"I am going to enjoy this."
Mairi stared, horrified, as the Praetori drew near. "Get back!"
The Praetori's grin only grew wider, toothy and devilish. Underneath that skinned wolf cap, that smile looked only more and more predatory by the moment. Those dark eyes glittered through the black, tar-like paint across the warrior's face. He seemed more and more like the creature atop his head with every step he took towards Mairi. Even that hunched, prowling stance seemed to echo the wild wolf, gray and shadowed.
This was a hunter, cruel and cunning in every way imaginable
He lunged towards Mairi, but Merric jumped in front of his sister, slashing through the air with his dagger. "Back, you godless son of a whore."
All of Merric's feathers stood on end, making those grand, ebony wings of his seem all the larger. They quivered and twitched, ready for action, for motion and flight, possibly. The young Iceni was a hawk, prepared to leap into flight and grab at his prey with razor sharp talons. And, surprisingly this invader didn't seem to care. It was as if winged men dropped from the sky every other day to this attacker of theirs. Merric tried to ignore the lack of concern, lack of fear in this dog's eyes. Instead, he let his emotions carry out, through hard beats of those wings, hard enough to loosen a bit of down.
The little puffs of black feathers floated between them, like some queer snow. They drifted this way and that across the air, blown away with each small downstroke of Merric's wings, and drawn back again. They were buoys on the tide.
"Leave her be," Merric ordered sternly, holding the point of his dagger out.
The Praetori only seemed to enjoy this more. He danced out of the way of Merric's gleaming blade, striking out with his own dagger. The Praetori circled Merric. Mairi clenched her hilt tighter, trying to find a good spot to jump in, to stab the traitor, but there didn't seem an open moment.
The Praetori smirked. "Let's dance."
xxxx
"What?"
Lauren shrugged. "What? Just figured you might want to know."
Nycole practically leapt over the couch at the archeologist, her heart jumping in her throat. "Really? Dun Aengus still exists? Where?"
"Aran Islands."
Geoff blinked. "Can you take us there?"
Lauren shrugged. "Buy me a round at the pub, and sure."
xxxx
"Bastard."
Merric jumped right at the Praetori, lunging towards the man. Merric had become a man driven mad. His wings fluffed out, stretching tall and large. Blood poured off those slickly, ebony feathers, splattering on the ground as the Iceni moved. He growled angrily, snarling like a wild beast. As he swung around, one of those massive wings knocked Mairi back and into a turret.
Boudica's hand shot out, grabbing Mairi and hauling her younger sister back, away from the combatants. The heat of the flames flushed the Iceni woman's skin. She jumped back, trying to get away from the fire. Her eyes caught sight of Boudica, burnt and singed, a ruined, battered form.
"Relax, sister. It is only I."
Mairi gave a quick nod. "We need to fall back."
"But, Merric…."
They turned their attention to the two fighting. It looked funny. They were caricatures of the animals the pair seemed to emulate. Merric tuck and dove, lashing out swiftly before recoiled, just as a hawk would. He moved with a cool, almost avian grace, as if held aloft by the breeze. Merric seemed suspended by a cushion of air, while his opponent stalker low and coolly, crunched down and hunching over the ground. The Praetori snapped at Merric from below, as a wolf would, sending the Warrior into jumps to avoid the gleaming blades of his enemy.
Merric leapt upon the Praetori, pouncing him. The traitor gritted his teeth as the Iceni brought his dagger down, towards his throat. The Praetori kicked, sending Merric over and rolling him swiftly. The Praetori threw down Merric's skull, cracking down on the stones and rocks of the wall. Mairi tried to jump to the traitor, but the Praetori just knocked her aside with nothing more than a swat. She fell back and away.
Merric shouted, bucking wildly and sending the Praetori rolling off of him. "Son of a…"
The Praetori just grinned coolly. "But you…. You are no different than I."
"What?" Mairi felt the word flop from her lips, falling before her as she tripped over the question that just needed to be asked.
Merric jumped upon him, thrusting his dagger out, towards the Praetori. They moved together with such grace, stabbing out and skittering just out of the way of each slashing strike. They were deadly serpents, snapping out at one another. They were dueling dragons or griffins, deadly and extreme. Mairi couldn't tell what to do; she wanted to run but found her feet would not allow it. She was frozen in place, transfixed by the Praetori bastard and her own twin.
"Merric!"
xxxx
"Mairi."
Amon could see it now, high atop the outer wall. He saw Dun Aengus for what it had been, ages ago, before the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Empire. The walls were tall, as tall as they had ever been. The flames burnt and flickered brightly, racing across the cool stone.
And, there, stood Merric, Mairi, and Boudica.
