Chapter 1 #2
She suddenly heard her name shouted and she swung around. A huge man stared at her, the axe he’d been about to wield against her head dropping to his side and then to the ground.
Behind him was Kylin and she realized that he had slashed the invader’s back, the man following his ax to the ground as his blood pooled from his body.
She stared at Kylin.
He shrugged.
“A thank-you would be fine,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she said flatly.
The horror of the day was beginning to make its way into her soul.
There had been no choice: They had been attacked! But the gruesome death that now littered the area seemed beyond horrible to her. She turned, anxious to reach her brother, but was distracted when she heard Kylin shouting to his men.
“Dispatch!” he ordered.
He meant to kill those who lay not dead but wounded.
“No!” she shouted. “No!”
He turned to stare at her. “They would take our land, our blood and our lives!”
“My father gave you your land and my father does not kill the wounded—”
“Your father fights no more. His age is too great for him to face the young and strong who would gladly behead him and kill his people!” Kylin warned.
“He is a strong ruler, an incredible king. But never a murderer!” Deidre cried.
“They came as murderers!” he reminded her.
She lowered her head, wincing. While her brother lived and would be her father’s heir as a lesser king, or the lord of their village and countryside, she’d also been raised at his side and knew her father’s mind. She adored him—he was a great man. Strong enough to be kind and show mercy.
“Mercy!” she said. “The great Father Patrick taught us that we must show mercy!”
She heard a strange sound and turned. A man on the ground, the hilt of a knife still protruding from his shoulder, was staring at her and she could have sworn that he had tears in his eyes.
“Please,” she started to say, and yet, as she looked up, she was stunned to see that an enemy was behind Kylin now, that he’d crept up with an axe, aware that Kylin’s attention was on her and that he might take down the enemy commander even if he would die himself.
She wasn’t sure where the instinct or the ability came from.
She threw the strange sword that had become hers that day.
It caught the would-be assassin in the chest; he fell before his weapon could land on Kylin’s head.
Kylin spun and looked at the man and then stared at Deidre as she moved forward to retrieve her weapon.
He opened his mouth to speak.
“A thank-you will suffice,” she told him.
“I was about to say that my point has been made!” he told her.
Thankfully, by then, Aidan had made his way to them.
And from the village, people had seen that the battle had come to an end.
Others were hurrying out, seeking their own injured, hoping to help .
. . or to take weapons, shoes, jewels, or other treasures from the invaders.
Healers hurried among their own first and Aidan spoke to several people as he moved toward them.
“Kylin! Deepest gratitude!” Aidan said.
Kylin nodded an acknowledgment and looked around the field.
“The dead need to be taken to the boats and the boats then set afire. Fitting, as it is often their own custom of burial and we can’t let them rot or bury them here .
. . this is land we use.” He paused, looking at Aidan.
“Perhaps your sister is right, the injured might be cared for—perhaps we can find out who has been a part of this.”
“Who has been a part of this?” Deidre repeated incredulously, feeling a certain resentment. He was only taking her seriously now because of her brother—after all that he had seen her do?
“They came in these boats—we know that they sailed from across the sea.” She hesitated, just briefly, staring at Kylin and shaking her head. “You know that they came from the lands to the west.”
Kylin nodded, meeting her stare. “As my father did,” he said flatly.
Then he ignored her and looked at Aidan.
“That’s why I know as do you and your father that alliances have been strange to say the least, different kings aligning different places, strange allies bound to turn on one another at some point, but if another Irish king has had a part of this—”
“We need to know,” Aidan agreed. He called out to his men.
“The dead to the boats—we will set them afire and send them out to sea. They’ll receive the end they would have chosen for themselves. Take care first with our injured, but we’ll see to theirs as well.”
“Kylin?”
His men were asking if they were to follow the same directive.
“As Aidan has said,” Kylin agreed.
For a long moment, he studied Deidre.
Then abruptly turning away from her, he went to work in the chaos of the living and the dead himself.
