Kushiel's Dart

height, awaited on the rocks, his angled sword reflecting sunlight across their faces.
    That was when the arrows began to sing.
    It was Moiread who had gained the camp; Moiread, Necthana's youngest, a full quiver at hand, shooting grim and deadly, little more than a girl. Two of the Tarbh Cro dropped before their leader cursed and fumbled for the butt of his spear. "Never mind hostages!" he shouted. "Kill them all!"
    With that, he cast his spear.
    At Moiread.
    I saw it catch her, pierce her through the middle, both hands rising to circle the shaft, gasping as she fell backward. And I heard two cries: Hyacinthe's, broken-hearted, and a second cry, like the sound of dying-Necthana, hands covering her eyes. Moiread's sisters keened, low and grieving.
    One other shout, clarion, splitting the morning.
    I had seen Joscelin fight against the Skaldi; nothing, I thought, could match it. I was wrong. Like a falling star, he descended on the Tarbh Cro, a Cassiline berserker, his sword biting and slashing like a silver snake. They fell before him, wounds bursting open in bright splashes of blood; fell, and died, still scrabbling for their spears.
    How many? Twenty, I had counted. Most fell to Joscelin, save the two Moiread had slain. Not all. Necthana and her daughters, Breidaia and Sibeal; they flung themselves into the fray, with keen little daggers. Four,
    I think, died at their hands. Maybe five, or six. There were two that Hyacinthe finished, drawing a boot-knife, the Prince of Travellers.
    I, shaking, killed none.
    So it was that Drustan found us, the Cruarch of Alba, woad-patterned arms splashed to the elbows with gore, his face grimly exultant, the brown horse lathered and blown. The victorious army plunged raggedly through the copse, shouting behind him. He drew up, looked at his mother and his living sisters, their similar faces telling the same grief; and Moiread, the youngest, her smile forevermore stilled. "Ah, no. No."
    We gathered to one side; Joscelin kneeling in Cassiline penance, Hyacinthe with bowed head. Necthana rose, grave and sorrowing. "The Cul-lach Gorrym has taken his due," she said quietly. "My son, who rules in Alba?"
    Drustan turned his head; a chariot plunged toward him, Eamonn's, his face streaked with dust and blood. Behind the chariot bounced a corpse, a large young man, red-haired, his dead face locked in a grimace, flesh abraded. Maelcon. "I do, Mother," Drustan answered softly. "The Usurper is dead."
    "Slain by the Cruarch's own hand!" Eamonn shouted, lashing his team closer. Then he saw, and drew rein. "Dagda Mor, no."
    "For every victory," Necthana whispered, her great dark eyes shining with a mother's tears, "there is a price."

SEVENTY-THREE
    We did not ride into Bryn Gorrydum that day, but remained at the battle-site.
    Our poets do not sing of the dire aftermath of war, of the horror and stench of it, strewn bodies, entrails spilled beneath the sun and stinking, ravens plucking gobbets of flesh, the buzzing clouds of flies that gather-nor of mass graves, or the horrid effort of digging, warriors cursing flies and wiping the sweat from their brows.
    Some twelve hundred of the Tarbh Cro survived to surrender; thousands had been killed. It had been a slaughter when the Cullach Gor-rym had boiled over the edge of the valley; they'd been caught unprepared, on lower ground, by the very enemy they'd thought to surprise.
    Only Maelcon's hostage-takers had succeeded at that, I thought, and they were all dead too.
    I worked as one with Necthana and her daughters, her surviving daughters, bearing water into the battlefield, for the dying and the laboring alike. I came upon Joscelin among the latter, working grimly; the dead of Drustan's army had been gathered, eight hundred or more, and a good many of them Dalriada. They were building a cairn above them, stone by heavy stone.
    He shook his head when I offered him the dipper. His face was haggard in its beauty, splashes of blood drying rust-brown and flaking on his skin, his clothing, even the thick wheat-blond cable of his braid. Poets do not sing of that, either.
    "You did what you had to," I said softly to him, proferring the dipper again. "Joscelin, they drew to kill."
    "I should have saved her too," he replied grimly, turning away and hoisting another stone. I let it be and moved on, offering my dipper to a
    Cruithne warrior who took it gratefully, gripping with both hands, throat working as he drank. And on, and on. The dying were the worst. I