by Hazel Hunter
She hated this place, so cold and dead it felt like an enormous tomb. The spell that had cut it off from the living world hovered over them like a shroud. Dead more than twelve centuries now, the druid tribe that had been slaughtered here had been poor and unimportant. What little they’d left behind lay in crumbled, moldering ruins. That they had never returned to reclaim their territory and rebuild their settlement disgusted her. After reincarnating, the Wood Dream must have scattered to the winds, too fearful to finish what they had started.
Never would that be her lot. She had devoted herself to joining forever with Gwyn Embry, her soul-mate in every lifetime. That she had not yet achieved that only made her more determined.
“Do you see my struggles now, dearest love?” Oriana murmured under her breath. “’Tis all for you, Gwyn. Each moment I suffer, every indignity I must endure. I bear them all gladly on your behalf. I would walk naked through a burning bramble patch to show you–”
“We go, find pretties?” a scratchy voice grated above her head.
“No’ as yet,” Oriana said but didn’t bother to look up at Tri, whose damaged mind barely permitted him to speak coherently. For some reason the scarred-faced giant had taken a liking to her, and it made her want to set fire to him. “Master Greum wishes us to gather and listen to him.”
“Wood Dream vow, no harm Tri.” The giant clamped a big arm around her, squeezing until her ribs creaked. “No harm Tri’s wee lass.”
“Dinnae squash her so, lad,” Murdina said as she joined them. Although Oriana suspected the other druidess to be an ancient old crone, the illusion spell masking her made her appear as young as a novice. “You ken ’twill make her brains leak from her ears. Then Hendry will grow angry, and Dirkus shall have to feed her to his pigs.” She frowned. “No, the Romans gutted him. I should have helped.”
The old druidess often rambled on as if she yet lived the mortal life that had ended twelve centuries past. Oriana could almost smell the sickness of her mind, growing like the stink of a filthy dog covered by wet wool.
It took the giant another moment to understand her meaning. “Tri sorry, Murdina.”
As the giant released her Oriana rubbed her sore side under the cloak. “My thanks, my lady.”
Once she had her vengeance on the Skaraven the old druidess would be the first she’d turn into a revenant. Maybe she’d let her rot until her parts began dropping off, and then at her leisure feed them to some real swine.
A moment later Hendry Greum walked into the center of the gathering. Cloaked in a body illusion like his mate, he resembled a tall, dark young druid. His presence commanded attention from the famhairean, who gazed upon him as if a God had fallen to the mortal realm. Yet whenever Oriana looked directly into his scum-green eyes she shivered a little. She suspected that no magic known to druid kind could stand against the ruthless fury howling inside Hendry, not even her own deadly bone-conjuring skills.
An elbow thumped sharply against Oriana’s bruised ribs, making her bite back a moan.
“Dinnae gaze upon him so,” Murdina said in a fierce whisper. “He’s my mate.”
Demurely lowering her lashes, Oriana said, “Forgive me, my lady.”
She decided that once she resurrected the daft old cow she’d make her tear off parts of herself and feed them to pigs while Oriana watched.
“My thanks for attending me,” Hendry was saying as he looked around at his famhairean. “While the Gods denied us the victory we deserved, we learned much from the attack on the McAra stronghold.” He gestured to Dha, the largest of the giants, who brought forth an old gourd and placed it atop the stone pillar next to the druid. “We’ve found the method with which to end our immortal enemy. Behold, a Skaraven head.” He produced a stone axe, and handed it to the giant.
Dha took the axe, swinging it into the air above his head before bringing it down. He struck the gourd with such force that it exploded, pelting the other giants with its fragments.
“’Tis best to strike them at the neck, like so,” Hendry continued, and took the axe from Dha to demonstrate the placement of the blade. “With such a stroke you may assure they shallnae heal.”
“We’ve too few to face them again, Wood Dream.” That was Aon, the leader of the giants, who came to loom over Hendry. “Even with all returned to new forms, ’twill no’ be enough.”
