Healer (29 page)

Reaching down, Rhianon slashed the neck of one of the men, a warrior trying to fly in his madness. His lifeblood spraying her skirts, he collapsed in death’s throe.

To think Brenna had been glad to have this woman as a sister. “If there is a witch among us, it is not I,” she declared.
“You
abuse God’s gifts, nature’s properties, for dark and devious ends, Rhianon. But this will return to you. As you sow, so shall you reap.”

“Is that a
vision
, milady?” Rhianon jeered.

Brenna shook her head. “Nay, nor my promise, but God’s Word.”

“Nay, nor my promise, but God’s Word,
” Keena mimicked. She peered over Rhianon’s shoulder at Brenna. “What a shame you’ll take credit for my handiwork”—she spat out the word—“
healer
.
Miracle
worker
.
”

“What madness do you speak of, woman?” Ronan demanded. He’d yet to drop his sword.

“Our warriors will believe me when I tell them that
your
witchwoman put a spell on them so that her clan could slay you and our father,” Caden replied.

Brenna shivered involuntarily from the icy indifference in his voice.

“Though I’m not far from the truth,” he added. “Brenna
has
bewitched you and Father.”

“Caden,” Brenna pleaded, “this is not your doing.
You
are the one bewitched.”

Why hadn’t she seen it before?

She had. His gaze had been as soulless as a glass cup for some time. Brenna had learned of such things, but never seen the like. But, like Ronan, she hadn’t wanted to believe the worst in Caden.

“We’re
both
bewitched, aren’t we, darling?” Rhianon snaked her arm about Caden’s waist, cooing, “By love.”

Caden groaned, submissive as a dog to a belly rub, as she tripped playful fingers up his muscled arm, reveling in her control.

“Only
my
brave, strong husband is going to save me.
Yours
will die.” A perfect rose of a pout formed on Rhianon’s lips. “Sadly, so will you.”

Suddenly her crone spun about and pointed to Heming. “Go on, laddie, what are ye waiting for? Claim your prize.”

Heming gave Ronan a gloating look. “No one to save you now,
Glenarden,”
he said in contempt. “Not wolf, nor merlin … ” He cut his gaze to Brenna. “Nor witch.”

“It was you,” Brenna declared. Why hadn’t she listened to her instincts?

And why, Father God, had they come so late?
Brenna couldn’t help but feel God had betrayed her. What was the point of her gifts, if she was to lose the only man she’d ever loved?
Where are You, Father?

“See if your prize still works miracles,” Keena told Heming. But her hateful gaze wasn’t on the hunter. It was on Brenna.

That same smile Heming had given Brenna yesterday and again a short while ago in her vision accompanied familiar words. “My pleasure is yours for all
your
days.” The implication curdled her blood. And her without so much as the dining dagger in her sack to defend herself.

“No!” Without thought to himself or his men, Ronan tore from his defensive position at Egan’s back. He slashed his way at the warriors who blocked his path to Heming, while more closed in at his back in a circle of certain death.

Helpless, Brenna reached from her very soul’s depths for the God who seemed to have abandoned her.

“Father God!”

“For Glenarden!” a chorus of men shouted at the same time from somewhere behind her.

Angels?
She glanced over her shoulder in disbelief.

Men. A score or so. Stampeding across the shallow burn, beating their weapons against wooden shields, shouting. “For Gowrys!”

Time slowed itself, and trapped all in it. Brenna clutched the side of the cart, gaze riveted on Ronan. The warriors surrounding him stood frozen in disbelief before the charging phantoms that had appeared from nowhere. Bleeding from a gash on his arm, Ronan skewered one diverted Saxon and kicked another away. As her husband turned to deal with the second man, a hand clamped vice-like about Brenna’s ankle.

Heming! For the blink of an eye, she saw beyond his leering face. On horseback, Donal of Gowrys directed his ragtag force. They swarmed like hornets about Caden’s renegades, their sting death-dealing. Beside Donal was the shocking image of Brother Martin, crosier raised in one hand and the Gowrys colors in the other, bellowing prayers for his king like an ancient bard.

