by G. A. Aiken
“Are you just going to stand there?” Dagmar snapped, angry. “Are you going to do nothing?”
The Minotaurs stopped, glancing at each other while a few muttered, wondering who she was talking to.
“You hurt his feelings,” she chastised. “That’s why you’re here, Dagmar Reinholdt. You really have no one to blame but yourself.”
“You’re blaming me for this?”
“We weren’t blaming you for anything,” one of the Minotaurs contested.
“Shut up,” she snapped and focused again on Eir. “You have to do something.”
“Like what? Kill them all?”
“Excellent start.”
“I can’t. They haven’t actually done anything to me. And you don’t worship me…or anyone. The twins aren’t mine to protect. I really shouldn’t interfere with other gods.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“This isn’t going to work,” the head Minotaur said. “Pretending to be crazy won’t help you.”
“Gods have rules,” Eir went on, ignoring the Minotaur as Dagmar was. “A code, if you will, like you have in the north.”
“So that’s it? You’re going to walk away?”
“You talked yourself down here…Seems to me, you’re on your own.”
The goddess began to turn away, but Dagmar pulled her arm away from one of her captors and pointed it at her. “You said you owe me one!”
Eir faced her again, blinking in surprise. “For your wool socks.”
“It was an open-ended ‘I owe you one.’”
“What?”
“If you’d specifically stated, ‘I owe you one set of wool socks,’ that would be one thing. But you just said you owe me for the wool socks. Thereby leaving it completely open to interpretation and final payment.”
One of the Minotaurs leaned close to his commander. “She’s centaur-shit crazy.”
“The fear must have scrambled her mind,” the commander suggested.
Eir stared at her for a moment before nodding her head. “You are good. But it was only one favor. So you choose who I save. The twins or—”
“The twins,” she said, and all the Minotaurs looked over at their priestess, busy pulling out daggers and herbs for a proper sacrifice.
“The twins,” Dagmar repeated.
“All right. Think you can keep them busy for a bit?”
“I have to ask you again, are you kidding?”
“Come on. You’re very good. You’ll come up with something.”
Frustrated, confused, and quite terrified, Dagmar threw up her hands and said, “Hear me, Minotaurs!” And all those bovine faces looked at her. “The dragon gods will not stand for this! And it will not be you they come after. It will be your people. Your females. Your calves. They will wipe your people from the earth for this betrayal!”
That made the males pause. They were on a suicide mission, but that didn’t mean their families were.
Eir raised her thumb up and smiled. “Nice!”
“Ignore her,” the priestess said while carefully arranging the now screaming twins to her liking on a quickly made altar. “Use her as you will—no one will care.”
“But”—one said carefully through his teeth—“we think this one’s crazy.”
The priestess gaped at him. “That’s never stopped you before.”
While the Minotaurs debated the rape and murder of the insane, Dagmar watched Eir. She’d promised to help the twins and yet she wasn’t walking toward them, but away, eventually stopping at Annwyl’s prone body. She knelt down beside the dead queen and turned the body over. She placed her hand on Annwyl’s head and dragged it down the length of her body, down her face, across her chest and stomach, down her legs to her feet. Annwyl herself didn’t move, her eyes still staring unseeing at the ceiling, but her corpse twitched as bones locked back into place.
With a hand under Annwyl’s neck, her head gently tilted back, the goddess, like Rhydderch Hael had done a short while ago, pressed her lips against Annwyl’s…
The Minotaurs, obviously overcoming their moral dilemma, grabbed Dagmar and pulled her to the floor, onto her back. She fought back at the hands grabbing for her, but her focus was on the babes and the priestess who had them. The callous cow hummed as she prepared her ritual, ignoring everything else that was going on around her.
“Look at me, human.”
Dagmar did, staring up at the Minotaur now over her while the others held her pinned to the ground.
“Your pain,” he said softly, “will be my pleasure.”
“And your death,” said Annwyl behind him, “will be mine.”
The Blood Queen then grabbed his head, her fingers digging into his eyes, pressing in until she had them deep into the sockets.
