His voice was wooden, lifeless. Yet there was an undercurrent to his words, anguish so deep it was nearly imperceptible.
Not to her. Erika could feel it, see it. Conor had lost enough. By all that was holy, she would not have him lose a man who was more than a good friend but was like a father to him. She would battle Hel and hell if she had to.
“Conor, stand by his head. We may need you to hold him down as we work.” If Ardan showed any signs of struggling, it would be a sign from heaven.
“Will you not give him a potion, to make him sleep?” Múireann asked from her right.
“I don’t dare,” Erika whispered, even as Aine shook her head. “He is weak enough already.”
Aine’s soft voice brought her back to the task at hand. “Tell me what you see, child.”
Cleansing her hands as Aine had taught her, Erika then dipped a clean cloth into another basin of warm, herb-steeped water. Carefully she wiped at the wound, but Ardan did not stir. “It’s a sword thrust, Good-mother,” she said. “It’s crusted with dirt, cloth and dried blood.”
Her hands shook as she retrieved a small knife with a thin, sharp blade. Expelling a breath, she forced her hands to steady and cautiously widened the wound.
Múireann gasped, then made a gagging sound. Erika was about to order her away when blood welled, angry-red, from her incision. “Ah!”
She could feel people pressing in on her. “What is it?” Conor’s voice, harsh and grating, sliced through the murmurs.
“The wound’s not deep,” Erika explained. Hope tinted her voice. “The blade was stopped by his ribs. And there’s no smell. That is a good sign.”
Aine nodded. “So there are no foul humors, at least not yet. Are you ready, my lady?”
Hesitating, Erika glanced at her husband. He looked down at her, and in the steel-gray eyes she saw silent pleading, as well as resigned hopelessness. He believed Ardan would not live.
If she was the only one to believe Ardan could survive, so be it. She would believe enough for all of them. She could not, would not falter. “If I could have room and more light, I am ready.”
Everyone stepped back a respectful distance. Some held candles and torches near. One soldier stood on the table in front of her, holding two torches aloft. The firm set of his face suggested he would not move until she told him to.
The dun fell silent as the severely wounded drifted to sleep and those already tended gathered to watch her and the old healer perform a miracle. Time ceased to be a concern, the agony in her back a distant memory as Erika, following Aine’s quiet instructions, meticulously cleansed away every minute trace of grime. The Druid woman had stressed repeatedly the necessity of cleanliness, a tenet that had been shared by only a few other healers Erika had encountered during her travels. But she trusted the old Druid as she trusted few people in her life, and she had seen enough people, supposedly healing from their wounds, sicken and die. She would not give Conor that false a hope; it would devastate him.
Finally she began the methodical, excruciating process of patching Ardan’s innards together. Calling for more light and blinking through her fatigue, Erika slowly set her stitches into the pale skin. She was grateful to Aine and Múireann that they refused her entreaties to cease her needlecraft; her sewing had transformed from clumsy tangles to delicate, orderly stitches.
“It is done.” Releasing her breath with a drawn-out sigh, Erika attempted to straighten and nearly toppled over. Múireann was by her side, steadying her.
“Come away, my lady,” the woman pleaded through her tears. “You have done your best, and that is all that we could hope.”
Erika took a proffered goblet of mead from a servant, managing an exhausted smile of gratitude before she drank. “There is still much to be done, Múireann. We must salve and bandage both wounds, and move Ardan to a pallet near the fire.”
Startled green eyes met her own. “You—you mean Ardan will live?”
Not wanting to inspire false hope yet needing to offer comfort, Erika chose her words carefully. “The next few hours will be telling. We must make sure he takes mead, and a wee bit of the herbal if possible. If Ardan survives the dawn, I believe he will have a chance.”
Murmurs of relief swept through the dun’s people. Múireann stared at her in wonderment. “You’re not the Angel of Death!” she whispered in awe. “You are the angel of life, sent from God Himself!”
