Chapter 10 #2
Scáthach stood and continued following the berserker’s path. She forced down her anger. She refused to allow herself to think of Aife. There would be time enough for anger and vengeance later. First, she had to deal with the berserker.
She found him standing over the body of the last warrior.
His back was to her; it was covered in gore.
He was breathing hard. His body shook as he snarled and growled and hacked with his sword over and over again at the dead warrior at his feet.
She could see the head of the spear protruding from the back of his thigh.
Scáthach didn’t have to get any closer to him to know that it was a nasty wound.
The spear needed to come out. The wound had to then be quickly cleaned and cauterized before he bled to death.
She pitched her voice so that it was soft, calm, soothing, and just loud enough to be heard over the wind. “Sentanta.”
With a bestial snarl, he whirled around, roaring in response to the pain the movement caused him. Within his purple, misshapen face, red eyes bulged as he lifted his sword and staggered one step toward her and then another.
Scáthach dropped her sword and raised her hands before her, palms out. In the same soothing voice she said, “Sentanta, you are my friend. I will not fight you. If you attack me, I will not defend myself. You will injure me—very likely kill me.”
He stopped. He tilted his grotesque head to the side, as if to more fully catch the sound of her voice.
Scáthach continued. “They are all dead. You defeated them. You protected me—protected Leannan.” She smiled before adding, “And protected the mead. Come, now. Breathe with me. Be calm. You fought well today. Glory will be added to your name and to your father’s name when the story is told and retold.
You may now rest.” She drew in an exaggerated breath and, after a hesitation, he did the same.
Together they exhaled to a count of four and inhaled slowly again.
The scarlet and purple that mottled the berserker’s skin began to fade. His eyes stopped bulging, and their color shifted from red to amber. He dropped his sword, swayed, and stumbled. Scáthach rushed to him, catching him as he lost consciousness.
She was grateful he was unconscious when she knelt beside him, ducked her head, and pulled his limp body across the back of her shoulders.
Using her powerful leg muscles, Scáthach stood, holding him in place by his left arm and behind his uninjured left knee.
She started back to the grove, moving as quickly as possible.
The warmth of the blood that oozed from his wound soaked the side of her body.
Halfway to the grove the night sky became liquid, raining darkness down on them. Scáthach ducked her head against the onslaught and trudged on, grateful that if she had to endure a downpour, it was at least washing the two of them of the blood and gore of battle.
Cuchulainn stirred. His body stiffened and before he could struggle, Scáthach raised her voice to carry over the wind and rain. “It’s me. I’ve got you. I’m taking you back to the cart.”
He stilled. “If you help me, I can walk.”
Scáthach didn’t argue with him. He was an experienced warrior and should know his strengths and his limits.
She bent at the waist. When his feet touched the ground, she straightened at his right side and put one steadying arm around his waist. “Put your arm around my neck. I’ll be your crutch until we get to the wagon. ”
He grunted and did so.
Before she continued forward with him, Cuchulainn asked, “The berserker. He didn’t hurt you, did he?” His pain-filled gaze traveled the length of her soaked body.
“No, most of this blood is yours, not mine.” She hesitated. “We’re about halfway to the wagon. It will be very painful for you to walk there, even with my help. Will the berserker return?”
Wearily Cuchulainn tilted back his head and held out his arms. Scáthach stepped away from him and shook out her own hair, lifting her face to the sky as the rain washed the remnants of death from them.
Cuchulainn wrung out his hair and wiped a hand across his face before he answered her. “The berserker doesn’t come because I’m in pain. I must be angry as well. Very angry. And it helps if I’m also in mortal danger.”
Thinking what a cruel gift the berserker was, Scáthach moved close to his right side and slid her arm around his waist again. “Ready?”
He nodded and limped forward, leaning heavily on her.
They would have staggered right past the grove had Leannan not caught their scent and barked.
Cuchulainn stood shivering in the rain, balancing on his good leg as Scáthach backed the wagon from the grove, the shadows sliding from the horses as they emerged.
“We’ll leave a couple barrels here in the grove so you can ride in the back of the wagon,” Scáthach told him as she untied the ropes keeping the barrels in place and rolled the rear two through the brambles and into the heart of the grove.