The Minotaur screeched and stood, Annwyl attached to his back, holding on as he desperately tried to get her off.
The others released Dagmar as they went to their commander’s aid. But he was shrieking and turning in circles, unintentionally keeping Annwyl from their grasp while at the same time using her body as a weapon.
Dagmar quickly got to her feet as Annwyl pulled one hand from the Minotaur’s face and reached down yanking the eating dagger he kept on his loin cloth. She raised the blade above him and brought it down into his skull. He squealed, and Annwyl laughed, hysterically, dragging the blade out and slamming it home, again and again.
Finally one of the Minotaurs grabbed hold of her and yanked her off their commander, tossing her across the room. Annwyl hit the wall, the floor, and then jumped right back to her feet.
Now Annwyl screamed, the likes of which Dagmar had never heard before and prayed to never hear again. Annwyl screamed and, covered in blood, charged full into the Minotaurs. They were so stunned it took them a moment to react. One of them went for his blade, but Annwyl snatched it from him, using it to cut his stomach open before turning and boldly swinging the weapon as she did.
Dagmar forced herself to look away and to the priestess.
The priestess was angry, but she didn’t lose her head. Instead she grabbed the dagger and raised it above the girl. Dagmar ran at her, stepped on the weak altar for leverage, and launched herself at the priestess. Well aware she was no fighter, Dagmar wrapped her arms around the heifer’s head and held on.
“Get off me!” the priestess bellowed in outrage and shoved, sending Dagmar flying back. Dagmar hit the ground but kept her head up so it wouldn’t smash into the floor. When she stopped sliding, she grabbed one of the torches and forced her aching body back up. She felt the pain immediately, having never been trained in controlling it, and quickly limped back to the female Minotaur. She slapped the torch into her face, startling and angering her yet again.
“Bitch!”
Dagmar kicked at the bowl filled with oil, aiming for the priestess. It hit her on the side and Dagmar quickly slammed the torch at her. The flame caught and the priestess cried out, yanking off her cloak. Using the time, Dagmar grabbed hold of the twins and quickly retreated. She saw the exit from where she stood, but a slashing, killing Annwyl and still quite a few Minotaurs stood between her and freedom.
The priestess, cloak and flame free, stepped over the altar. She stared at them all, and then she opened her mouth and yelled, “Stop!”
They all did, too. Even Annwyl.
The priestess glanced at Dagmar but seemed confident in her current situation of being unable to escape. Right now, they both knew that Annwyl was her bigger concern.
She raised her arm and stepped a little closer to the queen. “I call upon the darkest powers to come to me,” she chanted, her finger pointing at Annwyl. “I call upon them to possess me and give me the power to destroy this abomination.”
Dagmar stepped forward. “Annwyl, kill her!” she shouted. “Kill her before she can finish!”
She’d never know if Annwyl had heard her words, had understood her words, or simply responded to the sound of yelling. Whatever prompted the queen, the Mad Bitch of Garbhán
Isle, it was quite enough.
Pulling back her arm—the skin no longer pale and flaccid but strong, powerful, and filled with well-trained muscles—she threw the sword she had in her hand. A Minotaur’s blade, much longer and wider than any human sword, and Annwyl handled it like it was a small eating dagger.
The weapon flew across the tunnel and slammed into the Minotaur female, forcing her back several steps.
The priestess stared down at it, but she didn’t die.
She raised her arms and shouted, “Kill—”
But Annwyl’s hysterical scream drowned her out, and then the Blood Queen was charging the Minotaur female, slamming into her, knocking her into the ground. She yanked the blade from the female’s chest and raised it. Still screaming, she slammed it into her. The priestess’s howl of pain filled the tunnel, but it still couldn’t block out Annwyl’s scream. It went beyond a battle cry. It went beyond anything.
And while she screamed, over and over again, Annwyl yanked the weapon out, and slammed it back in.
Unable to turn away, they all watched her, even Dagmar. The Minotaur males didn’t move. Their commander was dead and their priestess was being murdered right before them.
