Elphame's Choice (36 page)

With a nod to Brighid, she sprinted back through the woods. At first Elphame concentrated on her speed and on navigating the rough, rocky terrain, but as she drew nearer to the castle her thoughts burst through the wall of silent shock that had kept them at bay.

The tracks had been made by a creature of Fomorian descent. She’d have recognized them even without Brighid’s telling look. It couldn’t be Lochlan. She wouldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. Or was it?

Her arms pumped and her muscles burned in time with the tumult within her mind.

Her thoughts circled frantically, picking out words and images and forming them into a ghastly tableau of condemnation…her memory of sunlight glinting off Lochlan’s fangs joined with his words,
I do have the blood of a race of demons within my body, and that is something that neither of us can ever forget
. The small scabs on her neck seemed to burn.

What if tasting her blood had driven him mad? Was that why he had run from her—had he forced himself to leave before he lost control? And now Brenna was paying the price for Elphame’s silence and for her decision to place her trust in a creature who was part-demon.

No!
Her heart shouted. He was her lifemate; his coming had been foretold by Cuchulainn himself. He could not be an
insane monster. Yes, the tracks had been made by a Fomorian creature, but Lochlan had told her that there were others of his race who were battling against the mad pull of their demon blood. It could be that one of those creatures had followed him and had finally succumbed to his dark urges.

But she had to know. She had to be sure. There was only one way.

Elphame stumbled to a halt at the edge of the tree line that surrounded her beloved castle. Staying within the cover of the pines, she faced north—the direction from which Lochlan had entered Partholon. She raised her hands and spoke into the wind.

“Lochlan! Come to me…”

Her lover’s name glistened in a magical haze before her, and then the wind swirled through and around it, picked it up, and scattered it out into the listening forest.

For a moment she bowed her head, feeling the weight of her decision pressing down through her soul. Then she stepped from the trees.

“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.