by Lynn Kurland
He hesitated. “They are grown men, Mhorghain. They know what they’re doing—”
“Which they wouldn’t be doing if Cruadal hadn’t been invited,” she said bitterly.
Sìle shifted, but said nothing.
“What was I to do when Cruadal issued the challenge?” Làidir asked her. “Forbid it and cost Prince Mochriadhemiach his pride?”
“Nay, you shouldn’t have done anything,” Morgan said sharply. “But your father should have listened to me when I told him I wasn’t interested in any of the princes he was determined to auction me off to.”
Làidir chose, perhaps wisely, to remain silent.
Morgan shot Sìle a glare, which he didn’t see, then turned away from the both of them. She found that Sosar was rocking back on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back, whistling softly. She was quite happy for someone else to glare at.
“I think your levity is misplaced,” she said curtly.
“You don’t actually think Miach will lose, do you?” he said in surprise. “Good heavens, Mhorghain, you have no idea who he truly is.”
“I know who he is,” she muttered.
“Then instead of wringing your hands like a fretful alewife, why don’t you enjoy the spectacle? I can’t imagine he has much call for this sort of display at Tor Neroche.”
Morgan cursed him, but it didn’t ease her any. It was one thing to discuss Miach in a scholarly sort of way and hope for the best; it was another thing entirely to watch him fighting off the ferocious attack of a man with nothing to lose. Perhaps it would have been easier if she’d had anger to keep her warm. Now all she had was the cold terror of fearing that perhaps Miach might stumble, or slip, or falter and she wouldn’t have the skill to aid him.
It made her wish she’d paid quite a bit more attention to the spells Sìle had tried to teach her.
Cruadal took shape after shape, each more terrifying than before. Miach exceeded him in each: things with claws; creatures with fangs dripping with blood; huge, wild-eyed men covered with open sores full of maggots.
Sosar made appreciative noises.
Sìle did not.
And then, quite suddenly, in Cruadal’s place stood an enormous, misshapen troll. Morgan blinked. She had to stare at it for a moment before she realized what was so shocking about it.
It was the same sort of creature that hunted her and Miach.
Miach stood there just a moment too long, gaping in surprise. The creature snatched him up, bound him with cords of magic, then held him over his head and flung him against the smooth rock wall that bordered the field. Morgan took several steps forward, then stopped still.
Miach no longer hurtled toward the wall. Instead, there was darkness—
Morgan found herself jerked around by Sosar.
“Don’t look,” he commanded.
“Aye, let her look,” Sìle snarled. “Let her see what he is.”
Morgan looked up at Sosar, then slowly pulled herself away from him and turned around.
She saw and heard the spells of Olc that Miach wove, spells full of the worst things from her nightmares. The darkness that made up the core of what he’d turned himself into terrified her where she stood, and she was not the object of its wrath. It was full of terrible claws, silver, glittering, all extended toward Cruadal.
Cruadal screamed and fell backward into his own shape. He looked into the darkness and screamed again and again until he was hoarse. Who knew what he saw? Morgan wanted to look away, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
“Is this the sort of man you want?” Sìle said, shooting her a furious look. “One who has this sort of darkness in him? I don’t suppose he’s ever told you that his mother’s grandfather was Wehr of Wrekin, has he? Weir, whose power was greater even than Lothar of Wychweald’s? And he’s Lothar’s cousin, as well! He has more dark magic inside himself than light—”
“Would you rather have him conjure up flowers and twittering birds to defend me with?” Morgan shot back. “I think I would rather have a man who isn’t afraid to fight for me, no matter how he goes about it.”
Sìle grunted. “More darkness than light. Mark my words.”
“Marked and discounted,” Morgan said, before she thought better of it.
Sìle shot her a displeased look, then turned back to watch the battle.
Actually, it wasn’t a battle for much longer. After only a moment or two more, Cruadal was simply lying on the field, curled in a ball with his hands over his head, whimpering as the darkness loomed over him.
In the space of a heartbeat, the darkness left and in its place stood Miach with his hands down by his sides, his chest heaving.
“Yield,” he demanded.
Cruadal said nothing.
“Yield, you fool!” Miach bellowed.
“I yield,” Cruadal said, rolling away suddenly and heaving himself to his feet. He dragged his arm across his face. “Honorless whoreson.”
Miach backhanded him and sent him sprawling. “My mother was Desdhemar, queen of Neroche, and she was not a whore.” His expression was cold. “Stay away from Mhorghain. I’ll kill you if you come near her again.”
Cruadal only remained silent.
Miach turned and started to walk off the field, then he stopped in mid-step when he caught sight of her. He bowed his head, dragged his hand through his hair, then went to find his sword. He resheathed it, then turned and came through Sosar’s magic. He stopped a pair of paces away from her and bowed to her.
“Your Highness,” he said quietly.
He was simply drenched in sweat, his hair was plastered to his head, and his eyes were full of wildness—only this was something entirely different from dragon wildness.
It was not pleasant.
She supposed he didn’t come any closer because he feared she would be repulsed or terrified or some other womanly emotion Weger wouldn’t have approved of at all.
