Harlin stared, dumbstruck, at image of Ancu’s face impaled upon Luw’s spear for a time after Duana lowered her arm. Of course he knew the story of Cu Náith and Luw’s battle with Ancu, all clansman did. It had been his favourite tale to have his father tell over their fire as a boy, even though it scared him. Ancu still won, even after being cut to pieces by both and having his face torn off twice. Ancu won because death always wins. It is the final hand all men draw, whatever life they may have led.
‘Why do you tell me this,’ Harlin said eventually.
‘Because I want there to be at least one of you who knows our story, who knows the truth of what happened here between us.’
Duana sighed and sat down, legs crossed to look over the land. ‘We bred with you. Gave you our blood. That’s where the Earthbond comes from in your people, slave boy. It’s in the blood, our blood, the blood of the earth. Some of you still carry it, even now, though it has grown thin and weak. I can’t imagine any of you are still as capable of wielding it as you once were. You grew powerful after a time, and we were right to begin to fear you. You always insisted on fighting each other, as though there was never enough for you to take from yourselves. You were a greedy race, far beyond what we ever imagined you would be if we guided your way. I suppose it was only the way of things that you would come for us, too, in the end.’
Harlin narrowed his eyes at the back of Duana’s head, desperate to call out her flagrant lies, but found himself sitting next to her, listening as she continued.
‘The fighting grew, and grew, until there was one amongst you who became so powerful that he dared to call himself High King of Luah Fáil. Morlú. He conquered your people, wielding the Earthbond and the sword with a skill none had seen before, shedding your ancestors’ blood under the premise of unifying them. And when the last of the Sea Child chieftains bent their knees and swore their oaths, Morlú looked to us and the land we held. We fought back against his betrayal, but he was powerful, and his warriors too great in number, we did not expect the fury they unleashed. We were overcome quickly, we were too lax, too lenient with you ignorant little children. You were turned against us so very easily, after we had given you so much, and we paid for it with our blood.’
She looked at him queerly, questioningly, the braids in her hair swinging softly to the rhythm of the wind. ‘You call us Bodah Duhn, dark men, shadow men,’ she said, spitting out the words as if their taste was foul. ‘We are no such thing. We are the Dhaine Sidhe.’
‘Dhaine Sidhe?’ Harlin repeated thickly. ‘The people of the hills? The fairy folk?’
Duana nodded regretfully. ‘We were, once,’ she said sadly, looking across the mist-filled valley to Moírdhan’s glowering mass. ‘We retreated here to our ancient home, to make our final stand. Instead, your ancestors trapped us here. The High King and his Earthbound were strong enough to turn the Bond itself against us, thinking to make these mountains a mass grave for our kind and remove any trace of us from the island. They sealed us away, denied us the land, made it so we suffered crippling pains, torments and death if we stepped beyond the boundaries of these mountains. The High King was cruel enough to make sure the reverse was also true, your people could not enter our halls, unless they wished to suffer the same fate. He wanted to deny we ever existed, wanted to change history itself, and so he left us to die in these halls, hidden from the sun, hidden from all light and all hope. It was only because of Him we survived, our Most Exalted Father, he kept us alive beneath the earth, kept us holding on as the world outside forgot us. His blood runs thicker with the Bond than any other of our kind, and with it he kept us sheltered, protected from your clans and High Kings and hate, even as their curse on us faded away, for longer than you could ever imagine possible, slave boy. And we watched, and waited, for our time to come again.’
‘Get to the point, shadow-bitch,’ Harlin snarled, ‘I’m getting tired of your lies.’
‘The point is,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘that red-haired cunt across the sea was part of a circle not so long ago, a circle of what Earthbound were left to your race that called themselves the Soraí Fai – the Eternal Vigil. They were the greatest of those who remained to you at that time. A shadow council you could say, of Earthbound that colluded over your people and their miserable, ignorant path through life. She – and her mother, another cunt just like her – held a great deal of influence over how the Soraí Fai decided to vote. In retaliation for the Land Children’s merciless slaving raids, they cowardly attacked a Land Child town across the sea while its lord was away fighting his neighbours, and killed his young son.
‘The Land Children came here in great numbers, fuelled by vengeance, and pushed your people inland. Here –’ she pointed down to the valley ‘– they trapped and slaughtered them where the Sisters meet. And as it became clear the battle was utterly lost, that red-headed bitch climbed the mountainside like the spider she is.’