And it was murder. A brutal, vicious murder. Blood and gore flew everywhere, even striking Dagmar and the babes, but Annwyl kept going until the tip of the blade slammed into the ground beneath them. That’s when she released it and tore at the priestess’s chest using only her bare hands. She tore the ribs apart and began to slam her fist inside the open chest cavity again and again.
By now the female Minotaur had long died, but apparently Annwyl’s rage was still going strong.
Dagmar lost count of how many times Annwyl struck at the open chest in front of her. How many times she yanked organs out and tossed them over her shoulder. For the first time in her life, Dagmar was mesmerized, unable to think or reason or do much of anything but stare.
It took them long minutes before the Minotaurs finally snapped out of their own state of shock, and one of them, a giant with an absolutely enormous head, moved toward her. He slowly raised his sword and Dagmar went to warn Annwyl, but a blade held against her throat cut off the sound.
The Minotaur now stood behind Annwyl, the sword held in both hands over her naked back. Without a sound, he brought it down. But as the tip of the blade neared her spine, Annwyl moved. She simply lifted her right arm and reared to her left side. The blade slammed into the Minotaur female’s empty chest. The male stared dumbly at what he’d done, and then his gaze turned to Annwyl. Her smile was mad, one corner of her mouth lifting, her green eyes rising up to look at him through the wild tumble of hair in her face.
“Missed,” she hissed, and the Minotaur stumbled back. He was terrified. He couldn’t hide it, not from his comrades, not from himself. For the first time in his life, Dagmar was sure, an Ice Lander was terrified and everyone knew it—because they were all terrified as well.
Terrified as they watched Annwyl grab the hilt of the Minotaur’s blade still sticking up from the female’s chest. Terrified as the much smaller human and naked female got to her feet. Annwyl panted, not from exertion…but from lust. From desire. The desire for the kill. Dagmar had never seen it like this before. Not like this. Not as if the warrior would climax at any moment merely from the threat she presented.
The queen’s crazed gaze shifted to Dagmar and the Minotaur behind her lowered his blade and moved away. He held his hands up, the palms coated with a lighter, paler fur than the brown and white on top.
As one, the Minotaurs all moved back, watching her closely, so closely.
Annwyl wet her lips, her panting getting heavier, her body more aroused by the second. Then she screamed; she screamed and the Minotaurs ran. Down the tunnel they’d built and out into the sunlight they rarely saw.
And Annwyl? She was right behind them.
Fearghus stopped short and Gwenvael almost ran into the back of him. His brother turned, his eyes wild as he searched the area. Annwyl’s horse reared up and held its ground.
“What? What is it?”
“Listen!”
Gwenvael heard it then. Something he thought never to hear again. The battle cry of the Blood Queen.
“There! She’s there!”
And Annwyl was there, tearing out of a hole dug into the base of a small hill. She wasn’t running away, though; she was running after. Running after the Minotaurs she’d chased off. At least nine feet tall and outweighing her by more than twenty stone, the Minotaurs ran. But she caught up with them. As he, Fearghus, Briec, and Bercelak all landed nearly a hundred feet away, Annwyl caught up with the first one. She slashed the back of his ankles and he tumbled forward. As he rolled onto his back, she cut his throat and kept moving, slashing at another. The Minotaurs had hoped to outrun her, but now there were dragons in their way, cutting them off.
Briec took in a breath, ready to douse them all in flame, but Fearghus shook his head. “No. Leave it.”
“But Annwyl will be safe.” A gift from their mother protected Annwyl from a dragon’s flame. It had helped her more than once during a messy battle.
“Leave it,” Fearghus said again.
They did, and the Minotaurs, realizing they couldn’t escape, spun around to face Annwyl. They attacked as one fighting unit, nearly twelve of them remaining from what Dagmar had assured Fearghus would be a force of at least fifty. But the blade Annwyl carried—a short sword for a Minotaur, but nearly double the length of Annwyl’s own broad sword—flashed in the sun as she went to work.
