With a sympathetic shake of her head, Mairwen gently touched his shoulder. “Since she is just learning her magic, it may need her desperation and pain before it harkens to her commands. Ye know how the powers can be.”
“I must go to her. Now.” He spun about and crossed to the wall of weapons, helping himself to the softly glowing athames, shoving all four into his belt. The ancient claymore and ax displayed with them were not needed since he already carried Grandsire’s favorite sword, but his hand paused over a suspiciously plain leather flask that hummed and softly glowed as though eager to join the adventure.
“Take it,” Mairwen said. “It will serve ye well along with the wolfstone ye carry to Calia.” She joined him at the wall and barely tapped on the small bulging container. “This ever-refilling flask of healing herbs blessed by the mighty Danu herself is a rare gift, but use them sparingly and only after Calia has placed the wolfstone around her neck. Yer grandsire must have greatly charmed the mother goddess to have received such a gift.” She handed him the scrolls she’d tucked under her arm. “Here. A way in and a way out. Commit them to memory. Knowing yer grandsire and the Sorcerer Larofess, these texts are probably spelled to disintegrate if ever removed from this cave.” The worry in her eyes gave Mathison pause. “My Weavers and I shall stay here and await yer return with Calia. We can help in her complete healing. But make haste. Carman and her sons will fight to ensure Bansys and the ruling twins do not fail in this battle. They know it will condemn them to mortality and death once the curse is broken, and the Shadowmist chieftainship returns to its rightful heir.”
Mathison shoved the leather vessel into his sporran. “I love Calia, and I believe she loves me even though she has yet to say the words. I heard it in her plea for me to come to her. The curse should be broken.”
“What will ye do with yer false heirs, Talon and Tanner?” Mairwen followed him to the mouth of the cave, where the other Weavers of Light stood guard.
“I dinna ken.” And he didn’t. He’d spent the last three hundred years thinking they were his sons who had been kept from him. “If their hearts can be cleansed of the evil Bansys poisoned them with…”
Mairwen nodded. “I shall consult the cards to see if yer mercy for them is warranted.” She caught hold of his sleeve. “Hurry. Consult the scrolls, memorize their words, then give them to me. I shall return them to their place. Do not risk taking them past the threshold.”
It was a good thing she had reminded him. In his haste to get to Calia, he’d nearly left the cave with them. He unrolled the first one and groaned. Grandsire had written his notes in the old language of the wolf shifters, an ancient dialect rarely, if ever, used anymore. Even though Mathison didn’t particularly like trying to remember the correct pronunciations, he understood why Grandsire had used it. The words were so steeped in old magic that, as he read them aloud, they rose from the pages and created realistic pictures of the tunnels, leading him into the darkness of the Pit and allowing him to study the way as if he were already inside them. Once he finished with that scroll, he pored over the second, which described the traps to avoid on the way out of the intricate, icy hell created by his grandsire and the sorcerer.
As he handed the scrolls back to Mairwen, a series of symbols—the knots and whorls of the wolf clan’s ancient tongue—appeared on the backs of his hands as though tattooed there for an age. He rubbed the marks, but if anything, they only became darker. “’Tis the maps.”
“Good. The markings will help ye remember.” Mairwen resealed the scrolls and took a step back. “May the goddesses be with ye.”
“Goddesses or no goddesses, I shall return with my Calia. Be ready to help her heal.” Mathison left the cave, burning for vengeance against those who had made his mate suffer. Horse stepped forward, just as eager to charge into battle.
Mathison settled into the saddle and scoured the view below. Shadowmist Keep and its grounds seemed eerily quiet. This time of year, early spring, the place and its surrounding glen should be aswarm with activity. It was time to see to the land and prepare for the season of bounty. Well, it didn’t matter. He would make it active enough when he stormed the place and made those witches regret the days of their creation.
As he descended the cliff overlooking the keep, he willed Calia to feel his presence, to know he was on his way. He longed for her to reach out to him again just so he would know she hadn’t given up.
“She’ll not give up,” Dubh said. “A more stubborn woman does not exist.”
“I’ll be sure and tell her ye said that.”
“That stubbornness will keep her alive.”
As they rounded a sharp, blind turn, the wolfstone burned so hot against the base of Mathison’s throat that he flexed his neck and shifted the amulet to a different spot. Then he understood why the necklace had reacted as it had. The witch goddess’s evil sons blocked the way. The sight of Carman’s spawn pleased him immensely because while searching through the many scrolls and tomes stored in Grandsire’s cave, he’d come across a particularly powerful spell—the spell of fatal mortality—and the wolfstone would amplify its effects. It likely wasn’t strong enough to destroy Carman, but it would handle her sons nicely.
“Mum sent us to greet ye,” the dripping, greasy Dub said.
“Aye, she be gladder than glad when we bring her yer head.” With a fling of his hand, Dother splattered a puddle of blood directly in front of Horse’s feet.
The loyal stallion didn’t flinch or cower, just lifted his muzzle and gave a warning grumble.
Dian rattled his axes and swords against his pale bones. “I gets to do the beheading. Lucky for ye, I just sharpened me blades.”
Mathison dismounted and unsheathed his sword. Lust for the demons’ deaths pounded through him. “I admire yer belief in victory. What a shame it is wasted—unless ye’ve realized I shall be the only one who walks away from this battle alive.”
The empty eye sockets in the vile ones’ elongated skulls shone with a deeper, deadlier red glow. Dub jutted his bony chin higher and made a snuffling sound. “I dinna smell fear, brothers. Only a bloodlust that be far stronger than our own.”
“Bloodlust—scha! No one possesses more lust for blood than I.” Dother opened his mouth and spewed a crimson river. The stuff oozed from his eye sockets and ear holes, dripping from his skull to stream down his abhorrent form of sinew and bone. He clacked his blades together. “Let’s get to the killin’.”
With his left hand gripping the wolfstone at the base of his throat, Mathison lifted his sword with his right and allowed his mystical energies to set it aglow. Then he growled the mortality spell:
“By stone and sea, by breath and bone,
I call the thread of life alone.
Ancient fire, yer ageless claim?—
Be quenched, be stilled, return to name.
Immortal heart, nor mortal be,
