Storm Maiden (51 page)

Dag slumped forward on the wet ground. The
knife wound in his shoulder throbbed, but the pain was nothing
compared to the torment in his heart. He had killed the boy—Fiona’s
foster brother. She would never forgive him.

“Dag?” Eliisil’s voice echoed in the
distance.

Dag groaned again, unable to speak.

The sound of footfalls, faint in the damp
grass. Someone leaned over him. Ellisil cried out in alarm, “By the
hand of Odin! Dag—who did this to you?”

“The boy,” he answered.

Ellisil shone the torch wide, and Dag heard
him suck in his breath as he examined Dermot’s body. Then the
warrior bent over him again and pulled the knife free. Dag grunted
at the pain, but didn’t attempt to rise.

“Are you wounded elsewhere?” Ellisil asked,
his voice heavy with dread. “What is it, Dag? Why do you not get
up? The wound in your back is not serious compared to some of the
blows you’ve taken in battle.”

Wearily, Dag pulled himself to a sitting
position. The mist had almost disappeared, and Eliisil’s torch
clearly revealed the boy’s body lying twisted in its death throes.
Dag stared at the slender corpse, beyond weeping.

Ellisil shook his head. “Of all the
foolishness—to attack you with a puny dagger like that. What was he
thinking?”

“He was only a child, but I cut him down
with my ax. I couldn’t see!” Dag’s voice trailed off hoarsely.

“He stabbed you in the back. You were only
defending yourself.”

Dag shook his head. “Fiona. She loved him.
He was her foster brother.”

“Would she have rather you died?” Ellisil
asked incredulously.

“I don’t know,” Dag said. “I fear it may be
so.”

Fiona slept deeply, buried under the weight
of a dream so terrifying it seemed to crush her. She was down in
the souterrain. All was dark except for a multitude of glowing eyes
that leered at her out of the murk. As she shrank away, the eyes
followed her, and suddenly she knew they belonged to the dead. A
torch flared and she saw that the chamber was lined with corpses,
rotting corpses that danced on mangled, bloody limbs and reached
out for her with hideously disfigured arms. She pushed them away,
but they fell on her, burying her in putrid, oozing flesh.

She sat upright, choking on a scream, and
the pain on Duvessa’s face as she bent over her told Fiona that the
nightmare had not ended. “Dag,” Duvessa croaked. “He wants you to
come.”

Fiona leapt up from the pallet like a
panicked animal. “Where? What’s happened?”

Duvessa shook her head. “He said you must
hear it from him.”

Outside the hut, Ellisil waited for them,
torch in hand, his face grim. He shook his head when she questioned
him. “Dag will not let me say.”

“He is well? Please tell me that he is
well!” Fiona begged.

Ellisil nodded.

They walked silently, like a funeral
procession. The forest seemed impossibly far away. When they
entered the woods, the trees were endless. When they reached Dag,
Fiona saw that he was seated on the ground. Siobhan crouched next
to him, apparently tending his back.

Fiona rushed to him. “Dag, Dag—what is
it?”

He lifted his head to look at her. Fiona’s
blood went cold at the look of despair on his face. “By the saints!
What’s happened?”

“Dermot is dead. I killed him.”

Fiona swayed on her feet.
Nay! This could
not be happening.
Behind her, Duvessa began to weep.

“ ‘Twas an accident.” Siobhan rose and put
her hand on Fiona’s arm, steadying her. “Dermot tried to kill Dag.
He came up behind him in the dark and mist and stabbed him in the
back. Dag did what any warrior would have—he pulled his weapon and
fought his attacker.”

“I struck blindly, never knowing....” Dag’s
voice bled with grief.

“I want to see him,” Fiona said. It
surprised her how calm her voice sounded.

“Nay.” Dag’s answer was harsh, decisive.

“ ‘Tis my right!” Anger filled her. How dare
Dag prevent her from seeing her foster brother!

“It might be well if you did not,” Siobhan
said softly. “ ‘Twas not an easy death.”

Fiona gasped at the pain the words brought
her. “I will see him,” she insisted. “I will say goodbye. Never did
I get a chance to say farewell to my father. I will at least give
Dermot that.”

Siobhan nodded and took her arm. “He’s in my
hut.”

* * *

“She will curse me,” Dag said softly. “Then
she will curse herself for bringing me here.”

