Live, child…
The gentle, familiar voice of Epona drifted through her mind, calming and soothing her. Brighid bowed her head and began whispering the words as she steeled herself for the pain of the Change.
Her skin had barely stopped glowing from the transformation when Cuchulainn lifted her to the gelding’s back. The fire was so close that the heat seared their skin and sparks rained around them.
“It’s going to catch us,” Brighid panted against his ear.
Cuchulainn leaned forward and dug his heels into the gelding, who lengthened his stride, but they couldn’t pull away from the flaming monster that pursued them. Brighid closed her eyes and clutched the turquoise stone that dangled from around her neck.
I need you again, my winged friend.
The hawk’s cry sounded above the spitting flames and her mighty wings beat against the smoke that surrounded them as she circled over them once and then dove like a plummeting star to their right.
Come…
Cuchulainn reined the gelding to the right, and followed the soaring bird to the riverbed.
The water was shallow-only reaching just above the gelding’s hocks. And they weren’t alone. They had joined an odd assortment of deer and coyotes, all of whom were cringing into the water and staring with hypnotic fascination at the approaching wall of flames. When Fand leaped the bank and splashed to them, not even the timid deer spared him a glance.
“Get the skin off the gelding!” Brighid yelled over the thunder of the flames. “Let him go. He can outrun it without us.”
She gritted her teeth against the pain in her broken leg as he helped her from the horse’s back. She balanced on one leg in the muddy water while he tugged off the saddle, packs, and bison pelt, and shooed the gelding away. Then Cuchulainn lowered her with him as he sank into the water and called Fand to them. Wrapped in each other’s arms with the wolf pressed closely, Cuchulainn covered them with the bison pelt and their world went black.
They lost all sense of time, and knew only the heat and the terrible, deafening sound of the feeding fire. The water around them hissed and steamed. Brighid held tight to Cuchulainn and tried to control the instinctive panic that made her want to fling off the oppressive bison skin. Her pulse beat painfully in her broken leg and her body felt horribly weak, and amidst the heat she began to shiver and she knew that shock was setting in. That could kill me as surely as the fire. The thought was detached from her, and she knew she should force herself to care-to struggle to stay conscious and aware…but it was so much easier to sleep…and it was so very cold…
Then she heard the singing. Her lips tilted up as she recognized the voices of the winged children and remembered that it was the song they sang the day they began their journey from the Wastelands.
Greetings to you, sun of Epona
as you travel the skies on high,
with your strong steps on the
wing of the heights
you are the happy mother of the stars.
“Do you hear them,” she whispered to Cuchulainn.
“I do,” he said, his voice hushed. “I hear them even though they can’t be here.”
“They aren’t-” Brighid’s voice was choked with tears “-but their love is. Gorman was wrong, Epona still cares about what happens to her High Shamans.” As she listened to their disembodied song of praise she felt the strength of love fill her body and expand around her as she tapped into and focused it, blanketing them in a mother’s protective touch.
You sink down in the perilous ocean
without harm and without hurt.
You rise up on the quiet wave
like a young chieftain in flower,
And we will love you all the days
of our lives!
“It’s over,” Brighid said quietly when the singing stopped. “The fire has burned itself out. I can Feel it-its anger is gone.”
Slowly Cuchulainn raised the thick pelt from them and gazed into the alien dawn of a much-changed land. He stood and lifted Brighid, with Fand following closely, and carried her from the riverbed that had dried to little more than a puddle and was littered with the scorched bodies of animals. He climbed the eastern bank to stand on the rise amidst the blackened corpses of trees. The series of tributaries that fingered into the Centaur Plains from the main river had finally broken the line of the fire, and the green that still covered the ridge behind the last of the waterways looked bizarrely out of place in a world of black and gray. Before he could turn to face the south and what was left of the Centaur Plains, Brighid spoke.
“Let me stand,” she said. “I want to Change back.”
He lowered her feet to the ground. When she had her balance, he took a half step away from her, and then shaded his eyes as the brilliant light of the Change engulfed her body. Back in her natural form, she stood awkwardly on three legs, but she met his eyes resolutely.
“I’m ready to see it now,” she said.
Together, the two of them turned to face the south. Brighid could hardly comprehend what she was seeing. The sun was rising over the eastern edge of the horizon, casting cheery pink and gold into the sky over a sea of ruin. The plains were gone. In their place were still-smoldering ashes that clumped in grotesque charred formations. Trees were indistinguishable from bodies. Nothing moved except small trails of rising smoke.
“Oh, Goddess.” Brighid pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from sobbing aloud. Could anything survive it?
“Yes, child.” Etain’s voice came high and sweet from behind them.
They turned to face the Goddess Incarnate and Brighid gasped. Etain sat on the silver mare at the edge of the blackened line. Midhir stood to her left. To her right were Elphame, Lochlan and Ciara. And stretching behind them were all of the winged children.
“Now tell me, my daughter, how could anything survive such devastation?” Etain asked Brighid.
The Huntress’s eyes went from the Goddess Incarnate, to Elphame, and then to Ciara and the unusually silent children and, finally, her gaze lifted to her husband’s turquoise eyes. With a rush of clarity, Brighid finally understood-and it was at that moment that the Huntress fully became the High Shaman.
“With hope and love anything can be survived,” she said, and her words rang with Goddess-enhanced power so that they carried not just to all the children, but spread like ripples in a still pool across the Centaur Plains.
Etain smiled her approval.
Suddenly there was shouting from behind the children and dark-clothed warriors appeared with their bows and swords drawn. Brighid felt Cuchulainn tense at her side, and she opened her mouth to call a warning, but Etain raised one silk-clad arm and the sun glistened off the palm of her hand as if she had called its rays to her.
“Hold, Guardian Warriors!” she commanded without glancing behind her at the approaching army. “I did not allow you to follow them here for misplaced retribution. You are here to witness rebirth. Stand silently and observe.” Then her voice changed, and softened and she finally did glance behind her, but not at the warriors. The High Priestess smiled at the children. “Come,” she said.
The group descended from the green ridge and crossed the fire line without hesitation. When they reached Brighid and Cuchulainn, they halted. Brighid wanted to greet her friends, Elphame, Ciara and the small winged figure of Liam, but the preternatural tingling was back all over her skin and it seemed that her blood hummed with a sudden surge of wordless desire-something that was just beyond the reach of her mind and spirit-but something she wanted…had to have.
“Lead them, Brighid, High Shaman of the Dhianna Herd. It is your love and their hope that will heal the soul of the land,” Etain said.
“Let me lean on you?” Brighid asked Cuchulainn.
“Always, my beautiful Huntress,” he said.
With her arm around his broad shoulders she limped down the embankment, crossed the scorched river, and with the rustle of the moving wings that followed her, Brighid, Cuchulainn and the New Fomorians stepped onto the destroyed plain.