He grinned widely and rested his hand upon his hip. He watched and waited. Aye, he thought. ’Tis Sarenn come a snooping.
Soon she rose from the sea and the waves lifted her onto the land. She stretched languorously, running her fingers through her mane of long golden hair that glittered with sea diamonds. She was as slim-hipped and high-breasted as the first time he had seen her rising from the sea.
“Hallo, Bron mac Llyr,” she said, flirtatiously.
“Hallo back, Sarenn.”
He watched her unclasp her water cloak and spread it upon the beach. She arched her back and reached her hands skyward as if exulting in the caress of the wind on her naked body.
“Will you not come and sit beside me?” she bid enticingly.
“If you give me your promise not to pull me into the sea.”
“You have it.” Her smile was elfin.
He sat down next to her on her cloak. She coiled up on her long tail, leaned toward him, and kissed him fully on the mouth. The taste of fish lingered on his lips after she drew away.
There was a time when her single kiss could ignite his youthful passion. But no more. She was a past flame not to be rekindled.
“You’re still partial to herring,” he said, running his tongue over his lower lip.
“I am.” She bestowed upon him a coquettish eye. “And you seem to be partial to swan.”
He chuckled. “I am that. I’ll admit it. She told me she met you in the sea cave.”
Sarenn frowned. “I did not like her.”
Bron tried not to smile. Sarenn rarely liked anyone who did not succumb to her charms. “And why not?” he asked with mock innocence.
Her voice was cool. “I do not like her because you love her.”
Bron laughed outright. He enjoyed Sarenn and knew that sea maidens held no notion of time. As far as Sarenn was concerned their affair was as fresh as today’s mackerel catch.
“I know you are not still pining for me. You are notoriously fickle,” he observed.
She shrugged a delicate shoulder. “True. Had not your father come, I was soon to cast you out of my domain anyway.”
“Then…” he said slowly. “It is I who was spurned by you.”
Her hot bluebell eyes flashed. “That is right!”
Suddenly, he clutched his heart dramatically. “Och, you wound me to the very core.”
“I’m sure you’ll mend,” she said with a lack of sincerity. “And if you are to tell it about, have the grace to tell it true.”
And now he understood the reason for her visit. She was here to save face. Her reputation as a seductress might be sullied if it was found out that one of her paramours was free enough of her enchantments to fall in love with another woman.
“Aye.” He grinned. “I’ll tell it true.”
“Good. It is settled between us. Now,” she said, taking up the end of her water cloak, “I’m off.”
He came to his feet. She moved down the beach and stood by the edge of the waves, the long silver-shot sea cloak fluttering about her bare shoulders. He admired her otherworldly beauty. She turned her head slowly, a ghost of a smile playing about her lips, then she leaped into the waves.
Chapter 15
Night crept slowly over Tir nan Og. The tiny sliver of the moon touched the billowing plumes of clouds in the black cauldron sky. Eithne and Bron stood outside the croft and watched the campfires of their clansmen shine on the outer limits of the circle of stones like fairy lights.
Bron encircled Eithne’s shoulders with one arm. “’Tis so calm tonight. Nary a breeze blows from the sea. Niamh believes that ’tis a sign that Sheelin is not far away.”
Eithne nestled close to Bron and sighed. “I no longer fear him. Let him come.”
They stood awhile longer, staring silently into the night, content in each other’s company.
Suddenly, Eithne shivered.
“Are you cold?” asked Bron. He pulled her cloak more tightly about her.
“A wee bit. Let us go inside,” she said.
“Aye, the day has been full.”
“That it has,” she said, still shivering.
She entered the croft and reached for the teapot. Her hand trembled and she made sloppy work of pouring a cupful.
“Let me,” said Bron, his face gaunt with deep lines of concern. By the time she drank the cup, she was shaking so badly she could hardly stand. Bron placed his hand on her brow, but she was not feverish. Lifting her in his strong arms, he carried her to the bed and wrapped the thick furs about her.
She saw the circumspect glance that passed between Bron and Niamh. They both knew as she did that Sheelin was drawing upon her essence.
