"Have a care," Egann warned. "Lest he decide to hunt you."
For some reason Monk seemed to find this amusing. His mad chortles of glee had even his own followers muttering among themselves.
Then, abruptly, Monk went quiet. Looking up at Egann, he gave a fierce shake of his head. "Now is not the time, Prince of Rune. We are not ready, not yet. But we will be, and soon."
Before Egann could dispute his cryptic words, the air began to shimmer. The bonfires roared, the flames leaping higher, sparks shooting into the night sky.
With a flash like lightening, Monk and his men vanished.
Magic. Again.
Stunned, Egann stared at the empty place where the Maccus had stood only moments before.
With a fierce shake of his head, Weylyn uttered a futile challenge, a trumpet of sound that blared into the night. Deirdre's kitten, startled by the noise, poked her head up from the folds of Deirdre's skirt and yowled.
"I would go with you," The gray-haired Shadow Dancer spoke, reminding him of her presence at Weylyn's side.
Egann bit back his refusal when Deirdre glanced over her shoulder at him, a blatant look of entreaty in her exotic violet eyes.
"Of course you will," he said instead. "But we will need another mount. Though Weylyn's back is strong, even he would balk at carrying three."
The horse nickered, rolling his eyes so that the whites of them showed. Egann couldn't help but laugh.
Again, Deirdre's Cinnie mewed.
"You would make a fine steed, little one."
Deirdre made a sound of protest.
"Think on it, little dancer. What better way to protect this small cat than to make her into a fine steed like Weylyn?"
Weylyn snorted his agreement.
"See?" Egann grinned at Deirdre, knowing he was right. "He will protect her."
With a wordless nod, Deirdre handed him the kitten. Unafraid, the small beast tilted her head and looked up at him with what he could have sworn was eager anticipation.
"Place her on the ground," he told Ula, who took Cinnie from him and did as he asked.
Weylyn nickered again.
The spell was a simple one, ancient and familiar. Quickly Egann spoke the words to it, using a simple gesture and a minimum of power.
One moment, a kitten sat beneath Weylyn's hooves, licking her small paw and purring.
The next, a spotted palfrey, coat gleaming with health, touched noses with Weylyn.
Deirdre laughed out loud with delight.
Ula took a step back. "Much thanks to you," she murmured. With a spryness at odds with her advanced age, she went to the smaller horse, grasped the long mane, and pulled herself up on Cinnie's back.
Once she was settled, they started forward.
"How are you named?" Deirdre asked, sounding lightly cautious.
"I am called Ula." The older woman said. "I am one of those that dance in the shadows."
Egann watched Deirdre's averted profile for a reaction, finding none. Instead, she merely dipped her head politely. "My name is Deirdre. For what tribe did you dance?"
Ula sighed. "Long have I danced in the Shadows, and for many tribes. Thanks to the Maccus and their red and angry god, I have no home."
Egann thought of the fires in the cliff caves and his and Deirdre's furious ride to escape. In front of him, Deirdre shuddered, and he knew that she remembered as well.
"The Maccus burned my home as well." Deirdre's quiet voice held sadness. "Though Prince Egann has promised to find me another home, after we find that which he seeks." Staring straight ahead, she did not look at him as she spoke.
That she used his title with such a formal tone gave him momentary pause, as did the fact that she did not name the amulet to the other woman.
"I have heard of one who seeks a talisman." Ula said slowly. "All of the Northern tribes speak of it."
Inside himself, Egann felt a momentary sharpening, a drawing together of his intellect and spirit and body. "Do they say," he asked, keeping his tone level, "where one might find this thing?"
"Nay."The older woman replied. "Though it’s rumored that the Maccus have a magical amulet."
Deirdre half turned, glancing at Ula who rode beside them. "How were you captured?"
Though Egann heard nothing but polite curiosity in her voice, he sensed an undercurrent of suspicion just the same.
"They came upon my people by stealth, and set fire to our village. I tried to run." Ula made a rueful tsking sound, "but these old legs of mine are not so swift any more. They caught me easily and I did not have the strength to fight them."
