by P. C. Cast
“That should end the day. I grow bored with this sodden country and its unnatural female ruler,” Suetonius said in a more normal voice, stepping back to join his remaining officers.
His words were the final goad Alex needed. She walked out of the shadows, naked except for her cuff. She could feel her hair around her bare shoulders, a wild red-gold mane, crackling with energy after her request of the rowan.
“What a big, brave man you are!” she called down to him. “Taunting the Celts from the safety of your hill.”
Suetonius and his officers spun around. One man held a spear at ready, the other two notched and drew wicked-looking arrows. Suetonius was armed only with a short sword, and he did not draw it.
“What is this? One of the dryads I’ve heard so much about?” the general said with a flippant smile.
“I’m not a dryad. I’m a priestess who has come to offer you a challenge,” Alex said. She forced her hands onto her hips so that they wouldn’t automatically cover her body, and lifted her chin, ignoring the ogling stares of the men.
“I will gladly accept your challenge, after I have defeated your people.” He glanced at the officer with the spear. “Marcellus, take the chit to my tent. You may fondle her, but do not spear her. I do not thrust after any man.”
The officers chuckled at Suetonius’s pun, but before Marcellus began to climb up to her, Alex said, “Oh, please, it’s not that kind of challenge, and your spear is obviously too little to reach me here. My challenge is something I’m guessing you want even more than rape. I just heard you say you wanted this battle to be over quickly. Beat me and you’ll have your wish.”
Suetonius’s hand stayed Marcellus. “How could a battle possibly be won or lost on the fate of one woman?”
“How could a battle possibly be led by one woman?” she quipped in return.
“Explain yourself!” he commanded.
Alex noticed that while his men’s eyes roamed up and down her body, Suetonius kept his gaze locked with hers. Her stomach flipped nervously. Part of her plan was that her nakedness would throw him off—distract him.
“I’m Boudica’s high priestess to Andraste. I am her omen—the living sign that our goddess is with her and that her cause is just. If you capture me and hang me from this ridge, so that the queen and our people can see that you’ve killed me, they will lose heart. The battle will be yours.”
“The battle will be ours with or without killing you, woman.”
Alex raised her brows and tossed back her hair. “Are you really so sure of that? I distinctly remember you running away from Londinium like a scared little girl when Boudica showed up there and burned it to the ground.”
“Bitch!” he snarled at her. “I have never run from a woman!”
Alex frowned in mock confusion. “So it wasn’t you who grabbed Boudica’s medallion from Catus, jumped on the first fast horse you could find, and raced down the Watling Road, leaving a whole bunch of Romans to burn in the temple of Jupiter? Don’t I have the right general? I thought you were Suetonius. All right, well, my mistake. I’ll go find the real man.” Alex turned and started to walk nonchalantly back into the rowan grove.
“Stay here! I’ll get the daughter of a whore myself, and I won’t wait until my tent to show her the spear of a Roman!” she heard Suetonius say.
Chapter 28
H eart pounding, Alex rushed to the largest rowan of the grove and put her back against it, facing the direction Suetonius should appear. “Help me,” she whispered to the tree. “I just need to grab the medallion and then I can get away from him. Please help me.” Everywhere her skin touched the tree’s bark, she felt warmth rush into her, along with a wonderful sense of calm.
The calm ended when Suetonius burst into the grove.
He wasn’t human. How could the Romans not see that? He was massive, not just in height, though he would tower over even the tallest Celt, but his muscles were huge. And his hair and facial features were off—there was something too bestial about his hair and too brutal about his equine nose and his wide, dark eyes.
She knew she hadn’t made a sound, but his eyes instantly found her. He smiled, and she thought that one small twitch of his lips might be the most frightening thing she’d ever seen in her life.
“Ah, there you are, hiding under the tree. Are you certain you are a priestess and not a dryad?”
Alex couldn’t speak, which made his smile widen. Instead of continuing his rush toward her, he slowed, stalking her.
