Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) (17 page)

Softly a shape rode between me and the white horse. As Seth reined to a halt I froze, my feet hanging free of the stirrups and one leg half-over the chestnut’s haunches.

What was I
doing?

My blood was ice-water. Very, very cautiously, I eased myself back into the saddle and, cringing, found my stirrups.

The windless copse was silent; not even a breath of bird-song. I’d only just noticed that. I was aware that Finn was there too, and the twins a bit further behind, but I couldn’t
look, not even at Rory. All my attention was locked on the white horse, my nerves ragged with the fear that it might dodge Seth and lunge for me.

Gripping the stained bridle, Seth slid off the blue roan as it shook its neck and whickered. The white horse blew an amiable response, but its expression was sly and wily as it angled its head
back towards Seth, and the soft skin of its muzzle was dyed red. Seth dangled the green bridle on his extended fingertips.

‘Come to me,
eachuisge,
’ he said. ‘I don’t care how many you’ve drowned
.
I don’t care how many you’ve killed. That’s your
way.’ Seth’s voice was low and crooning, and the white ears flickered towards him. ‘But come to me. Go back where you came from. Don’t you miss the sea?’ He gave it a
savage grin much like its own. ‘Go back to your lair and think your dark thoughts.’

It whickered and flicked its tail. The two of them gazed at each other.

‘You are old, so old,
eachuisge,
’ Seth lilted. ‘Grow older. Go back to your lair and live. Better than being hunted. No-one here wants to master you, not any
more.’

The horse took an idle pace forward, tilting its head towards the bridle.

Then it happened, though I didn’t know what
it
was: at first I thought it was something Seth was doing on purpose. His back arched violently, as if someone had thrust in an
invisible knife.

Stumbling forward, he fell onto his knees. Instantly the white horse jerked its head up, alert. I could read the change in its expression; anyone could. It wasn’t seeing Seth. It certainly
wasn’t seeing a potential rider. All it saw was weakness.

And I think it saw lunch.

As it came at Seth, his blue roan screamed threateningly and went back on its hindquarters, but the white horse took no notice. The bloodstained muzzle snaked towards Seth’s throat and I
thought he’d duck and roll away, but he seemed paralysed.

Branndair sprang but the white horse lashed out a hoof, catching his skull and knocking him flying into the heather. Rory jumped from his horse, grabbed a rock and flung it; I slid off the
chestnut and fumbled for a stone of my own. The white horse’s eyes swivelled maliciously our way.

My fingers closed on a big rock; I was about to throw it at the horse when Seth jerked his head round towards us. I reeled back at a ringing blow inside my head, and Rory staggered too.

Whatever Seth had done to us, it was his last effort. When the white horse turned back to him I knew nothing could stop its yellow teeth closing on his throat. Horror wormed in my blood and
bones: I didn’t want to see him die. Trying to scramble upright, I scrabbled for another stone but my flesh was mush, as if the horse had already chewed it. Seth was going to die.

The horrible stillness was split by a clear violent scream, and Finn’s black horse sprang forward and thundered in like a truck. It slammed into the white horse’s head, banging it
aside so that the vicious yellow teeth snapped on the air. There was a clattering echo: Finn’s barbaric yell, the collision of horseflesh, the clash of thwarted jaws. Then there was only
silence.

‘Christ,’ whispered Seth.

There was no flinging Finn away, like he’d done to us. She was too close, and even I could see that if Seth hurt her he’d only leave her vulnerable. Her black horse straddled him,
side by side with the blue roan, both glaring at the white one, while Finn fumbled over her shoulder for the hilt of her new sword.

She couldn’t get a grip on it. Now that her rage was gone she looked herself again, shocked and scared and
completely
incompetent.

The white horse drew back its lips, threads and gobbets of bloody flesh streaking its teeth. It reared over Finn, then plunged, and she gave a sob of terror that sounded to me a lot like
Seth.

A whisper, and a soft thunk, and the white horse flung up its head on its twisted neck.

Eyes rolling, it staggered back on its hind legs, then collapsed. Its flailing muzzle and teeth grazed Finn’s face and shoulder and the black’s flank.

Dying, it sighed a rattling sigh and sank down onto its forelegs, a shining bolt standing out from its chest. Its gaze, regretful, caught Seth’s. Then its savage head sank to the ground
and the green light in its eye went dead.

‘Ach.’ The curse of disgust came from Sionnach, who dropped his crossbow as if it had burned his fingers. Ignoring everybody else he went straight to Finn, catching her as she
lowered herself trembling from the black. With his bare hand he wiped the horse’s foamy pink sputum off her face.

