Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [44]
I kept my hand pointed at him, but crawled backward from that shining metal. His hand fell, the sword striking the ground where I had been. He didn’t seem to realize at first that he’d missed me. He drove the sword home viciously, as if he were cutting flesh.
I got to my feet, still bleeding him, still killing him.
Onilwyn frowned at the ground, where he was cutting nothing. He leaned on Mistral’s body, one hand holding on to the other man. The other hand, with its sword, was thrust into the ground, but it was almost as if he’d forgotten it was there.
He frowned up at me, as if he couldn’t quite focus. “Cel said you were weak.”
“Die for me, Onilwyn. Die for me, and keep your oath.”
His sword fell from his fingers. “If you can bleed me, you can save me.”
“You would kill me and my unborn children. Why should I save you?”
“For pity,” he said, his eyes beginning to look slightly to the side of where I stood.
I smelled roses, and the words that came from my mouth were not my words. “I am the dark goddess. I am the destroyer of worlds. I am the face of the moon when all light is gone. I could have come to you, Onilwyn, in the shape of light and spring and life, but you have called the winter down upon yourself, and there is no pity in the snow. There is only death.”
“You are with child,” he said, as he began to slump toward the cold ground. “You are full of life.”
I touched my stomach with my right hand; the left never stopped pointing at him. “The Goddess is all things at all times. There is never life without death, never light without darkness, never pain without hope. I am the Goddess, I am creation and destruction. I am the cradle of life, and the end of the world. You would destroy me, Ash Lord, but you cannot.”
He stared up at me with unfocused eyes. He reached out toward me, not with magic, but as if he would touch me, or was trying to touch something. I wasn’t certain he was reaching for me, but he saw something in that moment. He saw something that made him reach for it.
“Forgive me,” he whispered.
“I am the face of the goddess that you called into being this night, Ash Lord. Is there forgiveness in the face you see?”
“No,” he whispered. He slumped until the side of his face touched the ground, and the rest of him was draped across Mistral’s body. He shuddered, and gave a last, long breath. Onilwyn, Lord of the Ash Grove, died as he had lived, surrounded by enemies.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I SAW THE WHITE GLOW OF THE HUNT BEHIND ME LIKE A SECOND moon in the sky before I heard the wind of its coming. But I kept my eyes on the fallen sidhe lord. Onilwyn looked unconscious, maybe even dead, but until it was certain, I would not turn and give him a second chance to kill me.
I heard the horses and other things land on the frozen ground. I heard running feet, and Sholto was beside me. He put himself between me and the slumped forms. The bone spear was pointed up, the bone dagger naked in his hand.
I leaned against his back, feeling the strength of him through the remnants of his t-shirt. He, like me, hadn’t dressed for the cold. Magic can make you forget practicalities, until the magic recedes and you realize that you are mortal once more. Oh, I guess that was just me. Some of the sidhe never felt the cold.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No, just feeling the cold.” Saying it out loud seemed to give me permission to shiver. I pressed myself more tightly against the warmth of his back, and reached around to encircle his waist. I found more in the front of his body than just waist. The tentacles petted and caressed my hands and arms. He was touching me, holding me, just as he would have with his hands if they weren’t full of weapons. But Sholto had enough “hands” to hold me and fight. There had been a time when the extra bits had disturbed me to the point that I wasn’t sure I could get past them, but such petty concerns seemed ages ago. The tentacles were warm, as if they had blood close to the surface. They reached around his body to hold more of me, stretching as only