Fire Arrow

TEN

Yldir

Five others slowly appeared, with Bricriu in the lead. They formed a ring around the sorcerer and the girl. Bricriu grinned at Brie with broken teeth; his hollow eyes held a look of something like victory. And Brie understood now that he had led her here purposefully, slowing and waiting while her leg healed at the havotty, making his trail obvious so she could not fail to find him.

The thick-armed killer, who had tortured her father with a black spear, walked just behind Bricriu. Brie could see the black spear in his hand. He also carried a box strapped to his back. It was a worn, crudely made wooden box, as long and as wide as his back. The three remaining men were Scathians Brie had never seen before; all were large and brutal.

Yldir looked undisturbed. He had expected them. The Scathians would not meet his eyes, but one of the largest pulled a sword and advanced on the sorcerer. He got within a foot of Yldir, then the sorcerer held out his hand, palm up. On it were what looked to be three small black seeds. He tossed them at the feet of the Scathian. A fine gray dust burst from the seeds, wafting into the man's face. He coughed once, then toppled over, dead.

Bricriu let out a cry of fear and backed away, but the four remaining Scathians began to close in. Yldir squatted and struck his fist against the peat mat, bursting through the surface and thrusting his arm down until it was submerged to the shoulder. Quicker than thought, he withdrew his hand, which was caked in slimy black mud. Calmly he rolled the mud into a snakelike shape, his hands deft and almost invisible they moved so swiftly. The snake lengthened and became a rope of mud. With his powerful arms Yldir lifted it high and flicked it like a whip. It hit a Scathian at chest level with a wet, cracking sound and wound around his neck, growing tighter and tighter. The Scathian clawed at the slimy black thing, but he, too, was quickly dead.

The Scathian carrying the black spear and the box on his back had halted in his tracks, as had the Scathian-morg, but the other Scathian jumped on Yldir, a dagger in his fist. The sorcerer met the charge and, without seeming to strain a muscle, flipped the man around and broke his neck, dropping him gently to the ground.

Bricriu screamed and backed farther and farther away,

his eyes darting between Yldir and the two remaining Scathians. The killer with the box dropped it on the ground, and Brie felt the mat quake underfoot. Yldir gazed at the box with curiosity.

As the Scathian wrestled with the rusty latch, symbols appeared and writhed across the wooden surface. They were unintelligible to Brie, weird, runelike. She looked at Yldir's face and saw surprise there. It frightened her. It did not seem possible that anything could take those knowing eyes by surprise. But before she could move or speak, the killer had succeeded in unloosing the latch and threw open the lid of the box.

A mass of white moths flew up and bore themselves directly to Yldir. They swarmed around his head. Through the swirling whiteness Brie glimpsed the sorcerer's startled face, then watched his expression change to one of utter bafflement. Brie felt sick seeing the knowledge and power seep out of his magnificent eyes. He stumbled about heavily, his powerful arms swatting ineffectually at the spinning moths.

Yldir's faltering steps led him toward the standing stones, and soon he had bumped up against the taller of the two. Like a drowning man, he wrapped his arms around the stone and abruptly the moths left him, spiraling upward. They were soon lost to sight. Brie started toward the sorcerer, but heard a grunt behind her.

The killer with the black spear held it upraised, pointed directly at her. Brie stood still. He made no move to throw the spear and, looking over at the Scathian-morg, Brie saw that he, too, held a spear in his hands. He had just ignited it with a small torch.

Brie watched in horror as the Scathian-morg launched the spear at Yldir. It cleaved the air and pierced the sorcerer between his shoulder blades. Yldir's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Flames traveled quickly along the spear shaft, dropping embers on the quaking peat mat. Yldir's tunic caught fire. Brie let out a cry and, despite the spear still aimed at her, ran to the sorcerer. Burning her fingers, she pulled the flaming spear from his back and began beating out the flames on his clothing with her arms.

Fire flared up from the dry sedges on the mat. Smoke was everywhere. The two Scathians moved slowly toward Brie and Yldir. There was no sign of Bricriu.