Heming snatched at Brenna’s foot with such force that the amazing sights vanished. Down she went, hard, on the wagon bed.

“You’re coming with me,” he shouted above the din of clashing wood and metal.

Brenna grabbed at the rail, at Tarlach’s leg, anything to hang onto, but Heming’s strength was compounded by the panic in his gaze. As the wagon bed raked at her back, Brenna seized one of the arrows from her quiver. The moment she was close enough, she thrust it, dagger-like, at her assailant’s eye.

He turned too quickly. The tip slashed across his jaw and snagged his ear.

“Witch!” He backhanded the side of her face, knocking her to the ground.

How her head spun! The men fought about her, moving like ribbons on a Maypole.

Brenna shook off her dizziness. She had to keep Heming from taking her. She crawled under the wagon, reaching for the sack next to her bedding. Digging frantically, she found her dagger, shoved it between her teeth, and latched onto the wheel with her arms. She drew up her ankles, ready to kick.

But there was nothing. Nothing except a heavy thud at her feet. Beyond them was the bulging stare of Heming’s lifeless eyes, now separated by Tarlach’s battle-axe.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“’Tis a fitting death.” Tarlach’s last words were as clear as his speech had been in his prime.

Ronan tried to grab his father’s flailing hand, but he wouldn’t take it. Instead, the dying man reached with his good arm toward something just beyond his grasp, something he wanted with all his being; something not of This World. Then it dropped, leaden, across his chest as breath left him for the last time.

“He … he died saving me,” Brenna cried softly. She closed the old chieftain’s eyes with her fingertips. Her gown was bloodied from tending the knife wound in his chest. Heming’s last murderous deed. She’d left the blade there and packed Tarlach’s brat about it to stifle the bleeding until death stilled it.

A blade of rage edged with grief wedged in Ronan’s throat. “’Twas a fitting death for a warrior, more so than choking abed on his own spittle.” As though putting a child to bed, Ronan covered his father with the stained black, red, and gray plaid of his clan. “God was with him … as He was with us all.”

Through the dust and smoke from the fire, scattered in the midst of the fray, Ronan surveyed the bodies strewn about—some dead to all that had happened with sleep. Others dead to This World, or soon to cross over to the Other Side. He said what he believed about God, but still his blood roiled from battle.

Ronan helped Brenna down from the wagon and held onto her as though she alone kept him from such a crossing. He would kill Caden for trying to take this from him. Gone was the fraternal bond that had kept Ronan’s suspicion at bay.

But in his desperation to protect Brenna, Ronan had lost track of his brother during the melee. Now the Gowrys beat the predawn forest for those who’d fled their charge: Caden and the women among them.

Caden.
The very thought turned Ronan’s blood hotter and hotter. He would hunt his brother down and avenge his murderous plot. Draw his innards from his belly and feed them to the dogs while he watched. Even then, that would not be enough.

“I should help Brother Martin tend the dying.” Brenna pulled away from Ronan’s embrace with reluctance.

Bitterness tinged Ronan’s words. “Tend only
our
wounded.”

Not that there were many. A few cuts and bruises for sleeping in the midst of a full-fledged battle.

She slanted a reproving gaze at him.
“All
must receive the comfort and knowledge of Christ.”

“Their souls be cursed to eternity.”

Brenna caught Ronan’s arm as he turned away.
“You
may damn them, but I cannot deny them the same mercy you have received.”

Ronan bit his lip. He could not argue with truth.

But he had been a boy, led by a madman—not a full-grown coward attacking incapacitated innocents in the night.

He looked at the bloodstained sword he’d planted in the earth. It was still there, by the cart, when he had abandoned it to be with Tarlach once the enemy had fled for the woods. Ronan felt no sorrow for the fiends he’d slain this night. Taking up the weapon, he wiped it across his thigh, staring into the wood.

His heart hardened even more. “And the killing is not yet done,” he growled to himself. For a moment the image of Faol, baring his teeth to protect Brenna, flashed into his mind. Aye, the beast lived. In Ronan himself. This time, in the form of a man.

