Edith Pattou - Fire Arrow

"A wyll, a hideous crone, misshapen, offensive to the eye. Before I left Dungal and came to Dun Slieve, this wyll told me that a cousin with an arrow of power would destroy me one day. I disbelieved her, but when I came to your father's dun and saw the unkindled skill in you with bow and arrow, I decided it was as well to be cautious. So I made the serving woman of Dun Slieve talk in her sleep and learned of the arrow.

"I tried to take it from you once"—he laughed his rich golden laugh—"but you had it not. Not yet."

And Brie remembered. One rain-soaked night in late spring, she was in her room at Dun Slieve, woken suddenly from sleep with a horrible pain and fear. Her breath had stopped, and a yellow bird was plunging down at her. Balor's tunic. Even then the goldenhawk had been his emblem. So evil, terrifying had it been that she had hidden the memory until it began to come on its own, unbidden, on a rainy night in Cuillean's dun. Or perhaps Balor himself had hidden the memory from her. "'Cross my heart and then to die/Stick an arrow in my eye.'"

"I almost disposed of you then, and, of course, I should have. But there was an interruption and I did not wish to be discovered, not until I found the arrow." Masha had opened the door, worrying about rain leaking from the ceiling. "It was a mistake, for as it turned out, the arrow concealed itself from me well. It did so again, did it not, in the bell tower?"

Brie nodded, as if in a trance.

"I could have done much with that arrow," Balor said, regret mingling with his rage. She could hear him take several strides away. He must have been looking up at the ruins of Sedd Wydyr, for he said, "That was to be our fortress, you know: rulers of a golden kingdom, Balor and consort." The rage broke over his words like a cresting wave, but his voice did not waver.

"'Cross my heart and then to die...' " The words echoed in Brie's ears, and she saw the plummeting goldenhawk, suffocating, hurting her.

The strip of cloth Collun had used to bind her burnt hand had come loose again and, unthinking, Brie began unwinding it, her blind eyes fixed on the place where Balor's voice had been. She stood sightless before this sorcerer and his staggering rage, with nothing to protect herself. Her pockets were empty, except for the moon shell Sago had given her.

Why does he not move? Brie wondered.

"And now..." Balor's voice was suddenly impatient. The rage could be contained no more.

"What of Bricriu?" The words tumbled out in a feeble effort to distract.

"Bricriu? I saw him scuttling off toward the mountains, toward Medb. The last time he came groveling at Rathcroghan she broke him. I do not care much for his chances with her now." Brie could hear the shrug of indifference in his voice.

Unlike yourself, Brie thought, for she knew, as he knew, he would have little trouble finding favor in Medb's eyes again, with his golden vanity and his seductive power. She slipped her fingers into the pocket that held the moon shell and pulled it out slowly, almost unmindfully. She heard an odd clanking sound, as though Balor were taking off some part of his golden armor.

"Will not Bricriu tell Medb you intended to betray her?" Brie wondered if Balor still had his eye-patch off.

"Who do you think Queen Medb will believe?" he replied contemptuously.

You, thought Brie.

"Now..." He moved toward her.

Brie quickly slid the moon shell into the piece of cloth from her hand and, abruptly lifting it above her head as she would a slingshot, she snapped the shell toward where she guessed Balor's head to be.

He screamed: a high-pitched foul noise infused with outrage and disbelief; a rending, piercing scream. And then something heavy knocked against her. She lost her footing and fell to the stones.

Something was lying across Brie's legs. She reached a tentative hand out and found a face, Balor's face. There was a sticky wetness on his cheek and her hand recoiled, but not before feeling the moon shell, which was lodged in his right eye, the white eye.

Quickly, fighting down a violent hysteria, she pulled her legs free of Balor's lifeless body. Half fainting, she tried to crawl away, but her burnt hand stung fiercely and would not bear her weight. She tried crawling on her elbows, but lost all sense of direction. She did not even know she was heading toward the sea until a large wave came up and slammed into her face. Coughing, she started crawling backward, but her arm brushed against something. She reached for it. It was an arrow.

The fire arrow.

She knew what it was from the shape of the arrowhead and the placement of the damp fietching feathers, but there was no humming in her fingers when she held it. Its draoicht was gone.

She knew that she should feel something, that in another lifetime she would have grieved, but her body was too battered, her senses too numb. She just stuck the arrow into the back of her belt and kept crawling.

"Fara," she whispered, but there came no response, just the sound of the waves and the occasional whooshing of moths.

Brie blindly crawled back and forth over the beach until finally she touched a heap of damp fur and moths flew up in her face in a great rush.

"Fara," she whispered, feeling for a heartbeat. The faol was alive, but unconscious. Brie lay next to her, stroking the fur along her back until she, too, lost consciousness.

***

Above, the summer sun shimmered and before her spread a dappled rainbow of brilliant colors. Collun stood beside her, proud, his hand resting lightly on her arm. "See the dahlias," he said, pointing. "Like gold. "

" I've never seen larkspur that tall," Brie said in wonder.

" Come see the cosmos, and the harebell... "

Brie followed Collun through the magnificent garden, the colors and the sun blinding her. "Wait for me," she called after him. He was too far ahead; she lost sight of him in the riot of greens and reds and yellows and blues. "Collun!" she cried.

***

Then Brie woke. She was lying across Ciaran's back, moving through the forest. But she still could not see.

"Ciaran? Where is Fara?"

Beside us, came the Ellyl horse's voice, inside Brie's head. Her leg is broken, but she came and found me. Brought me to you.

"How...?"

She dragged you onto my back by the collar. Ciaran gave a brief whinny-laugh.

"I can't see, Ciaran."

I know.

There was silence for several minutes, then, Brie.

"Yes?"

Collun is awake.

Brie's heart contracted. "Is he...?"

He is as he was.

A great exhausted happiness filled Brie, and her sightless eyes pricked with tears of joy.

TWENTY-THREE

Leave-taking

The company finally departed the north of Dungal a week later. At their camping place by the forest, they left behind several fresh burial mounds topped with memory stones for those whose battle wounds had finally overtaken them. There was a sense of loss among those who departed, but the enemy had been destroyed and they were returning home.

Collun was still weak but able to ride on his own. Hanna's wound was healing nicely, and Monodnock rode right up at the front of the company telling anyone who would listen of his brilliance in the final battle, as if he himself had woven and wielded the magic fishing net.

Brie wore bandages over her eyes, to give them a chance to rest and heal. But when she lifted the bandages and looked toward the sun, the blackness was not quite so black. Both Hanna and Aelwyn had said that, with time, her eyesight would return to normal.

Before departing their campsite, Brie had insisted on returning to the beach to give a proper burial to Balor. A handful of companions, including Hanna, Collun, and Silien, accompanied Brie, and despite what she had told them of the size of the morg fleet, they were stunned by the enormous amount of debris that had been washed up on the white stones. Brie listened silently as Collun described the grisly scene to her.