Sabia laid a hand on Desmond's arm. "Be easy," she said. "Either will she defeat him, and end their quarrel once for all; or she will not, and we might as well all of us then roll up our bellies to Jaun Akhera."
Desmond shook his head angrily. "She is tired, she is injured, she is distracted for Theo. And not only that but she has brothers, sisters, cousins, fosterans, friends and a lord, every one of them a warrior--"
"This is something she must do herself," said Gwydion. He had raced up with the others when they saw what Aeron was about, and now stood, face impassive; but his hand was clenched white-knuckled upon his sword-hilt.
Morwen, very pale, looked up at him and away again. "Pray gods she can."
At first it appeared as if Aeron could indeed, and easily; she could not seem to put a stroke wrong. Her glaive seemed to move her arm, flashing green fire where it bit against Bres's gold-bladed weapon. He was taller by some few inches, heavier by far, and had the reach of her by nearly a span; but though he could break her guard with force he could not match her speed, and gradually she forced him back.
Bres had regretted his acceptance of the combat almost immediately. Too late he recalled Jaun Akhera's warning; his adversary was the quickest swordsman he had ever encountered, and she was fueled by fury besides. So swiftly did she strike that he felt nothing, neither touch nor pain, until many seconds later; but the blows he himself scored came down upon her like iron bars.
Yet triumph he must. Not his own people only but the Coranians and the Kelts alike watched this contest. Strange to think that none of it would be happening if, seventy years since, long before this one he now fought had even been born, he had not felt--whatever the right or wrong of it may have truly been--that Fionnbarr of Keltia had mortally insulted Bres of Fomor. And if he had not continued to nurse that grievance, and if he had not taken his long-delayed, long-anticipated revenge upon Fionnbarr only three years before this moment, then Fionnbarr's heir would not have felt impelled to wipe out Bellator as her revenge, and he himself would not then have felt the need to join Jaun Akhera's crusade in return for that-Aeron seemed to have heard this train of thought. "You will catch your death of what-ifs, Bres..."
More than the words, the mocking tone enraged him, and he redoubled his attack, passing under her guard to draw his blade down her side from ribs to hip. Aeron parried almost contemptuously, but he had struck again before she could turn him back.
She had set up her strokes for a new line of attack when her leg betrayed her, giving way under her weight, giving Bres the opening for a death-blow as her guard fell away. Up on the ramparts, the Kelts froze. Aeron twisted violently to avoid the main weight of the downward-slicing blade, but her own sword was knocked from her hand. Regaining her balance, she pressed one hand to her side and backed slowly before Bres's now confident advance.
A dead galloglass lay a few yards away, and as Aeron moved cautiously backward over the paving-stones, she saw that he had worn a yellow cloak. Close enough, she thought, noting also that blood was beginning to well through the fingers held tight against her side. She ripped the cloak from the dead Kelt's shoulder-clasps and flung it up in front of her just as Bres's sword cut down. There was a dazzling gold flash, and a howl of pain and surprise from Bres, who was apparently either ignorant or forgetful of that particular trick, a favorite maneuver of desperate lightswordsmen. The gold laser had reflected from the gold color of the cloak, the color-frequencies cancelling each other out, and the lightsword had shorted and died in his hand--giving him a painful shock in the process.
An exultant shout went up from the watching Kelts, and Aeron took the instant to field the sword Desmond flung down to her. It was his own, with a blade of findruinna; Aeron was well used to conventional swords, but Bres, untrained to them, was not, and he was clumsy with the steel sword he grabbed up in haste from the ground.
"That should even it up," breathed O'Reilly, transfixed and horrified, her hands hugging her arms. "Oh, please ..."
Except for the ferocity of it, what came next was not unlike any of the matches in which Aeron had been so often triumphant, or even her friendly lessons with Theo. In a flurry of cuts and lunges and parries overborne, it was over; one long moment caught out of time, even as it had been for Haruko, and at the end of the moment Bres was tumbling forward, eyes already glazed in death.
