Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) (27 page)

‘They left you to me,’ he said. ‘Are you happy now?’

‘You did this.’ MacInnes spat. ‘You, Murlainn.’

Seth stood up again, turning a slow circle to take in the carnage all over again. It was hard, at this moment, to argue.

D
on’t fall. Don’t fall.

‘What did she offer you to close your gates to them? I mean, you didn’t just turn a blind eye, you herded the poor bastards. For her dogs. What price did you get for a whole
settlement, Nuall?’

Nuall glared up at him through sweat-soaked strands of hair. ‘No price but peace, Murlainn. Peace and protection.’

‘You had mine!’ he yelled.

‘We didn’t ask for yours. And your peace is no peace at all.’

Seth bit down on his lip. He had no need to spit back. It would be such a small insult, after all. ‘Where’s her protection now?’

‘Gone.’ Nuall licked his dry lips and smiled. ‘Ah, but one settlement for the whole of Dunster. It would have been worth it.’

‘Not now it isn’t. Not now.’ Seth turned his back and drew his sword. ‘Get him up.’

‘It won’t look good for you, Murlainn,’ said Nuall as Jed and Braon cut the ropes that bound him and dragged him to his feet, gripping his arms hard. ‘I’ve tried to
broker peace here.’

‘That’s the point, isn’t it? That it won’t look good for me.’ Seth lifted his blade and pressed the tip against the man’s heaving ribcage.

‘Indeed. I do see that now. But I’ll hold that thought in my heart anyway.’

‘Hold it while you can, then.’ Seth gripped his hair to hold him still, gazed steadily into his blue eyes, and drove the sword hard between his ribs.

The man was still smiling as blood bubbled in his mouth, even as the body on his blade shuddered and Seth smelt piss and worse. When the eyelight was dead and the body went limp, Seth yanked the
sword free, and Jed and Braon let the lifeless corpse slump to the earth. The stillness was horrible, and for long fantastical moments Seth thought nothing would ever break it.

Then Branndair sprang to his feet, startling all of them, and let out a great barking howl. It rose and swelled, louder and higher, piercing and wild and stricken.

‘
What
?’ said Jed, staring at the black wolf.

‘Jed.’ Gooseflesh rose on Seth’s arms. ‘Jed, go and find Liath.’

Jed’s breath caught; then he nodded. Gripping the dun stallion’s withers, Jed flung himself onto its back and sent it into a gallop from a standing start. Seth and the rest of his
patrol watched him until he was lost in hazy distance. Branndair’s howls never faded, echoing across the valley and the burned settlement.

Funny that despite the noise of it, Seth could think straighter. The howling iced his blood and it iced his brain, and the murk was clearing.

Braon was close by his side, her hand on his arm. ‘Murlainn. What is it?’

And he knew. Suddenly he knew what the missing part of him was. ‘Rory’s blocking me.’

Braon looked disbelieving. ‘Even Rory wouldn’t dare that.’

‘But he is. He’s shut me out.’ Seth raked his hands into his hair. He shattered his battle-block with a thought, and still he couldn’t feel his son.

‘You’re imagining it. You had a block up. Anyway, why would he do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know. Block’s down now.
Branndair!
’

The wolf hesitated, caught in mid-howl, his mournful yellow eyes fixed on Seth. Then he started up again, the sound worse than ever, freezing the summer air.

I don’t understand...

‘Braon, we need to get back.’

‘But the bodies...’

‘Leave them!’ His heart was pounding so hard he was dizzy. There was a bloody great leaking hole in his head, didn’t she understand?
No. No, of course she doesn’t. I
don’t bloody understand.
He clutched his temple.

‘Seth...’

‘Sorry. Braon. No. The villagers. No. The villagers will do it.
We need to go home.
’

She didn’t argue any more, but turned to summon the rest of the detachment.
Good woman.
Seth snatched wildly at the roan’s bridle, and missed. Furious at himself, he
clutched it again. It felt like trying to mount thin air, but he got there. In the end, dizzy and sick, he dragged himself onto the creature’s back.

He did not wait for Braon, did not wait for his fighters. They’d follow soon enough. Seth dug his heels hard into the roan’s side and turned its head for home. He wouldn’t
fall. Now that he was astride and cantering, even the yawning reeling void in his mind would not make him fall before he reached the dun. He was only afraid that he might dissolve, and evaporate
from his own body, and never reach it at all.

