by Lexi Ander
Brun and Donn stood, a deep yearning within Donn calling him to go to the great mathan. Arailt grasped his forearm in an iron grip. “Nay, cousin, it be a trap. We know not what danger lurks beyond the cursèd line.”
The mathan whined, seemingly unable to roar its frustration. Brun pushed Donn more urgently. If he did not do something soon, Brun would force Donn to change skins.
“Do not follow me,” he bid Arailt, sure though he was that Arailt could not. Wrenching his arm from Arailt’s grasp, he crossed the cursèd line of trees.
Briefly, he halted upon the other side, waiting to be assailed by what he knew not, yet nothing happened. When he glanced back, the ghillie dhu had wrapped himself around Arailt’s leg. Wide, red, feline eyes watched Donn as Arailt’s large hand cupped the back of the ghillie dhu’s head and pressed the faerie to his side.
Satisfied he would not be beset upon, Donn hastened in a low crouch, moving towards the giant mathan. Nothing had a scent this side of the wood. How was such a feat possible? The mathan halted upon espying Donn, a low sound of warning coming from the beast. The closer he came, the more a certainty arose that Donn looked upon a wyr creature much like himself, giving him courage that he mayn’t have had to approach such a magnificent beast of the wild.
“Be at ease, friend, I merely wish to lead ye out of this cursèd wood. I know ye cannot smell me, nor I ye, but I need ye to put faith in me. I would not lead ye into harm’s way.”
The mathan swayed precariously from side to side, as if he would topple at any moment. Brun pushed out their senses until Donn felt his skin ripple with the need to change. He lent Brun his eyes, knowing the wyr afore him would see his eyes change from blue to Brun’s amber. The colours of the night shifted completely over to his mathan’s sight. The giant black mathan stilled and stared, his head tilting to the side in curiosity.
Snorting, the mathan lumbered slowly towards Donn, the signs of a great and deadly battle written in the tatters of his dark fur coming clear. His right ear was cleaved in two, only a small stretch of skin and tissue keeping the dangling piece from being lost. Brun and Donn both released a low noise of pain at the sight of such injuries. Upon its heels stormed a seething fury towards the one responsible. Donn stretched his neck to look up into dark amber eyes. Never had he laid eyes upon a sight so grand. The black mathan’s coat, where not stained by blood, was blacker than the deepest winter night. His cool nose touched Donn’s in greeting, and a tremble ran up Donn’s spine.
Leashing himself, Donn had not the time to wonder who this creature was to call so deeply to both him and Brun. The mathan’s safety became his utmost concern. Giving into his need for contact, Donn placed a palm gently upon the side of the mathan’s neck.
“Come, I shall show ye the way to the edge of this cursèd place.”
Keeping pace with the massive beast, Donn directed him to whence he had left Arailt. The mathan would have eventually found the desecrated line of trees, even in his haze he had meandered in the general direction. Donn merely led the him along the most direct route that would take them over the line in a more timely manner.
Neither Arailt nor the ghillie dhu were in sight. Even so, Donn worried not, for his cousin would never leave him, even by dint of force. The black mathan let out a wail rich with agony as they crossed the tainted line of trees into the healthy woods. After placing another ten feet or so betwixt them and the cursèd forest, the mathan’s limbs buckled and he crumpled in a heap upon the forest floor. Chest tight with worry, Donn knelt next to the great beast, running his hands over his body to find the injuries in need of the most immediate attention. As his fingers skirted the open wounds, the wyr’s heady scent stole his breath. Brun crowed in jubilation, for there afore them was their marrae.
How, Donn wondered… of a sudden, his mind became hazy and sluggish as his body shook with shivers and his breath caught, trapped in his breast by the swelling in his throat. Donn had never hoped to find a marrae of their own, dared not even dream of it. Despite that, he had never taken a lover or maik, never touched another beyond boyhood explorations. Donn only ever wanted a marrae, yet had held no hope of ever finding one of his own. He had reconciled himself to living a life alone, for none had tempted him to claim them. Until Roi. If Ewen had washed his hands of Roi, Donn would have taken Roi for himself. But never afore had he encountered someone who held the scent that conjured the promise of home within him.
