I fell backward from the sheer force of the leader’s venomous command.
It carried such hate. It shot vengeance through the air. But mostly, I felt the grief. His grief stood behind every order he gave. Every decision he made. It ate away at him, leaving only a bare carcass of a man.
In quick but subtle movements, the Druids reached within their cloaks and pulled out daggers of varying sizes. My heart raced to a dizzying speed, causing me to stumble further back. The shock of seeing the brown-cloaked holy men with weapons and aggressive grimaces only confirmed to me their misanthrope status within the Druid order.
Their next moves couldn’t be predicted as I grappled with the concept of violence within Druidry. It didn’t make sense.
But then I caught the eye of one of them. I held his gaze with every ounce of energy I had.
And then I saw.
He’d been programmed through fear and intimidation. He’d witnessed others suffer the consequence of refusal. They’d been tortured. Murdered.
His terror at suffering the same fate led him to his current actions. He believed in his position of defense, too. He believed he was supporting the greater good; the leader. And his twisted plans.
Their loyalty was the result of being led by a tyrant. History proved, over and over, the power of one who led with fear. The meek would follow.
Ryan and Paul gripped their own daggers and clubs and lifted them in a protective stance. They closed in around me and Ryan called out.
“Stay back!” he shouted. “We will protect her with force.” His steady voice punched at them through the misty air.
Their eyes shifted to one another in a flash of insecurity but then the leader pushed them forward with his command.
“Seize her!” he repeated.
The Druids stood tall and moved toward us with their daggers held at their sides.
“They’re skilled with their weapons,” I whispered to Ryan and Paul. “And I have no idea what else they are capable of.”
Just as the words of warning left my lips, the Druids attacked. In a planned assault, they spread out and moved around us.
I stepped back quickly, preventing them from getting all the way around us. Ryan and Paul lurched forward with their daggers raised and their clubs swinging.
The Druids hesitated, likely not expecting retaliation, and from their wide-eyed expressions they seemed equally concerned about what we were capable of.
Our riot gear alone was enough to intimidate a cloaked one. They’d never seen such armor and the materials that made up our suits was something that just didn’t exist in their world.
Ryan and Paul used the others’ distraction to their favor as they pounced, causing disorientation among the Druids. The hand-to-hand combat that ensued sent terror through me as I watched my dear friends enter a battle they had no experience in fighting. But their determination and their courage sent them into the midst of the attack anyway, and their loyalty to their cause shone bright.
The swiping clubs proved their best defense as they swung the batons at the Druids and their plunging daggers. Like the sound of the hail that had struck Ryan's truck, the daggers pinged and clanged against the clubs. I knew it wouldn't be long before a dagger met its mark though, and I turned to Maeve in panic.
She was already in full assault mode.
She barreled through Ryan and Paul, swinging her sword in every direction like a vengeful battle goddess. She spun in a blur of deadly fury, causing the Druids to retreat.
But she didn’t stop there.
She taunted them with her sneer, daring them to try another attack.
It was like watching Maeve of Rockfleet come back to life. Her swordsmanship and battle-ready ferocity from her time in the deep past had reawakened and she embodied the confidence of a wrathful queen.
Her blade hovered inches away from each of the Druid's throats in a brazen display of her adept skill and wild fury. Each dagger fell in surrender as the glinting sword threatened to end their individual lives.
The agitated leader growled at his cowering clansmen. "Weak fools!" he blasted at them. "These are the ones who have betrayed us. The ones who intend to stop everything we have worked so hard to achieve.” His face reddened with rage. “They are the enemy our visions have revealed to us in the foretelling mist. End them!"
His words boomed through the clearing and rattled my mind as adrenaline pounded through my veins.
They’d seen us coming.
In their sacred rituals and visions. They saw us in the mist. My courage grew ten-fold as I realized the force of our presence.
It had been foreseen. It was meant to be.
The Druids stood tall with new focus and strengthened intention, as they viewed us as the true enemy to their existence. They stood in a line, shoulder to shoulder, and stared into our faces with hypnotizing glares. Something in their eyes pulled at my consciousness, depleting me of authority over my own thinking. It was as if they were using mind control of some form.
I tore my eyes from their fixated stares and turned my shaken gaze to the malicious leader. I struggled to remain fixed on his eyes as my friends began to weaken under the arcane mystical power of the corrupt Druids. My army had fallen victim to their mesmerizing mind trap.
Without breaking eye contact with the dark leader, I watched from the corner of my eye as my friends dropped their weapons, one by one. The wrathful Druids controlled them through their stares, causing a trance-like state that slumped my friends’ shoulders.
I continued to stare into the eyes of the leader. His arrogance wouldn't allow him to look away and I used his willful pride to my advantage. I reached deep into his soul through his eyes and proceeded to break him apart, piece by piece.
I ruthlessly exposed his truth to him.
A truth he had covered up for almost twenty years of his miserable life. The truth of his own wretched betrayal.
He shook under my gaze and clenched his teeth to attempt to regain control.
