by Catherine Lundoff
(4/19/00)
When I came to, the ravens were coming for my eyes, and the pain of the great hole in my side was near enough for me to give in. Naught but the memory of my brother's lost honor and a fear of more pain to come drove me to move both head and arm to cast them off, sending them to fly cawing to feast elsewhere on the field.
The hot blood flowed thick and fast down my side, filling my brother's armor every time I moved. I could hear the sound of human scavengers stripping the arms and valuables from my fallen host, but there was no skirl of the pipes or music of the drums to tell me that any lived beside me. The smell of death and the sweet tang of my own blood came to me with each breath. Not for this had I donned the Gray Wolf's arms and come out on the field to fight, as any good daughter of my house would have done. Now there must be none left but me. I drew a deep breath and forced myself to open my visor.
The clear gray light of the sky blinded me as I dragged myself up on my arm to survey the field. Round me the hills of bodies were piled under the circling black wings of the ravens. The Gray Wolf's standard lay where it had fallen. At first, I thought it mattered not, as the Gray Wolf was no more, but while I looked at it, I found that it still moved me. I could not leave the banner of my house to blood and rot while I yet drew breath.
The air hissed through my teeth as I dragged myself forward to seize the pole. Slowly, so slowly, I planted it in the ground before me and placed hand over hand along its length to pull myself upright. With my hand clutched over the hole in my armor, I shut my eyes against the destruction before me and stood swaying, the banner holding me upright. For the first time since I awoke, I thought to call my horse and hawk. My fingers went to my lips to whistle, but found that I could make naught but the smallest sound. I slumped against the banner, thinking to sink once more to the earth, but as my hand dropped from my lips, it found my horn still at my belt.
That I brought to my mouth and blew upon it with near the last breath and hope remaining to me. The sweet blast drove the ravens from the bodies, forced the scavengers back, and dropped me to my knees. If 'twere not enough, I had nothing left to make another such call.
The wind sang around me, clearing away the scents of death and pain and blood for a moment, and I could hear Macha's cry from far above. One of my clan had survived at least, and I smiled to think it. From below, I heard Strongheart's familiar whicker, and my heart leapt. I dragged my eyes open to see my great dappled steed, his flanks awash with blood, step gingerly through the corpses to reach my side. Macha flew down to land on the saddle horn with a great thump. Her unhooded eyes peered down at me. I cheered a little at their loyalty. Perhaps my brother was right when he said that I understood beasts like no other of our clan.
I began to pull myself up once again, stubbornly refusing to mourn the passing of those others that I loved. There would be time enough later, when my wounds were bound, and I was safe. The thought drew me up. If the host lay slain before me, surely Macaran's forces now held our lands. There would be no home to which I could return. A tear rolled down my cheek, warmed by Strongheart's breath as he pushed his nose to my shoulder. I staggered to his side, as leave the slaughter I must before a quick dagger dispatched me for my goods. As I tried to mount, the saddle might have been a mile above me for all the chance I stood of reaching it in my armor.
The helm went first, tugged free by my trembling fingers. Next the great breastplate and greaves until soon I stood shivering in my underthings. I tugged the long shirt up to see my wounded side and grimaced. The lance was no longer in my side, but the wound was deep and cruel, and the blood still flowed free.
I looked around me, but could see naught to bind it but Culin's love token. He lay where he had fallen, slain while protecting my back, the bloodstained scarf of his ladylove still wrapped around his broad chest. I pulled it free, tears coursing now down my face. A valiant and kindly man, my brother's right hand had been, and a laughing wench had been his ladylove. She would laugh no more when she heard of this day's work. I planted the banner at his side, the Gray Wolf flying above him, for so he had died.
Once the scarf was bound tight around my side and I had pulled my cloak around me, I turned once more to Strongheart. The world spun and went black as I pulled myself into the saddle. Macha flew off with a cry to land nearby as I forced myself awake. A familiar whine pulled my eyes open. Valiant, my brother's great hound, stood on unsteady legs at Strongheart's feet. One paw he held above the ground and his jaws and muzzle were all covered in blood. I met his eyes and murmured encouragingly, and the anxious light in them died away. He had found his pack again, as I was finding mine. We would all go to find safety together or not at all. I clicked at Strongheart to start forward down the hill.
Little do I remember of that ride, with the great steed ambling surely beneath me, and poor Valiant limping behind. The wind carried on it the scent of death while it held Macha's wings as she soared behind us. On it also came the voices of the ravens, not only caws this time, but words, words such as I could understand in my pain and fever, though I knew not how. They told an old tale of a witch living far to the west, one who lived on the edges of a great mere. It was said that she and she alone could heal the wounds of battle and the pain of war. I turned Strongheart's head to the west, for home lay behind me and there was no going back.
