Time Raiders: The Avenger

Carswell handed over a cuff bracelet of beaten gold embedded with a quartz crystal, which Alex slide onto her right wrist. “My get-out-of-jail-free card,” she said.

“Don’t lose it,” General Aston called as she took her seat behind a computer monitor near the glass booth that stood in the middle of the lab. “The Emergency Signal Cuff is the only way we can get you out of there if you’re really in trouble.”

Really in trouble? Alex mused silently. Does she mean versus the unreal trouble I’ll be in the instant I step into the past?

“Don’t forget that we can correct historical events you accidently impact, but you have to activate the ESC before you’re mortally wounded. You aren’t a part of history, so you can actually be killed,” said General Ashton.

“That is impossible for me to forget,” Alex muttered wryly.

“Ready, Blonwen?” Carswell asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” she said.

“All right. Here’s Thumper.” Carswell pulled the rabbit out of the carrier and handed it to her.

“Thumper?”

The professor smiled. “Bambi was a favorite of mine.”

Too nervous to smile back, Alex concentrated on not holding the rabbit too tightly.

As the professor put on the crown-shaped headpiece that would allow her to harness sine waves and send Alex back in time, she whispered, “Your druid will be there for you. I know he will. Allow yourself to find him.”

Her mouth had dried to a desert, so all Alex could do was nod in response.

Much too soon Professor Carswell was seated comfortably in the plush recliner directly in front of the curved, glass-walled booth Alex had secretly christened the Glass Coffin. Alex stood inside the booth, holding the rabbit and trying to keep her breathing even. She was marveling at how utterly relaxed the professor looked, when the small hairs on her forearms began to tingle and then lift. She’d just tightened her grip on the rabbit when the pain hit. A terrible agony sizzled through her body. Waves of power made the air around her ripple as if she were in a whirlwind. Don’t fight this! Alex reminded herself. It’s like a wave you’re supposed to ride. But she had never done any surfing. She tried to concentrate on the professor—to focus on the fact that the woman looked calm. Everything must be fine. Carswell knew what she was doing. Everything was going to be okay.

A cloud of light built around Alex, and as she closed her eyes against the incredible brightness and clutched the rabbit to her, she began to feel weightless. She was telling herself not to think about the fact that that lightness meant her molecules were beginning to temporarily disconnect from each other when she felt as if she was being sucked up into the ceiling. As everything went black, Thumper’s panicked scream joined her own.

The vertigo was worse than Alex had thought it would be, and she stayed on her knees, bent over and trembling while she sucked in air. Just as Carswell had said, she was wearing a cloak, though how the professor managed to twine sine waves to create clothing was as mind-boggling as time travel itself. Alex still had the rabbit in her arms, and it was definitely alive, because she could feel it shaking.

Then the voices penetrated through the ringing in her ears.

“What is it?”

“A vision!”

“Aye! An apparition!”

“Is she a spirit?”

“Protect Boudica! Shield the queen from the apparition!”

Then a woman’s voice lifted above the others. It was filled with confidence and command. “Rise and explain who you are, be you spirit or flesh.”

Alex drew a deep breath and prayed silently to whatever god or goddess existed in this time that she could stay on her feet and make her voice work.

She stood up slowly, giving herself a chance to adapt to the dizziness, and kept her arms wrapped around the rabbit, hidden within her cloak. Alex didn’t open her eyes until she was fairly sure she wasn’t going to fall over.

The first thing she saw was a woman who blazed with power. Boudica—it had to be the queen—stood not twenty feet in front of her. She had more thick red hair than Alex had ever seen on anyone. Her clothes were of supple leather, intricately embroidered with brightly colored thread in complex knots and designs. They wrapped snuggly around her tall, athletic body. The tunic left most of her thighs bare. Flat-heeled leather boots that came to her knees were trimmed in fox fur, as was the cloak she was wearing. She had jeweled bracelets on her wrists and biceps, and around her neck was a thick ring of twisted gold that had stones inlayed on both ends. The words Torque—ancient symbol of royalty, whispered through Alex’s mind.

Yes! This had to be the queen. Alex lifted her chin and met the woman’s cold green eyes.

“Queen Boudica, I am Blonwen, priestess of Andraste. The goddess has sent me here, saving me from the carnage at Mona, so that I might show you her favor.” Alex had to pause as the people surrounding them broke into excited shouts.

Boudica raised one hand and easily silenced everyone.

