ORAGE shied and refused the bit at the edge of the stone circle. Hugh nearly fell off the horse. He jabbed the beast with his spurs. Orage merely reared and pranced in place. Clearly he would go no further.
Both dogs stood at the entrance to the barrow, noses working, distressed whines in their throats. But they waited for Hugh.
The sun kissed the horizon. Deep twilight spread across the land, throwing long shadows of darkness across the path.
Hugh dropped to the ground. Archie had anticipated his movements and caught him as his knees wobbled and his head reeled.
“Why in hell did she come back here?” Archie crossed himself as soon as Hugh stood on his own.
“Because Radburn Blakely chose the place of their confrontation.” Hugh bit back a nasty comment about Archie’s stupidity. He didn’t like the tactical situation. The hair on his nape stood up straight in atavistic fear.
The last time they had been at this barrow and cave Ana had made him face a demon. Granted the demon was only memories of his father and brother buried deeply behind his spleen. Still the situation had been uncomfortable.
They crossed the open circle in six long strides. The dizziness stayed away for a moment. At the barrow entrance, Hugh paused while his eyes adjusted. Ana, someone, had lit torches leading deep within the silent cave. Too silent. Not so much as an insect squeaked inside. Hugh swallowed a moment of cold dread.
He looked for a hint of faeries flitting about and saw only natural shadows flickering in the torches.
“Ana?” he whispered, not daring to startle her or her opponent. The sound echoed around and amplified. “Ana, ana, an, na, na, na....”
Then all was preternaturally quiet again.
Archie held back.
Hugh forced himself to move forward. The torchlight spread only as far as one step carried him. All seemed dark ahead until he took the next step and the next torch showed him another small area.
He kept his left shoulder and the wounded arm next to the wall and drew his sword with his still sound right hand. Hesitantly, he proceeded forward one careful step after another.
At the split in the cave he saw deep scuff marks on the floor, a scrape where metal had hit the stone walls with force, a downed and dying torch.
“Ana!” he said louder. The walls absorbed his sound as if made of heavy wool.
Three steps farther he found the tangled heap of bodies and pools of blood. Lots of blood.
“Ana!” He dashed to her side, feeling for a sign of a pulse in her neck. No sign of life fluttered against his fingers. “Ana! Don’t leave me yet, Ana,” he sobbed.
Archie examined the other two bodies and shook his head. “Both dead. Bodies still warm. What about her?” He turned his attention back to Hugh and Ana.
Ana’s eyelids fluttered as if dreaming. Or was it merely the flicker of torchlight?
Checking for signs of injury, Hugh gathered her in his arms. “Ana, my love, what ails you?” Hard to tell under the torchlight if her cool skin was unnaturally pale and clammy indicating internal bleeding. She continued a dead weight against his arms. Alive or dead, he had to get her out of this demon cave.
Newynog bounded up and licked Ana’s face. She whined pitifully and looked up at him, imploring him to do something. Anything to save Ana.
“Let me carry her outside,” Archie said. “You’re in no shape to do it. You’re in no shape to be here,” he muttered.
“Careful,” Hugh warned. “She may have internal bleeding.”
“I’ll be careful. I just need to put as much distance as I can between me and that demon behind the door.” He glanced furtively at the dragon head in the center of the door.
Hugh caught no sound or sense of a presence behind the sealed portal. That frightened him as much as Ana’s continued stillness.
Had Ana managed to permanently seal the portal or had the demon escaped?
“I’d want to die, too, if I was trapped in this godforsaken cave,” Archie muttered as he slung Ana over his shoulder.
Hugh stumbled after them, barely able to stand upright from pain and blood loss and fear for Ana.
“Into the stone circle,” he ordered Archie as his sergeant at arms rested Ana within the arches of the barrow.
Outside the sun passed below the horizon. Twilight lingered. Between light and dark. Between life and death.
“Come back to me, Ana. I don’t want to live without you.”
o0o
A tiny glimmer of light beckoned me onward through the black spiral of death that tossed me in its downward progress.
