Max stopped. The rest of his dream came flooding back. His visit to Ms. Richter’s office; had the covered furniture been telling him Ms. Richter was dead? And the coffeepot! Had that been some sign or symbol that David was the new Director? The mourners in the orchard … had that been real? Max’s mind raced ahead to his visit to the Warming Lodge: Nolan’s corpse, the man’s inexplicable teeth, and that awful scene with the clones attacking the wolfhound. But that hadn’t been the wolfhound. It had been Scathach.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I … I don’t know,” said Max, sitting back down. “My dream. The wolfhound.”
“You always dream of Failinis,” she said soothingly. “Did he ask you his question?”
Max nodded.
“And did you answer?”
“No. I’ve never answered.”
“Well,” she said, “I suspect when you do, he’ll stop bothering you. Dreams are strange things. You must have overheard me asking David about his hand.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Max uneasily.
Scathach laughed. “How else would you know he got it back?”
Max grew dizzy. Leaning forward, he stared at the stone floor. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Do you want some water?”
“No, I …”
Doubling over, Max vomited on the floor, his stomach heaving up great gouts of dark red blood and silver faerie essence. It splashed on the cavern floor, running off to pool at its lowest point. Max was shivering as sweat beaded and ran off his body. His wound ached; he yearned to tear off the sash and examine it. Retching, he vomited again. Scathach fetched a towel from a table.
“The giant said this might happen,” she said, cleaning him up. “It’s the faerie blood. Humans can’t tolerate it.”
“I’m not human,” Max muttered, wincing from the pain in his side. “I … I think it’s done something to me. Awakened something.”
“Do you want water?” she asked.
He shook his head. The nausea was fading, but he felt very weak. “I need air,” he said. “Fresh air.”
“We’re free to wander the caverns.”
“No,” Max gasped, his head spinning. “Outside. I have to get outside. I can’t be down here anymore. I need to go outside.”
“The Fomorian said to stay here. He said it could be dangerous outside.”
“Since when have you been afraid of danger? I’m not looking to slay a dragon. I just need fresh air. I feel like I’m drowning down here.”
While Scathach fetched Max’s clothes, he mopped up his mess. He didn’t recall drinking the giant’s draught or anything beyond the initial few verses of his chant. Had the draught changed him? His dream was certainly unlike any he’d had before—was it prescience? No. He wasn’t seeing the future; he was seeing recent events or the present as it happened around the world. That was something else entirely. He wished David were there.
When Scathach returned with Max’s things, she was armed for battle.
“I just want a sniff of air,” said Max.
“And the Fomorian said it might be dangerous,” she reminded him. “We can go, but we’ll go prepared. Take this, will you? I don’t want to touch it.”
The gae bolga lay sheathed atop Max’s clothes. He took it, along with a short rod of roughened steel Rowan’s dvergar had made for him. When Max touched the rod to the sword’s pommel, it promptly swallowed the hilt up to its guard. Once firmly attached, the rod lengthened so that the gae bolga was transformed from a short sword into a long spear. Max thumped it on the floor.
“There,” he said. “A weapon and a walking stick. My legs are still a little iffy.”
Scathach looked modestly away as he dressed. His travel clothes had been cleaned, his black tunic mended. His boots had been resoled and his shirt of nanomail gleamed like molten silver. He slipped it on, aware that Scathach would insist. Pulling on the rest of his clothes, he left the ivory brooch for last.
He held the brooch in his hands a moment, thinking about his dream. Scathach said Lugh had made it for Max, that it had a very special purpose.
“This is for when I die,” he said, studying its Celtic sun.
“A grim way to think of it,” said Scathach. “It’s meant to bring you home when your time here is finished.”
“What would have happened if the Fomorian hadn’t healed me?”
Scathach shrugged. “I only know the brooch’s purpose. Lugh didn’t explain how it works or what’s supposed to happen. Only that it was for you and would bring you home to the Sidh when your mortal days had ended.”