Her body felt frozen, her mind numb. She wanted to run, but couldn’t make her legs work. All she could do was cling to the tree’s warmth and stare in horror as her death approached, Boudica’s medallion glittering from the gold chain around the general’s neck.
Courage, Priestess! At the edge of her vision Alex could see the ghost of Boudica’s husband, the old king of the Iceni. He lifted his fist in a salute to her. You are not alone.
Be brave, Priestess! All will be well. Another spirit materialized beside the first. Alex recognized her as the woman who had been the first warrior to die at Londinium.
Take heart! Courage! called the old man who had appeared to her not long after she’d arrived.
We are with you! cried one of the other warriors she’d helped cross to the Otherworld.
“I’m not alone,” she told them, and stood a little straighter.
Suetonius’s serpent smile didn’t falter. “Have men hiding in the wood, do you? You’ll find I’m very difficult to kill.”
“I talk to dead people,” Alex told the approaching general. “That’s who’s here with us. The woods are filled with ghosts.”
For just an instant Alex saw the haughty confidence falter. Was that fear that flickered through his dark eyes? It was gone too quickly for Alex to tell for sure.
“Very soon, woman, you will be a dead person.” He spoke in almost a lover’s tone, as if the idea excited him.
All I need to do is get the medallion! Then I’m out of here. Alex drew a deep breath. Her breasts lifted and his gaze lingered on her nipples. Pushing back her fear and disgust, she said, “I think you’ll discover I’m hard to kill, too.” She met his gaze, when it finally lifted to her eyes.
“You’re a female. Soft. Weak. Submissive. You will not be hard to kill, but I do think I will take my time with you.”
“I’m a high priestess. That means I’m not a normal woman.” And for perhaps the first time in her life she was sincerely grateful she wasn’t “normal.”
“I vanquished an island filled with priestesses and druids. Why should I fear you?”
The whole time they’d been talking he’d been stalking closer and closer to her. Finally he was so near that if she reached out she could touch him—or grab the medallion that dangled around his neck.
“You should fear me,” she said in a sexy purr she knew would take him aback, “because I’m not from this time, so have more tricks up my sleeve!” Alex snatched the medallion in her fist and jerked, snapping the gold chain. She whirled away from him, putting the tree between them, and reached for the crystal button in her ESC cuff—
Suetonius moved with inhuman speed. He grabbed her hand just as her fingertip touched the crystal, and pulled her around the tree to him.
“A female from the future? One of the bitches who think they can exist on our level?” He wrenched her arm around and down, so that she was forced to her knees before him. “I knew I’d find one of you here.”
She kept the medallion clenched in her fist and glared up at him. “We have never been on your level. We’ve never been that low.”
He backhanded her so hard her vision exploded in stars and the copper taste of blood filled her mouth.
“Stupid female! You cannot possibly stand against us, just as the barbarian queen cannot stand against Rome.” He hit Alex again, and this time blood gushed from her broken nose, but she kept hold of the precious medallion.
He laughed at her.
“The piece is what yo
u came after, huh? Oh, I shall make sure you have it. I’ll burn it with your body after I finish with you!”
He picked her up and slammed her facedown against one of the nearby boulders, so hard that her breath was forced out of her. Teetering between consciousness and oblivion, Alex tried to draw breath past a terrible pain in her side. She felt Suetonius fondling her butt roughly, digging his fingers between her cheeks and running them down to her woman’s core, where he shoved them inside her.
“So small…” he growled. “It will be good to stretch you out.”
Alex struggled to draw enough breath so that her vision would stop going gray, but the piercing pain in her side made it impossible for her to do so. Her mind was shrieking, press the ESC cuff, but her body wouldn’t obey. She couldn’t feel her hands. All she could feel was Suetonius moving behind her as he pulled himself free of his uniform and rubbed the wet bulb of his shaft against her nakedness.
“I think I’ve decided I like females from the future of this planet. You are very—”
The arrow caught Suetonius high in the left side of his chest, with such force that he staggered back several paces from Alex. She rolled from the boulder, clutching her side as Caradoc ran up to her.