“Get up, Dag,” Ellisil ordered impatiently.
“You’ll take a chill,” Numbly, Dag rose. He was surprised to see
Duvessa clinging to Eliisil’s arm, tears streaming down her
face.

“Dermot was my brother,” she said
brokenly.

Ellisil held the torch out to Dag. He
accepted the flaming brand and watched as Ellisil gathered the
little Irishwoman to his chest. As she wept, Ellisil soothed her
with soft words and a gentle hand upon her thick wavy hair. A stab
of excruciating longing went through Dag as he watched his sword
brother comfort the woman. Once he had held Fiona thus, eased her
pain, and vowed to protect her. Instead, he had brought her more
grief.

“Can you walk?” Ellisil asked Duvessa. When
she nodded, he gestured to Dag that he should lead the way to the
ship. Dag began to walk. His legs felt leaden, his insides like
ice. When they reached the grounded ship, Ellisil reached for the
torch again. “I’m going to take Duvessa back to her hut.”

Dag handed over the torch and turned away.
The elegant prow of the
Raven
loomed above the river, gilded
silver in the moonlight. He stared at the ship a long while, then
waded in and climbed over the side. Rorig greeted him sleepily. Dag
chastised him for not being more alert then sought out his own
bedsack.

He closed his eyes and beseeched the gods to
bring him sleep. Slowly, warmth crept through him, bringing with it
a kind of dull resignation. He was alive. His spirit had not fled
his body on that mist-shrouded pathway. He had done the only thing
he could do. If Fiona could not forgive him, he would have to live
his life without her.

“Dag! Dag!”

He could hear Fiona’s voice. She sounded
worried. He opened his eyes—and the memories of the night before
flooded back to him.

“Fiona.” She looked terribly weary. Her eyes
were red, her face pale. It hurt him to see her suffering.

“You must get up, Dag. You must let Siobhan
examine your wound. She scarcely treated you last night. It might
yet fester.”

Dag sat up. “Do you care?” he whispered. “Do
you not wish I would die as Dermot did?”

Her eyes widened. “
Nei!
You think I
wish you dead?” She leaned over, kissing him quickly on the jaw. “
‘Twas not your fault. Dermot did a foolish thing. Cowardly, too. I
grieve for him, but I would not trade his life for yours.
Never!”

Dag sighed and drew Fiona down to him. His
back hurt fiercely, but he didn’t care. The pain in his heart was
gone.

“Jesu,” Fiona suddenly gasped. “You’re
burning with fever.”

Dag nodded and closed his eyes, sinking down
into oblivion.

* * *

Over the next few days, Fiona refused to
leave Dag’s side except to relieve herself. She stared fixedly at
his flushed face or sometimes leaned her ear to his chest to hear
the thready heartbeat that whispered there. She cursed herself a
thousand times for not having insisted Siobhan tend his wound that
night. It had seemed a shallow wound, but it had festered quickly.
Now he burned with fever, and this time, Siobhan’s healing herbs
did not seem to work.

Helpless anger made Fiona’s aching body
tense. She and Dag had come so far on their journey to
understanding each other. He could not leave her now! He could
not!

“Peace, little one. As long as he breathes,
there is hope.”

Siobhan’s soothing words made Fiona bite
back tears all the harder. “He can’t die! I won’t let him!”

“ ‘Tis not up to you,” Siobhan reminded her.
“He walks among the spirits now, and it is their will whether he
returns to us.”

“I have prayed,” Fiona said. “To the
Christian god and all the others. How can I make them listen?”

“You can’t. The gods do what they will.”

“But you told me that Dag was the one, that
he was meant to rule Dunsheauna!”

Siobhan nodded. “I thought he was.” Her gray
eyes appeared dull this day, slate instead of silver.

Fiona choked back another outburst. She
would not curse the gods yet, not while Dag still breathed. She
reached out to touch his heated skin. Her fingers stroked his
whisker-roughened cheek as she murmured love words. Closing her
eyes, she willed him to live. Her spirit reached out to his,
searching for the filament of love that bound them together. She
concentrated, putting all her ebbing strength into her
endeavor.

Frustrated, she opened her eyes.” ‘Tis no
use. I can’t reach him. I don’t have the healing gift, or mayhap my
spirit isn’t powerful enough.”

“How do you know?”

Fiona waved her hands impatiently. “I can’t
feel him. ‘Tis as if his spirit has already left me.”