The same thing would have happened to Deirdre, if he had not been there to protect her.
This knowledge infuriated Egann, as well as causing him unexpected pain. The thought of a being so loving, so exquisite as Deirdre having her existence snuffed out by one as callous and cruel as the madman called Monk made him wish for only the second time in his life that he could touch iron and arm himself with a sword.
"The Maccus must be stopped." This declaration he uttered with contempt. "No matter the cost, I will stop them, so that no more Shadow Dancers will die."
Deirdre lifted her face to his, violet eyes glowing. "You would do this," she whispered, "for me and my kind?"
"Have a care what you promise," the old woman admonished. "Though I am certain you already know this, to make such an oath becomes binding."
This he knew well, for he had always honored his word. Except once, the most important time of all, when he had promised to protect Banan and failed.
He would not do so again.
Though now his vows had become numerous, he would keep each and every one. He would find and return the Amulet of Gwymyrr to his people, keep Deirdre safe, and find a way to remove the curse that haunted her and her kind.
Dipping his head, he touched his lips to Deirdre's, sealing his latest promise. Odd how he, who once had wanted no responsibilities at all, had just willingly taken on another.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As they rode swiftly in the darkness, Deirdre shot covert looks at the older woman. Never having met one of her own kind, Deirdre did not know what to make her. Something about her mannerisms seemed familiar to her, in the way that dreams sometimes brought false memories of strange places.
Occasionally the breeze carried the sharp scent of the sea, and she fancied she could hear a gull screech in the distance. They rode north, she knew, and the dirt path did not stray too far from the cliffs.
Clouds still blanketed the night sky, and when occasionally the moon revealed herself, she seemed to be nearly half full.
Soon, too soon, `twould be time for the dance.
Again she looked at Ula, wondering what it would be like to watch the Shadow Dance of another. To her knowledge such a thing had never been done.
Shadow Dancers were, according to legend, few in number. Now, thanks to Fiallan, she knew why; they were the beleaguered survivors of one small group of wrongly cursed people, scattered like chaff on the wind among the various tribes. And hunted always by the relentless Maccus.
"Where did you dance, child?" Ula asked, making Deirdre wonder if perhaps the older woman had read her mind.
"I lived South of here, by the sea and among cliff people." Though she tried, Deirdre could not keep her sorrow from resonating in her voice. "I danced the harvest until The Maccus came with their evil and their sacrificial fires. Egann – the Prince – helped me to escape. I do not know how many of my people did not."
"The Maccus only wanted you," Egann pointed out from behind her, tightening his arms around her, his deep voice a soothing rumble. "When they did not find you –"
"Think you that they massacred my people?" There. Deirdre closed her eyes, reliving the anguish. She'd finally spoken her greatest fear out loud, the guilty worry that had haunted her ever since she'd fled her home.
"I know not." Egann said. "What think you, Ula?"
`Twas a reasonable question, and Deirdre waited
to see if the older dancer would have something to say.
Yet the older woman remained silent, the slight breeze ruffling her moon-colored hair.
The clop of the horses' hooves was the only sound for awhile, as Deirdre stared blindly at the tall grasses that lined both sides of the dirt path. Finally, she could bear the silence no longer.
"Tell me old one, if you know. What happened to your people when the Maccus came?"
"If the Maccus harmed your people," Ula told her with a lift of her brows, circumventing the question. "there would be no way to know. Though the Maccus hunt only us, sometimes they hurt others that get in their way. There is nothing you can do to change that. Our kind never asked to become so hated and hunted."
"There is much I did not ask for." Deirdre shook her head, trying to clear from her mind the unwanted images of fire and screams and her people dying. "But still I would have an answer. Tell me what became of your tribe?"
"I do not know." Reluctance colored Ula's tone. "When the Maccus captured me I was beaten and rendered senseless. When I next regained my mind, I was far from home and my people."
"I am sorry." Deirdre bowed her head. This senseless hatred had to stop. The Maccus, instead of atoning for their crimes of long ago, tried to eradicate the very ones they'd abused. Never would they stop, for they had created their red and angry god - a god who demanded the fiery sacrifices of her people. Nay, never would they change.
