Swallowing Darkness

Chapter Nine

Lightning cut along the ground, illuminating the dark scene below. It was like seeing the fight through strobe flashes  -  bits and pieces, frozen, but nothing whole.

Mistral on his knees, one hand outstretched; arrows flying, their heads glinting dully in the hot, white light. Dark figures in the trees. Something smaller moving on the ground behind Mistral.

I tracked the flight of arrows not by sight but by the reaction of Mistral's body as they hit him. He staggered, if you could stagger when you were already on your knees. His body hunched forward, then fell to one side, only his arm keeping him from the ground. He shot another bolt of lightning from his other hand, but it fell far from the trees, scorching the ground but not reaching his attackers.

I leaned low over the mare's white shoulders. Down there was one of the fathers of the children inside me. I would not lose another of them. I would not.

Sholto seemed to understand, because he called to me, "We will take the attackers. You see to the Storm Lord."

I didn't argue. Mistral was shot full of cold metal. If he was to be saved, it would have to be soon. I didn't want vengeance in that moment. I wanted him alive.

Mistral fell on his side in the winter-ruined grass. The wind of our passage blew his hair around his body, tugged at the cloak that spilled around him. He didn't seem to notice. He pointed his hand at the trees. Lightning flared, and we were close enough that my night vision was torn; when the light left, I was blind in the dark.

There was an art to sitting a horse when it went from flying to being on the ground again. I did not have that art complete, so it was jarring as the horse's hooves crunched on the frosted grass. I had to sit on the horse in the dark while I waited for my vision to clear. It was spotted sight that returned, but it was enough to show me Mistral's body terribly still on the white and black of the ground.

The only light was the green of the flames from the mare's hooves. It was a glow that reminded me of the fire Doyle could call to his hands. I had left him hurt. If he was conscious he must be wild with worry, but one disaster at a time. Doyle had doctors, while Mistral had only me in that moment. I slipped off the mare, and the thickly frosted grass was cold under my bare feet. The night was suddenly cold. The mare pulled away from my hand, and ran after the others. I realized in that moment that I was alone. My vengeance was done; Cair was dead. I was at Mistral's side, and the magic that had sustained me this night was leaving. It was running at Sholto's side with the men we'd shanghaied from the Seelie Court. I could hear the hounds baying in the distance. They glowed against the trees, and gave enough light that I could see three figures, firing up into the hunt before the hounds spilled down upon them. I didn't think Sholto would have my squeamishness. He would use the hounds.

I went to my knees on the hard winter grass. Mistral's blood had melted the hard frost, so the ground was softer from the spill of his blood. His face was hidden by the fall of all that gray hair, not gray with age, for he would never age, but the gray of storm clouds. His hair was warm to the touch as I moved it away so I could search for the big pulse in his neck. I was never good at finding it in the wrist, and without the magic of the hunt, I was very aware that I wore only a thin gown. I was starting to shiver even as I searched for his pulse.

At first, I was afraid we were too late, but then, under my shaking fingers, I felt it. He was alive. Until I felt the pulse I hadn't wanted to look at how badly he was hurt. It was as if I were trying to pretend, but now I had to look. I had to see what was there.

His broad shoulders, his whole strong body, was pierced with arrows. I counted five. Strangely, none of them were a heart shot. The only thing I could think was that the lightning had ruined their vision as it had ruined mine. I wasn't certain if his hand of power had taken out a single attacker, but it had spoiled their aim, and saved his life. If I could get him medical help maybe he would not bleed to death, or die from the touch of so much cold iron plunged into the meat of his body. That alone was poisonous to the creatures of faerie.

The hunt was still busy, and they were still lost in the magic of it. Only I had woken from the spell. I had seen Mistral, and saving him had meant more to me than anyone else's death. Maybe that was why most of the legends of the wild hunt had male huntsmen. To be female was a more practical thing. Life meant more to us than death.

I knelt in the strangely warm grass, warmed by the spill of Mistral's life, melting the hard frost. There was a shaft in the ground. I pulled it from the winter-hardened ground carefully, because I didn't want it to break off in the ground. The shaft was wood, so the archers could handle them safely, but when I could finally see the arrowhead, my worst fears were confirmed. They hadn't even used modern metal. It was cold forged iron  -  the very worst thing you could use on faerie folk.

My human blood made iron no more deadly to me than any other metal. I could touch the arrowhead with no harm done, but a wooden spear could have killed me, and Mistral would have ignored it.

