18-May-2001
Title: Wyrd
Archive: GWA
Author: Dan
Pairings: R+D/D+R
Warnings: AU-ish, but I connect well to EW (honest!)
Massive Spoilers for EW!
Disclaimers: Not mine, don't sue
Notes: So sorry to all of you who have been waiting for this one. ^^;; I got kinda distracted, ehe.
"Tuatha Nuar, the home of the druids." Haod glared up at the arching ceiling of leafy boughs as if they had done him a personal offense. "Not ones for hospitality, are they?"
Charmiane did not answer. The atmosphere of the forest was urgent, as if the trees were whispering a desperate warning, or a plea. She wheeled Umbra in a half-circle, staring into the shifting shadows of the forest. The place had not been so forbidding when Rhiannon had bid her come before. It had been a place of glinting light and half-suppressed laughter. The spot between her shoulders itched.
Sensing his rider's unease, Umbra snorted, rolling his flaming eyes as he took a little shuffling step to the side. His wings twitched with nervous tension. The ranks slowed to a stop, a low murmur of concern rippling through them. Something was not right, and they all felt it. Charmiane drew her blade from its sheath across her back; the metallic hiss echoed through the twilight forest as her men followed her lead. The shadows bunched and moved around them like living things. Charmiane snarled a harsh warning low in her throat. "The fiends are approaching."
Her men clustered together, drawing their horses in a tight circle defensible from any direction. A flash of some inner vision had their blonde Warlord pointing into the rolling mist. "THERE!"
As if her cry were a command, the enemy slunk out of the shadows, blood running freely from their claws. A high-pitched scream rent the air as the dull-eyed masses ran on all fours at Charmiane's awaiting troop.
"Revenants," hissed Haod.
"Kill them, and quickly," Charmiane replied, her voice carrying to the ears of her men. In her mind's eye she had a vision of long silver hair lying in a pool of spreading blood.
"So sweet is your fear. So sweet," chortled the growing horde's apparent leader. Blood and thicker things dribbled from its half-formed mouth.
She didn't even wait for its next words. It was dead before it had the chance to scream. Umbra snorted flickering flames that set the shrieking hordlings ablaze like they had been dipped in lamp oil. In the heavy dusk of the druids' besieged forest, all the men could see were the dimly-glowing eyes of their enemies and their Warlord's gleaming hair.
"Warlord!" Haod's cry of warning was unneeded. Charmiane moved as if she knew where the enemy would be before they were there. Haod allowed himself one grim smile. He had seen the look on Charmiane's face before, on the face of a man rushing to the hopeless defense of his lover. He had felt it once his own face. The blank mask of panic, and the blaze of fury that gleamed in her pale eyes, told him all he needed to know. They would kill all that they found, and she would enjoy it.
"Too late, too late, Charmiane of the North. Too late to save them," a tiny apelike thing with malformed wings cackled in her face before she sliced in twain.
"Damn you all to the lowest levels of hell," she snarled to the dissipating mass of revenants and darker things. The trees seemed to sigh in sorrow-tinged relief as Charmiane's riders chased the last of the demon horde out of its reaches.
"You win for now, Cadvridoc," a voice whispered in Charmiane's ear. Umbra snorted and wheeled, trying in vain to find the source of the bored, disembodied voice. It laughed, and Charmiane felt as if something rubbed satin down her spine. "Cadvridoc, war leader of the northern lands, you will be such an interesting opponent. Slainte."
Haod growled low in his throat, insulted that nothing more than a whispering voice could unnerve him. Charmiane scowled, but the feeling of deep foreboding did not seem to dissipate with the last of the demons. Unconsciously she rubbed the heel of her armored palm against her chest, the metal grating harshly.
"Where are they, dammit?" Haod made no move to reply to his Warlord's near frantic question, but the forest did. A soft glowing light led her like a beacon through the thick wall of brambles and branches. With the caution of men used to being surprised in the rudest of manners, the northern warriors approached the edge of the light.
