CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE MOMENT HIS POWERS returned to him, he felt her.
Royce sat up. He was in the woods on the same ridge where he’d last been when he’d come to remind himself of Brigdhe’s pain. He froze. Ailios’s terror rolled through him in chilling, gut-wrenching waves.
She was never afraid.
He leapt to his feet and heard her.
Royce.
He couldn’t imagine what was being done to her. The Code no longer mattered. He wasn’t sure exactly when his younger self would appear, and he didn’t care. Before Ruari arrived, while he still had power, he was going to rescue Ailios and destroy Moffat once and for all.
He started down the ridge, focusing on her, savagely determined. Her image formed in his mind. She was pale with fear, as she crouched in a black hole. She had been put in a pit.
He halted, focusing with all of his being, and it took him but a moment to realize she was alone. Moffat wasn’t there.
He was so relieved. He had been terrified that Moffat or Kael was raping and torturing her. But now, he could not understand her terror. Ailios wasn’t afraid of the dark and he was fairly certain being in a pit wouldn’t frighten her, either. He reached out to her. I’m here. What frightens ye?
There was no reply.
He strained to see.
Instead he heard her weeping.
He started to rush down the ridge. Her image came another time, as forcefully. She crouched against an earthen wall, and he saw the snakes seething about her feet.
Royce.
She’d been put in a pit with snakes. And in that moment, a shocking memory returned, a memory he hadn’t recalled in over eight hundred years. When he had vanquished Kael and rescued Brigdhe, he’d heard a woman crying out to him. He’d tried to find her, but failed.
In that exact instant, he remembered it as if it were but yesterday. He recalled leaping into a pit filled with snakes, only to find it empty.
Yet he’d heard her calling to him.
He’d heard Ailios through the centuries.
Royce reached the tree line, so enraged he could barely see. Ahead lay Eoradh, and he threw all of his power at the huge front gates. Nothing happened.
In dismay he turned and saw Ruari coming down the hill, intent on rescuing his wife. Furious, he turned back and blasted the front gates again. They did not even shudder.
His power was gone, taken by the holy laws of the universe, and he roared in rage. Ailios needed him, but he was powerless to help her. Still, damn the Code now! He’d free her as an average man would with ordinary human power. There was nothing ordinary about his will.
Royce, help me.
He went still, filled with a sense of helpless rage. How could he get past the archers on the walls without his powers? And even if he did, how could he get past the giants with their lances?
Ruari had reached the front gates and Royce thought he faltered, as if hearing Ailios, too. But then Ruari wrested them off their hinges, flinging the huge doors aside. The barrage of arrows began.
Ailios needed him now. He could not stand aside. He was about to run forward, behind Ruari, when he saw Moffat standing in the courtyard.
The deamhan was grinning, waiting for him.
This was Moffat’s plan.
Moffat had lured him here so he would be powerless, so he could be destroyed.
And then he would mercilessly use Ailios for his own demonic ends.
His mind raced. He would gladly die if he could free her. But dying and leaving her to Moffat served no one, not even Ailios. And in that moment, he knew he needed Ruari to rescue her. Raw frustration, the rage of sheer helplessness, overcame him.
Ailios needed him, but now, he had to depend on Ruari to hear and heed her cries.
ALLIE HAD MANAGED to finally calm herself.
She had done so with prayer. In fact, she felt certain she was not alone now.
One of the Ancients was nearby and he was most definitely male.
But even that could not truly comfort her.
She was acutely aware that the snakes were very close to her sandal-clad feet, and she remained frozen, her back digging into the earthen wall.
If there was any one thing she despised and truly feared, it was snakes—even the nonpoisonous ones.
Where was Royce?
And if he did come, what did Moffat plan?
She didn’t dare move. The mass of snakes continued to writhe not far from her feet.
She felt the majestic presence hovering near her somehow increase. The air seemed to caress her skin. Some of the chill in her gut, her bones, receded.
And she heard men shouting.
Allie was afraid to focus on what was occurring above her, afraid to take her eyes from the snakes. But she had to know what was happening, and she tried to listen, to feel.
The shouts were faint and they were cries of alarm.
She felt pain.
She jerked, finally forgetting the snakes, worried about Brigdhe. But instantly she realized that men were being wounded and dying. A violent battle was in progress. Her heart leapt with hope. Had Royce come? If he was above, why couldn’t she feel him?
