The Danu (9 page)

"Amelia,"
Katrine smiled again and Khalon felt something pull at his chest that was as
foreign as the laughter had been.  "Yes.  I helped keep an eye on him
while we worked.  One might as well try to contain the wind, as a boy child
yearning for trouble."

"And before
that?" he asked his voice low in the echoing room.  "How long before
Haven had you last laughed?"

Something cool came over
her eyes then, and Khalon could have cursed himself when he saw her mask of
serenity fall between them.  This time it lacked the feeling of peace she could
impart and he knew it for what it was.  A shield.  She met his eyes with it
firmly in place.  "I don't remember."

She turned to move from
the water and the sight of her pulling away from him was too much.  He grabbed
her arm and whipped her back around a little too forcefully.  Her soft naked
breasts slammed into his hard chest and suddenly he had an arm full of angry Danu.

"More
questions?"  She asked.  Her voice had lost all approachability.  Khalon
ground his teeth at the feel of her pressed along his length.

Katrine did not struggle
to get away from him, but emotionally she was farther away than she had ever
been.  The sure knowledge that even holding her naked in his arms he could not
reach her was galling.  The distance between them was inexplicably painful. 
When had a woman ever affected him the way this one did?  When had he ever
wanted to claim and brand a woman as his?  The answer was never.  And each
moment he looked upon her and could not call her his made the rage building
within him that much higher.

Khalon shifted and could
not stop the hiss through his teeth when his cock brushed against the soft skin
of her belly. 

Katrine gave him a look
of cool contempt.  "Or are you now going to force what you could not
seduce from me with soft words and shared sorrows?"

"Don't shut me
out," he growled menacingly.  "I have never forced a woman and I am
not the Outcast whelp, or any other man who made your life so hellish.  I have
done nothing to deserve either the look or the words you prick me with."

"No," she said
quietly, her eyes turning molten hot with an answering anger.  One that was far
older than his.  "You are a Morten, the witch killer’s son.  That is so
much better."  She shoved her chin up and speared him with her glowing
Danu eyes.  He growled at the challenge inherent in the move.  Her words hit
him like an ice bath.  "You want to know when I laughed?  I laughed before
your soldiers came through and burned the forest to ash, and my family with
it."

Khalon sucked in a breath
and ground his teeth, then with a harsh shove, he pushed her back and away from
him.  With a curse, he turned and went back to his side of the spring.  He took
hold of the natural rock ledge and squeezed, wondering that it did not crumbled
beneath his hands.  "Wash little witch and be done with this," he
ground out, his back to her.  "Before I do something we will both
regret."

He heard splashing.  He
did not look back at her again.  He would not be tempted to claim what she
would not give... any more than he already was.

They did not wait until daybreak
to leave.  Once they had bathed and had a few hours of fitful slumber Katrine
felt a touch and opened her eyes, awake instantly, despite the fatigue that
still dogged her.  The sun was not yet up but without a word spoken, she read
the grim intent on Khalon's face and got out of the lumpy bed.  She did not
have much to do to get ready.  She had slept in her clothes so she pulled on a
pair of trousers under the simple blue dress the Innkeepers had provided, it
was wide enough dressing under it was not difficult, and with the tunic pulled
over it and belted it just gave her added warmth.  Her boots were of finer
quality and hard, where she preferred soft soled, but they would do on
horseback.  She could always go barefoot if she needed to make a run through
the trees.  If the rest of the trip were anything like the first of it, she
would not be leaving the horse for days anyway.

Silence was their only
companion while they made their way to the horses, which were already saddled
and standing by.  It made her wonder if the men had slept at all, and somehow
the grim cast on both faces suggested sleep had not been high on their
priorities.  For Katrine she was more than happy to leave behind the Inn, the
dangers contained there, and her own memories of the place.  Even if it did
mean she once again had her back pressed all along the line of Khalon's chest. 
His grip when he joined her in the saddle seemed extra close, and she wondered
how she rode peacefully with him before.  Now it seemed that her skin was
jumping, and she was more than aware of every little breath and move he made
against her.  The heat that flowed between them was only rivaled by the anger
radiating off him.  It did not help at all that she now knew exactly what he
looked like beneath his leathers.  The speculation had been distracting enough. 
It could not compete with knowing exactly what pressed against her backside
while they road.  Try as she might, after his defense of her against his own
brother, she could no longer paint him as the enemy.  No matter how much she
tried to convince herself, and him, that it was so.

The sun was high in the
sky when Katrine knew they had trouble.  She looked carefully into the wilds on
either side of the road, knowing without being immersed in the weave that
something was not right.  It was too quiet.  The usual animal sounds and birdcalls,
even the insects buzzing were absent.  The thickness of the brush and trees
that grew just feet from the road itself were too lush and overgrown to see
much past the first small increment, but Katrine could sense movement just
beyond that.  She would have warned the others but from the expectation humming
around them, and steel readiness of the body behind her it would not be necessary.

