Haunting Warrior (42 page)

The tension built and she sensed her captor coming around and aware of the faint quaking. And then suddenly it was subtle no more— like a whisper turned into a scream, the blast whisked across the clearing, a throbbing wind that burned and shrieked.

Each of them felt it, felt the unnaturalness of the current. Men paused, weapons held at ready as they looked around for the source of their agitation. The pulsing drum of it increased, finding a rhythm that was not of this world but of something frighteningly
other
.

The horses shifted, nostrils flaring, ears twitching. For a moment, time ceased, and it seemed Saraid’s breath had frozen in her chest. She watched as Ruairi pushed himself up until he was sitting, legs sprawled uselessly in front of him, skin leached of all color. He was a ghastly pale ghost, covered in so much blood that he must surely die. But in his eyes, there was life. Sparking, snapping, enraged
life
. He muttered something, something low and indecipherable, but once again a tremor spread out across the clearing, sizzling and hissing as it rose like a flame. The earth gave a mighty shudder, and now all semblance of fight ceased as the warriors succumbed to the dark fear that filled them.

And then everything happened at once.

The horses—all of them—began to dance and whinny. Riders swayed, trying to get control over the beasts as they hopped and pranced. It was as if the rocky terrain had suddenly become hot coals that burned. The first horse reared, clawed the air with its hooves as it let out a chilling scream. The next followed and then the next until the entire herd was up on hind legs prancing and pawing and calling one to another.

The man who held her could not keep them both mounted—not with the horse gone berserk and Saraid fighting to get free. She hit the ground with a thud that knocked the air from her lungs and rolled out of the way an instant before she was clubbed and stomped by the flaying hooves.

She scrambled to Ruairi’s side, finding he’d somehow gained his feet. Ruairi gave a low whistle, and from the forest the black horse with the white lightning bolt that they’d set free hours ago came running like a dog to its master.

But all around them the other horses had become wild beasts that bucked and whirled while their riders shouted and struggled to hold on. The man who’d captured her flew through the air and hit the ground hard. His horse charged after him and with single-minded determination, began to stomp and kick, bearing down on him until he’d been reduced to a pulp.

At last Saraid recognized the man she’d seen in death.

It took only seconds and the other riders saw it all, understood by the unspoken message that passed between their mounts that if they should fall, the same fate awaited each rider.

Ruairi held his hand out and without hesitation Saraid took it, giving one glance back at her brothers to see they’d already come to the same conclusion. It was time to run while Cathán’s men tried to survive the rebellion of their animals.

Run they did, though only the gods knew how they managed. The black horse Ruairi had beckoned went down on forelegs to allow Ruairi to mount. Saraid slipped on behind him, wrapping her arms around Ruairi’s ribs, trying to hold tight and not injure him more at the same time, fearing this horse would go berserk like the others and trample them to death. But instead it stretched its neck and took off in a smooth gallop that felt like flying.

A glance back saw that the other horses had not ceased their crazed behavior. They screamed and reared like something nipped at their ankles. Another rider fell and was trampled gleefully beneath sharp hooves. She searched the melee for her brothers and Leary’s men, but they had vanished like mist in the sun. She clenched her eyes in gratitude, praying that they would make it away and to safety. And then she held on, for the horse flew ever faster, seeming not to touch the ground at all.

It raced through the forest, following no path, no direction, dodging around trees and boulders with breakneck speed. Still seeing in her mind the mayhem of the other horses, stamping and snorting . . . killing, she held on. She’d never witnessed anything like it in all of her life. And deep inside her, perhaps most terrifying of all, lurked the knowledge that Ruairi was somehow responsible. Ruairi, like some ancient king of beasts—Adammair, perhaps—had given the command and they had obeyed. She didn’t understand how he’d done it, but there was no doubt that he had.

With her face pressed into Ruairi’s back, she could hear the dangerous wheeze of his breath, the frightening rattle in his lungs. She needed to get him somewhere safe to tend his wounds. She wished it were Michael on this horse with Ruairi and not herself. He would know what to do, but Saraid didn’t know where to even start.