It seemed as if others were in agreement. Uncomfortable with the sudden reverence, Erika said, “Godsend or no, we still have much to do. Sibheal, help Múireann bind Ardan’s wounds. Use that salve—yes, the dark green. I will see to the others.”
But first she would see to her husband. Grabbing a bowl of fresh water and clean cloths, Erika turned to tend to Conor’s injuries. He was gone. Anxiety rippled through her as she cast about for him.
He stood near the door, talking to the priest. Gathering her skirts, she hurried to join them. Abbott Brochadh was speaking, and it took her a moment to realize he was giving Conor names.
Names of men of Dunlough, now dead.
Stricken, Erika watched Conor’s face as each was spoken. It was as if each were an arrow loosed, striking his heart with mortal accuracy. His face could have been as solid and immutable as the crosses of the ancient Celts. It seemed as if darkness gathered in the planes of his face, changing him.
Claiming him.
When the priest finished speaking, Conor raised his eyes, staring directly at her. Erika’s blood ran cold, and she instinctively stepped back.
His eyes were empty.
Without uttering a word, he spun towards the door. Erika, galvanized by the movement, made to go after him.
“Conor, wait!” Strong arms grappled hers. Padraig. “Leave go!”
“I cannot, my lady. No one follows the tigerna at times like this. Not if he values his life.”
Exhausted by her work, she ceased her struggles and turned to stare at the commander. “Conor has done this before?”
The warrior nodded, his eyes dark. “Since Clontarf.”
Fear gripped her heart. Not fear for herself, but fear for Conor. “Where does he go, and how long is he gone?”
Padraig’s face was pinched with fatigue and sorrow. “My lady, do not ask me.”
Erika grabbed his forearm. “Please, Padraig. I must know.”
Her desperation must have been evident for he continued, “The tigerna does not leave the tribe’s lands. Some say he joins the bhean sidhe on Slieve Torc, adding his grief to hers. Some say he races through the fields in the dark of night, or stays in a cave.”
His words came with difficulty, as though reluctant to betray his lord. “It is like a madness, my lady, the way his mood darkens. Like a fever runs its course, so does this. It may be one day or four, but it does pass.”
Four days? Every part of her being yearned to dislodge Padraig’s hold, to follow Conor into the darkness. He was out there in the night, hurting. He needed her.
She gave Padraig a long stare that would countenance no disobedience. “You will send one guard after him. I would know where he goes.”
Padraig opened his mouth and Erika narrowed her eyes at him. He hesitated, then bowed to her. “I will see to it, my lady.”
Sighing, Erika turned back to tend to the remaining injured. She needed to rest, but these men needed her. It would also help distract her from her worry over her husband. He would come back to her. He had promised, and she intended to hold him to that promise.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“So you have come for me, then?”
Erika jerked upright, startled by the rasping voice. “Ardan?”
The grizzled warrior stared back at her, his moss-green eyes unnaturally bright. “Sure and you know who I am, if you’ve come to lead me home?” He smiled weakly. “But ’tis good to know that heaven has a sense of humor.”
Looking up, Erika saw that Múireann had returned, and pulled up a chair on the other side across from her. The olde
r woman’s eyes welled with tears as she stifled a gasp with her hands.
Apparently Ardan thought she was an angel, not the Angel. Erika touched his forehead; it was warm, but dry. Had the wound in his chest become festered? She prayed against it.
“How do you feel, Ardan?”
“If I did not know you for one of the angelic hosts, I would swear that I am being tortured in hell.” His eyes strayed to the crackling hearth. “I’m not in hell, am I?”
Smiling despite the circumstances, she answered, “You are not.”
“Then might I trouble you for a drink?”
Múireann hurriedly poured watered mead into a cup and passed it to Erika, who, with Padraig’s help, lifted Ardan enough to help him sip. He gagged, but managed to down most of it. “I don’t suppose heaven has something stronger?”
Her smile grew. “No, I don’t suppose it does.”
Closing his eyes, the warrior sighed. “Una and my boys, are they here? I will see them soon?”