Duana pointed to where two distant pricks of light hung beside another doorway carved into Morbha’s face, halfway between where they were now and the valley floor. A slender path wound through crag and rock along the mountainside away from the doorway.
‘There,’ Duana went on, ‘she came calling to us after their horse-riders cut her father to bloody shreds, crying and wailing with her grief. It was I who answered, on our Great Father’s behalf.’ She held Harlin’s gaze, her purple eyes burning with hate. ‘She begged for our help, pleaded with us to fix her mistakes, offered us freedom, alliance, friendship, all kinds of new beginnings – if only we would save her kin, turn the tide and help them slay the Land Children.’
‘And?’ Harlin prompted as she fell silent, sweat beading on his neck despite the chill.
‘We said yes.’
Her smirk was cruel, her surreal eyes alight. ‘We spilled down from the mountains and slaughtered everyone we saw. Sea Child, Land Child, it made no difference for you are all the same to us. We caught you by surprise, from behind – from all sides – wielded our Earthbond against you and broke you with it. The Land Children fled from us as soon as they felt it, but it was too late for them. Too late for all of your kind. When the fighting was done, that –’ she pointed to the festering bog ‘– was what was left of them all. A swamp of blood and corpses. And we have kept it so ever since that day, so those who betrayed us would forever know what it tastes of, and that they may suffer that final day again, and again, and again. Just as we suffered generations of darkness beneath the earth. After, our Most Exalted Father used his strength to twist and curse the island in his fury and drove you from our shores at long last.’ She smirked again, eyes bright. ‘And now you call it Hathad Camoraigh, the Obscured Waste, the land of nightmares and all things evil.’
Duana laughed quietly to herself and Harlin looked away, numb, shocked so his very bones seemed hollow and cold. The bog lurked far below, wrapped in its filthy, afflicted haze. He felt sick. A swamp of blood and death, kept festering so the corpses it was made of could suffer eternal battle. ‘You are mad,’ he said, ‘madder than Ceatha. I do not believe you.’
‘You will,’ Duana said plainly, ‘in time.’ She regarded him all too knowingly from the corner of her eye. ‘You’ve already met our cousins from the far east, after all. The Qasari.’
Something flashed through his mind. Farrifax.
Black cloaks. Black hoods. Silver masks. Aedri.
‘Aye,’ he said grimly, a strange sour taste in his mouth, ‘and I killed my share of them when I did, just like I did Gidhri.’
‘They are mad,’ Duana said bluntly, unprovoked. ‘The eastern Land Children once ruled a great empire, which their leaders expanded and controlled through their use of the Earthbond. They took their skill from the Qasari, just like you did from us. And in time they betrayed them, too, when they thought themselves all-powerful and unconquerable. They gathered the Qasari and burnt them in their temples. Those few who survived hide behind their masks now. Gaunt, wretched things, all long-limbed and creeping,
like spiders, and they think only of killing. Now their Great Father, Aboroth, moves once again. He is angry and crazed, and turns the Land Children against one another. They create slaughter in his name, offer up blood for him to feast upon, and think that he will lead them to some unspoken salvation should they appease him.’
Duana sighed, chin on her chest. She stood and walked towards the arched doorway, pausing. ‘Sometimes I feel we are all doomed to die at the hands of your people.’ She shook her head. ‘There are so few of us left now, so few I can’t see we will ever recover.’ She clenched a fist so tightly her arm shook.
‘But Aboroth tells our Great Father it is nearly done,’ she snarled through clenched teeth. ‘The Land Children fall in their thousands upon each other’s blades, the realm they call Caermark is all but spent, and its great and mighty king marches to do battle with the last Earthbound of the east, unaware of what awaits him at the end of his hunt. Once he is dead they will press south, to where the Land Children think themselves untouchable. It won’t be long before our fallen are avenged, and your people will know what it is like to truly suffer.’
