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Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Xlibris
ISBN-10: 0738826073
Type: Fiction
Pages: 250
Copyright: 2000
ISBN-13: 9780738826073
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
The "Raven's Winter" saga continues here. This novel is a tale within a tale, as Artuer tells the story of the covenant's beginnings, while members of the current household begin to learn of their own special "talents" and an even greater and older force again interacts with them.
Here there be Dragons, and wolves that are nah wolves, and faery magic and romance enou' to fire the Celtic spirit and the young at heart...
When young Nede (Nay-da) , the son of Emily D'Artagan and Joseph Alberg, begins to question his heritage, it is decided to send him to the clan's old mansion in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Raven's Winter, where he can hear the tales of the covenants beginning from the current patriarch, Artuer D' Artagan, Emily's grandfather. While there, he becomes aquainted with the current summer residents of the Winter...and unwittingly becomes a part of their developing "talents".
Soft as as Summer night, and with the cold depth of inevitable strife, this tale takes the reader to distant pasts and possible futures, as the saga of the covenant of Raven's Winter continues to unfold its unusual story...
Another gem for the fans of the Celtic Twilight...
Excerpt
As they watched the pale creatures began again to shift, this time their long ebony tresses seemed to blend into their creamy flesh until they were covered with short black fur. Their beautiful faces elongated into that of a sleek hound, their ears slipping from small and round to long and pointed as the black lips at the ends of their snouts curled to reveal long sharp ivory fangs. All that remained the same in the end were those fathomless deep onyx eyes.
"I'm of the thought that these beasts are na' longer much in awe of us," Cuan Gruine stated matter of factly.
The hounds broke off into groups of three, each member of that group grabbing in its mouth the tail of another until the last reared into the air and spun back to grab the tail of the first, thusly forming a living wheel of black hounds that stood on its edge as if in defiance of the ground's pull. Two dozen such wheels sat in a circle about Sechel, Clairon and their wolf escorts. Then each wheel began to roll, at first slowly and then faster and faster, making a continuous ring of rolling hound wheels about the circled wolves. The wheels kept going faster and faster until the entire parade of them was't no more than a blur of ebon motion around the stock still silver wolves.
"They are making me dizzy," Clairon said in a distressed tone.
"Dunna look at them," Sechel told her. "Focus instead on one tree behind them."
"If ye have a plan, young wizard duine, 'twould be comforting if ye would at some time soon upon us implement such," Cuan Gruine said in a soft tone. He looked up at Sechel and the young man saw that there was a mischievous twinkle in those steel blue eyes, as if the wolf were actually somehow enjoying their dilemma.
Sechel was wishing he had such a plan. He had put his faith in the wisdom of Becrhain, which had put all of them within this dire predicament in the first place. Yet, it now seemed as if the old wizard's wisdom had deserted him. And 'twas nothing he had learned from either druid magic nor sidhe wizardry that seemed worthy of this dark foe.
Clairon looked up at him pleading as a fierce wind was rising about them, driven by that spinning dervish of hound wheels. Dust was flying up about them and t'was getting difficult to see anything much past one's nose. Sechel felt his heart ache as he saw those expectant and pleading eyes of his one true love, despairing in the knowledge that he had no wondrous all powerful answer to these unnatural things that e'en now were closing in upon them, the wheels drawing nearer with each full revolution about the encircled silver intruders.
Then did he feel a warmth against his breast, just there at his heart. He lowered the blade of the sword and with his other hand reached into his tunic, their finding the crystal he had shown Cuan Gruine the day afore. How it had gotten from within the cloak to the inside of his tunic he knew na', and 'twas na' time to consider such.
Sechel looked into the bright green glow and he heard voices. Thousands upon thousands of voices, all encouraging, all guiding, all there at his need...
"A bit of ye druidic magic, if ye please," Cuan Gruine suggested. He looked up and saw Sechel's face bathed in a soft green glow as he held something in his hand before his face. An idiot's grin was set upon his lips and his eyes were wide as a child seeing something for the first time.
"What is't it, Sechel?" Clairon asked. The green glow fell upon her eyes and she could hear the wondrous host that spoke calmly to her from within.
"Any time, Sechel?" the wolf as now getting a bit impatient and edgy, the inner edge of the spinning valkyries only an arm's length from the outer rim of wolf warriors.
Sechel suddenly grasped the stone hard in his right hand, splayed his arms open wide, the sword dropping to the ground from his right hand, and tilted his head back, letting out an ear shattering and defiant scream. The sound rose to the very tops of the giant trees. It echoed like thunder within the confines of their mighty trunks.
