Burning Bright (Ivy Granger) (25 page)

J
udging by the
eldritch glow coming from the burial mound in the clearing ahead of us, we’d
come to the right place.  The silver tree heavily laden with magic apples might
also have been a hint.

“So what’s the plan?” Torn asked.

“We walk up there and pick an apple,” I said.

“Not much of a plan,” he said.

I shrugged.  It’s hard to plan when you have no idea what
the universe is going to throw at you, but going by my track record it was
probably going to be something nasty.

“I will scout ahead,” Ceff said.  “If we use every caution,
then we may be able to climb the hill unnoticed.”

I doubted his assessment, but I kept my pessimism to myself.

“We’re just going to sneak up there and steal the apple?”
Torn asked.

“That’s the idea,” I said.

“Well that sounds bloody boring,” he muttered.

I snorted.  I’d be more than happy if this was boring.

“Sorry it’s not to your liking, Torn,” I said.  “If it’s any
consolation, there’s always a plan B.”

“And what’s that?” he asked.

“Stab first, ask questions later,” I said.

“I like that plan,” he said, lips lifting in a grin.

I snorted and tiptoed forward to follow Ceff, but my good
humor didn’t last more than a step into the clearing.  It should have been a
relief to leave the wall of thorns behind.  After we’d passed spider fae
territory, the brambles had towered more than ten feet above our heads and the
individual vines had become more aggressive.  But as much as I was happy to
leave the narrow tunnel of encroaching, carnivorous plants, I wasn’t thrilled
at climbing the path to Ailinn’s grave.

A chill ran icy fingers up and down my spine.

“Well that looks inviting,” I muttered.

Ravens circled the mound while one industrious bird pecked
at a bloated body that hung from the tree.  Its attempts to pluck an eyeball
from one corpse shook the tree hard enough that a second corpse fell to the
ground with a meaty thud.  The other birds descended with raucous cries and
tore the body apart.  They swallowed strips of flesh and tossed the bones to
roll down the hill—to join the mass open grave of hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of bodies.

 “Not very homey, is it princess?” Torn asked, nudging a
ribcage with the toe of his boot.

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head.

I strode forward and cringed as bones crunched like
cockroaches beneath my feet.  But I kept walking, a throwing knife in each hand. 
Ceff was scouting just ahead, using his trident to check the footing before
stepping gingerly through the maze of bones.  I didn’t know how he could
stomach walking through this boneyard with bare feet.  It was bad enough
stepping on the dead while wearing thick soled boots.

I bit my lip and skirted around a skull the size of a
boulder, not willing to climb over it like Ceff had done.  I didn’t want to
touch anything in this place.  I had a nagging suspicion that all of those who
died here had experienced a horrible death and that was something I didn’t need
to share—not if I was going to make it out of here with my sanity intact.

I was so focused on dodging the skull that I didn’t even see
the femur underfoot.  In fact, it was as if the ground shook with a mini quake
that threw me momentarily off balance.  I hooked the femur with the toe of my
boot and tripped.  Heart racing, I threw out my hands hoping to brace my fall,
but I couldn’t release the death grip I had on my knives.  I was headed face
first into the pile of nightmare infused bones…

“Whoa there, princess,” Torn said.  He grabbed the back of
my jacket, holding me at an angle, mere inches from the ground.  “I know you’re
tired, but it’s not naptime yet.  Not unless you want to end up like those
guys.”

Yeah, right, like I was just going to lie down and curl up
with a bunch of skeletons.  I scowled and got my feet under me, careful to
touch as little as possible.

“Don’t worry, Torn,” I deadpanned.  “I never lie down on the
job.”

I forced my fingers to release their death grip on my
knives, slid them back into their sheaths, brushed off my pants, and took a
shaky breath.

“Good,” he said with a smirk on his face.  The ground heaved
again, not my imagination this time, and I spun to see what Torn was pointing
at over my shoulder.  “Because things finally just got interesting.”

“W
hat the hell
are those things?” I asked, palming my knives.

It had been foolish to put my weapons away, even if it had
only been for a measly ten seconds.  In my life, that’s all the time it took
for Fate to dump me in a handbasket and send me on a one way trip to somewhere
fiery.