The sun broke over the horizon, bathing the green skirts of the cloud-cloaked mountains rising to the north and the woods thickening about the burn. With the dawn, the effects of the taint in the men’s beer began to wane. Caden and the women were still missing when most of the Gowrys returned to the camp with the prisoners they had been able to capture.

“Isn’t there anything you can do to speed the return of the men’s senses?” Ronan demanded of Brenna. He wanted to find Caden before he had the chance to leave the area, for his brother would not dare show his face at Glenarden again.

“I’ve given them something for their aching heads and thick tongues, but no. Keena’s henbane, or perhaps mandrake, must run its course,” she snapped. “Be thankful they are alive and well, not among the dead. Those are dangerous herbs in evil hands.”

Even Brenna’s ever-loving nature had been tested by the carnage. She glanced to where the Gowrys dug a deep trench for the bodies stacked beside it. Catching her lip between her teeth, she shuddered and blinked away the weariness and grief clouding her eyes. “I must get away from this.”

“Wait.” Pricked by guilt, Ronan caught the sleeve of her dress. “I’m sorry. I’m not the saint you are.”

Brenna didn’t reply. She merely stared at his hand until he released her. As he watched her head for the sparkling stream away from the main body of the camp, he knew he’d hurt her. But she could not understand this anger….

“You need to get away as well, son.”

Brother Martin approached, hearty as he’d been in leading the Gowrys hours earlier. Druids and priests were exempt from harm, even on the battlefield. At least by law.

“How is Alyn?” Ronan asked.

Evidently the youngest O’Byrne had not practiced the moderation he preached and had slept like a babe through the bloody conflict.

“Slight as he is, he’s taking longer to come around, but the women are nursing him with sips of tea like a babe. Likewise the boy, Bron. But
you
need to take time to count your blessings,” the priest advised. “I’ll tend to Alyn.”

Not what Ronan wanted to hear. “Caden betrayed us,” Ronan ground out through his teeth. “He will pay.”

The priest crossed his arms, thinking aloud. “Actually he did as much to bring peace between you and the Gowrys as any edict from Arthur.”

As absurd as Martin’s finding merit to Caden’s betrayal was, Ronan knew he should thank the priest again and again for urging Donal and his clan to cover Ronan’s back … for reminding the Gowrys that they’d not seen the last of their common enemy. But if he did as the priest said, Ronan would lose the edge of his rage, and that was something he could not afford to do until he’d sent Caden earthways.

“I nearly lost her.” The hungry way Heming had looked at Brenna, the sight of her reeling from his backhand—thinking of those images kept Ronan’s rage sharp and ready.

“But you
didn’t
.” Martin clapped Ronan on the shoulder. “Go to her, laddie. You need each other … and time with God.”

Lips thinned, Ronan looked to where Brenna knelt beside the burn. She had edged downstream, toward the falls, and beneath an umbrella of alder and hazel. Leaning over, she splashed the running water on her face and arms, washing away the blood and dirt. And, judging by the way she scrubbed and scrubbed, she was attempting to erase the horrors of what she’d seen.

“When the Hebrew warriors returned from battle,” Martin said, “they cleansed themselves physically and emotionally by spending a week away from their loved ones until the battle rage was replaced by God’s peace.”

Peace.
Would Ronan ever have it?

“You
do not have that luxury with your wife. Seek your peace together.”

At this moment, in this time, Ronan didn’t even want such peace. At least not for himself. But he did for Brenna. And that desire clashed with his blood’s clamor for more carnage. Yet, with it, he might at least take some of the nightmare away from her.

Brenna was crying when he reached her. Sobs wracked her shoulders as she tried to rub the dried blood from her skirts. Were it in his power, she’d never face such a day as this again. Ronan gently pulled her to her feet and into his arms.

“I told the truth back there,” he said, ignoring the cold dripping fabric now soaking his clothes. “I’m
not
the saint you are.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m just a man who faced losing the most important thing in his life, and it still haunts me. I want to protect you,
a stór.
”

“Such things are beyond our power.” Brenna jerked her arm toward the camp. “I c-couldn’t save any of them.” She fought for a steady breath. “The Gowrys are d-deadly foes.” The next breath was no less shaky. “You want to protect everyone, and I want to save them, but … but sometimes, we j-just
can’t.”

