Page 69 of Celtic Love and Legends (Lords of Eire)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“S he went into the city,” Padraigan told Conor with a twinkle in her eye. “Mattock was dragging her out of the gates.”

Conor, who had just come out of the armory, had been looking for his wife when he came across Padraigan near the gatehouse. The white witch was smiling, but Conor wasn’t amused.

“Why?” he said. “She should know better than to go into town without an escort. Why didn’t you stop them?”

“Because I did not see them until it was too late,” Padraigan said. “It has only been a few minutes. They should not be difficult to find.”

Conor rolled his eyes. “What in the hell is Matt up to?” he muttered, mostly to himself. “And why take her?”

Padraigan shrugged. “Perhaps he had a certain destination in mind.”

“Like what?”

“Like the saddle he spoke of constantly at the meal last night?”

Conor shook his head when he realized what his son had done. “I’ve already seen it, and now he takes his mother to get her on his side?” he said. Then he snorted. “He is not going to let that rest, is he?”

“More than likely not.”

Conor sighed sharply. “I’ll go find them,” he said. “I’ll save Des from the begging of an eleven-year-old.”

Padraigan fought off a smile. “I suspect the fact that she does not spend much time with him might have influenced her decision to go,” she said. “Mattock does not usually spend time with his mother because he is always with you.”

Conor lifted his eyebrows. “So she went to see this saddle because she wants to spend time with him?”

“Perhaps she is simply eager to be with her son.”

Conor shrugged, but he understood what Padraigan was saying. “All right, then,” he said. “Care to go see this saddle with me?”

“I would be honored, great lord.”

“It’s just a saddle.”

“To you, perhaps, but not to your son.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I get it,” he said. “You’re on his side too.”

Padraigan merely grinned. That told Conor all he needed to know.

With a snort, he headed for the gatehouse with Padraigan following.

Auley, who had been in the armory with Conor earlier, saw them crossing the bailey and he ran to catch up with them. “Where are you going?” he asked.

Conor pointed to the gatehouse. “It seems that Mattock has abducted his mother,” he said. “I’m going out to find them.”

“Abduct her where?”

“To see a certain saddle.”

Auley understood. They’d all heard about that damnable saddle last night. Because Padraigan was going with Conor, he tagged along, and the three of them exited the gatehouse and turned in the direction of the avenue of the smithies. Auley ordered the gatehouse closed, as they’d been keeping it secure for the past couple of days, so the soldiers were watching them from the battlements above as they headed toward the town center.

Conor’s focus was up ahead, toward the avenue of the smithies, but Padraigan and Auley were walking together, slightly behind him, exchanging sweet glances. Auley was fighting off a smile, trying not to be so obvious about looking at her.

“Great lord, I forgot to tell you that the men on the battlements see ships approaching from the north,” he said. “Brone has his sights on them.”

Conor was looking at the fork in the road ahead, the one that led to different avenues of different vendors. “Ships come into the river all the time,” he said. “They do it every day.”

“But not from the north,” Auley said. “Usually, the ships come from the south or the east.”

“Why do we worry about ships from the north?”

“Because that is the way the Northmen have been known to come,” Auley said. “They have taken control of Rathin Island to the north and use it as a point to launch their raids.”

Conor looked at him then. “Do we think it’s Northmen?”

Auley shrugged. “Difficult to tell,” he said. “We’ll know when they get closer.”

“Then I need to find Des and Matt and bring them back to the safety of the castle.”

“That would be wise, great lord.”

“Should we tell the villagers and lock down the city?”

“We should know that soon, great lord. The ships are too far out to know.”

That seemed to feed some urgency in Conor. His wife and eldest son were in the city, so he wanted to get them back to the castle quickly. Even if the ships turned out to be a false alarm, he wasn’t comfortable having them out in the open like this.

He picked his pace up.

Auley and Padraigan followed at a quickened pace as well, though she was nearly skipping to keep up with the men with longer strides. They passed by the well with the women doing their wash and headed into the avenue of the smithies, though their view was blocked slightly by the branches of the big yew tree that grew at the mouth of the street. Branches hung down, and there were people in the way, but Conor walked around them, and a few of them even greeted him pleasantly. He responded in kind.

