I saw that Terpsichore was walking purposefully to stand by the dark woman’s side. She looked serene and lovely and spoke in a calm, unhurried voice.

“Lady Rhiannon, did you not send word that your Goddess has revealed to you that the way to combat the pox is to isolate those who have been infected with it from other people?”

“Yes, smallpox is very contagious,” I answered quickly, not sure why she was taking time to repeat old instructions.

“So contagious that it can spread easily if an infected person mingles with those who are healthy?”

“Yes, it can be spread easily, but there needs to be contact between the ill person and the well person.”

“And are the Fomorians not humanlike?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will remain and have contact with them,” she said simply.

“No! They’ll kill you. Or worse. Anyway, even if they can get the disease—and we don’t know for sure that they can—it can be transmitted to them through the diseased waste left on these blankets.” I gestured at the mess of linens that lay abandoned around the room.

“What would creatures like that want with these soiled linens?” Her laughter was like music. “No—” her lovely face sobered “—my Goddess and I have decided. This is how it must be.”

“We have to leave now!” Dougal’s strained voice interrupted the silence that the Muse’s words evoked.

“Whatever happens to me is a small price to pay to give the creatures so priceless a gift.” Terpsichore’s thick-lashed eyes sparked with the irony of her words.

“What you do here will not be forgotten,” I said, awed by her sacrifice. “I give you my word.”

“I am pleased my final performance will be remembered,” she said before melting into the graceful bow of a prima ballerina.

“It will be,” I promised before shifting my attention to the rest of the room. “Let’s go!” I yelled and the room exploded back into action as sick teenagers scrambled aboard Huntresses.

Sila approached me and paused long enough to hand me a leather purselike pouch suspended on a long leather thong. I looked at her questioningly.

She spoke quietly. “Within the pouch is ointment that numbs and helps to close wounds.” She glanced across the room at Dougal. “Apply it sparingly, many may need it. And be certain you take a skinful of wine before you leave, too.” She pointed to a table filled with full leather bladders.

I nodded my understanding and slung the thong over my head so that the pouch rested snugly against my left side near my waist, and grabbed one of the wineskins and slung it over my other shoulder. Then I went back to work loading the Huntresses with sick girls.

As the last patient scrambled aboard Elaine, I looked around the room and saw that Sila was supporting four stumbling girls as they slowly made their way out the back exit of the room.

“Sila!” I shouted after her.

She turned and I heard her angelic voice from across the room. “I will go with these sick ones. If the Goddess wills, we will meet you across the river.” Without taking any more time, she and her entourage moved through the door.

“Lady Rhea, we have no more time.” Dougal held a shaking, blood-covered hand out to help me mount. All of the Huntresses except Victoria were already out the door; the fading echo of their hooves rang as they galloped down the hall.

Victoria moved quickly to my side, brushing away Dougal’s hand.

“You are in no shape to bear even her slight weight.” She grabbed my arm and tossed me to her back. As we thundered toward the exit, I craned my neck around in time to see Melpomene and Terpsichore holding hands in the middle of a circle of about half a dozen women who were too sick to move. Their heads were bowed and they looked like they were suffused with light. Then we, too, burst out into the hall.

16

The Huntresses were out of sight somewhere ahead of us, but Victoria confidently dodged around corners and cut through gardens, until we finally cleared the internal maze of the temple and found ourselves on the front lawn. We veered to the left, but a movement on our right caught my eye.

“Victoria!” I yelled, pulling on her shoulder with one hand and pointing with the other. Dougal and the Huntress skidded to a halt, turning in the direction I was pointing. Spilling onto the northwestern edge of the lawn was a ragged line of centaurs. They attempted to stand their ground, and their claymores sang as they hacked at one winged creature after another. But, just as I had witnessed in the telescope, as soon as one creature fell, another stepped in to take its place—all teeth and claws, standing atop its fallen comrade. Step by step, they beat back the centaur line. As I watched, one exhausted centaur fell to his knees and six creatures leaped on his back, raking their claws over him, turning his coat red with his own blood.

“Get to the bridge!” Dougal yelled. “The warriors will hold them off as long as possible.” And we resumed our flight.

We followed the lush green lawn around a corner, and came face-to-face with a group of four students who were running fearfully back in our direction.