Brie took the sorcerer in her arms, pulling him around to the back side of the stone. For a moment, as she held him, his eyes were radiant with the last of his power. He spoke. "Golden head. Eye like sea foam. Looking over the sea. Great evil. The arrow. Queen Fionna..." Then his eyes emptied and he was dead.

Brie gently laid him down, feeling suddenly bereft. But she forced herself to stand and cautiously peered around the stone.

She could not see either of her father's murderers. Thick smoke obscured her vision. Brie remembered what Hanna had told her about the dry summer and she realized that even the bog was vulnerable; despite the water underneath, all that grew on top was overdry.

Suddenly the thick-armed Scathian with the black spear leaped toward her from out of the smoke. He tripped over a dwarf spruce, and Brie dodged around the stone and ran. The mat tilted crazily, making it hard to move fast. She almost collided with the wooden box, the runes still glowing, evil and eerie, in the smoke. Behind her the Scathian was back on his feet and gaining on her.

Brie veered toward Yldir's wooden hut. She ducked behind it, the Scathian close on her heels. Then the hut was suddenly ablaze, and they were showered with live motes of flame and burning wood. The Scathian's cloak ignited and he dropped to the ground, rolling back and forth to smother the fire.

Brie ran. The smoke choked her and made it nearly impossible to see. With a pang, she realized she had lost track of Fara. She ran blindly, occasionally stumbling over shrubs and small trees. Finally, overwhelmed by smoke, she sank to her knees, coughing violently.

She crawled forward, one hand tearing through the ground and sinking into water. A thin section of the mat. She abruptly backed up, still coughing, her heart racing.

Then the mat tilted slightly and a pair of legs appeared beside her. She looked up into the yellowish eyes of the Scathian-morg. He smiled and savagely kicked at her. His boot caught her on the forehead, hard, and she reeled back, ears ringing. But as she fell she flung out her hand, catching the Scathian around his ankle. She yanked with all her strength and he fell heavily onto his back, landing directly where the mat was its thinnest. He broke through with a splash. The Scathian surfaced for a moment and gasped, shocked by the cold of water that hadn't seen the sun in untold years. He struggled to pull himself out, but the mat crumbled away around him and he sank down again. Brie could hear him thrashing as he was engulfed by the slimy black mud of the bog's bottom.

Bubbles formed on the surface. For a moment Brie sat frozen where she was, blood dripping from her forehead. Then she inched forward, but the mat in front of her started to give way. She froze again and, as she watched, the bubbles grew fewer, then were gone.

Smoke billowed around her. Overcome by another fit of coughing, Brie stood and floundered away from the gaping hole in the peat. She had no idea of direction now. But she kept moving, trying to keep ahead of the fire. She could not think; she could only move, coughing and wiping away the blood from the wound on her forehead as it trickled into her eyes.

And then he was there, a tree-length away, the killer with the black spear. His back was to her, his cloak in charred tatters and his hair singed. Brie swung her bow around, snatched an arrow from her quiver, and pulled back the string. She thought of her father, and a sob rose in her throat.

She wanted to let the arrow fly, pierce the killer through the heart with no mercy, as he had shown her father no mercy.

She could not do it. Not with his back turned.

"Scathian," she called, her voice raw.

He pivoted, saw Brie, and for a moment froze, then his arm came up and she could see the black spear gripped in his right fist. Smoke filled her nose and throat.

"Father," she whispered. She could not breathe. The Scathian was drawing back his arm. Tears standing in her eyes, she started to release the arrow, faltered a moment, then let fly.

The arrow sliced a path through the smoke and pierced the Scathian in his right shoulder. He staggered, then surged forward, running headlong toward Brie. The mat under Brie's feet pitched with his footfalls. She reached back for another arrow but had lost the distance; he was too close. Dropping her bow, she seized her dagger.

With a roar, the Scathian thrust his black spear at Brie. She dodged the blow, but he was quick and lunged again. The sharp point grazed her cheek.