The hound wheels stopped suddenly yet still they stood on edge. There came a wind from within the circle, as if from Sechel himself. It was a powerful wind that heavily ruffled the thick mane of the silver host that sat about him. It grew stronger by far as soon as it passed their long pointed ears and was clear of their long snouts. It roared like the voice of a mighty beast, like the shouts of an enormously large group all combined into one huge and breathlessly defiant scream, and it sent the hound wheels toppling o'er and the hounds scattering as it blew them helplessly across the forest floor.
The beasts slipped again, quickly melting back into the winged serpents and riding that wind up into the misty shafts of light high above in the green canopy. Then they came diving down at the group below, na' longer intent on using any tact or caution.
"What now, wizard boy?" Cuan Gruine asked as he rose slowly to make whate'er futile attempt he could to counter this new assault.
Sechel did na' hear. He held the crystal high in his palm, letting it face toward the silently diving valkyrie. There was a bright flash of light and the diving beasts quickly broke off their fall, fanning out until again the circle of wolves was surrounded by lovely naked women with milky flesh, long ebony tresses, and onyx empty eyes.
These rushed the group and the fighting became physical. The wolves were strong and true, yet highly outnumbered, and soon the valkyrie, slipping back and forth 'tween duine and hound, had all of them pinned to the ground save Clairon and Sechel, who stood in the center of what had been the protective shield of wolf warriors.
The remainder of the pale dark haired horde strode silently o'er the now pinned wolves, who still struggled (yet to no avail, as they could do no harm to these still eerily silent creatures). Clairon embraced Sechel as the long white fingers, their black nails long and sharp 'neath the withered light reached out for them.
Sechel, having retrieved the blade from the ground during the short fray, now swung the shining blade at the nearest of the valkyrie. It swished through the air and through her waist, ne'er touching anything as it went. It had been like hacking at the very air itself.
He felt cold fingers closing o'er his arms and shoulders and he heard Clairon sob, "I love thee, Sechel, son of Sech." Then she was dragged away by three of the strange creatures.
Sechel felt an anger welling within him. He heard the voice of Becrhain whisper, "To all things a season." Sechel understood. The time for calm thinking was't past. The time was now for fiery emotion and passion. He slammed his hand against the valkyrie that was trying to hold his shoulders, spinning so that he could press his palm, the crystal still within, against her white forehead. As strong and unyielding as the dark horde was Sechel's love and concern for Clairon suddenly gave him the strength that none of the druidic or faery magic had been able to convey.
The valkyrie seemed to be thrown backwards as if hit by some enormous force, slipping and melting through different stages of shapes as it went, until it simply seemed to fall apart into a million tiny dots of black nothingness. As these ash like bits fell, they reassembled into the white skinned duine that had originally felt the power of the crystal. She sat upon the piney ground looking dazed and confused.
A large number of them rushed him in an attempt to overpower the young wizard. He closed his eyes and rose from between them as they came upon the place where he had been. They began to slip into the winged serpent shapes and he bent down and swung the crystal about, touching the things at random and sending them about as he had the first one.
With all those near him gone he attacked the three that held Clairon. They let her go and retreated without so much as an attempt to fight him.
Again the horde not involved with holding down the wolves rushed them in one mass. Sechel raised the stone before him, spinning around as fast as he could to ward off the dark horde, which circled he and Clairon in silent and patient stealth. They paced slowly about, slightly bent at the knees and their long arms before them, their fingers seeming to dance to some unheard tune, their empty eyes burning into Clairon and Sechel as their long locks waved behind them in that eternal ethereal wind that none other sensed.
"It appears we have a stalemate," Cuan Gruine laughed from his unenviable position 'neath three duine shaped valkyrie.
The dark haired beasts from the empty reaches just kept circling and Sechel held them at bay with that tiny bit of illuminated crystal. The sky fell into dark and the stars sailed past, the moon brightly nipping at their heels, and came again another dawn, and still Sechel held the stone as he rotated e'er so carefully, always surrounded by the ebony horde as they waltzed the slow spinning dance of the eternally empty.
Sechel had been using the last ounces of his strength to keep his guard up, tapping the very depths of his wizardry to stay alert and on his feet. Clairon he had also kept within that magical shield, and this extra effort was now wearing at him and the girl was beginning to tire as he could no longer boost both of their energies.
"ENOUGH!" a voice boomed out of the misty dawn, and the dark horde stayed their spinning dance and stepped back from the two duine within their closing circle. The wolves were released and they immediately leapt to their feet and formed a protective barrier around the two duine.
"What in the name of all the Gods do ye think ye art doing here?" Dred Gryll had arrived...
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