Blazing Earth (21 page)

Tolan must have worn a mutinous expression, for Geoffrey continued with his warning.

“You, she, the others do not have the power that he has. He has honed it under the tutelage of his father, who learned it from his. He has practiced it for his whole life, since it rose in his blood. It would take you years to gain the ability to wield it that he has now. And you, we, they”—he pointed with his chin outside the circle—“do not have that kind of time.”

His hopes to avoid this dashed, Tolan glanced at Thea one last time. She would do as he asked to save his son and the others, no matter the risk. Her smile, on trembling lips, spoke of her love and her agreement. Tolan closed his eyes and thought of the last time his grandfather had worked the land with him. He thought about the huge, strong man whose hands dug into the ground and turned it. He remembered watching the earth begin to churn and the furrows appearing as they made their way through the rows.

He opened his eyes and looked for one final time at the woman who was sun to his earth. Whose heart and soul held his own. And offering up one last prayer to the Old Ones for forgiveness and strength, he began to chant.

“Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

“Father, could you not choose another prayer?” William asked the priest as they stood outside the circle, unable to get in or stop the abomination that would be released now.

“Do you think they will open it, then?” Brienne stood at his side and he could feel her warmth there.

“Aye,” Will said to them. “Look there.” He turned his gaze on her father and watched as the fireblood continued to hold and torment the boy. They'd tried everything they could to free him and break the hold de Gifford had on his father, but to no avail. “Tolan believes his son will be safe.”

“Corann, what do we do then?” Soren asked. “What do we do if the goddess is freed? What will she do?”

No one spoke for several seconds and then Brienne did. She'd encountered the goddess in her father's
secret chamber and had shared only bits of that with him or anyone.

“She will rise as an unholy creature and will seek vengeance against all those who kept her prisoner,” Will's mate said. He tamped down the warblood's need to protect her, for there were other problems to face first.

Father Ander murmured his favorite prayer once more, under his breath, and William suspected that most all of them, save Corann and Aislinn, joined in silently now.

“So we will be her first targets?”

William needed to understand what could happen and prepared his men and the rest for it. Nay, what would happen, for each passing moment spoke of Tolan and Thea's compliance with Hugh's demands. He was an experienced warrior, partaking and winning a number of battles against human enemies while serving his king and liege lord. And though the warblood gave him superhuman strength and abilities, sometimes it was the human warrior who could see patterns and make plans better.

“She may not attack the sunblood and earthblood, believing them to be allies,” Corann said. “You heard the fireblood's words—he wants both Tolan and his son at his side.” William scoffed, but Corann continued. “Cernunnos was one of the most powerful of the Old Ones, William, and Tolan's family have kept to the faith, making him stronger than most of you. Belenus was another and though the sunblood is unpracticed, she will be of great value. So, to keep them with
him would give him a huge advantage in the coming times.”

Coming times? From the sound of this, none of them would survive to live in the coming times.

“I do not believe they will stand at Hugh's side,” Aislinn whispered. “They are forced to this by . . .” She glanced off in the distance as the boy whimpered now in ungodly pain from de Gifford's burning touch.

“Anyone who can pray the ritual or prophesy will be her first targets,” Roger said, spitting on the ground. “You said there is still the fourth circle to deal with, Corann? So those who will know where to find it are in danger?”

Even if the worst happened here this day, even if the goddess was freed, there was still a fourth gateway. One that she would need to destroy to protect her from the possibility of ever being returned to the abyss where she'd spent the last hundreds of centuries. And it was, as Aislinn and Corann explained, the last remaining place where the goddess could be captured, if they knew how to do it.

Will did not wait for more. “Roger. Brisbois. Take Aislinn and Corann to safety.”

Aislinn began to argue, but William would hear none of it. She was too valuable. More than a priest, she was the most powerful seer among all of them and she had some destiny that none of them understood yet. Marcus had revealed that much before he died at Hugh's hands, so now it was William's and the others' responsibility to see that the young woman survived—whether or not she agreed mattered not at all.

“Corann, you may stay. Aislinn, go with them now,” he ordered quietly. “Roger, give the order to the men as we'd planned.” Roger nodded at him and escorted Aislinn away from the circle, with Brienne's uncle at her back. He faced the priest and spoke, not mincing words or possible outcomes for what would happen.

