Read Online The Faery Bride (The Celtic Legends Series Book 2) by Lisa Ann Verge - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lisa Ann Verge
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the reins and pressed close to his coat while she scanned the woods.
In the span of a heartbeat, it was over and done. She searched for signs of the Sídh, wondering why they tore through the veils that separated the worlds now, in this place, when not once before had she felt their presence upon this ground. Wondering, too, why they had now retreated.
“Are you injured?”
Curt, clipped words. She turned to glance up into Dafydd’s hazel eyes. She saw in them that strange look she sometimes received after healing a mainlander, a look teetering between wonder and disbelief.
She tugged her tunic straight. “I’m fine.”
He nodded and kicked his mount back up the slope, motioning for her to follow.
A pall had fallen over the wood, pierced only by the fading shouts of pursuit, an occasional cry in the distance. All that fighting, all the grunting and the yelling, over and done with, and in the span of a few heartbeats nothing was the same. The neat line of horses, donkeys, and men scattered this way and that, like a line of stakes she and Niall had dug into the ground one day to mark off the planting, only to have an unexpected gale scatter them into chaos.
So this was warfare. As unpredictable and fierce as lightning, as blinding and quick. A thunderous moment of men hacking away at each other, leaving a hollow silence stinging with the stench of sweat and blood and trembling with the moans of the wounded and the dying.
Aye, the wounded.
A man lay across the path, his face contorted. His leather cap lay like a broken eggshell in the grass. She reacted by instinct. Dampness seeped through her tunic as she knelt in the dirt by his side. Her fingers slicked over his bloody brow, searching for the wound.
His eyes flew open.
“Don’t fear.” She lifted her tunic and seized the edge of her undertunic with both hands. “I’ll bind your wound.”
She tore free a strip of linen. He didn’t understand a word of her Irish, but as she pressed the cloth over the slash upon his temple and felt her mind fading to that familiar calm place, she knew it didn’t matter that they spoke different languages. The words were not important. She rarely remembered what she’d said after a healing. It was the sound of the voice that mattered. Hers was a tone a man or woman or child understood even in the midst of delirium. She supposed it was the voice of a mother, the soothing lilt of lullabies and comfort–words, senseless soft syllables that echoed to some calm and tender youth, sounds that transcended madness and language.
She pressed the square of linen against the man’s wound. For all her skill, she couldn’t mend such a wound with a touch of her hands—that would take thread, a needle, rest, and time—but she could ward off the shock. She stroked lightly with her other hand, willing the throb of good health into him, stroking and lulling, stroking and lulling, until the man’s tight grimace eased, until she knew she could leave him for another.
She glanced down the path and the sight struck her hard. She’d seen enough war–wounds in her lifetime. The Irish Mainlanders often rowed their leaders out to Inishmaan when they’d been wounded badly in battle. Still, here she was in the thick of it. Men lay strewn everywhere. Blood ran in rivulets down the bark of trees. As she watched, someone plunged a dagger into the neck of a suffering horse.
Too many. Too many.
She staggered down the path. One man dead—nay, two. Another gone beyond her reach. They called out, waved to her. She could not answer them all. Too many. Her palms tingled. She must do something, she must start somewhere. She forced down the panic. The most seriously wounded first, wasn’t that what Da always told her? She fell to her knees next to a man with a hole gaping in his shoulder.
Time lost meaning. She bound wounds and passed her hands across their bodies in the way she’d long learned by instinct, so that no one thought her movements
In the span of a heartbeat, it was over and done. She searched for signs of the Sídh, wondering why they tore through the veils that separated the worlds now, in this place, when not once before had she felt their presence upon this ground. Wondering, too, why they had now retreated.
“Are you injured?”
Curt, clipped words. She turned to glance up into Dafydd’s hazel eyes. She saw in them that strange look she sometimes received after healing a mainlander, a look teetering between wonder and disbelief.
She tugged her tunic straight. “I’m fine.”
He nodded and kicked his mount back up the slope, motioning for her to follow.
A pall had fallen over the wood, pierced only by the fading shouts of pursuit, an occasional cry in the distance. All that fighting, all the grunting and the yelling, over and done with, and in the span of a few heartbeats nothing was the same. The neat line of horses, donkeys, and men scattered this way and that, like a line of stakes she and Niall had dug into the ground one day to mark off the planting, only to have an unexpected gale scatter them into chaos.
So this was warfare. As unpredictable and fierce as lightning, as blinding and quick. A thunderous moment of men hacking away at each other, leaving a hollow silence stinging with the stench of sweat and blood and trembling with the moans of the wounded and the dying.
Aye, the wounded.
A man lay across the path, his face contorted. His leather cap lay like a broken eggshell in the grass. She reacted by instinct. Dampness seeped through her tunic as she knelt in the dirt by his side. Her fingers slicked over his bloody brow, searching for the wound.
His eyes flew open.
“Don’t fear.” She lifted her tunic and seized the edge of her undertunic with both hands. “I’ll bind your wound.”
She tore free a strip of linen. He didn’t understand a word of her Irish, but as she pressed the cloth over the slash upon his temple and felt her mind fading to that familiar calm place, she knew it didn’t matter that they spoke different languages. The words were not important. She rarely remembered what she’d said after a healing. It was the sound of the voice that mattered. Hers was a tone a man or woman or child understood even in the midst of delirium. She supposed it was the voice of a mother, the soothing lilt of lullabies and comfort–words, senseless soft syllables that echoed to some calm and tender youth, sounds that transcended madness and language.
She pressed the square of linen against the man’s wound. For all her skill, she couldn’t mend such a wound with a touch of her hands—that would take thread, a needle, rest, and time—but she could ward off the shock. She stroked lightly with her other hand, willing the throb of good health into him, stroking and lulling, stroking and lulling, until the man’s tight grimace eased, until she knew she could leave him for another.
She glanced down the path and the sight struck her hard. She’d seen enough war–wounds in her lifetime. The Irish Mainlanders often rowed their leaders out to Inishmaan when they’d been wounded badly in battle. Still, here she was in the thick of it. Men lay strewn everywhere. Blood ran in rivulets down the bark of trees. As she watched, someone plunged a dagger into the neck of a suffering horse.
Too many. Too many.
She staggered down the path. One man dead—nay, two. Another gone beyond her reach. They called out, waved to her. She could not answer them all. Too many. Her palms tingled. She must do something, she must start somewhere. She forced down the panic. The most seriously wounded first, wasn’t that what Da always told her? She fell to her knees next to a man with a hole gaping in his shoulder.
Time lost meaning. She bound wounds and passed her hands across their bodies in the way she’d long learned by instinct, so that no one thought her movements
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