Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels)

by Gillian Philip

  I thought about it. I came close to him again, touched his face, made him look at me. There were tears in his eyes, but he coughed a laugh that was almost hysterical.

  ‘I told you I was selfish.’

  ‘Seth,’ I said. ‘Seth. The two weren’t connected?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because I wouldn’t care,’ I hissed. ‘Even if they were.’

  He laid his hand over mine, turned his mouth into my palm and kissed it. His eyes were closed. ‘Not-binding, staying away from you. For all I know, that could have been your death. I don’t know. Oh gods, I don’t know.’

  ‘Seth,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘It’s a crock of shit. Remember?’

  ‘Course it is. Yes. Even Conal said so.’

  I pressed my forehead against his, fiercely. ‘I’m not interested in what Conal thought. Do you hear me? Not him, and not my mother, and not Leonie.’

  Seth’s fingers curled round mine, and he dragged my hand down from his face. But he did not let me go.

  ‘Finn. I won’t let you die.’

  ‘I second that.’ I kissed his fingers and shot him a grin.

  He hesitated, then laughed unsteadily. ‘I was livid. Every damn thing in my whole damn life, that witch wanted to control. But I wasn’t half as livid as Leonie, or your mother. I told myself as often as they did that it would never happen.’ His sudden smirk was wicked. ‘And when you did turn up, you were such an ugly baby...’

  I jabbed him in the stomach, making him wince. ‘Well. Never mind, dear. I hated you too.’

  ‘You hated me because I hated you. That’s okay.’

  ‘Seth, I hated you because you were a complete tit.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ He laughed and made a face.

  I looked back at the discoloured photograph and saw that Seth’s little finger was surreptitiously clutched in the baby’s curled fist.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Finn. I’m sorry how it all turned out.’

  I pulled his face to mine again, and kissed him. ‘Me too. I’m glad you showed me this.’

  ‘And now I’m stuck with loving you senseless again, for the rest of my life.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that, you schmuck.’

  ‘You already have. And I still don’t know if I’ve done the right thing.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll do the knowing for the both of us.’

  I felt his mouth grin against mine. ‘You are going to be intolerable.’

  I’d have replied, but his head jerked up suddenly and he turned to face the door. ‘What?’ he barked, before whoever it was had a chance to knock.

  The door swung open and Braon leaned in. ‘Half an hour ago.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose Nuall MacInnes is going to lift a finger to help.’ He picked up his sword.

  ‘He probably invited them in,’ remarked Braon. ‘That one’s playing his own game.’

  ‘No he isn’t, he’s just chickenshit.’ Seth cursed. ‘Finn, they’re raiding Letterhaugh. East of Dunster.’

  ‘I caught that much,’ I said. I lifted my knife belt.

  He seized my wrist. ‘No way, Finn. I haven’t got time to look out for you.’

  Braon shot me a sympathetic look as my cheekbones burned. ‘It won’t take that long, Finn,’ she said. ‘We only need to show our faces. He’ll be back for a late breakfast.’

  ‘Save us a bacon roll.’ He kissed me and was gone.

  For a full minute I stared at the door that closed behind them, mortified and angry. After that I came to my senses and realised he was right. I made myself picture it: me getting in a scrap; somebody having to rescue me, and not necessarily Seth. That would be a lot more mortifying than being left behind.

  ‘Practise more, you silly cow,’ I muttered. ‘Then he’ll take you.’

  I made myself not-picture the other thing: Seth getting in a scrap he couldn’t handle, Seth with no-one to watch his back or the sword plunging into it. Shaking the vision loose from my brain I sloped downstairs for breakfast, still bereft.

  I wasn’t the first. Seth had taken only a small detachment, and there were maybe twenty fighters awake in the hall, forcing down breakfast, plus the eight men and three women of the night patrol, gloating at their hungover comrades and preparing to hit the sack.

  And Hannah. She glanced up expressionless, her mouth full of toast.

  I stopped short. Her hair was cropped nearly as short as Eili’s. It suited her, I thought, wondering why a tremor had run the length of my spine.

  ‘Nice, Hannah,’ I said. ‘What’s your aunt going to say?’

  Hannah swallowed a mouthful of toast. ‘Like I give a flying fu…’

  ‘Suits you,’ I snapped, and turned to the coffee pot that simmered on the range. Iolaire was there already, yawning, helping himself.

