Authors: P.C. Cast
I tried to move forward while keeping part of my attention focused on what was happening behind us. The mares were still panicked, and they milled around haphazardly. More Fomorians were coming after us, but now I could plainly see the line of centaur warriors. They were still battling the Fomorian army, and attempting to pursue single creatures as they broke through. But they couldn’t catch them all. And the dark winged shapes were gaining on us.
“Where is the damn river?” I yelled to Alanna.
“We are not yet halfway there.” Her face was white.
“Huntresses, fall out and arm your bows!” Victoria’s calm voice ordered, and five magnificent Huntresses stepped fluidly out of the phalanx, notching their crossbows as they moved. “Sight and fire at will.” The ping of loosed arrows, and the shrieks of wounded Fomorians followed her words.
“Warriors, shields up!” The ring of men and centaurs around us responded instantly, temporarily blocking our view of the converging creatures.
The first creatures reached the phalanx, and our ranks responded with a violence that rippled through our group. Through breaks in the shielding men, I was able to catch glimpses of single creatures as they struck at our warriors. When a Fomorian fell, another stepped over him and assumed his place.
We kept moving forward.
I saw the familiar figure of Victoria firing off arrows quickly, each finding its deadly mark. Between loading and shooting, her attention suddenly wavered, and she met my gaze.
“Get them to the river or we will be overrun!” she shouted at me. Her face was set in stone and she was already spattered with gore. She was a silver goddess of death.
My attention was wrenched from her as a creature clawed his way through the men in front of us. Carolan pushed me aside and met it with a borrowed claymore. It seemed as if it happened in slow motion. Carolan parried the creature’s razorlike talons, and the thing grabbed the Healer’s sword arm. Ramming himself forward into the creature, Carolan shoved it off balance, and with a sweeping motion brought his sword up, then back and down, slicing through the Fomorian’s exposed neck.
Alanna covered her face with her hands, sobbing, and Tarah and Kristianna clung to each of my hands. I couldn’t take my eyes from the decapitated creature. Neither could Carolan. We stood there, paralyzed in the center of a world of chaos.
Look, Beloved. Understand what you are seeing
whispered through my mind, and I blinked in shock.
“There are sores on its body!” My excited exclamation made Alanna uncover her face.
“That is it!” Carolan yelled. “That is why it was so much weaker than I expected. They have the pox.”
And then the suspended moment in time came to an end, and our group was stumbling forward again. More and more dark shapes joined fallen comrades as the warriors struggled to keep their women safe. I could see that the Fomorians were easier to kill—that the disease had obviously weakened them. But there were still simply too many of them.
With a detached sense of calm, I realized that we would not make it to the river, that we were actually still closer to the temple than to the water. Logic said we should return to the safety of Epona’s walls. But we couldn’t, at least not without more help.
Then you shall have more help.
The Goddess’s words sounded clearly inside my head.
Through the confused haze of battle, I caught a flash of silver. Not the silver of Vic’s sleek hair, or the pale, dead silver of the Fomorians, but the otherworldly silver of an ethereal mare.
“Epi!” I cried as I saw her circling around our phalanx as she tried to catch a glimpse of me.
Call her, Beloved.
Without conscious thought, I obeyed by lifting my fingers to my lips and splitting the air with a sharp Okie whistle.
Epi’s head jerked up in response and she galloped purposefully toward me.
I started shoving my way to her, yelling, “Let her through!” to the warriors in front of me. The phalanx parted and my mare slid to a stop in front of me, blowing hard.
Mount her, Beloved, and see how the Chosen of a Goddess triumphs.
I looked around hastily and found—not to my surprise—Alanna running to join me.
“Alanna! Help me to get up on Epi.” I turned and grabbed a fistful of shining mane.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she took my bent knee in her hands and boosted me up.
“Getting help,” I replied, finding my seat easily. “I want you to get the women and children back inside the temple grounds.”
She started to interrupt and I stopped her.
“No. Trust me—and trust my Goddess. Lead them home.”