“I know.” Ronan’s reply was as inadequate as he. He wanted to take away her tears. Take away her fears, her pain. But all he could do was feel. Worse, what he felt could not be put into words. But he tried. “I love you, Brenna, with all my heart and soul.”

Ronan lifted her chin, his gaze meeting her own. Instead of seeing his declaration sink in, perhaps hearing it returned, he saw terror. Sheer, speechless terror.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw Caden coming at his back, knife drawn.

There was no time to speak, only to act. Ronan twisted sideways. His hand caught Caden’s wrist, halting the downward swing of the blade. With his other, Ronan pushed Brenna away. Heard her splash as she fell into the burn.

“One of us will die,” Caden rumbled from deep in his chest, “this day.”

Perspiration pushed its way through the skin on Ronan’s forehead. He struggled to hold the knife at bay, all the while reaching for the dagger in his belt with his free hand. But his brother’s uncommon strength, the prick of his knife against his skin, forced Ronan to use both hands to stop it. Blood thundered in his ear so loud it was hard to think about what Caden might do with his other hand.

But Ronan had to do something. Caden would not stop with taking his life. He would kill Brenna as well.

“Praise God the Father Almighty and Jesus Christ, Lord of all!”

Caden’s strength faltered at Brenna’s shout. Enough that Ronan regained some of the footing he’d lost.

“Let go of me, woman!” Caden roared.

In the periphery of Ronan’s vision, Caden shook Brenna from her hold on his free hand. Something clattered from it. A knife?

Ronan couldn’t look. Now he dealt with the force of
both
of Caden’s hands on the knife poised at his throat. And his feet would not hold in the moist earth beneath him.

“This is not you, Caden.” Brenna was back, embracing Caden about the waist. “In the name of Jesus, the Christ, begone demon of lust and greed, for this soul belongs to Him, not the likes of you. I cast thee out in Jesus’ name.”

Caden shuddered, weakening enough for Ronan to push the blade away at his arm’s length. They locked at his elbows. Although how much longer Ronan could sustain this muscle to muscle—

“I praise the name of Jesus,” Brenna cried out, “who seizes you by your neck and casts you out!”

An angry “Nooo!” erupted from Caden, along with a force that knocked Ronan nearly senseless to the ground.

Breath? Muscle? Maybe both. Something had bowled Ronan over like a toddling child. Caden stood above him, chest heaving, nostrils flaring, his knife still clutched in his hand. But instead of finishing off Ronan, the man seemed to struggle with himself.

And still Brenna clung to him. “I cast you out in the name of Jesus!”

“Let me go, woman!”

Caden would kill her. No doubt in Ronan’s mind. Renewed by desperation, Ronan rolled away and struggled to his feet, drawing his sword.

Caden drew his as well, but Brenna would not let him go.

Even when Ronan begged her, “Brenna, run!”

“I claim this man in the name of Jesus—”

Caden shoved her face away with the palm of his free hand.

“—and I banish you,” she stubbornly resisted, “demon greed and ambition. I banish you, demon lust and envy. All of you in the name of Jesus.”

Spittle sprayed from Caden’s snarl as he tried to twist from her grip. He lifted his sword as though to strike her with its pommel. Ronan lunged at him with his own weapon. The blade glanced off his mail shirt but diverted Caden’s attention from Brenna. As Caden’s blade clashed with Ronan’s, Caden sent Brenna flailing to the ground with his boot.

Clutching her abdomen, she rolled to her knees and screamed, “Martin!”

Alarm shot through Ronan like ice falling into a blazing fire, steaming his desire for blood. Had Caden hurt her or the babe, Ronan would kill him twice! Dagger in one hand, sword in the other, he flew at his fair-haired brother, slashing, blocking, thrusting, parrying. Again and again he met steel. And with each clash Caden gained ground, fed by Ronan’s fury.