We journeyed some days, moving far from the battlefield and the lands I knew. With each dawning, I knew I had to find the witch soon, for my wound stopped bleeding yet did not close. I bound Valiant's paw so that he limped less, and cleaned both our wounds, but I could do no more. Macha hunted for all three of us, laying the hares and small birds before me to skin and to cook, while Strongheart found his own feed. At night I lay wrapped in my cloak and dreamed of a woman.
Her hair was black as night, and shone like silver shot through with ebony. Her eyes were green, like emeralds, like cats, and sometimes, like the leaves in the forest, so changed they with her mood. Her face was beautiful when she was human, but sometimes in my dreams it changed like her eyes, and then she was part woman, part great cat, or horse or fish. Time and again, I tried to cry out, "Help me!" But it seemed she heard me not.
Some nights I dreamed of the gentle touch of hands upon my body, the sweet kiss of tender lips, the soft touch of a tongue upon my breast. Those nights, my body burned as if on fire, and I longed to see the witch with the eyes of love, for I thought it must be her, though I could not see her face. The hands stroked between my legs in those dreams, driving hard and then soft within me, withdrawing and driving in once more. The lips upon my breast grew hotter and hotter, slipping lower on my body and over my wound. Soon I felt a tongue slide between my legs and inside me, tasting my juices and stroking upward, sending flames burning along my legs until I shook with ecstasy.
My wound pained me less when I awoke from such dreams, but my spirit ached still from my losses. My brother, our friends, our home, all gone. Even such dreams as these could not drive the pain of defeat from me. Anger burned through me and pushed me onward. Macaran would pay. So we wandered on, roaming westward, ever westward, in hopes of hearing some word of the witch who could help me win my vengeance.
The day came when Macha brought a live hare, wounded but still moving to lay at my feet as we rested by a little brook. I caught the beast to give it the final blow, and its eyes captured mine. They were yellow against the gleam of its soft gray fur and I could feel its thoughts as though they were my own. Spare me, it seemed to say, and I will tell you where you need to search. Perhaps I was bespelled. I knew not. I met the hungry eyes of Valiant and the cold dark eyes of Macha beyond the hare's head, then looked once more at the beast.
Again, I heard the plea, and a picture came to me, an image of a great high mountain to the west, lit by moonlight. A great owl sat in a high pine, its golden eyes peering wisely down at us as we journeyed to the foot of the tree. Seek the owl, the hare seemed to say. What you seek lies not far beyond. As if I dreamed, I set the creature down and ordered Macha and Valiant back. It limped into the bushes and disappeared, leaving my beasts to watch me as though I ran mad. Macha leapt into the air with a cry. I hoped then she went for other prey, for I had no strength for hunting, and I fell asleep before she returned.
When I awoke with the lark's song in the morning, I could see the mountain before us, where I had seen nothing in the dusk of the night before. There we must go, and so we went, Valiant now with scarcely a limp, and Macha first flying before us, then riding on my shoulder. I could sit a little straighter in the saddle this morn, and the wound had closed a bit. Some magic was surely at work here, for though it would not heal, yet it did not fester. I thought of gentle hands in the night and I smiled, swaying in the saddle as I relied on Strongheart to take me the smoothest way as we traveled.
His feet were sure as he bore me along to the foot of the great mountain, and carefully he took me around the low branches that might have knocked me off. The mountain was steep, with huge bald cliffs and moss-covered boulders standing against the trunks of the tall pines and the cold gray sky of the twilight. Higher and higher we went until I could see all the surrounding country, and before me stood the tallest tree in all the woods that grew on that long slope. The wind sang through its branches as though it were the giant harp of our hold. It sang songs of valor, of sorrow, of loss and of the peace to come. I shivered, for were those not the very songs that drove me to the field in the Gray Wolf's armor?
I looked up. As the hare had said, the snow-white owl sat looking down at me, and I felt it knew my heart. Strongheart stopped at the foot of the tree, and Valiant and Macha sat waiting for me to do what I would. The ancient golden eyes held mine as I looked up, and I thought hard on my wound and on what had gone before, the image of the black-haired woman overlaid against it all. A long moment passed and I clasped my hands together, as though entreating the bird, as indeed I was.
A thought came to me then of a mere on the other side of the mountain. I saw myself walking to its edge with a bundle of flowers in my hand: goldenrod, St. John's Wort, and other herbs that held magic within them. Strongheart, Macha and Valiant were not to be seen, but my horn was yet at my side. In my vision, I threw the herbs into the water, and drew back at what I saw. Then I drew a blast on my horn and found myself again at the foot of the tree, gazing upward. I knew not what I saw in the lake, for in my vision, I could only see myself. Yet it was clear to me that I must ride on, then dismount and walk before I reached the mere. I saluted the owl and turned Strongheart's head down the mountain, and the wind played songs of a journey's end on the great tree as we rode away.
