“Fuck me, three of the dogs at once, and one got through for a bite. You first, as I have to face my sister.”
But the pain was seeping through now as well, after the numbing blur of war. Still, he closed Mahon’s gash, hissed when he closed the punctures on his side.
“We’ll have someone with more skill than mine do the rest of it.” He swiped at his face with the back of his hand as he looked around the beach, the hills, the pretty village and saw the burning, the blood, the ruin. The death.
“We’ll heal our own, and theirs after. Bind any of theirs who live for the Judgment. We’ll burn their dead and salt the ash. We’ll carry our dead home. Gods, I want a vat of ale and a bed.”
“I’ll take the ale, a scrub, and what I wouldn’t give for my lady’s arms around me. I’ll have to settle for yours.”
Mahon laid his hands on Keegan’s shoulders, and when Keegan laughed, rested his forehead on his friend’s. “Well fought, brother.”
“Well fought. And fuck me again, and you along with me, this was nothing. A scratch, a prick of a needle to what’s coming still.”
“And so we’ll fight on, heal our wounds, honor our dead. And fight on again. For Talamh, and all the worlds.”
“For Talamh, and all the worlds.” Keegan sheathed his sword. “Gods, but the taste of the kill is foul. I will dance, I swear it, on the day I never have to drink it again. But for now.”
He looked up the hill to the Prayer House. “I will see Toric and his lot are bound and taken in for judgment.”
“Taoiseach!” One of the elves he’d positioned inside the Prayer House raced to him.
“You hold the house and all in it?”
“Aye, aye, but…” His eyes filled. “We found one in a chamber below the bell tower. And three boys, just boys. Two already dead with their throats slit. His knife with their blood dripping. And he had the third sliced open before we could stop him. They were children. Just boys.”
“Does he live?”
“I killed him. I didn’t have to, I didn’t obey. I—”
“Do you think I would find blame in you for this? It’s, ah, Colm, isn’t it?”
“Aye, sir.”
And you barely more than a boy yourself, Keegan thought.
“Know there is no blame for this, and know we will seek out the family of the murdered boys. If they have none, we will take them in honor with our dead.”
He looked up the hill again, and it burned through him. Rage and grief, grief and rage building a fire that scorched his soul.
“And know this, as I am taoiseach. This house falls. Every stone of it. There will be nothing left of it, and the evil that grew inside. We will build a monument in its place, on ground so sanctified. A monument to the fallen, to the innocent, to the brave, and all who walk in the light will be welcome.”
He let out a breath. “So I have spoken.”
He put a hand on the elf’s shoulder before he walked toward the steps leading up. “Well fought,” he said, and carried his rage and grief with him.
The first stars began to gutter out when Keegan flew toward the valley. He’d ordered Mahon and Sedric to bring the valley’s dead home, assigned others to do the same across Talamh.
And he’d stayed in the south until the pyre of enemy dead went to ash under dragon fire.
The warriors he’d left there would help rebuild what was destroyed. And would raze the Prayer House to the ground.
He wanted home, and for a few hours he’d take it.
As Cróga glided down, Keegan stretched across his neck. Words were never needed between them, but he spoke them.
“Rest well, mo dheartháir. A thousand thanks for your courage and skill this night.”
Weary to the bone, Keegan slid to the ground, then trudged toward the farmhouse, where a light beamed welcome from the window.
He might have gone straight upstairs, might have simply fallen into his bed in the clothes stained with blood and sweat and smoke, but he saw light glowed in the kitchen as well.
There he found his mother and his brother drinking tea. And from the scent of it, tea with a good dose of whiskey.
Tarryn rose, and though he would have held her off, embraced him.
“I’m filthy.”
“You’re whole and safe, as are Mahon and Sedric. We kept watch.” She drew back far enough to kiss his cheek, look into his eyes. “Well fought,” she told him.
“The portal’s closed and sealed,” he began.