  He kissed my cheek, his jaw rough with stubble. ‘Your lover gone out fighting with a headache?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ The real reason for Seth’s sore head was too complicated to explain at this hour, and anyway, he deserved one however he’d got it. I grinned, remembering Iolaire slumped on a sofa last night, hands over his eyes in mortification as Seth and Jed danced an elaborate tango. ‘Yours too?’

  ‘Yep. He woke up at five and drank the entire water jug and then he was fine, the bastard. I don’t know where he puts it.’

  ‘Jed drinks too much,’ I said. ‘He’s fun, but he drinks too much.’

  ‘I know he does.’ Iolaire bent to murmur in my ear. ‘I look after him. Honest.’

  ‘I know you do.’ I kissed his cheek, just while it was there.

  ‘And how’s Eili this morning?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘It’s all over the dun, the mood she’s in,’ said Iolaire dryly. ‘We know you gave her hell. Look out, Finn.’

  I felt a hand on my arm, then Sionnach was taking the coffee pot out of my hands. ‘Right behind me, Finn,’ he said apologetically. ‘Be warned. And please be careful.’

  ‘Fionnuala.’ Eili’s voice cut the atmosphere. Eyes like chips of mica, she pointed at me, then at the doorway.

  The hall had fallen silent, and a couple of fighters stood up, uncertain. Sionnach took a step towards me and Eili, but I raised a hand.

  I followed Eili out to the courtyard, and the door closed softly behind us.

  SETH

  The day was already hot, and soon they were going to start to smell. Up in the blue, a buzzard soared, its cry piercing his bones. Seth sat very still on the blue roan, watching Jed pick his way through the bodies, rolling one over with a foot, hauling another by the armpits to lie next to its mother.

  ‘What was the point?’ Braon was off her horse too, but she leaned against its shoulder, frowning.

  ‘They’re not ready for a full attack. Kate’s taunting us again.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. Doesn’t surprise me that Cuthag scuttled back to her skirts before we got here.’ She sniffed. ‘But Nuall was a useful idiot. Why do it at all?’

  Seth didn’t reply. He knew why, and she’d work it out in the next five minutes. At least, he hoped that was all it was. The headache he’d got from Finn and whisky was muddling him, but there was an odd and new and different throb of absence, deep in his brain. He couldn’t pinpoint it, couldn’t deal with it; it was like the itching void of a missing limb. He certainly had no words to spare for Braon, not right now.

  Seth rubbed his forehead hard. Jed trudged back towards him, his face dark with hatred. Behind him surviving villagers were moving like animated dead things, hitching litters to horses, lifting corpses.

  ‘Do we stay and help lay them out?’

  ‘Yes.’ Every word was an effort. ‘Their death ground’s two miles east.’

  ‘It’ll take a while. What about him?’ Jed jerked his head at the glowering man bound to a rowan trunk. Branndair stood over the captive, stiff-legged and snarling, but still the man wore that truculent adamant expression he’d worn when they rode him down.

  For a few
seconds, Seth didn’t trust himself to get off the roan. He wasn’t sure his legs would obey him; no two parts of his body seemed to be connected. At last, with a deep breath, he dismounted. When, to his dizzying relief, he didn’t fall, he walked across to Nuall MacInnes and ran his hand across Branndair’s bristling neck, coaxing the wolf to sit. Then he crouched to stare into the man’s eyes.

  ‘They left you to me,’ he said. ‘Are you happy now?’

  ‘You did this.’ MacInnes spat. ‘You, Murlainn.’

  Seth stood up again, turning a slow circle to take in the carnage all over again. It was hard, at this moment, to argue.

  Don’t fall. Don’t fall.

  ‘What did she offer you to close your gates to them? I mean, you didn’t just turn a blind eye, you herded the poor bastards. For her dogs. What price did you get for a whole settlement, Nuall?’

  Nuall glared up at him through sweat-soaked strands of hair. ‘No price but peace, Murlainn. Peace and protection.’

  ‘You had mine!’ he yelled.

  ‘We didn’t ask for yours. And your peace is no peace at all.’

  Seth bit down on his lip. He had no need to spit back. It would be such a small insult, after all. ‘Where’s her protection now?’

  ‘Gone.’ Nuall licked his dry lips and smiled. ‘Ah, but one settlement for the whole of Dunster. It would have been worth it.’

