Bloodstone

by Gillian Philip

  The bay trotted to an exhausted halt a respectful distance from the roan, and Jed lowered Rory to Sionnach’s arms. ‘Potty!’ the child wailed.

  ‘I’m sorry, heart.’ Jed slid off the mare and tugged at the sodden baby jeans with some difficulty. ‘It really wasn’t the moment.’

  Finn clung to Seth’s immobile form, afraid to move in case she disturbed the crossbow bolts again. ‘Eili!’

  Eili walked calmly to the horse, speaking soothing words in her own language as she stroked its flank. As she put her hand over its wound, a shiver rippled through its muscles.

  ‘Eili, please!’

  Branndair whined as desperately as Finn did, and nudged Seth’s unresponsive leg with his muzzle.

  Eili pressed her mouth to the hole in the horse’s flank, tasting it. ‘That’s a good wound,’ she told it. ‘A clean wound. It’ll heal fast.’ The roan whickered to her as she turned to peer with clinical interest at Seth’s back. ‘That isn’t.’

  ‘Please!’

  Eili glanced up. ‘Begging me now, are you? For this scum?’

  Finn bit her tongue, very hard, tasting blood and not caring. If she cried now, Seth was lost. She knew it by instinct; she knew it by looking into Eili’s emotionless eyes.

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m begging.’

  Branndair was pacing frantically, halting only to lick Seth’s foot and stare beseechingly at Finn, but she wouldn’t look at the black wolf. He too might make her cry.

  ‘I’m begging you. Please. For Conal.’

  ‘No,’ Eili said at last, coldly. ‘Not for Conal. For me.’ She turned. ‘Sionnach!’

  He pulled Seth off the horse without gentleness, ignoring Branndair’s frightened snarl, and carried Seth to the bowl-shaped hollow in the side of the hill where they’d made camp. Sionnach dumped him face down in the thin snow beside Conal’s corpse.

  ‘Let that be the first thing you see when you wake up,’ he said as he ripped the indigo shirt roughly from Seth’s back.

  It was. Finn was too afraid to interfere, too afraid of Eili changing her mind. It was hours later when Seth’s eyes blinked twice and then opened. He didn’t flinch, gave no sign at all, only gazed at Conal’s cold peaceful face a metre from his own.

  A shadow fell across the dead face and the living one, but Seth didn’t look up. ‘Thank you, Eili.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ Her eyes were concealed behind the sunglasses Conal had brought her, a fierce cold winter sun glinting on the lenses. ‘You’re mine to kill, not hers.’

  A smile twitched his mouth. ‘Understood.’

  She nodded and walked away.

  Seth’s eyes met Finn’s across the two corpses. She’d never been so glad to look at him. Hour after hour she’d tried not to see Conal’s wounds; instead she’d stared at his blue bitten nails and wept in silence. Branndair had stretched himself against Seth, and Liath lay at Conal’s feet, her amber eyes bereft, but Jed had withdrawn hours ago to the far side of the hollow, hugging Rory and staring out empty-eyed across the valley. Finn understood he couldn’t sit by Conal and Torc, not with the baby, but nor could she leave Conal. Somebody had to sit with him, besides a wolf. Somebody had to sit with Seth, too. For when he woke up. For when he opened his eyes.

  Seth stretched out a hand, wincing. ‘Here.’

  She scrambled across the slope to him, taking the emerald splinter from his hand.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘Get rid of it. Give it to somebody who needs it.’

  Grabbing a snowy boulder, he dragged himself into a sitting position. Branndair rose, stretched and slumped close against him once more, and Seth put his arms fiercely around the wolf’s neck. The skin of his naked torso was almost as blue as his brother’s. If it hadn’t been for Branndair’s warmth he would have frozen to death, and Eili and Sionnach would have done nothing to stop it. Finn remembered what Leonie had told her: the Sithe were cruel, vicious, cold. Watch yourself, Finn. Don’t let cold iron into your soul. Stay human.

  Right now, winter seemed to be sinking into her bone marrow. Well, it didn’t have to. She was going to stay human if it killed her. She smiled at Seth. ‘I’m glad you’re okay.’

  ‘You’re in a minority.’ He gave her a rueful grin as he fought the chattering of his teeth. ‘But I’m with you.’

