Beyond a Darkened Shore(13)

And then: the night they attacked my father’s castle for the first time. I tried to block out the vision, one I had long since kept at bay, but I was helpless to stop it.

No, I said when I found myself back in the front pew of the church.

No, I said again when Father Teagan, now long dead, lifted his hands in prayer.

The horn rang out across the bailey, loud and urgent.

Run, you fools! I tried to shout to all the people in the church, who glanced at one another in confusion.

My father stood and hauled my mother to her feet. “Take the hidden passageway,” he said, and pushed her along as my sisters and I clutched at her skirts. “Go!” he said when she hesitated.

Finally, she obeyed. Máthair carried Deirdre, then a mere baby, in her arms, while she kept a firm hold on six-year-old Bran’s hand. Both were crying, their eyes wide with terror.

“Keep hold of your sister,” Máthair said to me urgently, and I did. I held Alana’s hand until the moment she was dragged from me.

Why show me this? I tried to shout at the Morrigan, but it was like shouting into the wind. I shook with the effort to keep the images at bay, for I knew what came next.

Máthair raced across the bailey, keeping Bran’s face pressed against her skirts as best she could. But I saw everything: men taller than my father, axes cutting into my clansmen, women screaming, while still others were caught and bound. Blood everywhere. It tinted my world red as though my own eyes were bleeding.

Alana was so quiet, her face twisted in terror and disbelief, but she didn’t utter a sound. The steps to the keep were only a yard away. But then she tugged me to a stop. “Moira!” she screamed. She was looking at her friend who lay dead, blood pooling around her while her mother clutched her broken body to her breast. I remember thinking: But she’s a child. Children don’t die in battle.

Our mother reached the steps of the keep. She whirled around when she realized we were no longer behind her.

“Alana,” I said with another tug, but my sister was frozen in horror.

When I turned back toward our mother, a Northman loomed above us, cutting off our escape. He was as big as a bull, his straw-colored hair long and braided. The axe in his hand was stained red, and a fresh wound—a deep cut from his eyebrow down to his cheek—dripped blood. His blue eyes shifted to my mother. Somewhere across the bailey, I heard my father shout.

áthair is coming, I told myself. He’ll save us.

Alana finally turned away from the sight of her fallen friend, only to scream as she saw the massive man before us.

He grabbed her, yanking her from my grasp. “These must be your children,” he said, his voice loud enough to carry across the bailey. He spoke our language—he wanted my father to hear him. “This one will make a fine slave.”

“No!” my father shouted, running toward us, but he was cut off by another Northman.

“No?” the enemy before us repeated. He glanced down at my struggling sister. “You’d rather she be dead, then? You cut down my nephew who was barely older than a child himself.” His upper lip curled, his expression turning feral. His gaze was fixed on the body of an adolescent boy, one of the fallen Northmen. “Blood for blood,” he said, and slit my sister’s throat.

My father barreled into him then, knocking him to the ground as my mother screamed and ran to Alana. I couldn’t look away from the blood bubbling from her throat.

More men came to the Northman’s aid, but not before my father ducked beneath the man’s axe and drove the blade of his sword into the enemy’s leg. The remaining ranks of our clansmen joined the battle, and eventually, the Northmen retreated—taking my sister’s murderer with them.

I could only hope he had later died of his injuries.

A cold sweat broke out over my skin, and I shook as though I were feverish. I begged for the images to end, to be released from the vision, but they continued mercilessly.

Another vision of éirinn, this time of green hills, the sky above steel gray. Northmen ran across the hills, armed for battle. The men seemed different, somehow; their features were twisted, and some had deformities that made them appear less than human. They called to one another in a strange tongue, like Norse, only more guttural. More and more appeared until there was an entire army. They moved as one, swarming over the meadows, killing even sheep in their path.

As they ran, they grew taller and wider, until they were as big as mountains. The earth shook with their steady footsteps, and soon, all of éirinn was covered by the massive men. With their axes and their legs as wide as oak trees, they destroyed everything, burning what they did not reduce to rubble. The scene changed, the land becoming more familiar: the coast where Branna and Deirdre gathered seashells, the meadow where they rode their ponies, my father’s castle upon the cliff. My clansmen lay torn apart, blood spilling upon the ground, turning the earth red. High-pitched screams came from the keep: my sisters begging for mercy. I tried to shake my head, to close my eyes against the terrible vision, but the Morrigan was relentless.

Then I saw my sisters in my room, huddled together on my bed as though they had come looking for me to save them. Over them loomed a creature whose head brushed the stone ceiling, whose muscled body was nearly as wide as my bed. He was a man and yet not . . . too tall, too craggy and mountainous to be considered human. He reached for Deirdre first, and I fought anew against the vision—I wanted to take control of his mind and destroy him before he could even touch her—yet I could do nothing but watch as he yanked her up as though she were only a doll. She was screaming and fighting; Branna leaped off the bed in an attempt to stop him, and to my horror, he grabbed her, too. Lifting both of his massive arms, he dangled my sisters from his hands and squeezed. Their faces turned red, then purple; they clawed at his hands.