There was no time to worry about it. They’d fled the woodlands she’d known all her life and now they entered a darker, more severe forest that seemed to appear from nowhere. Ruairi had lost consciousness again, and she felt his dead weight slumping forward. She tried to reach around him for the reins, tried to stop the horse as it flew like a bird into unknown terrain. But she couldn’t gain control and there was nothing she could do but hang on and pray.

S
ARAID didn’t know where they were when the horse slowed at last, its great barrel chest heaving with its efforts to outrun the wind. The animal’s fine coat was dark with sweat and flecked with foam. It snorted and shook its massive head, but gone was the frenzied look in its eyes. How it had avoided stumbling over protruding rocks and roots during its wild flight, she would never know.

They’d come to a place where the forest seemed to crowd the sky from existence and the trees and underbrush were both thick and harsh. Branches jabbed from forbidding trunks; vines, armed with spiky thorns and tangling lines, slithered at their feet. Carefully now, the horse picked its way through darkness, its ears swiveling, its breath short and loud. Birds chattered and darted through the strange twilight woods, but they silenced as Ruairi and Saraid approached and she felt them watching, tracking the horse and riders. Saraid kept her arms around Ruairi, holding him tight, taking reassurance in the rise and fall of his chest, no matter how labored. If he still breathed, he still lived.

At last they came to a steep, jagged rise made entirely of stone, and the horse stopped. Saraid looked up the stark, fearsome face of it, shaken by the superstitious chill that went through her. Spirals and strange, ugly faces had been carved into the stone like fearsome sentries. Runic writing ran the length, portending with symbols ancient and extinct. Her mother would have known what it said, perhaps. But her mother was dead and so, too, would Ruairi be if she didn’t get him some help and soon.

But this was the ground of the olden—hallowed and forbidden. No place of men, and she was loath to set her feet upon it. She clicked her tongue at the horse.

“Not here,” she whispered. “Go’n with y’ now.” She put her heels to its haunches and kicked hard, but the only response was a reproachful look from docile, weary eyes and a long, woeful sigh.

Without the forward momentum to keep him grounded, Ruairi began to list to the side and was instantly unbalanced. Alarmed, Saraid slid off, holding him as he plummeted, trying her hardest to break his fall. She succeeded, but only by becoming a soft buffer as he landed on top of her.

He was a big man and the crushing weight of him slammed the breath from her and trapped her between his unmovable mass and the hard, unrelenting ground. She tried to wiggle free, but it was like trying to squirm out from beneath a boulder. Still, she was afraid to roll him off and injure him more. The horse, it seemed, understood her dilemma. It nuzzled Ruairi’s neck and ears, snorting and jostling his head until, unbelievably, Ruairi stirred. He lifted his face and looked around with glazed eyes.

“Ruairi?” she wheezed through lungs constricted and collapsed by his dead weight. She tried to push him back, for now she couldn’t even catch her breath and suffocating beneath him would help neither of them.

He focused on her, frowning at her predicament beneath him, not seeming to understand that he was the cause of it.

“Y’ are crushing me,” Saraid managed, and at last she saw comprehension in his eyes. He levered his weight up with shaking arms and then heaved over onto his back.

Saraid sucked in great draughts of air before finally sitting up. He’d lapsed into unconsciousness again and she stared at him, feeling helplessly inadequate.
What now?
Her brothers had run in another direction. Even if they hadn’t, they would be miles behind on foot. She was well and truly on her own here and she did not have the first idea of what to do. Cautiously she approached the horse, putting a hand to its muzzle. It blinked back at her, as passive as a lamb.

“Why did y’ bring us to this place?” she asked.