  Eili be damned. Finn opened Conal’s pack, pulled out his spare jumper and thrust it at Seth. He took it, gripping it against his chest till his shivers began to subside. ‘I don’t want you to think, Finn...’ he said, and hesitated. ‘Don’t start thinking well of me, or anything. There was a moment back there... I didn’t know which way I was going to go.’

  ‘I know that.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘I do know that.’

  ‘You do?’ He clutched the jumper as if reluctant to take it away from his skin. ‘Okay.’

  ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘Oh.’ He laughed. ‘A load of mumbo-jumbo and a Lammyr. They won’t be following. It takes a lot of time and effort to clean a curse that’s sealed with a Lammyr head. That’s what I love about superstitious faeries.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re a bit cynical?’ Finn said. ‘With your lifestyle and everything?’

  ‘Ah, if I wasn’t I wouldn’t be me, would I?’ He winked. ‘And that would be a shame. Besides, you should have seen their faces. They couldn’t believe I’d done it, couldn’t believe I’d bring such anathema on myself. What’s the use of that? To be frozen useless by a few words and a piece of dead flesh?’ He lifted Conal’s jumper and stared at it.

  She didn’t know what anathema was, but already she didn’t like the sound of it. ‘Are you sure they’re not right?’

  Seth pretended not to hear her. ‘Now.’ Grunting with the effort, he stood and pulled the jumper awkwardly on. She was never to know if the pain on his hard face was down to the holes in his back, or to the smell of Conal that still clung to the dark wool and that had almost made her cry herself.

  ‘Sionnach,’ he said. ‘Give me my brother.’

  Sionnach’s head snapped up and after looking to Eili for permission, he came across the hollow to lift Conal with incredible gentleness. As he passed him into Seth’s waiting arms, Finn could see he was tempted to thrust the body hard, just for the jolt to Seth’s wounded back. But he resisted, maybe for the sake of Conal’s dignity.

  She had no idea how Seth struggled up the hill with the dead weight of his taller brother but he did, right up to the cracked and worn rocks at its summit, the wolves flanking him and Sionnach and Eili behind, carrying Torc. They laid the two corpses together on the rocks.

  Clutching Rory, Jed looked from one to the other as they turned and started down the hill. ‘Aren’t you going to...’ His voice shook. ‘Burn them?’

  Sionnach bristled as if he’d suggested something obscene. ‘Not when there’s time to do it properly. At least Murlainn bought us that,’ he added contemptuously.

  ‘You’re going to leave them there?’ Jed stared at the three older Sithe.

  Finn was staying close by Seth, one of them now, accepting everything he said without so much as a question, let alone a snappy remark. There’s a turn-up for the books, thought Jed, but he couldn’t find it in him to be angry with her. Seth was the only family she had left here. And he wasn’t even family, really. She was as much an orphan as Jed now.

  ‘We don’t like the smell of burning flesh, Jed.’ Seth turned to limp down the hill. ‘The ground’s frozen, even if I wanted to feed them to the worms. They’ll go to the foxes and the wildcats and the ravens and the buzzards. And I’ll stay with them till they’re stripped bare, and when I retrieve their scattered bones I’ll make a barrow for them. That’s my job, and this one I will do.’ He stared at Eili.

  ‘And I will guard their backs,’ she said stiffly.

  Seth lifted his sword belt and buckled it across his back, his lips white as he fought not to flinch from the weight of his own weapon. ‘You will take Jed and Finn to the dun,’ he said. ‘You’ll do i
t because I tell you to.’

  ‘If you follow us,’ said Sionnach, ‘the clann have the right to kill you, Murlainn.’

  ‘They may do, but at least they’ll do it quickly,’ Seth said coldly. ‘For now I will stay with Conal and Torc, I will guard their front and back, and nothing but the wild things will come near them. When their bones are buried I will come to you, and when their wake is over we’ll all be done mourning.’

  ‘I will never be done!’ shouted Eili.

  ‘You will, to the world outside your head, just as I will.’ He stared into her angry eyes, and this time it was Eili who looked away. ‘Your head is your own. Like mine.’

  Snow came, burying the land, muffling every sound but the keen of the wind and driving across the moor like a vengeful white ghost. It had gone again, lying only in hollowed patches, before Seth returned to the dun, gaunt and hard with hunger and cold and grief. Finn never did ask him about the weeks he stayed at Brokentor, and he never offered to tell her.

