Chapter 50
Chapter fifty
RORY
Rory opened her eyes to find herself adrift in a sea of dead and dying men.
The battle, she remembered dully. The roar of the Lia Fáil, and that awful, unbearable pain. The uncontrollable surge of dark, bottomless power –
And then – nothing. It was the last thing she could remember, screaming and screaming atop the hill before the broken remnants of the pillar of the gods, and then it had been gone, and she had been wandering through the meadows of the vale with Niall.
How she had gotten here, in the midst of this plain under the midday sun, surrounded by goatish, sharp-taloned shadow-creatures skreiching shrilly on the air as they swooped around her, by gray-shadowed warriors cutting through flesh and bone with their phantom swords, by monsters formed from fog and smoke savaging the ruined bodies of so, so many men.
She had no idea.
But she knew, in that bone-deep, undeniable way of knowing of hers, that she could stop it, this unnatural carnage.
She reached out, searching for that roaring, whitewater current of power, and ran a soothing finger along its spine, a silent command to grow calm and be still.
It fought against her, spitting and yowling, but she held firm, letting all that lingering warmth from her dream-meadow pour over it, cocooning that snarling, feral entity with its embrace.
Dimly, she was aware of the skreiching of the bocánach growing fainter, the thick black swirls of smoke-monsters diminishing into a feeble gray as they shrank into formless pools of shadow on the ground, the bodies of the Fianna growing pale and translucent as their swords and their spears passed harmlessly through their prey.
Still she soothed, reining it back into the secret chambers of her heart, twisted spools of shadowy thread which she weaved and spun into tight, unbreakable knots before tucking them away, one by one, back where they belonged.
Like Meiche, she thought as the final specter of the Fianna vanished into the nothingness of the bright summer air, as the last of the bocánach disappeared back into the distant clouds, as the fog and the mist sank back into the earth, no sign of the nightmarish monsters it had spawned.
It slumbered in her heart, just as the destroyer slept, monstrous and still, in the heart of her brother’s child, waiting to be awakened, unleashed upon the world.
She turned in a slow circle, surveying the carnage and the corpses lying strewn about at her feet, and knew that could never be allowed to happen.
If she, with her single drop of the Mórrígan’s power, had been capable of such horrors, what could the Phantom Queen’s own heir inflict upon her people, her realm?
Her gaze rested upon the mutilated remnants of what was once a man, the faceless skull, the barrel chest split in two, and a whisper of that old familiar knowing nuzzled at her ear.
Ironstring.
She had killed him – scalped him, eviscerated him, by the looks of it.
You could at least allow me to have the remembering of that moment, she said to the knowings inside her, and felt a feeble growl in response.
Rory ignored it. It was not meant for this world, that terrible, all-consuming power. She didn’t need it any longer, anyway. éire was safe, as was Finn, and Locke, and as for Niall – Niall was, at long last, avenged.
Even as the word echoed in her mind, the back of her neck prickled, a lingering remnant of that unearthly awareness, of knowing something which she otherwise should not, and at the same moment, a massive, shaggy head brushed underneath the tips of her fingers, a low growl rumbling through his body.
She followed the direction of Failinis’ gaze, across the plain in the afternoon shadow of Cnoc na Teamhrach, to where a cluster of men lay on the ground – dead?
wounded? – and there in their midst, a golden-haired figure sheathed in white, knife in hand.
Rory was screaming before she could think better of it, running across the blood-stained battlefield, the hell-hound of the Fianna loping at her side, gargantuan head thrown back in a furious howl that echoed across the battlefield.
“Kill her,” Rory gasped, breathless with exertion, with terror. “Failinis – kill her now.”
An all but imperceptible shiver ran down the hound’s mighty spine, and from the corner of her eye, Rory watched the hound split into three – a blue-and-black storm of wild, running legs and whip-thin tails and snarling teeth.
Hope surged in her chest as she ran, watching the dark blur of those three deadly forms converge upon the white-robed cailleach.