“Duergar!” Ceff yelled.

“Duergar?” I asked.

“Malicious, bloodthirsty goblins, princess,” Torn said.  His
slit pupil cat’s eyes flashed and his fingers extended into long, deadly
looking claws.  He licked his lips and grinned.  “Like I said, things just got
interesting.”

Great, evil goblins, just what I needed.  Three of the grey
skinned creatures crawled up out of the ground, coming from tunnels that
emitted a faint, green glow.  The tunnel entrances were cleverly camouflaged,
hidden beneath piles of skeletal remains.  But now that I knew they existed, I
knew what to look for.  I had no idea how many duergar lived in the warrens
below—the barrow was large enough to house plenty of the nasty goblins—but I
figured we’d better watch our backs.

“Uh, plan B?” I asked.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Torn said.

Ceff sidled to the right, trying to flank the duergar.  He
held his trident out in front of his body and he moved with liquid grace. 
Torn, claws extended and arms hanging loosely at his sides, padded to my left. 
With a blood curdling war cry, the duergar sprinted toward us, weapons held
aloft.

I focused on the largest goblin, a grotesque creature with a
protruding lower jaw and pustule covered lips, holding a spiked club caked with
blood and gore.  I breathed in and on the exhale tossed one of my throwing
knives to spin end over end and sink deeply into his chest.  He paused, looking
down at his chest, giving Ceff the opportunity to skewer him in the back with
his trident.

The duargar to my left howled as Torn raked his claws down
the goblin’s face with one hand.  The
cat sidhe
plunged his second hand
into the goblin’s belly, disemboweling him in one stroke.  My stomach twisted
as ropey, pink intestines spilled to the ground, but I didn’t have time to
puke.

I hadn’t forgotten about the smaller goblin, but he still
managed to sneak up on me.  He was damned fast.  He grinned, close enough now
to count his needle-like teeth.  I tossed my second throwing knife, but it
glanced off his shoulder armor without even slowing him down.

Heart racing, I grabbed a dagger from my boot and stood my
ground.  Running wouldn’t do me any good, not with the tangle of bones
underfoot.  Beady, red eyes raced toward me and I shifted my weight onto the
balls of my feet.  The goblin lunged, sword nearly taking off my head, but I
spun left and drove the iron and silver dagger into his hip.

The goblin shrieked and came at me again.  Sweat dripped
into my eyes, blurring my vision and I pulled my backup dagger from its spine
sheath.  I nearly fell when the hilt caught on the tattered collar of my
jacket—damn Fragarach to hell—but I managed to keep my feet under me and the
weapon in hand.

If Jenna had taught me one thing it was never drop your
weapon.  The Hunter was a damned good teacher.  But I couldn’t keep this up,
not for long.  I was already too fatigued and I was running out of weapons.  I
raised my dagger to block the goblin’s falling sword—and hit the ground hard.

The wind knocked out of me, I blinked trying to make sense
of my new vantage point.  I looked up into Ceff’s blood spattered face.

“Wha, what happened?” I asked, gasping for breath.

“Thought you could use a hand, princess,” Torn said,
grinning over Ceff’s shoulder.

I could barely hear him over the beating of my heart and the
constant squawking of the nearby ravens.  Throughout the entire fight the birds
never stopped their squabbling over carrion.  Who knows, maybe they were
cheering us on, waiting to eat whoever lost the fight.

“I was doing alright on my own,” I said.

“Yeah, well, thanks for keeping this one busy,” he said.

He held up a gore covered head.  I shivered recognizing the
red, beady eyes and needle sharp teeth of my attacker.  I may not like to admit
it, but that had been close.  Too close.

Ceff stood and pulled me up with him, looking me over from
head to toe.  I couldn’t help but do the same.  His bare chest was splattered
with blood, but it didn’t look like any of it was his.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yes, though you nearly gave me a heart attack,” he said. 
“I did not think that I would reach you in time.”

“I never doubted you for a second,” I whispered in his ear.

He smiled and my stomach tightened, warmth spreading through
my body.  I shook my head and smiled back.  Ceff was dead sexy, even covered in
gore.

“Come on, let’s blow this popsicle stand,” I said, voice
ringing loudly in the silence.