Seth grabbed the black’s mane to haul himself to his feet, but he was almost knocked straight back to the ground by Rory, half-supporting and half-shaking him.

‘Dad. Bloody hell,
Dad.
’

Seth righted himself with an arm round Rory, but his cold eyes were fixed on Eili.

There were soft hoofbeats on the undergrowth, and then Jed was flinging himself off his horse, Iolaire right behind him. ‘Seth. Seth, I’m sorry. We saw something and followed it.
I’m so sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’ Seth smiled thinly, eyes still locked on Eili.

‘Tsk.’ Eili shook her head solemnly at Jed. ‘That’ll teach you to chase phantasms, Cuilean. They may not even exist. Except in your somewhat fevered…
imagination
.’

Jed glared at her, his jaw grinding.

‘Bitch,’ said Iolaire softly.

‘Names, names.’ Eili turned her grey’s head and rode away.

The eyes of the white horse were open and empty, its forelegs splayed, muzzle on the ground. I felt suddenly sorry for the creature, dead because they’d messed up. Its half-eaten buck lay
in the blaeberry scrub beneath the pines, and curiosity drew me closer. I took a step, and another, then stifled my own scream.

A hand fell on my shoulder and I stepped automatically back towards human protection. Jed pulled me back into his arms and turned my face firmly aside. I could feel his racing heartbeat, and his
fingers tight on my jaw.

‘Iolaire,’ he said. ‘It’s not a buck.’

Stepping past, Iolaire took a shocked breath. ‘I know him. He’s one of Kate’s.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ said Jed dryly, ‘how do you know?’

‘Scar.’ Iolaire pointed to a dismembered thigh. ‘Distinctive. I was there when he got it.’ Crouching by the remains, he touched a swollen hand gently. ‘And
he’d lost this finger long ago. Poor Turlach.’

‘I think I’m going to throw up now,’ I said faintly.

‘Go ahead.’ Jed released me, squeezing my shoulder. ‘Nobody’s looking.’

Leaning on a pine trunk and retching with as much dignity as I could manage, I decided I liked him.

‘What do you want to do?’ Jed asked Iolaire.

‘Burn him.’ Seth was behind us. ‘What’s left of him. I can’t be responsible for him. Burn him with the kelpie.’ The blue roan’s reins were in his left
hand, the other arm around Rory’s shoulder. Across the roan’s withers lay the senseless black dog.

Rory’s voice was icy. ‘Why didn’t Eili stay for Branndair?’

Seth’s fingers tightened on his arm. ‘She wasn’t thinking, a gràidh.’ But I saw the look he exchanged with Jed, the sour tightening of Jed’s mouth. They were
hiding something from Rory, I knew it.

That wasn’t all they were hiding, thank God. Their bodies blocked my view of what lay in the undergrowth. I thought: it could have been just an animal. Maybe. If you thought of it like
pictures in a book, if you broke it down into its constituent parts – no, bad thought – if you thought only of a toe, or a hank of hair, or a finger that was missing anyway, you could
think of it quite dispassionately.

‘What about my friend here?’ Iolaire nudged the corpse gently with his foot. ‘Not taking a walk in the woods, was he?’

‘There’s another thing.’ Sionnach crouched to pick up his crossbow.

‘What?’

‘There.’ He nodded, turning the weapon in his hands. ‘Another.’

‘Shit,’ whispered Seth.

The dove-grey filly was adorable. Well. She was adorable till she sleepily raised her head from the long grass, blinked her lashes, tossed her silky mane and bared her teeth in a hungry, hating
snarl.

There were scraps of flesh in her teeth. Scrambling to her long legs, she gave a screaming desperate whinny at the corpse of the white horse. When she got no response she half-reared, then spun
on her hindlegs and fled.

In silence we watched her spring for the water and dive.

Sionnach spat. ‘No wonder it wasn’t for mastering.’

Seth rubbed a hand across his face. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid
bastard.
’

‘Not,’ Finn quoted him acidly, ‘your fault.’

‘I should have guessed. At least it was weaned; it’d had a go at Turlach. Rory, don’t even think about it.’

Rory was gazing hungrily at the disturbed water where the filly had submerged. At Seth’s words he turned, and the horse-lust turned to high and angry concern.

‘Anybody want to tell me what’s going on?’

‘I froze,’ growled Seth. ‘It happens.’

‘Oh, treat me like a three-year-old, why don’t you? It was your back. You went into a spasm. It was your
bloody back.
’

‘Fine. It was my back. Leave it.’