If the arrows had been ordinary ones, it would have been bad to remove them without medical help, but the arrowheads themselves were poisoning him. Every moment they stayed inside his body was another moment of death leaching into his system. But if I drew the arrows out, they'd widen the wounds. Damnit, I didn't know what to do. Some queen I was. I couldn't even decide this one thing.

I laid the arrow that I'd pulled from the ground beside my knees, and put my hands on his side, laid my forehead on his shoulder, and prayed. "Goddess guide me. What do I do to save him?"

"Isn't this touching?" a male voice said.

I jerked up, and Onilwyn was there, in the dark. He'd been one of my guards for a few months, but when last we left faerie he'd remained behind. Admittedly, he'd been helping wrestle my insane cousin Cel into submission at the time, but he hadn't asked to return to my service. He had always been Cel's friend, never mine, and I had found excuses not to bed him.

"The problem with the magic of the wild hunt," he said, "is that it makes you lose track of important things, like leaving your princess alone in the night with no guards. I would never be so careless, Princess Meredith."

He gave a low bow, sweeping his cloak aside, letting the thick waves of his hair fall forward. It was hard to see in the darkness, but his hair was a deep green, and his eyes were a grass green with a star-burst of liquid gold around the pupil. He was a little short and wide, built more like a square than the usual lithe guards, but that wasn't what had kept him out of my bed. I simply did not like him, nor he me. He wanted to bed me only because it was the only way to ease his enforced abstinence. Oh, and a chance to be king to my queen. Mustn't forget that. Onilwyn was far too ambitious to have forgotten it.

"I applaud your sense of duty, Onilwyn. Contact the Unseelie mound, have them send healers, and help move Mistral someplace warm."

"Why would I do that?" he asked. He loomed over us in his thick winter cloak, a stray lock of hair blowing across his cheek, as the cold wind began to play along our skin. I looked up into his face, and the clouds parted in that wind, so that I had enough moonlight to see his face clearly, and what I saw put my pulse into my throat.

I shivered, but it wasn't just from the cold. I saw death on Onilwyn's face, death and deep satisfaction, almost happiness.

"Onilwyn," I said, "do as I command." But my voice betrayed my fear.

He laughed softly. "I think not." He swept back the heavy cloak, his hand seeking the sword revealed at his side.

I reached into the grass for the only weapon I had, the arrow. I used Mistral's body to shield the movement. But I had to stab Onilwyn before he drew his sword. It was one of those moments when time seems to freeze, and you have both too much time to see the disaster unfolding, and not enough time to act.

I slapped at him with my left hand, and he batted it away, almost gently. He was looking at my empty hand as I stabbed upward with the arrow. I felt the arrow cut into flesh. I shoved, and he jerked back, away from me. The arrow stayed in his leg. I had sunk it deeply enough to make him back up.

It took everything I had not to look behind me toward the glow of the hunt. The screams of the men were distant, fading, but they were miles away. They were visible in the flat farmland, but distance is hard to judge on flat land. Things can seem so much closer than they are. I could not look behind me for help.

Onilwyn jerked the arrow out of his leg. "You bitch!"

"You swore an oath to protect me, Onilwyn. Is this really the night you want to be a breaker of oaths?"

He threw the arrow to the ground, and drew his sword. "Call the hunt; even flying, they will not get here in time to save you."

I spoke the words. "I call you oathbreaker, Onilwyn. I call you traitor, and I call the wild hunt to hear me."

I heard the scream of the horses, and screams of other things, as if the shapeless things had voices now. They would turn, they would come, and Sholto would lead them, but Onilwyn was striding across the grass, sword in hand. They would be too late unless I fought back.

The only magic I had that worked from a distance came at a price of pain. I wasn't sure what it would do to the babies, but if I died, we all died.

I called the hand of blood. It wasn't like most hands of power; there was no bolt of energy, no fire, no shining anything. I simply called it into the palm of my left hand, or maybe opened some invisible door in my hand, though my hand was solid to the eye and touch, but it was the doorway for the hand of blood for me.

I called my magic and prayed to the Goddess that what I was doing to save us wouldn't kill two of us. It was as if the blood in my veins turned to molten metal, so hot, so much pain, as if my blood would boil until it melted my skin and poured out of me. But I'd learned what to do with the pain.

I screamed, and faced the palm of my left hand toward the now-running Onilwyn. He was sidhe, he would feel the magic, or maybe he just ran to make sure I died before the hunt arrived.

