Béla Book 2: Phoenix

Argus crept through the dungeon. "Brie! Where are you?" he called out in a hoarse whisper. "Brieda?"

"Here!" Brie called back, her shivering cold voice echoing off the stone walls. Argus found her cage a moment later and lowered it down to the cold dirt floor. He began slashing the entrance bindings with his sharp, stone blade. In another moment, the doorway hung half open. Goddess and ardent rescuer embraced fiercely.

"Hurry! There's no time!" Argus whispered urgently. "Mare Calli's guard will be returning!"

Brie allowed herself to be half-dragged up the dimly lit and narrow steps leading to the surface. They must have made too much noise or, more likely, her clumsy rescuer was spotted when he entered, because a guard was waiting for them with drawn sword. Brie pulled her rescuing prince back and to the side just as the guard swung at him.

Argus fell in the darkness and couldn't see Brie as she stepped forward and stood, breasts bared proudly, daring the guard to strike at her. The guard raised his sword, then slashed down. The girl twisted swiftly to one side and kicked hard, the guard doubling over with her foot in his gut while his sword clanged loudly against the walking stone. Gripping the guard's fallen sword in one hand and Argus in the other, Brie led the way into the shadows of the surrounding trees. They were safe for a moment.

"Did you get the horse?" she whispered to the young prince who was the reason she'd been caged.

"Yes, but I couldn't bring him close," Argus whispered. "There were too many of Mother's guards. I'll take you to where I left him."

Once past the first grove of trees, Brie could easily see the high stone walls of Caerlave Rock, even though there was no moon to light the night sky. It was another twenty minutes of creeping past guards and campfires before Argus admitted he was lost.

"What do you mean, 'lost'?" Brie hissed. "How can you get lost in your own shire? Where's the horse, dammit?"

"I don't know!" Argus whined, quite upset. "Forgive me, Goddess, I'm not used to this. Maybe the guards found the horse or maybe he wandered off! I don't know!"

Brie frowned. She was renown throughout this strange land for showing the locals how to smelt iron in the manner of the Romans. As a result, the primitive denizens of the area had insisted that she was the incarnation of their Goddess of Light, Brieda. Everyone insisted on calling her that, including this young son of a neighboring warrioress chieftain named Calli.

The young prince was the cause of her current problems. He was smitten with the Goddess Brie and Calli was furious at this pretender for seducing her son, whom she needed to marry the daughter of King Godo so that the two neighboring shires could form a military alliance to fight the single god of the Romans.

She had her son followed until he met with his upstart pretender of a goddess secretly in a grove near Dundonald, then had them both snatched and returned to Caerlave Rock, where her son would someday reign. The usurper goddess was imprisoned. A special wicker cairn was built and rubbed with pitch so that the fake goddess could be sacrificed to the real one in a ritual of fire at the beginning of the next quarter, two days from now.

"We'll have to steal another horse," Brie decided. "Once they've noticed I've escaped, we won't get far on foot."

She was rightly annoyed at the young prince. If they got caught, like as not, nothing would happen to him. She, on the other hand, would probably be burned alive if she weren't simply sliced into pieces when she was recaptured. Both were practices these bloodthirsty people seemed to enjoy.

They continued on in a westerly direction until they encountered the next warrior camp, then carefully crept around the perimeter until Argus saw the line of horses.

As he approached, the line grew skittish and attracted the attention of the watch. Hiding in tall brush, they waited until the guard was satisfied his charges were secure. Brie was the one who then moved forward and soothed the nearest horse until he could be untethered and quietly led away.

It was an hour later. The sky was getting brighter. Brie clung with her arms tightly wrapped around her rescuer and bounced wildly around on the rump of the giant animal as they galloped madly across the fen, Calli's troops in hot pursuit. Fifteen minutes earlier, Brie and Argus had trotted right out in front of a line of charioteers moving out to chase the Romans off their lands once again.

Now, the exhausted, stolen horse was stumbling more often as it raced over the uneven ground. Even though their pursuers were burdened with chariots, Brie could tell that they were drawing nearer. Arrows were starting to fall around them. The stolen horse was carrying double, and the swift chariots behind them were, except for the wooden wheels and frame, woven from grass, and were extremely light.

Brie gasped, then coughed as an arrow struck deep into her shoulder blade. A few seconds later, another struck her low in the back. Nearly fainting from the pain, Brie sagged sideways. The next bounce off the galloping horse launched her into the air. She landed in a heap on the ground as Argus reined in, terrified and furious. He was their prince and they were shooting at him!

Jumping off the foundering horse, Argus landed running and dropped down beside his fallen goddess, protecting her from any more arrows with his own crested tunic.

"Pull them out," Brie gasped. "The arrows!"

"No!" Argus insisted. "You'll die!"

"I'm a Goddess!" Brie snarled at her would-be lover. "I can't die! But I can be trapped against the earth and cut into pieces if you don't pull those arrows out of my back!"

The captain of the charioteers, recognizing the prince now, pulled up beside the pair.

"My lord!" the Captain cried out as Argus pulled the arrow out of the girl's shoulder, concerned that the false goddess would perhaps die before she could be properly sacrificed to her namesake.

When Argus pulled out the second arrow, a bright spurt of red blood followed the stone tip upward.

"Your mother will be displeased," the Captain muttered sullenly.

"It doesn't matter," Argus whispered sadly, watching as his goddess' life-blood slowed in its spurting. "She'll be dead in a moment, and by your archer's bow!"

He looked up and snarled at the captain; "Who do you believe will be punished for it? You could have run us to ground in another few minutes and you would have her still alive! 'Tis better she dies this way than be burned alive in one of mother's fiery cairns!"

In another moment, the bleeding stopped completely. Argus knew deep in his gut that the strange, exotic girl was dead, her wonderful heart stopped forever. He nearly jumped into the Captain's chariot when she moved to push herself up and out of the mud she was lying in.

"She lives!" several warriors cried out.

At that exact moment, the sun edged over the horizon, casting its life-giving energy over the land and just incidentally lighting Brie up with an almost supernatural glow. Everyone immediately dropped down on their knees, finally acknowledging the divinity of the dark-haired girl they'd named after their ancient goddess.

Brie stood in the morning sunlight, her smooth, unscarred backside displayed for all to see where she'd been wounded as she stripped off her muddy, bloodied tunic. Underneath the shirt, her skin was smooth and unblemished where the arrows had pierced her. She rinsed off with some water a warrior brought from one of the chariots so she could better display the divinity of her healing power. Her naked body glistened wetly in the early morning sunlight.

"My Lady of the Land," the Captain pleaded from his kneeling position beside his war chariot, "sister of the Lady of the Lake and of the Sky, what would you command of me?"

"I would take food if you have it," Brie commanded of the kneeling Captain. "The blessing of your land with my life-blood is taxing."

She looked around as she noticed a buzzing sound, wondering where it was coming from.