It was a brutal battle, the Blood Queen once again proving her name as she hacked away at arms, legs, and heads. The heads were hard to take, so she crippled most of them first and then went from one to the other to the other, finishing them off. As the brothers and their father watched, Morfyd and Rhiannon landed, followed by Talaith and Izzy arriving on horseback. Then the Cadwaladr Clan arrived, dropping from the sky and watching as Annwyl did what she’d always done best.
She went to the last one, who no longer had legs but was still struggling to get away. She planted her foot into his back and held him in place. Then she raised the sword in her hands and brought it down against his neck. The first strike did not take his head, so she hacked and hacked until it fell off.
Then Annwyl stood there, panting, her naked body covered in blood. But she was alive. Very much alive.
And completely insane.
Gwenvael heard a small cry and looked up to see Dagmar walk out of the tunnel. She was dirty, her clothes torn, and she had some blood on her, but she was alive and so were the twins. They were the ones crying, annoyed, it seemed, more than anything. But all four were fine—four because he now included Dagmar’s spectacles in all estimates.
She looked at him, her relieved smile warming him in a way he’d never felt before. He stepped forward, determined to get to her, but her eyes widened and she quickly shook her head. Good thing, too, because Annwyl turned on him so fast, Gwenvael took a hasty step back. She held the blade in both hands, raised high on her side. A move for a running attack.
Fearghus scowled, more confused than angry. “Annwyl?”
Her green eyes shifted toward Fearghus, but Gwenvael saw no recognition of her mate. No undying love and loyalty. As far as Annwyl the Bloody was concerned, all of them were enemies.
“Get on the horse,” Annwyl ordered Dagmar.
Gwenvael shook his head. “Wait—” But his mother caught his arm, pulled him back. She stepped in front of him, prepared to protect her son, and kept her eyes on Annwyl.
“Move!” Annwyl commanded again.
Dagmar did, going to Annwyl’s stallion. The horse lowered himself to the ground and Dagmar climbed onto his back, the babes in her arms making it an awkward ordeal. Annwyl moved toward the horse, her gaze constantly scanning from one dragon to the other. She reached Violence and slid on behind Dagmar. She still held the sword and appeared ready to use it at any second.
“Take his mane,” she
ordered Dagmar as the horse stood tall. “Now hold on. He knows where to go.”
Annwyl pointed her sword at Celyn and Branwen. “Move!” The two youngsters fell over each other trying to get out of the way, until their mother grabbed them by their hair and yanked them back.
“Go,” Annwyl told her horse.
Violence reared up then shot off, tearing through the empty space the young siblings left.
As the horse disappeared over a hill, Gwenvael’s Dragon Kin stood silent, unsure what to do next.
Then Addolgar earnestly asked, “I’m confused. Is she dead or not?”
Chapter 29
After all that, Dagmar had really hoped they were heading back to Garbhán Isle, but no. A nice inn somewhere in one of the villages? No. A pub for a pint…or twelve pints, one after the other until she could no longer see straight with or without her spectacles? No.
Instead of any of those lovely ideas, the Queen of Dark Plains took her to a cave. A dark, dank cave. She couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face or the babes in her arms, but of course this place must be safer than the tunnel they’d just escaped from.
She hoped so, anyway.
Thankfully the horse seemed to know where he was going, happily trotting along through the winding black tunnels. Eventually he stopped and Annwyl jumped off. Dagmar could hear the queen moving around and some cursing when she walked into things. But then flint struck rock and a torch was lit. Annwyl walked around the cavern, lighting more torches attached to the walls, and as she did, Dagmar could now see she was not in some random cave Annwyl had stumbled upon. They were in a furnished cave. A dragon’s cave. She let out a sigh of relief and the horse lowered himself to the ground, allowing Dagmar to slip off. Not easy when she was desperately trying not to drop the sobbing babes in her arms.
“Why are they crying?”
The naked queen stood before her, blood covering most of her, and there seemed to be a fresh wound or two, but this…this was the queen Dagmar had always heard of. Tall, powerfully built. Muscles any male warrior would envy and generous breasts any woman would love to have been gifted with. The only sign that showed Annwyl had once been with child was the horizontal scar across her lower abdomen. But it looked as if it had been there for years.