It seemed to fill the trees like water, but did not spill into the shadows the way normal light did. It held its place like a sentinel. Its mere presence heartened Charmiane as she lead her nervous men forward. The flickering glow dimmed, dwindled, and died at Charmiane's approach. The wind sighed around her as she passed through that seemingly delicate barrier of energy, and entered the domain of the druids.
Once she had visited the druids' stronghold deep in the forest of Tuatha Nuar. Rhiannon had taught her to listen to the secret whispering of the wind and the leaves, and now she could hear them crying.
"Rhiannon?" Her voice was that of a child's crying in the darkness. Smoke hung in the air like a shade over a grave, not a single body lay in the broken mud, but the blood was apparent enough. Haod led the men into the unnaturally silent city. Instead of a nipping unease, a deep feeling of sorrow welled up within the hearts of the warriors. Charmiane dismounted, but clung to Umbra's mane for support. "Rhiannon?"
"Charmiane." The silver-haired druid's cry rang softly in the air.
"Rhiannon, you truly must be one of the Elcyion Lacar." Charmiane's voice was giddy with relief. She approached her friend with bare hands, her gauntlets lying forgotten in the mud.
Rhiannon's reply was a tinkling laugh, like sunshine through rain. "One of the Bright Fey? Hardly, our own sweat and blood granted us this protection."
Instinctively, Charmiane closed her arms around the druid's slender form when Rhiannon launched herself into the warrior's arms. She buried her face in the waterfall of silver hair, and inhaled the faint scent of holly. "Gods above and below, I thought you were dead. I thought I had been too late."
"You know they feed off of the fear and hate in our hearts. The demons lied, they always do." Rhiannon held her friend close, sinking to her knees when Charmiane suddenly collapsed. "I'm alive. I'm well. We hid once we knew they were here."
"I lost my keep, my brother." Charmiane's words were barely audible. The grief and the guilt made Rhiannon's stomach clench. "My men, slaughtered."
She raised the Warlord's bloodstained face with both her palms and stared into it steadily. "We will make them pay, Cadrvidoc. For your family, and mine; we will make them pay."
Charmiane frowned at the word, but let it slide as she nearly drown in the wealth of emotion shining in Rhiannon's eyes. Haod came to stand by them, his eyes dark with a deadly promise. "All those that betrayed us will die regretting it."
"Aye, they will." Charmiane stood, pulling Rhiannon with her. "We came to ask for your aid."
"The council will need to meet to formally decide the matter, but as their leader I can promise that you will not be alone in your plans. Not this time." The deadly promise in Haod's eyes rang in Rhiannon's musical voice. Smiling gently, she touched Charmiane's bruised face. "Bathe while we wait; it will help to ease you. Your men will be looked after."
Charmiane could only nod her assent. She watched, mulling over the strange word in her head, as Rhiannon's graceful figure disappeared into the simple village.
Relena stared out the window of the shuttle as she sped towards the supposed safety of Mariemeia's fortress on Earth. She could not believe that they were really going to drop the colony on all of those unsuspecting people. That they would kill all those who stood in their way simply so they could rule. Relena's face settled into hard, angry lines. There wouldn't be anyone left to rule if they dropped the colony on Earth.
Earth. Dorothy was on Earth. She had not seen the blonde since the end of Eve Wars. Since that one last meeting on the Libra. After that, Dorothy had vanished without a word, without an explanation as to why. There were all these words left unsaid. Relena laid her head against the cool shuttle window as she remembered her last glimpse of Dorothy, striding off with her long hair swaying behind her.
The Earth rose like a multi-colored ball before her. In the stillness of space it looked so fragile, as if a single touch would break it into a million shining pieces. She had already lost everything that mattered to her: her father, her brother, her home. But she could protect the place where Dorothy lived. She could protect Dorothy.
"Somehow, there has to be a way," she whispered to the silence of space. "Somehow, there has to be a way to protect them. And I will find it. I won't fail them again."
To Relena's exhausted mind, it seemed that something in that perfect darkness was listening.
End Part 6
(:./dan/wyrd6)