Then she got in the wagon and pulled him up into it.
He couldn’t stifle his groans of pain. By the time she had him settled, she couldn’t tell which coated her body, sweat or rain.
“I know this area well,” she told him as she covered him with the wool blanket.
“There’s a shepherds’ shelter not far from here that the Shadow Guard keeps well stocked year-round. I’ll get us there.”
She jogged to the front of the wagon, climbed in, and turned the horses toward the sea.
They couldn’t move quickly; the rain was too lashing and the sky too dark.
Scáthach ducked her head against the downpour and used her connection with shadow to guide her.
She turned back to the south when they found the road, retracing their trail until the shadows allowed her to sense the side path, really not much more than a sheep’s trail, that split from the road and headed up the inland hills.
It seemed to take hours, but the shepherds’ shelter was there, tucked into the hillside just off the path, darkness against a backdrop of night.
There was a rough lean-to beside the one-room roundhouse.
She drove the horses into it. She felt around by her feet for the waterskin of mead forgotten there, then she and Leannan got out of the cart.
The dog whined and followed them as Scáthach helped Cuchulainn into the house.
It was completely dark inside, but she’d used this shelter many times when she’d hunted with Uathach.
By touch she found the tinderbox tucked into a pile of wood and kindling heaped beside the hearth.
It was filled with fire-starting materials as well as several candles.
She quickly had a fire blazing and the candles lit.
Cuchulainn slid down one wall and watched her through pain-filled eyes as he shivered. Leannan settled herself beside him.
“I’m going to unharness the horses and get supplies from the cart, then I’ll be back to take care of your wound.” She handed him the skin of mead. “Drink as much of this as you can. What I need to do is going to hurt.”
She went to the worn wooden chest that had been placed near the hearth.
It was long and wide enough to be used as a table, or a pallet could be made atop it for sleeping.
Inside were several wooden buckets, a crude but sharp stone knife, some rope, a bag of feed for the horses, and several woolen blankets folded neatly and smelling of the lavender tucked around them.
On the way out, she grabbed three buckets, leaving them in the rain so they would fill, and carried the grain to the lean-to.
Scáthach unharnessed, hobbled, and fed the horses before she searched through the back of the wagon.
She found the basket Cuchulainn had filled with their midday meal, glad to discover an entire loaf of semi-soggy bread and half a wheel of hard sheep’s cheese.
Back inside the little shelter, the fire crackled and popped cheerfully while Cuchulainn drank deeply of the mead. Even though she covered him with one of the woolen blankets, his body shook with chills.
She knelt beside him as he upended the waterskin.
She held out her hand for the skin. “I’ll refill it and be right back.
” Before she went out to the wagon, Scáthach used the stone knife to rip two strips of fabric from one of the clean blankets.
She took them and the knife with her, pried the top off one of the barrels and dunked the strips of blanket into the mead, letting them get completely soaked as she refilled the skin, then hurried back to the shelter. This time she didn’t hand him the skin.
“Do you want me to explain what I’m going to do before I do it?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No. Tell me what you’re doing as you do it. It’ll help keep my mind busy.”
“First I’ll expose the wound,” she said as she knelt beside him and sliced through his leather breeches.
Sometime between when he’d been struck by the spear and when she’d found him, the berserker had broken off the shaft, leaving only about a forearm’s length of it sticking out of the front of his thigh, and the spearhead protruding from the back of his leg.
She poured mead from the waterskin over what was left of the wooden shaft.
“Can you turn so I can wash the back of the wound, too?”
With a grunt, he shifted, exposing the exit wound and the spearhead that protruded from it. Before she poured mead over it, Scáthach bent and sniffed. The smell of shit mixed with blood was horrible. “Uathach saw true.”
Cuchulainn sucked in a breath as she washed the back of the wound and said, “Saw true?”
“She had her first vision just before we left the castle today,” Scáthach explained. “In it she saw me beheaded and a leg wound from a spearhead rolled in shit.”
“Ah, that’s why she didn’t want you to travel alone,” he said, breathing shakily.
Scáthach raised a brow. “You overheard?”
“Part of it.”