She closed her mouth and nodded solemnly. “I trust you. Both of you.” Then she began calling the women and children to her, shouting that Epona wanted us to return to the temple. Soon she had the attention of the warriors. From the corner of my vision, I saw Alanna run to Victoria, grabbing her arm and earnestly motioning back toward the temple walls. I met Victoria’s gaze long enough to nod my agreement, then the Huntress’s voice joined Alanna’s and the phalanx began shifting direction.
I pulled my attention from Alanna and what was happening around me. Instead, I listened to my heart, or maybe, more accurately, my soul.
Look, Beloved.
My eyes scanned the horizon, squinting over the heads of bloody creatures and warriors, turning Epi in a tight circle. As the western horizon came into view, my eyes widened and my breath caught.
Woulff and McNamara come.
The human warriors! A thick line of them stretched across the western edge of the temple grounds. Still far away, the sun bounced off their shields, glinting with a teasing distant beauty. But even as my heart raced with joy, I understood that they were too far away, that they would not make it to us in time. Our group would be overrun. We were trapped between the solid safety of the temple and the liquid safety of the river.
Call them, Beloved. Only you can.
And I knew why I was there. As unbelievable and miraculous as it seemed, I was in that world at the behest of a Goddess, chosen to take the place of a selfish, spoiled woman. Ten years of leading young people had readied me for this job—the people who surrounded me belonged to me. And I to them.
And I needed no further prompting from my Goddess.
Quickly, I drew the drab robe over my head, pulling the tie from my hair with it. Burying my fingers in my wild curls, I shook them until they were electrified, framing my face like a lion’s mane.
Looking around me, I noticed a young farm boy who bravely clutched a claymore.
“Boy!” His eyes were large and round as he looked at me. “Give me your sword.”
Without hesitation he rushed to me, offering the handle of the long sword. It felt heavy and solid in my hand, and with a surprising rush of pleasure I lifted it over my head, squeezed Epi’s sides with my knees and leaned forward over her slick neck. The men around us parted in surprise as the mare sprang forward. As we broke free of the battling group I felt a sliver of hot morning sunlight touch first the shaft of the sword, and then my body, sending an electrified field of energy through me. I glanced down to see the molten fabric of my dress sparkling in the sunlight as if it had been cut from a jewel and faceted by angels for a fairy queen. I glowed with the same magic that had placed the stars in my footprints.
The ground in front of me came to a soft rise, and Epi galloped atop the small hill. Facing the distant line of human warriors, with my back to the battle, I pulled the mare to a halt. With the sword still held high above me, I pulled back hard on Epi’s mane, gripping her sides with my thighs. The mare obeyed my thoughts and reared gracefully up, trumpeting a challenge across the field.
“TO ME!”
I yelled, and my voice swelled with the same Goddess-enhanced quality it had had when I called ClanFintan from the edge of the marsh.
“WOULFF AND McNAMARA, COME TO ME!”
I pulled on Epi again, and she responded with another amazing trumpet as she reared in the air.
Even from there, I heard the voices of the distant warriors rise as one.
“Epona! To Epona!”
Their line sprinted forward with redoubled speed. I swung my sword in a glittering arch as Epi pranced from side to side.
“TO ME, WOULFF!”
The passion in my voice vibrated across the field.
Woulff’s warriors growled their battle cry in reply as their line rushed forward.
“TO ME, McNAMARA!”
I could feel my hair crackling in the air around me as the cry shot from my lips.
McNamara’s battle cry joined Woulff’s, and they narrowed the distance between us in a charge that would have made the Duke proud.
Then the warriors behind me took up the cry, and I felt the renewed strength of their drive to the temple. Glancing over my shoulder, I was just in time to see a snarling Fomorian descending upon me.
“Epi!” I screamed. The mare spun around, lashing out and catching the sensitive edge of the creature’s right wing in her teeth. She jerked her head back, ripping the membrane from the thing’s back. The creature shrieked in agony, and was off balance long enough for me to swing the heavy sword down with both hands, slicing him from the top of his shoulder to midway down his chest. Then the weight of its body tore the sword from my hands as the creature fell to the ground.
Almost instantly another creature scrambled atop his fallen companion’s body. All I could do was hold on as Epi’s teeth and hooves flashed in the morning light.