“Aye,” the druid said and handed him the axe. “If we’re to put the clan back into the dirt, we need more fighters. Three for every Skaraven should do well, I reckon. Come.” He turned and walked off toward the forest.
Murdina gave Oriana a push. “Dinnae stand there. Follow him.”
Trudging through the snow between Tri and the mad druidess, Oriana let herself dream a little. She knew Gwyn was watching her from the well of stars, where he must silently be longing for her loving presence. That they had been separated again by his death didn’t perturb her. Through every incarnation that they’d shared they had been cruelly parted. With her practice of dark magic, she knew she could never follow him to the afterlife, but she’d found a way to wait for him in the mortal realm. In the years ahead, he would come back for her, his beautiful old soul encased in some young body. This time, however, she would show him that he never had to die again.
The giants stopped in a clearing covered in slushy mud and wood chips, but Oriana didn’t understand why until she saw what had been done to the dozens of old trees surrounding it. Each giant oak had been stripped of its bark and branches, and hewn into the rough shape of a man.
“These we shall fashion into new fighters,” Hendry said as he walked up to one of the totems and rested his hand on its broad chest. “Made of sacred oak, they shall be invincible.”
Murdina skipped forward and threw her arms around the oak, hugging it with glee.
Aon came to survey the work. “Wood Dream remembers the old ways. Honor us. Yet you cannae make these become as we’ve done.”
“We don’t need new famhairean, my friend,” the druid assured him. “We need defenders to stand with us against the Skaraven. These shall serve us, just as you once protected our tribe.”
“As guardians?” That question came from Ochd, who now looked and acted so human Oriana would never have guessed that he’d been carved from a tree a thousand years ago. Hendry spent much time refining him into human form, although the reason for it had never been offered. “You mean to bespell them to defend us?”
Without answering him Hendry gestured around the clearing. “Together we’ll carve hundreds of new totems, which shall serve as our front line in battle. They will capture our attackers, pin them down and hold them fast for you to dispatch. If the Skaraven try to run, they shall chase them down and crush them. The next battle with that wretched clan shall be our last, brothers. I swear it.”
For the first time since coming to the settlement Oriana felt pleased. Perhaps Hendry had found the means with which to overwhelm and destroy the Skaraven. Nothing had given her as much satisfaction, except the memory of the moment when she had killed Bhaltair Flen.
As the famhairean gathered around Hendry and the totem that Murdina had yet to stop embracing, Oriana noticed Ochd slipping away from the gathering and disappearing into the woods. Since all of the giants stayed together at the settlement unless ordered otherwise by Hendry, it struck her as odd. Just how human had the famhair become? Enough to betray his creators, and turn his back on his crackle-faced brethren?
Edging away behind the backs of the giants, Oriana turned and followed Ochd’s trail through the snow. It wound through the trees and into a thick grove of dead pines. There his footprints ended, and she turned around looking for him until she spotted a familiar silhouette under one of the trees.
“Why come you here?” she asked as she walked up to the giant. When he didn’t reply or move, she nudged him with her boot. “I ken you dinnae sleep during the day.”
Ochd slowly fell over and sprawled on the ground.
Fascinated now, Oriana straddled
the famhair and rolled him onto his back. His lifeless features stared up blindly at her, no more animated than Hendry’s crudely-carved totems. Summoning her power, Oriana placed her hand on the famhair’s chest and murmured a seeking spell. Her fingers turned transparent and sank into his strange body as she closed her eyes.
As immortals the giants had very distinct souls, and yet she could not feel Ochd’s within the confines of the form. She had no doubt he had abandoned the body, and began to withdraw her hand when something else brushed up against her power.
Another soul—no, two more—trapped deep inside the giant. One gentle, one savage, they seemed oblivious to her as they struggled, locked together in a hopeless tangle. She also felt the connection they shared with Ochd, forged by some terrible melding. If he did not soon return to the body, the tether would disembody the muddled spirits and drag them to wherever the giant had gone. Some terrible power had eternally bound the trapped souls to his spirit.
