Pool_2

and could not face even modest light head on. The young poet barely rasped at the axe, with his eyes cradled in the fold of his elbow, "That's not my weapon of choice." The hound softened and assisted the poet to his feet, "You may decide otherwise. Come Gavin. Come. Your wife is dying." A twisted band of string was still on his ring finger, as it still is, as hers was. Her need was the only thing that stemmed his swoon into darkness as he saw her so wasted away. Though his grip was insufficient for the axe, he clung to her like a sprung trap, with his head buried in her bosom. "Katherine, my Caitlyn stay. Stay," muffled though it was, echoed in the now silent hallway. Her reply, with all her strength gone, nearly unheard, "My only request, ..." she barely could draw a breath for a good bye, but managed, "...is don't become a bitter man." She died a bit later, but those were her last words. The young poet just kept his face buried in his hands sobbing until the flaming raging hound placed his massive left hand on the poet's head, "You kept her spirit alive. There was no more you could have done. If only I had acted sooner.." Gavin wept, "Without the scepter, there are no sooners... just shreds of evers. You are all there is of her. Will you release me of her wish? Ian. How can I keep it?" Swelling, with his war tremor renewed as a wail into the stone echoic dark, the hound of fury raised his dextrous malignant fisted dirk high toward the sinister helve overhead, still wet of justice. From the axe, blood and chips of bone were scraped free, and wiped onto each shoulder of the kneeling poet. "As I am of her, I release you, in bond of her, to me! Your bitterness is mine. Your love is ours. Your justice is my justice. I spit on Catholics as I spit on Protestants. There are only the good and the bad. Brithem will belong to the good. Death to the rest." Then he screamed the scream that echoes until this day, contaminating every cold stone in Ulster, "There is a debt to be