by Hazel Hunter
Cadeyrn and Brennus exchanged an amused look, but Lily’s grim expression didn’t change.
“We’ve got a problem, all right,” the British woman said. She hesitated before she added, “I think Emeline’s about to go barmy on us.”
Chapter Three
DARK WATERS BROKE as Hendry Greum came up from the depths, his eyes momentarily dazzled by the glints of sunlight on the loch’s rippling surface. The forest surrounding the ruins of the Wood Dream’s ancient settlement remained as still and empty as the waters, thanks to a ritual that had been interrupted over a thousand years past. Despite the passage of time he could still remember the day his tribe had been wiped out by the Romans. It seemed a fitting tribute to the massacred druids that in all that time not a single living thing had come to dwell in this place. Hendry imagined that one day the entire world would be very much the same.
The only difference was the magic, of course. Once he and his famhairean killed off the last of mortal and druid kind, the realm would be reborn, and the age of his caraidean would begin.
“Everything shall be healed,” he murmured, but his words made the air seem to shiver in response.
It mattered little to Hendry. Swimming in the loch where he’d long ago intended to drown himself pleased him. How brief and useless his life might have been had he clung to the path ever walked by druid kind. Instead he had turned his back on death to seize a forbidden fruit offered so sweetly to him. He’d never regretted his mating with Murdina Stroud, or the price they had paid for their love. Nor did he mourn the thousand years they had spent trapped in stone for their supposed wrongdoings.
Made immortal by the very druids who had imprisoned them, Hendry and Murdina would never die now—as neither would the famhairean.
A chilly mist wafted around Hendry as he waded to the rocky bank, where a much larger, broader famhair waited with his bathing robe. To see Ochd now gratified him, for he’d spent a great deal of time and magic reworking the giant’s wooden body to closely resemble that of mortal kind.
For everything to work according to their plan, Ochd had to seem human.
“Fair morning,” Hendry said as he took the dry linen and shrugged into it. “My thanks for your concern, but you shouldnae stray so close to the bank.”
The only weakness the famhairean possessed was their reaction to water, which Hendry had gone to great lengths to keep secret. Any contact made the giants begin to revert to their natural tree forms. Full immersion trapped their immortal spirits in their submerged bodies, rendering them incapable of escape. He’d always considered it tragic that the druids had chosen to imprison the famhairean in a bespelled wood henge. They might have fared better with imprisonment by sinking the giants to the bottom of a loch.
The famhair’s new, luminous eyes searched the horizon. “Aon says the cottage shall be finished by nightfall. Do we track the Skaraven tomorrow?”
The normal grating sound of the giants’ speech had almost disappeared from Ochd’s voice. With a little more refinement and practice, the famhair would be able to deceive anyone he spoke to.
“Tomorrow, Hendry?” the giant repeated.
“They use water to travel, and we cannae,” Hendry reminded him, and gestured for Ochd to accompany him as he walked up into the forest. “Next we must fashion new bodies for the caraidean we lost in battle with the Skaraven.” He saw how the giant bunched his fists. “Rowan shall come to no harm among the clan.”
Ochd stopped to stare down at him. His newly-refined features had become capable of expressions, and his appeared bleak. “’Tis no’ her place to be with them.”
“Aye, and when ’tis time we shall take her back,” Hendry assured the giant. A flutter of red caught his eye. “Return to camp now and help the others with the rebuilding.”
Instead of obeying, the giant clamped a big hand on the druid’s shoulder. “Rowan isnae theirs. She belong to us.”
“Belongs to us,” Hendry absently corrected. “Go along now and help your brethren. I must tend to my dearest one.”
Ochd glanced over at the figure flitting around the trunk of a dead elm tree. “So must I.”
“And you shall, my friend.”
Hendry chuckled and patted the famhair on his bulging hard arm before he went to intercept his mate.
Murdina vanished before he could reach her, but he knew this game, and stretched out beneath the leafless branches to wait.
“I followed you again, Hendry Greum,” she called to him, her voice higher and softer than usual. “I ken what you do here. I watch you from the forest.”