“You need to do what you can, Corann. Now and in the coming hours, for I fear we may not be enough to do battle with this goddess.”

“Brienne, you must protect those you can from the worst of her attack. She will go for those humans who cannot fight back, won't she?”

“Aye, she will,” Brienne said. “I pray that what I saw in the abyss was a mirage, a false vision projected to keep us unaware. For if she comes into this world in that form, I fear . . .” She said no more, but the shudder that made her whole body tremble said more. If a fireblood feared the goddess . . .

“What should we do?” Ran asked, touching Will's arm then.

“Water and storm to fight fire,” Corann interrupted. “Protect the others.”

“Mayhap they will have a change of heart and not open it?” Brienne asked, though none of them believed it would be true.

Something happened then, something Will could not describe as anything other than a shift in the ground around them. It took only one glance at Hugh's glee-filled face to know it was not good. In fact, it was bad. The air grew still and the white light around the standing stones pulsed brighter and brighter until he
had to look away. When he looked back, it was the warblood who now stood in his place.

“Prepare!” he called out in a growling command.

His blood flooded now with the need to fight, and so he stalked off toward the groups of soldiers readying for the attack. He paused before his mate and lifted her up to him. Closing his eyes, he inhaled her scent and rubbed his face against her cheeks and neck, marking her with his.

“You will have a care, Brienne,” he whispered to only her.

He could not lose her. He could not. He whined out in a moan that came from deep within him, from that place that feared she was in danger. That she would not . . . He leaned his head back and growled his fear loud and long into the air. Her hand, touching his cheek softly, stopped his anguish. He gazed into her eyes and saw her love for him there.

“Aye, William. You have a care, too, my warblood.”

He placed her carefully on her feet and then ran off to take his place near the circle. He raised his weapons in the air and screamed out his battle cry once more.

And then he waited for the coming fight.

*   *   *

Thea could only stand and watch as Tolan began humming some melody she'd never heard before. His voice grew stronger and he added some words to it, chanting in a pattern like what the monks at the abbey did during Matins. But these were not the words the monks used. They were guttural sounds, primitive in some way that her blood recognized.

Heat built within her and she could not contain it. Bursting forth, she lost her form and became like the sun there in the circle. She could see and hear as though still a person and she watched as Tolan approached the altar and Lord Geoffrey.

As he sang, the carvings on that stone grew deeper and more precise and the blood filled in the etchings. Geoffrey stared at them until his eyes rolled back into his head and he grabbed hold of the edge of the altar. Rather than preventing him from seeing, somehow, not only could he see what was written there but he could also now read it.

Geoffrey spoke then, a language she did not understand and yet she could. The words were about the Old Ones, the gods who'd been worshipped eons ago and who had left behind their descendants. It called on the earthblood and sunblood to sanctify the altar anew and open the barrier.

A terrible wave of pain struck her, taking her breath away and filling her with such fear and trepidation that she could barely think or watch. Tolan's voice rose, the chanting becoming some kind of chimes that echoed around the stones.

Nay, not around the stones. The stones themselves now chimed in chorus with Tolan's chant. Louder and louder, Tolan and Geoffrey sang and prayed, one and then the other, as the chiming became screaming. But it was not the stones screaming. It was the being that lived in the abyss underneath their feet.

Then that thing began scratching the barrier, a dreadful sound of claws or talons scraping along stone
that made Thea's blood go cold. What was the goddess, truly? Thea wanted to look in the center to see if she could see anything and yet the sound made her unable to look.

Though both Geoffrey and Tolan stopped their song and prayer then, the sounds echoing across the circle grew louder and louder. Tolan nodded to her and held out his hand for hers.

“Tolan,” she whispered. “This is our last chance.”

“For my son, Thea. For my son.”

His words, his plea broke her heart and she nodded at him, pulling her power back inside her body and holding out her hand to him across the altar stone to him. He grasped her wrist with his upturned hand and nodded at Geoffrey. Serving as priest, the man sliced across their wrists while saying another prayer she could not understand.

