Chapter 8 #2
They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. Reaper rolled to his feet, his knife already in his hand. Cian’s blades materialized from the shadows, as side by side they readied for war.
But Dian Cecht’s voice bellowed, “You cannot escape me, boy.”
Reaper’s lips peeled back in a snarl that made even Failinis proud. “Watch us.”
He snarls like me!
The torchlight flickered against the timber walls as he and Reaper moved shoulder to shoulder down the narrow corridor.
His blades were heavy in his hands, the weight familiar, but his body still hummed with the aftershock from both the magical restraints and the buzzing, thrilling bonding vow. “The passage splits in two up ahead.”
Reaper gestured for him to stop, and when they paused, he cocked his head to one side. “Someone is coming.”
Six warriors rounded the corner. Cian recognized them as his brother Cú’s men, the most loyal men to Burncourt in his father’s army…Or so he’d thought.
“Fighting in here is gonna suck.”
“Can you use a sword?”
“I’m better with an M4 or even an M16,” Reaper grumbled, “but your brother didn’t give me time to grab it.”
What’s an M4 or an M16?
He had the same question as his wolf brother, but as the first man lunged toward them, he didn’t have time to ask it.
Maybe it’s the firesticks.
Cian sidestepped the blow coming his way and blocked the spear with his sword, shattering it, and the impact vibrated up his arm. He twisted, driving his elbow into the man’s ribs, then kicked him back into his comrades. They stumbled, blinked at him, then their eyes flicked between him and Reaper.
“Move.” Reaper demanded, “He is mine, and I am his. Whoever the fuck you are, you have no rights to him.”
“He is your Grá Croí?” One of the warriors asked Cian.
“He is.”
Will they follow our laws or my father’s demands?
“You don’t want this fight,” he growled. “The fates demand no one may interfere with the bond of the Grá Croí. If you are afraid of my wolf, you do not want me to allow my mate loose on you.”
The first warrior’s jaw tightened, and he glanced at the others, but before he could answer, a deep and guttural snarl tore through the corridor. The warriors parted as a massive figure shoved through their ranks.
Bresal.
“Whoa, he’s a big ’un.”
“My father’s champion.”
A brute of a man, Bresal’s arms were corded with muscle, and his body a map of old scars.
By the time he came within fighting distance, his axe was already swinging.
Cian barely got his blades up in time. The impact nearly drove him to his knees, his bones jarred by the force.
Bresal smirked. “Little pup still thinks he’s a warrior. ”
Reaper buried his knife into Bresal’s shoulder. The champion roared and spun around with his axe, slashing toward Reaper’s ribs.
Cian lunged, his blade slicing across Bresal’s thigh. The man staggered, but his backhand caught Cian across the temple. Stars exploded in his vision, and he hit the wall, his breath knocked out of him.
Quick to take advantage of any weakness, Bresal loomed over him with his axe raised for the killing blow—
Reaper’s hands clamped onto the man’s head, and he twisted. A sickening crack echoed through the corridor, and Bresal’s body crumpled, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.
“You okay?” Reaper stood over the corpse. “How bad did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
“We’re gonna be talking about your definition of fine.” He helped him to his feet, and once he was sure he was steady, he stepped back.
“Thanks.”
Reaper winked at him, then threw his head back and howled a sound that wasn’t human. It shook the whole of Rath Burncourt. The remaining warriors stumbled away from them, their faces pale. One dropped his spear, and another turned and ran.
Cian blinked at his Grá Croí.
What in the name of the gods—?
A furious voice cut through the aftermath. “What are you?” Dian Cecht stood at the far end of the hallway, his staff crackling with dark energy. His eyes were fixed on Reaper, wide with something Cian had never seen before—fear.
Reaper’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. “Your worst fucking nightmare.”
The rath trembled as the first arrows struck the walls, their iron tips screaming like banshees.
Cian grabbed Reaper’s arm and yanked him toward the side passage.
“The servants use this passage to haul firewood into the hall.” The stench of charred meat and herbs hit them as they burst into the kitchens.
A cook shrieked, knocking over a pot of stew when they bumped into her.
The liquid hissed across the flames, sending up a cloud of greasy smoke.
Outside, the battle had begun in earnest. The Fianna’s war cries cut through the night, and were answered by the clamor of Tuatha Dé Danann steel.
Arrows rained down, thudding into the thatch above them, some finding flesh with wet, meaty sounds.
Cian’s heart ripped a little for the people he’d grown up with.
The villagers he’d played with as a boy were now his enemies.
He stumbled around a trestle table, sending loaves of bread crashing to the floor, then vaulted over the wreckage toward the postern door that was hidden behind stacks of firewood in the kitchen garden.
“I wish to fuck I had my weapons.” Reaper stayed at his side. “They’re gonna pin us down.”
“Not if we move.” The hinges groaned as Cian shouldered the door open.
Beyond it, the outer village sprawled in front of them.
“He didn’t even bring them inside.” Rage at his father’s lack of caring for his people blasted through him.
He needed to stop this before everything he had descended from was destroyed. These people had done nothing wrong.
Dian Cecht’s voice sliced through the chaos, amplified by magic, ringing in Cian’s skull like a blade dragged across bone. “You cannot outrun me, boy!”
Cian ignored him and grabbed Reaper’s wrist, pulling him into the cover of a grain vat whose thatched roof sagged with age.
The arrows fell thicker around them, some embedding in the dirt at their feet, others finding home in the walls.
A warrior stumbled past, an arrow jutting from his throat, his hands clawing at the shaft.
He was dead before he could figure out how to scream.
“Where to?” Reaper’s eyes were constantly moving. “We’re sitting ducks here.”
“Then we don’t sit.” Cian scanned the village. The western path was closest, but the Tuatha Dé Danann had already fortified it, their golden shields locked in a wall. The eastern path was clearer, although it came with open ground, it was also less defended.
Riskier.
But faster.
Dian Cecht’s voice again, closer this time, the words dripping with dark amusement. “What are you?”
Reaper’s free hand pressed against the Grá Croí mark on his arm, and the bond between them flared under Cian’s skin.
Cian exhaled. “Now.”
Reaper raced out from cover, his body low, his steps silent despite his size. Cian followed, his blades ready. They wove between huts, ducking under washing lines, skirting the edge of the forge. The air smelled of blood and burning thatch. Somewhere, a woman screamed, and a child wailed.
The Fianna are inside the walls.
A spear hurtled from the darkness. Reaper twisted, the tip grazing his shoulder. He didn’t slow. His knife flashed, and the warrior who’d thrown it gagged, clutching his slit throat.
Cian’s teeth gritted. “Left. Now.” He grabbed Reaper’s arm and hauled him through the wards that surrounded the village into the trees beyond.
The magic of the Tuatha Dé Danann’s wards hit them like a wall of resistance.
Cian gritted his teeth and pushed, pouring every ounce of his will into the bond between them.
The magic of his past burned through him, but the wards shattered, and they broke through.
Ahead of them, the Fianna’s campfires glowed through the trees in the distance. Behind them, Burncourt burned under the wrath of Fionn and his warriors.
Reaper nudged Cian’s shoulder, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Move. Move. Move.” They ran through the night and burst into the Fianna war camp at a dead run.
Cian narrowly avoided having his head chopped off by the guard. “It’s me, you amadán. Send a runner to Fionn,” he ordered. “Tell him my Grá Croí and I are free.”
Free!