I thrust that burning, boiling pain into him. He staggered for a moment, then kept coming. I shrieked, "Bleed!"

The wound that I had made in his thigh burst open. His skin split, and blood fountained. The original wound had missed the femoral artery  -  it was too far under the skin that low in the thigh  -  but my power could take a small wound and make it bigger. Nick someone even close to a major artery, and I had a chance to open it.

Onilwyn hesitated, putting a hand to his wound, his sword pointing downward. He looked past me, at the sky, and I knew what he saw. I fought not to look, because where I looked sometimes the hand of blood bled. I wanted Onilwyn to bleed, and no one else.

He raised his hand, shining dark in the moonlight with his own blood. He looked at me with deep hatred, then he raised his sword two-handed and ran at me, screaming a war cry.

I screamed my own cry of, "Bleed for me!"

The hunt was coming, but the man with the sword was too close. The only question was whether I could bleed him to death faster than he could cross that piece of ground.

Chapter Ten

I pointed my left hand at him, and screamed for blood. I pushed my power into the wound, and tore it wider. Onilwyn stumbled, but kept coming at a limping run. He was almost to me. I prayed to the Goddess and the Consort. I prayed for strength. Strength to save myself and my babies.

Onilwyn fell to his knees on the dark winter ground. He tried to stand, but his wounded leg betrayed him, and he ended on all fours, blood gushing out onto the frosted grass. The white of the frost vanished in the warm rush of his blood.

He started crawling toward me, dragging his injured leg behind him like a broken tail. He kept his sword in one fist, the point raised a little above the ground so it didn't catch on anything. The look on his face was implacable. His eyes held only certainty and hatred.

I wanted to ask what I had ever done to him for such hatred to grow, but I had to concentrate on bleeding him to death before he could put that sword through me and my unborn children.

I wasn't even frightened anymore. All the emotion that was in me was concentrated in my left hand. Concentrated into one thought: die. I could pretend that all I wanted was his blood, but that wasn't enough. I needed death. I needed Onilwyn's death.

He was close enough that I could see the sheen of sweat on his face, even by moonlight. I kept my hand pointed at him, and I cried out, "Die! Die for me!"

Onilwyn rose to his knees, swaying like a thin tree caught in a strong wind, but he rose above Mistral's quiet body. The sword also rose.

I kept my hand pointed at him, but crawled backward from that shining metal. His hand fell, the sword striking the ground where I had been. He didn't seem to realize at first that he'd missed me. He drove the sword home viciously, as if he were cutting flesh.

I got to my feet, still bleeding him, still killing him.

Onilwyn frowned at the ground, where he was cutting nothing. He leaned on Mistral's body, one hand holding on to the other man. The other hand, with its sword, was thrust into the ground, but it was almost as if he'd forgotten it was there.

He frowned up at me, as if he couldn't quite focus. "Cel said you were weak."

"Die for me, Onilwyn. Die for me, and keep your oath."

His sword fell from his fingers. "If you can bleed me, you can save me."

"You would kill me and my unborn children. Why should I save you?"

"For pity," he said, his eyes beginning to look slightly to the side of where I stood.

I smelled roses, and the words that came from my mouth were not my words. "I am the dark goddess. I am the destroyer of worlds. I am the face of the moon when all light is gone. I could have come to you, Onilwyn, in the shape of light and spring and life, but you have called the winter down upon yourself, and there is no pity in the snow. There is only death."

"You are with child," he said, as he began to slump toward the cold ground. "You are full of life."

I touched my stomach with my right hand; the left never stopped pointing at him. "The Goddess is all things at all times. There is never life without death, never light without darkness, never pain without hope. I am the Goddess, I am creation and destruction. I am the cradle of life, and the end of the world. You would destroy me, Ash Lord, but you cannot."

He stared up at me with unfocused eyes. He reached out toward me, not with magic, but as if he would touch me, or was trying to touch something. I wasn't certain he was reaching for me, but he saw something in that moment. He saw something that made him reach for it.

"Forgive me," he whispered.

"I am the face of the goddess that you called into being this night, Ash Lord. Is there forgiveness in the face you see?"

"No," he whispered. He slumped until the side of his face touched the ground, and the rest of him was draped across Mistral's body. He shuddered, and gave a last, long breath. Onilwyn, Lord of the Ash Grove, died as he had lived, surrounded by enemies.