And yet the way he had watched her had been strange and she wasn’t sure why, but she was almost irritated that he had agreed with her. Because he hadn’t recognized her wisdom or the teachings of her father, but rather decided that something might be gained by keeping their enemies alive.
She had almost spoken aloud to wonder if he—the son of his father, a man who had once been one with the brutal invaders from the northwest—might turn on them.
She’d managed not to do so. There was no denying the man’s heritage.
His hair and beard were golden and red, his eyes bluer than the sea, and he stood tall with shoulders broad enough to wield any weapon known to man.
A formidable friend.
Or enemy.
That day, he had saved her life.
She had saved his—possibly necessary because of his concentration on her, but, nonetheless, she had saved his life. No matter his height and breadth, she, a mere girl with a strange sword, had saved his life. Maybe he resented her for it. The way that he had studied her so curiously disturbed her.
Then again, he’d seen her sword. Seen the way she had wielded it. Of course, in many of the island’s kingdoms, daughters were not taught to be warriors. She knew it had been important to her father that she learned how to fight.
Because her mother, rushing out into a fray in fear for her children, had fallen rather than submit. In their world, everyone needed to know how to fight.
And yet that day . . .
If not for the sword and its glimmering silver light, I would have died.
The sword, and she grudgingly had to admit, the addition of Kylin and his warriors in the battle.
“Deidre?”
She turned. Her brother was looking at her, frowning. He was, she knew, tremendously relieved and grateful that she was alive—just as she was so very, very grateful to see that he hadn’t fallen.
But they had been attacked before. Many times. And she was usually quick to tend to the wounded.
“Oh! Aidan, I’m sorry, I—I am moving now!”
She quickly looked to the field, seeking someone she could help, ripping the linen fabric of her tunic to provide bandages and tourniquets to those who needed them.
Wincing, she made her way through the tumbled bodies of the dead, but they were quickly being removed as well. It was perhaps ironic that the disposal of the enemy’s dead fit in perfectly with many of their own funereal practices—being sent out to the sea, in their boats set aflame.
They could not bury their enemies along with their own dead.
Several hundred years had passed since Father Patrick had come to éire—or come back to éire, having been a slave there for years before becoming a priest and returning—but even before that, the graves of the honored and even those of average men and women had become sacred sites, not places where the bodies of unbelievers might lie.
While those who had come to rob and steal sometimes lay within the earth due to necessity, they were most often burned or set out to sea.
Back to the days of the ancients, the great hill at Tara had been an honored and sacred place and it remained so to this day.
Deidre’s people had learned early to build with stone and now many beautiful churches dotted the land and often the great and noble lords and kings were interred within them.
She gave herself a mental shake and went to work.
So many wounded.
So much blood.
And yet, finally, admittedly with the help of Kylin’s people, the dead were set out in boats ablaze.
The wounded were brought back to the village, their own injured warriors to their homes, and the invaders to a large wooden structure that Deidre’s father’s had long ago ordered be repaired and set aside for those needing medical care.
They would be cared for by the village healers, but they’d also be under guard lest they forget the mercy they’d been shown and sought to escape or join with a new set of invaders, for the ships could come from the sea at any time.
Like today.
The enemy had swarmed onto the beach. They had almost managed to get to the village before the women, children and the elderly could be moved to safety.
Now at last, the fighting was over. Her brother had led his troops valiantly and survived without injury. And she was alive herself, alive and well.
Home at last, Deidre was grateful for her father’s position; it was good to escape to a room by herself, where she could remember her strange rescue, when she had been certain death was upon her, and the beautiful woman had suddenly appeared, showing her the sword that was equally incredible—and mystic.
She had never felt so torn. She loved the stories about Father Patrick, about the incredible way he had even paid his ex-master for his freedom, how he had brought peace between so many neighboring kings, how very wonderful and giving he had been.
Where did the magic fit in, or possibly, could the magic be a part of the greater goodness Patrick had brought to the island?
There was a tap at her door and her father entered.