Anne Kelleher - Silver's Bane

Nessa closed her eyes as she remembered riding through the forest of the OtherWorld, sharing Artimour’s saddle. She remembered the pungent resin rising from the dark green pines, the slow flutter of gold leaves, the feeling of his velvety hose against the backs of her legs as they dangled awkwardly off the horse, the solidity of his chest against her back, the smooth satiny feeling of the saddle between her thighs. A part of her understood that Molly had imparted knowledge of much importance—that had something to do with why the wicce-women were said to be had for a silver coin and what they did to make the fields fertile and the corn grow—but all that really seemed to matter right now was that she somehow make peace with Artimour.

“Granny Molly? Nessa?” Uwen’s voice sounded so different, that for a moment, Nessa wasn’t sure who stood starkly silhouetted at the threshold. It was Uwen’s familiar bony form, but it was hardly Uwen’s voice, for it fell hollow and flat, totally devoid of his usual light, teasing lilt. “There may be a change in plans. A band of Cecily’s clansmen from Mochmorna came in just now. They took refuge last night in an abandoned dovecote somewhere in the hills. But they’d a druid with them who’d an idea of what to do and he summoned up the dead. Seems Donnor’s ghost was seen among them.”

The Duke of Gar was dead, the castle was in shambles, and Cecily, his widow, did not feel at all the way she imagined a widow was supposed to feel. If Donnor was dead, it was his own fault. She’d tried to warn him not to trust Cadwyr, his nephew and his heir, begged him to wait until at least half his Company could be assembled. But no, he insisted on riding out on some trumped-up excuse a blind mule could see through. She had thought, at first, that only she and Kian had seen Donnor’s gray ghost as it picked its way across the carcass-littered field, fading into the blessed Samhain dawn. But everyone on the walls had seen it, and rumor ran rampant as a ram in rut through every level of the castle, leaving even the most hardened of the warriors looking stricken as an orphaned lamb.

Now she picked her way across what yesterday had been the outermost ward, flanked on one side by Kestrel, the ArchDruid of Gar, and at least six of his highest-ranking fellows, and on the other by Mag, the chief still-wife, and as many wicce-women as could be coaxed away from the nursing and the grieving. They would never survive another night if the goblins came back. But if there was a way to prevent them, both druids and corn grannies were conspicuously silent. Her thoughts chased each other like a dog its tail.

A silence as leaden as the lowering sky hung heavy over all, deadening the slap of her boots, muffling the sobs of those few strong-stomached souls who came forward to press a kiss on her hand as they searched amidst the rubble for possessions abandoned and befouled. On the walls, the engineers and stonemasons directed teams in the critical repairs of the curtain wall. On command, the men bent and with a mighty heave, lifted the great stone block on a huge wooden lever as another team swung it into position. The dull thud of stone, punctuated by the creak of timber and the shouted directions of the men echoed flatly across the yard, as if the sounds were swallowed by the huge holes the goblins had torn in the walls, soaked up by the deep gashes of bloodied earth. She pressed the linen square soaked in peppermint oil more tightly to her nostrils and swallowed hard as she realized she had nearly stepped on a foot. “Be careful.”

She held out an arm to prevent anyone else from stepping on the remains, and signaled to a team of stable hands who, with linen kerchiefs wrapped across the lower half of their faces, armed with a shovel, a pick and a wheelbarrow, gathered up remains as carefully as they could.

Smoke from the midden-fires stung her eyes, and on the high tor behind the castle, a slow procession wound up the steps carved into the hill, carrying the bodies to the funeral pyre the druids of lower degree were building. Swarming on the standing stones, others set up the iron frames to hold the plates of glass that, when properly positioned, would focus the rays of the setting sun so as to bring about the spontaneous combustion of the bodies. At least, it was supposed to bring about the spontaneous combustion of the bodies. Kestrel and the other druids had emerged from their hiding place in the wine cellars and announced that all who’d died on Samhain would be given nothing less than a full druid funeral. As if that would bring the dead back. As if that would protect the living when the goblins returned.

A couple of the corn grannies paused and spat thick greenish wads of cud-wort on the ground, aiming expertly between two stones. Cecily hoped her lip hadn’t curled automatically. Cud-wort was considered a low habit, but many of the corn grannies were addicted to it. It was said to give one clearer dreams.

She looked around the ruined ward. All her dreams were nightmares. Now they stood vulnerable, not just to goblins, but to Cadwyr. Cadwyr, who’d murdered Donnor. Cadwyr, who was in league with the sidhe. Before Samhain, she and Kian had told Kestrel their suspicions, but the druid had listened skeptically, clearly unconvinced that either goblins or sidhe existed, except in the mind of a moon-mazed girl. She hoped that last night had made believers of everyone.

But she was even more afraid of Cadwyr, if that were possible, than the goblins, for Cadwyr had made it clear before he left with Donnor that he considered Cecily part of Donnor’s bequest. And for all she knew, she thought with weary realization, maybe she had been. Maybe that’s how Donnor had rationalized taking her for himself, if he had in fact done as Cadwyr charged, and offered himself to her parents rather than Cadwyr as a suitor for her hand. Maybe he considered her as much a part of the holdings of Gar as Cadwyr did. What would they all say if they knew she was too angry at Donnor to care that he was dead?

She caught sight of Kian, Donnor’s First Knight, working with the other men on the walls, stripped down to his shirt despite the cold wind. The strip of linen bound around his face could not disguise his flaxen braids, nor the familiar lines of his body beneath the sweaty, dirty clothes. As she watched, Kian squatted down and gripped one end of the long wooden pole, and, at a signal, pressed down on it with all his weight. His arms and back bulged with the knotted cords of his muscles. At the other end of the lever, a team grabbed the ropes around the block and wrestled it into place. Kian set the lever down, stripped his mask off and used it to mop his face. As exhausted and as frightened as she was, her own body stirred in response.

For Kian was the man she loved. She loved his strength, she loved his smile, she loved the way the other knights loved him. He had the gift of making people like him, for he led with smiles and faultless courtesy. Donnor had loved him, too, until last Beltane, when the goddess had led her to choose Kian to take her to his Beltane bower. From that day, Donnor had been deaf to all but the angry mutterings of his thwarted heart. But Donnor was dead.

“We’ll measure the angles from the top of the tor itself—take them at sunset and dawn, as well,” Kestrel was saying. The ornately embroidered lining of his wide sleeve flashed a startling green against the outer white as he pointed first at the sun, then at the tor, the vivid color at stark odds to the stained gray drab and homespun everyone else, even Cecily, wore.

“We’ll need measurements from the towers, too, won’t we?” put in another.

“But what about the goblins?” Cecily asked. All the druids wanted to talk about were the funeral plans, which would have been understandable, even expected, perhaps, under any other sort of circumstances. “Can any of you tell me if they’ll come back tonight? Or if there’s a way to stop them? If the dead will rise and fight?”