An end to this endless churning.
The light of life or the light of an angel offering me an end to this pain?
I hoped to find an angel holding a star in his hand. If I lived, I’d relive the moment I took two lives over and over until I died. I’d never truly live again.
The light grew brighter. A shining beacon of hope in this endless nothing.
I reached for it.
A strong hand clasped mine and pulled me—up—out of the darkness into the fading light of sunset. Death or life?
Loving arms enfolded me. A love so great it could only come from God.
“Come back to me, Ana. I need you, my love. I cannot live without you.”
“Hugh?” My eyelids fluttered briefly, then scrunched closed. The first moments past sunset seemed so bright after the darkness of death that my eyes felt stabbed by tiny knives.
“Hush, Ana. I’ve come for you.” He smoothed damp tendrils of hair off my face.
“Blakely?” I asked, though I knew. My last glimpse of him in the flickering torchlight had shown him staring up at me with the blankness of the dead. The great sword, Excalibur pinned him to his servant beneath him.
“Excalibur? Where is it? I must return it to the Lady. I have to ride to Kirkenwood now.”
“Hush, my love. You’ll not be riding anywhere for a while. You need rest, and food. All the blood dulled the blade, I guess.”
“No, the magic is gone from it,” I choked. My throat felt as if I’d walked the deserts of the Holy Land without water. “The moment Blakely’s eyes went dim, the sword lost its magic. It is silent now. My head is free of the buzzing.” I shook my head and slapped my ear lightly. Then I opened my eyes wide and truly looked around.
“Lie still a moment, Ana. You may be hurt.” He held my shoulders against his lap.
“No, Hugh, don’t you see? The sword has died. Its task here is finished. That’s what my dream meant. Not that I would die, but that the sword would. I must return it to the Lady.” I rolled to my knees. He was still too weak from his wound to hold me back. “And the demon portal is intact. It is quiet, too. The demon of chaos has retreated.” I stood before the barrow uprights, one hand held up, palm out, feeling for any trace of Tryblith or his grandson.
“The demon itself may have retreated, but the seeds of chaos and mistrust are deeply sown among the barons. Its evil still walks the world.” Hugh sighed and struggled to his feet.
“They always will. ’Tis my job as The Pendragon to counter those seeds whenever possible.” I faced him, the beginnings of a smile tugging at my lips.
I lived. I lived!
“How can you, one woman in possession of a minor barony, counter chaos? The barons clamor for a return of their rights outlined by Henry I’s Coronation Charter. John insists upon his rights as king by Divine Right. The church wants control of all the rights, to dispense them as they see fit.” Hugh shook his head and clasped my hand as if he feared I might run away from him.
Never again.
“What we need is a new charter that outlines everyone’s rights as well as responsibilities. Something written and signed so that it becomes part of the fabric of the law,” I said. Somehow we would work it all out. Somehow.
What mattered now was that I lived and I loved Hugh and he loved me. My dog and my daughter were safe. In the next few days England would be set back on the road toward a safe future.
“John will like a written charter. He loves laws.”
“A charter,” I mused. “A great charter that no one can dispute.”
“They will dispute it, though.”
“Then we must work to make it happen, make it work. I think Archbishop Langdon should be the one to propose it. Both the barons and John will listen to him.” I took his arm and led him toward the horses.
“Then we ride for Winchester tonight?” Hugh asked. He looked askance at his horse. “I’d rather rest here a while before riding that beast again.”
“I’d rather be back at the inn before a bright fire with a mug of ale and a trencher full of John Howard’s stew,” Archie muttered. He positioned Orage beside a rock that Hugh might be able to mount from. With help.
“Hugh, I think you and I will set up camp here among the stones of the faery circle. Archie can go back to the inn by himself. With the dogs as escort, of course.”
Hugh grinned as a flurry of brightly colored dots of light danced around them. He nodded in acceptance of their presence. “Just like last time, Ana.”