The courtyard was hot with sunlight of an intensity that hurt the eyes. Grey dun stone was bleached to white and I could smell stone-dust and dry earth and thirsty herbs. I
turned on my heel, putting my back to the sun, but Eili backed off. She narrowed her eyes against the glare, looking warier than I’d expected.

‘Eili,’ I said. ‘I hate all this. What you’re doing to Seth and to yourself. Please don’t. Conal loved you and I’m sorry I was a cow to you. I was sixteen
years old.’

‘That’s an excuse for so much, isn’t it?’ said Eili contemptuously.

‘I never said that.’ My gut twisted.

‘Aw, you’re sweet. You believe in Seth, don’t you? Let me tell you, he believes in nothing.’ Eili’s smile was back in place. ‘Nothing. He has no religion, no
faith. He doesn’t believe in God, or Fate, or the Devil. He couldn’t even believe in his own brother. You think he believes in love? In you? I’ll tell you what he believes in: his
own survival.’

I shrugged. ‘Eili, you’ve had your way for a long time. Stop it now.’

‘Thirteen years for a whole Sithe life? You seriously think that’s justice? I’ve barely started! You can’t stay awake every night.’

‘No, but I’ll do it often enough to make you sorry.’

‘So. Suppose you protect his nights.’ Eili tapped her jaw thoughtfully. ‘There are other ways to do this. I hurt Seth all the time, you know, though he rarely lets on.
I’ll have more energy for that now. You can’t live in his scars forever, Finn. You nearly didn’t get back to yourself last night, and that was only the first time.’ Eili
laughed. ‘This way I’ll get some extra sleep myself.’

I bit so hard on my lip I tasted blood. ‘You cold-brained witch,
Udhar
.’

‘How dare you,’ snarled Eili. ‘That is not my name.’

‘Don’t blame me,’ I said. ‘It’s your doing, you that’s so careless with your name and your soul. You’re not
Eilid
any more.’

‘That is not for you to say!’ cried Eili hoarsely. ‘This is between me and your lover.’

‘You’re the one who involved others. You didn’t just do this to Seth, you did it to Rory!
How could you?
He was three years old!’ I took a step towards Eili.
‘Stop hurting both of them, or so help me…’

Eili’s lips were white and dry. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep. You won’t get a blade near me.’

‘I’ll rip your mind right out of your brain stem!’

In the thick silence, my face slackened in shock. Oh, I thought, recoiling from Eili’s disbelieving stare. Oh, God.
What did I just say?

What were we doing, Eili and I, when we’d both loved the same man and he’d loved us? I felt sick. Something was terribly wrong, our minds were twisted, and there seemed to be nothing
we even wanted to do about it.

‘Witch.’ Breath hissed between Eili’s teeth, her face calming dangerously. ‘You loathsome harpy. I should kill you where you stand, Caorann!’

My eyes widened. I thought for a second that she’d punched me hard in the gut, and I couldn’t take breath to speak. Then I began to laugh, hysterically, through clenched teeth.
‘I don’t believe it.’

Caorann.
Caorann.
Did I like it? Yes. No. Yes. Oh, God, I’d waited all this time, desperate, longing, impatient. But I’d been certain, so certain that Seth would find it for
me. Instead of which…

‘Believe it?’ Eili’s face had gone into a spasm of rage, making her beautiful mouth a twist of ugly flesh. ‘Nor do I. Gods, neither do I.’

‘It seems we’re linked in more ways than one.’ I smirked. It was the nearest I could get to a smile.

She’d got control of herself now. She was very still, except for a muscle that twitched below her left eye.

‘Two traitors together, you are; and Seth can’t even respect the son he claims to love. Rory doesn’t want what you’ve done; he doesn’t want to lose his father to
you. Did Seth have to bind?
Really
? After all these centuries?’ Her lip curled. ‘But you and Seth, you live your lives by prophecies. Funny, isn’t it, when he’s
spent his life trying to deny them? I’m going to make you another one, right now.’

‘Eili, you don’t give a damn what Rory wants.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. So here’s my prediction: when you want to finish this, you’ll come and find me. And you’ll know where. All you have to do is
remember what Rory wants. Remember what he wants more than anything, because I’m going to make sure he gets it.’ Eili tilted her head. ‘One way or the other.’

