Brighid's Quest

Cuchulainn thought he would remember that moment for the rest of his life. Though he didn’t realize it, thinking about the children relaxed the tight sadness that had claimed his handsome face since Brenna’s death. He almost looked like himself again, the Cuchulainn who had been quick to smile and laugh and had been filled with life and hope and the promise of a full and happy future.

Now, with a soft woof, Fand slunk low to the earth, pulling Cu’s thoughts back to the present and shifting the focus of his attention to the trail ahead. Silently Cuchulainn moved forward. Readying an arrow, he peered around the next boulder to see the wild, white sheep pawing through the snow at a patch of yellow lichen. Taking a long, slow breath he notched the arrow, but before he could draw and aim, he heard the distinctive twang of a loosed bow and the sheep dropped, a quivering arrow neatly embedded at the base of its neck.

Fand’s growl changed to a yip of welcome when the centaur Huntress stepped from behind a concealing ledge.

Chapter 3

“You took my shot, Huntress.” Cuchulainn’s words were gruff, but he smiled and grasped the centaur’s forearm in greeting. He was surprised at the pleasure he felt at the sight of Brighid. With her came a vision of MacCallan Castle. Until that moment he hadn’t realized how much he had begun to long for home. And then on the heels of his remembrance came a wave of fresh pain. Brenna would not be there. All that remained of her was a monument carved in her image and a cold grave.

“Took your shot?” The Huntress’s unusual violet eyes sparkled. “If I remember correctly the last time we hunted together you hit nothing and chose to bring your prey back alive.” She returned Cuchulainn’s smile, even though his had faded into an odd grimace. She clasped his forearm warmly before frowning down at the young wolf that was leaping around her hocks. “I can see the creature is still alive.”

“Fand is an excellent companion.” He motioned for the jubilant cub to leave the Huntress alone. Fand ignored him.

“She hasn’t learned any manners.” Brighid kicked a hoof absently at the squirming cub, who decided it was a game and began biting at her hock.

Cuchulainn growled low in his throat, sounding remarkably wolflike, and, looking dejected, Fand stopped her mock attack and flopped down on her belly to stare with soulful eyes at the warrior.

Brighid lifted a brow. “Seems I have come just in time. You obviously need some civilized company.”

“Meaning you?”

The Huntress nodded. “There is nothing more civilized than a centaur.”

She waited for Cu’s return gibe, which did not come. Instead the warrior tucked his arrow back in its quill and began striding toward the sheep.

“My sister sent you, didn’t she?”

“I volunteered. I don’t like to see her worried. And—”

Cuchulainn whirled around and cut her off. “Elphame is well?”

Brighid heard the thinly veiled panic in the warrior’s voice and was quick to reassure him. “She’s quite well. Renovation of the castle moves ahead. The Clan is happy and healthy. The first new MacCallan Clan member has been born within the castle’s walls. And, as I was about to explain, the game in the forest is so thick that even humans can easily hunt it. So I thought I would kill two birds with a single arrow.” She grinned, raising her empty bow. “I’d alleviate my Chieftain’s worry for her errant brother, as well as hunt something more challenging than deer that are practically domesticated.”

As she spoke she studied Cuchulainn’s face. The panic had dissipated, leaving him looking tired and relieved, and then, as she watched, even those small emotions fell from his face, until it seemed he was wearing an expressionless mask. He had lost weight. His eyes were shadowed by darkness and new lines feathered from their corners. Was that gray in his sand-colored hair? He bent to pull her arrow from the sheep’s body and she looked down at him. Yes, it was, indeed, gray that glinted around his brow. The man before her looked easily a decade older than he had two moon cycles earlier.

“Here,” Brighid said, swiveling at the waist to pull two long leather cords from one of the travel packs slung across her back. “Tie this around its legs. I’ll drag it.”

Cuchulainn returned the arrow to her after wiping it clean in the snow.

“My gelding isn’t far from here.”

Brighid snorted. “I hope your camp isn’t far from here. I’ve seen little of the Wastelands, but I already do not savor the thought of spending the night in the open. Not in this Goddess-be-damned wind.”

For an instant she thought she saw amusement flash in his eyes, but all he said as he took the cords was, “The camp is not far, either. But we should hurry. The nights are cold.”