I dreamed that night of the Gray Wolf. My brother came to meet me with the wounds that had killed him still unhealed and looked at me with the eyes of the dead. "You fought well, my sister, but still we lost all. Macaran's hands run red with our blood and we know no rest in our homelands." I could see Culin standing by his right hand, as he had in life, and the rest of our slaughtered host gathered behind him. "Give us peace, little sister. Set us free."
There could be no doubt as to how I was to do this. Once I was healed, I should have to go and hunt for Macaran, for only vengeance could set my brother and our followers free. So I had been taught since I was but a cub. I shivered as I lay awake, soaked in a cold sweat and staring upward at the white, round moon. Macaran was a strong leader of men, a greater warrior than I, and probably even than the Wolf. How I was to defeat him, I knew not, but do it I must for I could not face the eyes of the sorrowful dead each night as I slept. The light of madness fired my brain at the thought, until I pushed it away, falling at last into a troubled sleep.
I rode onward the next day and the day after until we came to a large green meadow, dotted with small pale blue flowers. The mere was in sight in the distance, and I slid from Strongheart's back, trying not to wince as I landed. I wanted to take the saddle from his back, but feared that I could not remount without its aid. I slipped the bridle from his ears instead, and hung it from the pommel. My voice shook as I ordered them all to stay and gave them a final pat. Valiant's head cocked to one side, puzzled eyes following me as I left, but he obeyed. I told myself that he would bring the others when I needed them, and walked on with a quavering heart.
The edge of the meadow led through a small wood, then into a field of tall grasses that marked the edge of the mere. I found the herbs that I needed along the way, and walked slowly and painfully to the edge of the water. Holding the blossoms to my breast, I offered a hope for my healing and threw them into the water. The water boiled before me and the fish sprang into the air, their flight curving and their scales gleaming in the pale sunlight as they flew upward, then down, down far below the surface. The water birds flew squawking from the water's surface as the center of the mere became a whirlpool. The water spun round and round and my heart nearly misgave me. Why would she heal me when I had so disturbed her?
The waters parted and she came forth, part of her a woman, the rest a fish. She leapt upward and turning, saw me. An angry blaze glowed in her eyes and I clapped my horn to my lips and blew, my hands shaking. Her head drew back and she looked behind me. I could hear Macha's call and Valiant's belling tones on the wind. The witch sprang from the waters, half of her now a great mare, and she galloped over the water to the mere's edge. The earth shook behind me as Strongheart charged to my side, and I dragged myself into the saddle once more. I held on as I urged my steed to follow. "Catch her!" I ordered Macha and Valiant, little thinking how this was to be done, for I cared for nothing but the healing of my wounds by then.
We coursed along behind her, and Valiant ran until his sides heaved, yet we drew no closer. I could see Macha buffeted by the winds above and I began to lose hope. Fleet of foot was the witch in her mare's form, and hard though Strongheart's hooves pounded upon the earth as he followed her, he drew no closer. The gallop jarred through my wound, and the pain washed through my head until I reeled in the saddle, the field a sea of red around me. I held on until despair filled me, and my hands slipped from the saddle, for if we could not catch her, I would surely die. What was there to hold on for? My brother's face, his eyes filled with the cold anguish of the restless dead, danced before me as I dropped like a stone from Strongheart's back. Then, all was darkness.
I do not in truth know what happened next. In my fever dream, I thought I saw the witch standing before me in her maiden's form, Macha sitting quiescent on her ungloved hand. "Do you know nothing but the ways of war?" her angry voice rang round my head, and I remembered nothing more.
When I came back to myself, some time later, I lay naked, not in a field by the mere, but instead in a small wooden bed by a fireside. The firelight flickered on the beams above me, and I could see the dawn outside the small window. She sat beside me in a dark blue velvet gown, with her long black hair unbound and shining about her shoulders. The green eyes watched me from a face as beautiful as I had seen in my dreams. In the mirror behind her I could see myself as she saw me, my brown hair cut short to fit beneath a helm, my long nose broken from a fall during arms practice.
But it was my deeds that made her look at me in anger and I hung my head as best I could against the high down pillows. It seemed as though all that I had done ill, whether in battle, or at home, was weighed in the balance against my heart. I remembered when I followed my brother to lay waste to the lands of Macaran, from the crops we burned to the men I slew to plant the banner of the Gray Wolf farther afield than in our father's time. In truth, I had been a warrior like my parents and my brother before me. I knew no other way until now. For the first time, I questioned.