“The Sidh isn’t my home.”
Scathach wrapped a heavy shawl about her shoulders. “Do you remember where you were born?” she asked thoughtfully.
“Of course not. I don’t even remember my first house. We moved when I was three.”
“And you’re only eighteen,” she observed. “You think of Rowan as your home now, but will you in two thousand years? Will you even remember it?”
Max said nothing.
“You’re becoming an immortal,” she reminded him. “An eighteen-year-old god. In many ways, that means you’re still an infant. You don’t yet know what home is.”
“Well, how old are you?”
“I’ll never tell,” she replied coyly. “Now that I’m mortal, I get to reset the clock. I can’t look more than twenty, can I?”
“You’re still an older woman,” said Max. “Some might call you a cradle robber.”
Scathach was aghast. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”
“You just said I was an infant.”
For a moment, Scathach simply stared. Then she chuckled. An evil, utterly unnerving giggle as she helped Max on with his cloak.
“What are you laughing about?” he asked tentatively.
“Nothing. I just thought of how I’m going to get my revenge. Don’t worry. It won’t happen soon. You’ll have plenty of time to forget it’s coming.”
“I was kidding, you know.”
She batted her eyelashes. “Oh, I know.”
“You’re not a cradle robber. There’s no need to get revenge or anything.”
“Why should you worry?” she asked innocently. “You’re an immortal. And it’s not like you’re a deep sleeper. Oh wait—you are!”
Again with that awful laugh!
“I’ll set Nox on guard,” Max warned.
“Good luck with that. She’ll be off gorging with the faeries.”
Nox bounded after the pair as they left the room. The small cavern opened onto a larger one, a great hollowed space of gray-green stone with several pools of bubbling hot springs. Three naiads were sharing one, soaking their sleek bodies and appraising Max with more than mild interest.
“Don’t you look fine, up and about,” said one.
“Thank you,” said Max.
“Why not come for a swim?” suggested another, hopping out to sit on its edge and dangle her legs in the water.
“We’re going for a walk,” huffed Scathach. “Put some clothes on.”
The naiad gave Scathach a dreamy, condescending smile. “I wasn’t talking to you.” Her gaze drifted back to Max. “Don’t waste your time with mortals, my prince. Their lives are short and their beauty fades. She’ll only break your heart.”
Max decided not to say anything until they’d left the cavern and traversed several more. Scathach was walking quickly, her knuckles white upon her spear.
Other than the naiads, they saw no faeries and no trace of the Fomorian. The final cavern they entered was the largest yet, a natural amphitheater of polished stone containing a still pool of dark water. Below the pool’s surface Max could see huge, ghostly images flitting beneath—broken ships and shattered skulls and ravens in vast, unsettling numbers.
“This is the giant’s scrying pool,” said Scathach. She gestured ahead to a torch-lit opening on the far side of the water. “Those stairs lead to the surface.”
&n
bsp; They skirted the pool, keeping to its narrow ledge. Now and again, Max would glance at the images, but they were too close, too abstract to decipher. Passing under the archway, they climbed a series of rough steps that wound up toward daylight.
“I’m surprised there’s anything human-sized in here,” said Max.
“The Fomorian’s not always a giant,” said Scathach. “After he healed you, he grew much smaller. He was scarcely taller than Bob when he went off to rest. In the Sidh, they always said Fomorians were powerful sorcerers. He can probably be whatever size he likes.”
“I guess that’s true,” said Max. “On my first visit, he carried Cooper, David, and me in his hands like we were beetles. He must have been bigger than a dreadnought.”
“Let’s hope he isn’t that big if he catches us. He warned us to stay inside.”
“He warned you,” said Max, peering out the narrow opening at some gray, windswept dunes. “I didn’t hear a thing. Besides, I’m a sick, delirious patient who needs fresh air. We won’t be gone long.”
Nox bounded ahead while the two walked along a ridgeline that overlooked the sea. The sky was reddish and heavy with clouds, but here and there the sun poked through like lances of golden light. It looked to be late afternoon.