“I but wait for you, sweeting mine.” He closed his eyes and heard her creep closer. “You must be quiet. You dinnae wish to bring your mother or father.”
“They say I must marry that jobby Dirkus. He stinks of cow shite.” She planted her feet on either side of his legs and lowered herself onto his lap. “I like how you smell, Hendry. Like the forest on fire. Fire…”
Knowing that she was remembering nearly being burned to death at the mill, Hendry pulled her against him. Rubbing his cheek against her nearly-bald head, he stroked her spine with a soothing palm.
“’Tis no fire here, only us. The cottage shall be finished tonight, and we will sleep in our own bed.”
Murdina sat up and frowned at him. “I dinnae sleep with you. Mother ties me to the cot in her room.” She giggled. “Only she doesnae knot the cord so well.”
The fire had tampered with her already fractured mind, sending Murdina back to the age of sixteen, the time she likely considered the safest. Now she capered and played in the forest like the wild thing she’d been as a young lass, unaware that centuries had passed. She no longer recalled being bespelled and trapped in the Storr on Skye, or how it had slowly driven her mad. Hendry was almost grateful for her regression, as it spared her so much pain. He only wondered how long her delusions would last before she reverted to the broken, fearful woman she had become.
“Would you wish to share my bed, sweeting mine?” Hendry asked, caressing her cheek.
She pursed her lips, as adorably as she had when she’d been but a young mortal lass. “Shall we but sleep together? Or do you mean to take my maidenhood?”
“I shall want both.” He drew her lips down to his, and kissed her tenderly, feeling the dark hunger rising in them together, as it always had.
Murdina drew back, frowning as she studied him. “You’ve so much silver in your hair.” Her lips trembled as she stared at the back of her own hand. “And I’ve spots on my flesh, and wrinkles.” She rose and skittered away from him. “How did this happen?”
“’Tis naught but illusion, beloved mine.” Quickly he murmured under his breath and released his power to envelope her. The spell he cast transformed her appearance into that of the girl she had been twelve centuries past, complete to the soft fawn robe she had most loved to wear. As he stood he cast a second spell over his own body so that she would see him young again as well. “Forgive me. I meant only to amuse you.”
“Oh, Hendry.” Sobbing now, she hurled herself into his arms. “I never wish to be an old hag. I couldnae bear it.”
“Then I shall keep you young forever,” he promised.
Ochd made his way through the deserted Wood Dream settlement to where Aon and the others labored on resurrecting Hendry and Murdina’s dwelling. To fill the spaces between the timbers supporting the roof beams, the famhairean had stacked squares of turf atop a base of flat stones. More wood had been fitted over the lifeless soil to form a floor.
But nothing could fill the hollow that had grown inside Ochd since Rowan had escaped.
The rebuilt cottage’s shoddy construction would not last, but it needed only to please Murdina. Since the mill fire she had lost her grip on time and reality, and instead dwelled in her dreams. Ochd secretly envied her, for he sometimes longed for the simplicity of the life he’d possessed among the Wood Dream. Standing as guardian and watching the tribe had filled his days with purpose and peace.
All the more reason to have Rowan back. The dark druidess never made him feel so empty or useless.
“Ochd.” Aon, the leader of the giants, came to stand beside him and surveyed the work. “You find trace of Coig?”
He shook his head. “No’ on the wind or in the trees. He didnae return with the others unbodied by the Skaraven.”
“Coig couldnae die,” Aon said, his voice flinty. “Mayhap they hold him.”
“Naught could trap Coig,” Dha said.
The largest of the giants, he pushed between them as he carried armfuls of thatching over to the cottage. When another famhair collided with him, he lashed out, sending the smaller giant and bundles of straw flying into the trees.
Ochd knew how angry all the famhairean had been since their latest battle with the Skaraven, but for once he didn’t share their fury. He suspected that since their awakening Coig had been slowly going mad. Time and again he had ignored orders to torment and torture the druidesses they had taken from the future. He’d been particularly cruel to Lily, the gilded-haired mind-mover who had—with a captured Skaraven—engineered the escape of all the females. Before the battle Ochd had worried that Coig might even harm Hendry and Murdina to feed his sadistic pleasures.