It seemed the mare battled on that small hill for time unending, but my mind knew logically that only minutes had passed before dark, winged shapes completely surrounded us.
“Leave them to me!” a familiar voice hissed. The creatures parted, allowing the blood-drenched figure of Nuada to cautiously approach our hill. “Female,” he sneered, “how
kind
of you to set yourself apart from the others and to wait so patiently for me.”
Epi stirred restlessly under me. As Nuada glided closer, she squealed a warning at him.
“It seems your friend is not as eager to see me.” He laughed horribly.
“Rhea!” my husband’s voice roared, and I looked up to see him in a flat run toward our hill.
Nuada saw him, too.
“Kill the mare,” he ordered as he turned to meet ClanFintan’s charge. “Quickly.”
The circle of creatures around us hissed in pleasure and began to tighten, like a closing noose. Eyes flashing, Epi spun around, keeping the creatures wary of her hooves and teeth. But our hill had become slick with blood, and I felt a sickening lurch as Epi missed her footing and fell suddenly to her knees. The movement was unexpected, and I could not stop my body’s momentum from the spin. I flew over the mare’s neck, landing hard on the wet ground. A bolt of white pain blinded me as my head snapped against the cold hilt of a sword. Blackness as suffocating as an avalanche washed over me.
There was no pleasurable DreamLand interlude. Unconsciousness was complete and overwhelming as my conscious mind retreated deep within me, where only the voice of a Goddess could awaken it.
Come, Beloved, you cannot rest yet. He needs you.
My soul responded to the insistent call and I felt my spirit body lift with a sickening wave of vertigo from my crumpled body. At first I was unable to focus clearly. The battle below me was just a mass of unrecognizable red-tinged characters.
Concentrate,
the Goddess whispered. I breathed slowly and tried to blink away the blurring of my vision. And abruptly the scene beneath me swam into focus.
Several members of my personal guard had joined Epi, and they were successfully battling the group of Fomorians. Relieved, my attention shifted to a scene being played out several yards away from any of the other warriors or creatures. ClanFintan and Nuada were circling each other warily. My spirit body floated over to where they fought. Both males were covered in blood and sweat. New blood was pouring from the arrow wound on the side of Nuada’s head, and several angry-looking slashes made his wings look frayed and raw. I floated closer and noticed that what I assumed at first to be blood was really a scarlet rash that covered his torso. But as he lashed out at ClanFintan, and his deadly talons raked across the centaur’s left shoulder, I realized that the disease had not yet affected his strength.
ClanFintan had lost his claymore, and he was fighting off Nuada’s increasingly wild advances with only a dagger and his hooves.
“Get out of my way, mutant horse, I wish to claim the body of your bride,” Nuada hissed.
“Never.” Instead of angering him, Nuada’s words seemed to have a strangely calming effect on ClanFintan. He fought on methodically, not giving ground but also not finding any new openings in the creature’s defenses.
“You know, horse man, she will welcome me.” Nuada’s voice lashed out with his claws. Neither found their mark.
“Never,” ClanFintan’s deep voice repeated.
“
If
she still lives,” Nuada continued.
The new words did have an effect on the centaur. He lunged forward suddenly, and Nuada leaped to meet him. The two males locked together, Nuada’s razor-edged teeth inches from ClanFintan’s neck, while the centaur’s dagger hovered just above the Fomorian’s prominent jugular vein.
My body sank lower until it was floating just above and to the side of my husband. I wasn’t going to watch another man I loved be killed by those things.
In the middle of my thought I felt the tremor that passed through my body as it became semivisible. I mentally crossed my fingers that I was doing the right thing.
“Hey, Nuada. Am I what you’re looking for, big boy?”
I called seductively to the Fomorian.
At the sound of my voice Nuada’s head snapped up, his concentration wavering from ClanFintan for an instant. I watched as my husband’s hand broke from the creature’s grasp and the dagger sliced neatly through the pulsing vein on the side of Nuada’s neck. I could clearly see the look of disbelief pass over Nuada’s twisted features as he slipped on his own blood and fell to the ground. ClanFintan reared up, his wet hooves glistening above the creature’s body.