  I watched them all, the men and women of my clann. With my arms folded, they wouldn’t see my hands tremble. I’d fought with them, ridden with them, squabbled with them; I’d danced and sung and got drunk with them in this hall. Some of them I’d loved. Now they might have to kill me.

  No-one spoke. I felt unafraid, just listless and very, very tired. Maybe nothing could be worse than the long weeks at Brokentor. At least that was over. One day this would be, too.

  There was no point protesting. It wasn’t up to me any more, and I wouldn’t even if I could. Eili stood to the side. Her eyes hadn’t left me since I’d ridden through the gate of the dun and they’d disarmed me.

  Grian seemed to be their spokesman now. He gave a sigh. ‘It’s Eili’s choice. Do you understand, Murlainn?

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  They all looked at her. It was her milking of the moment that told me I was not going to die. Death, she’d have pronounced on me quickly. She wanted to keep me in suspense, and paradoxically that told me what I needed to know. I closed my eyes.

  ‘If it was for me alone,’ she said at last, all dignity and coolness, ‘I’d choose death. But it isn’t. He is the father of the... child. He is the Captain of this dun.’ She smiled unpleasantly. ‘If he can take it back.’

  I heard the exhalation of hundreds of breaths, but my own wasn’t one of them. I breathed deeply, quietly, trying to make sure my fingers wouldn’t tremble as I reached for Conal’s now threadbare jumper and pulled it off over my head. I was determined to do that, at least, before they told me to. The constant acute ache in my crossbow scars was gone, and I allowed myself a wry inner smile. Obviously Eili did not want anything to distract me from what lay ahead.

  ‘Murlainn,’ said Grian.

  ‘Grian,’ I said, tossing the jumper to him. ‘Get those two – newcomers – out of here.’

  Grian blinked, a little shocked, as if he’d forgotten their existence. ‘Of course. Yes.’

  Jed resisted, half-turning back to me, but it was Finn who cried out, ‘Seth?’

  ‘Go on, Finn,’ I said as two men came forward to flank me. ‘We’re just sorting something out. I’ll be along in a bit.’

  Jed made an angry terrified sound, as if my words had reminded him of something else, but the two of them were half-led, half-pulled from the hall, and I shut my eyes, relieved, when the door slammed on them. I turned away, put them deliberately out of my mind, and raised a block against the rest. That would not come down till it was over. Whatever else they did, they weren’t going to beat their way into my mind. I could feel Orach trying to get into my head, desperate to take some of what was coming to me, but I shoved her away. Not even her.

  Besides, I wouldn’t do it to her.

  At the top end of the hall they were already swinging the straight pine trunk into place, suspended horizontally at shoulder height on the iron brackets. It hung precisely in the gap between the walls of a huge arch that led to the anteroom beyond the hall, at the top of a shallow flight of three steps. A prominent, clear position; a good place for setting examples.

  Feckers.

  There was something about the simplicity of the thing that sent a shudder through me, and I looked only once, swiftly, at the dappling of brown spots concentrated in the central section of it. At least the clann weren’t making a meal of it. None of them were enjoying this.

  Well, except for one. Eili’s eyes were bright and hating.

  Nothing for it. I walked to the pine trunk, hell-bent on keeping my limbs steady as I reached the last step. My throat was as dry as a dead leaf but they didn’t have to know that. The men on either side of me took my wrists, and caught the lengths of cord thrown to them.

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ I told Carraig, quietly and bitterly.

  He swallowed and cast his eyes down for a moment. ‘I know, Murlainn.’

  ‘Then don’t tie me, Carraig,’ I growled. ‘I won’t fight. You know I won’t try to run.’

  ‘Murlainn. Please do this. You don’t have to but – ’

  ‘It stops you falling, Murlainn,’ interrupted Fearna in a soft voice. ‘Because otherwise you will. Whatever you think, however strong you are, you will fall. Carraig’s right. Please.’

