Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(53)

//Gratitude for your strength// I send to him in my Latin headspace.

//Harmony// Mecklenburg says. //Fierce Druid must be well//

And it’s then that the uncertainty and fear fall away and I know I will be well, eventually. And it’s also at that moment that I appreciate the time it took me to get to this place. Had I not trained in languages and cultivated different headspaces over those twelve long years, I most certainly would have succumbed to the poison. Binding to the earth is useless without the knowledge and training to use it properly. When you’re dealing with years two through ten you think, holy hells, this is a slog—I certainly thought that on more than one occasion—but those ancient Druids knew how to train and discipline a mind. All of that training was saving my life now.

Perun returns to inform me that the horse indeed has a small round brand on his flank. “We should be leaving,” he says.

“I can’t move yet,” I tell him, and then explain that while prudence dictates that we should worry somewhat, we may have no cause. Loki is no more a god of healing than Perun is, and I wounded him severely when we last met not long ago.

“When can you be moving?” Perun asks.

“Soon, I hope. I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary.”

“What if I carry you out?”

I blink. That possibility had not occurred to me. Perun would certainly have no trouble slinging me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But I might suffer additional injury if he did so, and I’d be cut off from the earth.

“Maybe let me lean on you and get dragged out upright? I need to keep my right heel in contact with the earth.”

“Yes. We do this.”

“But … the horse.”

Perun looks across the pasture at the horse, which has now pressed itself against the far wall, hoping to remain unnoticed.

“Oh. Yes. We need horse, but is afraid.”

“Drag me a bit closer?” I ask. “I can talk to it, after a fashion.”

With many grunts and sharp gasps on my part, I’m lifted to my feet and manage a half walk, half shamble with Perun’s help toward the white horse of ?wi?towit. My occasional twitches and convulsions make the progress difficult and emphasize that we are both, as a result of our shape-shifting, very nude. We’ll have to remember to get dressed before going upstairs.

I keep trying to reach out with my consciousness to the horse until we finally make contact.

Hello, I tell him. Or, anyway, I send him greetings. I hope my words translate into meaning in his mind somehow. We may not yet be at that level of understanding, but my patience at this point is strained, since I have so much else to worry about. I am the chestnut mare. Human now. I take both forms. Are you ready to greet the sky once more?

The stallion tosses his head and snorts. Not really a yes—he’s still spooked. He will need some convincing, and there won’t be a way to hurry through that. I sigh and force myself to take the time to do it right.

I am Granuaile. Do you have a name?

His reply is that, long ago, some humans used to call him Mi?osz.

Mi?osz, I would like to take you to a group of women who will protect you from the god who branded you.

The thought of the god who branded him upsets Mi?osz quite a bit. He whinnies, rears up, and then bucks around.

Let us go together. We will run there under the sky. There will be apples and oats.

Apples appear to be a pleasant thought, and he settles down. I get a question from him next and an image of a grotesque four-headed man that I can only assume must be ?wi?towit.

No, ?wi?towit won’t be there. We are looking for him too. We would like to reunite you. Do you know where we might find him?

Mi?osz has no idea, but he walks toward us and I feel or sense the moment when he recognizes Perun as a friend of ?wi?towit. That reassures him and he is ready to leave with us.

I’m not positive that the Sisters of the Three Auroras will be able to withstand a concerted effort by Loki to take Mi?osz back, but I do know that they won’t make it easy for him and could quite possibly bring him under their power again. Getting the horse there while Loki is still wounded—and while I’m still wounded—will be the trick.

We return to the stable area and get dressed. I have to lean against the wall to put on my jeans; I’m not yet steady enough on one leg to manage it without support. Pulling on my shirt is excruciating, considering the wounds in my back and gut; the skin, ragged and oozing blood, is at least closed up at the dermis level, and the internal bleeding is all right for now, but the tissue damage will take much longer to deal with. Orlaith volunteers to carry Scáthmhaide in her mouth until we’re up top, and I thank her.

I try walking by myself to the exit, but it’s slow, erratic progress, since I’m never sure when my legs will obey me or decide to contract or extend on their own. I fall down twice, which is not fun, but I’m so relieved that I can walk at all that I insist on struggling the whole way to the bridge. There I ask Perun if I can hitch a ride on his back until we get to the other side. I don’t trust my legs enough to risk them over a snake pit.

As we walk away on the other side, I ask Mecklenburg to raise the floor of the pit so that it functionally ceases to exist as a pit and the snakes will have a chance to get out. Likewise, we open all the rat cages as we leave, allowing them to escape or not as they wish. Perun gives me another piggyback ride up the stairs so that I don’t tumble down them, and when we’re finally out of there and standing on the turf of Rügen under the afternoon sun, we all smile. Or, at least, Mi?osz and Orlaith demonstrate the equivalent of happiness by prancing around.