Hades Daughter (51 page)

The white stag, already skeletal with loss of power, writhed in its death agony as the huntress leaned down and tore out its heart.

It lay against the pure white of the stag’s coat, beating and throbbing in its extremity, and then it lay still.

With the stag’s last breath, Og’s crippled power vanished completely from the land.

Blangan’s dead body flopped to the ground, her still heart lying exposed on her belly.

Loth staggered back, his face a mask of horror and disbelief. “No! No!” he cried, Ecub’s cries intermingling with his.

“
What have I done?
” Loth screamed, and I heard Coel cry out behind me.

“What have you done? What have you done?”

There was a long, long silence, where I could do nothing but stare at Blangan’s corpse, and I could feel nothing but the vice-like grip of Coel’s arms about me.

Then Ecub said, in a very small voice, “This was not supposed to happen, Loth. You were supposed to kill Blangan, not Og with her.”

Not quite dead yet, said Mag within her stone hall. Then, before it was too late and using most of the power remaining to her, she cast a spell-weaving over the corpse of the poor half-starved stag lying on the forest floor, and its heart gave a single, faint beat—so faint it was barely a tremor—as it would beat just once a year from henceforth until…

Until all has come to pass, Mag said, and then fainted in her own extremity.

Someone else said something, I know not what, for I felt a terrible loss within me, and I fainted.

C
radled in sleep, wrapped in Genvissa’s arms, watched by her appraising eyes, Aerne, the Gormagog of Llangarlia and living representative of Og, suddenly screamed into wakefulness, hot torment coursing through his chest and brain.

He jerked upright, his hands clutching into the greying hair on his chest, his eyes staring almost out of their sockets, his mouth gaping in a rictus of agony.

“Aerne?” Genvissa cried, pressing herself against him. “Aerne?”

He expelled a wheezing breath, his fingers still scrabbling in his chest hair, jerked in another breath, then howled in both pain and loss.

“Aerne?” Genvissa cried again.

“Og is gone,” Aerne managed to say. “Something terrible has happened!”

“What? Where?”

“I do not know—” Aerne was about to say more, but then he howled in pain again, and his entire body stiffened and then jerked.

He lay a long time, breathless, grey-skinned, sweating, as Genvissa whispered endearments and comforts to him, then, just before dawn, he whispered, “I am dying, Genvissa. All the life has been pulled from me. Maybe not today, or even next week, but death is close now.”

“What can I do? Oh, dear Aerne. What can I do?”

He tried to smile for her, his beloved Genvissa, and lifted his hand and grasped hers in a weak grip. “You have already done what was needed, beloved. Bringing to Llangarlia’s shores the Trojan magic. I will soon be gone, and Og’s power is lost. Loth cannot replace me, or be what it is that this land needs. If Llangarlia is to survive it will need the Trojan magic. Genvissa, I have doubted you, but now I can see that what you have done is truly for the best.”

She smiled. “Of course it is, Aerne. Of course it is. Sleep now. Rest.”

When he finally did sleep, Genvissa lay back beside him and closed her eyes.

Inside, she seethed, both with triumph and with frustration.

Og was dead, as Genvissa knew he would be when Loth murdered his mother—it was the final weaving in the darkcraft her mother Herron had cast.

But where was Mag? Genvissa had been
certain
she was lurking deep within Blangan’s womb. While there had been a sudden drop in Mag’s power as Og died, there had been no cessation of it, as there surely should have been had Mag been caught within Blangan’s dying body.

Thus, Mag must be alive somewhere
else,
albeit weakened beyond measure.

Genvissa sighed, putting the problem aside. In the end, it was of little matter. Mag was essentially powerless without Og, and could do little to stop Genvissa now.

Alive or dead, Mag was nothing.

Coel grunted as Cornelia’s body fell slack in his arms, and he lowered her carefully to the ground.

“In Og’s name,” he said, staring at Loth who was standing, white and shaking. “What has happened here?”

Loth did not answer him. He did not look as if he had even heard.

Coel turned to Ecub. “Ecub? What has happened? Has Og’s power been restored?”

She swallowed, and shook her head.

Her skin was almost as pale and as clammy as Loth’s.