  I hesitated, then nodded, and they looped the thin ropes round each wrist and tightened them. I closed my eyes as Carraig and Fearna stretched my arms against the timber. I’d ridden and fought and drunk and laughed with both of them, and now, though each of them pulled the cords tight, they also clasped my fingers with their own. I was more grateful than I could say, but I said nothing, suddenly afraid of weeping. I was not afraid of the pain, not yet, but I was terribly afraid I might weep with the bloody awful sadness of it all.

  They were making it quick, I knew it, but it still felt like forever before silence fell with that particular dreadful quality. I glanced briefly at Carraig.

  ‘All right, Murlainn?’ he whispered.

  He was letting me know it was coming. I gave him a very fleeting smile and closed my eyes.

  I felt the evil breath of the lash before it even hit me.

  ‘The hell with this,’ said Finn. She took her hands from her face and ran round the passageway to the anteroom at the top end of the hall, Jed at her heels.

  ‘Will we get in there?’

  ‘Nobody’s going to stop us.’ She glanced back at him, her eyes fierce and cold. ‘Because they’re all in there. All of them watching. The bastards.’

  She was right: the anteroom was empty. The hall was full, but no-one was taking any notice of two figures easing in through the gap in the darkness around the anteroom door.

  The crowd of watchers stood in absolute silence, and there was no screaming. There was only one sound: the light song and snap of a whip as it cracked into flesh. Finn froze, incapable for a moment of breathing.

  Facing them was Seth, bound to a stripped pine log, but his eyes were shut tight. With each lash his body jerked involuntarily against the log, but it was his only reaction, so for seconds Finn didn’t understand. Then she made out the fine spray of red, the droplets spattering the wood, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Seth’s jaw was rigid, his skin white and stretched, and blood trickled from the corner of his lips.

  Like a ghost behind the hideous image there was another one in Finn’s head: Seth stripping off his jumper, throwing it to Grian. He was taking this of his free will. She clenched her fists till her nails drew blood in her palms, reopening the gash she’d made with her pendant. She still hated them all. Her body seethed with terror and pity and the godawful hatred.

  There was no pleasure in any of their faces, even in the face of the man who wielded the brutal whip. He was not enjoying his work, but neither was he holding back. The flogging was thorough, professional, brutal. The clann were only enduring it, but she felt no shred of pity for them. Even Sionnach was looking on stony-faced and miserable. But his sister’s eyes came alight with glee as she found Finn in the shadows, and there was fervid hope in
her expression.

  No, Finn thought. You can wait forever, you vicious vengeful bitch. I won’t scream.

  Seth opened his jaws and sank his teeth into the pine trunk, blood from his bitten tongue spilling down the timber. Her own back jolted with every lash of the whip. Oh, please, she thought each time: make it stop. Not again. That’s enough. You’ll kill him. Stop now. Please. But every time, the whip was drawn back, every time she heard the crack of it, duller and wetter now.

  The guards seemed to be holding Seth tighter, and the one she could see had tears in his eyes. As Jed closed his arms tightly around her chest, she felt something trickle hot into her hair, and knew he too was crying. They couldn’t leave. She had not abandoned Seth at Brokentor and she wouldn’t abandon him now. But if the lash did not stop that relentless, endless cracking, she thought she might throw up or pass out, and she didn’t want to do either.

  And then, when she thought she could stand it no longer, it was over.

  I lay face down on my own mattress, staring at the wall. So I’d got here by myself.

  I had not fallen when they took the ropes off my wrists. I’d walked out of the hall by myself, in front of them all, the pain a stabbing demon with its flaming claws deep in my back and its tentacles around my throat, threatening to cut off my air supply. Some of the clann were weeping. But I fecking wasn’t.

  I climbed the stairs to my rooms alone, their watching eyes keeping me upright as far as the landing. But I don’t know how I made it up the second flight. I don’t know. I don’t even remember the climb, though I vaguely remember throwing up at the top of the stairs, the pain flaying me in a vicious circle and making me vomit again.

  Damn them, damn them, damn them all to hell. I let myself feel the hatred because after tonight I must not feel it again. When the pain subsided, in a couple of centuries, I wouldn’t. They were my clann.

  I hadn’t made a sound. Let’s be clear on that. I did not pass out. I got my dun back, got my clann back. I was the son of Griogair Dubh and I was their unchallenged Captain. I’d atoned for the death of their leader, at least in the eyes of the clann if not in the merciless eyes of Eili.