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“I—I’ve never felt the need to cut it,” Brighid stuttered, completely take aback by the child’s comment. Cuchulainn talked about her hair?
“Good. You shouldn’t.”
“I want to be a Huntress when I grow up!” shouted a voice from the throng.
Kyna rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You can’t be a Huntress, Liam. You’re not a centaur and you’re not a female.”
Brighid watched one of the taller children’s faces fall and she felt a panicky knot within her when his eyes filled with tears.
“You could still be a hunter, Liam,” Brighid said. “Some centaurs agree to train humans in the ways of a Huntress.” As soon as she said it she realized her ridiculous error. The little winged male was definitely not human. He’d probably really cry now. What if he started the rest of them crying? But Liam didn’t notice anything wrong with what she’d said. His fanged smile was radiant.
“Do you really mean it? Would you teach me?” The boy rushed up to her and soon his small, warm hand was patting her sleek side.
Teach him? She had no intention of teaching him or anyone—especially anyone whose head didn’t reach her shoulder. Brighid’s panic expanded. She had just been trying to keep the child from crying.
“If she’s going to teach Liam I want her to teach me, too!” Another child disengaged from the group and skipped up to Brighid, hero worship shining in his big blue eyes.
“Me, too!” said a little girl with hair the color of daisies.
Brighid had no idea how it had happened, but she was surrounded by small, winged beings who were chattering away about their lives as Huntresses. Warm little hands patted her legs and flanks while Kyna asked never-ending questions about how Brighid kept her hair out of her eyes while she hunted, and what she rinsed it with to make it shine so, and did she use the same rinse on the horse part of her, and…
Brighid would’ve rather been thrust into a pack of angry wolves, at least she could kick her way clear and escape.
“Perhaps we should give the Huntress time to unload her packs and fill her stomach before we ask more of her,” Ciara’s firm voice cut through the high-pitched, childish jabbering.
Little hands reluctantly dropped from the centaur’s body.
Undaunted, Kyna still chirped with excitement. “Can Brighid stay at our lodge?”
To Brighid’s intense relief, Cuchulainn spoke up. “I think it would be best if the Huntress lodged with me. She’s part of my Clan, remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” Kyna said softly, kicking at a dirt clod with bare feet that Brighid noticed ended in remarkably sharplooking talons.
They are such anomalies, the Huntress thought. Not really human and yet obviously not Fomorian. How will they ever find their place in Partholon?
“Cuchulainn, why don’t you show Brighid to your lodge. I’ll send for you when it is time for the evening meal.”
Cu surprised Brighid by tossing the reins of his gelding to little Kyna.
“Take care of him for me.”
“Of course I will, Cu! You know I’m his favorite.” The child giggled. “Bye, Brighid. I’ll see you again at the evening meal,” she said before clucking and tugging fussily at the big gelding’s reins. The horse blew through his nose into the child’s hair and then plodded docilely after her.
“Go on now, the rest of you! You have chores to finish before we eat,” Ciara told the children.
In clusters of two and three, they rushed off like darting fish, calling goodbyes to Brighid and Cuchulainn.
“I think they were better this time,” Ciara said to the warrior.
“Well, at least there was a lot less jumping and dancing,” Cu said.
“Better than what?” Brighid asked.
Ciara smiled. “Better than when they first met Cuchulainn.”
Brighid snorted.
“You laugh, but we’re serious,” Cu said.
“I didn’t laugh. I scoffed disbelievingly. There is a distinct difference,” the Huntress said, wiping at a smudgy handprint that had been left on her golden coat.
“You’ll get used to them,” Ciara said. And at the look on the centaur’s face she laughed.
Brighid thought she had never heard such a lovely, musical sound.
Cuchulainn harrumphed. “Now it’s my turn to scoff.”
“Oh, Cuchulainn, you’re getting along with the children just fine. They adore you!” Ciara said.
“I’m not interested in their adoration. I just want to be sure they arrive safely at MacCallan Castle,” Cuchulainn said sharply, his face hardening into a blank, emotionless mask.
“Of course,” Ciara said, her smile never wavering.
It was interesting, Brighid thought, to watch how familiarly the beautiful winged woman spoke to Cu. And how she ignored the way he had turned cold and withdrawn.
“I’ll leave you with Cuchulainn. He knows his way around. If there is anything you need, he will know if we can provide it. We do not have much here, Brighid, but what we have we willingly share.”
“Thank you,” Brighid said, automatically responding to Ciara’s openness and warmth.
