B007IIXYQY EBOK by Donna Gillespie Page A

she was dimly aware of a dark, low hum on a bone pipe, a persistent sound that rose and grew stronger until it poured into the air around like some warm liquid. Her eye just caught the movement of a priestly robe, spectral and white, far back in the labyrinth of trunks.
    The Holy Ones were here, watching, marking all she did. Her cry for help died before it formed in her throat. They would give no aid, for she had stumbled out of daily life and into mythic life. “What passes in the Ash Grove,” they would say, “is a sign for what will pass in the world.” Her fate would be read as a portent. They would watch with detachment to see if she lived or died, then interpret the future from her final writhings. She was numbed by how suddenly all that protected her vanished: her family’s fame, her numerous kin, and her father’s many Companions—the most celebrated warriors of the tribe. She was a maid alone, stripped naked for death.
    The dark-haired warrior lunged unexpectedly to the left, and the tree no longer shielded her. His spear-arm snapped out. The weapon was skillfully aimed and powerfully thrown.
    Swifter than thought, she dropped into a heap on the forest floor. Had she not, the spear would have torn through her chest. She heard it sink deep into the flesh of an ash at her back. From the warrior came a low husky laugh. He is a madman, she thought. He struck an ash tree to the heart and yet he feels no terror.
    Before she had time to scramble to her feet, he was sprinting toward her to take her with his hunting knife.
    The sound of running feet held her transfixed. She saw a quick vision of her blood splattered on the bark. He was all the enemies she ever feared—the ogre with its swampy breath, the stooped shadow of a lurking man-thing seen at dusk beyond the last field, the Romans with their terrifying relentlessness, the guest-murderers of the winter tales.
    But in the next instant she felt a powerful stillness gathering within, as if there were a holy grove in her heart. It seemed a spirit far older than her own took possession of her—it might have been an ancestor who worshipped here, or the vast soul of the Ash itself. A dark steady strength flooded into her limbs.
    I can live. Arise and fight. The blood on the bark is not mine but his .
    She sprang up with collected grace. Almost playfully, as though she were testing her skill rather than fighting for her life, she centered the spear’s weight in her palm and drew her arm back, eyes on his heart. She whipped forward.
    It was a hard, straight throw. But he was alarmingly quick and he dodged it; she succeeded only in tearing off part of his tunic. He slowed for a moment, face contracted in pain from the flesh wound she made, looking back once to see if her spear fell close enough to be retrieved. It had not. He raised the hunting knife and lunged for her.
    But she was already gone, darting like a deer to the tree in which his spear was lodged. He ran hard, meaning to fall on her before she got it free.
    Working feverishly, she disengaged it. As she spun round, he sprang, knife bared like a single tearing tooth. He grinned. His hair was sweat-darkened. Distended nostrils gulped in air.
    Fria, lady of Night, I am your servant, let me live …
    She cast the spear with all her strength—it was the last leap of a festival dancer before she drops into exhaustion. The spear seemed to jump lightly from her hand, glad to be free.
    It struck high in his chest, pitching him backward. He staggered a few steps, seizing the spear in both hands as though he could not believe it was embedded in his body.
    Her joy was mingled with dread as the eyes of the warrior of the Hermundures became sky-blank, his gaped mouth stopped in place—a mouth no longer, but a frightful hole. He fell heavily to his knees, then sank quietly to his side. The blood pulsed out in a low fountain, darkening his tunic, reddening the ground. For long moments she stood very still, her breathing