Least wise of all, Maureen had loosed the bonds Dougal had held. She didn't control the forest's power or the keep's. She didn't hold the reins and direct her defense, coordinating forces and strategy.
Fiona smiled. The forest could have been formidable, a trap as strong as her own maze. And legend said that the dark keep held reserves that even Dougal hadn't known.
Maureen had let both those Powers slip out of her hands. Foolish child. That would cost her.
Fiona wrapped a cloak of awareness around her, testing the air and soil for danger. The land felt hostile, watchful, calculating. It knew her from past visits, and did not like her. She smiled again. As she had told the dragon, she was used to being hated. It made the world feel normal.
She walked. The path snaked left and right like that dragon flowing through the woods, slipping between trees and around boulders, skirting patches of wetness, whiffs of swamp and rock and cinnamon fern. The watching pressed at her, but didn't attack.
Good. Stunning the dragon twice had cost her dearly. She still needed to gather Power, drawing from the earth and the air and from the child within her. She rested one hand on her bulging belly, slowing time within her womb. The child quieted, and its heartbeat faded almost to stillness. Going into labor now would be so awkward.
But she'd underestimated Maureen once before. Fiona would never make that mistake again. She had to reach the absolute peak of her Power before she struck.
She could bear the child tomorrow, after this triumph. After binding attendants to her will. There'd likely be a wet-nurse among the refugees from that rebel keep. Fiona decided that she'd have to let some of the slaves live. Pass the burden along, then, let the baby drain Power from another.
And if the dragon survived this day, she'd kill it then. It, and all the nestlings, saving only little Shen in her lab. They were too dangerous to live. Fiona shuddered, remembering how close those teeth had come, how drained she'd felt when that huge yellow eye had opened and come back into focus after the second stun-spell. She wouldn't have had the strength to run away.
No, they were too dangerous to leave alive.
She pulled her thoughts back to the trail. She'd walked Dougal's forest many times before, scouting, planning. She knew the flavor of the land, the twists of this path, the trees frowning on it, the stones and tangles flanking it. She should have reached the dragon bones by now.
The trail sloped downward from her feet. It should rise, then dip to a stream, then rise again in the final climb to Dougal's keep high on its knob of rock. And only the single trail led between her cottage and the pasture oak and the keep. No branchings, no intersections.
She sniffed the air -- wet leaves, soil, a faint sharpness of fox. Water hissed close ahead, water falling from high rocks rather than the gurgle of a forest stream.
The trail had changed. She stood and felt for the sun and for the stars beyond the canopy of trees and behind the veil of daytime blue. The sky told her that her cottage lay off her left shoulder, not behind. The keep sat to her right, through a tangle of dark holly and hawthorn.
Maureen had dropped the reins that controlled this forest, but she'd made some changes first. Fiona touched her brow in ironic salute. The redhead was not as dumb and trusting as she seemed at first glance.
But she was still drunk and leaving her defense to others. Fiona shook her head. You never trusted others in this land. Alliances, yes, those could be safe -- with proper safeguards, such as with that dragon. And you could buy services. But never trust. Cash in advance, and count your change, and even with bed-mates count your teeth after each kiss.
She turned, setting the stars and sun right in her head and aiming straight for the keep. She drew on her Power, forcing roots and stems and branches to one side or the other, moving the trail back to follow the path it should. She walked uphill, slow against the climb and the resistance of the forest that tugged at her ankles like an icy current in a river, smooth on the surface but deceptive in its strength.
The forest offered ease, offering aside and downhill without struggle. She forced her way, and still found her footsteps curving, curving, curving, until the keep sat off her right shoulder once more and the sound of falling water came brighter and closer up ahead.
She gritted her teeth and turned once more, face to the slope and the keep. She felt the resistance stiffen, and traced the flow of Power back in her mind. There was an oak in the forest's heart, she remembered, as old and massive and deep-rooted as Wotan's world-ash Yggdrasil. Apparently it liked Maureen.
That tree would pay. Tomorrow or the next day or the next, she'd seek it out. She knew poisons that would touch even his roots. But she'd learned long ago to fight only one battle at a time.
Brian had taught her that. Brian, still missing in action. Her blood-tie still lay silent. What was that darling little boy up to now?
She settled her mind into her belly, drawing on the Power of her child. This time her touch fell less gently, and the unborn witch shuddered. Too much, and the child would weaken, even die.
But it was expendable. Fiona had Brian's sperm in storage, and her own eggs. And Maureen had succored wombs in plentitude, with those human refugees. How kind of her to provide so many surrogate mothers.
Again Fiona turned uphill, against the flow, and this