Aeron stood in the faha alone now. At her feet lay the wreckage that had been so lately Bres King of Fomor, and all around her rose a shout, part the triumph of the Kelts, part the fury of the Fomori. She could not bring to focus what had happened, her mind could not seem to make the knowledge real. She was aware, as from a great distance, of pain and stiffness and exhaustion greater than anything she had ever known, but all she knew for certain was that no sword came against her now, no longer the relentless clash of another weapon against her own. But she could not seem to understand how that should be...
She would have fallen right there but for some lingering memory that thousands of eyes hung on her every move; and that awareness, and the sword upon which she leaned so heavily, alone kept her on her feet. Yet there was something else dimly recalled, something so important, the very reason and soul of this fight...
"Theo," she whispered, and began to turn toward him, where he lay upon the paving-stones at the grassy verge of the faha.
Then suddenly Desmond was there beside her, and Gwydion, setting their arms carefully around her waist and beneath her arms, trying to avoid the terrible gashes, unclenching her fingers from their spasm-grip on the bloody hilt of her sword, leading her away, supporting her as they went back up to the castle, speaking steady encouragement to her though she could not comprehend a syllable they said, understanding only her need to walk from the field under her own strength, and not to fall where the world might see it.
Once within the concealing walls of Tomnahara, though, out of the sight of Kelt and Gall alike, she did collapse. Desmond caught her, lifting her effortlessly in his arms.
"Go," he urged Gwydion. "Slaine will care for her. Struan comes, and the fight still hangs in the balance."
The Prince of Gwynedd hesitated, then turned back to battle.
*
Aeron's retirement from the field meant as much to her enemies as her final victory over Bres meant to the Kelts. Yet now it seemed to all who saw her as if Bres would win in the end after all. She looked at point of death; all color had run away into the flaming hair, yet even that seemed somehow dulled. Her skin, always pale, had taken on a terrifying translucence, the veins showing clear blue at throat and arms and temples. Mercifully, she had fainted.
Morwen came running as Desmond, who had carried Aeron to the more spacious grianan rather than the little private solar, now placed his cousin gently on a low field-couch.
"Oh gods--where are the healers?"
"Slaine has been sent for, and Melangell, and Brychan and some of the Fianna healers also. Help me get her tunic off." Together they settled Aeron as best they could, then the door opened and Slaine hurried in.
"She must not sleep, not yet." She laid a hand on Aeron's brow. Morwen had removed the worst of the blood and grit and dust, and now the smooth skin felt cool. Too cool, Slaine thought, fear beginning to rise...
"Aeron, hear me. You must wake for a little, do you hear? Open your eyes."
For many minutes they tried to wake her, and all in vain, Slaine joined by Morwen and the Fian healer Brychan. Aeron heard them all perfectly well, in her white daze, and she was trying not to respond. So much easier to ignore them all, to slip quietly away out the other side, to sleep-—
But then there came sudden hooks in her mind, much stronger, sharp and bright and insistent, that jerked and tugged and harried her reluctant spirit to return, and she sensed the aura of Melangell's personality. Well, she could certainly resist Melangell...
Then someone else strode into her fading awareness, someone who caught hold of her mind and dizzied her by the speed and strength with which he spun he
r back to the roaring world, someone she could neither ignore nor resist, someone she could not fight, and she knew it was Gwydion who so summoned her back.
*
On the rampart just outside the grianan, O'Reilly stood on the edge of the circle of light cast by the torches, trying not to cry. Since she had seen Haruko slain and Aeron cut down, she had been feeling incredibly lost and alone, and the whole past week had been full of fears. Oh, of course everyone was being as kind to her as they could possibly be, but their chief concern at the moment, and very rightly, was Aeron. And Morwen and Melangell, who could always be counted on for comfort, were desperately occupied at the moment trying to save Aeron's life--in terror, O'Reilly veered away from the thought that they might fail--and her only other real friends, Hathaway and Mikhailova, were long gone, far beyond the Curtain Wall by now, aboard the Sword. She felt an amazing pang of homesickness for that tiny ship. She was totally adrift, and very unimportant, and she was trying very hard not to cry.