The horse tossed its head and it seemed to point with its muzzle at something beyond the cluster of shrubs and bush. She crept closer, wary of what might await behind the cover. With a shaking hand, she parted the foliage and peered in, stunned to see a tunnel, large enough for a horse and rider, but too narrow for more than one. It was made entirely of boughs and branches, woven together over years untold until they formed a solid barrier, a wall of wood and leaf. She inched forward, afraid to leave Ruairi defenseless where he lay, but knowing she must first investigate before she tried to bring him there. As she stepped through the opening, the branches behind her snapped back into place and obscured the way out. She glanced back with trepidation that fought to become panic. Her fear of closed spaces howled through her head, demanding that she turn around and claw her way out.

But with the sudden and overwhelming darkness, there came recognition.

She’d traveled this tunnel with Bain just yesterday when he’d shown her the night she was born. He’d brought her here, moving with speed that had blurred the journey, propelling her through the tunnel before she’d realized where she was. On the other side, there would be a cove. A sheltered place with fresh water. A magical place.

At least that was what she hoped, because uncertainty rode high on her fear. If there was safety on the other side, then she would force herself to take the next step. She would do it for Ruairi.

She stared at the point where she’d entered, told herself the opening was still there, and yet trepidation clamored in her head, reminding her of all the tales of the Others—fairies, gods, impudent spirits who tricked the unwary in just such a way. Her breath hitched as she tried to quell her thoughts. But who did not know a person whose brother or uncle, cousin, or sister had stepped in a fairy ring and vanished for years only to reappear as young as the day they went missing—though fifty years might have passed. Some never came back at all. Had there been a fairy ring of mushrooms in the clearing that she’d stumbled into? Perhaps a ring so large that the eye did not at first see the pattern?

Did it matter when Cathán’s men might be bearing down on them at any moment if she didn’t find safety?

The tunnel curved and snaked back on itself and Saraid forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, fighting her terror as she had when the men attacked them earlier. It was impossibly dark inside and only a faint glow peeping through the layered branches and leaves kept it from closing in on her. She could do this. She
would
do this.

She had no sense of time and became disoriented, unsure of what direction she traveled or how long she’d been steadily creeping forward. She could hear the distress in her own breathing, tight and frightened, not yet a gasp but very close.

Calm yourself
, she warned. She’d left Ruairi defenseless, dependent on her return. And return she would. She clamped down on her rising panic and kept moving.

At last, up ahead she saw the glow of sunshine, which could only mean the end of the tunnel. With a rush of relief, she hurried forward and out. The tunnel had brought her to the clearing she’d expected. On one side, the towering rock wall continued, forming a shelter around a grassy bay and a clear river that pooled just in this spot before continuing down into the depths of woodlands so dense they were bathed in eternal midnight. It seemed to be secluded from everything, this place, for on the other side the river cut its path through two walls of rock that protected the gentle pool and grassy glen. But growing tall and massive in between were nine trees, all bowed over the water.

Saraid moved closer, staring at the leaves, the trunks. Something fell to the pool with a plop, and Saraid saw a nut bob on the surface before a large fish neatly jumped from the water and swallowed it just as it had in the vision with her father. With a shiver of fright she didn’t quite understand, she backed away from the water’s edge. They would be safe here if she could just find a way to bring Ruairi through the tunnel.

It was too good to be true, and she worried that when she turned around again, the tunnel entrance would have vanished. But there it was, waiting, and she hurried back to where she’d left Ruairi, finding neither he nor the horse had moved. Emboldened by this small success, she tried to mimic the whistle she’d heard Ruairi use to beckon the horse. It took several tries, but at last she matched the pitch and the horse’s ears perked and swiveled and with a snort, it came to where she stood and knelt beside the fallen warrior.

Saraid couldn’t stop her surprised laughter. “Aren’t y’ the smart one,” she said, stroking its sleek neck.

Carefully she heaved Ruairi onto the animal, but he was well and truly out and in the end, she succeeded in only pulling him halfway, scurrying to the other side of the horse and holding his arms as it rose, using its momentum to tug him sideways over its back. He groaned and Saraid caught her lip, knowing his condition was grave and being slung like a sack of feed over a horse’s back would not improve his injuries. But what choice had she?