Elphame's Choice (Partholon #4)

Elphame's Choice (Partholon #4) Page 36

"Stay within ten paces of each other. Until we are joined by the others we cannot afford to stretch our line too thin. The object is to find evidence of the creature's trail, so that we are certain in what direction we must search," Brighid explained, looking from Cuchulainn to the group of men and centaurs who surrounded her. "We'll move forward in a line together. Go slowly, match your pace with mine. The tracks are unusual, distinctive. Look for talonlike slashes in the earth. They are large, bigger than a centaur's hoof."

With little talking, the men spread out. Cuchulainn took his position near the Huntress.

"What is this creature?" His hushed voice carried easily to her in the unnaturally silent forest.

She stared out into the trees, remembering the glance she and her Chieftain had shared near the pool.

Elphame had known the tracks were the same as those they had spoken of days earlier, yet she hadn't acknowledged it. What was Brighid to do now, tell Cuchulainn that they had knowledge of a taloned creature lurking in the woods, but they chose to ignore it? As if to wipe away her confusion Brighid rubbed the back of her hand across her brow and told the warrior a partial truth. "I do not know, Cuchulainn. I have never encountered a creature that could make such tracks."

"It's killed her, hasn't it?" His voice was devoid of expression, but his eyes pleaded with Brighid to argue with him, to tell him that he was wrong.

"It carried Brenna off, we know that, but I have found no further evidence of blood, and there was really very little blood at the site of her abduction. That tells us that she has not bled to death."

Unspoken between them was the understanding that there were countless ways to die without bleeding to death. Brighid looked away from Cuchulainn's tortured gaze to check the line of searchers that stretched from either side of them. She raised her arm so that their attention was focused on her and nodded grimly.

"Let us begin!" she shouted.

As one, they moved slowly forward. To Cuchulainn time seemed to bend in upon itself. His logical mind knew that time was passing normally - the forest shadows were lengthening, giving evidence of the waning day - but it felt like only the space of a few breaths had passed since he had held a laughing Brenna in his sweaty arms and then watched her skip off down the road to await their tryst. And nearer still in his mind was the Feeling that had crept over him as he and Brenna had returned from the pool the previous morning. It had been a warning; he had Felt Brenna's doom, and he had ignored it, as he had ignored knowledge that came to him from the spirit realm so many times in the past. What was happening now was his fault. If he had not rejected the spirit realm he would have been prepared. He would not have let Brenna leave his sight. Self-loathing roiled through his mind.

And then the echo of a distant sound brushed against his skin, causing the hair on his arms to lift. It swirled from behind him; it wasn't so much sound as touch or Feeling. It was living magic that traveled on the breath of the wind.

"Wait!" he cried.

Instantly, Brighid lifted her hand and called for the line to halt.

Concentrating on hearing with more than his ears, Cuchulainn stretched the underdeveloped preternatural senses that he usually rejected. The tangible sound shushed past him, up the rocky incline that angled before them, and then, just as suddenly as the Feeling had come, it was gone. He sighed at its loss and cursed his own incompetence. When trafficking with the spirit realm he was as a babe amidst elders.

Defeated, he almost motioned for Brighid to call the line forward again when he felt an answering awareness spill down from the other side of the incline and tumble over and past him in a tumult of sensation.

Cuchulainn raised his head and pointed up the incline. "There - something is there."

Together, the warrior and the Huntress led the way. They topped the ridge, and were surprised to come upon a break in the unrelenting forest. The area was only a dozen or fewer paces across, a mini-oasis of grassy meadow ringed by what Cuchulainn recognized as ancient oaks, rather than the tall, imposing pines that proliferated the majority of the area surrounding MacCallan Castle. A movement within the darkness of the trees at the opposite side of the meadow caught Cuchulainn's attention just as the winged creature stepped from the shelter of the trees into the meadow. He carried within his arms the limp body of Brenna.

Fomorian! In a rush of recognition his mind registered what the monster must be. Then time folded and changed again, speeding up so that movements and sounds became blurred and surreal. The creature halted and his eyes locked with Cuchulainn. The satisfying twang of Brighid's bow setting loose an arrow echoed the deadly sound of Cuchulainn's claymore being drawn from its sheath. The creature lunged to the side, and even as the arrow embedded itself to the quill in his shoulder, Cuchulainn noticed that the monster seemed to cradle Brenna's body carefully, as if in some sick corner of his mind he played at keeping her safe.