‘Like you have? Gods’ sake, Dad. Why won’t you let Eili fix it?’

Jed eyed Seth. Seth avoided looking at Sionnach. Iolaire looked at his fingernails.

It was Finn who fascinated me, because she wasn’t avoiding anybody. The woman’s fists were clenched and she was shaking, but it wasn’t nerves. Finn wasn’t scared, I
realised: she was furious.

‘Dad, let Eili see it. Please. For me.’

‘If it would do any good, Rory, I’d do anything for you. But it won’t. Trust me on this one.’

Rory looked hopelessly at the rest of them. Nobody was taking him on, least of all the silently simmering Finn. In the awkward silence he turned, spat, and seized his horse’s reins.
Flinging himself onto its back, he kicked its flanks and drove it into an insanely fast gallop, back in the direction of the dun.

There was nothing I hated more than a family domestic; it reminded me too strongly of my own home life. I stumbled up through the sandy scrub and unhooked my chestnut’s reins from the
stump; his flanks were still shivering, but he was quieter now, and his nose snuffled at my pockets in search of a mint.

‘You okay?’ asked Jed behind me.

‘Dandy. What’s wrong with Seth’s back?’

‘Crossbow scars.’ Jed was fully into the clann tradition of never meeting my eyes. ‘He got shot years ago and the wounds never mended properly. They’re
infected.’

‘Do I look like I came up the Clyde on a banana boat?’ I scowled. ‘He got shot twelve years ago. If they’d been infected all that time he’d be dead by
now.’

Irritatingly, Jed didn’t take any offence; he just made a laughing sound in his throat. ‘Blood poisoning doesn’t happen to Sithe.’

‘In that case, he’s imagining it. He needs therapy, not a doctor.’

Jed sighed, and his voice when he deigned to answer me was icy cool. ‘Every night, those wounds wake Seth. Since my brother was a baby. So Rory’s always known the world’s a
place full of pain, and he doesn’t remember a time when he thought otherwise.’ He tilted his head thoughtfully. ‘Not that Seth screams. He never screams. I suppose he’s used
to it.’

I swallowed. ‘How do you know? I thought you and Iolaire were the item.’

He smiled, uncurled his fist. There was a deep brutal scar across his palm, a ridged line of white. ‘I don’t let anybody near my mind, so we did this instead. Blood brothers. I know
when Seth’s in pain because I feel it.’ Turning his hand, he examined it thoughtfully, clenching and unclenching the fingers. ‘There were nights I thought his spine was going to
burst out of his back.’

There was bile in my throat, but I was determined not to be sick again. Jed glanced at me, seeming to remember suddenly that I was there.

‘You coming, then?’ He mounted his dun horse.

I shook my head as I stroked the chestnut’s neck. ‘This one’s all wound up and so am I. We’ll both walk.’

Jed didn’t tell me not to be silly, he didn’t remind me there were monsters in the mere, he didn’t say that of course he wouldn’t let me stay out on my own. All he said
was, ‘Walk fast, then. Liath’ll stay with you.’

And then he rode away at an easy amble to where Iolaire waited for him, and they disappeared into the trees.

I twisted and tightened the reins between my fingers. The white dog sat there patiently, tongue lolling, pinning me with her big yellow eyes. I could tell I wouldn’t be giving her the slip
any time soon.

‘Come on then, Lassie.’

She cast me a withering glare, but she rose to her feet, stretched and padded languidly along the shore without a backwards glance.

‘Oy! You’re supposed to be babysitting me, remember? The dun’s that way.’ I pointed off to the left.

Now that the dog was ignoring me, I was all too aware that I didn’t want to make my own way home after all, but all the others were out of sight and I didn’t want the dog to vanish
too. I tugged on the chestnut’s reins and with some reluctance he followed me, head low and ears back. Partly out of spite and partly because I didn’t want to lose sight of Liath, I
yanked him into a half-hearted trot.

When we caught up with Liath, I swear she looked smug. The chestnut settled into a truculent plod and I wiped sweat from my forehead. Some way behind us, a column of oily black smoke curled
lazily into the sky. I averted my eyes, swallowing.

‘So where are we going, Lassie?’ I asked the dog. ‘Is Rory trapped in the old mineshaft?’

This time she ignored me altogether, which made me feel like an idiot. I was much more reluctant now to let her out of my sight, and she seemed to know it. If Jed’s intention had been to
put the wind up me, he’d done a good job. My skin prickled, and I had to stop to pull my jumper back on. I rubbed my arms briskly.