“Blonwen!” He bent over her.
“No!” she gasped, trying to blink the blurriness from her vision. “You’re not supposed to—” The shadow over his shoulder had her crying, “Behind you!”
Caradoc whirled around, holding his short sword up at the ready. Suetonius’s incredible speed allowed him to dodge the blade and connect his fist to Caradoc’s chin, knocking the druid off his feet.
But the quickness with which Caradoc rebounded surprised even Suetonius, who bared his teeth and drew his own sword from its scabbard at his waist. He reached up and pulled the arrow from his own chest with hardly a grimace. “You will be my exercise before I go back to servicing the female,” he said.
“You touch her again only if I am dead,” Caradoc answered.
“That was my intention, boy.”
“Remember he’s not human!” Alex called.
Suetonius lunged at Caradoc, slicing a long, bloody line across his chest. “Yes, do remember I am not a mere human.”
Caradoc circled with the Centaurian, keeping just outside his sword reach. While he moved, he raised his free hand palm up, facing the sky, and with a grim smile said, “I am not a mere human either, creature. I am a druid, beloved of Condatis, God of the Waters, and through him I, too, wield power. Let it rain!” he roared.
The sky instantly began to roil. Clouds blew into being, bruised and angry, in the otherwise clear blue of the day. With a crash of thunder, they opened, and rain began to fall in wet ropes.
Suetonius laughed. “Do you think water will harm me?” He lunged at Caradoc again, slicing through the meat of his left biceps, but the druid danced back before the blade could do lethal harm.
“I did not call the waters to harm,” Caradoc said, feinting and stabbing. A bright stain of scarlet bloomed on Suetonius’s right shoulder.
Alex suddenly understood what Caradoc meant. He seemed to draw energy from the pelting rain. He said he hadn’t called the water to harm Suetonius, but it definitely was a hindrance to him. The ground was already becoming soggy and slick, and rain ran in rivulets from his dark hair, causing him to brush it off his face to clear his vision.
It had the opposite affect on Caradoc. His steps were sure on the wet ground and the rain didn’t obscure his vision—it glided gently down his body. Alex thought again how selkie-like he looked.
She was actually beginning to hope, when Suetonius laughed again.
“This has been amusing, but it has gone on long enough.”
The general attacked with blinding speed. Caradoc was a skilled warrior with a druid’s powers, but he was no match for the Centurian. Soon he was bleeding freely from a dozen wounds. With a terrible hacking motion, Suetonius cut through Caradoc’s right thigh, causing the warrior to stumble back and drop to his knees. Still he held his sword up, parrying Suetonius’s increasingly lethal lunges. The Centaurian drove him mercilessly back, cutting and hacking and bleeding him until Caradoc was pressed against the same boulder Alex had been thrown over. She was still crouched at the side of it, watching in horror as her lover fought to his death right there, within her reach.
Within my reach…
Alex knew what she had to do. Ignoring the searing pain in her side, she scramble on all fours to the nearest rowan tree. Using it to brace herself, she stood. Then, with the bark pressed against her back, she said, “I need a burst of power, like the one I used to hurl the spirits back, only bigger.” Alex felt the heat building through her body, and prayed silently that it would be enough. She threw out her arms, pointing at Suetonius just as the Centaurian lifted his sword over Caradoc and said, “It is time for you to join your water god.”
The burst of hot power from the tree sizzled through the rain and caught Suetonius by surprise, throwing him back. Using the adrenaline rush from being the tree’s conduit, Alex ran to Caradoc and dropped down beside him. He was weaving unsteadily on his knees in the rain, obviously close to passing out. She wrenched off the ESC cuff and put it in his hand, along with the medallion.
He gave her a confused, blurry look and said, “You must use your magic to return to the future—”
“If you didn’t die here they can fix you. Tell Carswell I’ll get the other piece. When you’re well, she’ll send you back for it. I’ll be at that hut you said wasn’t far from here. I love you, Caradoc!”