I leaned forward, pulling the final layers of steel off his guarded soul. My sharp eyes penetrated deeply while I stated his secret truth.
"You betrayed your own children." My mind exposed his. "You turned your back on your own flesh and blood. There is no worse sin than that. And you must live out the rest of your lonesome days knowing your vile truth."
With great effort, he pulled his eyes away from mine and reached to the ground, grabbing hold of one of the daggers. My eyes met Murt's in the same moment, as he pushed himself up to kneeling.
Murt's eyes widened in fear when he saw the intense power in my stare—power enough to rattle his stoic father. My own truth then entered Murt like a lightning bolt, and all was revealed to him in one glance.
It was not his fault.
He was not to blame.
He hadn’t betrayed his father by initially refusing to enter the portal as a young boy. The request was too large. Too cruel. He saw this in my eyes. And for once, he felt forgiveness. And he believed it.
In the blink of an eye, Murt was on his feet. He grabbed another dagger from the ground and I hopped away from his attack. With the two of them against me, the odds had just swung against my favor.
But Murt’s aggressive leap was not an attack on me. Instead, he pounced in front of the leader in a solid stance of aggression. A stand-off between father and son.
Shock at the turn of events staggered me and I reeled around to find my friends in the chaos.
The Druids had already grabbed hold of them and dragged them to the chasm in the boulders that led down into the tomb. The three of them barely struggled under the hold of the cloaked ones, likely remaining in a weakened, hypnotic state.
I turned back to the fearsome leader and Murt. They confronted each other with gnarled faces of aggression and hate. Their steely gazes held judgment and sentencing within every pounce. The final showdown of dishonor and disgrace shamed me as I watched my own blood attack each other like animals.
“
Stop!” I screamed at them.
They paid no attention and continued their assault on each other with fierce intensity.
“It never mattered!” Murt shouted at him. “Whatever I did, it was never good enough. Now look at me!”
The leader scowled. “Blame is the simple path,” he chided. “Always looking for the easy route, Murt.”
Rage nearly shot smoke from Murt’s ears as he reeled back from the hurtful words and gathered whatever strength he could muster.
“Every route I ever took was to gain your favor,” Murt spat. “And now look at me. I have nothing.”
Murt turned to me with a look of loss in his eyes, one that shot me straight in the heart.
The spiteful leader followed his gaze and his eyes narrowed when they landed on me.
“You were always weak, Murt. Making decisions with your heart rather than your head.” The leader frowned and looked him up and down. “And see where it’s got you.”
In an instant, Murt grabbed a dagger from the ground and pointed it at the leader’s chest. “And maybe for once you should make a decision using your own heart. Or has it stopped beating completely?”
The leader didn’t flinch at Murt’s assault. It was another tactic he used against his son, to show Murt he was little threat to him. And I was certain this tactic had worked throughout Murt’s entire life. But today, something was different. Murt had something new to fight for.
“You know I won’t drive this through your heart,” Murt said. “But you know I want to. That I hold enough resentment in my soul to want to end my own father. And that is what I needed you to know.”
The leader puffed out his chest as if he’d won a battle. As if Murt’s inability to follow through on his threat was somehow a win.
“You weak fool,” the leader growled. “You’ve never been able to follow through on anything.”
“Oh, but I have, father,” Murt replied. “More than you know. I’ve followed your orders. I attacked my own sister for you. And now I carry the scars of my mistakes.”
My ears perked up as I stepped farther from the center of the clearing, away from them. Murt was talking about me. He remembered attacking me. At first, he didn’t remember. But now, he had seen it in my eyes. It was clear to him what happened. And he was ashamed.
Their dead-lock confrontation was enough distraction to allow me to run to my friends, but still, something within me fought to try to save them. I shook the feeling off and pulled my focus back to the chasm.
But then I heard it.
A low groan bellowed through the hills and echoed off every boulder around the mystical clearing. It was a monstrous sound that sent chilling terror through my every quaking muscle.
I jumped to the edge of the clearing and looked out over the top of the massive stones. There, lumbering across the hillside, was the ominous shadow of a terrifying giant.
Chills shuddered through me in massive quakes as my wide eyes focused on the horrible, twisted branches rising from the top of its head. Spindly twigs reached for miles from his searching hands, and the wails of a thousand souls filled the heavy air—souls consumed by his insidious wrath and hate.
He was coming straight for us.
The wicker man.
Chapter 19
I barreled away from the approaching giant and scrambled toward the boulders where I'd last seen my friends. The final brown cloak descended into the hole and disappeared from sight. My friends were down in the tomb with the loathsome Druids and I feared for what would happen to them in the darkness of the catacombs. Not that it would be much safer for them up here, with the wicker man coming.
I crept to the narrow opening and strained to hear their voices from deep below. Only hushed tones rose up through the dark passageway.
Looking back toward the leader and Murt one final time, I watched their threatening stances as they swerved and jabbed at one another. Then they locked onto each other's arms and writhed in an intense embrace of sheer brawn mixed with violent rage—each one trying to overpower the other.