  ‘Not now it isn’t. Not now.’ Seth turned his back and drew his sword. ‘Get him up.’

  ‘It won’t look good for you, Murlainn,’ said Nuall as Jed and Braon cut the ropes that bound him and dragged him to his feet, gripping his arms hard. ‘I’ve tried to broker peace here.’

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? That it won’t look good for me.’ Seth lifted his blade and pressed the tip against the man’s heaving ribcage.

  ‘Indeed. I do see that now. But I’ll hold that thought in my heart anyway.’

  ‘Hold it while you can, then.’ Seth gripped his hair to hold him still, gazed steadily into his blue eyes, and drove the sword hard between his ribs.

  The man was still smiling as blood bubbled in his mouth, even as the body on his blade shuddered and Seth smelt piss and worse. When the eyelight was dead and the body went limp, Seth yanked the sword free, and Jed and Braon let the lifeless corpse slump to the earth. The stillness was horrible, and for long fantastical moments Seth thought nothing would ever break it.

  Then Branndair sprang to his feet, startling all of them, and let out a great barking howl. It rose and swelled, louder and higher, piercing and wild and stricken.

  ‘What?’ said Jed, staring at the black wolf.

  ‘Jed.’ Gooseflesh rose on Seth’s arms. ‘Jed, go and find Liath.’

  Jed’s breath caught; then he nodded. Gripping the dun stallion’s withers, Jed flung himself onto its back and sent it into a gallop from a standing start. Seth and the rest of his patrol watched him until he was lost in hazy distance. Branndair’s howls never faded, echoing across the valley and the burned settlement.

  Funny that despite the noise of it, Seth could think straighter. The howling iced his blood and it iced his brain, and the murk was clearing.

  Braon was close by his side, her hand on his arm. ‘Murlainn. What is it?’

  And he knew. Suddenly he knew what the missing part of him was. ‘Rory’s blocking me.’

  Braon looked disbelieving. ‘Even Rory wouldn’t dare that.’

  ‘But he is. He’s shut me out.’ Seth raked his hands into his hair. He shattered his battle-block with a thought, and still he couldn’t feel his son.

  ‘You’re imagining it. You had a block up. Anyway, why would he do such a thing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Block’s down now. Branndair!’

  The wolf hesitated, caught in mid-howl, his mournful yellow eyes fixed on Seth. Then he started up again, the sound worse than ever, freezing the summer air.

  I don’t understand...

  ‘Braon, we need to get back.’

  ‘But the bodies...’

  ‘Leave them!’ His heart was pounding so hard he was dizzy. There was a bloody great leaking hole in his head, didn’t she understand? No. No, of course she doesn’t. I don’t bloody understand. He clutched his temple.

  ‘Seth...’

  ‘Sorry. Braon. No. The villagers. No. The villagers will do it. We need to go home.’

  She didn’t argue any more, but turned to summon the rest of the detachment. Good woman. Seth snatched wildly at the roan’s bridle, and missed. Furious at himself, he clutched it again. It felt like trying to mount thin air, but he got there. In the end, dizzy and sick, he dragged himself onto the creature’s back.

  He did not wait for Braon, did not wait for his fighters. They’d follow soon enough. Seth dug his heels hard into the roan’s side and turned its head for home. He wouldn’t fall. Now that he was astride and cantering, even the yawning reeling void in his mind would not make him fall before he reached the dun. He was only afraid that he might dissolve, and evaporate from his own body, and never reach it at all.

  FINN

  The courtyard was hot with sunlight of an intensity that hurt the eyes. Grey dun stone was bleached to white and I could smell stone-dust and dry earth and thirsty herbs. I turned on my heel, putting my back to the sun, but Eili backed off. She narrowed her eyes against the glare, looking warier than I’d expected.

  ‘Eili,’ I said. ‘I hate all this. What you’re doing to Seth and to yourself. Please don’t. Conal loved you and I’m sorry I was a cow to you. I was sixteen years old.’

  ‘That’s an excuse for so much, isn’t it?’ said Eili contemptuously.

  ‘I never said that.’ My gut twisted.