He sighed and took a step backward.
Morgan threw herself at him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tightly.
“Morgan, I’ll sully your gown—” he said, trying to unwrap her arms from around his neck.
“I don’t give a damn about the dress,” she said.
“Morgan—”
“Damn you, put your arms around me!”
He relented and hugged her tightly. She closed her eyes and held on to him as he shook. She supposed he wouldn’t notice, then, that she was trembling far worse than he was. She heard Sìle cursing, Làidir trying to calm him, Sosar offering biting observations about his father’s taste in suitors, but she didn’t respond to anything. She simply held on to Miach and muttered curses in his ear each time he started to release her.
He surrendered with a sigh.
In time, she felt the darkness begin to leave him as surely as if she’d seen it go. Once he felt more like himself, she released him and sank back down on her heels.
“Thank you for defending my honor,” she said quietly.
“I think, my love, that that should count as a fair bit of wooing.”
She smiled. “I agree wholeheartedly.”
He started to say something else, then looked over her head. The next thing Morgan knew, she was standing behind him and he was holding on to her arm so hard to keep her there that she didn’t dare move. She did, however, peek around him in time to see Cruadal sauntering over to Sìle, looking as if he’d learned not a bloody thing in the past hour.
“He should have killed me,” he said with a yawn. “His kindness will be his undoing.” He looked at Miach. “I’ll have her yet.”
Morgan tried to get around Miach, but he wouldn’t release her.
“I told you,” Miach said in a voice so cold it made her stop suddenly, “that if you come near her again, I will kill you.”
“Will you, indeed?” Cruadal mocked. “Or will you send little Mhorghain out to fight your battles for you? I heard tell she bears Scrymgeour Weger’s mark. Did she earn that in his bed—”
>
Morgan heard the sound of something breaking. She realized, as she saw Cruadal sprawled out unconscious on the ground at Miach’s feet, that it had been something—or perhaps several somethings—in his face. Miach turned and fixed Sìle with a steely look.
“If this is the way you’ll allow Princess Mhorghain to be treated, you’ll excuse me if I escort her elsewhere before luncheon,” he said curtly.
Sìle looked down his nose at Cruadal lying senseless at his feet. “I misjudged his character. But I don’t believe I misjudged yours at all. That was a dreadful display.” He looked at his guard. “Kill Cruadal and escort the youngest prince of Neroche to the outer gates.”
Morgan pulled her arm away from Miach’s hand and moved to stand next to him. “Then I go with him,” she said calmly.
“You will not,” Sìle said sternly.
She slipped her hand into Miach’s. “Throw him out and see, if you like.”
Sìle cursed, looked at her, then cursed a bit more.
“I would prefer it if you left Cruadal alive,” Miach added. “If you please. I’ll see to him in time.”
“He’ll bear you no fondness,” Sìle warned.
“Does anyone?” Miach asked pointedly.
Sìle pursed his lips, then looked at Dionadair. “Do as the mage requests. Now, Mhorghain,” Sìle said, turning to her, “come with me. We have business together with a pair of decent lads inside.”
“And I have business with Prince Mochriadhemiach,” she countered. “Business that will not wait.”
“But those other lads—”
“Absolutely not,” Morgan said sharply. She looked at Sìle. “I apologize for being frank, Grandfather, but I will not be put to market like a mare.”
He opened his mouth in surprise, then shut it. He looked at her for several moments in silence before he managed to speak. “What did you call me?” he asked gruffly.
Morgan thought about it, then realized what she had said. If she’d known how much it unbalanced him, she would have done it much sooner. “I appreciate the trouble you’ve taken to find me a husband, Grandfather, but I’m not interested in any of the lads you’ve shown me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to cross swords with the prince of Neroche. You may not want to watch.”
Sìle looked terribly indecisive, as if he couldn’t decide if that were a good thing or not. Perhaps he hoped she would mortally wound Miach and save him the trouble.
He blustered, cursed, then took one of her hands and kissed it. He glared at Miach, barked at Làidir and Sosar to follow him, then walked away.
Morgan watched him go, trailed by the rest of the court who had come to witness the spectacle, then waited until they had all gone inside the gates. Then she looked at Miach.
“Well,” she managed.
He gingerly put his arms around her and pulled her to him. “I wish you hadn’t seen that. Especially not the last.” He paused. “I’m not Gair, Morgan.”
“Why would I think you were?”
“Because I lost my temper and used magic I wouldn’t have if I’d been thinking clearly. I could have finished that better.”
“You finished it, Miach,” she said seriously, “and that is what matters. That was an interesting shape Cruadal took at the end, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” he agreed. “I’m tempted to follow him and see if he’ll return to where he learned it.”
“I’ll come—”
“I wasn’t serious,” he said quickly. He looked at her. “At least not completely.”
She frowned at him. “If you leave me behind, my lord Archmage, you will regret it.”
He smiled and bent his head to kiss her carefully. “I’m properly cowed, lady. Go fetch your sword and finish the job. An hour or two spent training will put us both to rights, don’t you think?”