She kicked his arm away, and the black spear went whistling to the side, lodging point first in the mat. Then the Scathian tackled her, his thick body pinning her face-down on the mat's, surface. Brie had a horrible image of the two of them plunging through into Maglu's ancient waters, but the mat held.

His body holding her down, the Scathian stretched forward for his spear. As he pulled it from the peat, Brie shifted her weight and drove her elbow up into the arrow that protruded from his shoulder. The Scathian let out a harsh cry of pain. In that moment, Brie plunged her dagger into the Scathian's neck.

Blood gushed forth and Brie watched as the killer's eyes emptied of life.

She had sought this man's death, but the feeling of triumph she had expected did not come. Pushing his body off hers, she lay still beside the Scathian. His blood was everywhere—on her clothing, in her hair; she could even taste it in her mouth. She rolled onto her knees and vomited until her stomach held nothing.

She lay quiet for a time, then sat up, feeling a hundred years old. A thin windless rain began to fall.

"Father," she whispered, "you are avenged." But the words were as empty as the dead man's eyes. All was ashes and blood in her mouth. She swayed as if she were weeping, but no tears came; not for the man who had drowned in brown water, not for the man who lay dead beside her, and not for herself, for the thing inside her that had died as well.

The arrow had come back, as Collun had said it would, piercing her own heart.

Her body quaked with tearless grief until finally she let her head fall to the mat. When she rose, she purposefully set to work. She cut a hole in the mat and, taking the man's body by his large shoulders, slid him into the water headfirst.

She found a branch and, with her knife, whittled it into a flat piece of wood. In Eirrenian she carved the date and the words "Five Scathians died this day in Bog Maglu."

She stuck the piece of wood upright into the mat. Then she walked away.

Brie did not know where Fara was. She hadn't seen the faol since the sorcerer Yldir's death. Brie trudged on, her eyes probing the wafting smoke for any sign of the white animal.

Then she spotted a dash of blue. The scarf she had tied to the cinnamon fern. She had come to the edge of Bog Maglu.

There was a movement near the fern. Someone was crouching in the sedge. Then the person stood and came toward Brie. It was Hanna. Jip and Maor burst out of the grass and shrubs, greeting Brie enthusiastically.

The older woman's eyes widened when she saw Brie. Silently Hanna held out her arms. With a sigh, Brie let the woman enfold her. Slowly, tonelessly, she told Hanna of Yldir's death. The older woman closed her eyes in sorrow.

"We must go back," Hanna said, "and bury him."

"I know."

Hanna cleaned Brie's blood-streaked face and bandaged the wound on her forehead. Then they went back into Maglu, Hanna, Brie, and the two dogs. The rain had reduced the fire to a smoldering blanket of thick gray smoke that smelled of burnt chicory. They passed the wooden marker Brie had fashioned for the Scathians. Hanna saw it but said nothing.

They found Yldir's body beside the stones of memory. Using few words, Hanna instructed Brie in the Dungalan burial ways, and by day's end they had fashioned a small rough-hewn boat for use as a casket. They spoke little as they worked. Hanna once asked Brie if she had found the crippled man she sought. Brie replied that he might have perished in the bog. After that, Hanna did not ask Brie any more questions.

Gently they placed the sorcerer's body in the boat, a skin bag of cymlu-berry wine at his elbow. As they did, Brie noticed birds circling above. They were seabirds—kittiwakes, gannets, guillemots, fulmars, and cormorants. The seabirds were uncharacteristically silent, and one by one they began settling on the stones of memory. By the time Hanna and Brie had cut a large hole in the peat, the stones were covered with birds. And as they slid Yldir's boat-casket into the ancient water of the bog, the birds gave tongue, each to their own individual song. It was loud, even harsh, but somehow beautiful.

Brie thought of the other two bodies that lay in the same waters, the men she had killed. Then her gaze fell on the wooden box. It was charred, but the runes on it still faintly glowed. As she watched, they flickered out.

