Chapter 4
NOT MUCH FARTHER!” Kylin said.
Deidre glanced over at him. He was right, of course. She knew the way to Tara.
It was the most ancient and revered site in her world. Things changed constantly throughout history but since antiquity, Tara had been sacred. Great burial mounds dating back hundreds if not thousands of years dotted both the hills and the valleys.
Declan, ard-rí, king of the kings, resided in a magnificent stone fortress just beyond the next forest. There were many villagers living behind the stone walls that guarded the main tower, and there were farms, churches and more that stretched out from it.
“And it’s good. We’ve made good time, I hope. Just yesterday came the attack in the woods, and just before that, the greater attack on the shore. And time will be important! Still, Declan is beloved.”
“By most, but not all,” Kylin said.
“Of course. That’s why we’re here. And you were right. I mean, you stopped just for me, and I never mean to be a hindrance—” Deidre began.
“Stop, please!” he begged her. “Sleep was necessary and—” He broke off.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Ahead. Just ahead. I saw movement in the woods.”
“There are all kinds of creatures in the woods, Kylin. Hundreds of different birds, elks, wolves.”
“And the greatest monster of all—man,” Kylin said. “Deidre, we know that those bodies should have been where we left them . . . just fallen.”
“Animals could have dragged them off,” she argued.
“No. Right now, we need to take care. Someone is ahead of us. One of the small parties the wounded Northman told my father about—one to watch out for anyone attempting to reach the ard-rí, I imagine!”
He was right; she knew it. She had just wanted so very badly to reach Declan, to throw the horror they had been encountering at his feet, for he was the man with the power to gather their people together.
“What is your plan?” she asked him. “Wait! I have a plan. You ride to the left—that thatch of trees there. I will move forward slowly, looking vulnerable, and they’ll come after me and you then come after them.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m sworn to protect you.”
“And that’s the way that you can protect me!” she argued.
He lowered his head, looking pained. But he knew that she was right.
“Fine. We’ll do it.”
He turned Darragh and moved toward the trees to their side, slipping behind them, making it appear that Deidre was alone.
She moved slowly toward the last of the woods before coming upon the realm of the great ard-rí.
Kylin’s instincts were good.
And, true, too, the two bodies that should have been decaying, gnawed perhaps, where they had been lying were simply gone.
Someone had come for their dead. And it had to be true as well that spy teams were moving about. The battle at the seashore had been decisive; none of those warriors had left and the wounded remained under guard.
How close dare she go to the darkness of the woods? Even with her sword?
But we have to lure the enemy out!
She dismounted and started walking, drawing Donal along with her by the reins. But as she walked, she suddenly tripped on something.
Startled, she paused, looking down to see what had caused her difficulty.
It was a rock. A pebble, really. Small and smooth and it made no sense at all that she had tripped over it.
She stooped low, seeing that it was strangely smooth, and that—
She heard a sudden, ferocious battle cry. Looking up, she could see that two men were racing out of the woods toward her.
But a second cry, equally fierce, filled the air.
And she knew that it was Kylin.
She had gone down on one knee to study the strange little pebble that had tripped her, but seeing the men tear from the forest, intent on taking her by surprise, she quickly drew her strange new sword from its hilt.
But one of the men never reached her.
Kylin’s spear came flying through the air and found its mark.
The man fell just a few feet from her, but his companion was right on his heels. She was up and ready, parrying the thrust of his great battle-ax, sliding her sword in an arc that caught him straight through the chest, causing him to fall with his companion.
By then Kylin was at her side, Darragh right behind him.
He retrieved his spear from the body of the man it had hit. He looked from one man to the other, and then to Deidre.
“I told you there were warriors out in pairs to attack us!”
“And I told you that my way would work,” she countered.
He looked away, smiling. “All right. But this time—” he looked at her, wincing “—we must move the bodies. Let anyone else coming this way believe that they are still out here, searching for us.”
“No. I . . .”
She looked at the men, cringing. She had been trained to fight. But she had never learned to accept the horrid feeling that came when she took another life.
“It’s all right. I will do it alone,” he said, clearly noticing her unease.
“No, we’re in this together.”
“And both of these men are three times your weight. I will just drag them back there, into the trees,” he told her.