“As well as irritating my grandfather no end,” she muttered.
Miach laughed and released her. “That is always uppermost in my thoughts. Run on, gel. I’ll wait for you here.”
Morgan hesitated, then leaned up on her toes and kissed him quickly before she ran back to the palace. She would be grateful indeed for an hour that didn’t involve magic, or elvish lords who wore troll shapes they shouldn’t have known about, or duels of terrible magic.
Or dance steps, the proper way to address ambassadors from other countries, or how to pour bloody tea, for that matter.
Swords were so much simpler.
It was very late before Miach walked her to her bedchamber. After a proper morning in the lists, the afternoon had been passed pleasantly in her grandmother’s private solar thanks to an invitation to come for cards and conversation. Miach had charmed everyone from her grandmother to the serving maids without an effort. Would that her grandfather would have been so won over, but she supposed there were some things better left unwished for.
Miach stopped her in front of her door, then looked down at her seriously. “I need to tell you something.”
She felt a little chill settle into her at the seriousness of his tone. “What?”
“I need to make a very brief journey,” he said slowly. “Alone.”
“I knew it,” she exclaimed. “Damn you, Miach, I knew you were going to go off on your own—”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. “I won’t be gone long. It will no doubt be a useless exercise, which is why your time is better spent here. You won’t even notice that I’m gone.”
“Is this what being married to you will be like?” she asked, finding herself shivering all of the sudden. “You going off and leaving me behind? Waiting like a helpless woman when I could be being useful with a sword?”
“Morgan, I’m not going into battle. I’ll be as invisible as the wind and back before nightfall tomorrow. Nothing will happen to me.”
“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”
He laughed a little. “I’m not going to answer that.” He smiled down at her. “Help Sosar find a bit of sword skill while I’m gone. Heaven knows he could use it.”
“When did you decide this?” she asked.
“This morning,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Before that business with Cruadal.”
He obviously wasn’t giving her the entire truth, but perhaps it was pointless to press him on it. There would be times when he would need to be off and doing by himself—though he had damned well better make those times few and far between.
She cursed silently, more because it made her feel better than any anger it released. She wasn’t angry. She was cold and discouraged. What she wanted was to find a hayloft and sleep in Miach’s arms. She didn’t fear her dreams; she hadn’t dreamt of Gair since Lismòr. She did, however, dread going in her bedchamber alone.
“At least let me stay with you whilst you see to your spells,” she said quietly.
He shook his head. “I’ll see to them on the way. If I leave now, I’ll be back before supper tomorrow.”
“You’re going now?” she asked incredulously.
“The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back.”
“Miach, I—”
She would have had quite a bit more to say, but he kissed her. In fact, he kissed her long and so well, she had a hard time remembering just what it was she’d wanted to stay. By the time he lifted his head and looked down at her, she could hardly keep her eyes open or keep herself on her feet.
“Wait for me,” he whispered.
“Please be careful,” she said. “Miach, if anything happened—”
“It won’t.” He stepped away from her. “I love you.”
She could hardly see him for her tears. “Please hurry.”
He nodded, then disappeared. Morgan felt a breeze stir her hair, wrap itself around her for a brief moment, then rush away. She stood there for quite some time until the last tree in Sìle’s inner garden rustled and was still.
She was tempted to follow, but she’d given her word.
She went inside her chamber to look
for another cloak to put on, though she supposed it wouldn’t do anything for the chill that settled upon her heart.
She would give him the day, but no more.
If he wasn’t back by supper on the morrow, she would go after him.
Twenty-three
Miach wondered, as he flew along as a bitterly cold wind, why he didn’t fly that way more often. It was a substantially more difficult change than merely something with wings, and he tended to feel a little scattered whilst he was at it, but it was much faster.
He focused his thoughts with an effort. He had told Morgan that he was simply off following a hunch. Aye, it was a hunch, but it had basis in a terrible reality.
He had found the location of Gair’s well.
Simply finding the directions to it had been more difficult than he’d imagined it would be. He and Sosar had spent hour after fruitless hour in the books behind the velvet rope, enduring the screeches of Leabhrach the librarian and the silent, watchful stare of Làidir, who had suddenly taken an inordinate amount of interest in their doings. Miach had pored over maps, over histories, over obscure journals full of travels in unpleasant places. Sosar had done the same, delving through books that even Làidir warned him he shouldn’t be reading. They had found it that morning, just after dawn.
But the directions hadn’t been in the library.
Miach had been gingerly turning pages in a book on dwarvish travel routes to Durial that some enterprising elf had obviously pilfered at some point when he’d looked up and found Sosar gone. Làidir had shot him a long look, then turned and left the library as well.
Sosar had returned minutes later with a letter in his hands. He’d given it to Miach and said that he’d forgotten all about it until something he’d read just then had jostled his memory.
Miach had opened the letter and almost dropped it.
It was from Sarait.
Sosar had said he’d found it on his bed the morning Sarait and her children had left Seanagarra for the last time to make the long journey to Ceangail. Miach had been surprised to find that the letter hadn’t been opened.