Now, afore Donn, there was no question of whom he was destined to spend his life with. The mathan’s heady scent roused not what was possible, a promise of what could be, but gave the truth of what would be. He was the hearth Donn would draw strength from, the home that would evermore welcome Donn, shelter him, and bestow upon him a place to truly rest. The black mathan shoved his nose in Donn’s armpit and groaned as a man would as he, too, trembled.
Donn swallowed thickly. “Which of yer wounds need tending first?” he murmured into the mathan’s ear, Donn’s gaze roving over his battered form. “I know not whence to begin.”
The disturbance of the forest brush snagged Donn’s attention, but afore he could draw his sword the mathan lunged, knocking him onto his arse afore forcing him flat, covering Donn with his body. A great, bellowing roar rent the air.
“Release my cousin!” Donn heard Arailt shout.
Desperate, Donn shoved at the thick pelted chest that pressed him into the ground. “Nay, Arailt! Stay yer sword! Stay yer sword!” Arailt appeared feet side up, holding the reins to their horses in one hand, the other brandishing his heavy broadsword. The horses stamped about, eyes rolling in a fright, jerking upon the reins Arailt held fast. “I beg of ye, do not harm him.” Donn knew not if he beseeched his cousin or the mathan, but neither paid him any mind for Arailt stood with the deadly point of his sword a mere hand’s breadth from Donn’s marrae’s head whilst the wyr snarled and roared threateningly above him. The ruckus those two made notified any within hearing of their presence.
The gillie dhu darted from behind Arailt’s legs to squat betwixt them. With one fingertip he gently pushed Arailt’s sword aside. The mathan’s roaring stopped at the sight of the child-like creature. When the ghillie dhu spoke, his voice sounded like the love song of a flock of birds at the height of summer. Joyful. Sweet. Donn knew not what he said, but the mathan seemed to understand.
The body atop Donn shuddered, hair-raising static nipping at his exposed skin like little teeth, there and gone so quickly he did not have time to move. The mathan had changed skins, filling Donn’s arms with the form of an injured man. Golden eyes stared down at him from a face so comely Donn wondered if the wyr had fallen from the heavens. His skin was dusky in hue and, above his brow, upon his forehead sat a blue tattoo of a blazing eight-pointed sun. Another tattoo of two upside-down hooks ran below the wyr’s eyes, down his cheeks, the first curling under the ridge of the wyr’s jaw and the second curling under the man’s bottom lip. The design was unlike any Celtic tattoo Donn had ever seen. Did this wyr come from the old pictish bloodline? It was strange that within a span of days, two men with the markings of the old gods had stumbled into the clan of Donn’s kin.
Speechless, he stared up at the wyr. Brun rolled happily under Donn’s skin, preening afore their marrae. The wyr licked his lips with a pink tongue, and spoke in a language strange to Donn’s ears. When Donn made no reply, he spoke again, the words sounding different yet almost familiar.
“Donn, what would ye have me do?” Arailt asked.
The wyr cocked his head, listening to Arailt’s words. “Donn.”
Donn grinned at his name coming from his marrae’s lips. More words spilled forth that meant nothing to him and, by the way his visage twisted, his marrae knew it as well.
“We need to get ye to the keep so I can properly tend to yer wounds.” As much as the press of his body against Donn’s was welcome, danger still lurked in the shadows here.
“Keep.” The word sounded thick upon his marrae’s tongue, but at least Donn could d
iscern it. He nodded his head, repeating the word for his marrae.
Donn raised up upon his elbows, the action causing his marrae to move so Donn could sit. He ran his gaze over the wyr’s form. Under other circumstances Donn would have drunk his fill of his marrae’s body, for he was pleasing to the eye, but instead Donn catalogued the numerous injuries. Without the mathan’s thick pelt to hide the extent of his wounds, Donn could see he bore more than first surmised, yet his marrae had the warrior’s way about him. Men who came from battle sometimes knew not how injured they were until the blood lust subsided and their tempers cooled. Donn suspected his marrae would soon head into a downward spiral as the state of his body made itself known. It was a wonder he had not swooned as of yet from the pain alone. Many of his wounds were soil crusted and filthy, a few still seeping blood. His marrae gritted out a pain-filled moan as he rolled aside. Resting upon an elbow, the wyr gingerly touched his right ear through the tangle of black hair.