Unless one such as Egann were able turn them from their evil ways.
To end an age-old enmity, to right the wrongs done by a forbidden curse, to bring unity and joy to two separate races – this would be a task for a great warrior King indeed.
Stunned, she stared unseeingly ahead, compelled by a vision of such magnitude and beauty that she wanted to weep.
Was this then the path that Fiallan had spoke of, the walk of greatness that Egann might take, were he so inclined?
Humbled, yet thankful that she might live to see this with her own eyes, Deirdre muttered a quick prayer to the Goddess. The rocking of Weylyn's gait seemed soothing now, and she drifted into a light sleep, her head pillowed on Egann's broad chest.
"We near a village," Egann's voice rumbled. As he spoke, he slowed Weylyn to a brisk walk. "And, though the moon remains high, I must soon find a place where you both can hide."
Beside them, Ula pointed ahead. "There is an abandoned barn in the southern fields outside the village."
Sleepily, Deirdre peered at the older woman. "How do you come by this knowledge?"
"`Tis where the Maccus kept me, while they searched for you."
"Is it dark enough to provide shelter?"
"Yes."
Surprised, Deirdre tilted her head. "They found you a safe place, even though they meant to kill you?"
Ula's smoky chuckle was interrupted by coughing. When she spoke again, she sounded weak. "I was but bait, a lure put out by the Maccus to trap you and your man. That their plan failed I can only marvel."
Egann laughed. "I do not think they know the true extent of my power, though they had to know that I am Fae."
Perhaps, Deirdre added silently, they did not realize that you are the rightful King of Rune.
"This I do not doubt," Ula agreed. "Though I truly believe they want above all to know the secret of this amulet they have found. They sense its magic and this frustrates them, because they don't know how to use it. Mayhap they think you can teach them its secrets."
Deirdre's suspicions grew. "How came you with such intimate knowledge, Ula? Did you see the one who has the talisman?"
"Nay, though the Maccus that I traveled with could talk of nothing else. I listened well, and merely relay to you what I heard them say."
The older woman's voice contained a hint of resentment. That, and an awful, aching weariness that Deirdre sensed as sharply as if it were her own. She knew this feeling, knew it well. It was the prelude to the utter exhaustion which always claimed her as she reached the end of her dance.
"I have lived many years, child," Ula spoke softly, so that Deirdre had to strain to hear her. "I am old and tired." Her words once again made Deirdre wonder how Ula seemed able to read her thoughts.
"And I have seen numerous deeds, both good and evil," the older dancer continued. "Long have the Maccus hunted us, though never as successfully as they do now, with the aid of this magical amulet."
"Another reason we must track them with all haste." Egann sounded grim, and Deirdre knew he believed his loss of the amulet was yet another great failure on his part, a failure like that had caused his brother's end, though this failure could result in the loss of more than one life.
Before she thought better of it, Deirdre turned her head and rubbed her face against his broad chest. She listened to the steady thump of his heart, finding the sound comforting. "We will find it," she said. "Do not doubt that."
He did not answer, staring down at her upturned face with a predatory look, reminding her again of a fierce falcon hunting. What fools these Maccus were, she thought with a shiver, to think that they could best someone as formidable as Egann.
"That dim shape across the field," Ula said, interrupting Deirdre's wandering thoughts. "That is the farmhouse I spoke of."
Though the sky remained dark, Deirdre did not doubt that soon it would lighten and show the tell-tale streaks of color that presaged the fiery rise of the sun. How many times had she watched in secret with an aching heart, waiting until the last possible moment to take necessary shelter in the cool darkness? She had prayed for sleep to come quickly to her then, for only in slumber could she submerge her fierce longing to feel the warm kiss of the sun on her pale skin.
Yet she had dreamed of such a day. She wondered if one as ancient as Ula had ever shared such a dream, had ever longed to walk in the day.
