Chapter 14 #2
“I did consider it,” she said. “But then I thought, but this husband of mine – he too did swear his loyalty, his protection to those poor souls whose bones rest so uneasy in that sad grove of trees. And why should I not break my vow, if he, my promised lord, can break his so easily?”
“You think it was easy?” He was screaming, hoarse and raw, and the hell-hound let out a rippling snarl of pure malice at the sound. “To watch my father spat on our family’s honor, defile our name, all for the sake of his wounded pride?”
“You certainly made it seem so.”
His breath shuddered out in a shaky whoosh, and he hung his head, fighting back a sudden swell of tears. “My lady,” he said, something perilously close to a plea slipping into his voice, then froze as he looked up.
Not one, he thought dazedly. Not two, but three of them – huge, hulking hounds, ice-blue eyes gleaming, advancing on him from all sides.
“Triple,” he murmured to himself, pushing to his feet and reaching behind his back to draw his sword as the hounds crept closer, bone-white fangs bared, the drops of saliva on the ends of their lolling tongues glistening even in the darkness.
“The gods do indeed love their sets of three, don’t they now. ”
“A bargain, Lord Locke,” she said as the hound on the right lunged, teeth snapping, and Locke slashed at it with his sword, the sharp tip of his blade slicing into its shoulder haunch.
The hound yelped once before snarling again, foam building at the corners of its jowls even as the blood blossomed and rolled down its leg.
“If you live, I will resume, again, my marital duties to your lordship, as you have asked.”
“That offer has been rescinded, my lady, considering our current situation. I’d sooner bed a snake than you.”
She ignored this. Just as well. He was obviously lying.
Even now, with her hounds of death by her side, it was still deliriously erotic, the memory of her touch, her skin, her soft, eager gasps in his ear – even now, staring down almost certain death, it drove him half-mad with the wanting of her.
If he did somehow survive this encounter, Locke vowed to himself furiously, he fully intended to hold her to that promise.
“If you die well,” his unfairly beautiful and equally heartless wife continued, “I swear that I will still kill your father, as you have asked.” She smiled that same serpentine, mirthless smile. “And a few of his friends, even, for good measure.”
Locke moved backwards, wading into the river, his eyes narrowing on the three hounds who descended after him down the riverbank, slow and stalking and menacing. “And if I die poorly?”
“I have faith in you, Lord Locke. I think that you will die very well indeed.” The hounds were in the water now, wading in up to their chests, the current frothing and splashing around them. “Farewell, Lord Locke.”
As one, the hounds leapt, fangs flashing in the starlight, their growls rippling from their throats. Locke took a deep gulp of air and dove under the current, rolling away from the airborne body of the middle hound.
The taste of river-water, dank and bitter, filled his nostrils, but he ignored it, thrusting upwards with his sword, burying the blade deep into the belly of the hound.
A muffled squeal of pain, and then the water turned iron-black, blood gushing from the wound.
Locke fought back a gag and kicked towards the thrashing hindlegs of the second hound, sword ready to strike –
A savage pain ripped through his calf and he opened his mouth in a silent gurgling scream, the blood-drenched water flooding down his throat.
Something dragged him backwards through the water as he flailed, clutching at his sword, and then he was lurched out of the water, dozens of knife-like fangs still buried deep in his leg.
He sputtered and gasped for breath as the hound shook him, a sopping wet rag-doll caught in its teeth, and he lashed out wildly, blindly with his sword as he bit back his screams of agony.
His blade made contact, slicing through fur and into skin.
There was a shrill yelp and the fangs retracted from his leg, and he barely had time to suck in a single gulping breath before he was falling, plunging back into the water, his calf burning and gushing blood from a dozen different puncture wounds.
The tip of his right boot sank into the soft silt at the bottom of the river, and he gathered his last remaining strength and shoved forward, swimming with his wounded leg dragging behind him through the mud.
Locke clambered up the far side of the riverbank, lungs burning, chest heaving, sword still gripped in his hand.
As soon as he was ashore, he spun around on his uninjured leg, blade raised, ready to die on his feet like the heroes of yore he had loved as a boy, but nothing came at him from the darkness.