Despite a bit of sun, the temperature was far colder than he remembered it being at Shrope Hovel. It wasn’t merely chilly, but a stinging, teeth-chattering cold that fairly begged one to stay indoors. When they did set sail, they’d need warmer gear. Ormenheid could do many things, but she couldn’t change the weather.
Still, the cold air and a brisk walk were having their intended effect. They woke him up, driving off the drowse so that Max was finally thinking clearly after his injury and weeks of sleep. He revisited his dream and earlier conversations. What had the Fomorian said when Max awoke?
“We must decide, for she is close and longs to take him.”
What had he been talking about? Who was ‘she’?
He glanced up. Scathach had stopped and was pointing with her spear at the beach below. Coming beside her, Max gazed down at a broad stretch of icy sand.
“The Fomorian’s handiwork,” she muttered.
While scavengers had done their work, the carnage was still evident. Max stared at the wall of piled corpses, the shattered ships, and the bodies swinging from the pillar like criminals at a crossroads. An army had shattered on this beach, broken like a wave upon a rock.
“We need him,” Max concluded. “He has to come to Blys.”
“He won’t,” said Scathach, staring out at the horizon. “I’ve already asked. I even begged and that’s not something I do very often.”
“He’s my kinsman. Maybe I’ll have better luck.”
Scathach lifted her chin and squinted as the sun’s red rim dipped beneath the clouds. “I forgot. Of course he’ll listen to you. You’re both immortals.”
Max gave her a sideways glance. “Is this about that naiad?”
Scathach turned and gave her shadow a downcast glance. “She’s not wrong, you know. It’s foolish to fall in love with mortals. You should be with your own kind.”
“You are my own kind. You’ve lived in the Sidh. You know it better than I do.”
“I’m cast out,” she said softly. “There’s no ivory brooch for me. When my time is up, I go into the ground.”
“Don’t say that.”
She shrugged. “It’s the truth. I don’t regret my decision—I’d do it again. But there will be times it makes me sad. You have to give me that.”
“Fine. But no more talking to naiads.”
A grudging smile appeared. “I’ve never liked them,” she confessed. “Not even in the Sidh.” With a sigh, she turned and continued along the ridge.
They walked in silence, Scathach brooding while Max puzzled over his dream and what the faeries’ or Fomorian’s blood might have done to him. Were these strange dreams a temporary phenomenon or was he doomed to see hints of what was happening in the wider world? Max didn’t think he’d like that. Peter Varga experienced visions and they seemed to take a haunting toll.
The cold deepened as the sun set. Max’s toes were numb and his lashes speckled with snow, but he was in no hurry to return to the giant’s caverns. Marvelous as they were, they seemed cut off from the world. Out there, beyond the darkening horizon, Rowan’s fleet would be making landfall near Blys. A month, maybe two, and the siege would begin.
Something caught Max’s eye.
A raven was ahead, calling shrilly as it soared high upon the wind. Others answered its cry, flapping out from the leaning pines by the hundreds. They scattered, some screeching past while others wheeled and dove behind a gray, sparse hill. As they disappeared, it sounded like even more ravens cried out in greeting or challenge.
“Something’s going on over there,” said Max. “Let’s have a look.”
Scathach glanced doubtfully at the red twilight settling over the isle. “It’s getting dark. We should get back.”
But Max had to see what the fuss was about. Ravens were attracted to carrion. If there were this many, then a feast must have been present. More of Prusias’s soldiers? Perhaps. If so, they had made it much farther inland than their comrades. And why would they come here? There was nothing but hills and a few streams.
“Max,” said Scathach. “I think we should head back. Something isn’t right.”
“Head back, then,” he said. “I want to see.”
He trudged ahead, leaning on the gae bolga as more ravens settled on the trees and hilltop. Nox was walking alongside him now, a mouse dangling from her jaws. She stopped as something padded over the summit.