She opened her mouth as if to answer, but before she could speak, Loth moaned pitifully, and fell to his knees beside Blangan’s corpse. He grabbed at her silent, blood-clotted heart and tried with shaking hands to shove it back inside her chest.

“What has happened?” Coel shouted, Loth’s and Ecub’s obvious distress terrifying him.

“Og was destroyed when Loth killed Blangan,” Ecub whispered.

“I didn’t know,” Loth cried out. “I had no idea.”

“But Og’s power was supposed to be restored when Loth killed Blangan,” Coel said, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. Og’s power could not have been
destroyed.
It could
not
have been. “Blangan’s death was supposed to have shattered the darkcraft which had split Og’s power. It was supposed to have—”

“Be quiet,” Loth screamed, twisting about to face Coel. He was holding his bloodied, trembling hands at chest height, his fingers curled into claws. “
Be quiet!
”

“Loth,” Ecub said firmly, “you were not to know. Genvissa had told you…”

There was a long, horrified silence.

Loth managed to get to his feet, his hand still held before his chest. “Genvissa,” he said. “I must speak with Genvissa.”

Swift as a striking adder, Ecub grabbed one of his wrists. “This was her doing, Loth.”

“No, no, it could not be—”

“
This was her doing.
She had no need of Og. She has her Brutus now; her Trojan magic. This was her doing, Loth. Believe it.”

“I must talk to her…there must be some reason…” Now it was Loth’s voice that drifted off. “Oh, Ecub, what have I
done
?”

“Listen to me, Loth, Coel.” Ecub’s eyes flitted between the two. “We can do nothing until we find out exactly what has happened, and what caused it. We watch and we learn. For the moment that can be our only course of action.”

“Og is
dead
,” Loth said, his face a tragic mix of pain and horror. “
I killed him.
”

“You were the weapon which killed him,” Ecub said, “
but you were not the hand that wielded it.
”

“I have killed Og,” Loth said, the trembling of his hands now far worse.

Ecub slapped him across the face, hard enough that Loth rocked on his feet.

He stared at her with pitiable eyes, but Ecub had no time for pity.

“You go back to the Veiled Hills,” she said. “Find out what you can, but tread lightly, Loth, for Mag’s sake if for no one else’s. We must find out what is happening.”

He nodded. “I…I must wash my hands.”

“Then do so in a stream as you travel north. Waste no more time here. Get to the Veiled Hills before Coel brings Brutus there.
Find out what is happening.
”

Ecub’s words finally filtered through Loth’s numbed mind. “Yes. Yes, I will.” He looked at Cornelia, lying senseless on the ground. “What do we do about her?”

“Coel and I will take care of her. Go, Loth.
Go!
”

When he’d gone, Ecub turned to Coel who by now was looking almost as wretched as Loth had been.

“Take Cornelia and put her back to bed with Brutus. She’s had many draughts of frenzy wine…if any god-favour is still with us then she will remember nothing when she wakes.”

For a long minute they stared down at Cornelia’s immobile, naked form.

“I thought she had some connection to Mag,” said Coel eventually. “She drew me to her with such strength…and when I entered her…I felt such…such…ah, I must have dreamed it. She is so powerless now. Just as an ordinary woman.” He lifted his face to Ecub. “Did you feel anything from her?”

“I felt something—but maybe it was just a passing phantasm. So much is wrong in our world that I think nothing can be trusted, not even our senses.”

Some of what Coel had said finally made some sense in Ecub’s mind. “You
lay
with her?”

He shrugged. “Briefly. I entered her, but she drew away almost immediately.”

Ecub looked down at Cornelia, still senseless, breathing quietly. “And what did you feel?” she said.

“I thought I felt Mag. But I must have been mistaken. There is nothing about her now that calls so powerfully to me.”

“Yet she danced Mag’s Nuptial Dance,” Ecub said, still studying Cornelia.

“What? I did not see that.”

“Well, she did. Although Blangan could have taught it to her.”

“Perhaps,” Coel said, but neither of them sounded convinced.

Ecub sighed, exhausted by the events of the night. “I suppose she will have to remain a mystery to us for the moment, Coel. But watch her as you travel north. Sensible or senseless, she is still a puzzle. Take her back to her bed, Coel. Do it now. First light is not far distant.”