Invincible in battle, she remembered suddenly, breath shuddering in and out of her aching lungs, the distant memory of Niall’s lazy voice reading aloud – the hound of Lugh is said to have been invincible in battle – this was it, the key to her victory, Aoife would never be able to defeat him –
As one, they lunged, the triple hounds, fangs flashing, snarls reverberating across the ground, terrifyingly beautiful in their rage –
The Bright One spoke, low and harsh, and something rippled through the air, an unseen knife, and Rory gasped as a flash of doom seared into her mind – the hound lying limp and bloodied on the ground – and a soft moan escaped her quivering lips.
What had she done, what doom, what death had she commanded him to face for her sake –
The shimmer of air struck the center hound deep in his broad, shaggy chest, mid-leap, his fangs a breath away from burying themselves into the cailleach’s throat, and with a keening cry, as one they fell to the earth, foaming at the mouths as they shriveled and dwindled into one shuddering, black-and-blue furred body on the ground, whimpering faintly –
Aoife’s sea-swept gaze lifted to meet Rory’s horrified one, glinting with cruel amusement.
“A pheata,” she crooned as Rory froze, chest heaving, a stone’s throw away from where the witch stood, a hand atop Locke’s bronze head as he slumped beside her on his knees, his hazel eyes glazed with pain, a jagged knife glimmering at his exposed throat.
“You should have stayed lost to the light – perhaps then you might have prevailed.”
She couldn’t bring herself to move, the terror coursing through her was so bright, so brutal. “Where is he?” She spoke only to him, even though her gaze never left the witch.
“If you mean that bastard-born brother of yours,” Aoife said, red lips curling in barely-restrained fury.
“The little lord here was unwise enough to throw himself between my knife and the boy –” Rory’s gaze dipped to see a crimson-colored stain slowly spreading through his doublet.
His heart, Rory thought with a lurch. It hovered right above his heart, the wound.
“He escaped,” Aoife continued, “thanks to your husband – a noble effort, but useless, it would seem, for here you are, ready and willing to die in the boy’s place.
” She snapped with her free hand, and Rory’s eyes darted behind her, to where a thin, freckled face stumbled forward – the boy, she realized with a horrified pang, her brother’s son – mouth gagged and hands bound, a sacrificial lamb ready to be transformed into an all-devouring lion.
“You will fight me,” the cailleach said, her serene tone belied by the blazing violence in her eyes, “and you will die, and all shall watch as this child that I have born devours your heart, so that the creature which slumbers inside him shall wake, and in turn, destroy your world.”
Rory refused to flinch as terrified cries broke out all around from the rest of the soldiers who crouched low on the ground, whether from fear or from some curse the cailleach had cast upon them, she couldn’t tell.
“Perhaps I won’t fight you,” she said. “Perhaps I shall flee, as my brother has fled, and any chance you might have had at completing this awakening, will be lost forever.”
“You’ll fight,” Aoife said, “or you will watch the little lord die in front of your very eyes,” and the tip of her blade dug into Locke’s neck, a tiny drop of blood trickling down his throat in response.
“And why should I care for his life? Go and kill him,” she said, ignoring the unreadable flicker that passed through Locke’s shuttered eyes. “The moment you do, I’ll kill the boy, and it will all be for naught.”
“Liar.” Aoife smiled. “We both know that you are too weak for that, a pheata – both in the will and the way in which to do so, are you not? I remember it well, that particular brand of power, the kind that makes mountains quake far down into their very roots. And I felt it fade away when you chose to smother it, to spare those men who would have killed you and yours without a second’s hesitation.
” She lifted a finger in the air. “You forget. I have lived in this land for a thousand years, have walked and fought among the gods themselves who once wielded that same spark of power which resides in you, but to much greater effect. I know what it looks like, when it is lost. You have leashed it far too effectively, and you are helpless – utterly bereft of power, without weapons, you little fool.”
“Actually,” said Locke, through cracked and bleeding lips. “She is herself the only weapon which she will ever need,” then bit down, hard and savage, into the cailleach’s wrist.
She shrieked, more in surprise than in pain, but it was all the distraction that she needed, because before Aoife could turn her gaze back in her direction, Rory unsheathed her brother’s silver sword from her back in an impossibly swift motion, and with one, two steps forward, buried the blade deep between the cailleach’s sea-swept eyes.
Those red lips parted, a silent scream, and Rory’s ice-white hands turned hot and slick with dark black blood, exactly as she had seen, in that brief flash of knowing.