Brie collapsed. She lay for a moment, winded and half-paralyzed, until the heat of the flames warmed her body. With a great effort, she rolled away from the campfire. The morg's cloak had ignited. Feeble and half-conscious, it tried to scrabble out of the fire, but the flames were consuming the creature too quickly. It let out a high-pitched hiss. Willing herself to move, Brie struggled to her feet and grasped the morg by the bottom of its cloak. Even as she pulled it out of the fire, she knew it was dead, but she halfheartedly tried to extinguish the flames. Finally she sat back, scorched and exhausted. The rank smell of burnt morg filled the air. Ciaran nuzzled her blackened forehead.
"Thank you, Ciaran," Brie said out loud, lifting a hand to the horse's forehead. "Where's the other morg?"
Dead.
"How are you?"
Tired, came the word faintly. And indeed the Ellyl horse's head was drooping and her eyes were bloodshot.
"Rest a moment. I'll be back," said Brie, rising stiffly. Slowly she crossed to the horse that was still tethered by the trees. Close up she was startled to see that it was not a horse, or at least not like any horse she had ever seen. It had the head and face of a goat, yet had the broad back and musculature of a horse or large donkey. Brie approached the animal, and it kicked at her savagely with its hooves. She jumped back.
Brie tried offering it a bit of honey cake, but it bared its jutting teeth at her and kicked out again. Cursing, Brie lunged for the ropes tying the unconscious child to the goat-horse's saddle. The beast tried to reach back and bite her with its jagged yellow teeth, but Brie dodged the thrusting head. She cut the ropes with her dagger, nearly slicing her hand in the process, then caught the small figure as it slid off the animal's back and into her arms. The goat-horse reared, incensed, and let out a grating bray.
Brie carried the body a safe distance away and set it down carefully. There was a large hood covering the child's face, and when Brie pulled it away, she gasped. It wasn't a child at all. It was Aelwyn, the wyll.
The wyll was very pale, but when Brie put her ear to the girl's chest, she could hear a heartbeat. Cuts and bruises covered Aelwyn's broad, ash-pale face.
Ciaran approached with a morg skin bag dangling from her mouth. Water, Brie heard, as if from a distance.
"The morg's? Is it safe to drink?" Brie asked.
The horse wearily jerked her head to indicate assent.
Brie bathed Aelwyn's face. As she did, the wyll began to revive, her heavy eyelids flickering. They abruptly opened wide, revealing the wyll's startling amber eyes. She did not appear surprised to see Brie, but smiled a welcome with her catlike mouth.
Soon she was sitting up and drinking the water.
"Lovely smell," Aelwyn commented, with a gesture toward the crumpled figure of the morg by the campfire.
"It clears the head, anyway," Brie responded. Aelwyn stared at her for a moment, then she laughed out loud. Brie smiled back.
"Thank you for rescuing me," said Aelwyn.
Brie shrugged. "It is Ciaran who deserves your gratitude. It would have been my roasted hide you'd be smelling now if it weren't for her."
Aelwyn gazed at Ciaran. "Then thank you, Ciaran." The wyll paused. "She understands me, doesn't she?"
"I shouldn't be surprised, though she is tired."
"I haven't seen many Ellyl horses. She's a beauty."
"Now I'm sure she understood that. She's a vain one. Aren't you, Ciaran?" Brie said affectionately, ruffling the Ellyl horse's forelock. Ciaran whickered faintly in protest.
"We have that in common—or so I've been told," said Aelwyn, unconsciously fiddling with a glimmering necklace of opaline and amber at her neck.
"How did you come to be prisoner of morgs?" asked Brie. "And what was that creature with them?"
Aelwyn raised a small hand to her bruised face. "When they first came upon me, I thought I was seeing a phantom. In Dungal the goat-men are creatures more of legend than of fact, evil beasts that mothers use to scare children into minding, especially in the hill country, because the goat-men are said to dwell in the mountains. I grew up in a village in the hill country."
"It is called goat-man?"
"Or gabha. He stood on two legs like a man, with a face roughly in the shape of a man, though the mouth was large and the eyes bulged out at the sides of its head. And he was covered with hair, even his face, forehead and all, and it was the long, coarse hair of a goat."
"With a wispy goat beard," interjected Brie.
Aelwyn nodded. "He smelled of goat; I never could abide that odor. And his voice had a 'baa' sound like a goat. I couldn't understand his language, though the morgs seemed to."
"They ambushed you?"
Aelwyn nodded. "After I left Cuillean's dun, the same day you did, I believe, I began making my way north. I have a friend, from my village in Dungal, who now lives in a town at the foot of the Blue Stacks. There are a handful of Dungalans scattered throughout the few villages and farmholds that lie in the foothills of the mountains. I think it is because they cannot stand to be too far from Dungal." She paused. "My friend is expecting a bairn, and I had pledged to come when the child was due, to help with the birthing, as well as afterward, for she already has a young son and daughter. I was traveling east through the foothills when I spotted them, the morgs and the goat-man. They came after me, killed my pony, and knocked me unconscious. I am not certain," Aelwyn said matter-of-factly, "but I believe they were headed toward Lake Or. To throw me in."
"For what reason?"
"They said nothing, at least nothing I understood, but I sensed it was because they knew I was Dungalan and did not want me traveling to Dungal."
"Why not?"
Aelwyn shook her head. "I do not know. In fact, I had been thinking of returning, after helping my friend, before the winter snows come to the mountains. Now I certainly will," she said with an obstinate smile. "And you, Brie?"
"I am on the trail of a man."
"One of your father's killers?"
"No. But one who may lead me to them, I hope."
"Who is this man?" asked Aelwyn.
Brie described Bricriu. The wyll nodded in recognition. "I met such a man, before the morgs and goat-man ambushed me," she said. "He asked the way to Beirthoud's Pass in the Blue Stack Mountains."
Brie's interest quickened. "Then he was journeying to Dungal?"
"Most likely. No one chooses to travel over Beirthoud's Pass unless they go to Dungal." Aelwyn frowned at the eager look in Brie's eyes. "Remember what I saw, Flame-girl," the girl said with a warning glint in her eye. "Bog Maglu is a dangerous place."
"Bog Maglu?"
"Maglu is a large, treacherous wetland that lies in the center of our country." Aelwyn paused, shaking her head. "I do not know, but the stones I saw, the standing stones, looked as I have heard the stones of memory look. The stones of memory lie in the heart of Bog Maglu. Yet it is confusing because I saw seabirds as well and the Bog is far from the sea..." She trailed off. "But there was shifting earth and water, and the arrow. You do not forget the arrow I saw?"
"No, I do not forget. Pointed at my heart. So I will journey with great care. Are you up to traveling, Aelwyn?"
Aelwyn shrugged. "I am well enough."
"Then we ought to move on. The goat-man may return," Brie said, rising and looking for Ciaran. The Ellyl horse had moved away from them as they talked.
The night had deepened while Brie and Aelwyn spoke. At first Brie could not see Ciaran, but then found her lying down behind the gorse bushes. Ciaran's skin was even hotter than before and her manner listless. She did not respond when Brie spoke to her.
"What is wrong with her?" asked Aelwyn, who had followed Brie.
"I do not know. I'm worried..."
Aelwyn crouched beside the horse., Gently she laid a small hand on the horse's neck. Ciaran tensed for a moment, moving her legs as if to rise, but then she settled, her body relaxing into the tall grass. Gradually the large eyes closed.