He nodded, and bent down to Cornelia.

“
B
langan! Blangan is gone!” Brutus lurched out of his sleep, his mind confused with dream and weariness. Beside him Cornelia had sat up, the bed covers clutched to her breasts, her eyes wide and disorientated.

Corineus stood by the central hearth of the house, his hair mussed, his chin stubbled, his entire stance taut with worry. “Blangan is gone.”

“She has likely gone to the privy pit,” Brutus murmured, yawning and rubbing at his eyes with one hand.

“She is not there! I looked. She is
nowhere
in the village.”

Brutus’ hand stilled, and he looked at Corineus with a peculiar kind of intensity, as if the possibilities contained within the fact of Blangan’s disappearance were only now occurring to him.

“Move over,” he said to Cornelia, who drew up her knees and swivelled to one side so he could climb past her. The covers tangled in Brutus’ legs as he tried to slide out of the bed, and he cursed and tugged hard enough at the blankets that he pulled them completely from the bed, leaving Cornelia naked and shivering in the sudden cold.

Brutus tossed Cornelia her robe and pulled his own tunic quickly over his head, belting it as he slid on his
shoes. He grabbed his cloak, and looked about the house.

Everyone was accounted for: Coel and his companions, Hicetaon—now also out of bed and dressing—and Aethylla and the babies, the two Trojan warriors who accompanied them, and Ecub and the members of her household.

“Coel?” said Brutus, buckling his sword belt to his hips.

Coel, sliding from Ecub’s bed, shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said.

Brutus looked at the Mother. “Ecub?”

She also shrugged. “How would I know? The woman hardly spoke to me. She is a stranger. I cannot tell her mind.”

Brutus studied her, hating her words. If Blangan did not speak then it was because she had been made to feel wholly unwelcome within Ecub’s house.

He was also disturbed by Ecub’s lack of care. She seemed completely unperturbed about Blangan’s disappearance when on two counts she should have been at least mildly worried: firstly, her ability as a Mother would be seriously called into question if a guest of hers had come to harm under her roof (but would that truly matter if the guest in question was the hated Blangan?), and, secondly, as the head of her household and the village, Ecub should at the very least be slightly anxious that a stranger was wandering around unsupervised.

Especially
if that stranger was the hated Blangan.

“We will need to search for her,” Brutus said, finally taking his eyes off Ecub. “Hicetaon, take our men and search the village. Corineus, you and I will take Jago and Bladud and search the surrounding fields. Coel…” Brutus paused, and gave Coel a hard glance as well; the man had such a bland face on him that Brutus wondered if he were hiding something. “Coel, you come with me.”

“We should try the Stone Dance,” Corineus said. He was shifting from foot to foot, almost twitching with impatience and dread. “Blangan talked of it yesterday. Perhaps she was drawn there last night.”

“Perhaps,” said Brutus, sending Ecub one more speculative look, then he motioned to the other men, and they left the house.

As soon as the last man had gone, Ecub looked over to Cornelia.

Cornelia blanched, and stepped back against the bed, almost tripping over the blankets Brutus had left tangled on the floor.

Ecub’s mouth hardened into a thin line.

They found her almost immediately. There was little to search in the village that Corineus had not already checked, and so Hicetaon and the two other Trojans rejoined Brutus, Corineus and Coel just as they approached the Stone Dance.

They knew even before they entered the circles: crows and ravens were heaped in a squawking, heaving mass of feathers, wings and flashing beaks on the far side of the Dance.

Corineus gave a ghastly cry, and ran towards the birds before Brutus could stop him.

As soon as he arrived to within two paces of the shuffling mass of birds, Corineus threw himself at them, shouting madly.

They erupted in a dusty, foul-smelling cloud of black feathers and flew off, screeching in disgust at the interruption.

As they lifted away, Corineus gave one long, despairing cry and sank to his knees, his hands to his face.

When Brutus reached his side, he took one look, then turned aside his head, swallowing: even his battle experience had not prepared him for this.

What was left of Blangan lay by one of the stone uprights; it was a hideous, twisted mess of blood and flesh. The birds’ feeding had damaged her, but even so it was clear enough what had been done to her before the birds had descended.