Before he could speak, she pressed the ESC crystal, and was blown back by the force of power that opened a rift in time and pulled Caradoc into the future.
The rain stopped the instant the druid disappeared.
“You bitch! What have you done?” Suetonius jerked her to her feet. Alex cried out as he lifted her, shaking her as if she were no more than a doll. “Where did you send him?” His face was close to hers and she could smell the sourness of his breath.
“Go to hell,” she said through gritted teeth.
Still holding her off the ground, he slammed her against a tree. “What year?” he yelled.
“You can kill me, but I won’t tell you.”
Anger flared in his eyes, and just as quickly was replaced by scorn. “I don’t need you to find him. All I need do is wait for his return. A hut, you said? Near here? The other piece of the medallion will be retrieved from Boudica’s corpse, and someone will be waiting for your druid in the hut, but it will not be you.” He rammed his hardening shaft against her. “First I’ll finish what you and I started, then I’ll see to Boudica and your lover.”
“No! I’m not going to let you do that.”
Suetonius sneered. “I am about to rape and then kill you, female. There is nothing you can do to stop any of this.”
“You are absolutely right about that.” And while Suetonius fumbled between his legs and held her cruelly against the tree, Alex blocked the vile Centaurian from her mind and focused on the magical rowan at her back. She closed her eyes and found her calm center. And then, with eyes still closed, she said. “I am a Soul Speaker, and I wish to send out a call.”
“What are you saying, female?” Somewhere at the edge of her mind, Suetonius was speaking as he rutted against her. Alex took no notice of him at all.
When she opened her eyes she looked over the Centaurian’s shoulder at the veil of reality as it parted to reveal the mists of the Otherworld.
With a voice magnified by the earth power of the rowan, Alex shouted, “In Andraste’s name I call forth all the souls that this Centaurian, Suetonius, has murdered. Let everyone who has been wronged by him come forth and, for the prize of blood, you may take your vengeance on him!”
Suetonius was shaking her again. “What are you doing now, you—”
His voice broke off as the air around them began to boil with mist, and from the mist tendrils curled out, just as they had done in Alex’s dream
so long ago. This time the tendrils were feeling for the Centaurian.
He dropped her and stumbled back, looking wildly around him, batting at the mist as if it were a swarm of insects. “Be gone! Leave me!”
The mist grew thicker, taking on separate forms. Alex saw what must be hundreds of souls materializing around them. Suetonius’s eyes widened in horror.
Unnoticed by the Centaurian, Alex stumbled to where Caradoc’s sword lay. Not caring about finesse or swordplay, she hefted the blade in both hands, threw herself at Suetonius and stabbed it into his side.
The Centaurian gave a great cry and knocked Alex away. As the sword pulled from his body, a rush of blood followed it.
“Your blood payment is there!” Alex said, pointing at Suetonius. “He is the sacrifice.”
She watched as the specters converged upon him, attaching to his form like ghostly leeches. When he began to scream Alex stopped watching. As she turned away, she murmured, “Celts, you are avenged….”
Chapter 29
A lex had to find Boudica. She didn’t think about Caradoc; she simply had to believe he was alive. Carswell would save him. All Alex had to concentrate on was staying conscious and finding the queen.
Her clothes were where she’d left them, neatly and optimistically folded. Alex told herself the pain of her cracked ribs was good—it kept her conscious. There was something wrong with her vision. It seemed she was looking down a graying tunnel. Had she hit her head? She didn’t really remember. Alex lifted her hand, feeling around, and winced when her fingers found the lump above her left ear. Concussion? She’d worry about it later.
Alex found her horse next. She’d left him when Aedan’s spirit had led her into woods too dense and rocky for the mare to travel. Now she was grateful for the animal’s steady temperament as she swayed drunkenly in the saddle, doing more of trying-not-to-pass-out than actual riding.
Still, she kept the mare’s head pointed in the general direction she knew would bring them out of the forest, near where the Celts had drawn their wagons across the exit to the valley.