Then an arm came around her shoulders, and she looked up, startled. It was Desmond, and his face was full of such compassion, such understanding, as he looked down at her, that she did cry. And once she had begun, she could not seem to stop--remembering Desmond's own dead father Elharn; remembering Tindal; remembering, oh God, remembering Theo...
He led her past the torches to a stone seat in the corner of the wall, and sat down with her, holding her against him until the sobs that tore up through her had quieted.
"All will be well, alanna," he said. "You shall see."
And the oddly comforting sound of the Gaeloch pet-name made O'Reilly think that, perhaps, indeed, it could.
*
Night had closed down again with rain, a needle-sharp icy mist driven along the glen by a bitter east wind. In the faha below Tomnahara, torches flared spitting in the cold gusts as a rider came up the slope at a gallop, his scarlet cloak whipping out behind him. At the castle doors, the Fians on guard snapped to the salute as Gwydion flung himself from his lathered horse and dashed into the keep, taking the stairs to the grianan three at a time.
Morwen turned at his entrance, with a cry half relief, half pain.
"I could not come before," he said, his voice roughened by the smoke and shouts of battle. "But the raid is crushed, Struan broke its back like a snapped stick... How is it with her?"
"We have done all we can. But she cannot, or will not, wake. Melangell says she hears us well enough when we call..." Morwen nodded toward the field-couch where Slaine, Melangell and Brychan kept vigil. They rose silently and withdrew as Gwydion crossed the chamber.
Aeron lay on the low bed, covered with furs and very still. Gwydion took in at one glance the blazing pallor, the breathing that barely stirred the furs, the torn and bloodied tunic folded neatly over a chair. Yr Mawreth, he thought in terror, and the word was both prayer and profanity... He knelt beside the couch and took her right hand in both of his.
"Aeron," he said, his voice deep and quiet and carrying a tremendous authority. He spoke no other word, and after a few moments she opened her eyes. They were emerald in the light, and languid with pain, but when she focused on his face, still wet with rain and streaked with the dust of battle, she smiled.
"I would just as soon not have come back," she said, managing a creditable version of her usual tart tone, and he laughed in spite of his fear.
"You do not get quit of us so easily, Ard-rian." He kissed her hands, scarcely less cold than his own. "Stay a while yet." He stood up again, flinging off his rain-soaked cloak and tunic, and turned to those who watched openmouthed from the doorway. "Fetch me a piece of leather, a bullhide--they will have one in the tent of the Druid priests, or the Ban-draoi--strong enough to hold water, and big enough to hold Aeron."
Slaine started violently. "Gwydion, you cannot--"
"Slaine, I must. Now send for it!" He bent again over Aeron.
Morwen touched Melangell's arm. "I am no sorcerer. What does he plan to do?"
Gwydion spoke without turning. "Since naught else can serve our need, I shall construct a crochan."
"Never been done!" gasped Morwen, for even she knew what that meant. "Do you know how much power such a thing will require--it will kill you both! And you do not even know if you can do it!"
He had pulled off his boots now, and stood up clad only in shirt and trews.
"I know well enough that she dies without a doubt if I do not, and what shall we all be but dead without her. All you will help me. Fetch at once any high-degree sorcerers who may be near at hand--Druid, Ban-draoi, Dragon Kin, whatever. We shall need all the power we can raise."
*
In a very few minutes all was ready. In the grianan, Melangell had assembled perhaps a dozen people, trained magicians all, well-seasoned in their art. With no visible command given they arranged themselves in a loose circle and prepared themselves for the fearful effort to come.
Glad for something to do however desperate, the Fian guards rushed in carrying an enormous white bullhide, and some of them rolled huge keeves of water. They worked quickly and quietly; six guards held the edges of the stiff hide, and the others poured the water into it. Slaine and Morwen and Brychan themselves set hands to the bullhide, struggling to help control the enormous dead weight as the water began to fill its strange container.
