Blazing Earth

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Her visit to old Rigby revealed the results of her previous treatment—the man stood before her without the support of his stick or his wife and took his first unaided steps since his accident. Now, when she looked at his legs, the breaks were healed and the bones strong. Then she sent a burst of heat into his muscles, long atrophied from disuse, to help them grow stronger. His wide smile was all the thanks she needed, but he and Eldreda offered her words and gifts.

  As she passed through the village, the cooper told her a man sought help for his sister’s lying-in and pointed her toward the southern end of the road to Amesbury where he’d left him to wait. With no one else needing her attentions now, she walked to find the man. She came upon him standing on the edge of the path, in the shadow of the trees. The mark on her arm surged then and she clamped her hand over it as she approached him.

  He was neither young nor old and looked like any other man she might meet on the road, but there was something more about him she could not explain. He met her gaze for a moment and then, squinting tightly, he looked away. It took no more than a moment to see the damage in his body. Not a part of him was unscathed, for he was a mess of scratches, tears, bruises, barely healed fractures, and some deeper injuries to his organs. How he stood without assistance, she knew not.

  She did know he needed her more than any sister of his did.

  “Good morrow,” she said, walking closer. “My name is Elethea and I serve as healer to the good people here on Lord Geoffrey’s estate. Osbert the cooper said you were asking for me? For your sister’s lying-in?”

  He nodded without meeting her eyes. He was clearly avoiding looking at her directly for some reason. Though it usually meant fear or even deception, Thea felt neither from him.

  “How can I help you?” She waited for him to give her his name.

  “Corann, my . . .” He shook his head and stammered, “Corann.” His nervousness increased. “I have no sister. I only wanted to speak to you.”

  “Can you walk to my cottage? It is just down this path, Corann,” she said, holding out her arm to him. “I have some ointment that might ease the pain in your leg.” And back and neck and arms and stomach and so on. How had he lived through such damage and the pain from it all?

  He nodded and accepted her arm and she nearly cried out as she felt the extent of his injuries and the agony he must be enduring in silence. She did not wait until they reached her cottage where she could use the application of the ointment to hide her new ability—she began sending healing waves into his legs as they walked along. Corann stumbled once as she repaired the bones in his lower legs, and as he did, she noticed that his forearm carried some mark on it when his sleeve slipped and exposed the skin there.

  Could he be part of this? Was he another who carried some power in his blood? She thought not, for surely he would have prevented such damage to his body. They reached her cottage, but he resisted entering. She helped him to sit on a log next to her doorway and went to gather a few supplies and brew a tea for him. As she walked away, she felt his gaze follow her and turned to see an expression of wonder in his eyes.

  “Who are you, Corann?” she asked, returning to where he sat. Now he did not take his eyes from hers, though she could see he struggled to keep the contact. “What are you?” she asked, now convinced he was something different from anyone she’d met before, and he knew more than others did.

  “I am your servant,” he said, standing and lowering himself into a bow. She could see the pain it caused him and took him by the arms, raising him once more.

  “I have no servants. I have no need of them,” she assured the man. “Why would you think that?”

  “I serve the bloodlines of the ancient ones,” he whispered, bowing his head. “I serve you, a woman who carries the blood of Belenus, the god of healing and life and order. You are the sunblood.”

  Sunblood. Sunblood?

  “Sunblood,” she whispered back, feeling the heat surge through her blood, body, and soul in that moment.

  It was what she was. There was a name for it.

  She staggered back from the man as the heat expanded and escaped her body then, surrounding both of them in its brightness. Corann’s body arched and then seemed to absorb the light and heat until she pulled it back within her.

  “Corann!” she shouted.

  He slid to the ground and Thea was at his side in a moment. Her hand on his chest rose and fell with his breathing, and his eyes began fluttering inside their lids, much as Tolan’s had done last night. The man dragged in a gasp and opened them to look at her.

  “Praise be!” he whispered. Pushing himself up to his knees, he touched his chest and then his legs and arms. Then he leaned down and touched his forehead to the ground much as she did when she gave thanks in the morning. “Praise be!” he said louder now.

  “Corann, I pray you, do not kneel before me,” Thea said, climbing to her feet. “’Tis unseemly.”

  Confused by his words and reaction, Thea wished that Tolan was here. He knew more about these matters than she did. This was an opportunity she could not give up, though, so she touched the man on his shoulder and bade him rise.

  “My thanks to you for such a gift as this, Sunblood,” he said, his voice filled with awe. “You have healed me. You have made me whole once more.” His height now was several inches taller than before—partly because he was not stooped in pain and partly because his bones and sinews were now where they should be. He gazed at her with a reverence in his eyes she found disconcerting.

  “Who are you that you know of such things? Are you also one of the descendants?” she asked, pointing at his arm. “I saw a mark on your arm there.”

  “Aye, I am marked as a priest,” he said, sliding his sleeve up and letting her see his. A small stick figure of a man sat there where her own sun-shaped one lay. “I stand for humankind.”

