered, “I almost have it figured out.” She jerked her chin at the waterfall.
“This showed up and water is often used to enter the immortal realms.” Scáthach sighed.
“I would usually just cut my hand and drip it into the water and use it to call Mother, but . . .” She shrugged.
“You don’t need your mother. You need Valhalla,” he said.
“Yes, exactly. My connection there is to my father, but he’s not a god. My blood won’t call him,” she said.
Cuchulainn ran a hand through his hair. “You’re calling him instead of Odin?”
Scáthach tapped her leather-booted foot against the ground, impatient with herself. “Yes and no. Father is my connection to Valhalla. If I can reach him, I’ve pierced the veil to the immortal realm of the Norse. From there Odin should be accessible.”
“But first you have to breach the veil,” he said.
“Yes.”
Drest approached them. He bowed his head and cleared his throat before asking, “Might it help if we burned offerings to Odin?”
Scáthach’s brows shot up. “It would. Do you happen to have the thighbones of some fat kine with you? Cuchulainn and I surely do not.”
“No.” Drest scratched his beard. “But we do carry many of Odin’s talismans.”
Scáthach nodded. “I think that might work. Collect them and I’ll see if the Autumnal Realm will allow me a fire.”
“I’ll collect firewood,” said Cuchulainn before he jogged off toward a cluster of bare-branched oaks.
Drest cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down the double column of men. “Pass forward your talismans of Odin! The Queen of Shadow calls the All Father!”
Instantly there was movement along the lines as the warriors passed forward ravens’ feathers, pieces of fabric with the Valknut triple interlocking triangles embroidered or dyed on it, and little wooden carvings of the Ansuz rune, symbolizing Odin’s leadership.
One of the Wolfskins bowed before Scáthach and offered his wolf-fur-lined cloak. “We wear these for the All Father’s two mighty wolves, Geri and Freki.”
“This will work well,” said Scáthach, taking the cloak from him before the warrior moved back to his place in line.
She met Cuchulainn with his armload of dried branches and spread out the cloak near the waterfall. “Pile the wood in the center of the cloak,” she said. “Drest, place the offerings among the wood, as if it is a funeral pyre.”
When it was done, there was a neatly stacked mound of branches atop a wolf fur cloak. Placed in between and among the wood were the precious items collected from the army.
“Impressive,” Cuchulainn said as he put the last raven feather atop the pile. “Will it be enough?”
“I can only hope,” said Scáthach. She faced the army.
She didn’t shout, but the two hundred spirits were completely silent as her melodic voice wrapped around them.
“While I part the veil from Annwn to Valhalla, I need each of you to think of your ancestors who await you there and of Odin All Father. No, don’t just think of them—long for them.
Let that longing fill your spirits, your heads, your hearts.
” Then she went to the mound of branches and offerings.
She bowed her head and spoke softly to the realm.
“These two hundred spirits are lost. They do not belong within you. Help me set them on the right path. Blaze to Valhalla for me!”
Whoosh! Orange and yellow flames burst from the center of the mound. As it began to engulf the offerings, black smoke lifted and swirled up, up, up, until it disappeared from sight into the low-hanging clouds.
“Thank you,” Scáthach murmured before she walked to the edge of the small pool that had formed at the base of the cliff.
The water ran into it and then disappeared under the cliff.
The toes of her boots just touched that pool.
She tilted back her head, gazed up at the glistening fall of water and spoke from her heart.
“Ardgeimm, Jarl of Lethra, beloved Father, your daughter Scáthach needs you! My words fly with the smoke of burnt offerings to Valhalla and Odin All Father. Hear my call. Pierce the veil with me, Father.” She waited, staring up and hoping she would get the prickling across her skin she’d felt when she’d sensed the veil that separates the Autumnal Realm and the Summerlands.
She felt nothing. No tingle tickled her skin. No glistening veil appeared. Nothing.
Scáthach tried again. “Father, it’s Scáthach.
I call to you with great need—the spirits of two hundred of your warriors are lost. Help me to help them!
Father, I know if it is possible, you will hear me.
You will come. I call you with hope and my never-ending love for you.
I miss you, Father. I wish I could have said goodbye .
. .” Scáthach’s words faded as tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks to drop into the pool at her feet.
Behind her the army gasped. She looked over her shoulder at them. They were all staring up. Above her the black smoke lifting from the offering fire had changed direction and shape. It formed ravens—two hundred of them—that flew into the waterfall and disappeared.
She felt it then—the tingle across her skin that signaled the thinning of the veil between Annwn and the other realm. Her hand trembled as she reached up to where the air had begun to glitter. Scáthach pinched the veil and drew it aside.