A priestess of Arzhela. Of some power, too.
"She protects those things she carries, with her very life." She slammed her fist into the shoulder of whatever male stood closest to her, eliciting a grunt. "And you fools believe her."
Dagmar could barely understand the female"s words because of the damage that had been done to her throat, which bore the old scar of a sword cut that went right across it. She could have gotten it in battle, but most likely it was the sacrifice she made to Arzhela. A true servant of the G.o.ddess that once was.
The priestess came closer, her hooves stomping loudly on the rocky ground. She stared hard at Dagmar as she approached.
"You"re wrong," Dagmar tried again, attempting to sound bored and unimpressed. "My task is as simple as yours. Retrieve the sp.a.w.n, return to my father. The Reinholdt."
"She lies," she hissed again.
"Are you doubting my word as a Northlander? Are you doubting I"m a Reinholdt?"
"You are a Reinholdt, Lady Dagmar. I have seen you before when I"ve pa.s.sed through the Reinholdt lands. You are Dagmar Reinholdt. But you lie." She leaned in close, her wet nose sniffing around her. "She has the smell of Rhydderch Hael all over her."
"She is his disciple!" one of the males accused.
"No." The priestess gave a small smile. "No. She worships no one. No G.o.d protects her. Cares for her. Even Rhydderch Hael. He is the one who sent her here. For us."
"And the sp.a.w.n?"
"They have failed him. He wants nothing to do with them."
She reached to touch one and Dagmar immediately turned her body away.
Her voice low and controlled, she growled, "Keep your grubby, cow hands off them."
The priestess leered. "The sp.a.w.n are mine." Her gaze moved to the males. "The woman ... is all yours."
Dagmar didn"t even manage the thought that she should run before a hand gripped her hair and yanked her back, the priestess quickly ripping Annwyl"s babes from her arms.
"No!" She reached out for the babes, desperate to get them back. Desperate to protect them with her life.
The head Minotaur stepped in front of her, his hand wrapping around her throat. "How could you not worship the G.o.ds? Even now they reward our sacrifice"-he shoved her back into the other Minotaurs-"with you."
Soldiers, guards, and servants-the humans-all quickly moved out of their way as Gwenvael and his kin poured from the castle into the courtyard. They immediately shifted, Addolgar and Ghleanna heading off in opposite directions to scour the countryside, calling on their sons and daughters to join them. Rhiannon and Morfyd headed toward the lake to call upon G.o.ds to help them. Leaving the four brothers and their father.
Gwenvael, Briec, eibhear, Bercelak, and Fearghus would start where the hoof prints were first located and move out from there, hoping that they were no more than a few leagues off.
But as Gwenvael took to the air, he heard a voice calling to him. He looked down and saw that it was Izzy. She waved her hands wildly and screamed his name.
He dropped lower. "What is it, Izzy?"
"Annwyl"s horse! Can you not hear him?"
Briec was by him now and they hovered for a moment trying to hear around and through the other noises of humans.
"I hear him," Briec said. They both could. The horse was banging against his stall. He could have merely gone mad, sensing his mistress was dead. But Gwenvael didn"t think so. And neither did Izzy, it seemed. She took off running, cutting through and around humans with ease while her uncle and father flew low until they reached the queen"s personal stable.
Izzy ran inside even as her mother ran up behind her telling her to wait.
eibhear moved past them all, grabbing hold of the stable roof and yanking it off with one great pull.
None of them had ever seen Violence act this way. He"d always been the calm center of the storm that was Annwyl, which was why Fearghus had chosen the stallion for his mate in the first place.
"Mourning?" Briec asked.
"I don"t think so." Fearghus dropped a bit lower. "Izzy. Let him out."
Izzy gripped the metal bolt holding the stall gate closed and locked, and yanked it back. The gate slammed open as the horse hit it again with his front hooves and without a moment"s hesitation, he charged out, running toward the great gates.
The horse no longer seemed mad with grief. Instead, he had a purpose and a destination.
"Open the gates! Now!" Fearghus yelled to the guards before taking off after the beast, his brothers and father right by his side.
They grabbed her now-empty arms-and reason help her but she felt that emptiness to her soul-and dragged her back across the tunnel floor to where they"d stopped digging. They threw her to the ground and she scrambled back up.