Meanwhile, Hanna approached the stones of memory. The seabirds on the larger of the two stones lifted off, almost as one, and hovered above. Hanna kneeled by the stone and, using a sharp-pointed piece of iron she had found in the remains of Yldir's hut, began carving Dungalan words at the base of the stone. It took her much of the night, but when she was done she read aloud to Brie, "'Yldir of the sea did die this day in Bog Maglu/So shall his tale be told as long as the stones of memory stand.' "

The seabirds suddenly rose up and with a whoosh ascended to the sky. They were soon lost to sight. Then Brie felt something brush against her legs. It was Fara. Crouching down beside her, Brie ran her hand over the faol's back. Fara arched against the girl's hand. Her white fur was scorched and damp. Brie guessed she had swum under the peat mat to escape the fire.

Then Hanna, Brie, the two dogs, and the faol left Bog Maglu.

"Will you come with me to Ardara?" Hanna asked.

Brie was silent, threading the panner thong through her fingers. She knew not what to say; it mattered little to her where she journeyed.

"Or do you return to Eirren?"

Still Brie did not answer.

"When the snows come to the Blue Stacks, you will not be able to travel through, not until the spring thaw. But the snows will not come for two moon cycles, so there is time for you to visit Dungal, if that is your wish."

Silence.

"Biri," Hanna said, her voice gentle, "come with me to Ardara. You will find a welcome there."

And so Brie went to Ardara. She had a message for one who lived there. And who better to deliver tidings of death? she thought grimly.

During the journey, Brie remained silent. She did all that she had done before Maglu, walking, eating, sleeping, but she felt like a shadow, lost and without mooring, as though the thread that connected her from one day to the next had snapped. She set one foot ahead of the other, but knew not why.

For so long she had sought this one thing: the death of her father's killers. Now that she had achieved it, or nearly so, the deed stuck in her throat. Before her father's death ... what had directed her steps then? She could barely remember, but it seemed she had always been thrust forward, like a small boat driven by a great wind, to be the best at whatever she undertook—the best archer, the best trail finder, the best at building a stone wall. Except for those few months with Collun at Cuillean's dun, she could remember no time when she had known peace.

And Collun. What would he think of her now? Would he pity her, or would he recoil from the blood on her hands? She could not think of Collun now. Better to think of nothing at all.

***

Bogland gave way to rich farming land. Cozy, whitewashed farmhouses were scattered here and there along the way, and the people were friendly to the wandering Traveler and her silent companion.

Hanna and Brie arrived in Ardara at midday. The town was bright and bustling and full of vigor. But Brie felt like a specter moving among these people with their active, certain lives. Ardara was a well-cared-for town, if not a very prosperous one. The buildings were solidly built, and though many of the boats bobbing in the harbor or pulled up on shore could have used fresh paint, they still looked snug and seaworthy. There were all sizes of boats, from curraghs—rowing boats with turned-up prows to help them in the surf—to two-sailed ketches forty feet long or more, for handling the deep water of the sea. Dogs were everywhere on the streets of the village: intelligent, strong dogs like Jip and Maor.

Dungalans either were fair-haired with dark eyes or had hair which bore that distinctive copper hue, like Rilla's and Yldir's, with matching coppery eyes. Most of the men (and a few younger women, though not many) wore the distinctive garb of the Dungalan fisherman: trousers of homespun tweed held up by a multicolored, braided belt called a criosanna, and thick flannel shirts, dyed indigo.

Hanna and Brie did not stop in town but traveled on until they came to a large farmhold to the north of Ardara. The farmhouse stood on a rise. Looking back from the door Brie had a clear view of the sea and fishing boats, in miniature, stretched out toward the horizon.

The farmer's wife, Lotte, greeted Hanna warmly. She spoke fast, in Dungalan, and Brie understood only a few words. Hanna introduced Brie as Eirrenian, translating the woman's words. Lotte looked a little surprised, her eyes caught by the faol. But she was welcoming to Brie and tried to speak more slowly so that Brie could follow what she said.

