Edith Pattou: Fire Arrow

Brie wanted to say no, but it seemed cowardly. Besides, it was all foolishness anyway. She nodded.

"I saw a brave man hewed down in a forest while a girl"—the wyll looked at Brie—"watched."

She could have learned that from the soldiers, Brie thought.

Aelwyn continued. "There were many, but two struck the most, the deepest. A man with broad pale arms holding a black spear, and another, tall with eyes like saffron, part morg. And last, one who led them, with a dark covering over one eye. Evil." The wyll shivered slightly. She stopped speaking.

Brie drew a deep breath. She had told no one what the killers looked like except Collun, and she knew he would never speak of it. "That was in the past," she said, her voice high and stretched thin. "What of the future?"

The wyll's amber eyes widened. "That which you seek lies in Dungal," she said.

Brie's pulse quickened, and the invisible cold hand at the back of her neck tightened its grip. "My father's murderers?" she asked, locking eyes with Aelwyn.

"If that is what you seek."

The wyll adjusted the torque on her arm. "It has been long since a seeing took such hold of me. Do you yourself have draoicht?" Aelwyn asked, curious.

"You mean magic?" Brie gave a short laugh. "Of course not."

Collun spoke up, his hand on his trine. "I carry a stone...?"

Aelwyn shook her head briskly, uninterested in the cailceadon. "No, it is from her." She turned back to Brie. "What is your name?"

"Breo-Saight. Or Brie."

"'Fire arrow...,"' the wyll said thoughtfully. "Listen, there is more." She drew Brie closer and spoke softly into her ear. "Shifting water and earth. Sacred standing stones covered with seabirds. A crippled man. And a man of power. Treachery. I saw hatred, the lust to kill. I saw death." Her breath tickled Brie's ear. "And ... an arrowhead pointed at your own heart."

Abruptly she resumed her normal voice. "There. That is all." She reached up and smoothed a coppery braid. "Now, does someone have a bauble for Aelwyn?" she asked, flashing a catlike smile.

Brie was too dazed to respond. Kled nudged Collun, who had been watching Brie with a worried frown.

Aelwyn crossed to Collun and said in a teasing voice, "Didn't you say something about a stone?"

"Uh, no ... I mean..." He stumbled over his words, reluctantly tearing his gaze from Brie. "That stone is, uh, too precious..." He trailed off.

"Not the cailceadon," laughed the wyll. "I have no interest in so potent a stone. I mean the one in your other pocket."

Puzzled, Collun felt in his pocket and drew out a chunk of rock he had found while plowing several days ago. It had several large saphir gems embedded in it, and he had thought to dig them out and make a bracelet or hair clasp for Brie.

Kled gave him another nudge, and Collun offered the rock to Aelwyn.

She took the chunk of rock with a look of pleasure, holding it up to the light coming through the dairy door.

Brie had been sitting very still, unaware of the conversation around her. Abruptly she rose, a flash of blue from a saphir banding her cheek as she began to move across the barn.

"Will you go to Dungal?" Aelwyn called after Brie.

Brie paused. "Perhaps," she said, heir voice sounding muffled.

Startled, Collun gave Brie a sharp look.

"Be warned, Breo-Saight," said Aelwyn, rummaging in her colorful layers of clothing for a soft leather pouch. As she slid the rock into the pouch she continued, "Once you go to Dungal, it is not easy to leave."

"You left."

"Because I like pretty, shiny things, and your people will pay well for the skills I have. But the hiraeth, the heartsickness from being away, it is with me all the time, like a knife in the heart. Farewell, Breo-Saight."

"Farewell, Aelwyn," Brie said, and left the barn.

There was a roaring in her ears and her breath came short as she moved away from the barn. Her father's killers. In Dungal. She would have her revenge.

TWO

Dun Slieve

In the room next to Collun's, Brie was stowing her things, in her pack.

Collun entered. She glanced at him, then back at her pack. She did not want a quarrel but could read the mood in his eyes.

"What are you doing, Brie?"

"I am resuming my quest." She spoke tonelessly.

"Because of the words of a wandering fortune-teller with a weakness for shiny things?" His face held disbelief, as well as anger.

"As I recall, you were more than ready to believe in the wyll."

Collun's eyes flamed. "Even if she spoke truly, I cannot believe your blood lust so strong that you do not see the folly of such a quest."

Brie felt her own temper flare up. "I made a vow over my father's body. It is no folly to act with honor."

"It is no honor to seek death over life."

"I seek revenge, not death."

"And how will your revenge "—he said the word as if it were a foul thing—"profit you or your father?"

"Leave me," Brie said, her voice becoming quiet. "Before we say words we wish we had not."

Collun looked away, silent. When he spoke again, there was a stillness about him. He took a step closer, his eyes kindling as if from an overfull heart. "At least wait. Stay here at Cuillean's dun a few days more. Brie, I fear..."

Brie felt a rising panic. She could not hear what Collun was about to say. It frightened her. She closed her pack with a snap of the leather thong. "No."

"But..."

"I am not like you." She looked him full in the face. "I do not fear to act."

Collun whitened, at the words, his expression hurt, but then his jaw hardened and the brightness in his eyes went cold.

There was a long silence. Then Collun spoke. "You have made your choice. I will not journey with you, since it is clear you do not seek the companionship of a coward."

"Collun, I—"

He interrupted, giving her an odd cold salute, his face still transfigured with anger. "May you find what you seek, Brie."

And he was gone.

Brie was in the stable with Ciaran when Kled appeared. He carried something in his hands. "Collun asked that I bring you this," Kled said, holding something out.

Brie took it. It was the wizard Crann's map. Brie caught her breath. The map was one of Collun's most treasured possessions.

"I can't accept this," she said.

"He said that I mustn't bring it back." Kled's eyes were alight with curiosity.

Reluctantly Brie stowed the map in her quiver.

"Please thank him."

"I will. Do you journey forth for vengeance?"

"Yes," she said dully, thinking of the cost. "Kled, watch over Collun."

The young man nodded. "And good luck to you on your quest, Brie."

***

On the evening of the first day of Brie's journey, she spotted a rider heading toward her. As he drew closer, Brie recognized his saddlebags as those of a messenger.

He was a thin young man with a thatch of shiny sienna hair and, like most of the travelers Brie had come upon, he couldn't help gaping at the Ellyl horse. Reluctantly tearing his gaze away from Ciaran, he asked Brie if he was headed in the right direction for Cuillean's dun.

"Yes. I've just come from there. Who do you seek?"

The young man drew a parchment from his saddlebag. "Let's see ... Someone by the name of Breigit."

Brie was about to say she knew no one of that name when she stopped, startled. Breigit was her own childhood name.

"I am Breigit," she said.

***

The letter was from Brie's uncle at Dun Slieve. Masha, the serving woman who had helped run Brie's father's dun for him and was the nearest thing to a mother Brie had, was dying. Her uncle requested that Brie come at once. Masha was asking for her.

Masha. Brie realized with a pang of guilt that it had been some time since she had thought of the silent, gaunt woman. Masha had been wet nurse to Brie after Aideen, Brie's mother, died in childbirth. Masha had been with child at the same time as Aideen, but the serving woman's baby had been stillborn. Masha had been doubly laden with grief when, shortly after, her husband died in a hunting accident. As Brie was motherless and Masha childless, they were paired. When she recovered from childbirth, Masha put on her black clothes and became silent, though she watched over Brie diligently. The girl knew Masha was always there, solid and silent as a stone, but hard, too, with little in her of affection or laughter.