  “You do not look like a priest,” she said, glancing at his garments and his hair. He wore no tonsure as clergy did.

  “Not of the One God who some worship,” he said, smiling. “We follow the ways of the Old Ones. Those who walked on this earth eons ago. Those whose bloodlines were set up to protect mankind.”

  The sound of someone approaching stopped Corann from saying more. One of the boys who helped in the fields came running toward her cottage, calling out her name.

  “Corann,” she began, turning back to him. “I must go now, but I would speak with you more.”

  “There are others with whom you should speak,” he said, backing away toward the shadows. “I will bring them to you.”

  “Nay, not here.” Lord Geoffrey’s scrutiny of Tolan made her nervous. Strangers would be seen and word would spread. “I will visit the abbey the day after tomorrow to purchase some herbs. In the morning, after the brothers pray Terce. I will meet you and the others there.”

  Whether or not he knew of the Christian hours of prayers, Corann nodded and strode off into the woods, heading south toward Amesbury. She took only a moment to watch him walk in long, sure strides, without pain, before answering young William’s call to help someone else.

  A sunblood. She was a sunblood.

  CHAPTER 11

  London Road, east of Amesbury

  As they approached the town, Hugh opened up his senses, searching for any sign of the others, be they humans or bloods. It mattered not if he found them now or when he arrived at Geoffrey’s holdings. From the power emanating from this whole area, the lands to the north and west of Amesbury were filled with likely places. So many stones and circles and henges of all sorts and sizes lay strewn across the lands.

  Of course, that was exactly what Chaela’s enemies had planned when they constructed their gateways—confuse those who sought them and disguise them from the casual view. So, none of the gateways would be found amongst the known or reported monuments or arrangements of stone. No, those might serve as mark
ing posts or signs, but they would not be the doorways he sought.

  Eudes rode to his side and gave him the directions to Geoffrey’s estate. Not far now until he reached another of Chaela’s faithful ones. As they reached the crest of another rolling hill, it struck him with so much power he gasped aloud at it.

  Waves of power. Many beings who carried the blood of the Old Ones. They were here. It was here, too. He smiled, knowing he would never give up his efforts until he freed his goddess. As he turned in his saddle, the burned skin of his back reminded him of his fate if he failed.

  Others would feel the wrath of the destructive goddess of chaos, not him, he swore once again to himself, as he sought the place where the power was strongest.

  A group of them were south, near the abbey there in the distance, the church spire visible for miles. The others, the ones whose power was just rising, felt like tiny ripples on the surface of a puddle to him now. Untrained, ignorant of their potential, they were to the north.

  But the power that left him struggling to breathe was farther away, to the north, along the river that curled endlessly across the plain of Sarum.

  Hugh would seek out Geoffrey’s keep and refresh himself before selecting a suitable sacrifice to offer to the goddess and to uncover the true circle. He was nodding, dismissing Eudes to lead on, when he felt . . . him.

  He was nearby, watching and waiting. Hugh searched across the verdant farmlands and saw nothing but a copse in the middle of the fields. Humans worked them, preparing them for the spring planting, but none of them interested Hugh. He took in and let out a deep breath, focusing on the ripples of power that moved like tiny undulations in the air around him.

  Waving Eudes on, he urged his horse across one of the fields toward the trees. Something was there. Some power, but Hugh could not see him. He smiled and nodded in greeting, not expecting a reply. But he knew he’d been seen and that the . . . earthblood felt Hugh’s power as he passed. He rode on slowly, staring at the trees until he noticed one that did not bend with the breezes.

  He could send his fire at the tree now to demonstrate his abilities, but Hugh would wait before challenging the earthblood. He would learn more in order to bring him to Hugh’s side in this battle to conquer all of humanity. And he needed to discover the whereabouts of the other one and win or force them both to help him.

  Looking ahead at those in his service off in the distance, he knew he, they, would prevail this time. Nothing in the world around him would be the same again. He laughed aloud and waved at the tree before riding off to catch up to the rest.

  It was all falling into place.

  * * *

  His last thought had been to hide from the sight of whatever this creature approaching was. Tolan had been standing in the shade of the trees watching those working this field when something struck him. Not an object, but first a feeling of unease and then wave after wave of. . . something he could not define and had never felt before.

  As it grew closer, Tolan stood with his back to the tallest of the trees and waited.

  A large troop of soldiers rode over the hill there, coming down the London road from the east, and one man caught his attention. He was different. He was surrounded by an aura like the one Tolan had seen surrounding Thea, except that his was orange, like molten copper or liquid fire.

  Then Tolan could feel something probing and pushing at him from the man. The biggest surprise was when the man stopped and turned his horse to face him, as though he could see Tolan there. Looking down at himself, Tolan realized, for the first time, that he was not visible any longer. Not his body. He did not hide against the trees there; he was in the tree.

  Shocked, he looked up and found that everything around him had taken on a greenish hue. Then he heard the man laugh loudly and long in his direction.

  Could he see Tolan thusly? Or did he see the tree in which Tolan now hid?