Donn moved to his knees ready to help his marrae to his feet. “Come.” Donn swept his gaze over the dark forest, alert for danger. “We must leave this place.”
Meeting Donn’s gaze, his marrae’s eyes held a deep anguish. “Fordel. Home.”
“Donn, it be not wise to bring a stranger amongst us. Not now with this threat from sorcerers. He be in a territory marked by them. He could be their dog, and we none the wiser.”
Brun and Donn snarled at Arailt, the sharp retort upon the tip of his tongue cut off when he caught his marrae as he fell into a faint. Half cradling his marrae to his chest, Donn was conscious of the wyr’s many wounds. His scent tugged at Donn, like a great rope about his waist connecting Brun and him to his man.
Arailt knelt next to them, removing his cloak and wrapping it carefully around the limp body in Donn’s arms. “I advise ye against this action, but I see the set of yer jaw and know that ye have harnessed yer stubbornness.” Donn pressed his lips into a firm line as his gaze followed where Arailt touched his marrae. “Do not be growling at me for giving ye sound advice—”
Arailt snatched his hand away and Donn squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling in relief even as guilt ate at his gut. “I beg yer pardon. I… he… Brun and I… he smells like home.”
“Like Roi and his scent? The calm you get from this stranger and Roi be similar?” Arailt reached to tuck in the edge of the cloak, and Donn quickly saw to it afore Arailt could touch Donn’s marrae again.
“Nay, Arailt, not the same. Not for me.”
“Yer marrae, then?”
Donn nodded, unsure how to read Arailt’s blank visage. “Do ye find it odd that both ye and yer brother find yer marrae, and they both smell of the promise of home?”
“Surely ye do not think—”
Arailt held up a broad hand, his skin so pale the blue veins stood out. “Hear me out. Roi smells like the wind and rain, the sea and the forest. Being nigh him causes my mathan to… to become giddy. He wants to romp about like a newly changed cub. Roi be not of us, but he also be other. His sight be keen, discerning layers to the world neither ye nor I can see.
“Now comes this one. He smells almost the same, the scent of earth but sharper, heavier. He be like us but not. His size, his strength, and— he be something else altogether, like he be more, or more complete than we. Yer eyes be blue, and when Brun comes forward yer eyes turn a deep amber. He looks human, but his eyes be those of a mathan. I do not feel him and his mathan, merely him in both forms.
“Consider, if ye will, this night brigands entered the keep in the guise of petitioners and endeavoured to snatch Ewen’s children. Sorcerers helped them escape, and we stumbled upon a section of the Caledonia that be accursèd. Nay, I do not believe yer marrae be a ruse. Methinks Fate be tipping her hand to maintain a balance in the forces at play here.” Arailt glanced over his shoulder, the symbol burned into the thick bark eerie and unnatural. “Something comes, something big and dangerous. I can feel it in my bones like the ache of a winter storm upon the approach.”
Donn slid his arm beneath his marrae’s legs. The wyr’s animal was larger than any mathan, wild or wyr, Donn had encountered afore, and yet his human skin was merely a couple of inches larger than Donn. Arailt did not offer to help but rather descried their surroundings as Donn rose to his feet.
“Ye cannot mount and carry him at the same time. Shall ye allow me to assist ye?” Though Donn knew there was no help for it, he still became disgruntled at the thought of another touching the person in his arms, cousin or no. Mayhap it was because his marrae was injured, or mayhap because Donn had not yet secured his marrae’s affection, but this sudden possessiveness was unlike him, out of character for the man he was.
Arailt chuckled as if the battle within Donn’s head was written upon his very visage. He followed Donn to the horses and awaited patiently as Donn tamped down his ire. His cousin knew him almost better than he knew himself. Arailt needed no words of apology, for he took no offense at Donn’s unbidden growl as together they draped Donn’s marrae over the withers of his steed. If the saddle had been the monstrous contraption of a knight’s cradle, Donn would have removed the behemoth and left it there on the forest floor. Luckily, the stable boys had outfitted the horses with the simpler saddles for expediency, for which Donn was ever grateful because his skills riding bareback were sorely lacking. Arailt refused to ride ahead. But neither could they afford the time to have the horse carry only his marrae whilst Donn walked. Nor could Donn shift and allow Brun to run alongside the steeds, for they knew not if they were being observed from afar.