Erika cooled his forehead with a damp cloth. It was a moment before she could speak past the tightness in her throat. “They send you their love, but say you are still needed in Dunlough.”
“Conor.”
“He needs you, Ardan,” she said, clasping his hands in hers. “Come back to him.”
He opened his eyes, his gaze steady and clear as it fixed upon her. “’Tis you he needs, my lady.”
Unsure if he was truly with them or not, Erika tried to ease the hammering of her heart. “C-Conor needs me?”
“He does. Darkness dogs his every step. Losing Murrough and his sons took much from him, sure it did. Aislingh could not understand it, and then she betrayed him. You can understand it. You are a light against that darkness. You can help him escape it.”
“How?” The word tore from her. “What can I do?”
Green eyes burned fiercely into her own. “Help him remember how to laugh. If ’tis too much to ask that you love him, at least care for him.”
“I do.”
“Then you are helping him already. Promise me that you will not give up on him, even though he has given up on himself. Never surrender.”
Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I won’t if you won’t.”
“Done, then.” He settled back, closing his eyes. “Now let me sleep.”
Erika looked at the slumbering man, feeling as if her heart would burst. “I won’t fail you, Ardan,” she whispered. “I won’t fail Conor either.”
Resolved, she rose to her feet, untying her bloodstained apron and tossing it onto the chair. Padraig rose with her. “My lady?”
“Prepare my horse. I go to bring Conor home.”
“Not alone.”
She knew better than to argue. “Three others. No more. We ride at once.”
The darkness came for him.
He had been fighting it for hours, days, an eternity. But the demons of guilt were as voracious as they were cruel. Their claws were embedded deep in his soul, and he knew they would never let him go.
Dead. So many of them dead. He was supposed to protect them, supposed to keep them safe, with his own life if necessary. But he had failed them, failed them all, and he would suffer eternal damnation because of it.
Already he could hear them, the demons, their call as persistent and irresistible as the sidhe. He belonged to them, they whispered, he was a part of them. They had given him his name. Surely he wanted to come to them? All he had to do was let go, to surrender to the murky void, and all would be well.
Yet something kept him from taking that final, fatal step.
Conor rode through the night, pushing his mount in a merciless drive to escape. Even then, he was powerless to outrun the demons that pursued him.
They wore familiar faces, his demons. Faces of men he had played with as a boy, trained with as a youth, fought with as a man. Murrough, chieftain of Dunlough, with young Murrough after him. His youngest nephew Brochan, fostered where he himself had been, and the son he never had. Phelan, who had a warrior’s size and a poet’s soul. Their faces taunted him the most, for when they needed him most he had failed them.
The fighting had been brutal, axes and swords. The sweet green grass had decayed into the brown of drying blood. In the trees, blood had dripped from branches like a red rain. It had been blinding, but not too blinding for Conor to miss the axe-blow that had severed Murrough nearly in half, another blow that had taken Phelan’s head.
Conor had found Brochan, had believed he was spiriting the boy to safety until they were caught in a storm of arrows. It didn’t matter that he had been felled, had nearly died. He had lived, and his brother and nephews had not.
When his mount began to stumble from the exertion, Conor slid from his back. Landing on his knees, he grabbed huge fistfuls of the chill, fragrant earth, struggling to find purchase, something to keep him rooted. His demons roiled about him, feasting on the agony in his soul.
It welled within him, that agony, struggling to break free the pitiful barrier of flesh. His muscles bunched with the urge to succumb, to allow the demons to ravage him. The emotion welled from the deepest corner of his core, gathering strength as it sought to escape. And escape it did, blistering from his throat, riding on a sound that had never before been uttered by a human.
The unnatural sound stopped Erika and her guards in their tracks on the majestic slope of Slieve Torc. Lore said that the spirit of Dunlough, the bhean sidhe, resided in the prehistoric stone cairn at the top of the mountain. Erika had heard her soul-chilling wail two days ago, a wail that supposedly heralded a death. Was that where Conor would be?
