Page 72 of Rise of the Morrigan

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Cú Chulainn hadbested the twelfth champion Mebd had sent to challenge him before the maiden appeared. She'd offered to fight alongside him. Then, with a single flick of the wrist, she'd thrown him on his back. As she straddled him, though, he saw it in her eyes... she was the same creature who'd met him the night before. She'd appeared, before, as a faerie. Why, Cú Chulainn wasn't sure. But now she appeared as a maiden, offering him her aid... she couldn't be trusted.

He saw it as she straddled him, a blade pressed to his throat—as if to prove to him she was a capable partner in battle.

"You must be a witch!" Cú Chulainn shouted.

The maiden laughed. "A witch? I am so much more than that, young hero. But you have rejected my offer—an offer that might have been your salvation. For that reason, I tell you, the time will soon come when you will fall in battle. Your blood will be evermore a curse on the land—for it will be the blood of a warrior who spurned the invitation of the Morrigan."

A black cloud of smoke surrounded the woman. A black crow flew out of the cloud—and when the smoke dissipated the woman was gone.

Cú Chulainn returned to his feet. It was not the first time he'd encountered the Morrigan and, he feared, it would not be the last. Was it she who'd seduced him the night before? Cú Chulainn stomach churned at the thought.

And for the goddess to propose she become his lover? Cú Chulainn thrust his blade into the ground in anger. To spurn a goddess... he'd be cursed for it. But to accept the advances of the phantom queen, the wife of the Dagda? He'd never escape the good god's wrath. He was damned either way.

"Cú Chulainn, the hero of Ulster!" a man's voice spoke.

Cú Chulainn gripped his broadsword by the hilt and pulled it from the ground. Eventually, Cú Chulainn thought, Mebd's final champion will fall. Cursed by the Morrigan, or not, I will see this through.

Cú Chulainn's thoughts drifted to his encounter the night before. He'd known she wasn't human. He couldn't recall ever having met her before, yet she was alarmingly familiar. The woman's whose touch, whose desire, had coursed through his body like electricity. The one for whom his lusts had distracted him for only a night, a night that allowed Mebd to make her move.

All of this was the Morrigan's doing! Damn her for it!

Cú Chulainn grabbed his blade and, in ankle-deep water, charged the warrior who approached him at the edge of the fjord. Something struck him in the ankle. Cú Chulainn tripped, crashing headlong into the water.

He quickly turned and spotted an eel that had caught itself around his ankle. He punched at it.

The eel squirmed and made its way to the shore where it transformed into a wolf.

"Morrigan!" Cú Chulainn shouted. "You and your tricks!"

Mebd's warrior caught him from behind while he shouted at the Morrigan, now howling at him from the river's shore. Cú Chulainn quickly grabbed the warrior and flung him over his shoulder until he had the warrior by his chest plate and held him beneath the water.

Another champion down...

Cú Chulainn leaped ashore and charged after the wolf as it made its way toward the groves beyond the fjord. The wolf was riling up a herd of cattle as if to force a stampede.

What in the name of the great god himself is she doing?

If the goddess loved him, as she claimed, why send a stampede after him?

Cú Chulainn tossed his broadsword aside and a single stone. He hurled it with all his might toward the Morrigan, toward the wolf, striking her in the eye.

She howled as she transformed yet again—this time into one of the cows. What she'd started as the wolf she finished as a cow—stomping around and riling up all the rest of the herd.

Cú Chulainn grabbed a second stone. This time, he hurled it at the Morrigan's leg. Cú Chulainn could hear the bone break when the rock struck it...

This time, the Morrigan disappeared.

"Like I don't have enough on my hands as it is," Cú Chulainn said to himself. "All of Mebd's champions and I must do battle with a goddess as well?"

Shaking his head, Cú Chulainn returned to the river's edge. He didn't know how many more champions Medb had for him, but he was certain it was only a matter of time before the next one arrived.

It had neverbeen my intention to torment Cú Chulainn—and in the middle of his battle with Mebd's champions, no less. But I had to get to him... I had to turn his heart...

Not that he might love me, but that his life might be spared... if he was going to survive the ordeal he needed more than he had. He needed me...

He just didn't realize it.

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