With Arailt’s help, Donn mounted behind his marrae and then together, after some argument, they moved him onto Donn’s thighs as much as possible. It would be better if they tied him behind Donn, but he could not bear the thought of his marrae waking trussed up upon the back of the horse. Holding his marrae across his lap would do Donn no favours, but at least Donn could hold him. By the time they reached the keep, the gelding would be sore, but hopefully this venture would not cause any lasting damage to the animal.
The horse moved and shifted uneasily under the unaccustomed weight of two full grown men. Arailt backed away slowly, pausing to make sure Donn did not topple from the steed’s back. Donn flashed him a triumphant grin once the horse settled.
Giving a low chuckle, Arailt turned and crouched afore the ghillie dhu. “We bestow upon ye many thanks. If ever we can do aught for ye in return, call upon me and I shall come.”
He knew not if the gillie dhu understood what Arailt said, those red eyes stared intently into Arailt’s as if he searched for something. With a small, gaunt hand, the ghillie dhu stroked the tip of Arailt’s braid where it fell over his shoulder. In a blink of an eye, the leather-bound end be liberated, the hair cut clean through with a simple snap of the ghillie dhu’s wrist, and he deftly tucked his stolen treasure within his robe of lichen.
Not once did Arailt flinch or move, his trust in the faerie rewarded in a gift, a trinket of some kind that was slipped over Arailt’s wrist afore the ghillie dhu moved quickly away to disappear into the trees. Arailt fingered the shorn end of his plait, staring after the child-like faerie almost entranced, but afore Donn need call to him, Arailt rose in one fluid motion and mounted his horse.
Of all the things Donn could have said, “He took a piece of ye,” was what came forth.
They turned the horses about and headed home, away from the cursèd wood.
“Yea,” Arailt finally replied, sounding as if he was far away. Wherever his thoughts had taken him, he rubbed the bauble about his wrist betwixt thumb and forefinger repeatedly.
The quiet of the forest seemed as thoughtful as Arailt’s visage as they rode away.
~ : § : ~
THE RIDE BACK TO the keep seemed to take longer than the initial pursuit. Burning torches along the walls of the battlement could easily be espied from a distance across the dark, shimmering waters of the loch. Donn’s kin would know to report in at first light, the overabundance of torchlight a visual
of recall. He hoped the other hunting parties had fared better than they. Now more than ever he wanted to put a buildsear to the question. They had befouled a part of their wood, and Donn would know why.
The horses climbed the cobbled rise to the bridge that spanned Loch Raineach betwixt the land and the walled keep, the hollow strike of hooves upon the wooden planks announcing their approach to the men manning the walls. Unlike earlier in the evening, the large arching double doors were closed, barring the way. There had been peace upon the countryside in this small region of the Highlands, for many feared the wrath of the legendary Friscalach. Like the worst kind of fools, Donn’s kin had become lax, allowing old tales to be their defence against brigands rather than action. A harsh lesson had been taught them upon this night.
Arailt called a greeting as the first rays of the morn adorned the horizon in colourful hues, and they awaited the doors’ opening. The events of the night weighed heavy upon Donn’s bones. Ewen’s eldest had been abducted whilst in Donn’s care. If the hunters returned not with Brigid soon, he knew not what he would tell his brother.
They rode single file into the brightly lit courtyard, the noise of the doors shutting behind them echoing through the space. The stable boys ran out to greet them and to take the reins of the tired steeds.
“Lord Donn, what have ye there? Be he one of the brigands?”
Donn paid no mind to the question, searching the growing crowd for one he trusted. “Edan, fetch Freya and bid her ready my room. I shall need fresh linen bindings.” Donn’s cousin obediently turned upon his heel and hurried into the keep.
Arailt appeared by his side, waiting for Donn to be ready to move his marrae. When others came forward to assist, he bit back his growl even as Arailt rebuffed the offers. “Nay, stand back. Donn’s marrae be terribly wounded.”
Upon the declaration, Donn’s kin stepped away. One or two gave a hoot of joy upon his behalf, and in other circumstances he would have welcomed the ribaldry. Donn’s dismount was stiff and clumsier than he would have liked, for his legs had grown numb long afore they descried the keep. Pain caused him to hiss through his teeth. He knew Arailt’s smirk for what it was, though he kept back the biting words itching to be said.