“Strength,” he said darkly, stepping forward so that he sprayed spittle in her face as he spoke, “is defined by the victor!”
“Where is my brother?” she said, refusing to react to his blustering.
“You brother is making certain that Partholon knows that once again Fomorians have been loosed upon their world.”
“Have you gone mad?” she said. “There are no more Fomorians.”
“Really? Then what do you call those winged creatures you and Midhir’s son guided into Partholon?”
“I call them the same thing Midhir and Epona’s Chosen call them-New Fomorians. You know Elphame lifted the curse from them. They are no longer a demonic race.” As she spoke she tested the bindings around her wrists, vying for a way to get her hands free. “This is ludicrous. I demand to see my brother.”
“Patience, my beauty. Bregon has been very busy and wasn’t able to greet you properly upon your arrival.” Gorman laughed and the three watching centaurs chuckled nervously along with him. “He asked us to keep you…occupied…until he could join us.”
Brighid felt her face go cold. “Bregon could not know what you have done to me.”
Gorman shrugged. “He commanded that you be kept from reaching the herd until it is too late. He left the means up to us. This-” he gestured to the cross-tie poles and the ropes that would strangle her if she attempted to fight “-was my idea.”
“It’s already too late. I have tasted of Epona’s Chalice. I am the Dhianna High Shaman.”
“Yes, we’re aware of that. Bregon told us. Fortunately none of us thought to tell our mates. Such a shame that the females of the herd won’t find out until it’s too late.”
“You are mad,” she told Gorman, and then carefully turned her head so that the next time the tent glowed with lightning she met the eyes of the dark bay centaur who had remained farthest in the shadows. “Get my brother, Hagan. No matter what has happened between us he will not look kindly on this treatment of his sister.” Then she narrowed her eyes and filled her voice with all the power she could siphon from her exhausted spirit. “And even if Bregon would be willing to allow it, he knows, as do I, the anger that would fill Epona at such treatment of her High Shaman!”
Hagan flinched and opened his mouth to speak, but Gorman cut him off.
“And what did your precious Epona do when your own mother was spitted through the gut and lay dying in agony?” Gorman’s face was florid with the passion of his emotions. “Nothing! Your Goddess let Mairearad suffer and die. Apparently Epona no longer cares about what happens to her centaur High Shamans.”
Brighid turned her gaze slowly and deliberately back to his. “You blaspheme and have turned from the Great Goddess. I give you my oath that you will pay for it.”
Thunder growled through the night and lightning spiked as if Epona had heard and acknowledged her Shaman’s oath. Heedless, Gorman sneered.
“We shall see who pays for what, Brighid Dhianna. After all, it is you who helped to bring the demons back into Partholon. Perhaps the people you chose over your own herd will not open their arms to you with such enthusiasm when they realize what you have done.”
“The New Fomorians are not demons, you fool! They are a kind people who nurture life, not death. And that is what all of Partholon will know.”
Gorman’s eyes turned sly. “You seem to be forgetting one very special Fomorian.” He enunciated the word carefully.
Brighid narrowed her eyes at him. “Fallon is jailed at Guardian Castle awaiting the birth of her child and her execution. She will pay for her madness, even though what she did was only a result of the depth of her love for her people. She is an aberration. The rest of the New Fomorians are not like her.”
“So what you’re saying is that they wouldn’t help her escape and then join her in small but deadly strikes against Partholon?”
“Of course not.”
“But what if they did? What if a winged creature who came from the southwest-the exact area of MacCallan Castle -managed to break into Guardian Castle and free the insane Fomorian, leaving blood and death in their wake? What would the Guardian Warriors do?”
“This is a ridiculous guessing game. It could not happen. The New Fomorians want nothing more than to live peacefully in Partholon. They wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”
Gorman’s laughter filled the tent, almost drowning out the next roll of thunder. Bowyn and Mannis smiled, and their teeth flashed white in the flickering lightning.
“She knows as little as Bregon said she would about it,” Mannis said.
Brighid’s eyes snapped to his. “You have a tongue? I thought you and your brother were only mouthpieces for Bregon. If he’s not present feeding you your words I didn’t think either of you-” she let her disgusted gaze include Bowyn “-could actually speak for yourself.”
“You always thought you were so much better than us,” Bowyn said angrily.
“Not better, just more humane,” Brighid said.
“Don’t you want to know what the ‘it’ is?” Gorman interrupted, calling her attention back to him.
“I don’t care about anything you have to say, Gorman.”
“Really? Perhaps you will. ‘It’ is shapeshifting. Bregon told us the people of Partholon know as little about shapeshifting as his own newly made High Shaman sister. And that he would use their ignorance to his benefit.”
“What are you…” With a shudder of horror she knew. The “Fomorian” who helped Fallon to escape would be Bregon. “Oh, Goddess! No!”
“Oh, Goddess! Yes!” Gorman mocked. “But don’t think it was Bregon who thought of the plan.”
“Mairearad.” She breathed her mother’s name, remembering the raven’s obscene shriek for vengeance.
“Of course it was Mairearad. Even dying she was brilliant. She orchestrated the revenge for her own death. She told Bregon to enter Guardian Castle at night and alone, and find the Fomorian. Then he was to kill everyone who had seen him enter in his true form, shapeshift into a Fomorian, and allow the creature to escape-only then would he let any of the warriors who saw him live.”
“Because they wouldn’t see him. They would see a Fomorian,” she said, shaking her head back and forth in horror, remembering the kindness the Guardian Warriors had shown the children. But that wouldn’t matter, not if they believed Partholon was being attacked by the race they had been commissioned to defend her against.
“Yes.” Gorman chuckled. “And they’ll follow a Fomorian’s trail that will lead back to MacCallan Castle. What do you think Clan MacCallan will do when the Guardian Warriors surround their castle?”
“They won’t give up the children,” she whispered, more to herself than to Gorman. “They’ll fight to protect them.”
“We’re counting on that,” Gorman snarled.
“Why? Those people have done nothing to you. Why would you want to destroy Clan MacCallan?”
“For the same reason you should. They killed your mother.”
“That’s crazy. Clan MacCallan could not possibly have harmed my mother.”
“She died in a pit dug by humans.” Gorman moved quickly to a dark corner of the large tent and picked up a wad of material from the floor. He returned to stand in front of Brighid and shoved the bloody cloth into her face. “This is what the humans were wearing. Do you recognize it?”
It was the MacCallan plaid. Brighid’s stomach pitched as she remembered Elphame telling her of the clan members who had chosen to break their oaths and leave the castle, making themselves unacceptable to any other clan. They must have made their way to the vast Centaur Plains, probably thinking to begin anew, maybe even found their own clan.
Instead they’d founded a war.
“These people were not a part of Clan MacCallan. Several clan members broke oath and left-these had to be those people. Where are they? I’ll recognize them if I see them.”