Celtic Fire Part 1

Celtic Fire.

by Joy Nash.

Prologue.

Northern Britannia, 116 A.D.

The Roman refused to die.

His screams spiked through the clearing, but any who might have come to his aid were beyond the echoes of his cries. He spun, staggering, his fingers clenched on the iron blade jutting from his belly. The sword's hilt protruded from his back.

He reeled toward Rhiannon, then away, his bare feet slapping the ground. His naked torso jerked and shuddered. Blood trickled down his chin. Gurgled words followed.

Curse or prayer?

Rhiannon drew her cloak tightly about her shoulders. She understood the harsh language of the conquerors, but could make no sense of the man's garbled speech. Whatever his entreaty, it went unanswered. Jupiter, mightiest of the Roman G.o.ds, had forgotten his son this day.

The doomed man tottered forward, one hand extended. Rhiannon wrenched her gaze away and sought peace in the cool mist of the forest. Soft tufts of mistletoe clung to the autumn branches of the sacred oaks, but by the light of the setting sun the crimson foliage reminded her of nothing so much as blood.

If only the prisoner did not have to die ...

A futile wish. The man was a Roman wolf-his life was forfeit to Kernunnos, the Horned G.o.d. She'd come with the whole of her clan to witness her enemy's death. Yet if the choice had been hers to make, she would have set him free.

As if sensing her compa.s.sion, his soul tangled with hers, desperate, pleading. Her heart cleaved in two. Because Rhiannon had a healer's skill, her spirit often intertwined with those in pain. This Roman's touch was something more. Something she couldn't name.

Her heart broke as he loosed another keening cry. The wail shriveled to a groan, then a whisper. His body swayed. Shouts rose as Rhiannon's kin pressed forward, eager to witness death's victory. Would the enemy die looking at the sky, calling vengeance down upon his tormentors? Or would his mouth fill with dirt, foretelling the triumph of the clan?

Madog stepped to the fore, his pale cloak washed red in the glow of the sunset. Rhiannon had begged the Druid master to excuse her from the Rite of the Old Ones, but he'd refused. The freedom of the Brigantes hinged on his interpretation of the Roman commander's death dance. Rhiannon was the tribe's rightful queen. Her presence lent power to the augury.

The Roman sank to his knees. Madog circled behind, his gaze intent. The doomed man pitched forward and clutched Rhiannon's hem. She gasped and yanked at her skirt, but the Roman's fingers entwined in the wool and would not be dislodged.

"Tell him," he whispered on a groan; then his body went limp and he spoke no more.

Madog grasped the hilt of the killing sword with both hands. With a strength that belied his age, he heaved it overhead. Blood trickled down his bare arms.

"Kernunnos, the Horned One, is well pleased with his prize."

Chapter One.

a.s.syria, Kalends of Januarius, 117 A.D.

"A real ghost wouldn't have to p.i.s.s."

Lucius Ulpius Aquila skimmed a glance over the apparition hovering near his left elbow. The specter dropped the hem of its tunic, an apologetic smile playing about its pallid lips. Executing a graceful turn, it glided to a nearby boulder where an ethereal white mantle lay neatly folded. The transparent linen rippled in the desert air, pa.s.sing under the figure's right arm and over its left shoulder. Pale fingers adjusted the garment's creases with utmost delicacy.

"And a real ghost certainly would not concern itself with the drape of its toga," Lucius observed.

The specter's shoulders lifted in a familiar, self-deprecating shrug. Lucius's chest tightened. The hallucination had been a faceless phantom when it first appeared two months before, but with each pa.s.sing day its features and mannerisms grew more recognizable. Yet even if Lucius believed souls could drift out of Hades, Aulus could hardly come to haunt him.

Aulus was alive.

"You are a product of the desert sun," Lucius said, forcing a conversational tone. "Or perhaps the result of some a.s.syrian spice. A few more days and you'll be gone."

