Chapter 26 #3
“Maybe. It feels like a defeat more than a retreat, though. It’s frustrating.” Cuchulainn wiped the sweat from his face. “He’s not that difficult to kill, but even dead we can’t get to his ribs. He reanimates too fast, and those scales are too thick to hack quickly through.”
She blew out a long breath. “And we haven’t been able to get him to roll even halfway onto his back so we can reach his underbelly.” She met Cuchulainn’s gaze. “Do you hear him in your mind?”
“Yes. Every time he’s dying. He keeps saying the same thing.”
“Give him what he most desires,” she repeated.
“But why doesn’t he tell us what he desires?” Cuchulainn shook his head. “I don’t understand. You think we have time to cut his head off? He’s so big we might be able to carve our way to his ribs.”
“Ugh,” she said. “That’s a disgusting thought, and no, I don’t think he’ll stay dead long enough. We’d be caught up there by his jaws. Remember how he almost got you the first time he reanimated and—”
Curruid roared. Wearily, Scáthach and Cuchulainn lifted their swords and shields.
Cuchulainn rolled his shoulders and said grimly, “I wish your Shadow Guard were here with those big torches they take on night rides. Maybe we could burn this damn monster.”
“Give me what I most desire! That is the only way to possess the Gáe Bulg!” The monster’s voice blasted through their minds as both warriors grimaced again.
Then understanding jolted Scáthach. She grabbed Cuchulainn’s tunic and pulled him back. “How did Curruid die?” she asked quickly as he turned to her.
Curruid roared again and slithered toward them from where he’d last been killed, half in and half out of the water.
“Another sea monster, Coinchenn, killed him,” said Cuchulainn.
“Did people witness it? Did they make a pyre for Curruid?”
“I’ve heard tales told for generations by sailors that a passing ship witnessed their battle, but nothing else.
I’m not sure how anyone would observe any type of funeral rite for a monster who died far out at sea.
Scáthach, he comes.” Cuchulainn jerked his chin at the monster stalking them down the beach.
“Good. This time we kill him on the beach. His whole body must be out of the water. When we strike the killing blow, run for our travel packs. You’re faster than me. I’ll need you to bring me all of the food and mead,” Scáthach told him.
His bright eyes met hers and he smiled. “So you’re admitting that I’m faster than you.”
She snorted a laugh. “Only out of the water. I’ll always beat you swimming. Just bring me the food and mead.”
“Why?”
Her smile mirrored his. “We’re going to give funeral rites to a sea monster.”
Thus began a deadly chase. Exhausted, Scáthach and Cuchulainn moved in time once again, striking only to retreat, backing from the water across the black sand.
It seemed to take days before the huge monster had followed them far enough across the beach for all of it, even its long, flat tail, to be clear of the water.
“Now!” Scáthach said. “Take the next killing blow!” She raced to the monster’s side, dragging her sword along it.
She knew she couldn’t slice through Curruid’s scales; she also knew he would lift and turn his head as he snapped at her.
As he did, Cuchulainn rushed forward and again thrust his sword into the beast’s neck in a killing blow.
“Hurry!” Scáthach urged as she used her sword to hastily draw a circle in the black sand around the body of Curruid. She’d just finished as Cuchulainn raced back to her, carrying the travel pack that held the supplies the Underworld had been magickally replenishing daily.
Cuchulainn was breathing hard. He dropped the pack in the sand beside her with a sigh. “It’s much heavier than it usually is.”
“That means I’m right! I understand what Curruid wants most!
” Scáthach opened the pack and the skin holding the mead rolled out.
Its sides were bloated to bursting with how full it was.
She dumped out the rest of the contents, which had drastically changed from the provisions of smoked pork, cheese, and bread for two.
Instead an impossible number of succulent cuts of raw beefsteaks tumbled out with hunks of fragrant, sticky honeycomb.
“Take the meat and honeycomb,” she told Cuchulainn.
“Place it all around his body. I’ll pour the mead over it. Hurry! He’s going to reanimate soon.”
Cuchulainn grabbed bloody hunks of meat and sticky honeycomb and began dropping them around the body. Scáthach jogged along the line she’d drawn in the sand, pouring a generous amount of mead from the magickally bottomless skin.
They’d just finished when Curruid’s body began to twitch.
Scáthach spread her arms wide and lifted her voice so that it carried on the gelid wind, filling the Winterlands with the sweetness and music she shared with her divine mother.
“Curruid is dead. I, Scáthach, Queen of Shadow, daughter of your goddess, willingly give him the proper rites of funeral. He has succulent beef, sweet honey, and rich mead. And if you aid me, Curruid will also have cleansing fire.”
Whoosh!
The circle Scáthach had drawn around Curruid burst into flame so bright and high that she and Cuchulainn had to move quickly back.
As the fire immolated the sea monster’s body, it howled like it was a living thing.
Thick smoke the color of old blood poured from Curruid’s body as the wall of flames consumed him.
Then there was a great rushing sound, like a sighing giant, and from the monster’s body lifted a glistening form.
It hovered in the rising smoke and turned its head toward Scáthach.
“Curruid?” Scáthach spoke his name softly.
The creature’s eyes opened. They were no longer red, but luminous.
They glittered like faceted jewels. Across her body, Scáthach felt the unmistakable tingle that told her the veil to the Summerlands was near.
Her heartbeat quickened. She took a step toward the spirit of the sea monster.
Like a snuffed candle, the fire was extinguished.
Scáthach moved closer, her gaze completely focused on the glistening spirit that still hovered above the beach.
She felt Cuchulainn beside her. He took her hand in his. “You know what to do.”
“But it’s impossible,” Scáthach said without looking away from the spirit.
“I’ve come to believe that where you’re concerned, nothing is impossible.” Cuchulainn squeezed her hand, released it, and stepped back.
Scáthach’s honeyed voice rang throughout the frigid realm as she asked, “Are you sorry for anything?”
Curruid blinked several times and then bowed his massive head.
Within Scáthach’s mind his voice said, “Yes. I was the last of my kind. I allowed loneliness to become rage, and rage to control me. I thought if I caused pain to others I would feel less of my own. It was a wrong way of thinking. I was wrong. For the terrible things I did, I am truly sorry.”
Joy shivered through Scáthach’s body with such intensity that she had to close her eyes against it. She’d found it—one spirit in the Winterlands who had earned redemption.
“Then rest in peace, mighty Curruid. And may you never suffer loneliness again.” The air before the spirit shimmered.
Scáthach pinched the veil between her forefinger and thumb and pulled it aside to reveal a very different body of water—one that was summer-sky blue.
From beneath its sparkling depths a shape took form.
A sea creature, the twin of Curruid, breached with a happy cry.
“Go on,” Scáthach told Curruid. “When the Summerlands beckon, we do not keep her waiting.”
Curruid’s spirit circled Scáthach thrice before it rushed through the opened veil. As it dove into the cerulean sea, it reanimated, greeting its mate with a joyful roar. And then the veil disappeared.
Scáthach blinked tears from her vision in time to see an ivory spear protruding from the center of the blackened outline of Curruid’s body.