  How had it happened? One moment a man, the next, with little but a thought, hidden within a tree?

  Tolan tried to move his hands and feet and learned the more shocking truth—he did not hide in a tree, nay, he’d become the tree. Unable to comprehend such a thing, he felt drawn back to the man watching him. Whether mocking him or not, Tolan could not tell right now, the man waved at him and turned his horse and rode off to follow the others toward Lord Geoffrey’s keep.

  He watched until they were too far away to see before considering anything else. His mind simply could not understand this. The other, the abilities he had to work the soil or to call the plants to it, were strange and awe-inspiring in themselves, but it was incomprehensible—how could a man turn into a tree?

  The breeze caught his attention, as did the warmth of the sun shining above. He felt every single leaf that grew on each branch moving in the wind. Though he knew it was impossible, Tolan could feel his feet, or the roots, spread out for yards and yards in every direction away from the trunk.

  Disbelief filled his mind and soul. Then, for just a moment, he stopped thinking and simply felt the changes that had taken place in him, wondrous and terrifying though they were. Part of the earth and yet thrust up into the air under the sky. He tried to stretch and saw new branches extend farther and new leaves burst into existence on their tips.

  He laughed, though no sound came out.

  Extraordinary. Unbelievable. He could think of no word or concept that truly captured what was happening to him or what this experience was.

  Or was this a dream? Had he fallen asleep there, lulled by the warmth of the sun and the unseasonably gentle breezes? He looked around him, and every other thing and person he could see seemed true.

  Then Tolan realized the direction in which that man and his troop of soldiers had ridden. Toward the keep, aye, but also the village. And if this man had recognized Tolan and his power, would he not recognize Thea’s if she crossed his path?

  Thea.

  With the possible danger to her as his only thought, his body changed in an instant and the man he was took a step and then another toward the road. Turning around, he watched as the earth covered the place where he’d pulled himself free of the soil until there was no trace of any change there.

  And nothing for the soldier who was supposed to be following to find when he woke from the bit of rest the hapless guard managed to find each day while Tolan worked in the fields.

  As he rushed to the village, he also knew that one question that had plagued him was now answered—there was at least one other person who knew about their power and who carried such a gift within him.

  Tolan arrived in the village long after the soldiers had traveled through and entered the keep. Such a large number could not all be housed within the walls, so some remained waiting outside. Tolan wondered about their purpose and if they knew about the secrets he and the man who led them carried.

  Night could not come soon enough for him, for he thought their only safe strategy was to put some miles between themselves and this newly arrived stranger. Tolan’s attempts to find Thea were unsuccessful. He’d tried not to seem overly anxious, and only when he asked Eldreda about her visit to Rigby did he discover she’d been called to one of the outlying fields to tend to an injury.

  With one eye on the keep to watch for movements of the visitors, Tolan oversaw the removal of some dead trees from the edge of one field and managed to quietly arrange for two horses they would need to be readied and left where they could reach them without being seen. Then he spent the next several hours with Kirwyn, both working on some shared tasks and just talking with his son. For the first time, Tolan decided to allow the boy to remain on his own while he and Thea went to Durrington, but he warned Kirwyn not to speak of it to anyone until their return. His son was so thrilled to be permitted this that, thankfully, he forgot to be curious about the reasons he could not come along.

  Soon, supper was done, Kirwyn lay asleep in the loft, and Tolan ma
de his way to Thea’s cottage. His blood prickled with anticipation—of seeing Thea again, of searching for the truth on his lands and of telling her about the stranger’s arrival.

  * * *

  Thea lifted her head and listened. Or rather felt, since she was now aware of small changes in the light and heat around her.

  As villagers passed her by along the paths, she could feel the small whorls of their bodies’ heat move around her and then dissolve away. When she’d visited several people suffering with fevers this day, she was able to draw it from them.

  But the most exciting moment of the day had been meeting Corann. He was proof that others knew what was happening to her and Tolan and mayhap they even knew why. She could not wait to share such news with Tolan.

  He was here.

  His steps were dogged by another, that guard, but Tolan strode purposefully to her door. She smiled, enjoying the knowledge that he’d declared his feelings for her in such a public manner as he had.

  Without knocking, he lifted the latch and opened the door, entering quickly and quietly. The green glow was stronger and brighter now, as hers was. Had he used his abilities as well?

  “Thea,” he whispered as he walked to her and pulled her to her feet and into his embrace. His mouth was hot and possessive as he took her breath in a stream of kisses. Her body responded and readied for him, but she knew they must leave soon. “I do not like when I do not see you for the whole of the day.” Another touch of his mouth to hers and then he stepped back, his hands still on her waist.

  “Tolan, I have much to tell you,” she said, feeling the excitement swirling within her. The power within her pulsed stronger and brighter when she was with him. The closer they were, the stronger it felt.

  “And I, you,” he said, glancing at the door. “Can you make me some of that tea that aids sleep?”

  “Aye,” she said. “For you? Now?”