“I dinnae care for how Hendry changes you,” Aon said, looking all over him. “Too human.”
Before Hendry had taken Rowan and the other females Ochd would have agreed. Like the rest of his brethren even the thought of mortal kind had always enraged and disgusted him. Too long they had carried the memories of the Roman massacre. Knowing the dark druidess from the future, however, had drawn Ochd back to a past he’d almost forgotten. Rowan had changed him more than Hendry’s magic.
“’Tis for our time to come,” he told Aon. “What we shall do, ’tis more important than what ’twas done to us and the tribe.”
Aon took in his scent, nodded slowly, and went to stop Dha from unbodying the hapless famhair he’d tossed aside.
Ochd knew the druids would be occupied with each other for some time, just as his sullen brethren would continue their work until they finished the cottage. He walked toward the immense pile of thatching as if to collect more for the roof, and then slipped away into the trees. After the McAra Clan had become the Skaraven’s mortal allies, they had provided each of the warriors with fine mounts. When Hendry and Murdina had escaped from the mill farm, the McAra laird and his men had pursued, cornered and nearly captured them. From what the druids said it had something to do with an ancient debt the McAra had owed to the Skaraven for more than a thousand years.
They yet did not know where the Skaraven hid from them, but the McAra might. The laird and one of the druidesses from the future shared the same name.
Descending into the earth as quietly as he could, Ochd burrowed deep. At the point where his passage would not leave a furrow in the surface, he tunneled away from the settlement. Like all famhairean he could move through soil at unstoppable speeds and navigate his way by reading the roots that crossed his path. It took him hardly any time to cross the many leagues to the midlands where he emerged from the depths.
From the edge of the wide glen he could see Laird Maddock McAra’s men on horseback patrolling the outer perimeter of the stronghold’s lands. Moving back into the shadows of a snowy evergreen patch, he watched and calculated their circuits as he sampled the unseen volatiles in the air.
Rowan had not been brought to the McAra’s castle—Ochd would have smelled her in the wind—and that disappointed him. The Skaraven must still be keeping the druidesses at their hidden stronghold. He felt the tightness inside that he experienced whenever he thought of her among others unfriendly to the famhairean. She had no place being with the Pritani killers.
Rowan belonged to him, and he would find her and bring her back to safety.
Shaking off the soil that still clung to him, Ochd crossed the open land between the last and next patrols, and dug under the high wall that surrounded McAra’s stronghold. Following the roots of an old alder, he surfaced just behind the wide trunk. The towering tree, though some yards from the castle, had a thick branch that nearly touched the stones of the second floor. He quickly scaled the trunk and edged out along the limb, careful to remain among the thick leaves. Silently parting the foliage, he could see into one of the narrow windows.
The small laird stood inside speaking with a manservant while his female and some of their younger bairns sat on the floor engaged with some painted sticks and a small ball of string. For a long moment the sight fascinated Ochd, who had never seen a group of mortals do anything but run from him in terror. McAra’s wife laughed as her children batted the string ball to bounce against Maddock’s boot. The laird bent down and caught the ball to toss it back, grinning as well. The Wood Dream tribe had been much the same, Ochd recalled, in showing much affection to their bairns.
This was what Hendry meant when he spoke of family.
“…when they all arrive on the morrow,” the laird was saying. “Prepare the largest chambers in the guest quarters for Chieftain Brennus and his lady wife. The old druid shall have the warmest room near the kitchen garden. Double the household guards as well, Steward. ’Tis some bad blood between the Skaraven and Flen.”
“If the parley doesnae go well, my lord,” the steward said, frowning, “should the men be told to separate the chieftain and the druid?”
The McAra shook his head. “If it comes to that, lad, I’ll step in.”