Her mind desperately searched for a way out of this, but the power of the priestess over these males was absolute. In the north, a priestess of power was the one woman no man would dare argue with. Unfortunately the Minotaurs were no different from her kinsmen.
"You"ll have to forgive our roughness, my lady," the head Minotaur said with absolute disdain. "It"s been months that we"ve been on this road and our priestess is rarely accommodating. But truly you won"t live long enough to mind that much."
"You will pay for your betrayal of the Northland Code."
"We are from the mighty Ice Lands. We are the true Northlanders. So any code you southerners use means nothing to us."
And it was as the males were moving closer to her that Dagmar saw her, standing in the midst of them-unseen. Except by Dagmar. She seemed taller this time and no longer the poor sword-for-hire. How could Dagmar not have seen it before? How could she not have known?
"Are you just going to stand there?" Dagmar snapped, angry. "Are you going to do nothing?"
The Minotaurs stopped, glancing at each other while a few muttered, wondering who she was talking to.
"You hurt his feelings," she chastised. "That"s why you"re here, Dagmar Reinholdt. You really have no one to blame but yourself."
"You"re blaming me for this?"
"We weren"t blaming you for anything," one of the Minotaurs contested.
"Shut up," she snapped and focused again on Eir. "You have to do something."
"Like what? Kill them all?"
"Excellent start."
"I can"t. They haven"t actually done anything to me. And you don"t worship me ... or anyone. The twins aren"t mine to protect. I really shouldn"t interfere with other G.o.ds."
"Are you kidding me?"
"This isn"t going to work," the head Minotaur said. "Pretending to be crazy won"t help you."
"G.o.ds have rules," Eir went on, ignoring the Minotaur as Dagmar was. "A code, if you will, like you have in the north."
"So that"s it? You"re going to walk away?"
"You talked yourself down here ... Seems to me, you"re on your own."
The G.o.ddess began to turn away, but Dagmar pulled her arm away from one of her captors and pointed it at her. "You said you owe me one!"
Eir faced her again, blinking in surprise. "For your wool socks."
"It was an open-ended "I owe you one." "
"What?"
"If you"d specifically stated, "I owe you one set of wool socks," that would be one thing. But you just said you owe me for the wool socks. Thereby leaving it completely open to interpretation and final payment."
One of the Minotaurs leaned close to his commander. "She"s centaur-s.h.i.t crazy."
"The fear must have scrambled her mind," the commander suggested.
Eir stared at her for a moment before nodding her head. "You are good. But it was only one favor. So you choose who I save. The twins or-"
"The twins," she said, and all the Minotaurs looked over at their priestess, busy pulling out daggers and herbs for a proper sacrifice.
"The twins," Dagmar repeated.
"All right. Think you can keep them busy for a bit?"
"I have to ask you again, are you kidding?"
"Come on. You"re very good. You"ll come up with something."
Frustrated, confused, and quite terrified, Dagmar threw up her hands and said, "Hear me, Minotaurs!" And all those bovine faces looked at her. "The dragon G.o.ds will not stand for this! And it will not be you they come after. It will be your people. Your females. Your calves. They will wipe your people from the earth for this betrayal!"
That made the males pause. They were on a suicide mission, but that didn"t mean their families were.
Eir raised her thumb up and smiled. "Nice!"
"Ignore her," the priestess said while carefully arranging the now screaming twins to her liking on a quickly made altar. "Use her as you will-no one will care."
"But"-one said carefully through his teeth-"we think this one"s crazy."
The priestess gaped at him. "That"s never stopped you before."
While the Minotaurs debated the rape and murder of the insane, Dagmar watched Eir. She"d promised to help the twins and yet she wasn"t walking toward them, but away, eventually stopping at Annwyl"s p.r.o.ne body. She knelt down beside the dead queen and turned the body over. She placed her hand on Annwyl"s head and dragged it down the length of her body, down her face, across her chest and stomach, down her legs to her feet. Annwyl herself didn"t move, her eyes still staring unseeing at the ceiling, but her corpse twitched as bones locked back into place.
