Dance of the Gods (25 page)

“Crap.”

“Buck up, soldier.” Blair gave her a friendly punch in the arm.

At the end of an hour, Blair was filthy, mildly bruised and in the best of moods. A little down-and-dirty training had gone a long way toward smoothing down the restlessness.

She started across the courtyard with the goal of finding Larkin, then stopped short when she recognized his mother and sister coming her way.

Perfect, she thought. Aces. She was covered with mud and sweat, and about to cross paths with the mom of the guy she was sleeping with. Just her lucky day.

Since there was nowhere to duck out of sight, she toughed it out. “Good morning.”

“And to you. I am Deirdre, and this is my daughter, Sinann.”

Blair nearly extended a hand before she remembered herself. Since she didn't think she could pull off a curtsey under current conditions, she simply nodded. “It's nice to meet you. I've, ah, been training some of the women.”

“We watched.” In the way of pregnant women, Sinann folded her hands over the mound of her belly. “You have skill—and energy.”

She smiled when she said it, so Blair ordered herself to relax. “They're coming along.”

“My son speaks well of you.”

“Oh.” Blair looked back at Deirdre, cleared her throat. Relax, hell. “That's good to know. Thank you. I was just looking for him. We need to do a little scouting.”

“He's in the stables.” Deirdre gave Blair a long, quiet look. “Do you think I don't know he shares your bed?” Before Blair could speak, could think to speak, Sinann made a sound that might have been muffled laughter.

“I'm his mother, after all,” Deirdre continued in that same mild tone. “I'm aware he's shared beds of other women before you. But he's never spoken to me of them, as he speaks of you. So that changes the matter. I'll beg your pardon. From what he's said, I believed you'd prefer plain speaking.”

“I do. I would. Oh boy, I'm sorry. I've just never had a conversation like this, and not with someone like you.”

“A mother?”

“For starts. I don't want you to think I just share my bed with anyone who's…” Could this be more embarrassing? Blair wondered as Deirdre simply continued to study her with what looked like amused interest. “He's a good man. He's, well, he's an amazing man. You've done your job very well.”

“No compliment is dearer to a mother's heart, and I certainly agree with you.” The amusement faded now. “This war comes to us, and he'll do battle. I've never faced such a thing, so I have to believe, deep in my heart, that he does what he must, and will live.”

“I believe it, if that helps.”

“It does. I have other children.” Deirdre touched a hand to her daughter's arm. “Another son, the husband of my daughter who is a son to me. I'll have the same faith in them. But my daughter can't fight like the women you teach.”

“The child is to be born before the yule,” Sinann told Blair. “My third. My children are too young to fight, and this one not yet born. How do I protect them?”

Blair thought of the crosses Hoyt and Glenna had made. She believed the others would agree Larkin's pregnant sister should have one. “There's a lot you can do,” Blair assured her. “I'll help you.”

Now she turned to Deirdre. “But you shouldn't worry about your daughter, your grandchildren. Your sons, your husband, my friends and I will never let what's coming here get this far.”

“You give me peace of mind, and I'm grateful. We may not be able to fight, but we won't be idle. There are many things women who are no longer young, and women who carry life, can do. We'll do them. Now, you have work so we won't keep you longer. Good day to you, and gods protect.”

“Thank you.”

Blair stood a moment, watching them walk away. Women with spine, she thought. Lilith was going to be so out of her league.

Satisfied, she hunted Larkin down in the stables where he was stripped down to the waist, slicked with sweat, and helping forge weapons.

Her mood only improved. What could be better than watching a half-naked, great-looking guy beat hot steel into a sword?

She could see they'd made a good start from the number of weapons set aside to cure. The anvil rang with hammer strokes, and smoke billowed as a red-hot blade was plunged into a vat of water.

Was it a wonder, she asked herself, that her mind clicked over to sex?

“Can I get one of those engraved?” she called out. “Something like: ‘To the woman who pierced my heart.' Corny, yet amusing.”

He looked up, grinned. “You look like you've been rolling in the mud.”