"We are ready, Pendragon," said Melangell, touching Gwydion's shoulder as he knelt beside Aeron. He nodded once, and the ring of sorcerers drew in around them.
But all eyes were on Gwydion. He stood apart from them within the circle as his power began to build around him, a clear white light like water over silver, a seashell glow; then he pulled back the furs that covered Aeron, gently stripped off the bloody shift and bandages, and lifted her in his arms. The strange glow spread to cover her also, and she stirred in protest.
"This will kill you all," she said, in a whisper so pain-torn that Morwen closed her eyes at the sound of it. "Gwydion, I absolutely forbid this--"
"Be still." The power in the command shook them all, and Aeron fell silent. He lowered her carefully into the water, and she gasped as the silvery cool liquid touched her wounds.
The surge of energy nearly knocked them all to their knees. "Gods," muttered one Fian, his eyes cast upward with the terrific effort, "don't let go of it now..."
Even Morwen, who was as she had said no sorcerer, could feel strength draining out of her and into Gwydion. And yet it was not her physical strength; for the more the water-filled bullhide sloshed and pulled at her fingers and threatened to break loose, the stronger her fingers seemed to grow, and the firmer their grip.
It was all so strange; she had always thought crochans to be the veriest legend, something out of the far myth-mantled past never to be met with in the real world. Yet Gwydion had created one, for Aeron... Morwen looked down in despairing anxiety. With the bandages gone, the terrible sword-cuts that ran down Aeron's left side from shoulder to knee were all too visible, dark red against the pale skin.
But something strange was happening, under the surface of the magic pool. The water seemed to have grown thick, viscous, like quicksilver, and cold vapors were rising like steam from its mirrored surface. The power came pouring in now; Morwen could feel it beating upon her like a strong wind against the walls of a tent, and what it must be like for the sorcerers, or for Gwydion, she could not begin to imagine. It grew in leaps, howled around her in sparkling spirals, until it was at the last almost unendurable, and she would have to shout or die...
"Hold!" Gwydion's command rang out. All sagged to their knees, or fell upon each other's shoulders, utterly spent, as suddenly the dead waterweight vanished, and the water also.
Morwen stared, astounded. Aeron lay wet and naked on the empty bullhide. She was unconscious, and there was no mark nor sign now of any wound upon her body.
There was a deep, awed silence as Gwydion, with the last rags of his own strength, gathered Aeron into his arms and placed her again on the field-couch, tucking the fur
s close around her.
From where she had collapsed upon the floor, Morwen looked up at him, half in fear of what he would answer, half in fear of him.
"Is it--it is all right?"
He nodded slowly. "The worst is past, any road. The wounds are healed, and now she must do for herself the rest of what is needed. She lay here long unaided--no fault of yours," he said swiftly. "You did all that you could, and you did well. But not even a pool can heal blood-loss and exhaustion, and now she must sleep as long as she may."
"She will so," said Slaine. "But now so must you, Pendragon. That is my order."
Gwydion smiled, but allowed himself to be led to an adjoining solar, where he threw himself down upon a wide bed and was instantly asleep.
*
The last of the leaves rattled like bones in the wind that swept, cold and damp and sleet-laden, out of the east, as O'Reilly came back to Tomnahara. Too distraught to remain in the castle, she had ridden out with Desmond and Sabia to the Fianna command post in the mouth of the glen, and then had come the glad news that Aeron had been healed by the sorcery of the Prince of Don.
"Magic has ever run deep in that line," said Sabia admiringly. "But Gwydion--Gwydion is a master... You are sent for, both of you, to Morwen and Slaine."
It was a long silent ride back, with much time for thought, and those thoughts mostly dark ones. O'Reilly pulled her hood close and peered around her, grateful for Desmond's quiet presence riding alongside. He had taken a different route in the interest of speed, and the glen they now cantered through was unfamiliar to her. She could see little enough in the blackness, for the rainclouds masked the light of the Criosanna and the two moons had long since set, but the glen seemed far more savage than any she had yet traversed.
"What place is this?" she asked, more to hear a human voice than for any real interest in the answer.
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