“Stay near,” she requested to Bron.
“Are you afraid?” he asked as he lay down beside her, curving his own body next to her own.
“Nay, I’m not. But he weakens me. ’Tis as if he knows I am stronger now.”
“Try to sleep,” encouraged Bron, trailing a kiss across her cheek.
Eithne was not so content with just a kiss. She sought out his lips and pressed her own to them, sweetly probing. He responded fervently. Desire for him rose in Eithne, but the straight back of Niamh silhouetted before the fire thwarted that need. Even so, as she drew away his mouth returned to hers insistent and urgent. His hands slipped beneath the furs and cupped her buttocks and pulled them to him with a firm pressure. The cloth that separated her wantonness from his could not impede the tingling flow of desire that caused her to move instinctively against him.
In the next moments, their mutual passion was inflamed in the exploration of tongue and lips. Eithne tried ever so hard not to breathe too loudly or whimper the sighing moans of her coursing heart.
It was Niamh’s overobvious clearing of her throat that caused them to break apart. “I believe I’ll take the night air,” she announced, coming to her feet. She snatched up her cloak and walked to the door.
Bron opened his mouth to speak, but Eithne hastily placed her fingers over his lips and whispered, “Let her go. We’ve had no time together since they’ve come.” Then her voice more intense, she murmured, “I need you.”
The door had barely creaked shut than Bron and Eithne were skin to skin and heart to heart beneath the mound of blankets and furs. It seemed a hundred years had passed since such intimacy between them.
The foreboding of what might come in the next days added a desperation to their loving. She blessed the touch of his sole hand upon her, the soft stroking that splayed over each thigh in turn and moved in soft swirls across her belly, up between her breasts and then first to one breast, then the other, cupping, and then fastening lightly on one nipple that sent a jolt of pure sensation through her.
His dark head bent and she felt his lips upon her breasts, first teasing, then sucking more strongly until the nipples had grown hard and tingling. Then he abandoned them, easing her thighs farther apart. Her hands tangled in his thick hair. He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes soulfully.
“Do you want me?”
“Beway,” she rasped. “Does the sea dance on the shores of Tir nan Og?”
He lifted himself above her, and she waited in aching emptiness for the hard swell of his manhood to fill her. He covered her then, skin touching skin. She opened to him and her hips lifted as she felt the delicious pressure enter her. She could feel his heart coursing against her own. His whole weight came down upon her and they began the slow, pulsing, winging dance of spirit and heart entwined. The impassioned rush of his vitality infused her, revived and restored her own weakened state. Transforming to swan spirit, she drank from his essence the golden elixir of ecstasy.
At first light, Eithne awoke. The room was like a great long fire. Scrambling from the smothering blankets, she went and opened the door. Not even a breeze trickled through. She felt suffocated and her light shift weighed upon her like a warrior’s mail.
“What is it?” Bron came to his feet and pulled on his leggings and tunic.
“There is n
o air. I cannot breathe.” She stepped outside. “Quickly, Bron,” she called. “Look.” She pointed to a great ship off the headland of the northern shore. “Its sails billow, yet there is no wind.”
“Aye, Sheelin’s come and all with him is sorcery and illusion.” He took her in his arms and cautioned, “Remember, you must love more than fear.”
She studied his emerald eyes. “How can I not love when I am loved by one such as you?” Then she smiled and pulled away a swan feather entangled in his hair. “You must keep this for good luck and as a sign that we’ll never be parted in spirit.” She stood on her tiptoes and tied it securely onto his long braided hair swatch. “Hurry now, I’ll wake Niamh.”
Reluctantly, he drew away and left her. He disappeared around the corner to the stable. Eithne ran inside the croft and nudged Niamh awake on her pallet. “Sheelin’s come. We must seek safe haven with our clansmen in the circle of stones.”
“I dreamed it!” Niamh was up dressing and was soon outside before Eithne. In the door yard, Bron lifted her and then Eithne upon Samisen. He climbed on himself and prodded Samisen into a brisk gallop.