At one of the smithy stalls, men were calling to him, wanting him to see their wares. He politely begged off, assuring them that he would once he finished his business.

But then there was screaming.

Something was happening.

Startled, Conor snapped his head in the direction of the yelling, but he couldn’t see anything other than people scattering. He ran in the direction of the screams, pushing people out of his way, in time to see Mattock leaping onto the back of a man who was bent over something on the dirt. The boy was punching the man in the head, and Conor kicked into a dead run at the sight of his son doing battle with a grown man. Only when he came closer did he see that the “something” in the dirt was Destry.

And she was covered in blood.

Conor didn’t ask questions. He didn’t even hesitate. He plowed into the man from behind, also plowing into his son, and they all went down in a heap. There was a great deal of commotion and yelling going on, and through it all, Conor could hear Mattock shouting at the man he was still trying to punch.

“You killed her!” he screamed. “Uncle, you killed her! Why did you do that? Why? ”

Uncle.

Conor’s mind began to short-circuit. There was only one uncle he knew of, and that was Geric. Geric, the man who had taken his throne. Geric, the man who they had been expecting to return. No one had seen an army yet, but that didn’t mean that Geric wasn’t here. That didn’t mean he wasn’t in their midst.

Suddenly, things Padraigan had told him began filling his brain.

I know there is danger in the mist, but I cannot see it.

She had meant Geric.

It had been a warning.

Realizing whom he had in his grip, Conor roared with anguish and fury, throwing Geric into a headlock and yanking the man backward, against him. They were still rolling around in the dirt, and he saw the glint of a very nasty-looking dagger. It was covered with blood, which he assumed to be Destry’s, which made him go mad. He tightened the headlock on Geric, but his brother was panicking. He slashed at Conor’s arms with the blade before finally stabbing him in the right forearm. The shock and pain of the wound was enough to cause Conor to lose his grip, and Geric wormed out of his grasp, throwing himself away from his enraged brother.

The battle was absolute chaos.

Geric could hardly breathe because Conor’s grip had been tight. That monstrous brother of his had arms of iron. He tried to leap to his feet to get away from him but couldn’t seem to manage it.

Conor, however, was already standing, grabbing at a weapon in the nearest smithy stall. It was a dull sword, waiting to be completed, but it was enough. It was the weapon he needed. Bringing the sword to bear, Conor charged after Geric and his long, razor-sharp dagger.

“Then the last fight is to be between us, is it?” Geric said, trying to taunt him. “Do what you must, big brother. It has been a long time since we have faced off against each other, and this time, I shall emerge the victor.”

Conor got a good look at the man who had upended his entire life. The man who had changed his destiny and, with Destry down, quite possibly destroyed everything that mattered to him.

He dared to glance at Destry, who was still on the ground as Padraigan and Auley worked furiously to stop the bleeding. He didn’t know if she was dead or alive. All he could see was blood.

Looking back to his brother, all he could feel was rage.

Pure, black rage.

It was strange how a man he’d never seen was oddly familiar to him. It wasn’t so much that he actually remembered Geric, but more a feeling in his bones. Something told him that he knew this man. He knew the voice, the eyes. He knew the mind and heart.

And it was all rotten.

“You’re a pathetic bastard,” he growled. “You’re also a dead man. I hope you enjoy pain, because you’re about to experience a shitload of it.”

He didn’t give Geric a chance to respond. He was suddenly charging at him, using every bit of training he’d ever had in ancient hand-to-hand combat. As he attacked his brother with a series of heavy strikes, visions of his life began to pop into his head. As a student, learning everything he could about weapons and ancient warfare. As a graduate, following the Medieval fight clubs around Ireland and even into England, participating in the competitions and learning to use his wits as much as his strength.

He had visions of his office at Trinity College, with all of the weapons on the wall, the knowledge he could use every one of them with skill. Perhaps this was the moment he’d been waiting for, the very moment that everything in his life—his education and training—had been pointing toward.

The moment when he would decide the fate of a kingdom.