Methodically he squatted by the sheep’s rear haunches and began tying its legs.

Elphame had been wise to worry. It was obvious that the Cuchulainn his sister knew and loved was disappearing under the weight of grief and guilt. Brighid could only imagine how much the sight would wound her Chieftain. Brighid hated seeing what Brenna’s death had done to him, and he was just her friend.

She smiled sadly at the warrior’s back. Theirs had been an unlikely friendship. Cuchulainn had known too well the segregationist beliefs of her family concerning humans and centaurs and he had been leery to trust Brighid. And, quite frankly, the Huntress had thought Cuchulainn an arrogant womanizer. At first they had snapped at and circled one another like restless beasts protecting territory. But as the Huntress had watched the rakish young warrior fall in love with the Clan’s newly appointed Healer, she had seen the real Cuchulainn—the compassionate, loyal man who lived within the skin of the dashing warrior. And she had won his trust in turn. First, by helping him track Elphame after she had taken a nasty fall, and finally, regrettably, by fighting at his side when they captured the hybrid Fomorian Fallon after she murdered Brenna.

“Brenna’s death is a heavy burden to bear,” Brighid said solemnly.

Cuchulainn’s head was bowed in concentration as he finished securing the cords, and she could see his back stiffen. He stood slowly and met the Huntress’s sharp gaze.

“Yes.” He bit out the word.

Brighid didn’t flinch from the anger in his voice. She knew from her own experience that anger was part of grief’s healing process.

“Your sister planted those blue wildflowers Brenna liked so much all around her grave. The Clan talks about how beautiful the tomb is, and how much Brenna is missed.”

“Stop,” Cuchulainn said between clenched teeth.

“As long as we remember her, she is not completely gone, Cu.”

“Not completely gone!” Cuchulainn laughed humorlessly. He threw the cords he had been holding to the ground and spread his arms, palms up, looking around them. “Then show her to me. I don’t see her. I don’t hear her. I can’t touch her. To me, Huntress, she is completely gone.”

“Brenna would hate to see you like this, Cuchulainn.”

“Brenna is not here!”

“Cu—” the Huntress began, but the warrior’s gruff voice cut her off.

“Leave it be, Brighid.”

She met his gaze squarely. “I will leave it be for now, but you cannot continue like this. Not forever.”

“You are right about that. Nothing continues forever, Huntress.” Abruptly he bent and retrieved the leather cords. Handing one to her he wrapped the other over his shoulder. “This way.” He pointed his chin back the way he had come. “We need to hurry. Night will fall soon.”

Mimicking Cuchulainn’s motions, Brighid placed the cord over her shoulder and together they dragged the sheep’s body. As the Huntress glanced at Cu’s haggard profile she thought grief had already caused night to fall within Cuchulainn’s wounded soul. Could anything, even his Goddess-touched sister’s love, ever bring the light of happiness to his life again?

They spoke little as they traveled steadily in the direction of the waning sun. Together they had quickly dressed the sheep and folded it into the leather carrier Cuchulainn strapped over the big gelding’s hindquarters. There were several questions Brighid wanted to ask, but the warrior’s manner was so withdrawn, his few words so brusque, that she had learned little more than that he’d easily found the hybrid Fomorian settlement, that there were almost one hundred of them, and that they were eager to return to Partholon. When she asked him what they were like he’d said only, “They’re just people,” and withdrawn again into silence. Brighid had decided that conversing with him was like cuddling a porcupine. Not worth the trouble. She was a Huntress. She would observe the hybrids for herself as she would any other creature of the Wastelands and then form her own opinion.

And she would always keep in mind that they had been fathered by a race of demons.

“Do you like children?”

Brighid raised her brows at the strange question, not sure she had heard Cuchulainn correctly. “Children?”

He grunted and nodded.

“I don’t know. I don’t particularly like or dislike them. They don’t usually figure into the life of a Huntress, unless you count that I have to consider them as extra mouths to feed. Why do you ask?”

“We are almost to the settlement. There are—” he paused and glanced sideways at her “—children there.”

“I expect children. Lochlan told all of us about them back at the castle. You know that. You were there.”

“Lochlan didn’t exactly tell us everything,” Cuchulainn said cryptically.