"When they
attack," Khalon whispered directly into her ear, distracting her with both
the heat of his breath and the feel of his lips against her ear lobe.  "I
need you to plaster yourself to the horse’s neck and stay low."

Katrine gave a snort of
her own.  She would be useless in a fight that way.  "I have a better
idea," she said mildly enough, her eyes on the low hanging branches that
arched above them, dappling the sun and giving the North road it's perpetual
shade.

"Little witch,"
Khalon started grimly.  It was all Khalon had time to say before the war cries
drowned them out.

The attack came out of
the wilds on both sides of the road.  Outcasts on horses, enough so that now
that they were no longer being careful, they ripped through the wilds harshly,
ripping and tearing green, their hooves gouging soft earth and stampeding
whatever wildlife remained in the area.  Katrine ducked an arrow coming from
the distant trees and felt as much as heard the thunk where it imbedded into a
tree behind her.  Even outside of the weave, Katrine could feel the Wilds
reacting to the threat.  It was foolhardy in the extreme, and contrary to the
usual smooth way Outcasts moved through the wilds that few others would dare
traverse.  Whatever Renault had promised these men must have been great for
them to attack in such a manner.  They would be lucky to escape the area before
the more predatory creatures responded to the threat, and if they did not leave
this particular wild weave quickly, they would be hunted as trespassers and
devoured.  If not by the large beasts that would come, then by the sinkholes
and poison vines that would grow in retaliation.  Whatever happened here,
future travelers would find this part of the journey fraught with dangers that
had not existed before this.

With one look, Katrine
knew it would be Renault behind this foolishness, even if he was still hiding
from the battle and biding his time.  The rest of the clan must have been
waiting for them close by because it was clear that they had more than the few
that had been present at the Inn yard.  Ragnar and Khalon killed the first
Outcasts that reached them as if they were so much meat to be cut down.  While
he was distracted on two sides, parrying horsemen with scythes and spears,
Katrine a blade, taking out an archer before she stood up on the horse.  She
had vaulted herself up into the trees above them and was running across the
branches faster than Khalon could stop her.  Hampered as he was by weapons in
both hands.  This time it was Khalon's time to curse, but it freed him up to
fight once he assured himself that she was moving freely through the branches
to safety.

Katrine stopped to remove
her boots, and pull one of only three knives she had managed to squirrel away
from Khalon's eagle eyes.  It had helped that he was so angry after their bath
that he had refused to look at her until she was dressed.  It made pocketing
her stash easy.  Now they were all going to be glad she did.

Once Katrine had yanked
off the dress with its dragging skirts and redressed in just tunic and trousers,
she opened herself up to the weave.  It was a new one for her, one she had
never before entered as normally the Outcasts tended to stay to the North and
East of these parts before making their way south along the Eastern Coastal
lands.  So she would have to test her limits and find out what the weave would
accept.  Under attack as it was, it could either accept her magic or reject her
completely.  What she did not expect was a familiarity and fast acceptance, but
that was what she found.  Something of her magic pulsed inside the weave as if
coming home.  It was then Katrine realized that whatever wild weave fed the hot
springs at the Inn fed this place too.  She smiled.  She was already immersed
in the weave enough that it would hurt to leave it, but she could only be
grateful in this instance.  It made many things possible.

The boundaries of its
magic ended at the side of the road but she had the branches that stretched
above the road and shaded it, and when she pressed a little of her collected
magic into the trees they opened as if she was an old friend.  She followed the
long branches from one to the other until she was back where she had started
just above the North road and the battle stretched before her.

Khalon and Ragnar were
slashing and hacking from their great beasts, holding back the dozens of
Outcasts that descended.  They would tire long before this crowd was dealt
with, and even if it looked like they might actually win even against these
numbers, she knew enough about Renault to know he would not quit no matter how
many men he had to sacrifice. 

She would feel bad for
what she was about to do to these outcasts if they did not court it so openly
with their careless actions. 

***

Khalon cursed his own arrogance
as the stampeding stream of Outcast trash barreled over them.  His eyes took in
Ragnar as he battled his own attackers, though they seemed to be more or less
concentrating on Khalon.  He slashed off an arm here, a head here, ignoring the
geysers of blood, and the screams.  He would count body parts when the battle
was done.  He was thinking the end was in sight when a wave of fresh horses and
men came through the hole in the green their friends had paved.  A dozen they
could have handled, now they were facing twice that.

Knowing it was only a
matter of time Khalon turned his sights to finding the leader.  If he killed
Renault at least Katrine would be safe if he ended up dying here.