"Brenna!" The name tore from Cuchulainn's throat as he lunged across the clearing.

The creature stood silently and made no move to run or to protect himself. Only his wings moved. They rustled and opened, but the creature's storm-gray eyes never wavered. Cuchulainn could feel Brighid and the rest of their party behind him as he closed on the creature. He tried not to look at Brenna. He tried not to see how pale and still she was.

When he was an arm's length from the creature, it spoke.

"I was too late. She is dead."

His voice was deep and powerful and the obvious sadness in it hit Cuchulainn like a fist. The warrior pointed his claymore at the creature's neck.

"Put her down and meet your doom."

Slowly, the winged being knelt and with obvious gentleness lay Brenna's unmoving body on the grassy ground. When he stood, the searchers surged forward with one mind, but Cuchulainn's grim order halted them.

"No! He is mine to kill."

With blinding speed, Cuchulainn lunged at the unresisting creature. But the instant before his blade cut through the monster's neck he spoke again, and the one word he shouted caused Cuchulainn's arm to falter, so that the stroke tore the creature's wing and sliced through the same shoulder the arrow had penetrated instead of severing his neck.

"Elphame!"

The name seemed to become a living thing. It hovered in the air around them like a prayer before being swept up into the waiting sky.

Cuchulainn narrowed his eyes and held his claymore at ready, pointing the wicked blade at the creature's throat.

"How dare you speak my sister's name!" he spat.

Lochlan had fallen to one knee. His torn wing hung helpless and limp against the bloodied ground, and his hand tried to staunch the blood that flowed freely from his wounded shoulder, but the gray eyes that met Cuchulainn's were unwavering and his voice was strong and sure.

"I speak my Chieftain's name by right of blood and oath and I evoke the clan right to have her hear my petition. She alone may decide my fate."

"You are not of the Clan MacCallan!" Cuchulainn growled.

Lochlan struggled to his feet. Through teeth clenched against pain he made his proclamation in a voice that rang against the ancient oaks.

"My mother was Morrigan, youngest sister to The MacCallan who ruled these lands. Today I publicly claim my birthright. Only The MacCallan herself can call me false!"

"Take him to your sister." Brighid's flinty voice cut through the echoing silence. "She loved Brenna as well as you did. It will give her great pleasure to see this beast disemboweled."

Listening to Brighid's words, Cuchulainn stared at the creature. The wings, talons and teeth said undeniably that he was Fomorian, but even through Cuchulainn's rage and grief he could see the clear stamp of humanity on his features.

"Bind his hands and tie him to my saddle. If he cannot walk to The MacCallan, I will drag him to her."

While they bound the unresisting Lochlan, Cuchulainn knelt beside Brenna. She was so very pale. He touched her face. So cold - her skin was so cold. She looked peaceful, as if she was simply asleep.

Except for her neck. The creature had torn a fist-sized piece of flesh from her soft skin. Cuchulainn felt the reality of her death settle down through the layers of his mind and into his heart and soul.

"Bring me a strip of cloth!" he called without taking his gaze from her sweet face.

The brightness of Brighid's coat registered at the edge of his vision as the Huntress handed him a silk strip of cloth torn from the inside of her vest. Cuchulainn wound it carefully around Brenna's neck, so that no one could gape at the obscenity of the terrible damage done to her. Then he bent and kissed her cold lips.

"I'll take you home, love," he murmured.

Brighid held his horse while he mounted, then gently she passed Brenna's body to him. Holding his lover securely in his arms, Cuchulainn kicked the gelding into a canter. It gave him grim satisfaction to hear the winged creature stumble, fall and be dragged several paces before he regained his feet. Let him suffer as Brenna had. He clutched her unresisting body, trying not to think of the reality of what her death meant -

that she was forever lost to him - that he would never again know her gentle touch or see reflected in her smile the wonder with which she viewed the new world of love and belonging that had been unfolding around her. He could not think of it now. Now he would only think of two things. He would take Brenna home and he would see that her killer breathed no more.

The clan was silent, assembled and ready, waiting only for the last of the torches to be gathered and lit.