Oriana carefully drew out her hand and sat back to study the body. Flesh could not naturally contain more than one soul, but the famhairean had been created from sacred oak. The ancient power of the trees had mastered time itself. For all the magic that druid kind wielded they were as infants to the groves. Yet those oaks had remained uncorrupted and inviolate. Now she understood how the giants had been changed into vicious monsters, and why. She doubted Hendry and Murdina possessed any awareness of it.
“Good lad,” Oriana murmured as she pushed the famhair back up into his sitting position.
She walked slowly back to the clearing, where Hendry and Aon had begun marking other dead trees for carving. Glancing around at the other famhairean made Oriana chuckle. The lovers had no inkling that their beloved caraidean might be even more crazed than they were.
“Master Greum,” she said. When the druid eyed her, Oriana let her voice quiver. “While I went walking just now I found the famhair who seems so human. He sits alone in a pine grove, and doesnae move nor speak. Mayhap he’s fallen sick?”
“You speak of Ochd?” Hendry demanded, and when she nodded he regarded Aon. “Go with the lass and see to our brother.”
Murdina put her back against the totem and watched as Aon went off with Oriana. Her gaze moved to her beloved’s face as he did the same. Since the interloper had come to the settlement he could hardly take his eyes off the conniving little wench.
In the past Murdina had never trifled with other females. Her own mother had resented and despised her for her peculiarities, which had also frightened the other novices among the tribe. She in turn felt nothing but contempt for their dull, placid natures. All of the Wood Dream had feared Hendry even more so, for his dark moods made him dangerous to vex. Too often his razing power had flared out of control when he became angry.
It never worried Murdina. She’d often thought being gifted and yet so unloved among their own people had fashioned them perfect for each other.
Oriana did not seem to hate or fear Hendry. When she wasn’t making herself useful to Murdina’s mate she followed him about like some puppy, eager for his attention. Aye, the little druidess did all she could to draw his approval. Her shrewish face and weasel’s eyes held no true beauty, but the wench had the bloom and strength of youth. That rankled Murdina, for beneath the illusion Hendry had cast over her remained the ugliness of her own wrinkled skin and thinning, graying hair.
Then too there was the question of what would become of them after the reckoning. Ochd would have his brood mare on which to sire the first of his bloodline. Hendry had vowed to spend eternity with Murdina.
What would become of sly Oriana? Did she imagine she would share in Hendry’s love? Or had she reckoned to steal it for herself?
“Beloved mine,” Hendry said softly as he drew her away from the totem, clasping her hands in his. “The reckoning has come within our reach at last. Before the thaw comes we shall prevail over the Skaraven. After the clan falls, so too shall druid and mortal kind.” He traced a fingertip over the line between her brows. “What makes you frown so?”
“Naught that shall long endure, my love,” she assured him. “Where keep you the stone axes now?”
Chapter Three
YEARS OF DODGING her adoptive mother had taught Rowan the best way to be sneaky: right out in the open. As a kid she had pretended to hate running errands and doing yard work when they had given her the only chances she had to escape Marion’s evil eye. She applied the same logic now as she groused about exercising Ceann, Ailpin’s injured mount, with a short daily ride.
“If we lived somewhere with a little flat land we could put you out to pasture,” she told the tan and black gelding as she finished buckling the bridle. “But no, these guys had to build their castle under a landslide in the big dark slopey woods.”
Ceann, who had been sulky and nippy ever since returning without his rider, slapped her with his long dark tail.
“Keep it up,” she warned him as she checked his flank wound for signs of infection. “I’ll get the trimming shears and make myself some horse hair extensions.”
Taran hadn’t come back yet from his morning ride, so she hung a drying blanket over the door of the gelding’s stall. As soon as he saw it he’d know she was out riding Ceann, and probably pop a mental bottle of champagne. When she returned she’d bitch about the chore again, just for good measure.
“All right, Slappy.” She swung up into the saddle, settling into the leather-covered wooden seat and taking up the reins. “Let’s go do something we’re not supposed to.”