He assumed the bastard
would want to kill him personally, but when he realized the face he was looking
for was not present, he cursed again.  Khalon knew as much as he knew anything
the sick bastard was already after Katrine.  Khalon lifted his sword and
deflected a strike, then leaned back on his horse before an arrow could pierce
his head and saw with satisfaction it took out an outcast instead. He was still
off balance when he was dragged down and separated from Thrax, who without his
rider began to stomp and thrash at the bodies coming at him from all sides. 
Khalon did not have time to do anything except deflect another sword, and hack
another body to pieces, again and again, as they fell on him collectively. 

The Outcasts lacked the
training of soldiers or they would have already beaten the two warriors.  Even
with their lack of training, they had the numbers over Khalon and a cursing
Ragnar.  Then the trees around them came to life, and the Outcasts were
suddenly plucked from their horses and tossed screaming back into the wilds. 
The men still hiding in the trees with bows took the brunt of them.  They
crashed to the ground, their own comrades the weapon that felled them.   The
sound of swishing branches and crunching bones lasted until the rest of the
Outcasts realized what was happening and started milling in confusion and
fear.  Then more horses came barreling down the road from the North.  Ragnar
laughed and started fighting with renewed vigor.  That was no Outcast army
approaching. 

The Southern army led by
his brother came around the last bend in the road and did not pause at the
sight that met them. With a command from Ansgar the Bloody and a war whoop they
joined the fray.

Katrine was tempted to start
plucking southern warriors out of their horses as well, but restrained herself. 
Once she saw the battle turn, she stopped pushing her magic, and began pulling
herself carefully from the weave.  She looked for Khalon one last time and felt
a shock through the heart of her when she found his eyes already looked back at
her.  Cut up and bleeding in places, he was relatively unharmed considering the
scope of the battle and the numbers of dead or dying piled at his feet.  He
stood beside Thrax, his hands on the bridle as he calmed him with a steady
hand.  His attention and the velvet blue of his eyes were on the trees above
him and Katrine, as she balanced easily on the swaying branches.

"Katrine!" he
yelled.  The blood lust still in his eyes from battle turned unerringly to
another kind of heat when he saw the thoughts flicker over her face. 
"Come!" 

There was so much command
in the words Katrine was almost tempted to comply.  Ansgar the Bloody came to
his side at that moment and Katrine saw only hate in those eyes.  She met
Khalon's one more time showing him for one brief second her regret for so many
things.  That they were enemies, that she would never feel the heat of his
gaze, or ride with the safety of him pressed against her back again.  For the
kiss she now wished she had taken when he offered it in the bath.  Then with a
shake of her head, she did the only thing she could do.  She ran across the
thin swaying branches as if they were solid ground, and disappeared into the
wilds.

Khalon let go of Thrax
and went after her.  Ragnar and his brother both yelled at him not to be a fool. 
He ignored them.  He did not need them to tell him how foolish it was to follow
a Danu into the wilds.  He knew it, but he could not let her go.  It was at
that moment faced with losing her he acknowledged for the first time it had
never been about what she was.  If she had only been the woman with red hair
and creamy white skin that he thought her, he still would have kept her.  That
she was Danu had only been the excuse he used to keep her with him from the
first.  She had been his since he saw her standing on a wall with dye splatters
on her dress, and a kerchief on her head, looking at him without the least bit
of awe or even like in her expression for his rank.

Katrine knew he followed
her.  She felt as much as heard him coming like a marauder through the wilds to
claim her.  Even knowing he would come, she cursed his foolishness.  What kind
of fool follows a Danu into the wilds?  She was tempted to berate him for his
idiocy.  If he did not turn around soon, she would be forced to lead him back
out of the green, just so he didn't get his fool self killed.

Katrine gritted her teeth
at her own foolishness, but she just could not make herself let Khalon get himself
killed.

She was so attuned to the
crashing sounds of Khalon following her that she completely missed the real
threat.  The pain of an arrow was the least of her worries when it sent her
headfirst into the forest floor.  She didn't even have time to curse her own
stupidity before the ground came at her too fast and with another flash of
pain, everything went black.

Waking up to find herself
with a pounding head and tightly bandaged shoulder Katrine knew by the feel of
the coming twilight that a great deal of time had passed.  Not that she could
see it from where she was but the feel of the familiar weave around her told
her she had not been taken far, and that time had passed.  Besides that
knowledge, her connection was muted.  Which could be because of the hard rock,
which was cold beneath her unfortunately naked body, and the solid stone walls
surrounding her, or she could have hit her head hard enough to affect her concentration,
which would make it difficult to seek the weave.  Either way she had few
options, especially when she realized she was tied hand and foot.   Her next
thought should have been about her situation.  It was not.  Katrine wondered
where Khalon was.  She knew with a pang in her belly that he would not have
given up; she just hoped he was as accomplished at surviving in the wilds as he
was at fighting outcasts.