Watching in disbelief, Thea saw that the blood that flowed from her veins was golden in color and shimmered like the sun as it poured onto the surface there, mixing with the deep red blood there already. Tolan made a fist and added his, green and glowing, into the other two. The bloods swirled there, mixing and yet remaining separate.

This was the point from which they could never turn back. If they dipped the marks they each bore into this puddle of blood and painted the stones that held the same marks with it, the gateway would seal. If they destroyed the altar and the blood drained onto the barrier, it would break and release hell on earth.

Time itself seemed to hold then. She could see
nothing but Tolan. She could hear nothing but the beating of a human heart somewhere within her. The blood bubbled and boiled there before them and then . . .

Tolan reached out and, using a hand of stone, crushed the altar before them.

The three-colored blood poured onto the ground and ran down the few yards toward the center slowly. She watched as the first drops ran over an edge she'd not seen before and splashed onto the barrier she knew was there. Tolan met her gaze for a second before turning to watch. Geoffrey backed away as the cracking sound began.

Like the sound of a breaking eggshell, but multiplied thousands and thousands of times, the barrier broke. Steaming air rushed out of the chasm in a gush, spreading over the circle and out. Suddenly, the light was gone and she could see those outside.

She thought there should be screaming now. Or wailing. Or pleas for mercy. Instead, nothing broke the silence as they watched something begin to rise from the steam.

A talon appeared over the edge, followed by another grasping near the same place. Thea had seen hunting birds like hawks and falcons. She'd seen huge owls with their deadly talons that could pick up their prey and bear them away. But the talons sliding along the ground there before her were larger than anything she had ever seen.

Then wings were revealed, unlike those of any bird she knew. Sliding, almost crawling along the ground, gaining purchase and a hold as the creature hoisted its
head and body out of the earth. It could not be and yet it was.

A mythical creature of legend. A deadly beast of fire and destruction. Chaela the goddess was a . . .

Dragon.

Thea looked at Tolan and shook her head, taking one, then another step back. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her more quickly away until their backs were against one of the stones standing guard around the now-opened gateway.

Like a ghastly version of a newly born colt, the creature shook itself as it half dragged and half crawled out of the abyss. Once it was completely out onto the ground, it peered around and found them.

Was this their last moment? Would they die for their sin now? Would the others be killed by this demonic being that they had unleashed?

The dragon stretched its arms and wings out over the circle and almost covered the whole area of it. Scales of black and red covered the expansive wings, and the talons appeared dipped in gold. Its head reared back then and Thea saw the huge fangs in its mouth. But that was not the worst thing to happen.

Nay, the worst was when it screeched out a horrible, earsplitting cry and then let out a blast of fire. Thea watched in shock as the beast smiled and looked on its enemies, its deadly intent clear. It inhaled then, filling its lungs with air, and spewed flames over the stones and into the field where the others watched in horror. A sound that could only be described as jubilation followed as though it was well pleased with its abilities.

Then the dragon stood and took a step and then another, reaching the stones. It took but one more step for it to breach the circle, and as Thea stood frozen in fear, it began its attack.

*   *   *

Corann could not tear his eyes away. After decades of praying that this would not happen, he was witnessing it himself. All their planning and preparation and yet they had failed. The goddess was free of the barrier that held her in the abyss and was now turning her glowing amber gaze on the countless soldiers and priests surrounding the circle.

This was his nightmare come alive. He searched within for his faith so that they could cast protective spells that might strengthen the warriors and those fighting. And he found none. His fear was so paralyzing in this moment of greatest need that all he could think was of the terrible mistake Marcus had made in choosing him to lead.

Then he felt the hand of the priest Ander on his arm.

“Marcus chose you, my friend. He believed you could lead us in this grievous time.”

Corann found himself surrounded by the other priests, the ones who had followed their calling from the island where peace had reigned for their entire lives. Now they most assuredly faced their deaths and yet they turned to him.

As he witnessed the first attack and as many fell before her fire, Corann sought the spell that would protect them all. In his memory, he heard Marcus singing it and he closed his eyes and began to sing the
melody. The words, he could not find or remember. Ander and the others joined in, waiting for him to add the power into the spell with the words only he would know.