Murt's gruesome injuries put him at a great disadvantage, crippling him with pain. But the powerful leader had been weakened significantly as well by my unrelenting internal assaults on his loathsome character, so the outcome of the brutal confrontation was uncertain.
Then the ominous rumble of the wicker man sent my muscles into motion.
He was getting closer.
And I wanted to get as far away from him as possible.
Without hesitation, I pushed myself further into the dark hole of the tomb entrance. I shot a quick glance back to the leader and Murt, and much to my shock, I locked eyes with the leader. His lip bled and sorrow filled his gaze.
I tore my eyes away from his and lowered myself into the darkness of the passageway.
My feet landed on the uneven stairs and I held the sidewalls throughout my silent descent. Whatever the Druid’s sinister plan might be against my friends, the element of surprise was all I had at the moment. Then I would have only my raw intuition to trust from that point forward.
Without my utility belt and accessories, I had no light, no weapons. A can of pepper spray or a flash-bang would have strengthened my confidence. But in truth, I didn't need any of it.
I moved though the twists and turns in the darkness of the tomb with faultless navigation, my most powerful weapon being my awakened knowledge.
My hand trailed across the foot of the nearest Guardian statue, as if to let them know I was there, and to absorb their protective quality to empower me to continue forward. Then I moved in stealthy silence through the pitch-black tunnel toward the catacombs where the original altar stood.
I walked into the vacant, lightless space and stopped at the altar, listening for sounds of my friends. As if by instinct my fingers found the carvings along the sides of the shrine and ran over them. I recognized every shape and every curve of the Celtic symbols and ancient language, and rejoiced in the fact that the altar had remained so well preserved, even as far in the future as my life had taken me.
And then I heard them.
An echoing sound snapped my attention to the side of the catacomb. My head turned toward the wall where the secret chamber was hidden. Low voices vibrated from within and I followed the sound.
I moved my hands along the wall, feeling for any evidence of the opening, and then my fingers found it. An indentation in the stone. The seam of the door.
Remembering how Maeve and I first discovered it, I pressed my back against the wall and gently pushed. As if on ball-bearings, the massive stone slab moved without a sound and opened enough for me to slip in.
Darkness continued to surround me. I stared into pitch black until a gentle glow emanated from within the wide mouth of the labyrinth. I moved toward it in an instant and prayed I would remember the route we'd taken before to get to the center.
Then my heart dropped to my feet, dizzying me, as I realized what was happening.
The evil Druids were taking my friends to the portal. They were going to send them back before we were able to complete our quest. And I was certain they planned on disposing of me too, sending us all into oblivion, before I could stop my father from fulfilling the final phase of his curse.
My feet moved beneath me into a full-on sprint as I wound through the snaking maze of the labyrinth. Following my instinct, I'd taken the center tunnel but now had no recollection of the twisting bends and turns I moved through. It was as if the labyrinth had changed itself and reset its paths.
The subterranean stone construction of the labyrinth would be impossible to move though, leaving only one other explanation—a Druid mind trick. I pinched my eyes shut and continued to hurry through the maze by following my intuition alone. I snaked through the turns with determination and before long, a burst of light shot my eyes open.
I'd made it to the illuminated core.
A giant wall of opalescent swirls stopped me, and my eyes trailed along the edge of the enormous orb. The fo
rcefield surrounded the portal, just as it had before, and I prayed I wasn't too late to save my friends.
As I pressed my hands into the whirling colors of blues, purples, and magentas, the temperature change between the two zones sent chills through me. With a forceful push, I hurled myself at the barrier and fell to my knees as I stumbled through.
"Isobel!" Ryan called and lunged toward me.
Two of the Druids caught hold of his arms and restrained him. He yanked his shoulders, struggling to get free.
Maeve and Paul huddled together, held off to the side by the other Druids. Fear settled in their eyes as if they had accepted their fate, and they held onto each other in a heartbreaking embrace that tightened my throat.
I shot my attention back to Ryan and stared into his wide eyes, communicating the details of my plan to him.
His shoulders settled as he stopped struggling and he sent back a subtle nod of understanding.
Then I moved my gaze to Maeve.
At first, she continued to stare at me in fear of what was to happen to us. But then she blinked in confusion. It took only a moment for her to understand that I was speaking to her.
And she listened.
I used my truth seer ability to not only understand her mind, but to also share my own with her. I’d done it so many times before with Ryan, it just felt natural. And I knew Maeve had the gift of the seers and with the right focus of an open mind, she was able to hear me.
The slight glow of purple that radiated from her skin proved she understood.
Ryan and Maeve had received my silent message. It was my plan. The plan we would use to escape the Druids and stop them from sending us through the portal into the abyss. If their ultimate plan of ending time succeeded, there would be no future for us to launch back to, and we would be stuck in limbo for all eternity.
There were no other options. My plan had to work.
"Wait!" I cried out. "The wicker man!"
I had originally planned to leave the leader and Murt at the mercy of the giant, likely my father’s own creation, but now, I would use the wicker man against them all.
Truth Seer (Irish Mystic Legends Book 3) Page 15