“Who?”
Who?
The boy paused, his lungs working like bellows. A member of the guard, an aged fellow called Bran, labored up beside him.
“Our men. They come! Heads upon their chariots. Victorious!”
Victorious.
But was Ardahl among them?
As a body, the women, old men, and children ran. Out through the settlement toward the sunset. Along the track where the road ran through the trees. Until they could hear the jingle of harnesses. The rattle of wheels, and voices, beloved voices.
The two parties met in joy and grief, at the place where the track sloped downward. Women with bairns in their arms threw themselves at their men, gathered in tiny groups, screamed with joy. Wept.
Liadan, desperate to see, tried to peer between bodies, among heads. She could feel Maeve at her side, straining likewise. And then the crowd shifted. Liadan saw Fearghal, with his wife already in his arms. Cathair. Any number of warriors she knew, and—
Their eyes met across the distance, and it felt as if everything else melted away. The noise, the bustle, the cries, and the wondering. Liadan’s heart beat so hard in her chest that she could not breathe, and her world brightened around her in a flash of gratitude so strong it translated into wonder.
Beside her, Maeve cried, “He is there!”
Ardahl’s mother flew forward, threw herself into her son’s arms. Liadan’s feet refused to move. If she went to him now, flew to him as she longed to do, the whole world would see the truth.
So she stood rooted as, with his arm around his mother, he came to her. And when he stood before her, the joy became so bright she could no longer feel her feet on the ground.
He was wounded, and sorely. She could see that. Blood stained his clothing, and livid cuts—only some of which had been tended—still wept. But he gazed into her eyes and smiled at her.
Smiled with his eyes. With his heart.
“Master Ardahl. I am that glad to see ye safe returned.”
“I am that glad to be here.”
Maeve patted her son’s face. His arms, as if seeking out the injuries. “Son, be ye whole? Did ye vanquish that serpent? Did ye win?”
“We won. There should be peace for a time.”
Peace.Liadan did not know what that meant for her. For them. But he stood here beside her, big and alive and breathing. For the moment, she needed nothing more.
Fearghal called for their attention. There among the joyous and the grieving and the dead, laid in the broken chariots, he spoke to them from his heart.
“There has been a great victory. We and Clan Brioc are now united against all comers. Dacha is dead.”
He held aloft the trophy that had decorated the front of his chariot. Silence fell once again.
“We shall rebuild. Endure our grief. Hold these lands we love so well. Many have died for the sake of them. We shall no’ forget their sacrifice. To honor them, we will live on. We shall thrive just as they would wish us to.”
Were those tears in the chief’s eyes? Aye, for he blinked rapidly.
Fearghal went on, “Many have displayed great valor this past day and night. But there is one man—Ardahl MacCormac, step here to me.”
Ardahl did not move. He stood so close to Liadan, she might have reached out and snagged his hand, but it took his chief repeating the command for him to step forward.
“This man,” Fearghal declared when Ardahl stood beside him. “Amid a wealth of valiant deeds during this battle, he emerged as bravest. Strongest. First among our warriors. He it was who took Dacha’s head, and delivered us from that dark threat.”
A chill ran over Liadan’s skin. She watched something momentous. Something that would be told down through theages. And if Ardahl could never be hers in truth—well, mayhap it was for this he had been destined.
Yet he did not look like a man comfortable with glory. He bowed his head to his chief and to all who cheered for him.