She strode back into the mountain hallway. Harlin followed, uncertain what to believe, what to think. It sounded too… passionate, too heartfelt, to be a lie. Her sorrow and anger both carried the note of truth. Maybe his hatred of Ceatha tainted his opinion, made him too eager to believe despite a lack of proof. If she and Radha had caused the fall of Luah Fáil, would that explain why she was so reluctant to let him come here, afraid of what truths he might uncover? It made sense, the more he thought on it, a frightening, uncomfortable sense. The Weaver was made of tricks, but so were the Bodah Duhn, and Duana’s tale was so… preposterous and absurd – it offended him, and doubt niggled in every corner of his mind.
‘Why do you let me live,’ Harlin suddenly thought to ask ‘if you hate us so?’ Duana stopped. She turned slowly, eyes glowing again, amethyst discs in the dark, something ancient in their depth.
‘There is a trace of the Bond within you,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I felt it when I touched you,’ she said, nodding, ‘you have a tiny bit of our blood. Not enough for you to wield the Bond properly, but enough for it to be felt, enough to give you some resistance.’ Her smile was sly. ‘It’s why that red-haired slattern got a shock sometimes when she tried to manipulate you. Your men could once wield it as well as your women, in days long gone. Now, though, you’re delightfully ignorant of it, and you let your women control you, pulling strings to make you dance. It is wonderfully pathetic.’
‘That’s why you let me live?’ Harlin seethed after her as she walked away. ‘Because one of my clan had a taste for grey cunt?’
‘Maybe one of your women liked grey cock,’ Duana shrugged, ‘but no, that is not why.’
‘Then tell me, you bitch!’
‘Our Great Father thinks you could be useful to us,’ she said casually. ‘I think you could be useful to us.’
‘Useful? Then what was that song and dance he put me through in his court? Duana – Duana!’
Duana ignored him, leading the way back down dark, curving corridors on the long walk back to her chamber. She ignored him even as they passed through the plain cloth curtain that hung in the entrance to her room, grunting and pushing him towards to the fire pit in the centre of the room.
‘To work, slave,’ she said, pointing to a pile of wood near the doorway that had not been there before they left. Harlin set about building a fire in the pit, grumbling to himself as he thrust dry, twisted branches into warm ashes beneath Duana’s hounding stare. In a flash, flames flared along the branches as he laid the last one, making him leap back with a startled yell to a roaring belly laugh from behind him.
Harlin clenched a lightly singed fist, ignoring the stinging, grimacing silently at the young flames, trying not to lose his temper and maybe his life. He watched the smoke rise into the roughly cut hole in the ceiling that led on to gods knew where, waiting for Duana to finish her odious cackling.
He turned to face her with a furrowed brow, as her laughter ebbed to quiet chuckling and stifled sniggering. Duana was laid back upon her piled furs, her bare stomach shaking with silent giggles, long legs crossed lazily one over the other. A violet eye opened and peered at him impishly above a wicked smile.
‘I couldn’t help myself,’ she sniggered, sitting up. ‘Does your hand hurt?’
‘No,’ Harlin growled, teeth clenching again at the mockery beneath her concern.
‘Come here,’ she ordered, offering her hand, ‘let me see it.’
Harlin frowned gravely, distrustful, but knelt and let her take his hand. ‘Poor little slave,’ Duana cooed annoyingly at him, her grey thumb brushing over a reddening blotch on his palm. ‘Getting yourself hurt the first time I make you do something. That won’t do at all.’
Coolness spread through Harlin’s palm from her touch, the burn fading.
‘So,’ she said after a quiet, awkward moment had passed between them while she held his hand tenderly. ‘You’re useless at cutting firewood, and at lighting fires… are you useless at everything you do?’
She moved Harlin’s hand between the flesh of her breasts and trailed it down her firm stomach. He yanked his wrist from her gentle hold as his fingertips trailed past her naval, standing with a curse.
‘You really are mad,’ Harlin grunted, ‘you try to make a slave of me, and then try to seduce me? You make less and less sense.’ Duana stared up at him, unperturbed.
‘You are my slave,’ she said coolly, ‘and you will do as I say. But I have no need of a body to run errands for me. I have need of one that will do what I like, when I like.’
Her long leg stretched out, and a grey foot came to rest gently in the centre of Harlin’s chest. ‘And what I want,’ Duana went on, ‘is for you –’ her foot slipped down his stomach ‘– to put this –’ it settled teasingly upon his crotch ‘– here.’ She spread her legs wide.