On the far side of the river, his wife stood, her pale hands stark against the gloomy backdrop of the trees, her hounds nowhere to be seen. “Well,” she said. “It seems you did not die after all, Lord Locke. How disappointing.”
He inhaled shakily. “Is it dead?”
“It is not,” she said. “But it is hurt. An injury sustained by one of its entities, it seems, is an injury sustained to all its forms.” She shrugged. “It will heal quickly enough, I imagine. Perhaps we can try again tomorrow with more satisfactory results.”
His sword dropped to the ground with a dull thunk.
“You’re a madwoman,” he shouted, his torn and bleeding leg quaking precariously under him.
“Stark raving mad. I didn’t kill those people, it wasn’t my sword that did it, not my –” His breath caught, his infuriated protest growing heavy and ash-like on his tongue. He swallowed thickly. “Not my fault.”
The word echoed in the cool midnight air between them, the river rumbling beneath them.
Locke’s eyes fluttered shut as he sank to his knees, his head growing light and woozy with pain.
“Not my fault,” he said again, a mere whisper this time, and as he stumbled forward, his shaking hands digging deep into the muddy grass as he fought to brace himself, he tasted something warm and salty on his lips.
Tears, he realized dully. He was weeping, a steady stream of silent tears slipping down his cheeks and seeping into the earth below him, that self-same earth that had borne witness to so much suffering, so much death.
“Not my fault,” he said once more, and this time, his head slumped forward, yielding to the grief and the guilt surging within him, an agony even more piercing and unbearable than the searing pain in his leg.
Then, a cool damp hand pressed against his tear-soaked cheek.
He looked up, vision blurry with tears and pain, and saw her crouched before him, her silver-dark eyes gentler than he had ever before seen them.
“Both our faults,” she whispered. “As much mine as yours, Lord Locke – more than you know.” Her fingers swept across his damp temple, brushing his sodden curls from his brow.
“I was very angry, you must understand. There are some sights which I have never wished to see with this cursed gift of mine, and that was one such sight.”
“That’s a terrible apology,” he whispered, and he could have sworn he saw the flicker of a smile, something genuine and sad, pass across her face.
“Come along,” she said, her arm going around his waist and helping to pull him to his feet, his leg hanging limp and useless as he clutched at her shoulders for support. “Finn will fix you up.”
“Not likely,” he managed to grit out through his clenched teeth as they began to move once more towards the river, bracing himself for the onslaught of frigid water against his already chilled skin and bloody leg.
“Finn will do as I say. He is my oldest, dearest friend, and is loyal to me.” They were silent as they traversed across the river, the scent of blood still lingering in the air.
His vision swirled before him as they climbed up the gentle slope of the far side of the riverbank, agony twisting anew through his shredded calf as he stumbled in the soft mud.
Her arm tightened around his waist, tugging him upright.
“When did you first learn the story,” she asked, “of the hound of Lugh, Failinis, and the sons of Tuirrean?”
He licked at his chapped and shivering lips as they limped towards the encampment, the barely-there glow of the fire burning orange-red and low through the trees. “I was a boy,” he said. “I would read my grandfather’s books – he loved the old tales of éire.”
“I have always wondered,” she said, “why Lugh did not collect his own éraic, his own blood-debt from those traitor-sons who slew his father – why instead he sought his vengeance through such protracted, roundabout means, sending them wandering far across the globe on an impossible quest to retrieve for him the treasures of the world.”
“Sometimes,” Locke said vaguely, head whirling foggily as she led him into the camp. “Sometimes death is the mercy, and living is the curse.”
She made a thoughtful wordless sound under her breath just as Tadhg looked up and saw them, her arm around his waist and Locke leaning, almost drunkenly, against her shoulder.
Tadhg gave a hoarse shout of alarm as he stood and rushed towards them, and Locke’s knees gave out as his vision darkened again, sinking to his knees, breathing in the earthy, bitter scent of her as she eased him to the ground.
“Ah, Lord Locke,” he heard her whisper into his ear as his eyes fluttered shut once more, his strength at least yielding to the screaming pain in his ravaged leg. “I will remember you said that.”