Brighid's Quest

“That’s no surprise to me.” Brighid snorted.

The warrior gave her a lidded look. “You don’t sound like you trust Lochlan.”

“Do you?”

“He saved my sister’s life,” Cuchulainn said simply.

Brighid nodded slowly. “Yes, he did. But it was Lochlan’s coming to Partholon that placed her life in jeopardy in the first place.”

Cuchulainn said nothing. He’d already thought over and over again about how Lochlan’s presence had changed all of their lives. But he found it hard to blame his sister’s lifemate, which did not mean he was willing to fully embrace the winged man. It only meant that Cuchulainn was most willing to blame himself for the events that had culminated in his sister’s sacrifice and Brenna’s death. He should have known. He would have known had he listened to the warnings from the spirit realm. But Cuchulainn had always turned from the use of spirits and magic and the mysterious power of the Goddess, even though it was obvious from an early age that he had inherited his Shaman father’s spirit gifts. Cu was a warrior. It was all he’d ever wanted to be. His affinity with the sword was the only gift he desired.

His stubbornness had sealed his lover’s doom.

“I thought you said we were almost at the camp. I see nothing ahead except more of this empty, dismal land.”

Cuchulainn dragged his dark thoughts back to the silvercoated centaur who trotted by his side.

“Look more closely, Huntress,” he said.

Brighid glowered at him. Friends they may have become, but the warrior still had a knack for getting under her skin.

Cuchulainn almost smiled. “Don’t feel bad. I didn’t see it at first, either. If I hadn’t been with Curran and Nevin I would have probably toppled blindly over the edge.”

“I don’t…” At first the landscape appeared to be a snowpatched, treeless plain. Red shale, the same color as the great boulders that flanked the Trier Mountains, littered the ground. But then her vision caught an almost imperceptible change. “It’s a gorge. By the Goddess! The land is so bleak and similar that one side matches the other almost perfectly.”

“It’s an optical illusion, one the human mothers of the New Fomorians thought to use to their advantage more than one hundred years ago when they were desperate to find a safe place to build their settlement.”

“New Fomorians?”

“That’s what they call themselves,” Cuchulainn said.

Brighid snorted.

“The path winds down from there.”

He pointed at Fand’s disappearing hind end and clucked his gelding into a gentle canter, pulling him up just before the land dropped away beneath them. Brighid moved to stand beside him and drew in breath sharply at the sight below. The gorge opened as if a giant had taken an ax and hewed an enormous wedge from the cold, rocky earth. The wall on which they stood was taller than the opposite side of the canyon. The sheer drop must have been at least two hundred feet. A small river ran through the middle of the valley. And nestled against the gentler northern wall of the canyon was a cluster of round buildings. Brighid could make out distant figures, and she strained to see wings as the self-proclaimed New Fomorians moved between circularshaped houses and corrals and low, squat structures she thought might be animal shelters.

She could feel Cuchulainn watching her.

“The human women chose wisely. There’s shelter in the walls of the canyon and a ready water supply. I can even see a few things that might be masquerading as trees,” she said. “If I had been with them, this would have been the site I would have recommended.” In actuality if Brighid had been with them, she would have recommended they slit their monstrous infants’ throats and return to Partholon where the women belonged. But that was a thought the Huntress decided was best kept to herself.

“It’s an unforgiving land. I have been surprised at how well they have survived. I expected…” Cuchulainn’s words trailed off as if he was sorry he’d said so much.

Brighid was looking at him with open curiosity.

Cu cleared his throat and pointed the gelding’s head down the steep trail. “Watch where you step. The shale is slick.”

Brighid followed Cuchulainn, wondering at the changes in him. Were they all because of Brenna’s death, or had something happened here in the Wastelands? Even had he not been her friend, the Huntress owed it to her Chieftain to find out.

Chapter 4

The first hybrid Brighid saw was doing something totally unexpected. He was laughing. The Huntress heard him before she saw him. His laughter rolled up the trail to meet them, punctuated by mock growls and youthful snarls.

“They like Fand,” Cuchulainn muttered in explanation.

The warrior and the Huntress finally stepped onto level ground and walked around a rough out-cropping of rock to see a winged man sprawled on his back in the middle of the trail. Tongue lolling and mouth open as if she were smiling, the young wolf cub’s paws were planted squarely on his chest.

“Fand rolled me, Cuchulainn. She’s growing so fast that in no time she’ll be a proper wolf,” he said, chuckling and scratching the cub’s scruff. When he glanced up and saw the centaur by Cu’s side, his eyes rounded in shock.

“Fand, here!” Cuchulainn ordered. This time the wolf chose to obey, hopping off the hybrid’s chest and loping back to her master.

The winged man stood quickly, brushing dirt and snow from his tunic, all the while keeping his large eyes fixed on Brighid.

“Gareth, this is—”

Gareth’s excited voice cut him off. “The Huntress, Brighid! It is, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Gareth. This is MacCallan’s Huntress, Brighid Dhianna.”

Gareth executed a quick, awkward bow, and Brighid realized that he was really just a tall, gangly youth who stared at her with open, awestruck delight.

“Well met, Brighid!” Gareth gushed, his voice cracking on her name.

Brighid could hear Cuchulainn’s sigh and she stifled a smile.

“Well met, Gareth,” she returned the greeting.

“Wait till I tell the others! They won’t believe it. You’re even more beautiful than Curran and Nevin described.”

Gareth started to rush away, then stopped, turned back and bowed sheepishly to Brighid again. The Huntress could have sworn that the youth’s cheeks were reddened with an embarrassed blush.

“Pardon me, Huntress. I’ll go tell the others that we have a visitor. Another one!” Then he turned and, with wings spread, all but flew down the path.

“Foolish boy,” Cuchulainn muttered.

Brighid raised a brow at the warrior. “I’m even more beautiful than Curran and Nevin described?”

Cuchulainn lifted his hands in a gesture of quiet frustration. “The twins tell stories in the evenings. You are a favorite subject.”

“Me? How can that be? Curran and Nevin hardly know me.”

“Apparently they put the short time they spent at MacCallan Castle to excellent use. They listened and observed. A lot. You know how the Clan likes to talk, and the more they talk, the more deeds grow. You didn’t just track Elphame in the night through the forest to find where she had fallen—you did it all in a lashing storm, too,” he said.

“I did nothing of the sort. The storm began on our way home. And it wasn’t full dark until after we found Elphame.”

Brighid tried to sound annoyed, but she couldn’t help the smile that played at the corner of her lips.

“And then there’s the story of Fand,” Cuchulainn said, shifting in the saddle as if he was suddenly uncomfortable.