As she rode out from the stables Rowan didn’t try to stay out of sight. She’d learned that the clan’s patrols never used the same routes when riding, and often doubled back at random times, just to be extra vigilant. They all knew her on sight, but she tried to talk out loud to the gelding so they’d hear her, too.
“So, I’m thinking I should get my own plaid now,” Rowan said as she guided the mount to the old trail she’d found that led due west. “The problem is what color combo to go with. I like the red and black, but then Brennus and Taran and I would be too matchy-matchy. I look good in blue and black, but my sister and her new hub got dibs there. Why aren’t there any pink tartans? Perrin’s all about girl colors. Or purple. Is that like only-the-king-may-wear-it in this time, or what?”
She heard two male voices murmuring behind her, but kept a steady pace. Unlike the patrols she took the same route every day, and after the first few encounters the men had stopped intercepting her. The fact they no longer checked on her didn’t make her relax. Cade had told her that the Skaraven had been trained to be completely unpredictable.
Finally, the patrol moved on, and Rowan urged Ceann into a faster walk. After another mile she reached the cave where she had been stashing her big secret. Ceann reacted by rearing his head and whinnying sharply.
“Don’t even think about it, Sulky,” she warned the gelding as she dismounted and tethered him to a bush by the dark, narrow opening. She drew the blade she kept tucked in her boot before she stepped inside. “I’m here.”
Wood creaked and dragged, and Rowan backstepped as the oak she’d sculpted into a wooden version of Taran emerged from the shadows. Since the last time she’d seen Ochd in his new body he’d undergone more changes, refining his limbs and coloring. The last of the skin crackling had disappeared, and he’d changed his eyes to a flat blue. His hair remained a dark, lifeless brown, but he still looked enough like Taran to make her blink.
“Fair morning, my lady,” Ochd said as he smiled at her as much as his stiff face would allow. “I bring troubling news.”
Her spy never brought any other kind. “Tell me.”
As Ochd related Hendry’s plan to build an army of totems to fight alongside the famhairean, Rowan paced a little. Bad enough that Oriana Embry, Bhaltair Flen’s killer acolyte, had joined the mad druids’ crew. Now they were stacking the deck even more. If they built enough totems and got them stomping around the battlefield, the Skaraven would never have a c
hance to get at the giants. They’d all be squashed by the heavies.
“I need to know how many totems he’s making,” she asked after the giant had finished his report. “Also, find out when they’ll be ready to fight, and where and when Hendry is planning to attack the clan.”
Ochd reached out and took hold of her arm. “I dinnae wish to return. Permit me stay and serve you, my lady.”
He wasn’t hurting her, but his touch made her stomach shrink and her skin crawl. She couldn’t let the real Taran put his hands on her, so the irony only made it more unbearable.
“I don’t want to send you back there,” Rowan said and wanted it to be a lie. But she knew if Hendry discovered Ochd had switched sides he’d do something horrible to the famhair. As creepy as he was, she didn’t want that on her conscience. “But there’s no other way to stop this. Find out what I need to know, and meet me back here as soon as you can. I’ll come every morning the weather’s clear. And remember, don’t come back to the stronghold.”
His stiff mouth drooped. “You said you’d soon tell the Skaraven of us.”
Us. Like they were a couple. “I’ll speak to Brennus today,” Rowan promised. “Just be careful not to get caught ditching your body.”
“As my lady commands.” Ochd retreated back into the depths of the cave.
Rowan walked out and dragged in deep breaths of the cold air. The gelding let out a high-pitched screech as amber light suddenly rushed around her. Ochd’s disembodied spirit swirled up to sift through her hair before it shot up into the sky and zipped away.
“It’s okay, he’s gone, it’s okay,” Rowan said as Ceann reared and fought to free himself. She calmed the gelding with her voice and hands, forcing her stomach to hold off until the horse quieted.
There was no avoiding what came next. Every time after she met with the famhair the same thing happened. To keep from spooking Ceann again she walked a short distance away. Crouching down and bracing her hands, she threw up behind a bush until she dry-heaved. Then she walked back on wobbly legs to the gelding.