Elphame stood a little apart from where they congregated in front of the castle walls. A chilling breeze brushed searchingly against her skin, bringing with it the almost soundless echo of the cry of her name.

Elphame shivered. The sun was beginning to set, working its way down toward the sea in a blaze of scarlet and rust. Her mouth felt unnaturally dry. Even the sky was filled with blood.

"All is ready," Danann told her.

Elphame turned to look at her people, and a movement on the balcony of the Chieftain's Tower caught her eye. For an instant the setting sun illuminated the ethereal shape of the old spirit, and The MacCallan raised his hand to her in a silent salute. She blinked, and the ghost was gone. Her eyes settled downward on the somber group of humans and centaurs.

"It is still light enough for us to move quickly. Stay close. I left Cuchulainn and the group not far from here. When we come upon them, Brighid will reorder you."

Heads nodded. Satisfied, Elphame turned to begin moving the group across the northern side of the newly cleared castle grounds, but before she could kick into her ground-eating jog, light flashed within the darkening shadows of the forest edge directly across from her. Her heart caught and her steps faltered as first Brighid, then Cuchulainn broke from the pines.

No! Her mind cried the word but her lips formed only a silent, anguished scream. Cuchulainn carried Brenna's unmoving body in his arms. Elphame did not need to look farther than her brother's face to know that her friend was dead.

And then through the tide of grief, Elphame saw that Cuchulainn pulled something behind his gelding. It stumbled and fell as her brother kneed his horse into a gallop that quickly closed the distance between them. He reined his horse to the side and pulled him to a sliding stop so that the bloodied, torn creature rolled and then lay still mere paces from Elphame and the Clan MacCallan.

At first she saw only wings and long, scarlet-spattered limbs. For an instant she allowed her heart to believe that it might not be him. Then he struggled to his knees and lifted his face.

"Elphame, I did not reach her in time," Lochlan rasped. "Forgive me for not knowing what they would do until it was too late."

She heard gasps from behind her and startled exclamations. The word Fomorian whispered through the castle grounds like a curse too terrible to be spoken aloud. Elphame could feel her clan's shock and dismay, but she did not look away from Lochlan - not at her brother and her murdered friend, and not at the Huntress whose knowing gaze was almost a tangible pressure against her skin.

"Who killed her?"

He spoke into the sudden silence that Elphame's question evoked. "Four of my people followed me. I ordered them to return to the Wastelands and await me there. I thought they had left. They gave me their oaths that they would leave Partholon. Instead, they killed Brenna."

"You know this creature!" Cuchulainn roared.

Elphame looked away from Lochlan and into her brother's pain-filled eyes.

"I know him. He has sworn his oath to me." The murmuring grew louder and she raised her voice to be heard over the distress of her clan. "It was his right. His mother was Morrigan, The MacCallan's own sister, abducted during the Fomorian war, raped and left for dead in the Wastelands. She survived his birth - she and others like her."

Slowly, Cuchulainn slid from the saddle, careful to support Brenna's lifeless weight. He strode to his sister and faced her, his lover's body all that separated them.

"How can you say these things about the monster that killed Brenna?" His voice was raw.

"He is not a monster, Cuchulainn. I have handfasted with him. He is the lifemate you foretold that I would find here."

Cries of disbelief sounded from around them, but Elphame did not look away from her brother. Shaking his head wildly, Cuchulainn staggered back. When Elphame moved to him, her brother flinched from her touch. She pulled her hand back as if he had burned her.

"By the Goddess, this cannot be." Cuchulainn's voice seemed to come from a tomb.

"Cuchulainn!" Lochlan had struggled to his feet. His hands, bound and bleeding, pulled taut against the rope. "Go north of where you found me. There you will find those responsible for this atrocity. My people will not have traveled far."

Eyes blazing, the warrior's head whipped around. "And why would they still be there, creature? Could it be that you set a trap and that they wait there to spring it upon us?"

"They cannot fight you, they cannot run from you. I have torn their wings. They are at your mercy, as am I."

To Elphame's numbed mind, Lochlan's words were one shock layered upon another and another.