“Stop! You cannot go back this way, you must get over the bridge.” Victoria and Dougal put their bodies in the path of the terrified group, forcing them to halt.

The girl who appeared to be in the lead shook her head violently from side to side.

“T-t-they are t-t-there already!” She was shaking so hard she was difficult to understand.

“What? Who do you mean?” Dougal asked frantically.

“Them!” Her voice was shrill. “The Fomorians. They are ch-chopping d-down the bridge!”

“Oh, Goddess help us,” Victoria breathed.

“They must have flanked our army and circled around the temple to the north to cut off the river escape.” Dougal’s voice was flat.

“Go toward the swamp.” I said the words aloud as they whispered into my mind.

“Yes!” Victoria spoke to the frightened girls. “Go into Ufasach Marsh…the Fomorians will be loath to follow you there.”

The girls nodded and darted off in a new direction.

“That is where we must go, too,” Dougal said, staring back the way we had come. “There is nothing the two of us can do to stop the Fomorians at the bridge.”

Victoria nodded tightly.

“Not yet,” I said firmly.

“We must.” Dougal sounded exhausted.

“No, I’ll go to the edge of the swamp, but I won’t go into it unless ClanFintan is with us.”

“Lady Rhea, he sent me ahead to be sure you were moved to safety. He said he will join you when he is able.”

“Then he’s still alive.” My stomach wrenched as I asked the question.

“He lived when last I saw him.”

“Then I wait for him to find me, before I go into the swamp.”

Victoria and Dougal exchanged glances as they began a flat gallop in the direction the girls had taken. We quickly overtook them. I felt Vic sigh as she and Dougal slid to a halt beside them.

“Scoot forward, Rhea, you have company.” Vic’s voice attempted light humor. “Come on, girls, we do not have time for riding lessons.”

Dougal grimaced in pain as he lifted two girls up behind me, then he put the other two on his own blood-flecked back. We took off again with the frightened kids clinging like crabs to the backs of the centaurs.

“I hope the swamp is not too damn far away,” I said into Victoria’s ear.

“As do I,” she whispered between labored breaths. “You humans just seem to get heavier and heavier.”

We smelled the marsh before we saw it. Again, I thought it reminded me of an old compost heap, but this time the smell was much more inviting. We came to a halt on the edge of a steep incline, at the bottom of which bunched a grove of trees, mostly moss-laden cypress, intermingled with a few willows and some trees with yellowish bark that I thought were probably hackberry. Along the edge of the incline, at intervals of about ten feet, stood an enormous ring of old stones, reminding me a little of the rocks at Stonehenge.

“They look like they’re standing guard.”

“That is the legend, Lady Rhiannon.” The kid sitting behind me, who was clutching me around the middle so hard I felt short of breath, spoke.

While I helped the teenagers behind me drop off Vic’s back, she continued educating me.

“Thalia taught us that the first Incarnate Priestesses of the Muse erected the Stonewatchmen to help stop Ufasach Marsh from spreading to their new temple.” She suddenly looked apologetic and embarrassed. “Oh, forgive me, my Lady, you must already know that.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid. It never hurts to hear one of Thalia’s lessons again.”

When all the teenagers were on the ground once more, Vic spoke urgently to them. “Now, hurry into the marsh, but keep as close to the eastern edge as you can. As soon as you are far enough south, try to find a way to get across the river. If you cannot, stay within the marsh until you reach the boundaries of Epona’s Temple. Help will be waiting there.”

They thanked us, then ran bravely down the incline and disappeared into the swamp.

“We have to join them,” Dougal said.

“I’m waiting for him.”

The two centaurs turned, and we stared down the lawn that led back to the temple. The land sloped gradually down from the lovely buildings, so from where we stood it was apparent that the network of Muse temples had been built on a raised plateau, which, even in the gloom of the cloudy day, allowed us a good view of the south side of the grounds. I realized that the stand of ornamental shrubs that Vic and Dougal had crashed through to get to the edge of the swamp looped in a decorative line before us, serving to shield us from the sight of anyone standing on the southern grounds.