“Have been. I was about to go clean up.”

He handed his hammer off to one of the other men, then picked up a cloth to scrub the sweat from his face as he walked to her. “We'll have every man and woman in Geall armed by Samhain. Cian's remark some time ago about beating the plowshares into swords isn't that far off. Word's gone out.”

“Good. It needs to. Can you break away from here?”

He used his finger to rub some of the mud from her cheek. “What did you have in mind?”

“A couple of flybys. Weather's crappy, I know, but we can't wait for sunshine and rainbows. I need to see the battlefield, Larkin. I need a firsthand look.”

“All right then.” He grabbed the tunic he'd discarded earlier and called out a quick stream of Gaelic to the men working behind them.

“They'll push on well enough without me.”

“Have you seen Moira this morning?”

“Aye. We had a discussion, with considerable heat. Then cooled off and made up. She's gone into the village to speak to people, the merchants. To bargain for more horses, wagons, supplies, whatever it is she's scribbled down on her list of things we'll need in the coming weeks.”

“It's good thinking. And smart to make sure she's seen after last night. Anyone who wasn't there would have heard by now. The more visible she is, the better.”

In the coming weeks, Blair thought as she went inside to clean up, the shopping, list-making, supply-gathering were all something women like Deirdre and Sinann could deal with. Keep them busy, she mused. And keep the royal family visible.

She scraped off the mud, changed into a reasonably fresh shirt, then strapped on her standard weapons.

When she met Larkin in the courtyard, she took the sheaths for his sword, his stakes. “Got something for you.” She picked up the harness she'd set on the ground, slid the sheaths into the loops. “Put this together for you so you can carry your weapons when you're zipping around up there.”

“Well, isn't this fine!” He grinned like a kid presented with a shiny new red wagon. “This was thoughtful of you, Blair.” He leaned over to give her a kiss.

“Do your thing, and we'll try it out.”

“I owe you a gift.” He kissed her again.

When he'd become the dragon, Blair looped the harness over his body, gave it a quick cinch. “Not bad, if I do say so myself.” She vaulted onto him. “Let's fly, cowboy.”

She'd never get used to it. Even in the rain it was a thrill
to feel the wonder of what was beneath her, and rise up and up. Into mists now, drenched with wet, that curtained the land below. It was like flying inside a cloud, she thought, where the sound was muffled and there was nothing but the flight.

She decided she'd never be satisfied with anything as ordinary as an airplane again.

The rain thinned, and as the sun struggled to carve beams through the clouds, she saw the rainbow. It arched, a bleeding blur of delicate colors that seemed to drip through the rain. With a lazy sweep of wings, Larkin turned so that the arch glimmered like a doorway ahead. And the colors deepened, seemed to shine like wet silk. As shafts of sunlight cut through the clouds, the rain and those soft, arching colors turned the sky to wonder.

There was a trumpeting call, a kind of joyful blare. Then the sky was filled with dragons.

She lost her breath, literally felt it whiz out of her lungs as beautiful winged beasts soared beside her, in front of her, behind. In more colors than the rainbow, she realized, with their emeralds and rubies and sapphires. She felt Larkin's body ripple as he answered their call, and grinned like a fool when he turned his head and fixed a laughing gold eye on her.

She was flying with a flock of dragons. Herd? Pack? Pod? What did it matter? The wind from their wings blew over her face and hair, sent her coat billowing as they soared through the rainbow sky. The other dragons circled, looped, somersaulted in playful dances. Anticipating, she gripped the harness, shouted for Larkin to: “Do it! Do it!”

And screamed with excitement as he dived and rolled. Hanging upside down as he soared belly-up, she could see the mists tear and reveal the sparkling green and deep, deep brown of the land of Geall.

He skimmed the treetops, dipped over the rush of a river, then climbed, climbed, climbed into air that gleamed now with the strengthening sun.

They flew on, past rainbows and jeweled wings, until it was only the two of them and the sky. Overcome, she lowered to him, laid her cheek on his neck. He'd said he'd owed her a gift, she remembered. He had given her one beyond price.