“Cuchulainn, the evening meal will be in the longhouse, as usual, after the dusk blessing ceremony. Please bring Brighid. And it would be nice if this time you chose to stay and share the meal with us.” Ciara nodded politely to Brighid before she turned and gracefully walked away.
Chapter 5
Cuchulainn motioned for Brighid to enter the small building ahead of him. She ducked through the thick animal skin that served as a doorway and was pleasantly surprised to feel warm, still air instead of constant cold wind. The lodge was circular, and the walls were made of the red shale that was so plentiful in the Wastelands. It was patched snugly together with a mixture of mud and sand. There was a hearth that wrapped around almost half of the curving room. Two small windows were covered, so there was little light, but it was bright enough for Brighid to see that the roof was unusual. It appeared to be mesh, woven of reeds or thin branches. Placed over the matting was a substance Brighid couldn’t identify. It had been firmly pressed into the weave, but now it appeared to be hard and dry.
“It’s moss,” Cuchulainn said. “They cut it from the ground and while it’s still pliant they press it into the web of woven tubers. When it dies it hardens until it’s like rock, only lighter. Nothing can get through it.”
“What’s this on the floor?” Brighid bent and picked up a handful of short, fragrant grass.
“They call it dwarf heather. It only grows to about hockhigh, but there’s a lot of it, especially in canyon areas like this. It makes for good insulation. The ground here is damnably cold and hard.” Cuchulainn motioned to the other side of the room, opposite the stretched animal skin hammock that served as a bed. “You can put your packs there. Ciara will have pelts brought in for you to sleep on. You should be comfortable and warm enough—and anyway we’ll be traveling in just a few days.”
“Cuchulainn, what’s going on here?”
“I’m preparing to lead the hybrids back to Partholon, of course. The snow has almost thawed enough for the pass to be open again—as you know better than I,” he finished curtly.
Brighid shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. I counted at least forty children. I saw only three adults. What is going on here?” she repeated slowly.
Cuchulainn pulled off his cloak and ran a hand through his hair, which Brighid noticed was uncharacteristically long and unkempt.
“I’m not exactly sure,” he said.
“Not sure?”
Cuchulainn scowled at her. “That’s right. They’re not what you think. The only thing I know for sure is that the New Fomorians are different.”
“Well, of course they’re different!” Brighid wanted to shake Cu. “They’re a mixture of human and Fomorian. There has never been a race like them.”
Cuchulainn walked over to the hearth. Stirring the glowing embers to life, he fed them blocks of dried peat from the stack nearby and the coals flamed into a lively, crackling fire. Then he turned and gave Brighid a weary, resigned look.
“Take off your packs. Relax. It isn’t much, but I’ll tell you what I know.”
As Cuchulainn helped her unload she watched him carefully. Grief and guilt had aged and hardened him, but there was something else about him, something that tickled the edge of her mind but which she couldn’t quite understand.
Had the hybrids cast some kind of spell over him? Cuchulainn shunned the spirit realm, and he would have little protection against a magical attack. Though Brighid did not have the training and experience of her mother, she was not a stranger to the powers of the spirit world. Nor was she a stranger to the ways in which powers granted by the Goddess could be twisted and misused. Silently she promised herself that later, when she was free to concentrate, she would see if she could detect any malevolent energy hovering around the settlement. Until then all she could do was what she was best at—finding a trail and following it.
“Here,” she said, tossing the warrior a fat skin from her last pack. “Your sister sent you this.”
Cuchulainn uncapped the skin, sniffed the liquid within, grunted in pleasure and took a long drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and settled onto his cot. “It’s been too long since I’ve tasted wine from Epona’s Temple. My mother would say there is no excuse for living like a barbarian.”
“That’s exactly what your sister said.”
Cu’s smile looked almost normal for an instant. “I miss her.”
“She misses you, too.”
He nodded and took another drink of the rich red wine.
“Cu, why are there so few adult hybrids?” Brighid asked softly.
He met her eyes. “Here’s what I know. I have counted twenty-two full-grown, adult hybrids—twelve females, one of whom has just announced that she is pregnant, and ten males. And there are seventy children ranging in age from infants to young adults. Ciara and the others say that everyone else is dead.”
“How?” Brighid’s head reeled at the disparity in numbers.
“It was the madness. Ciara says it was more difficult to withstand the older they became. Of the original hybrids born of human mothers only Lochlan, Nevin, Curran, Keir and Fallon remain.” Cuchulainn paused, clenching his jaw. “Of them Fallon is mad.”
