Like his father, though much more expressive.
Where was Niclas, anyway? He knew she had clan business to attend to this morning, and Artur much preferred to ride about in a sling on his father’s back then sit with her in the great hall all day.
As if he had heard her thoughts, Niclas appeared. His footsteps were even and quiet, his gaze warm as he looked at Artur. “There you are.” The spiritual leader of the Mynydd Gwyllt Clan held his hands out to his family as he approached.Artur looked around and then buried his face against Tanwen’s breast, closing his eyes as if sleeping. The child often employed this tactic when he didn’t want to leave. As endearing and adorable as it was, Tanwen was happy to hand their son over.
“All yours,” she announced, shoving her heavy red hair back away from her face with a grateful sigh. “Now I just need to deal with—”
Her words were cut short by a loud shout from outside the hall doors. She spun, reaching for her ax in one smooth movement. “What—” The next shout morphed into a scream, and Tanwen turned to look at Niclas, who was holding Artur close. “Go out the back. Get away from here, Niclas. I’ll find you later.”
He knew better than to argue and hurried away without so much as a goodbye. Niclas never wasted his words. He knew it would be foolish to tell her to be careful or to say she should run too.
Striding forward, she yanked the door open to see chaos in front of the great hall. Warriors were converging on two figures down the path, and yet wherever the strangers attacked, waves of Mynydd Gwyllt clanspeople fell back. How could two individuals best five or ten warriors at a time?!
Taking no time to think about why this might be, Tanwen ran down the steps toward her people, ax in hand.
“War Chief—” Rhydian, a fine warrior, and devoted clansman, panted as he ran up. These days he worked in the smithy, which explained the roughly hewn sword he brandished.
“Rhydian. What’s happening? Who is attacking us?” And more importantly, why!? The Mynydd Gwyllt Clan had been on good terms with everyone in the area, aside from raiders. And raiding season was nearly to an end. No one wanted to raid in winter storms and snows.
“Two strangers. They just… Walked right in. Said they were here to trade, and one of them was known to the men at the gate. But then they started attacking. Gods. They are strong—” As if to prove his point, a woman was tossed aside, her body flying ten feet before crashing to the dirt.
Tanwen turned to another scream, this time the sound of a man having his arm broken by the small woman. She grinned viciously as she did it and then spun with catlike grace to leap over a charging warrior and mule kick the next one in the chest with both her bare feet.
The man she kicked flew back and landed with a puff of dust. He didn’t rise again.
The man with the woman, blond and tattooed and fighting with two daggers, cut and slashed his way through her people as if he held a hot knife and they were made of naught but butter. Speckles of red flew where his blades flashed and spattered across the dirt path. They were making progress up the road towards the great hall despite her people fighting to their best abilities. Despite her people dying.
“Stop!” Tanwen screamed, hurrying forward. “Fall back! Fall back! Stop!”
Her people, recognizing her voice, immediately complied with her orders and hurried towards her and the relative safety of the hall. Now standing before the two strangers who continued to prowl forward with gleeful smiles, Tanwen resettled her grip on the ax.
“Who are you?” she called, standing her ground. The female laughed and looked at her companion with such ardent affection Tanwen very nearly felt jealous. She hadn’t loved someone like that in a long time.
“Humans have such short memories, don’t they?” The woman chuckled, stopping ten feet from where Tanwen stood. It was amazing to think the woman could have the strength and power to plow through Mynydd Gwyllt warriors as she had. Her face was skeletal, and her build frail. Despite revealing clothing, the woman had little to no curves. Definitely no muscle.
Tanwen tightened her grip on the handle of her weapon, feeling her arms bulge. She had worked a long time to build up those muscles. To become physically strong enough to withstand most fights.
That terrible laughter rang from the woman’s blood-smeared lips again, and she muttered something to her companion in a language Tanwen didn’t understand. He was nodding in agreement.
“Why have you come here? Why do you fight us? We are not your enemy,” Tanwen asked. Her voice broke slightly, though she was trying to sound reasonable.
“We fight because the battle is glorious. And we come because you have something we need.”
⚀
There had been a time, once, when no mortal would have stood before a God and demanded answers, a time when Enyo’s reply would have been commonplace rather than strange. The world had been a younger place then, beautiful and wild.
And they would have it back.
But, until then, Va'al would use his understanding of the new world to speed things along.
“Tanwen,” he said, dredging the name up from some memory of the girl when she was little but a flirting teenager. “Surely you know who we are. You spent time among the priests of Enyo. Hearing their lessons, their prophecies…”
Before your father and I sent you running home…
“Surely you can recognize the Goddess herself when she’s standing before you. Now step aside. We have come to retrieve the spear of Maoz and will kill any who stand in our way.”
“His spear? But—”
“Yes, exactly,” Va'al said.
