Elphame's Choice (14 page)

ELPHAME JOGGED AROUND
the side of the castle. MacCallan Castle had been built on a massive area of high ground that jutted out over the imposing shoreline of the B’an Sea. She followed the edge of the cliff north. Like the land to the south, the shore curved back into the forest, leaving MacCallan standing alone, silent and austere in its prominent position.

Well, it was silent for the moment. Elphame smiled into the wind as she thought about the castle being filled with the happy sounds of people going about the daily business of living. Her people and her castle.

When she was no longer visible to the castle, she stopped to unwind the skirt from around her waist and hang it over the side of a boulder. Then she began a series of stretches to warm the hard muscles of her legs. Elphame breathed deeply of the tangy sea breeze. Far below, waves rhythmically pounded
the bottom of the cliffs. The sun was working its way down into the sapphire of the sea and the western sky was beginning to be streaked with the brilliant flush of evening. It felt so right for her to be there that Elphame wondered how she had lived so long elsewhere.

Muscles stretched and warm, she kicked into a brisk jog, following the cliff’s edge and learning the feel of the land. It wasn’t an easy run, like in her meadow near Epona’s Temple. Here she had to dodge around boulders and leap over rocks, but the added exercise was satisfying. With the forest on her right, and the sea on her left, she seemed to be running on a ribbon of land created just for her. She leaned forward and increased her stride. Danann had been wise. She could feel the tension of the last several days sliding from her body as her legs pumped and her hoofs bit the ground in their familiar rhythm. When the burn started, it felt good and she leaned into the speed, drawing deeply from her reservoir of strength.

In front of her she saw a wide stream that ran out of the forest to cascade in a brilliant gush of white water over the edge of the cliff. She slowed, made her decision and turned into the forest, following the line of the stream. She loved the sea and the sound of the water, but the forest called to her. Beside the stream the ground was thick with pine needles and early moss. Her hooves crunched with a strong, satisfying sound as she sprinted deeper into the forest. The trees that grew in increasing thickness around her stretched far up into the sky. The pines were so ancient that their branches did not begin until more than a man’s body length above her head. The enormous trees dazzled her—they were so much more beautiful than the tame willows and maples that grew around her mother’s temple. She gazed up, drinking in their wildness. This was her home, where she belonged. For the first time in her life she was actually fitting in. Elphame felt free and happy and even, perhaps, a little giddy….

She did not notice the ravine until it was too late to stop. The ground opened beneath her and Elphame’s body hurled forward and then down. Her arms windmilled frantically, trying to help her to regain any semblance of balance as she fell, tumbling over and over. Pain sliced through her side. Instinctively, she curled to protect her injury and something struck her shoulder and then her head. Blackness engulfed her quickly and completely.

Lochlan knew when she fell. He had been hunting—hunger was the only force that could pull him from his constant vigil of the castle. A young stag had passed close by his hiding place, and he tracked it into the forest, felled it with a single arrow and had begun the bloody job of dressing and cleaning it. He worked quickly and efficiently, sure that he would be finished in time to return and watch Elphame depart the castle as the sun left the sky. Perhaps she would bathe again. His wings quivered at the thought and he automatically repressed their stirrings, causing his head to ache with a maddening insistence. The passion of last night’s dream had stayed close beside him all during that long day.

That is not all she is, he reminded himself furiously. She is not simply an object to be lusted after and used. From years of dreams he had learned that she was kind and thoughtful, and too often sad. She was more than a sensuous, beautiful female body. She was more than skin and blood—Blood…Unbidden, his wings quivered again.

Then he felt a jabbing pain in his side, followed by a sick jolt to his shoulder and right temple. Struggling against a wave of dizziness, he dropped the short sword he was using to dress the deer and clutched his side. And he knew.

“Elphame!” He cried her name, heedless of who might overhear him. Something terrible had happened. She was
injured. She needed him. Frantically he tried to quiet his panic and regain control of his thoughts. Where was she? How could he get to her?