She now closed her eyes, pushing her fear of the snakes aside. She strained. Royce? Are you there? Please, tell me!
In reply, there was only the pain and cries of the wounded and dying.
And then she thought she felt him.
She felt a vague ripple of his power, but it wasn’t the huge power of a Master who had mastered his karma long ago. It was uncertain, raw and perhaps even new.
It couldn’t be Royce and tears of dismay fell.
A snake hissed, dangerously near her right foot.
Allie didn’t even cry out. She met the blazing eyes of the serpent as it coiled and began lifting its head. Its eyes seemed demonic. She sensed it was about to strike and she prayed the creature was not possessed.
But it boldly detached itself from the writhing mass, and seemed intent on her. Fear clawed at her. She stared at the glowing eyes of the serpent.
It hissed, its tongue flicking out.
Allie gasped. She was the granddaughter of a god. If ever she could cast a spell, it was now.
“Gods! Peaceful and quiet,” she breathed. “So peaceful and so quiet, now serpent lie still, peaceful and quiet, so peaceful and so quiet, now serpent at rest, no battle here, no one to kill.”
The head began lifting higher, as if to strike, and its eyes gleamed.
“Serpent lie still…peaceful and quiet,” she whispered, her lips feeling as if they’d turned to wood. “Ancients, please, harken. Lug, greatest of all Ancients, harken.”
For one more moment, the snake stared with almost human hatred at her, and then it recoiled and lay still.
Allie almost collapsed, and only the snake lying inches from her toes prevented her from doing so.
AS HE RUSHED THE FORT, the horns began blowing. He tried to use his new powers to sense Brigdhe, but he could not feel her presence, even though he knew she was within.
Royce, help me.
Almost at the barred gates, Ruari faltered, certain he had heard a woman’s cries for help—a woman calling him by his English name. Did his mind play tricks with him now?
He hesitated. In spite of the men now shouting in alarm from the watchtowers, he sensed the presence of a woman who was not his wife. She was so afraid.
Was this his imagination? If not, what did it mean?
Arrows began hailing around him. Coming to his senses, he tore the barred doors from their hinges, relishing his new power, throwing them aside.
An arrow stung him, another went deeper; he pulled them out, feeling no pain.
He drew his sword and rushed into the fort.
Instantly he saw a deamhan clad in long, elegant robes, far finer than any he had ever seen, grinning at him. His evil was huge and dark.
Giants began rushing from the huts, spears aloft. Ruari wanted to rush the hall, but he veered his course, intending to dispatch the golden deamhan first. Before he could take a stride in his direction, the deamhan vanished.
Which was just fine; he would hunt him later. He turned to the giants, and as they threw their spears at him, he tried his power, blasting them with it. The giants fell back as if pushed by huge winds, their spears falling.
Royce? Are you there? Please, tell me.
He was shocked to hear the woman crying for him again.
One of the giants stood, lunging for him with his studded club, and the blow tore the skin from his arm. He took the giant’s head with a single thrust of his sword, realizing he must not heed this strange woman. Perhaps she was a deamhan, intending to soften him so the enemy might destroy him.
He lunged up the steps and into the darkened hall where Kael waited, grinning evilly at him.
And even as he saw Brigdhe, horror arising at the sight of her naked body, half covered by a blanket, he felt another power present with them.
It was pure and bright and light, feminine and alluring.
It was a power beckoning him. Confused, he looked around to espy another woman.
The blow took him by surprise, sending him flying through the air. He landed hard on his back by the door, but did not drop his sword. And as Kael’s sword descended, his own weapon yielded uselessly and Kael’s blade rent his shoulder, all the way through muscle and bone.
He knew if he let the ghost-woman distract him another time, he might very well die.
A terrible battle began, in which there would be but one victor.
He rolled away as Kael blasted him with more energy, the second blow as stunning as the first. Pushed against the wall, he felt Kael’s sword coming, and this time, he struck viciously upward and steel met steel.
Metal screeched, rang. He leapt to his feet, bleeding heavily but in no pain.
He was hurled backward into the wall again. As he crashed there, he gathered his wits at last. For now, there was only him and Kael—the deamhan who had tortured his bride.
“A Brigdhe,” he roared. And he struck at Kael with all the power he had.
Kael was hurled backward across the entire hall. He landed not far from Brigdhe. Ruari pursued. As Kael rose, he struck hard and deep into the deamhan’s inhuman heart.
Brigdhe screamed.