The three had been backed into a corner, driven into the center piece of a broken, shattered wall. Flames danced behind the three, forming a wall of sheer fire. Amon could even feel the heat cascading down from across the ages and the old stone. The hunter watched as the three drew close. Shadows swirled around, around Amon in the courtyard, and up the wall.
The three were trapped.
xxxx
A strike.
Mairi held her breath, ignoring the Praetori ascending the wall towards her, climbing to heaven, it seemed, with the dark wings of the Warrior. The cacophony dimmed for a moment, as everything slowed to a crawl. The girl's eyes went wide, staring out at her own brother as a quick splash of crimson fell upon the stone.
"Merric…"
He had been cut, but it was small and superficial. Merric gritted his teeth, ignoring the searing pangs, the hot and cold oath of steel slicing through flesh. It was funny. When blades cut through skin, they were not burning, nor frigid, but both. It was as if fire and ice condensed for one millisecond to slip through sinew and flesh, before melting away to nothingness again. In truth, it was the blood that offered the only real, concrete seeming feeling, hot and sticky as it trickled from the gash on Merric's arm.
It was just enough to set the man off.
Merric pounced, tackling the Praetori and holding his dagger to the intruder's throat. "Give me one reason to let you live. Just one."
"Because…."
xxxx
The moor yawned and spanned between the ancient, rocking point of Dun Aengus, still perched high stop those ocean cliffs after centuries of ruin.
Lauren had given impeccable directions from Dublin to a ferry across to the Aran Islands and to Dun Aengus. She should know. The archeologist had first visited the ruins shortly after moving to Ireland from New Jersey. The girl actually had organized a dig to the fortress a few months back, studying what was left from the last battle with the Romans.
They walked together, stalking the age old fortress, but stopped more than fifty meters away. For some, it felt like coming home for the first time in years. For others, their footsteps tolled death knolls in the field. And, yet, for all, it fell eerie and unnatural. The group stood together as a family, but never felt so alone as one of their missing siblings hid somewhere in the fortress.
They were family. They had always been. And one of their family was aching, in torment. That meant only one thing. They had to send in Nycole to help.
"Stay here," the empath ordered.
No one dared argue against her.
They watched as Nycole left them, moving across the fields silently. All the tourists had already left, long before the sun began to set, casting a bleeding, almost red light upon everything. The last few stragglers were already behind them, wandering back towards the ferry by their own time.
Nycole, however, walked in the opposite direction.
Somewhere in that fortress, Amon was hurting, and Nycole was the only one who could even hope to soothe him and bring the man back home.
Even though he'd finally gone home, in a way.
xxxx
Merric leaned close, pushing off the wolf skin cap, revealing the scarred face of a former Iceni. The swirling Triskellian curled over the man's right eye, before descending beneath the black face paint. He was marked; this man had been branded Praetori by the heat of fire and metal. And, yet, for how close Merric drew, for how much the Iceni pressed the blade into his enemy's throat, the Praetori just seemed to draw more entertainment and delight from this all.
"I asked you for a reason…." Merric demanded again.
The confusion and chaos of battle, the complete anarchy, faded away. The only things in the world were Merric and the man he held, pinned to the cold, clammy stone of Dun Aengus, wet with dew and the blood of many warriors, Merric included.
The Praetori grinned, his teeth stained in scarlet from his own blood. "Because, my friend…."
Mairi gasped. Friend? But the Praetori's voice dripped with thick sarcasm, as venomous as the deadly asp. No, Merric was true to the Iceni. He had always been so. Merric would never betray Boudica and turn to those Praetori scoundrels. The man had stood by his sisters against the Praetori.
The Praetori tried to sit up, pushing the blade into his own flesh with a terrible sound, but the bastard allowed those last words to pass his lips with his dying breath. "… You are one of us…."
And, with that, the Praetori hurled his body forward, with a crunch of cartilage on Merric's dagger. Their enemy grimaced a death smirk, as his body twitched out the last remnants of life and the Praetori shuffled loose this mortal coil. Merric drew his blade from the body, letting it fall limply to the ground with a sickening thud. But it didn't matter. The Praetori had done more damage than any incendiary, army, or elephant could do, with just those dying words.
Before Merric could recover, Mairi was upon him, tearing at the sleeve of his shirt, ripping it away. She gasped in horror and stepped back, to Boudica's side.
"So, there was one among us. A wolf walking with the lambs," the queen cooed.
Mairi shook her head. For, there, on Merric's arm, curled the twisting, terrible, black mark. The Triskellian curved and swirled on the young Iceni's pale forearm, an evil blotch on otherwise creamy skin. His sins burned a dark mark right down to Merric's corrupted, bastardized soul.
The soul of a traitor.
xxxx
Mmm… Merric's not what you thought he was, was he? Enjoy.