I shoved past her, feeling her mad eyes boring into my back as I made for the stables. It was the closest place I could reach that was out of her sight. I snatched up my bridle, and stood for a
moment breathing hard.

And then I slung it over my shoulder and made for the dun gates. I couldn’t even bear to be within the walls; thoughts ricocheted uselessly around my head, too light and fast to hurt but
enough to make me feel sick. My skin felt so hot I wanted to strip it right off.

I kept walking along the grassy edge of the dunes and north past the headland. By the time I’d gone another mile I was alone with the breeze and the crying gulls. The Atlantic was in a
fine mood, spindrift feathering on the wave-tips, light splintering into shards on the surface. When I’d walked far enough I sat on a rock and watched it, mesmerised, trying to count the
beats of my heart as it slowed, trying to separate the colliding angry voices in my head. I didn’t even know which of them was mine.

I shut my eyes.

The gull-clamour seemed to recede; there was something behind the song of the waves, some plaintive call scratching at the inside of my skull. I frowned, blinked my eyes open again.

I wasn’t wrong, I was sure of it. Getting to my feet, I stared down at the sand below, then gripped spurs of rock and clambered down. I jumped the last few feet and then held myself still,
listening.

The call remained in my head, but that didn’t make it less real. It was close now, and insistent. No, desperate. Like a whine, or a whimper.

N
o.
I ran up the sand towards the next outcrop of rock, judging the direction more by instinct than by any certainty. My instincts were sound enough, more’s the pity. I
saw blood and scraps of white fur on the cliffs before I saw her.

She lay in a cleft between slabs of granite, her body twisted and bloody from the fall. I didn’t think it was possible, I didn’t think Liath could slip from the rocks twenty feet up,
the rocks she’d known and prowled for centuries. And then I saw the knife.

The handle was chased silver, I thought, but it was hard to tell beneath the clotted blood. The blade was sunk deep in her ribs, but when I stumbled down beside her and reached for it she gave a
yelp of fear and pain, and I clenched my fist. I stroked her shaggy mane, rubbed her ears and her muzzle, pressed my face to hers.

~
Wait. Liath. Don’t go. I’ll find help. I’ll find Jed. He’s searching for you.
Surely he was. He must be.

J
e
d
, I thought with angry panic,
why won’t you let us call you?

With an effort the wolf raised her head enough to lick my face, but then it fell back again to the rock, with a thump that made me wince. I sank my fingers in her mane again, feeling blood and
life pulse weakly through her. Her ribcage rose and fell so very feebly, and her tongue lolled.

~
Eili. Eili can help you. Wait, Liath!

This time the wolf lifted her head long enough to gaze into my eyes, the amber light dull in hers. Her claws scrabbled on rock, and though I tried to shush her and hold her still, she struggled
up onto her forepaws. I put my arms round her head, cradling it, and shut my eyes. My world reeled and I fell forward into her.

The human girl had her back to me. She lay in the grass, her fear a crackling energy on the air. She peered through low scrub. The figures were defined by the glittering water
behind. She was afraid. She should be afraid. I heard her breath. It rasped high, in and out of her throat, but they could not hear that, those figures on the shore. Only I could hear it. Only I
could smell her terror.

wouldn’t have let him be killed

not now not yet

sometimes I wish

m
y last breath, the last of my blood

you’re still making him pay

it’s yourself you’re destroying

No.

Liath’s memories shattered and dissolved, and it was all I could do to hold her great head still, to keep it from slamming back onto the rock again. Her tongue hung from her jaws and her
shallow breath was an agony, and I realised I was panting like a dog myself.

I licked my lips, swallowed over my constricted throat, gathered my mind back from hers. Eili’s voice, Sionnach’s voice: I couldn’t hear myself think for the echo. I
didn’t want to think at all. ‘Liath,’ I whispered.

Her eyes closed. The rise and fall of her ribs seemed calmer. Or was that only weaker?

‘LIATH.’

Jed’s scream silenced the gulls, almost silenced the Atlantic. He pounded across the sand, leapt up onto the rocks. I let go of the wolf just in time as he plunged down into the hollow
between the slabs, wrapped his arms around her body and lifted her to him. Who’d have thought he had the strength? Not even him.

‘Finn.
Help me
.’