“That you can’t feel his spirit doesn’t mean
he does not feel yours. How do you know you don’t strengthen him
each time you reach out to him?”

“He doesn’t stir or acknowledge any of
it.”

“Don’t give up hope, Fiona. You must be
brave.”

Fiona took a shuddering breath. “I keep
thinking of my father. I still feel I failed him somehow, and
now... now I fear I have failed Dag as well.”

“Why?”

“I was so caught up in my grief for Dermot;
I should have seen that Dag’s wound was tended.”

Siobhan nodded. “I also should have insisted
that he let me clean it. But he seemed well enough.” She
sighed.

Fiona released Dag’s hand and stood. Tully
moved from his place on the floor beside her. He, too, had kept
vigil at Dag’s pallet since the night he’d followed her down from
the hill fort to find her fallen lover.

“If only I had known...”

“You could not know,” Siobhan observed
sharply. “Life can only be lived forwards.”

Fiona sighed and settled herself on the
stool again.

Near dusk, Duvessa and Breaca appeared.
Standing next to each other, they looked to Fiona like siblings who
had shared the same birth sack, so close in color was their coppery
hair, so similar their diminutive figures—although Breaca’s
midsection had begun to swell with her growing babe.

They each took a place on either side of
Fiona, and she immediately sensed a conspiracy.

“We’ve come to take you to eat,” Duvessa
said.

“I’ve eaten already.”

“You will come,” Breaca insisted. “You are
weak, and there are two of us.”

Confronted with such conviction, Fiona
stood. She let them lead her toward the doorway. She paused again
on the way out. “What if he wakes and I’m not here?”

“What if he wakes and sees what a frightful
bag of bones you’ve become? I vow, he will faint in horror, and it
will be an even longer while before he rouses again.”

Fiona let them guide her through the
doorway.

* * *

The nothingness thinned and faded, and all
at once he was back. His spirit rushed into his body. It was a
useless, pitiful husk of a body, but nevertheless, it was his.

He struggled to open his weighted eyelids.
The light seemed unbearably bright. A shape floated into view. A
few paces away, a woman with dark hair and weathered skin sat by
the fire. Fiona? Nay, this woman was old! Yet she reminded him so
much of Fiona. Had he slept through years and awakened to this?

The woman spoke, mumbling as she poked the
fire. He puzzled the sound of her foreign words. Once he had known
this language. Now it eluded him. Had it really been so long
ago?

He shifted his head to gaze around the
dwelling... a tiny, cluttered hut, filled with strange things.
Dried plants hung on every inch of wall space. What furniture there
was had been fashioned in minuscule form.

He looked to the woman again. She was small
and dark... and old. Her flesh had begun to shrink into her bones.
She must be a fairy, he thought, then drew back, shuddering.
Fairies didn’t age, only mortals did. Unless he was in fairyland
and the pattern here had been reversed—he stayed young and his
captors grew old.

The woman had heard him rouse. She rose from
the stool.

He raised his eyes to hers, terrified he
would find Fiona’s unmistakable green gaze staring back at him.

The woman’s eyes were gray! Dag breathed a
sigh of profound relief. Although he still didn’t know where he
was, at least he had not slept through his time and awakened in the
future.

She approached the pallet and leaned over
him. “Dag,” she said. He stared at her, trying to puzzle out how
she knew his name.

“Where am I?” he asked.

She frowned, and he guessed she did not know
his language. Foreboding filled him again. “Fiona?” he
ventured.

Recognition flared in the woman’s eyes. She
spoke rapidly, gesturing toward the door. Dag’s befuddlement and
fear eased. If he found himself in an unfamiliar place, at least
Fiona had been here. He said her name again. The woman smiled. She
placed a soothing hand on his brow and whispered soothing words.
The ache in his head seemed to ease although he still felt a fierce
burning in his back. He had been wounded again, but how, he
couldn’t remember.

“Water,” he croaked. The woman looked at
him, again puzzled. Dag searched his mind, finally remembering the
Irish word.
“Uisce,”
he said.

The woman hastened to the hearth and
returned with a beaker of water. He drank greedily. His thirst was
so great, he felt he could drink a lake. After he had finished, his
head fell back against the pallet. The world spun dizzily around
him, and he let himself sink once more into the timeless,
thoughtless void.