CHAPTER FIVE
Cuchulainn motioned for Brighid to enter the small building ahead of him. She ducked through the thick animal skin that served as a doorway and was pleasantly surprised to feel warm, still air instead of constant cold wind. The lodge was circular, and the walls were made of the red shale that was so plentiful in the Wastelands. It was patched snugly together with a mixture of mud and sand. There was a hearth that wrapped around almost half of the curving room. Two small windows were covered, so there was little light, but it was bright enough for Brighid to see that the roof was unusual. It appeared to be mesh, woven of reeds or thin branches. Placed over the matting was a substance Brighid couldn’t identify. It had been firmly pressed into the weave, but now it appeared to be hard and dry.
“It’s moss,” Cuchulainn said. “They cut it from the ground and while it’s still pliant they press it into the web of woven tubers. When it dies it hardens until it’s like rock, only lighter. Nothing can get through it.”
“What’s this on the floor?” Brighid bent and picked up a handful of short, fragrant grass.
“They call it dwarf heather. It only grows to about hock-high, but there’s a lot of it, especially in canyon areas like this. It makes for good insulation. The ground here is damnably cold and hard.” Cuchulainn motioned to the other side of the room, opposite the stretched animal skin hammock that served as a bed. “You can put your packs there. Ciara will have pelts brought in for you to sleep on. You should be comfortable and warm enough-and anyway we’ll be traveling in just a few days.”
“Cuchulainn, what’s going on here?”
“I’m preparing to lead the hybrids back to Partholon, of course. The snow has almost thawed enough for the pass to be open again-as you know better than I,” he finished curtly.
Brighid shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. I counted at least forty children. I saw only three adults. What is going on here?” she repeated slowly.
Cuchulainn pulled off his cloak and ran a hand through his hair, which Brighid noticed was uncharacteristically long and unkempt.
“I’m not exactly sure,” he said.
“Not sure?”
Cuchulainn scowled at her. “That’s right. They’re not what you think. The only thing I know for sure is that the New Fomorians are different.”
“Well of course they’re different!” Brighid wanted to shake Cu. “They’re a mixture of human and Fomorian. There has never been a race like them.”
Cuchulainn walked over to the hearth. Stirring the glowing embers to life he fed them blocks of dried peat from the stack nearby and the coals flamed into a lively, crackling fire. Then he turned and gave Brighid a weary, resigned look.
“Take off your packs. Relax. It isn’t much, but I’ll tell you what I know.”
As Cuchulainn helped her unload she watched him carefully. Grief and guilt had aged and hardened him, but there was something else about him, something that tickled the edge of her mind but which she couldn’t quite understand.
Had the hybrids cast some kind of spell over him? Cuchulainn shunned the spirit realm, and he would have little protection against a magical attack. Though Brighid did not have the training and experience of her mother, she was not a stranger to the powers of the spirit world. Nor was she a stranger to the ways in which powers granted by the Goddess could be twisted and misused. Silently she promised herself that later, when she was free to concentrate, she would see if she could detect any malevolent energy hovering around the settlement. Until then all she could do was what she was best at-finding a trail and following it.
“Here,” she said, tossing the warrior a fat skin from her last pack. “Your sister sent you this.”
Cuchulainn uncapped the skin, sniffed the liquid within, grunted in pleasure and took a long drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and settled onto his cot. “It’s been too long since I’ve tasted wine from Epona’s Temple. My mother would say there is no excuse for living like a barbarian.”
“That’s exactly what your sister said.”
Cu’s smile looked almost normal for an instant. “I miss her.”
“She misses you, too.”
He nodded and took another drink of the rich red wine.
“Cu, why are there so few adult hybrids?” Brighid asked softly.
He met her eyes. “Here’s what I know. I have counted twenty-two full-grown, adult hybrids-twelve females, one of whom has just announced that she is pregnant, and ten males. And there are seventy children ranging in age from infants to young adults. Ciara and the others say that everyone else is dead.”
“How?” Brighid’s head reeled at the disparity in numbers.
“It was the madness. Ciara says it was more difficult to withstand the older they became. Of the original hybrids born of human mothers only Lochlan, Nevin, Curran, Keir and Fallon remain.” Cuchulainn paused, clenching his jaw. “Of them Fallon is mad.”
Brighid nodded. “Her jailors at Guardian Castle say she remains mad. Elphame’s sacrifice didn’t touch her.”
“It was too late. She had already accepted the darkness of her father when El drank Lochlan’s blood and took on their madness. Apparently there is no reversing it once it has taken hold.” His stomach tightened as he remembered the horrific scene when Elphame had slit her own wrists, forcing Lochlan to share his blood to save her life. With the hybrid’s blood she had taken within her the madness of a race of demons. “It should have driven El mad, too. It was only through Epona’s power that she remains sane even though the madness lies dormant within her blood.”
“But accepting the madness didn’t kill your sister, and it didn’t kill Fallon. How did it kill the other adults?”
“Suicide. Ciara says that when a hybrid was no longer able to bear the pain of withstanding the evil within him, he chose suicide rather than a life of violence and hatred.”
The Huntress tilted her head and sent him an incredulous look. “So what she’s saying is that someone who has pretty much decided to accept hatred and evil has the capacity to make the ultimate sacrifice of taking his or her own life?”
“Yes. As a last act of humanity.”
“And you’re believing all of this?”
Instead of the anger with which Brighid expected him to respond Cuchulainn’s expression turned introspective. He took another drink from the wineskin.
“At first I didn’t believe any of it. For days I walked around armed, expecting winged demons to jump out at me from behind every rock.” His brows tilted up and some of his old sparkle lit his eyes. “Demons failed to appear. But can you guess what did jump out at me?”
Brighid snorted a quick laugh. “If you’d left me to lodge with them I think I would have called them demons. Very small demons, but none the less frightening.”
“The children are everywhere. There are so many of them and so few adults that it’s a constant struggle to care for them and keep them fed. Not that they’re helpless-or at least not as helpless as human, or even centaur, children would be at their age. They’re hardy and intelligent. Despite their rather exuberant show when welcoming strangers, they’re incredibly well-behaved.” Cuchulainn met and held Brighid’s sharp gaze. “And they are the happiest beings I’ve ever known.”
“There’s nothing new about the young being happy, Cu. Even your silly wolf cub runs and frolics. It is the way of youth before the responsibilities of the world encroach upon their unrealistic dreams for the future.”
Cuchulainn heard the bitter undertone in the Huntress’s voice and wondered what had happened in her youth to put it there.