CHAPTER FIFTY

The deadly sound of Cuchulainn’s sword being drawn free of its sheath was echoed by a wolf’s low, menacing growl. When the warrior moved Fand struck. Bowyn was the first to go down, screaming as the wolf lunged under Brighid’s body to get to his rear legs. With one powerful tear of Fand’s teeth, Bowyn was hamstringed and floundering in his own blood on the grassy ground.

Cuchulainn didn’t move like a man. He moved like a malevolent spirit-silent, all-knowing, deadly. With speed that caused his sword to become a silver-white blur he whirled and lunged past the fallen Bowyn, slicing his throat in a neat, scarlet arch. The centaur’s last breath escaped his open mouth in a gurgling gasp.

The warrior closed on Mannis without making a sound. The centaur was scrambling back from Brighid’s haunches, his body still engorged with his obscene lust, when Cuchulainn struck. He skewered him in the chest, pulled his sword free and whirled past him, dragging the blade along his equine belly and disemboweling him.

“I won’t be so easy to kill,” Gorman said, hefting the long sword he’d retrieved while the man had been kept busy with Gorman’s comrades.

Cuchulainn’s only response was to move relentlessly toward the centaur. He didn’t speak and he didn’t break his stride. With speed that had been honed like the edge of a blade, he made the centaur look old and clumsy in comparison. Cuchulainn ducked smoothly under Gorman’s sword, but instead of going for a killing blow, he sliced at the centaur’s front hock.

Gorman hissed in pain and stumbled back-and right into the wolf’s path. Fand wasn’t as silent a warrior, but she was just as deadly. Thunder blanketed Gorman’s scream and, in turn, lightning illuminated the torn flesh that dangled from his rear hamstring. He collapsed and Cuchulainn closed on him.

“No!” Brighid yelled.

Cuchulainn’s body jerked to a halt. The face he turned to his wife was one she had only seen once before, when they had fought side by side against Fallon and the misguided Fomorians who tried to protect her. But his blood-spattered warrior’s mask did not frighten or repulse her. She knew her own visage was a reflection of the same cold intensity.

“Cut me free,” she said.

“Fand! Watch him,” Cuchulainn ordered. The wolf slunk over to stand near the centaur’s bleeding hindquarters, fangs bared.

Cuchulainn sheathed his sword and pulled free the dagger from his belt. With swift, sure movements he cut the ropes from his wife’s body.

Without asking, Brighid pulled his sword free, and then, bare-chested and holding the bloody blade before her she approached Gorman.

He looked up at her, eyes glazed with pain and fear.

“Don’t kill me! I’ll do anything!” he pleaded.

“Don’t speak to me,” she ground between her teeth. Without looking at the warrior who was standing beside her she said. “Cuchulainn, Epona gave you the gift of seeing the soul. What do you see within this centaur’s soul?”

She heard his sharp intake of breath and knew that this was the first moment he had used the gift newly given to him by the Goddess.

“I see rot and darkness.”

With no hesitation, Brighid plunged her husband’s sword into the centaur’s heart. In almost the same motion, she jerked it free and handed it back to Cuchulainn.

“I have to get out of here,” she said.

Cuchulainn nodded tightly. Before he followed her through the open tent flap he stopped to pick up her torn vest, and the Huntress’s bow and quiver of arrows that had been thrown into one of the tent’s corners.

“Fand! Come,” he said.

The warrior and wolf walked out into the night to find that Brighid had stumbled several steps from the tent. She had dropped to her knees and was being violently sick. Fand lay close by, whining worriedly. Cuchulainn stroked her back, held her hair, and murmured wordless sounds of comfort, all of which were drowned out by a deafening crack of thunder, followed by a blinding blaze of lightning. Brighid’s head jerked up.

“There’s no rain,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“No, love,” he said gently. “There is no rain.”

The Huntress drew in several deep breaths. “I can smell no rain in the air, either. It’s a dry storm. By the Goddess, I’ve always hated the damned things! Dangerous-they bring deadly lightning and the chance of…” With a look of horror, she stood. Orienting herself quickly, she turned so that the wind was blowing directly into her face while she looked southward out across the length of the Centaur Plains. “Oh, Goddess, no!” she cried.

Cuchulainn followed her wide-eyed gaze. The horizon was on fire. As they stood staring with horrified awe, a shaft of lightning snaked to the ground, igniting another, closer, section of the grasslands.

“We have to get off the plains. Now,” she said, slipping on her vest and strapping the bow and quiver in their proper place over her back. “A grassfire is deceptive. In no time it can engulf you.”

“The gelding isn’t far from here.”

“Wait,” Brighid said before Cuchulainn sprinted off. “Help me cut two pieces out of the tent.”

He didn’t question her, but went to the tent and began to slice through the thick hide.

“Big enough to cover us,” she said, grasping the torn edge and pulling it so that it would tear more quickly.

“Cover us?” His cutting faltered.

“If we can’t outrun the fire we have to find a gully, or better, cross-timbers with a stream. We get in the streambed and cover ourselves with the hides. If we’re lucky the fire will pass over us.”

“If we’re not lucky?” he said.

“We suffocate or burn to death.”

He grunted and began cutting the sections from the side of the tent with renewed energy. When the two pieces of the tent fell free, neither Brighid nor Cuchulainn spared a glance at the silent, bloody remains within.

The gelding was hobbled not far from the tent. Cuchulainn flipped open his saddle pack and tossed a skin of water to Brighid. She drank greedily while he rolled up and then tied one of the pieces of the tent to Brighid’s equine back, and the other behind his saddle. When he was finished he turned to the Huntress. She was standing with her head down, petting Fand and murmuring endearments to the whimpering wolf cub.

Cuchulainn didn’t let himself dwell on what he had found in the tent and what had almost happened to his wife. He couldn’t. If he did, he would be lost. His stomach was tight and hot, and he still felt the preternatural clearness that always came over him during battle. He’d need a warrior’s strength to get them through what lay ahead. But he couldn’t stop himself from going to her and lifting her face. Holding it between his hands he felt the shudder that passed through her body when she met his eyes.

“You came in time,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

He couldn’t speak. He could only kiss her with an intensity that edged on violence. She met his passion with her own, wrapping her arms around him and drinking him in.

Lightning streaked across the sky, breaking their kiss.

“We have to ride hard. The wind is with the fire,” Brighid said.

“Back to the tors?”

“No. There’s not enough water there to stop the fire, and we couldn’t climb fast enough to get away from it.”

“East, then. The tributaries of the Calman River finger into the plains between the tors and Woulff Castle. My father and I fished there often in my youth.”

Brighid nodded. “Let’s hope the drought hasn’t dried them up.”

“If it has then we’ll just have to make it to the river itself,” Cuchulainn said, swinging aboard the gelding.

He might be able to make it. The gelding is fresh and well-rested. I won’t.

“Brighid,” Cuchulainn turned in the saddle and their eyes met in the next flash of lightning. “I will never leave you. We either live or die-together.”