Brenna murdered, Lochlan captured, their bond revealed, her brother looking at her with eyes that seemed not to see his sister, and now Lochlan said that he had torn the wings - those ultimately sensitive extensions of the soul - of his own people. The only thing that kept her from crying out in agony was the weight of The MacCallan brooch that held her plaid into place.

Then Cuchulainn's voice cut into her shock. "If you were at my mercy, creature, you would not draw another breath."

Elphame's reaction was born in her blood. The MacCallan raised her chin and drew back her shoulders.

Unflinchingly she met her brother's blazing gaze.

"You are correct, Cuchulainn." Her voice was stone. "He is not at your mercy, he is at mine. Take a group of men and centaurs of your choice." She glanced at the Huntress. "Go with them. Track the hybrid Fomorians." Brighid bowed her head, acknowledging her Chieftain's order. Then Elphame's gaze returned to her brother. "Bring them back so that they can be judged." Steeling herself, she approached him again. This time he did not flinch away from her, but neither did his expression soften. She held open her arms. "I will take Brenna. She is home now."

Cuchulainn hesitated, and then a shudder rippled through his body. Reluctantly, he placed Brenna in his sister's arms.

Without taking his eyes from hers, Cuchulainn jerked his chin at Lochlan. "What will you do with him?"

His voice sounded as dead as his heart.

"He is my captive and will remain so until justice is served."

He narrowed his eyes. "See that you keep him well guarded."

"See that you bring the others back alive," she retorted.

Stiffly, as if she were a stranger, Cuchulainn bowed to her before he began shouting orders. He unwrapped the rope to which Lochlan was tethered from around his saddle and tossed it to one of the men standing nearby.

"Guard him well," he said to the grim-faced man. Then, without another look at his sister, he and Brighid led the group of well-armed men and centaurs into the forest.

Elphame knew what she must do, and she gave the command without hesitation, but her heart felt like a leaden weight within her breast and she could not look at Lochlan. The legendary MacCallan Castle had no dank dungeons or iron-barred jailhouse. When a clan member committed a crime justice was swift and permanent - according to the will of the Chieftain, either the criminal's life was forfeited or he was banished. The clan whose battle cry was "Faith and Fidelity" tolerated no oath breakers.

"Take him within the walls of the castle and bind him to one of the columns. While we await Cuchulainn's return he will be treated as my prisoner."

The man holding Lochlan's rope jerked it forward cruelly. Elphame's response was immediate - her voice a dagger.

"I have acknowledged his claim as a member of our clan and accepted his oath. You would be wise to remember to treat him as such."

The man looked hastily away. The fire in Elphame's eyes said that she was more than a Chieftain; she was touched by the Goddess. One did not evoke the wrath of a Goddess lightly.

As the group moved silently past her and into the castle, Danann approached Elphame.

"Let me help you with the little Healer, Goddess."

His eyes were filled with compassion and the anger within Elphame extinguished, leaving her feeling lost and exhausted.

"She's so light," Elphame said brokenly.

"Brenna's body did not define her. She was a great will housed in a small form," Danann said.

"Her heart was her strength," Wynne said, stepping into the space beside the centaur. Tracks of tears made smudged paths down her ivory cheeks.

"As was her kindness," said Meara as she joined them. Her voice trembled with emotion and she, too, wept openly. "We would be honored if you would allow us to assist you in anointing Brenna's body."

Elphame looked from the wise old centaur to the two young women. They did not shrink from her or

accuse her of being the defender of a monster. They had not withdrawn their loyalty from her; she was still their Chieftain. Elphame struggled against her own tears. She was The MacCallan; her clan depended upon her strength. She would not cry.

"I accept your offer of aid. Come with me to Brenna's tent, we will prepare her there."

The four of them made a sad procession, weaving their way past the empty tents that littered the south side of the castle grounds to Brenna's temporary home. Sitting near the entrance of her tent was the little wolf cub. Elphame had forgotten about Fand, and she was surprised to see that someone had tied her to one of the tent posts. The cub bounced to her feet, wriggling a greeting, but as Elphame and her burden drew close, the young wolf's demeanor changed drastically. She dropped her ears and tail. Whimpering miserably, she slunk low to the ground. Elphame entered the tent and lay Brenna on the neatly made bed and they began anointing her body as the eerie sound of Fand's mournful howls echoed throughout the fading day.