The apparition shook its head. It waved one hand toward Lucius, then gestured to the northwest. Aulus commanded a small frontier fort countless miles away in that precise direction.

"You wish me to journey north?"

The ghost nodded vigorously.

Lucius steeled himself. "To Britannia?"

The specter extended its right arm, fist clenched, thumb raised.

A chill raced up Lucius's spine. He closed his eyes and willed the apparition to vanish, but when he dared another look, it remained, regarding him with an expectant expression.

By Pollux. Was he losing his mind?

He wheeled about and strode toward the camp. Twilight had taken over the a.s.syrian desert with merciful swiftness, bringing blessed relief from the blistering heat. But far away, winter ice encased the forests of Britannia. When the ghost drifted closer, the chill of the northlands seeped into Lucius's bones.

He nodded to the sentry as he entered the encampment. Off-duty soldiers fell silent at his approach, resuming the throw of dice only after he'd pa.s.sed. One man spiked two fingers in his direction-a sign against evil. Lucius scowled at the ghost. By the G.o.ds! Why could he not control the compulsion to converse with his d.a.m.ned hallucination?

"Move aside," he told it, and ducked into his tent.

An oil lamp flickered on the center table. Lucius took a steadying breath and lifted a bronze pitcher from the edge of a map detailing Emperor Trajan's invasion of the East. The papyrus curled back on itself.

He poured wine into a goblet and drank, his parched tongue barely tasting the fragrant liquid. He made a short circuit of his empty cell. No doubt his secretary would soon return from the cooking fires bearing a meal that would go uneaten.

The ghost lounged on a cot, inspecting its fingernails.

Lucius gripped the cup until his knuckles turned white. " 'There is no case in which the soul can act without involving the body,' " he quoted, but the words gave scant comfort. Aristotle, it was to be a.s.sumed, had not been p.r.o.ne to delirium.

The tent flap lifted, admitting Candidus and the aroma of roasted meat. The stone-faced, balding secretary set the tray on the table midway between the curled map and the pitcher. He nodded at a flat wooden box partially hidden by a round loaf.

"The post courier brought a message, my lord."

The ghost rose and drifted toward the table.

Lucius frowned and set his cup aside. "From Rome?"

"No, my lord." Candidus peered at the label on the sealbox. "From Britannia."

Every muscle in Lucius's body tensed.

Candidus lifted the sealbox lid, revealing a shallow compartment flooded with wax. The ghost bent its head over the impression left by the seal of the sender and went very still.

"From Tribune Quintus Vetus," Candidus said.

Lucius's breathing ran shallow. He slid his dagger from its sheath, sliced the wax from the edges of the box, and extracted the thin wooden tablet underneath. Tilting it into the lamplight, he read the concise message once, twice, and then a third time.

"Distressing news, my lord?"

He looked up, disoriented.

"My lord?" In an unprecedented display of familiarity, the older man touched Lucius's arm. Lucius dropped the tablet onto the tray. He gripped the edge of the table, fighting nausea more fiercely than he had ever fought a barbarian sword.

When at last he spoke, his voice held steady. "A report from the frontier fort Vindolanda. Aulus has been ..."

He broke off, inhaled, and began again.

"Tribune Vetus sends notice. My brother is dead."

Full Moon of Cutios, 117 A.D.

"Does the pain bother ye still?"

Rhiannon pressed her palm to her brother's chest. Owein's cheeks were no longer flushed. His breath came steady, with no hint of the rasp that had struck terror into her heart the night before. She searched for the pulse at his neck. It was slow, steady, and his skin was cool. That was good.

He shook off her hand. "The sickness be gone, little mama. Dinna worry so. I drank the potion ye brewed and your magick worked, as it always does."

"The magick is nay my own. It belongs to Briga."

