"Are you all right?" she asked unnecessarily.
"Angry as a wolverine and foolish as a goat," he gasped. "By Taranis and Esus, I don't think I've ever seen one that big. Or that fast."
"It's a wonder you're still alive." She jumped down from her horse and used her dagger to cut a strip of cloth from her tunic. "I've got to get that bound before you bleed to death." He winced as she bandaged the wound. "And we must splint that leg. You're lucky you aren't dead, Hool."
"If I were, I'd have already seen the worst the underworld could frighten me with. I've never faced an uglier snout, not even on Luca's homely daughters."
"His eyes were like coals. His tusks like knives." She glanced around for something to splint him with. "Maybe we can use the shaft of your spear to set your leg."
The weapon had fallen to the ground, and she picked it up. Valeria was surprised at how heavy and yet how balanced a spear was. She'd never hoisted one before. She could still feel the warmth and sweat from Hool's hands on the shaft's grip. The head was blue iron, filed and sharp. "It's too long, though."
"Don't break my spear!"
"Maybe we could strap it along your body."
"Wait for Arden and Mael. They'll know what to do."
"How long before they come back?"
"When the boar's dead." He lay back on the leaves of the forest floor, resting.
They waited in companionable silence, grateful for each other's company in the green dimness of the forest. They could still hear the others, but the sound was distant and faint. Perhaps the boar had slipped away. Valeria hoped they'd give up soon and come help their companion.
They didn't. Time drifted.
Finally something cracked in the bushes. Were the hunters finally returning? She looked up, following the sound to the brambles, and saw a dark shape watching, panting heavily. One of the injured dogs? No, it seemed too big…
Her breath caught, her heart stalled.
It was the boar.
Hool saw it too and sat painfully upright. "Get on your horse," he ordered.
She took a step backward. What was the boar doing here? Somehow it had circled through the forest well ahead of its pursuers, come back to its home thicket, and then followed the scent of human blood…
"Go get help, as quickly as you can!"
The animal was very near, as big as a bear, its snout hideous, its back a hedge of upright, quivering bristles, a drool of blood and saliva dripping from its tusks. She could smell its rankness as it eyed them.
She still had the spear. Should she give it to the man?
The boar pawed, snorting.
"Hurry!" Hool shouted.
It charged. Valeria sprang for her horse, the mount already starting to bolt in terror. The mare screamed. Or was that her scream? She glimpsed bunched fury, and then the boar ran over the wounded Celt like a careening chariot, the two tumbling as Hool roared in pain. The pig butted at the man with its snout, the tusks cutting at him again and again as he was rolled along the ground. Hool howled with frustration and helpless rage, beating at the animal with his arms as it shook him like a doll. She had to do something!
Valeria was in the saddle now, sawing at the reins with one hand and the spear in her other. Her mare was dancing frantically. Finally she managed to drag Boudicca's head around and kicked as hard as she could, driving her mount toward the boar before the horse knew what it was doing. That got her close enough to lean and jab with the spear, hard, at the creature's skinny hindquarter.
The boar jerked as if stung, and turned. Now the mare was sidestepping, eyes rolling in fear and head too high to choose intelligent direction.
The boar charged again, this time at Valeria.
She yanked up her leg to avoid the slicing tusk, and the beast struck the mare's side with concussive force. It was as if an ocean wave had picked the horse up with her astride, shoving them sideways against a tree, Boudicca screaming for sure now as the mare was eviscerated. Valeria jabbed desperately at the monster's enormous shoulder, but the hide and cartilage was so tough, it was like stabbing chain mail. The three of them crashed together against an oak, and the tree quivered from the impact. The boar was frantic to get at her, but the butt end of Hool's spear had been accidentally driven into the oak by its furious charge, the animal's shoulder against its point. The ashwood shaft bowed as if to shatter, yet just before it must do so, the boar's furious energy pierced the spearhead through its plate of shoulder cartilage, and it sliced deep. The wild pig squealed in surprise, a new scream that mingled with the screams of woman and horse, and then all three crashed over, Valeria caught in the saddle and slamming hard onto the ground over the body of both horse and boar.
She waited for its head to come round and gore her.
Instead, the pig grunted, sighed, and shuddered. Finally it was still.
She laid her cheek on the damp earth, her vision blurred, her mind stunned. Then she heard shouts, a baying of hounds, and suddenly she was surrounded by a circle of barking and snarling dogs, nipping at the dead boar even as Arden and Mael strode angrily through them, shouting commands and pulling the pack off. The chieftain probed the monster with his lance, but it was already dead, Hool's spear jutting from its heart. The tiny forest arena was spattered with gore, and the woman was sprawled awkwardly as if dead.
"Good Dagda, have you killed my lady?" Arden lifted her face from the mud, his own stricken with fear. Her eyes were closed, a tendril of hair in her mouth.
"I'm caught," she mumbled dully.
"Help me get her clear of this horse!"
Strong arms lifted the bulk of the animal to work her legs free. She winced from a dazzling kind of pain. Boudicca was wheezing in agony, her guts spilling over the pig. Luca took his own spear and thrust it into the horse to put the mare out of her misery.
"Hool's still alive!" Brisa called. The man was groaning.
"The trickster circled to finish him off," Mael marveled, piecing together the fight. "If your Roman girl hadn't been here, it would have gored him and then trotted on its way, to terrorize us again."
Arden sat on the ground, cradling her in his arms. She felt faint and floating against the comfort of his body, astonished she was still alive.
"She killed the biggest boar I've ever seen," the chieftain murmured. "She saved poor Hool."
Asa was looking at the Roman woman in wonder and envy. "How could that puny thing get the spear through the animal's shoulder?"
Mael pointed to the trunk of the tree. "She braced her weapon, and the boar did the rest. It's as brave an act of hunting as I've seen in all my life."
There was no courage at all, Valeria wanted to say, but she was so stunned by the horror that she couldn't speak. The boar looked like some shaggy black mountain beside her, its snout tipped with two bright beads of blood.
"The Roman got him off me," Hool gasped in pain. Then he fainted.
Arden looked at the others. "No one knows the thinking of the gods," he said. "No one knows why things happen the way they do. But I say that this woman came into our lives for a reason, and part of that reason we've seen here today. This will be a song that will be sung for generations."
"She was lucky," Asa insisted. "Look at her. She's almost dead from fright."
"She's an arrow from the sacred," Brisa contradicted. "Look at Hool's legs, she tried to bandage them! This, after we captured her, when she could have slit his throat! This Roman has the spirit of a Celt, Arden Caratacus. The heart of a Morrigan."
"Our Morrigan, then, she shall be."
XXIX
Valeria woke to the sound of lapping water. She was inside, she sensed dimly, but the murmur of waves and play of sun still filtered through the woven wattle of an undaubed wall. Light ignited dust motes in the air. The roof was lost in shadow but smelled of damp thatch. She was lying on a straw mattress-she could hear it crinkle beneath her-and covered with thick wool blankets. She also ached so much that she could barely move. Half her body felt like it had been drummed with hammers. Her ankle throbbed, and cuts and scratches added a slighter but sharper discomfort.