The Emerald Flame by Frewin Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

hilt of her sword. But it wasn’t there; she had left it in Blodwedd’s keeping! But the sword was not Branwen’s only weapon. With adder-quick fingers she slipped her leather slingshot from her belt and then ducked down and scooped up a small stone from the ground. Watching Merion as she approached, Branwen fitted the stone into the folded slingshot.
    “Come no closer!” she warned. “Or I shall put out your eye!”
    Merion chuckled in her throat.
    Branwen swung the slingshot twice and loosed the stone. She had little hope of doing Merion any harm, but she was determined to try to defend herself against the terrible old hag.
    The stone flew as swift as a bolt toward Merion’s huge and hideous head. Yet the old crone did not even flinch; and at the last moment the stone changed trajectory, veering off and cracking against the wall, breaking up and spitting sparks.
    “Think you that
stone
will work against me, Warrior Child?” Merion said. “Why, the very ground beneath your feet will come alive to aid me!”
    Branwen tried to back away from the approaching monstrosity; but before she could move more than a single step, cracks opened under her feet and lips of rock snagged around her ankles, holding her fast.
    She struggled, trying to get her feet loose, but the stone only bit harder against her ankles until she had to cry out with the pain. Merion loomed over her, the lipless mouth opening like a grave. Branwen’s gorge rose as she looked up into the sunken eyes, seeing nothing but the flicker of a macabre yellow light under the heavy brows. She had at first thought that gleam to be reflected candlelight, but now she understood that the malignancy burned from deep within the hoary Mountain Hag.
    Fain’s wings fluttered uneasily as Branwen fought in vain to free herself.
    “Kill me then and be done with it!” Branwen shouted.
    A hand snaked out, and a cold grip clamped viciously on Branwen’s upper arm. The huge face loomed closer.
    “I have such power as you have never seen.” Merion’s breath was like ice on Branwen’s face. “I am the earth shaker, the rift opener—the devourer. My mouth is wide, my belly insatiable. I can drink an ocean dry. I can eat forest and field and moor. You are but a sweet passing morsel to me, Warrior Child. I shall rip you open like a ripe plum, and I shall gorge on you!”
    Branwen struggled to pull free; but the fingers were locked agonizingly on her arm, and already a numbness was creeping down to her hand. Fain spread wide gray wings and took to the air, cawing loudly.
    The words of a song sung to her by a bard in the Great Hall of Doeth Palas came into her mind:
    Merion of the Stones
    Mountain crone, cave dweller, oracle, and deceiver …
    Deceiver?
    Branwen stopped struggling, trying desperately to clear her mind, to see beyond the pain and the fear and the yellow flames in the hidden eyes.
    “Why do they call you deceiver?” Branwen shouted. But she thought she knew. “This is not real! This is untrue! Get away from me! I was not brought here to be your supper!” Already the pain was lessening in her arm, the grip loosening, the cold breath no longer blasting in her face.
    She staggered as the jaws of rock pulled away from her ankles. The huge, loathsome shape was gone. The yellow candlelight flickered. Merion crouched against the wall, small and shrunken and watching with an amused and curiously satisfied expression on her misshapen, unlovely face.
    “You will do,” Merion croaked, beating her stick on the hard ground. “You will do very well. It was a good choice She made.” She cackled for a few moments, her mouth hanging open to reveal brown peg-teeth and a tongue like cracked leather.
    “You were testing me?” Branwen cried, striding forward angrily. “Haven’t I proven myself enough for you by now?” She paused as something the hag had said rang in her mind. “What do you mean, ‘It was a good choice
She
made'? Do you speak of Rhiannon?”
    “No,