  ‘Aw, you’re sweet. You believe in Seth, don’t you? Let me tell you, he believes in nothing.’ Eili’s smile was back in place. ‘Nothing. He has no religion, no faith. He doesn’t believe in God, or Fate, or the Devil. He couldn’t even believe in his own brother. You think he believes in love? In you? I’ll tell you what he believes in: his own survival.’

  I shrugged. ‘Eili, you’ve had your way for a long time. Stop it now.’

  ‘Thirteen years for a whole Sithe life? You seriously think that’s justice? I’ve barely started! You can’t stay awake every night.’

  ‘No, but I’ll do it often enough to make you sorry.’

  ‘So. Suppose you protect his nights.’ Eili tapped her jaw thoughtfully. ‘There are other ways to do this. I hurt Seth all the time, you know, though he rarely lets on. I’ll have more energy for that now. You can’t live in his scars forever, Finn. You nearly didn’t get back to yourself last night, and that was only the first time.’ Eili laughed. ‘This way I’ll get some extra sleep myself.’

  I bit so hard on my lip I tasted blood. ‘You cold-brained witch, Udhar.’

  ‘How dare you,’ snarled Eili. ‘That is not my name.’

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ I said. ‘It’s your doing, you that’s so careless with your name and your soul. You’re not Eilid any more.’

  ‘That is not for you to say!’ cried Eili hoarsely. ‘This is between me and your lover.’

  ‘You’re the one who involved others. You didn’t just do this to Seth, you did it to Rory! How could you? He was three years old!’ I took a step towards Eili. ‘Stop hurting both of them, or so help me…’

  Eili’s lips were white and dry. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep. You won’t get a blade near me.’

  ‘I’ll rip your mind right out of your brain stem!’

  In the thick silence, my face slackened in shock. Oh, I thought, recoiling from Eili’s disbelieving stare. Oh, God. What did I just say?

  What were we doing, Eili and I, when we’d both loved the same man and he’d loved us? I felt sick. Something was terribly wrong, our minds were twisted, and there seemed to be nothing we even wanted to do about it.

  ‘Witch.’ Breath hissed between Eili’s teeth, her face calming dangerously. ‘You loathsome harpy. I should kill you where you
stand, Caorann!’

  My eyes widened. I thought for a second that she’d punched me hard in the gut, and I couldn’t take breath to speak. Then I began to laugh, hysterically, through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Caorann. Caorann. Did I like it? Yes. No. Yes. Oh, God, I’d waited all this time, desperate, longing, impatient. But I’d been certain, so certain that Seth would find it for me. Instead of which…

  ‘Believe it?’ Eili’s face had gone into a spasm of rage, making her beautiful mouth a twist of ugly flesh. ‘Nor do I. Gods, neither do I.’

  ‘It seems we’re linked in more ways than one.’ I smirked. It was the nearest I could get to a smile.

  She’d got control of herself now. She was very still, except for a muscle that twitched below her left eye.

  ‘Two traitors together, you are; and Seth can’t even respect the son he claims to love. Rory doesn’t want what you’ve done; he doesn’t want to lose his father to you. Did Seth have to bind? Really? After all these centuries?’ Her lip curled. ‘But you and Seth, you live your lives by prophecies. Funny, isn’t it, when he’s spent his life trying to deny them? I’m going to make you another one, right now.’

  ‘Eili, you don’t give a damn what Rory wants.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong. So here’s my prediction: when you want to finish this, you’ll come and find me. And you’ll know where. All you have to do is remember what Rory wants. Remember what he wants more than anything, because I’m going to make sure he gets it.’ Eili tilted her head. ‘One way or the other.’

  I shoved past her, feeling her mad eyes boring into my back as I made for the stables. It was the closest place I could reach that was out of her sight. I snatched up my bridle, and stood for a moment breathing hard.

  And then I slung it over my shoulder and made for the dun gates. I couldn’t even bear to be within the walls; thoughts ricocheted uselessly around my head, too light and fast to hurt but enough to make me feel sick. My skin felt so hot I wanted to strip it right off.

  I kept walking along the grassy edge of the dunes and north past the headland. By the time I’d gone another mile I was alone with the breeze and the crying gulls. The Atlantic was in a fine mood, spindrift feathering on the wave-tips, light splintering into shards on the surface. When I’d walked far enough I sat on a rock and watched it, mesmerised, trying to count the beats of my heart as it slowed, trying to separate the colliding angry voices in my head. I didn’t even know which of them was mine.