She picked up her skirts and sent the druid a final glance. “You’ll be well. Call for me if the ache gets worse.”
The healer and the villagers departed, but one man remained, turning his cap nervously in his hand.
“If they are too proud to ask, then I will do it myself. My laird, yer men could clear the pass—save us from the beast.”
Cían gasped and all eyes turned to him. “I ken where we are! It’s just like Grandpa’s story. The mountain of the golden axe! Cárthsíarna! Don’t you remember?”
“Hush up and find something to do,” scolded Jor. “This is all hogwash.”
“Our trouble isreal,” said the villager. He looked at the Vaich with desperate eyes. “Please, my laird, do think on it.”
The man departed and the kiern remained in uncertain silence. All but Cían, who said, excitedly, “If there’s a beast on the mount, we ought clear it out!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jor.
“Story or not,” muttered the Vaich, “we shouldn’t let them lose their good boys to the slope. Suppose something could be done.”
“There’s enough of us about; we could send a detachment up. What could it be but a few angry trolls?” said Alak.
“But what if there reallyisa golden axe?” said Cían. “A weapon that could kill a hundred boars with a single swing…”
“You’re too old to believe in these stories,” growled his brother.
“Come on, Jor, wouldn’t you like to see? Anyway, if there is some beast up there, the Vaich can handle it. You’d be a hero, sire!”
The Vaich’s golden eyes swept the smiling, eager faces of his men and met the druid’s across the room.
A wordless knowing passed between them.
“If these people are plagued and ask for my help, then the Vaich will see it done.”
There were cheers from the kiern, but Jor scoffed. “And be later still? The fortress awaits in Annath.”
“Then they shall wait a day more,” said the Vaich. “This village need not lose another boy to some misfortune. It’s the very least we could do.”
The air in the inn had changed in a moment. Filled, once more, with bravado. And the more they grew excited, the weaker the druid felt. With all the laughter, he went unnoticed, creeping quietly up to bed.
His gown pooled on the floor at his toes as he inspected his bare, bruised body. When he closed his eyes, he was again in the womb, the walls closing in around him. It was hard to breathe beneath the binding, just as it had been that night.
He tried not to think of the woman, but her face and the white tree were constantly on his mind.
Stumbling, he grasped for the bedsheets, crawling in between. It was warm, but not comforting, and a feverish fog settled over him.
A deep, hopeless black unfolded before his eyes. It was familiar to him now—an unnerving and relentless geist. And within the dark came loathsome visions.
Corpses piled in uncanny patterns. The foul stench of blood in his mouth and nose. Upon the air, a wicked voice whispered words he had never heard.
Red was the sky, bathed in carnage, mirroring the world below, and with an awful shriek, it ripped open, birthing ghostly ships of rotting wood.
Listen.
Listen.
A thousand shifting worms squirmed against his flesh. The blood-drenched soil pressed in around him as he thrashed against the dread. He felt shackles on his wrists. They tightened on his pulse. A voice screamed into his ear—
“Druid!”
His eyes snapped open. The room stared back at him, and amongst it sat the Vaich. Strong hands gripped his arms and the moment they loosened, the druid scrambled free, burrowing into his chest. The Vaich tensed against his trembles, but the druid could do nothing but fist his fingers in the fur of that smoke-soaked mantle. For a moment, he thought he might be sick, but the scent of him settled his stomach.