At Egann's command, Weylyn left the rutted road, traveling swiftly over the grass covered field. The scent was different here, of grass and grain and dark, rich earth, making her think of the fragrant orchard where she and Egann had made love.
That, Deirdre thought with amusement, would not happen again soon. Not with Ula to act as chaperone. She supposed she should feel gratitude, to be protected from her own wanton desires.
Wanton. Her – Deirdre The Untouchable. So had the men of the cliffs named her, when she'd rebuffed all of their advances.
As they drew nearer the shape of the farmhouse became better defined. Deirdre could see that, although the building appeared sound and whole, none lived within the stone walls.
"Where did the people go?" Egann mused out loud, echoing Deirdre's unspoken question.
"This place has not been empty that long." Ula told him. "Perhaps the people ran off with the coming of the Maccus."
"Or were murdered by them." His tone was dark. "I sense death here, in this abandoned place."
"More blood on their hands." Staring hard at him, Ula inclined her head. "There is also magic here, though I know not enough about it to tell you why."
With a swift motion, Egann dismounted, then reached up and lifted Deirdre down as well. His hands were warm where they touched her waist, and `twas with only the greatest of efforts that she kept herself from pressing into him.
Swallowing, she concentrated instead on the older woman's words. "Was magic used for evil here?"
`Twas Egann who answered, his voice hard. "Using magic to kill is forbidden. If the Maccus did so, then by their own hands they are thrice damned."
If she did not look away from him, she would drown in the smoldering heat of his eyes. Turning, she pretended to study the abandoned cottage.
It occurred to Deirdre that she could see much better now; the weathered stone of the farmhouse was cracked in places. A quick glance at the sky confirmed her fear, it had begun to lighten, though she could not see the faint glow of the sun on the horizon as of yet. Still, dawn would not be far behind.
"It is time we take shelter," Ula said. "I find even a hint of sunrise painful, and wish to rest withou
t soreness."
Deirdre hurried over and took Ula's arm. She glanced back at Egann, noting his fierce scowl. It struck her then, that perhaps he did not want her to go. How she longed to go to him, to smooth the lines from his face, to kiss into softness the rigid set of his mouth.
Instead, she looked away, commanding her foolish heart to stop pounding. "Cinnie will be fine," she said, pretending to study the small horse with interest.
"Aye," Egann answered, his voice sounding flat. "Weylyn will watch over her."
Avoiding his intent gaze, Deirdre nodded. "Come Ula, let us go inside. You can show me the best place for us to sleep."
But before she left, Deirdre could not help but chance another quick look at him. Still he stood, legs planted apart in the rich earth, a fierce warrior outlined by the lightening sky. It was right that they leave him now, allowing him time to pierce together his thoughts, to formulate a plan.
Ula went with Deirdre without protest. Once inside the dark confines of the abandoned farmhouse, they switched places, Deirdre following where the silver-haired one led. The air inside carried a damp chill, and the faded, elusive scents of those who had stayed here before.
Unerringly, Ula guided her down a short hallway, to a room that had appeared to have been built into the back of the small house. Down three wooden steps, it appeared this room was part cellar, used for storing vegetables and meats. Though windowless, Deirdre could see enough in the stale air to tell that the bed Ula showed her was made of straw, covered with an old, musty blanket.
Holding the older woman's arm, Deirdre helped her settle comfortably. Then, missing Egann with a terrible ache, she climbed down to lay beside the old one. The straw scratched and the blanket stank of unwashed flesh. Despite that, she felt herself drifting off to sleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes.
* * *
Egann liked this not. Pacing outside in the gathering dawn, he eyed the rustic farmhouse with unease. The place carried echoes of dark deeds, both past and present, and lives violently lost. With a quiet oath, he reached down and scooped up a handful of damp earth, sifting its fertile darkness between his fingers as he let it fall to the ground.
Humans had fought for this land, died for this land. Now the place was empty and he found the abandonment too convenient. Yet who would set a trap in a place where the occupant could see for miles in every direction? Approach by stealth would not be possible, and the Maccus did not need to entrap their enemies if magic were to be used.
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