Your heart will tell you. Be still and listen to it.

A voice, very like his mother’s, echoed within his mind along with the phantom pain of Elphame’s wound. Was he finally going mad? He didn’t care, he thought fiercely, as long as the madness led him to her. With the oneness of thought that had carried him into Partholon to find her within the ruins of Mac-Castle, Lochlan focused on the young girl he had watched grow and mature. The young girl he believed was his destiny.

He felt the answer as surely as he felt her pain. Opening his wings so that they would carry him in the swift, gliding run he had inherited from his father’s people, he raced into the north.

Elphame regained consciousness to the sound of distant thunder. She was going to be ill—violently ill. She tried to turn her head so that she wouldn’t soil herself, and the pain that stabbed through her right temple caused her to suck in her breath with a sob. She retched—dry heaves that made her side feel as if it was on fire.

She opened her eyes slowly, wincing at the pain in her head. Her thoughts were disjointed, confused. What had happened? A shiver wracked her body and the fire in her side tore at her. Her vision grayed around the edges and she struggled to stay conscious. Why was she so cold? Her legs were frozen, almost numb. Was she paralyzed? She looked down. Her back was propped awkwardly against a mossy bank. The bottom half of her body was submerged in a stream—the stream she had been running beside—and her memory flooded back. She’d been running and hadn’t been paying attention. She’d fallen into a ravine.

Cuchulainn was going to kill her.

Grimacing at the sharp ache in her shoulder, she slowly and carefully stretched her arms forward so that she could feel down the length of both her legs. Her hands were shaking terribly, but she felt no broken bones protruding from the wet coat of fur that covered her legs. Elphame shivered. Her side flamed again. There was a tear in her blood-soaked shirt. She pulled it open. And looked away again—quickly. A long, ugly gash that was bleeding freely ran from her waist across her ribs. Looking at it made her feel as if she might be sick again. She’d never been particularly squeamish about blood before, but she’d never seen that much of her own blood before, either.

Gritting her teeth against the pain she shifted her weight and tried to gather her legs so that she could stand up and climb out of the stream. The world grayed and a tide of nausea engulfed her. Panting, she slumped back against the bank. The right side of her head throbbed horribly. Her hand reached up to gently prod the site of the pain, and it came away sticky and red. She fought against another round of retching.

It was as she was shakily wiping her mouth with the back of her hand that she heard it—a strange, guttural, grunting noise. On the opposite side of the stream the incline of the ravine wasn’t nearly as steep, and the trees grew almost to the edge of the bank, which was lined with rocks, browned with age and covered with fungus-colored lichen. Her vision was watery and Elphame blinked rapidly, trying to see into the shadowy forest. She could only make out vague shapes that might or might not be moving.

Thunder rolled again, this time louder. She squinted up at the sky. It was getting dark, but she couldn’t tell if that was because enough time had passed for the sun to have begun to set, or because a storm was coming.

The underbrush crackled as if a large body was moving quickly through it. Had she been gone long enough for Cu to miss her? Could that be him?

Without truly believing it, she called tentatively, “Cuchulainn? Is that you?”

The noise fell instantly silent. When it began again it was moving purposefully toward her. In the fading light a pair of red eyes appeared at the edge of the tree line just before the creature broke from the shadows.

Elphame felt a lightning jolt of panic. The wild boar was truly terrifying. Its mud-encrusted body was easily the length of a man’s, with several times the bulk. Yellowed tusks protruded in deadly arches from its powerful jaws. The boar scented the air and pulled back its lips in a hideous growl that spewed frothy white spittle in an arc around it. Its stench reached her in a fetid rush and Elphame’s stomach pitched dangerously. The boar’s small eyes flashed with a feral gleam and it lowered its head. Elphame’s leaden legs scrambled to support her and she tottered to her feet. Leaning heavily against the bank, she tried to blink her vision clear while she clawed her brother’s dagger from the sheath around her waist, but her right arm wouldn’t work properly and she dropped the dagger. The boar charged.