“This is, indeed, a sign from Andraste, as I just evoked the blessing of the goddess on the battle to come.”

“I bring news for that battle,” Alex said quickly, picking up the thread of the lines she’d memorized back in the lab. “Andraste would have you follow the path she leads, and she has sent her sacred hare to show you the way!” With a flourish that would have made Professor Carswell proud, Alex threw back her cloak, exposing the white rabbit. The people gasped and Alex tossed the bunny to her feet, then held her breath. But as usual, Carswell was spot on. The rabbit leaped forward and ran straight for Boudica. The queen didn’t move, but her eyes widened as the hare raced for her. Then, at the last moment, it dodged to the right, coming so close to the queen that it brushed the folds of her cloak, before it darted off into the darkening forest behind them.

No one made a sound for a moment, and then Boudica’s face broke into a fierce grin. “The hare makes for Londinium, and so shall we!” She raised her fist in the air as the people shouted in joyful agreement.

Alex was almost positive she was going to be sick.

“Sit, Priestess! You look barely able to stay on your feet.” Boudica strode to Alex and put a firm hand under her elbow. “Aedan! Why do you stand and stare like a waterless carp? Aid me with Andraste’s servant.”

A man who looked as if he could scare croup out of babies just by glancing at them hurried over. He practically lifted Alex off her feet in his haste to get her to an odd looking chair set to the right of an intricately carved piece that was obviously a throne.

“Bring the priestess food and mead!” Boudica barked, and other men scrambled to do her bidding.

Soon a bronze goblet was handed to Alex. Gratefully, she sipped it and then, delighted with the sweet strong taste of mead, gulped thirstily. The cup was quickly refilled and a bronze platter of hot meat and hunks of bread put in front of her, and Alex, feeling as if she hadn’t eaten in days, went to work shoving food into her mouth.

Even though she had just materialized from thin air, had let loose a sacred rabbit and was now seated to the right of the queen, talk went on around her without anyone quizzing her about where, when, how or why. So as she ate, Alex surreptitiously studied the ancient Celts.

The professor had told her they were a tall people, but her flat textbook description didn’t begin to do them justice. They were savagely beautiful. Tall, yes, but also sleek and athletic. The women were bold looking, with thick ropes of braided hair in all the shades from the blondest of blond to Boudica’s striking fire red. The men were muscular giants, dangerous and sharp-eyed. Everyone wore brightly colored clothing—tunics, trousers and cloaks. Many items were as intricately embroidered as Boudica’s leathers.

At the sight of a man whose face was decorated with the sapphire woad design, Alex felt a snap of recognition, and her heart thudded almost painfully in her chest. But the design wasn’t of graceful S swirls. Instead it was in the shape of a dragon, the tattooed tail wrapping the warrior’s neck. But even though it wasn’t the image from her dreams, Alex’s appetite was gone.

“Better now?” Boudica asked, leaning toward her so that the two of them could speak intimately, while the men and women around them talked and threw curious glances their way.

“Yes, thank you,” Alex said.

Boudica glanced at the half-eaten food on the platter Alex had set aside. “So, you are not a spirit, for though they can take human form and appear corporeal, they can not take in nourishment from this world.”

“I promise you I’m not a spirit.”

“But you are magical, and you must be greatly beloved of Andraste. It was a most unusual and magical thing, that the goddess made you appear to me this night. I will dedicate to Andraste the first blood my sword drinks from the liver of my first kill in the battle to come.”

Not sure what to say, Alex nodded, hoping she looked pleased at the gruesome picture the queen painted.

“Word came to us that the Roman governor Suetonius slaughtered those of the sacred Isle of Mona.”

Alex tried to look as confident as possible as she said, “Suetonius did lead the killing on Mona. I was lucky that the goddess saved me.”

Boudica had been studying her carefully. Finally she said, “I knew the goddess would not allow this desecration to go unpunished. Andraste saving you and bringing you to me shows me I have been following the right path all along.”

As the queen spoke her gaze traveled beyond Alex to a place close to the fire where two young girls sat on thick pallets of furs. Both were beautiful, and Alex noticed one of them had hair the exact shade of Boudica’s. The youngest of the two was maybe eleven or twelve. She stared into the campfire, leaving food untouched on the platter in front of her. The older girl, as if sensing Boudica’s gaze, turned her head slowly and looked at the queen. Alex was struck by the dark circles under her eyes, and her haunted expression.