“Arrah!” Niamh gestured skyward. “The scald-crow flies.”
Eithne saw the gruesome winged harpy with trailing hair and talons flying over the stone henge.
“She presages death and defeat—”
“Shush! Niamh,” interrupted Bron, sharply. “You’ve no need to carp on so…”
Eithne clasped Niamh’s hand comfortingly and said, “’Tis illusion, Niamh. The great ship, the warriors, the scald-crow…’tis illusion.”
By the time the three arrived at the stone henge, the ship had dropped sail.
“Both of you, take refuge within the protection of the stones,” commanded Bron as he lifted each one down.
Eithne stepped past the sea clansmen who stood shoulder to shoulder on the outer edge of the stone henge, their swords raised in preparedness.
“We will make our stand here, as agreed,” said the sea king to Bron. “You were right, the Fomorians are with him. Close behind comes another ship.”
Eithne saw the second ship moving into the inlet. She stiffened, as she watched Sheelin’s Unseelie Court pour over the ship’s sides and into the surf. But what held her eye was the figure of Sheelin himself riding a black war-horse up the beach. He rode in lead like a fierce warlord. His midnight cloak was thrown back and light reflected off his bronzed winged battle helmet. He looked the stuff of legend and nightmare.
She clutched Bron’s arm, drawing reassurance from his solid warmth. “Listen,” she whispered.
“I hear nothing…” he said after a moment.
And then Niamh said, “I hear it.”
“Singing. ’Tis ever so soft,” said Eithne.
Then a sudden, a flock of white swans came winging down and landed all around them. Shedding their swan plumage, they transformed into the fairest of women. Before Eithne stood Ketha. She fell into her mother’s arms and held her close.
“Oh, Mother. You’ve come,” breathed Eithne.
“The sea king summoned us,” said Ketha, her own visage almost a mirror of her daughter’s. She seemed fragile and slender beneath the feathered cape draped over her shoulders.
“But how?” asked Eithne.
“On the ley path…the stone circles here as well as at Rath Morna paths between the two worlds.”
“Is that what you meant when you told me that there was another world hidden in this one?”
“Aye.”
“And is that how Sheelin intends to enter Myr?” asked Eithne.
“Unless he has the power of the singer’s voice, he cannot. Even now he draws from you that essence.”
A horn sounded. Ketha turned, her eyes riveting to the dark form of Sheelin upon the cliff top. Eithne stared as well.
The sea king was riding toward him on Samisen. Sheelin’s stallion moved skittishly, its metal shod hooves ringing hollowly against the cliff face.
“I never knew it would come to this.” Ketha sighed.
“’Tis not your doing,” soothed Bron, his own gaze hard on the parlance.
Eithne watched the sea king rein Samisen to a halt before Sheelin. “Identify yourself,” he called, his voice stern and knowing.
“I am Sheelin of Rath Morna. I come for my daughter, Eithne.” His face was impassive as if carved from stone.
“’Tis my understanding that Eithne has no wish to go with you,” said the sea king, smiling thinly.
“You cannot refuse me!” His features held fleetingly the telltale sign of his consternation. “You are inviting your death and that of your clansmen. Do you not know that?”
“Arrah! That is your speaking not mine,” retaliated the sea king.
“Then it begins,” shouted Sheelin, his eyes flashing and the fire of anger flushing his cheeks. “She is my daughter and I will take her!”
The sea king turned Samisen about and the horse fairly flew back to the henge. Eithne glanced at Bron’s face. She shivered at the brooding fire in his green eyes as he watched the approaching warriors of Sheelin’s Unseelie Court. How fierce they appeared with horn and drum sounding. Their broad shoulder armor flashed silver and their swords and spears pointed to the gray skies.
Heads together in conversation, Ketha was beside the sea king. Eithne overheard his words, “A little magic…” And Eithne wondered who would pay the price for “a little magic” this day.
Beside her, Bron joined with his clansmen in deep-voiced chanting. Suddenly, all fell silent. Then, around her everyone disappeared. She scanned the outer circle of the henge and saw only the halting and confused warriors of Sheelin’s court. Was she left alone to face them?