Her husband was out in the barley field, Lotte said, and had just been saying this morning that he wished the Traveler would come soon. "It seems as though harvesttime comes earlier every year," Lotte commented. "And Garmon believes there will be an early frost." She pressed warm buttered bread into their hands, and together they made their way to the barley field.

Farmer Garmon was a prosperous-looking man with gray side-whiskers and an open smile. He embraced Hanna warmly, said his crops were well nigh bursting. Then he welcomed Brie, saying that any friend of the Traveler was a friend to him, and did she know any good tales from Eirren?

"How is your daughter in Dungloe? And your son in Mira? And my friend Lom?" asked Hanna.

"They are all well. I have another grandbairn, Sophe's second son. And as for Lom, he is spending more and more time working on that boat of his. I'll be lucky to tear him away come harvest day," Garmon said. Hanna explained to Brie that Lom was the youngest of Garmon's sons and daughters and the only one still living in Ardara.

"A fine son he is, too, though I lost him to the sea long ago." Brie could see disappointment on the man's face, but acceptance as well.

"You will like Lom," said Hanna to Brie. "He works with Jacan and his son on their fishing boat until his own is built."

Garmon showed them to the barn where they would sleep. "But treat the farmhouse as your home," he said.

"Shall we call on Jacan?" Hanna said when the farmer had left them.

Brie nodded.

***

The fisherman Jacan had a lean, weathered face, dark copper hair and beard, and the keen blue eyes Brie recognized from Rilla's panner work. He wore a leather fishing apron and smelled of fish.

His son, Ferg, was almost the duplicate of Rilla—copper hair, pale skin—but Jacan's other daughter, Hyslin, had fair hair and rose-colored cheeks. She had been paring potatoes, her sleeves pushed up over her elbows, when Brie and Hanna arrived.

They greeted Hanna warmly, but were wary of Brie, and of Fara, who sat on her haunches by the front door, eyes half closed. When Brie entered the cheerful, comfortable room with its smells of fresh bread and fish, she felt like an ill dark wind blowing cold through the house.

"There is bad news," Hanna said in Dungalan.

"Go on," replied Jacan, his face suddenly taut.

"Rilla is dead."

Hyslin let out a cry, dropping her paring knife. Ferg's pale skin went a shade paler.

"How?" asked Jacan.

"By goat-men. Murdered." Brie stepped forward, speaking low in halting Dungalan.

"The gabha?" Jacan looked disbelieving.

"I was there," Brie said. "I saw. She bade me bring you the news. And I brought her panners as well." She handed Jacan the leather pouch.

He stared down at it. "What of Ladran?"

"Dead, too. He ... died going to Rilla."

"She never should have married that raff," said Ferg, anguished.

Jacan was silent. Hyslin lifted her apron to her face and cried into it.

"We stay with Farmer Garmon until harvest," Hanna said to the fisherman, then added, "I am grieved for you, Jacan."

Brie, Hanna, and the faol left the house. Brie touched the panner around her neck.

"There is another I would have you meet," Hanna said as they walked along the harbor.

"Who?" asked Brie without interest.

"Sago. He is a Sea Dyak sorcerer, like Yldir. He is not as powerful as Yldir, though perhaps he is even older. With Yldir gone, I believe Sago is the last of the Sea Dyak sorcerers in Dungal. Some say he has little draoicht left and even fewer wits. But they still come to him for advice on fishing. Indeed, there is none better."

The Sea Dyak sorcerer lived south of Ardara's harbor in a secluded inlet. His home was a small, round, one-room building, called a mote, made of white stone and seashells. At the top were lodgings for seabirds.

Sago stood waiting in the shell-lined doorway, as if he was expecting them. He wore a tunic the color of seawater, and Brie was struck by how thin he was: His arms and legs looked to be no more than bone with skin stretched over them. The dome of his head was covered by a close-fitting cap of the same seawater color as his tunic; feathery wisps of white hair protruded from the cap. His skin was worn by weather and age, but his green eyes were unclouded, and they watched intently as Brie and Hanna approached.

"So," the sorcerer said to Brie with a wink, "the arrow finds its mark."