The remainder of the conversation proved unbeneficial, but Ochd lingered to soak up the sunlight and restore his power. It gave him the chance to watch the mortals until the laird and his wife led their bairns out of the solar. He then reluctantly left as he had come, and traveled back to the settlement, taking care to shake off every trace of soil before rejoining the others at the rebuilt cottage.
Aon beckoned to him. “Where you go?”
“I needed sun,” Ochd said, and released enough of the power he’d absorbed at the McAra stronghold to make his changed flesh briefly shimmer. “’Tis good work you do here. It shall make Murdina happy again.”
The other giant scowled. “Cottage willnae fix her.”
Ochd wanted to tell his leader that nothing could do that, but held his tongue. Out of deference to Hendry they had all skirted her madness by indulging her crazed wishes. Soon Murdina would lose her mind altogether, and that might very well drive her lover to madness as well.
At that moment the druids came out of the forest. Both looked so young that Ochd almost didn’t recognize them. He knew he should tell Hendry that he had gone to the McAra stronghold. The meeting between Brennus Skaraven and Bhaltair Flen would likely involve new strategies to be taken against the lovers and the famhairean. Hendry would no doubt wish to attack and kill the chieftain and the druid. But that would not serve Ochd’s purposes. He could not follow Brennus through water, but he could question the old druid.
“My love, look,” Murdina squealed.
She rushed to the cottage, laughing as she hugged Tri, who lifted her and spun her around.
“Well done,” Hendry said, smiling as he went to join her.
Ochd said nothing but simply watched instead. This is how it would be when he took back his lady.
Chapter Four
WHEN RUADRI RETURNED to his healing chamber he found Althea and the Thomas sisters waiting for him. Last night they had assured him they had no grievous wounds. They’d both shown such exhaustion that after bandaging the younger sister’s injured shoulder he’d agreed to wait and properly tend to them this morning.
In the light of his chamber, he could see their striking differences. Rowan, the darker sister, had a sturdy build, skilled-looking hands, and vivid features. Unlike the other lasses her skin still held the rosy bloom of good health, attesting to her depth of endurance. Althea had said that in their time Rowan had worked as a carpenter, and throughout their ordeal had remained the strongest and most defiant of the ladies. The tight set of her jaw and na
rrowness of her eyes suggested she was presently hiding some source of pain, likely from the deep spear gash in her shoulder.
Hiding what she felt, Ruadri sensed, was not one of Rowan’s talents.
By comparison the fairer sister, Perrin, appeared gaunt and weak. He saw the cause at once in her pale, dry skin, sunken eyes and emaciated limbs. Her delicate features seemed pinched, but not with pain. She had been a dancer, according to Brennus’s lady, though now she looked hardly hale enough to walk. But he was reassured that her eyes remained clear and her dull gold hair had not yet begun to fall out. With proper rest and ample food, she would likely recover from the bodily effects.
The harm to Perrin’s spirit from being starved might take longer to heal.
What puzzled Ruadri was how the two ladies could be sisters. They were nothing alike. He knew siblings sometimes shared no common physical characteristics, but there seemed a strong divergence of personality as well. Perrin remained silent and appeared nervous, almost tremulous, while her sister scowled directly at him as if prepared to attack.
“I don’t need some medieval quack shoving moldy leaves and sheep shit into my wound,” she told him before anyone could speak. “So if that’s your plan, forget it.”
“I use fresh herbs, my lady, and never, ah, dung.” He studied the way she was standing and suspected her pain to be even greater than he’d guessed. “Mayhap you’ll permit me to begin by examining your shoulder.”
“Look at my sister first.” Rowan nodded at Perrin, who cringed as Ruadri regarded her. “She took a hit to the back of her head, and the lump is still the size of a golf ball.”
He glanced at Althea. “Golf?”
“A ball used in a game, about this size.” With her fingers she measured a small circle in the air. “You guys won’t invent it for another hundred years or so.”
He nodded and approached Perrin. “Would you lift your hair from the spot, my lady?” Once she did he could see the rounded swelling, just atop the inion, where the bottom of her skull attached to the neck muscle. “Does it yet hurt you?”