The temple had become a battlefield. Hordes of Fomorians blackened the steps of the central temple and the surrounding lawns as they attacked groups of retreating centaurs. There was no more organized line of centaur warriors; instead, they had broken off into clusters, heroically attempting to keep the creatures from getting past them. But even as we watched, creatures slipped around the battling centaurs and sped past them, entering the temple and racing past it toward the river.

“I hope the women got across the bridge.” Dougal’s voice sounded strained.

“I wish I still had that telescope,” I said, straining my eyes to try and make out individual centaurs.

“We must enter the swamp.” Vic didn’t sound happy at the prospect.

“I won’t go without ClanFintan.”

“Even if you see him, he has no way of knowing you are here.” Vic’s voice sounded exasperated with my insistence.

“I could try and find him,” Dougal said.

“A lone centaur? You’d be killed for sure.” I shook my head.

“I could go with him,” Vic offered.

“Then you’d both be killed.”

My mind was whirring, trying to come up with a plan, but my thoughts were all jumbled together. Everything had happened too fast. We hadn’t been prepared. They had attacked too soon. Where were the other armies? And where was ClanFintan where was ClanFintan where was ClanFintan…?

Peace, Beloved—let yourself hear my voice.

At the Goddess’s words I forced my mind to clear, closed my eyes, put my face in my hands and took a deep, cleansing breath, letting Epona’s wise words drift through my addled brain.

“Yes!” My eyes shot open. “Vic, get me over there to one of those stones.”

Victoria gave me an odd look, but she didn’t argue as she trotted over to the nearest stone. It was huge. I’d have to stand on her back. Hopefully, I could grab the craggy ridges near the top of it and haul myself up.

“Um, I’m going to have to stand on your back, Vic. Sorry about that. And you’ll need to hold this wineskin for me.”

She grabbed the leather bladder from me and backed up against the rock. “You should probably stand on my rump.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“I know.”

I stood on her rump and grabbed the rough side of the rock.

“Dougal, help boost me up on top of it.”

I lifted my right foot and set it in Dougal’s hands so he could boost me up, just like I was mounting a horse (which, I realized, was vaguely ironic). He counted to three, then shoved, and I scrambled, till I was sitting on the thing.

The top was flat and about as wide as the bottom of a folding chair. Slowly, I got my feet under me and stood, with my arms out to help me balance.

“Be careful,” Vic called.

“It’s damn high,” I said, feeling my stomach flutter.

I was facing the temple grounds. The scene of carnage now visible was horrendous. There were only a few clusters remaining of living centaurs. Fomorians dominated the scene. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the defilement of the temple.

Concentrate on your love for him.

I nodded my head in response, and focused my mind on ClanFintan. Images flashed against my closed eyes: of ClanFintan carrying me, tipsy and giggling, into my room—rubbing my tired feet as we made our way to MacCallan Castle—holding me gently in his arms so that I could overcome my fear of him—shape-shifting so that we could join together as man and wife—and telling me he was born to love me.

I tilted back my head, took a deep breath, and with all the strength of my body and soul, I loosed a shout that Epona magnified until it was almost a physical thing.

“CLANFINTAN! COME TO ME!”

I opened my eyes to see that all movement had ceased on the temple grounds. Every being, centaur and Fomorian, had turned in my direction, and they stood frozen, like they were a part of a macabre painting. Then my heart began to beat again as a small cluster of centaurs from the far right of the scene broke the immobility and began an all-out run in our direction. Even from this distance I recognized the silhouette of the centaur leading the group.

“He’s coming!” I yelled. Then my breath caught as the Fomorians, too, became unfrozen and they gave chase. “Oh, no—they’re after him.”

“Get down from there!” Dougal held out his arms to catch me.

“Wait.” I kept watching as ClanFintan and the centaurs fought off the seemingly endless stream of creatures while they made their way toward us. I could hear the screams of the creatures as the centaur warriors hacked at them with renewed strength, but it seemed to no avail as one by one the mighty centaurs fell under swarms of dark winged shapes. As I watched, a single Fomorian broke ranks and sped after the group of retreating centaurs ClanFintan led. Then another followed him, and another…

The way the lead Fomorian moved drew my eye. He didn’t have to get any closer for me to recognize him.

“Catch me,” I said to Dougal as I faced the rock and let myself drop over the side. I took the wineskin back from Victoria and said grimly, “The centaurs are trying to fight the creatures off, but they are being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.”