Celtic Fire by Joy Nash

severed head of the Roman commander perched atop it.
    Owein wondered at the skull’s presence in Madog’s hut. Until their return from the disastrous raid, the gruesome talisman had been displayed atop a stake inside the Druid circle. Now the Roman’s hollow eyes surveyed Madog’s sacred sanctuary. Dark patches on its surface—scraps of oiled skin and matted hair—seemed to dissolve in the shadows, leaving glimpses of smooth white bone.
    Owein shuddered. So long as the Roman’s head remained unburied, his soul was trapped in the formless land between death and life. His spirit was forced to lend its power to the cause of his destroyers. The dark slavery stretched into eternity with little hope for freedom.
    He closed his eyes, remembering the man’s hideous death dance. Rhiannon had cried for three full nights after Madog had thrust his sword into the prisoner’s back. Owein’s own visions had begun soon after. By chance, or were his nightmares a consequence of the Rite?
    Madog’s hand stretched toward his prize. Gnarled fingers stroked the dead Roman’s rotted skin with the exuberant pride of a man touching his firstborn son. “Soon,” he told it. “Soon.”
    Owein’s scalp prickled.
    “If Kernunnos comes to ye this night,” Madog said, “attend him well.”
    “What good be visions that speak in riddles?” Owein asked, a plaintive note creeping into his tone. “If Kernunnos had spoken more clearly before the raid, I could have prevented Rhiannon’s capture.”
    “Ye must not blame yourself that she was taken, lad.”
    Owein slammed his fist into the dirt floor. The shock of the blow traveled up his arm, but the spike of pain brought him no respite from his guilt. “I should have recognized my own arrows, at the least,” he said, his voice rising. “If I had, I could have brought my sister safely home.”
    A grunt was Madog’s only reply.
    Owein shifted on his stool. The walls of the hut seemed to draw closer. His breath rattled in his lungs, proving, much as he hated to admit it, that Rhiannon’s concern for his health had not been unfounded. He should never have joined the raid, no matter Edmyg’s taunts. He should have cowered in the dun with the women. If he had, Rhiannon would be safe within the village palisade, brewing her potions or weaving at her loom.
    He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, hands dangling uselessly between his knees. His foolhardy attack on the Roman commander had cost Rhiannon her freedom, her dignity, perhaps even her life.
    “Edmyg holds me at fault,” he muttered. “For once he has the right of it.”
    Madog stabbed a sharp stick into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. “Edmyg hurls blame like other men throw spittle, with no regard for the direction of the wind. Your dreams foretold Rhiannon’s capture, Owein. I am thinking it could nay have been avoided.”
    “What do ye mean?”
    “Kernunnos has taken Rhiannon and placed her inside the Roman fort. Cormac reports her injury is not grave”—he stabbed the fire a second time—“and that she has caught the eye of the Roman commander.”
    Owein sprang to his feet. “If the bastard dares touch her—” He ended with a foul oath, his bravado fading. Most likely, the foreign dog had already forced himself on Rhiannon.
    The blood rushed in his ears so fiercely that he almost didn’t hear Madog’s murmured reply. “Ye and your sister share one blood, Owein.” His fingers caressed the oiled skull. “Kernunnos leads you with visions. Rhiannon is close to the enemy’s throat.”
    The old Druid’s eyes shone red in the dancing light of the fire. “Such favors are nay to be wasted.”

Chapter Four
    “What are you doing?”
    Rhiannon looked up to see Lucius’s son perched on the low roof covering the courtyard garden’s perimeter walkway. She’d been kneeling in the cool, moist dirt, so absorbed with loosening a choking vine from a clump of betony that she hadn’t heard his