It was a wolf—a leering, emaciated wolf whose ribs could be counted through its mangy coat. Baring its teeth in a territorial snarl, it turned around and disappeared down the hillside.
“Max!” called Scathach.
He ignored her. There was something on the other side of this hill and he had to see it. The ravens grew louder. Several hopped about the hilltop; others flew back up into the sky to wheel like vultures over a carcass. The gae bolga was growing warm, even hot to the touch. Its blade was trembling, pulling Max forward like a divining rod.
The hairs on Max’s neck rose one by one. His arms felt like cold lead. So did his legs. His blood was ice, every heartbeat a piercing agony. Only a tiny corner of his mind could process that Scathach was now beside him. She was trying to reach for his hand, but she kept missing. Her fingers merely grazed his wrist.
The Old Magic was kindling within him. It roared up in challenge to whatever was beyond that hill. But it had no outlet. His wound had left him far too weak to respond, to channel that flood of energy. It raged within him, a caged inferno.
More wolves peered over the hill, crippled and sick, panting and growling. One held a rotting arm between its jaws like a dog might carry a bone. When enough had gathered, they stole down the hill like shadowy nightmares. Surrounding Max and Scathach, they escorted them toward the hilltop like a snarling honor guard.
Max railed silently at his foolishness. The Fomorian had warned them and he had chosen not to listen. But was that even true? Had he chosen to ignore the warning or had something chosen for him? He tried to shut his eyes.
Don’t look at her, he told himself. If you don’t look, she won’t have any power over you! Don’t look!
He might have wished for a spaceship. His eyes refused to close. They remained stubbornly open, fixed upon the scene unfolding before him. Their gaze traveled over starving wolves and mangled corpses and a sea of squawking ravens to settle on a spare, shrouded figure washing clothes in a stream.
It was the Morrígan.
The ravens croaked and squawked, cocking their heads at Max as he walked down the slope to the streambed.
The hillside, and indeed all the valley, was choked with bodies: demons and vyes, ettins, ogres, and humans all in various states of decomposition. Some looked freshly killed, others were just sun-bleached bones, but all were
fair game for the ravens and wolves. The Morrígan’s attendants gorged themselves, picking at corpses like it was a grisly buffet.
The Morrígan had yet to acknowledge them. As Max drew closer, he saw that her shroud was not of cloth but raven feathers. It hung loose and open, revealing a withered, naked body of dark gray flesh riddled with open wounds. Matted black hair hung limp about her face, spilling over her shoulders and back. Her arms were lean and strong, her fingers nimble as she rinsed and squeezed the tunics and banners of the fallen. Something moved beneath her shroud; a tiny hand reached out to clutch a tangle of the goddess’s hair. Peering closely, Max saw not one, but two small infants suckling at her breasts.
“Do you know me?”
The Morrígan’s voice was female, worn with age, and surprisingly quiet. Its restraint hinted at simmering rage, the prospect of sudden and appalling violence. She wrung bloody water from a ripped and tattered cloak. “Must I repeat myself?”
Max cleared his throat. “You are the Morrígan.”
A finger wagged its disapproval. “Others may call me the Morrígan, but not you, Hound. I am your partner. Say it.”
Max hesitated. The last thing he wanted was her putting words in his mouth.
“Say it,” she repeated, laying the cloak on the bank and taking up a tunic.
“You are my partner.”
She nodded, but her face remained hidden. “I am,” she said. “For we have made a pact, you and I.”
“What pact is that? I don’t remember making any such thing with you.”
“I give you my blade, you give me conquests—you give me blood and bodies and sustenance. Thus far, it has been feast or famine. I prefer to feast.”
“I don’t kill for killing’s sake.”
The Morrígan shook with silent laughter as she dipped the tunic again into the stream and scraped it with her taloned thumb.
“You will do whatever it is I require you to do,” she said. “You will be whatever I require you to be. My partner. My justice. My lover. My slave. Do you understand?”
The Red Winter Page 20