They flew through sunlight now, and occasional and surprising showers of rain. Below she could see small villages or settlements, the rough roads that joined them, the tangle of streams or narrow rivers, tough little knuckles of forest.

But ahead lay the mountains, dark and mist-shrouded and somehow foreboding.

She could see the edge of the valley that lay at their feet, broken land scarred with rock. The first shudder rippled down her spine as she looked down on what she'd too often seen in dreams.

The sun didn't sparkle here. It was as if the light was absorbed, just sucked away into the dark belly of gullies and chasms, rejected by the dull grass that fought with the spears and juts of weather-pocked rock.

The land dipped and rose, tightened in on itself into folds. And the looming mountains cast great shadows across it, shadows that seemed to cause the land itself to move and shift.

It was more than a shudder that ran through her now. It was an unreasonably, atavistic fear. A fear that this hard and forbidding land would be her grave.

As Larkin veered off, she closed her eyes and let the fear have its way for a moment. Because it couldn't be beaten off, she thought, couldn't be battered down by fists or weapons. It had to be recognized, and accepted.

Once it had, she could control it. If she were strong enough, she could use that fear to fight, and to survive.

When he touched down, she slid off. Legs a little shaky, she admitted to herself. But they held her up, and that's what counted. Her fingers might have felt stiff, but they worked, and she used them to uncinch the weapon harness.

Then Larkin stood beside her.

“It's an evil place.”

It was almost a relief to her to hear him say it. “Yeah, oh yeah, it is.”

“You can almost feel that evil rising up out of the ground. I've been there before, and it always seemed to me to be a place out of Geall. Not quite a part of it. But it never felt as it did today, as though the ground itself wanted to open up and swallow you whole.”

“Oh boy. It got to me, I've got to be honest. Turned my blood cold.” She rubbed her hands over her face, then glanced around. “Where are we?”

“Just a ways off from it. I didn't want to set down there. It's an easy walk from here, and I wanted a few moments first.”

“I'll take them.”

He touched her cheek. “A long way from rainbows here.”

“The wrong side of them, I'd say. And I want to say something else, before we head back and face that place. That flight—the rainbow, the other dragons, the whole ball of it, it was the most incredible experience of my life.”

“Is that the truth of it?” He cocked his head. “I thought the most incredible experience of your life would be making love with me.”

“Oh yeah, right. Well, next to that.”

“All right then.” He tipped up her chin to kiss her. “I'm glad you enjoyed it.”

“It was more than enjoyment. It was just flat down amazing. The best gift anyone's ever given me.”

“Handy for me, that rainbow. Dragons can't resist one.”

“Really? They're so gorgeous. I thought my eyes would pop out of my head.”

“Happens you've seen a dragon before,” he reminded her.

“And you're the most gorgeous and handsome of them,
blah blah, but honestly, Larkin, they're extreme. All those colors, and the power…Hold on—do people ride them, the way I've been riding you?”

“No one rides like you,
a stór
. And they don't, no. They're not horses, after all.”

“But if they could. You talked to them.”

“It's not what you'd call conversation. It's a kind of communication to be sure. A sort of expression of thought of feeling. And something I can only do when I'm in the dragon, so to speak.”

“Aerial warfare would give us a big, fat advantage. I want to think about this.”

“They're gentle creatures, Blair.”

“So, for the most part, are the women Glenna and I are training to fight. When worlds are on the line, pal, you use everything that comes to hand.” She could see the resistance clearly enough on his face. “Let me just play with it in my head awhile. It's this way, right?”

“It is.”

They walked the narrow road, framed in hedges and lined with spears of orange lilies. He bent, plucked one, then passed it to her.

Blair stared down at it, delicate petals in a strong and vibrant color. Something wild and lovely.

She talked of war, she thought. And he gave her a flower.

Maybe it was foolish—maybe both of them were—but she slid its stem into one of the buttonholes of her coat. And she breathed in its sweet scent as they walked toward the battleground.