As if in answer to her unspoken question, the moon broke free of the clouds, bathing the cairn in its pale light and illuminating a path through the dense undergrowth below. Not heeding Padraig’s caution, Erika kneed Tempest, turning the horse up the silvery path.
Erika heard Conor before she saw him. Heard the brutality of his pain and knew she would give anything to assuage it.
She halted, waiting for Padraig to draw along side. “I will go alone from here.”
“A bhean usuail, I cannot allow it. The tigerna—”
“Needs me,” she finished for him. “I must do this, Padraig. For Ardan, for me. And for Conor.”
“My lady.” Worry was clear in his features.
Tempest shifted beneath her in the moonlight. She calmed him with a light touch, though inside her heart roiled with fear. Conor needed her. And she needed him.
“Padraig.” She waited until she had their attention. “I will go alone to Conor. We will return, as he always does.”
Reluctance limning his features, Padraig acquiesced, fading into the shadows. Erika knew he had not gone far. Padraig’s loyalty was unquestioned; he would not leave until he was satisfied. But he would not interfere.
With a word, she urged Tempest into the copse of trees. It was cool this far up the side of Slieve Torc, and their breaths steamed in the night. The full moon hung above her left shoulder, casting a silvery glow to everything about her and creating shadows that should have been menacing. But Erika knew the true menace was the darkness that laid claim to her husband.
Resolved, she straightened in her saddle. She was the Angel of Death, a fighter. She would fight for her husband. She would bring him home.
Or die trying.
“Damn you, Mórrigan!” Conor bellowed at the frigid, black sky. “You could have taken me! Why them? Why Ardan?”
Not even the wind answered him, and it only served to sear the agony into a blistering rage. “Where are you, war-goddess? Do you cower before this mere mortal? Have you no courage in your damnable black heart to face me?”
The provocation proved successful, answered by the sound of hoofbeats, the emergence of the moon. Mórrigan and her minions coming to do battle. Conor felt his lips peel back from his teeth as he unsheathed his sword. He would go, but he would not go peaceful.
It would be over. At last.
Hoofbeats came closer, the mo
on brighter as he readied himself for his final battle. Something silver flashed through the copse of trees, coalescing into a spectral beauty with streaming moonbeams for hair, astride a pale horse breathing fog.
He was not surprised at the form his adversary had chosen, but the twist of pain he felt at the sight did surprise him. “So Mórrigan, you’ve chosen to face me as the Angel of Death. If you believe staring at my wife’s visage will sway me from this course, you are mistaken.”
The pale apparition dismounted, silver hair gleaming in the moonlight. “Conor, I’m not the Mórrigan. I’m Erika.”
“You lie!”
“I do not.” The specter’s words were quiet, compelling. Her hands went to her cloak, sending it billowing to the ground. It was followed by her baldric and sword. “I am your wife, and I’ve come to take you home.”
Laughter tore from him, brutal and harsh and mirthless. The Mórrigan stepped back, and he laughed anew. “And what is your home? A cold black place filled with the screams of the damned? Can it be any worse than what I endure now?”
“Conor, listen to me. Look at me.” Her dress fell to her feet and she stood, glorious and nude before him. “I am real. I am your wife.”
“No!” His words were a snarl of denial. “Enough of this—it ends now!”
Brandishing his sword, he raced across the clearing. The Mórrigan made no sound, did not reach for her sword. Did nothing but stare at him with his wife’s eyes.
A cry of anguish tore from him. He could not do it. Merciful heaven, he could not strike down the witch that wore his wife’s face.
The hand clasping his sword fell to his side and he dropped to his knees, the defiance drained. “Do what you will,” he whispered, weary in mind and soul. “I am beyond care.”
Movement, the Angel of Death coming closer to him. She knelt before him, one hand reaching out to touch his marred cheek. The rush he ever felt at his wife’s touch coursed through him, illuminating his dark misery. She melted against him, pressing kisses over his ravaged face. He pushed his fingers into her hair, drawing her closer, needing her touch and her scent. “Erika.”
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