“Bron? Niamh?” cried Eithne.
“I am here, Eithne,” came Bron’s voice. “They do not see us. We are under the spell of faet fiada…the cloak of invisibility.”
And again the sea clansmen broke into spell chanting that exposed the illusion of Sheelin’s army. Their true forms—trolls, dwarfs, shellycoats, and all manner of beasties—were revealed.
And then above, the skies filled with dark forms. Eithne heard the rustling of wings. She lifted her eyes to see taloned and vicious beaked raptors descending upon Sheelin’s menagerie. What a howling and shrieking came forth as the wretches slithered and crawled in all directions seeking safe haven.
It was a pathetic sight. Sheelin flung curses and oaths at their heads while most dispersed into the nearby bogs and cliff holes. His own black steed transformed into a young kelpie that bucked him off and he was left afoot.
But his defeat was short-lived, as the sea clansmen’s cloak of invisibility weakened. Threateningly, the battle cries of the approaching Fomorians and the baying of their war hounds echoed off cliff and sea.
“That is no illusion,” whispered Niamh returning to visibility at Eithne’s side.
Around Eithne all the sea clansmen took form. She saw Bron standing with his clansmen, a spear in his hand. But where was her mother? She saw none of the swan sisters. Then she looked upward and saw the raptors still circling above like the scald-crow awaiting death. Aye, she thought again, more and more magic…who will pay?
And then more frightening than imagination, the Fomorians appeared on the hillside. As Bron had told her the Fomorians were a grotesque race whose origins were in the chaotic times of old earth. Some were hairless and simian. Some had men’s bodies and the sleek heads of horses. Others had doleful human faces, peering from bullet heads. They rattled their scabbards and dashed their spears against their shields making a thunderous outcry.
Dread filled Eithne as their iron-shod war hounds ran in front, the unmistakable howling of bloodlust in their cries. They were gigantic beasts, standing almost fifteen hands high. Their eyes were wild and burned with a demonic intelligence.
One beast pulled ahead of the others and, though it was almost twenty paces away, it leaped for a clansman’s throat. Bron threw himself to the hard ground and tilted the point of
his spear upward. The huge dog came down onto the spear point, its great jaws snapping the shaft. It coughed and choked; blood slavered over Bron’s tunic. The heavy carcass fell on him, pinning him to the ground. A clansman stepped forward and hefted the dead hound off him only to turn and face another.
And then Eithne stared aghast as something strange and terrifying happened. The war hound that Bron had slain struggled back to its feet and once more attacked. And again with single hand Bron slew it…and minutes later again it clambered to its feet.
Beway, thought Eithne. ’Tis the darkest of sorcery. All around she watched as one Fomorian after another was slain and then rose up again, to join the living dead.
She scanned the battleground. Where was Sheelin? Because of his sorcery her clansmen were dying. It must be stopped.
“Eithne!” she heard Bron’s voice calling to her. “You must sing!” Even as he spoke, she began running to a center stone and, reaching for hand- and footholds, she climbed onto the flat slab of the capstone.
In full view of all she began singing, falteringly at first because she’d not her full strength of voice. Against the clamor of shield and clash of swords, she composed a song of ancient knowledge from deep within her very essence to transform the chaos. It was a song that showed she possessed a sorceress’s understanding of the workings of enchantments.
Easily, she called forth lightning and thunder, which distracted the war hounds and set them baying and howling for cover. The winds rose and the east grew dark with storm clouds.
Then Sheelin was facing her, just outside the circle. He sat astride a triple-headed Chimera that reared, breathing fire and lashing out with its claws. His bold face was fine-drawn and seemed to flicker, betraying an unfathomable emotion. It was not love, she could be sure…
Unflinching, she continued singing, her voice now strong and clear. As she sang, the Fomorians’ swords exploded with the flash of lightning and their spears turned into frail reeds. Shooting through the storm-filled skies, their arrows sprouted wings and landed in the sea. Their battle armor flew off piece by piece, landing in the boggy earth.
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