With a hand under Annwyl"s neck, her head gently tilted back, the G.o.ddess, like Rhydderch Hael had done a short while ago, pressed her lips against Annwyl"s ...
The Minotaurs, obviously overcoming their moral dilemma, grabbed Dagmar and pulled her to the floor, onto her back. She fought back at the hands grabbing for her, but her focus was on the babes and the priestess who had them. The callous cow hummed as she prepared her ritual, ignoring everything else that was going on around her.
"Look at me, human."
Dagmar did, staring up at the Minotaur now over her while the others held her pinned to the ground.
"Your pain," he said softly, "will be my pleasure."
"And your death," said Annwyl behind him, "will be mine."
The Blood Queen then grabbed his head, her fingers digging into his eyes, pressing in until she had them deep into the sockets.
The Minotaur screeched and stood, Annwyl attached to his back, holding on as he desperately tried to get her off.
The others released Dagmar as they went to their commander"s aid. But he was shrieking and turning in circles, unintentionally keeping Annwyl from their grasp while at the same time using her body as a weapon.
Dagmar quickly got to her feet as Annwyl pulled one hand from the Minotaur"s face and reached down yanking the eating dagger he kept on his loin cloth. She raised the blade above him and brought it down into his skull. He squealed, and Annwyl laughed, hysterically, dragging the blade out and slamming it home, again and again.
Finally one of the Minotaurs grabbed hold of her and yanked her off their commander, tossing her across the room. Annwyl hit the wall, the floor, and then jumped right back to her feet.
Now Annwyl screamed, the likes of which Dagmar had never heard before and prayed to never hear again. Annwyl screamed and, covered in blood, charged full into the Minotaurs. They were so stunned it took them a moment to react. One of them went for his blade, but Annwyl s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him, using it to cut his stomach open before turning and boldly swinging the weapon as she did.
Dagmar forced herself to look away and to the priestess.
The priestess was angry, but she didn"t lose her head. Instead see grabbed the dagger and raised it above the girl. Dagmar ran at her, stepped on the weak altar for leverage, and launched herself at the priestess. Well aware she was no fighter, Dagmar wrapped her arms around the heifer"s head and held on.
"Get off me!" the priestess bellowed in outrage and shoved, sending Dagmar flying back. Dagmar hit the ground but kept her head up so it wouldn"t smash into the floor. When she stopped sliding, she grabbed one of the torches and forced her aching body back up. She felt the pain immediately, having never been trained in controlling it, and quickly limped back to the female Minotaur. She slapped the torch into her face, startling and angering her yet again.
"b.i.t.c.h!"
Dagmar kicked at the bowl filled with oil, aiming for the priestess. It hit her on the side and Dagmar quickly slammed the torch at her. The flame caught and the priestess cried out, yanking off her cloak. Using the time, Dagmar grabbed hold of the twins and quickly retreated. She saw the exit from where she stood, but a slashing, killing Annwyl and still quite a few Minotaurs stood between her and freedom.
The priestess, cloak and flame free, stepped over the altar. She stared at them all, and then she opened her mouth and yelled, "Stop!"
They all did, too. Even Annwyl.
The priestess glanced at Dagmar but seemed confident in her current situation of being unable to escape. Right now, they both knew that Annwyl was her bigger concern.
She raised her arm and stepped a little closer to the queen. "I call upon the darkest powers to come to me," she chanted, her finger pointing at Annwyl. "I call upon them to possess me and give me the power to destroy this abomination."
Dagmar stepped forward. "Annwyl, kill her!" she shouted. "Kill her before she can finish!"
She"d never know if Annwyl had heard her words, had understood her words, or simply responded to the sound of yelling. Whatever prompted the queen, the Mad b.i.t.c.h of Garbhn Isle, it was quite enough.
Pulling back her arm-the skin no longer pale and flaccid but strong, powerful, and filled with well-trained muscles-she threw the sword she had in her hand. A Minotaur"s blade, much longer and wider than any human sword, and Annwyl handled it like it was a small eating dagger.
The weapon flew across the tunnel and slammed into the Minotaur female, forcing her back several steps.
The priestess stared down at it, but she didn"t die.
She raised her arms and shouted, "Kill-"