Panic spun up through me as the realization hit—the ravens
had gone silent as the grave. I tilted my head up to see a woman beckoning to
us from the top of the burial mound.  This was it, the end of the line.  I just
hoped Ailinn would be more hospitable than the duergar.  Ceff raised an eyebrow
and I nodded.

I kept my eyes on the woman, Ailinn I presumed, retrieved my
weapons, and hurried up the hill.  With Torn at my back I strode forward,
following Ceff up the gore strewn path.  I swayed on my feet, but I kept
putting one foot in front of the other until we stood beneath the silver apple
tree.

The ravens watched from where they’d perched on the hanging
bodies and skeletal, silver tree branches and I stifled a shiver.

“The king and the would-be queen,” Ailinn said.  “As it was
prophesized, as it was written, as it was seen.”

This chick was the first ghost I’d ever seen—in fact, I
thought ghosts were a fiction created by delusional humans with overactive
imaginations—but she definitely fit the bill.  Her spectral form wavered above
the grave, eyes dark pits in a face sad and forlorn, and her words were creepy
as hell.

“Are you Ailinn?” I asked.

The ghost nodded and tilted her head to the side.  It wasn’t
a human gesture, not at all.  She reminded me of old vamps, the ones who had
been undead so long that they’d forgotten what it was like to be alive.

“Then I have a message for you, from Manannán mac Lir,” I
said.  She hissed, but I continued on.  I’d made a promise to deliver the
message.  I flicked my eyes to the bodies dangling from the tree behind her and
swallowed hard.  I just hoped she didn’t decide to hang the messenger.  “He
said to tell you that someday he will be worthy of your forgiveness.”

Tears oozed down her face to hit the ground like clots of congealed
blood.

“He waits for me?” she asked.

“He’s the guardian of this island…” I said.  “I assumed you
knew that.”

“You know what they say about assuming, princess,” Torn
said.  “It makes an ass out of…”

“Shut it, Torn,” I said with a growl.

Oberon’s eyes, that cat would be the death of me. 
Thankfully, Ailinn was too busy processing my message to take offense to Torn’s
snarky comments.

“I thought…I thought he was dead,” she said.  “I could not
live without Manannán, so I took my own life, so that we may join together in
the afterlife.  But I could not find him, he did not come.”

“I don’t think he ever left,” I said.

“I assumed he did not love me,” she said.

I glared at Torn and he stifled a giggle.

“True love endures all things,” Ceff said.  “Even death.”

A chill ran up my spine and I grabbed his hand.  Even with
my gloves on, it wasn’t like me to be all touchy feely, but his words made me
want to hold him close, and never let go.

The ghost smiled and began to fade.

“Hurry,” she said.  “Take the apples.  You will need them
for the trials that lay ahead.”

She held out her hands, pointing to the silver apples
hanging behind her.  I pulled a drawstring bag from my jacket pocket and held
it open.  I plucked an apple from the tree, and as the apple dropped into the
bag, Ailinn disappeared.  But I could hear her voice ringing in my ears.

Now go, leave this place and never return.

“Um, princess?” Torn asked.

The ground shook and the silver tree began to wither. 
Apples rotted and fell to the ground as if caught on time lapse film.  Ailinn’s
ghost was gone, finally able to leave this place.  I was happy for her, but I
had a bad feeling that she had been the sustaining force of this island. 
Without her spirit here to hold it together, Emain Ablach was falling apart.

Torn reached for a shadow, plucking it from where it hid
beneath a shifting pile of bones.  On impulse, I grabbed one of the half rotten
apples from the ground and tossed it into the bag.  I didn’t know if the rotten
apple had any magic left, probably not, but it was worth a shot.  You never
know when you’ll need an ace, or an apple, up your sleeve.

“Let us breathe this popsicle stand,” Ceff said.

Torn pulled the shadow around us, preparing for our return
trip to Harborsmouth, but I laughed hard, tears springing to my eyes.

“It’s blow,” I wheezed.  “Let’s
blow
this popsicle
stand.”

I wrapped an arm around my stomach, body shaking with
laughter.  Ceff and Torn looked at me like I was nuts, but, hey, with a life as
crazy as mine, you take pleasure in the little things.