Harlin stared gormlessly for a moment before he managed to drag his eyes away. ‘Never,’ he said, ‘you make me sick to look upon, Bodah Duhn.’
Duana stood with an impatient huff, her hand shooting out to grab his crotch again like before. Harlin shoved it away. She frowned, grabbed it again, her other hand wrenching him forward by the collar of his shirt, kissing him roughly, pulling him down to the furs atop her, as nimble fingers unlaced his pants.
An hour later Duana sat astride him, sweat beading on her small tattooed breasts, glittering in the dying fire. She eased herself up and off Harlin with the smallest of groans, stretching out beside him, panting. ‘Don’t… ever… refuse me again, slave boy,’ she said between breaths.
‘I won’t,’ Harlin groaned, wincing as his hand probed the bite marks she had left across his neck and shoulders. The sweat on his chest burnt where her nails had raked him mercilessly, scratches long enough to have been earned from a feral mountain hookclaw.
Despite the pain, he felt oddly satisfied.
Duana rose, padding over to her table to pour water into two stone cups. His eyes followed her, taking in the hard lines of her body. There was a strange, brutal beauty to her he could not describe, something savage that drew lust from him against his will.
She sat next to him quietly while they drank. Harlin looked about at the sparsely furnished room, decorated here and there with ancient wall carvings of weaving, flowing vines. The same kind of carvings he had seen everywhere in these darkened halls. The Weaving, the Earthbond, captured in stone, he realised. It seemed to have a place in everything about these Bodah Duhn, these Dhaine Sidhe. It was hard to think of Duana as one of the fairy folk, the spritely creatures his mother used to tell him tales of as a child, known for both playful mischief and acts of unerring kindness to those in need. Harlin had seen nothing of either in these folk, faced with the reality of them.
Duana touched his braids, ran her hands down them, fingers combing through the loose sweat and sex-matted hair that accompani
ed them. He turned to look at her, and found her examining the rings at their ends, thumbing the tiny wolf etched into them. ‘Little Wolf Clan,’ she said, draining her cup. She gave him that cruel smirk she favoured. ‘You’re my little wolf.’
‘Wolf Clan,’ Harlin corrected, frowning and moving his head so she dropped his braids. ‘Faolán, and I am not your little wolf.’
‘It meant little wolf before your people twisted it with their stupidity,’ Duana said nonchalantly. ‘And you are mine now, as much as you may fight it.’
‘I belong to nobody, Duana. Now, tell me what it is you and your cripple-king think I am useful for.’
‘Later,’ she said vaguely, shuffling in front of him. She turned away, back arching pleasantly as she moved to her hands and knees, mound still glistening wet as she pushed herself out towards him. She looked back at him over her shoulder. ‘Show me how a wolf takes his bitch.’
It was late before Duana had finally had her fill of him, easing herself free and dressing without a word. She was a violent lover, one of those that seem to associate pain too closely with pleasure. Harlin suspected some of the wounds her teeth and nails had given him would leave some new scars to add to his collection, judging by their depth.
Duana brought him water again, knees tucked under her as she sat before him. She breathed wearily while he sipped. ‘You came here to seek revenge,’ she said, ‘that alone is testament to your resolve, your persistence. You’ve even shed blood for it. Land Child blood. Our blood. But how deep does your need truly run, Harlin? How far will go, how hard will you push?’
‘It is everything that I am, all that keeps me standing,’ Harlin said quietly, immediately, meeting the woman’s stare. Duana nodded, mostly to herself, as if confirming what she already thought.
‘Come with me,’ she said, rising.
Again they walked darkened corridors, carven tunnels, archways cut of stone like woven vines. They were quiet and deserted at this late hour, seeming almost abandoned in their dismal emptiness, Harlin and Duana’s footsteps echoing gravely, chillingly, with every step. Pale torches lit their way, their light flickering and weak, growing more hopeless at pushing back the darkness the further they went. Harlin could not tell how long they walked, only that by the time his ankle started to ache again the corridors were no longer carven with ancient, alien beauty, but were of roughly-hewn stone. They gave him the distinct impression of depth, as if the mountain now stood above them and not around, as if they had burrowed into its roots like some inquisitive worm. As if their eyes pried where they were not wanted. Duana would say nothing of the place as she walked at his side.
The Shadow of the High King Page 54