But Geric wasn’t making it easy. He wasn’t as big as Conor was, but he was fast and he was skilled. He also didn’t have wounds on his arms and blood streaming all over his body the way Conor did. The wounds weren’t particularly bad, but they were bloody. Conor didn’t care, however. He chased Geric all over the avenue of the smithies as his brother defended himself.

“You should have stayed in the nether region,” Geric said, winded because of all the fighting. “Now, I am going to do what I should have done before—I am going to kill you, you self-righteous whoreson. I hated you as a child and I hate you now. You are going to die, and Ciannachta will be mine once and for all!”

Conor wasn’t doing much damage with the dull sword. He was simply exhausting them both. He came to a halt near the smithy stall with the saddle, watching Geric bend over to catch his breath. When he did that, Conor dared to take his attention away long enough to see a magnificent sword near the anvil. The smithies had been working on it when the trouble started, and it looked as if it was nearly finished. He snapped his fingers at the petrified smithies and pointed to the sword. When they realized what he wanted, they handed it over.

It was everything Conor had hoped for. Razor-sharp and powerful, this was the sword of a king.

He got a good grip on the hilt and took off after Geric again, who was caught off guard by the charge. He tried to get away but ended up stumbling over his own feet, something Conor took advantage of—he grabbed his brother by the hair and plunged the sword straight into Geric’s belly. Geric screamed in agony as he went down, with a sword in his stomach and his furious brother right on top of him.

Conor’s face was an inch from his. “That’s for taking my kingdom, you fucking bastard,” he snarled. Then he stood up and pulled out the sword, lifting it above Geric’s head. “And this is for whatever you did to my wife. I hope you rot in hell.”

With that, he brought the sword down, decapitating his brother in the middle of the street.

As this was going on, he failed to see an old man with a shaved head and shaved eyebrows approaching him from the side. The old man tossed back the hood of his cloak, focusing on Conor as he thrust his hands forward, fingers bent like claws.

“ Fill ar ais nuair a tháinig tú, ” the old man growled. “ Dul ar ais …”

“ Cuir deireadh le do olc agus reo mar reo an sneachta ar an sliabh! ” Padraigan was on her feet, her voice raised and her hands extended to the bald man. “ Reo go dtí go nglaoidh mé ar na déithe tú a scaoileadh saor! ”

Startled, the old man turned in her direction, but his movements were laborious. He could hardly move. He lifted his hands to her and tried to say a spell that would counter whatever she had done, but he couldn’t manage it. His mouth froze, his hands froze, and he stood there like a statue in the middle of the street.

Freeze until I call upon the gods to release you!

That had been the gist of Padraigan’s spell when she saw Olc go after Conor. The last time they’d met, he had the jump on her, and she wasn’t going to let that happen again.

As Olc turned to stone, Padraigan rushed over to Conor and began to pull him away from the body of his dead brother.

“I do not know how long the spell will last,” she said, urgency in her tone for nearly the first time since Conor had known her. “You must take your beloved and go!”

“Great lord!”

Another voice filled the air as Conor stumbled over to Destry. He looked up to see Bradaigh running toward him through the dusty street.

“Great lord!” Bradaigh shouted again. “The Northmen are near our shores. We must get everyone into the city!”

Conor wasn’t surprised to hear it. The ships that had been sighted to the north were indeed Northmen. Conor had no way of knowing that it was Geric’s army, or at least Ranak’s army, now returning to Ciannachta to loot and pillage. He had no way of knowing he was about to get it from all sides. Geric’s army, as Padraigan had suggested, hadn’t come the obvious way. They had used stealth and the element of surprise. There were also two factions—one using Olc’s subversive tactics and one simply acting on its own.

Even if Conor had known any of that, it wouldn’t have mattered.

His entire life, at the moment, was in chaos.

He fell to his knees beside Destry.

“Oh… God,” he breathed, tears coming to his eyes as he looked at her. “Is she dead?”

Auley had a section of his tunic that he’d torn off pressed against Destry’s abdominal wound. “Nay, great lord,” he said, though he sounded grim. “But we must take her back to the cashel immediately. She needs a physic.”

“Nay,” Padraigan said. “She will die if we take her back to the cashel.”