"I know that you seek healing at my hands, and without it, you will die. My creed compels me to save you," she said softly. "Know this. I can lie a night with you and make you hale and sound as before. No lance or sword or any weapon made of iron can touch you when you rise. Yet you may not raise iron against another. No harm can you do in battle. Think well upon this, warrior, and choose what will be." With that, she stood and left me to my thoughts.
Long I pondered her words. My wound might close on its own in time, or it might fester. The pain of my side and my spirit lay balanced against what I owed to my brother and to our people. The banner of the Gray Wolf rode before my eyes until I forced it aside to see what lay beneath. Macaran's host laid waste to our lands as we had laid waste to his, and so it went, back through the generations.
It was said that my great-grandmere married a Macaran to bring an end to it all, as it had for a time. But ever the expanding border called and the good grazing lands of the Macaran called us down from our mountains and our mines. The iron was less each year, and the sheep and the kine grew lean, and honor decreed that we fight. Better by far for the House of the Gray Wolf to fall to the sword rather than to starve. And fall we had, until I alone remained. It was too much. There must be a better way.
I lay on that bed a time longer until she came back to me. This time, I raised my hand to hers and clasped it in mine. I said nothing, but met her eyes as I pulled her down beside me for a kiss and pushed the blankets aside. Soft her lips were against mine, as they were in my dream, and her tongue slid gently into my mouth, as I parted my legs to her questing thigh and hand. I opened my heart as well and yielded it up to her as her lips caressed my neck, passing slowly to my breast. She took it in her mouth and pulled upon it, her teeth grazing my flesh, her tongue drawing up a river of fire.
How came the goldenrod to her hand I knew not but she stroked my wound with its flowers, drawing the swelling down. Once, twice, three times, she ran her tongue round its edges and the fire burned within me. Some words she sang, and the sound of them stung my skin, until I could feel no pain from my wound. Her fingers ran slowly up between my legs and the flames followed them, as they passed inside me as she had done in my dreams before. I burned and opened wide before her, and her fingers found my secret places and caressed and thrust against them. Her thigh drove her hand deep within me until I could feel its length inside me and I welcomed it. I closed around it, as she withdrew and returned again. Now her tongue slipped between my legs as well, lapping gently and firmly against me until my back arched, and the fire rode my body until I shook with its force.
I opened my eyes as the flames died away to see my wound closing slowly, flesh drawn to flesh as though it had a mind of its own. The witch sat up so that she was stretched across my body and I could slip my fingers inside her. Wet she was, and soft against my questing hand. Her juices poured out like molten gold over my fingers and across my wound. The sting was nothing as I took her breast in my other hand. The fire filled her as it had filled me, and she moaned from deep within. My breath quickened at the sound and I pushed my hand further into her. The long black hair trailed against my legs as she bent her head back, pushing her breast further into my hand. I rolled it between my fingers, running my other hand in and out of her as I did so. Her body shook and she gave a great cry, collapsing on her hands over me, the long hair making a black tent that covered us both.
I pulled her down beside, my lips finding hers and her breath hot and sweet against my mouth. Her flesh loosened against me until she felt soft again and I slipped my hand between her legs once more. She gasped and I pulled her on top of me, so that I still lay on my back, but my mouth was between her legs. My tongue drank in her taste of wild honey and I breathed deep the musky scent of foxes and warm earth. Slowly I caressed her finding all of her secret places and tasting them, coaxing them. She arched her back once more, hands placed behind her as she pushed against my mouth. The fire rode us both, sharp, hot flames that burned, but did no harm, dancing along her legs until we shook as one and our cries filled the room.
She lay with me the whole of that night and by morning, we knew each other's bodies well. When I awoke with the dawn, I could see that my wound was but a scar. No Gray Wolf's banner danced before me in her bed, and my spirit was lighter. I still knew not what I would do, but I knew that I was not as I had been before. Her eyes opened slowly and met mine and we kissed. I thought to ask if I might stay, but I knew the answer before she spoke.
"I cannot lie with the wolf's cub each night," she said gently, fingers stroking my ribs. "You must see what you are become."
"May I return when I know?"
"I will not refuse you."
That gave me hope as her lips caressed mine once more before she moved swiftly from the room. No more of her did I see that day, but food for my morning meal and food for my journey she left me. Strongheart I found in a field outside, Macha on the rooftop and Valiant at the door. My sword I buried in the field. I did not look back as my horse and my hawk and my brindled hound and I rode forth to see what lay ahead for one who would leave the Wolf's path.
