He only knew it was too far.
Another skeletal arm ringed in ancient armor burst from the hard-packed clay and caught Abyss by the foreleg. A glancing blow—the stallion only stumbled. A larger arm reached for the water horse’s other leg. Abyss danced out of reach. Yet another rose in turn, pushing mounds of pebbled dirt to one side as it latched around the aughisky’s foreleg and wrenched it sideways. Abyss missed a step. The stallion went down.
A precarious tilt, cold winter air streaking sideways. Irian hung weightless above the stallion’s back, Fia’s limp body lolling against his chest.
The water horse struck the dirt sideways, jolting both riders over his withers. Irian ducked his head and curled himself around Fia, but the impact jarred them apart. He hit hard-packed earth with juddering force, his breath bursting from his lungs as he landed painfully on one shoulder. Lines of black and silver striated his vision. Sharp stones tore his mantle and abraded his cheek as he skidded to a halt on the twisting, heaving earth. He forced himself sideways, rolling onto all fours. He reached for Fia. His hands met only air.
No.
Irian staggered to his feet. There—Fia had rolled ten paces beyond him. She lay with arms and legs tangled between matted clumps of weathered grass, her hair a dark corona around her bruised face. Irian’s vision tunneled as he lunged for her, the Sky-Sword already singing free of its scabbard. But the restless earth shifted beneath his feet. Clods of dirt and gobbets of clay rattled his legs as fists of bone punched upward. Skeletal fingers latched around his ankles. He slashed down, his battle metal darkening as sunset kissed rouge along the foothills. The Treasure made easy work of the ancient, brittle bones, but whenever one hand burst into shards, another was rising to take its place.
And another.
Irian lifted his gaze from Fia’s prone form, alarm beating dark wings against the back of his head.
All across the plain, the dead were rising. The earth spat them up and belched them out as if it was glad to be rid of them. These were not fresh corpses; the legendary battle of Mag Tuired had been fought in the time of legends, before humans had banished the Folk from Fódla and before the Treasures had been forged. The earth should have long ago reclaimed them. Instead, the boggy plain had mummified the ancient carcasses, rendering them nightmarish in resurrection.
Sword-hacked arms were strung with frayed ligaments and rotted armor. Caved-in skulls sneered with shattered teeth, stared with hollow, empty eyes. Lumbering Fomorians reared to the height often men; legless destriers churned in the muck; long-dead warriors reached for maces and axes and swords.
All of them turned toward him.
No. Not him.
Her.
Fia lay so still Irian feared she had died. As if his unrelenting hold on her had been the only thing keeping her alive, and with his promise broken, her soul had simply fled her body. But the blue-green stone fastened above her breast—her Treasure, the Heart of the Forest—still hummed a harmonic counterpoint to his wailing sword. And below that constant murmur, a still-unfamiliar vibration droned in counterpoint too—like molten metal over wet rock, or hot blood kissing iron bones.
The unwelcome melody of the entity to whom Fia had accidentally bound herself on the Longest Night. The deity the islanders of Emain Ablach had called the Year… the Bright One who had named herself Talah.
A circle of space formed between Fia and the rumbling horde of the risen dead. The ancient warriors slammed against a barrier they did not seem able to cross. It occurred to Irian that Talah’s terrible power—though he hated what it had taken from Fia—might be the only force keeping the sliding, slithering hiss of Eala’s Treasure at bay.
Talah, like the Heart of the Forest, was not eager to let her host die.
Fia’s life was threatened by two unknowable Solasóirí of near-limitless power. So, too, was her lifeprotected.
The sight of the restless dead’s mindless shambling galvanized Irian. He hacked with renewed vigor at the arms clutching at his legs, scattering petrified bones and long-desiccated flesh to crunch beneath his boots. He thrust through the ungainly horde, reaching for Fia—
“Down!”The word shattered his eardrum.
He did not turn in time to identify the tall, heavy figure barreling toward him. Only felt the impact as someone tackled him around the chest and bore him bodily to the ground.
Chapter Three
Irian
Irian’s already jarred shoulder struck packed dirt a moment before his skull cracked down. He instinctively struggled beneath his attacker’s weight, jerking his arms as he fought to free his sword.
“Gods alive, man!” Wayland’s voice, ragged with alarm, carved through Irian’s aggression like a serrated knife. “Staydown.”
A surge of flame blasted mere inches from where both men grappled. Blistering heat raked Irian’s face; he heaved himself away, and Wayland rolled with him, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the blaze carving a path through the army of Eala’s dead. The conflagration ignited ossified corpses and liquefied time-pitted metal. Irian elbowed Wayland away from him and glanced up.
The red-gold silhouette of Laoise’s anam cló was an ardent pennant against the flaming dusk. Sunset kindled scarlet along her sleek scales and silhouetted her wings in ocher and plum. Her sinuous neck curved, molten fury burning from the depths of her gorge to incinerate the wall of shambling skeletons threatening Fia’s prone figure. Grudging awe rose in Irian.
From the moment Irian had intuited Laoise’s true nature, he had guessed she was formidable. She had proved herself indomitable.
“Up.” Wayland’s hands propelled Irian to standing. The wall of fire guttered as Laoise moved onward, leaving a trail of smoking skeletons and flaking ash in her wake. Beyond, Fia sprawled, insensate to the chaos. “Laoise is buying us time. Let us not waste it.”
Irian kicked through cinders to scoop his wife into his arms. She was whole and breathing, albeit slightly scorched—the right side of her body blackened with ash and a few of her long tresses singed away to nothing. The scent of hot skin and burnt hair withered Irian’s nostrils. He fought automatic fury, even as he sheathed his still-humming sword and cradled Fia’s head against his shoulder.
