The Lamb and the Gray Battle

February 14, 1446

Ominous. Aoibh prayed to Ren to find her, please rescue her before King Ao Guang caught up to them, subconsciously scratched her neck. Gran let Aoibh sit a while longer that morning. If Aoibh kept her eyes closed, the orbs would thaw and she could see better.

She was ninety-one, just a few weeks before her ninety-second birthday. Gran made a stew from bark. The fire loaned a little heat. With Ao Guang as the new ruler of Hell, the pair now avoided the coast of Ireland, though Gran never explained why. Inland was colder, but Aoibh never liked water and she was half-blind these days. Gran found a pub that was safe. The innkeeper called her Bronagh an Mhor and he called Aoibh, Aoibh an Mhor.

Gran actually laughed. "No one has called me an Mhor like it was an honor for years."

With very little encouragement, the pub owner started chatting about King Ao Guang.

"That monster's worse than his father," he said. "He laughed when his mother was killed in front of him. He ate her heart!"

Gran scoffed, drank down an ale.

"King Ao Guang has instituted martial law. Any who disobeys him dies. He sleeps on a bed made of his mother's bones. Can you imagine, sleeping on a bed made out of human bones? Your own mother?"

As the flames licked in the fire place, Aoibh's eyes cleared. Her head ached, but it was a sign of improvement. She drank down soup as gluttonously as Gran gulped down ale.

"King Ao Guang went up the steps to Satan's throne, offered his mother's heart to him, then shoved his hands into his father's chest—yes, Satan, but it was his father! Stuck his hands in his chest and sucked the life out of him."

Saliva congealed at the corner of Aoibh's mouth. Her eyes were twice their regular size and she stared at the table. Aoibh's legs were leathery and dry. She could wrap her skeletal hand around her thigh, touch finger to thumb. Gran's hair, that had once been fiery red like Mam's, was almost completely gray by then.

As the hour grew late, the candles melted to nubs. The innkeeper thanked Gran for her efforts during the wars with Egypt and France, offered to help Aoibh to bed for the night. Aoibh took one more scoop from the pot of stew and guzzled it down, but Gran smacked her and called her a little beast. Aoibh licked her chin. The numbness in her legs wore off and the desiccated muscles rustled and creaked. The innkeeper offered her some lard to rub on the skin.

In a second floor room, Aoibh unwrapped her legs and feet. Her toes were blackened bent twigs. The innkeeper bowed to her, helped her lift her limbs into the silky bath. The fragrance was bacon, but Aoibh was dreaming. She wanted the warm water and she dreamt that Dear Ren was in the tub with her, splashing water at her. Aoibh lolled into sleep, but was jarred awake by the thumping. King Ao Guang's army had come.