He grabbed the ankles of the man he’d taken with his spear, pulling him toward the woods. Deidre went for the second man but paused. He lay near the strange, shiny little pebble that didn’t appear to belong on the grassy, rugged ground at all.
She picked it up, studying it. And she was startled when the man—bloodied from his neck to his groin—suddenly reached up, lunging for her.
The pebble was in her hand. She hit him in the head and he went down in an instant.
She stared at him, wary, lest it be another act. But he couldn’t live long. Not with the amount of blood that he had lost. And now it appeared a hole had burned through the flesh of his forehead and into his brain.
Kylin returned, unaware of any of it, and grabbed the man by his feet, dragging him as he had the first dead man.
Deidre studied the pebble in her hand.
It couldn’t be.
But warmth seemed to be shooting through her, touching her bones, heating her blood, silver magic streaking throughout her and all coming from . . .
The pebble.
And as she held it, just for a moment in time, a split second of reality, she saw something before her.
Someone . . .
The shimmering angel who gave me the sword! And she’s speaking to a group of people . . . not people, per se, but . . .
Tuatha Dé Danaan!
“Strength is seen in size, in height, in muscle, and one might think that a powerful stone must be huge! But power can also be in dedication, in belief. Never forget the strongest among any creatures of reason is in their care and kindness toward others, and just as the strongest individuals may not be large, so the magic of a ‘stone’ may be far greater than the size of that stone!”
The image before her eyes faded.
As if it had never been.
They had found the shimmering sword, the spear and the cauldron. They all appeared much as one might expect regarding such objects, even magical objects, or those touched by the angels or the gods.
But the great and magical stone that made up the four gifts of the Tuatha Dé Danann?
Kylin returned to her side, studying her curiously.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Kylin . . .” She wasn’t sure how to explain. She showed him the pebble. “I saw . . . um . . .”
He arched a brow. “A vision?” he whispered.
She didn’t reply; she swallowed hard, staring at him.
“Strange. That was in the dirt, here? You wouldn’t expect anything so smooth. What lies beneath the hills and valleys here is rugged. It’s a very pretty stone,” he mused.
“Kylin, I’m not seeking any kind of treasure. I think . . . I think this might be it.”
“Might be what?” he asked.
“The Stone of Fal.”
“That?” He studied it, looking thoughtful. “It appears to be a mere pebble!”
“Easy to carry,” she murmured. Then she spoke quickly, trying to explain. “Kylin, the one man wasn’t dead. He started to lunge for me and I had just picked up this pebble after tripping on it—”
“Tripping on a little pebble?” he asked her skeptically. But he was smiling. And he had asked her about a vision.
“Aye, that’s just it!” she said. “It was in my hand and when he rose, I instinctively swung at his head—with this pebble in my hand—and he went down instantly. Didn’t you see his forehead as you moved him? He looked as if he had been struck with a burning knife or spear!”
Kylin was quiet.
“We are on grounds bordering Tara,” he considered.
“Kylin, it would make sense. Strange sense, but sense. We seem to have been chosen, as if for a mission. To save the people of this island! The sword first was given to me by the strange vision. Then the cauldron and the spear came to you. And now this stone . . . the man was severely injured. I believe that I would have survived without it, but the stone was a swift and strange weapon against him. And—”
“An old man appeared before you?” he asked.
“No!”
“Oh. Okay—”
“The shimmering, beautiful being who gave me the sword. She was telling others that strength had little to do with size.”
“She never battled a man the size of an ox,” Kylin muttered, but he was smiling.
“You don’t believe me!”
“I do believe you,” he told her. “All right. Well, take great care with it, then. I believe that you may be right and—”
“Perhaps it’s just a rock?” she queried.
“Right. But at the moment, that wasn’t what I was about to say. We need to get through the forest and get to Ard-rí Declan.”
“Let’s do it!” she said.
She carefully tucked the pebble into a small pocket of her sword belt. She reached out then, brushing away a small spot of dirt on Kylin’s cheek. He frowned.
“Sorry. I just didn’t think that we should go in to seek an audience with the ard-rí when you have dirt on your face.”
“No, thank you. I was just . . . Well, we were set upon by two men again. And we both look none the worse for wear. Perhaps our gifts are completely amazing.”
“Magic,” she said softly.
“And we will need all the magic granted us,” he assured her. “Mount up!”