Elphame clenched her teeth and tried to push away from the bank. She knew she was going to die.
Epona, help me to be brave
, she prayed fervently.

“No!” Snarling the word like a curse, a winged shape launched itself from the bank behind Elphame, and crashed into the charging boar. The boar was knocked off its feet, but it righted itself with a terrible quickness. Now it was no longer focused on Elphame. Instead it faced a new foe, an attacker that crouched before it, wings spread and a blood-covered short sword drawn and held ready.

Elphame collapsed against the side of the bank. It seemed that reality had fragmented. She must have fallen through the fabric of the world she knew and entered another, for the winged being in front of her defied reason.

The boar charged, and the winged being leaped aside, raking his sword down the side of the monster’s thick hide. The boar screamed its pain and rage, whirling to charge again. But again the winged being was too quick, and he drew second blood. Frothing at the mouth, the boar attacked wildly, trying to trap its enemy against the side of the bank. Elphame saw the winged being glance at her, and she saw, too, that he realized that the boar was driving him close to where she had fallen. With a terrible hissing sound, the winged creature leaped one last time, directly onto the boar’s back. With incredible speed, his hand shot forward and the sword sliced neatly through the beast’s throat. The boar squealed and fell heavily into the stream, blood pouring from the waterfall at its throat.

The winged creature rose from the back of the dead boar. He took two staggering steps toward Elphame.

“Stay away!” Elphame screamed.

As if he had run into a glass wall, the winged creature stopped.

Elphame was staring at his hands. They were covered in blood, as was the sword he clutched. He followed her gaze, and immediately dropped the sword, opening his hands to her.

“I will not harm you,” he gasped, trying to steady his breathing so that his voice wouldn’t frighten her. Her eyes were wide and glassy, and he could see that she was trembling violently.

“So much blood,” she whispered through numbed lips.

She needn’t have said anything; Lochlan was already intensely aware that the boar’s blood covered him as well as filled his heightened senses. He could feel the animal’s spirit, still strong and angry, within the slick redness that dyed his hands. It called to Lochlan with a barbaric voice that fired his own blood. The demon within him stirred; victorious, it wanted to sink its teeth into the boar’s neck wound and drink deeply, ab
sorbing its bestial essence. Lochlan struggled against the sensations. He had to get the blood off of him before he became lost to it. Fighting against the pain that spiked in his mind as he repressed the vicious longing within him, Lochlan bent quickly and dipped his hands and arms in the stream, rubbing frantically to rid himself of the animal’s blood. Then, arms dripping, but no longer red, he again held them open in front him.

“It is gone now.” Cleansed, the shield of his control was firmly intact and he was able to speak to her in a soothing voice, as if she were a very small child.

She looked from his hands to his body, studying him with a strange, breathless curiosity that was a result of shock and blood loss and utter disbelief. He was a man. A winged man. He was tall, several inches taller than she, and his hair was an unusual yellow color, like someone had tamed rays of the morning sun, she thought. It must be long, because even though it was tied in a queue she could see that during the battle with the boar, some of the strands had pulled free and hung past his shoulders. His face had been masterfully sculpted, with strong ridges and fine, high cheekbones. His eyes, which were watching her intently, were slightly slanted. Their color was a distinctive pewter-gray. With an increasing sense of wonder she realized that he was beautiful. His body was long and lean; his skin was very pale, but he didn’t look sickly or sallow-colored. Instead he looked ethereal, as if he didn’t belong to the mortal world. He was wearing a cream-colored shirt made of a coarsely woven fabric. Elphame thought that it looked like it needed to be washed. His breeches were brown leather that had been roughly tanned. He wore no shoes. There was something strange about his feet, but he was standing in the stream, and Elphame could not get a clear look at them.