"The Great Mother smiles on ye then, for when I woke my breath came easily." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

Rhiannon's heart melted as it had when she'd first held Owein in her arms fifteen winters past. She'd been a girl of nine and grieving for her mother, but the tiny babe had sparked a flame of joy. Russet curls so like her own clung to her brother's neck, but his eyes were his own: bluer than the sky and sparkling with mischief.

She ruffled his hair.

"Nay, stop," he protested, but his lips curved in a grin.

Rhiannon smiled back. Owein might have grown tall and muscular, with a man's beard sprouting on his chin, but the lad who had hidden his face in her skirts was not yet completely gone. "How is the ache in that thick head of yours?"

Owein's expression sobered. His gaze roamed the roundhouse, touching the center hearth and the high peak of the sloping roof timbers before he returned his attention to Rhiannon. "Tolerable enough," he said with a shrug.

His seeming lack of concern did nothing to allay Rhiannon's anxiety. "The night vision returned despite my spell," she guessed. It was not a question.

"Aye. The same. Pain, then the dream. A raven in flight. Blood."

A chill hand gripped Rhiannon's heart. "An omen of death."

"Perhaps not. It might just as easily be a prophecy of power."

"Ye must tell Madog."

"I'm afeared to," Owein said. "He's not been ..."

"Not been what?"

"Not ... right, somehow. He schools me in the wisdom of the Old Ones as always, but I sense ... I dinna know. A wrongness." He shoved his blanket aside. "Surely ye have felt it."

"Aye," she said. "I have." For nearly two seasons, since the Roman commander's death. She s.h.i.+vered, though the fire was warm. "I hoped the chill would fade with time."

"It grows stronger." Owein lowered his voice. "Madog visits the stones day and night. He talks to the skull."

An icy finger clawed Rhiannon's heart. She'd not been to the sacred circle since Samhain, when the Druid master had set the Roman's dripping skull atop a spike within the ring of stones.

" 'Tis not right," she said, gripping Owein's arm. "No soul should be imprisoned. Not even a Roman's."

" 'Twill be worth my own soul if the Rite of the Old Ones brings Kernunnos to aid our warriors," Owein replied grimly.

"Nay, do not speak so! Kernunnos is a dangerous ally. We are the Brigantes, the children of Briga. Madog would do better to seek the favor of the Great Mother. Not the dark powers of the Horned G.o.d."

As if summoned by her words, Madog's voice, strident but unintelligible, sounded from the yard beyond the hut's doorway.

Edmyg's booming speech answered. "- 'tis nay my fault."

Owein scowled. "Nay, it never is. How can ye think to join with that hulking animal, Rhiannon? The entire clan knows Glynis is about to birth his b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Rhiannon's hand stole to her flat stomach. "He seeks a son. I will not give him one."

"If Edmyg wants a son, he shouldna take ye as his mate. But he will, because his l.u.s.t to be king is far greater than his honor."

"Madog blessed the match. Edmyg is the Brigantes' greatest warrior."

"Aye, and the tribe's greatest brute as well." The flash of a man's anger showed in Owein's young eyes. "You are queen, Rhiannon. He is nay fit to carry your cloak."

"The clan chieftains have put aside their differences to follow him."

"They'll follow another just as well."

"Nay. Niall has been dead less than a twelvemonth, but his memory is far from cold. If I do not accept my husband's brother as my new consort, the chieftains will be at each other's throats within a fortnight." She shook her head. " 'Twould be the greatest service to Rome I could perform. I canna risk it."

Owein opened his mouth to reply, then fell silent as the hut's wooden door sc.r.a.ped a path over the dirt floor. The spring wind sent a swirl of dust into the air.

Madog entered with Edmyg d.o.g.g.i.ng his heels. "The clans must gather today, not on the morrow," the Druid muttered.

"Kynan's dun alone answers my call, and reluctantly at that," Edmyg replied, scowling. "The other chieftains will nay come while the moon of Cutios s.h.i.+nes. They await the fires of Beltane."