Brighid nodded. “Her jailors at Guardian Castle say she remains mad. Elphame’s sacrifice didn’t touch her.”
“It was too late. She had already accepted the darkness of her father when El drank Lochlan’s blood and took on their madness. Apparently there is no reversing it once it has taken hold.” His stomach tightened as he remembered the horrific scene when Elphame had slit her own wrists, forcing Lochlan to share his blood to save her life. With the hybrid’s blood she had taken within her the madness of a race of demons. “It should have driven El mad, too. It was only through Epona’s power that she remains sane even though the madness lies dormant within her blood.”
“But accepting the madness didn’t kill your sister, and it didn’t kill Fallon. How did it kill the other adults?”
“Suicide. Ciara says that when a hybrid was no longer able to bear the pain of withstanding the evil within him, he chose suicide rather than a life of violence and hatred.”
The Huntress tilted her head and sent him an incredulous look. “So what she’s saying is that someone who has pretty much decided to accept hatred and evil has the capacity to make the ultimate sacrifice of taking his or her own life?”
“Yes. As a last act of humanity.”
“And you’re believing all of this?”
Instead of the anger with which Brighid expected him to respond, Cuchulainn’s expression turned introspective. He took another drink from the wineskin.
“At first I didn’t believe any of it. For days I walked around armed, expecting winged demons to jump out at me from behind every rock.” His brows tilted up and some of his old sparkle lit his eyes. “Demons failed to appear. But can you guess what did jump out at me?”
Brighid snorted a quick laugh. “If you’d left me to lodge with them I think I would have called them demons. Very small demons, but none the less frightening.”
“The children are everywhere. There are so many of them and so few adults that it’s a constant struggle to care for them and keep them fed. Not that they’re helpless—or at least not as helpless as human, or even centaur, children would be at their age. They’re hardy and intelligent. Despite their rather exuberant show when welcoming strangers, they’re incredibly well-behaved.” Cuchulainn met and held Brighid’s sharp gaze. “And they are the happiest beings I’ve ever known.”
“There’s nothing new about the young being happy, Cu. Even your silly wolf cub runs and frolics. It is the way of youth before the responsibilities of the world encroach upon their unrealistic dreams for the future.”
Cuchulainn heard the bitter undertone in the Huntress’s voice and wondered what had happened in her youth to put it there.
“But before Elphame’s sacrifice, the New Fomorian children had no carefree period of innocence. From the day they were born, not only did they have to struggle to survive, but they had to wage a constant war against the dark whisperings within their own blood as they watched their parents succumb to the evil and die around them.”
“If that is actually what happened.”
“I’m tired, Brighid.” Cuchulainn ran a hand across his brow. “I didn’t come here as a hero who would lead them back to their ancestral homeland. I came here filled with hatred.”
Brighid nodded her head slowly. “I know.”
“Elphame didn’t. At least I hope she didn’t. I wouldn’t want her to think that I would betray her trust.” He shook his head and held up his hand to stop her when she tried to speak. “No, I don’t mean that I came here with the intention of slaughtering the hybrids. But I was looking to cast blame and to find a battlefield on which to avenge Brenna.”
“That wouldn’t bring Brenna back, Cu.”
“No, it wouldn’t. And instead of a battlefield or a race of demons I found a people who are imbued with happiness.” He rubbed his brow again. “Happiness is all around me. I’m surrounded by it. But I can feel none of it.”
Brighid felt a rush of sympathy for him. Living within a face that was too old for his years, he looked lost and alone.
“You need to go home, Cu.”
“I need—”
Cuchulainn’s words were cut off by a tapping sound against the door flap followed closely by Kyna’s shining head.
“Ciara said I should come for you.” She grinned at Cuchulainn. Then her bright eyes and smile flashed at Brighid. “And you, too, Huntress. The evening blessing is about to begin. You don’t want to miss it, do you?”
“We’ll be right there, Ky,” Cuchulainn said.
The child’s head disappeared.
“Evening blessing?” Brighid asked.
“They honor Epona every day, both at sunrise and sunset. It’s a little like being back at my mother’s temple.”
“Except for the cold, dreary land, the absence of the riches of Partholon, and the presence of hordes of winged children,” Brighid said.
Cuchulainn tossed the wineskin back to the Huntress and grabbed his cloak.
“Exactly like that.” He paused in front of her on his way out of door. “I am glad you’re here, Brighid.”