Both Conor and Auley looked at her. “There is nowhere else to take her,” Conor said, his voice trembling with fear. “Where else can I—”

Padraigan cut him off. “You must take her back to the nether realm,” she said, grasping at his arm. “You must take her back to the world you have come from. They have the means to heal her. We do not. But we must leave now, because my spell will only hold Olc for so long before he breaks free. And when he breaks free, he will kill you both.”

“But—”

“If you love your wife, you will go,” Padraigan said. But she could see the utter horror and grief in Conor’s eyes, and she softened. “You loved one another so much that you found each other in the nether realm. Your story is not meant to end this way, great lord. Nor is my lady’s. This was not something I foresaw, so it is not something that is part of the fight between good and evil. You have killed Geric; now, there is no one else to challenge Ciannachta’s throne. We can fight away the Northmen, but you… you will not survive if your lady dies. I know you will not. This was not meant to happen.”

Tears spilled out of Conor’s eyes and coursed down his cheeks. “I asked you once if you could open the time portal with a spell,” he said hoarsely. “Can you do it?”

Padraigan could see how heartbroken he was. “I am Padraigan the White,” she murmured. “I am your litrithe. I have always loved you and your lady with bonds as strong as any family. Though I should like you to stay and rule Ciannachta, my desire to save your lady is stronger. Mattock will make a fine king, someday. I will see to it. But you… you have done what you came to do. You have made this a kingdom that your son can rule without threat from your brother. Can I open the door to the nether realm? I believe I can. Now it is time to face your greatest battle and save your lady’s life.”

Conor’s lower lip trembled as he closed his eyes and nodded. “Then let’s do it,” he said. “But I have one request.”

“What’s that?”

“That I remember who she is,” he said. “The last time, we forgot everything. I couldn’t stand it if she didn’t know me and I didn’t know her. Truthfully, I’d rather lose her to death than go through life not knowing her.”

Padraigan was full of sympathy. “I will do my best,” she said. “But we must leave. There is no more time.”

Conor understood. He turned to Auley, who was holding the unconscious Destry against him, and put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Take care of my sons,” he whispered tightly. “I entrust them to you and to Padraigan. Raise them to be fine, strong, and noble. I trust you to do that for me.”

Auley was deeply grieved, but he nodded. “I shall, great lord,” he said. “I shall make you proud.”

Conor was too choked up to reply. He pulled Destry to him and stood as Auley continued to put pressure on the wound. But Auley had to let go as he ran for the nearest wagon that would take them out of the village.

As Conor shifted so he could put pressure on Destry’s wound, he caught sight of Mattock a few feet away. The boy was sobbing.

“Dada, I’m sorry,” Mattock said. “I did not mean to be wicked. I’m so sorry.”

Conor smiled faintly. “You are a fine lad, strong and true,” he said. “Your mother and I must leave you, but I want you to know how much we love you. I don’t think I’ll be back, so this kingdom is yours, and I want you to be an honorable ruler. Be fair and be kind. Show compassion toward your subjects. You’ve seen how I’ve ruled over the people and what I’ve done, so use my example. And always, always treat your brothers kindly. They will need you, Matt, now more than ever. Can you do that?”

Mattock wiped his eyes furiously. “I will,” he said. “Why must you go, Dada?”

“I must go to save your mother’s life. Do you understand that?”

“Will I see you again?”

Conor shook his head, bending over to kiss the boy on the head. “I love you, lad,” he murmured. “Get back to the cashel with Bradaigh and let him command the battle.”

“Aye, Dada.”

“Learn from him. He will teach you well.”

“I will, Papa.”

“And buy that saddle when all of this is over. I give you permission.”

At that moment, Auley suddenly rushed up in a wagon he’d stolen from a merchant on the next street. The two ponies in harness were quite excited, and there was merchandise falling off the wagon bed, but no one stopped to pick it up. Time was of the essence.

Padraigan leapt into the wagon bed, extending her arms for Destry. Conor laid her carefully in Padraigan’s lap and jumped onto the wagon himself. With a yell at the ponies, Auley snapped them into a frenzy and thundered out of the avenue of the smithies, heading toward the western gate of Ciannachta, and out of the castle walls to the green, verdant countryside beyond.

After that… they were free.