Ingcél, his face etched with concern, sat on his horse with his wrists crossed over the pommel of his saddle. The beast, still unfamiliar with him, fretted slightly. He had taken it from the settlement at Indber Colptha when the fleet landed, and it would need time to become accustomed to his scent and the way he sat. Ingcél, his voice filled with reassurance, patted the horse’s neck and soothed it with cooing noises. With a furrowed brow, he watched Mane ride towards him on another stolen mount. The look of worry on the face of the approaching warrior warned him to expect bad tidings.
“Why did the ambush fail?” he asked before Mane’s horse stopped.
Mane did not respond immediately but looked at the warband as they lounged about the beach, their relaxed postures a stark contrast to the tension in the air. Ingcél had kept the hardened warriors with him. Those he sent on the ambush were Lee’s original followers. After what felt like an eternity, he finally said, “The fools kept shifting to the treeline to get a better view of the party coming down the road. The High King’s scouts spotted them.”
“Why did you not intervene, Mane Honey-Tongued?” Ingcél asked, his voice tinged with boredom.
“I did not have command of the warband, lord. You gave that honor to Lee.”
Ingcél nodded. He could not blame Mane, a seasoned warrior. When he sent the sons of Dond Desa down the road as a screening force, he had known there was a risk they would fail, but he wanted them out of his company. They pretended to be warriors, but when it came to martial skills, they were no more than boys carrying swords and shields. Despite their age, the brothers had whetted their blades in a time of peace. They had not seen anything of actual war. During the reaving in Alba, there were many mistakes, and they did not seem to learn from them, which annoyed him.
Well, let them continue to fail, so long as it is away from me, he thought.
“There is one other thing, lord,” Mane continued. “It was the retinue of the High King, Connery, who we failed to ambush.”
They lost the prize.
“You are sure?”
“Yes, lord, I saw the High King’s bodyguard Macc Cecht. His size makes him unmistakable. Wherever the bodyguard is, there too is the High King.”
“I see. That fool, Lee, has cost me dearly, I think.”
“Also, had the king’s men attacked our warband would have broken. They are no more than unseasoned children and would not hold against real warriors, such as the High King’s retinue. They must be led by a man of experience, not a child.”
“Where is he now, this child?”
“The warband is following the High King, lord.”
“How many are in the High King’s retinue?”
“I counted one hundred.”
Ingcél nodded and thought before asking, “How far ahead of our men are they?”
“They are riding to the west and south, perhaps half a day ahead of our warband.”
“You will return to the sons of Dond Desa and tell them that I have given you command of the warband.” Mane nodded. “You will chase the High King to the south. It is my guess that soon enough, his band will turn eastwards. I will send another warband directly south to parallel their course and prevent them from turning too soon.”
“And where will you be, lord, in case I need to send word?”
“I, Mane Milscothach, will launch the ships with the main body of warriors and sail for Brí Chualann. Between us, we shall trap this High King Connery and his retinue. Very soon, I, Ingcél of the One Eye, will be king of all Ériu.”
Ingcél watched the warrior of Connacht as he rode away from the beach.
I must be wary of that one, he thought.
***
Macc hated that they had run from the reavers, but he agreed with Conall that there were probably too many invaders face in open combat. Even though they knew an ambush was waiting in the vale, which removed the advantage of surprise, they had no idea how many there were hiding in the trees. Nor had they known how the ambushers were armed, whether they had bows or were mounted. Conall would not risk an attack without knowing his enemy’s strength.
Since turning from the ambush, the High King’s band had been riding for two hours. They were now sitting beside the road, resting the horses and waiting for their scouts to return. The warband had hunted boar on the road from Emain Macha to Crúachain, which was roasting on the spit. While it cooked, Conall sent out scouts, who were still not back. They knew they had gained some time on the pursuers, so decided that it would be safe to feed the retinue and wait for the scouts to return.
High King Connery was sitting apart from the main body, lost in his own world. It seemed to Macc that Connery had become more withdrawn since the trial. Unlike the others around the High King, Macc knew it was fear of the foster brothers and not love for them which compelled him to banish them rather than sentence them to death. It seemed Connery could not see the death of the three brothers would free him from the yoke of that fear. A fear he had nurtured since the raid on Emain Macha.
Just as the pig meat was being doled out, the lookout atop the hill shouted, “Scouts approaching.”
Conall and Macc stood and watched the two riders galloping down The Great Road. The horses’ chests were heaving, and their flanks were lathered.
“Well?” Conall asked as the riders pulled up, too impatient to allow the men to catch their breath.
“There are three hundred, lord. Very few are mounted. We saw their own scouts tailing us.”
“Bows?” Conall asked.
“Yes, lord. At least half of the ambushers are carrying bows.”
Macc frowned and looked at Conall, who shrugged. He wanted to turn and fight, but those were not odds Conall was willing to risk. Perhaps he was right. The chasing warband consisted of unseasoned men who could be defeated by a shield wall, but they carried bows. They might wound or kill many of the High King’s party before the battle was joined.
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“We need to keep heading to the southwest and see if we can outrun them,” Conall said, looking back up the muddy road as if he expected bowmen to appear from the forest edges. “We can take refuge in Átha Luain and send word to the Red Branch.”
“You still propose that we skulk and hide,” Macc sighed.
“We number one hundred, Macc. They are three hundred, and they carry bows.” Macc turned away with a feeling of resignation. “We continue south.”
As he swung into his saddle, Macc wondered about Conall’s reputation as a fearsome leader of men. The time that Macc had spent in the company of the leader of the Red Branch did not in itself indicate cowardice, but running from a band of reavers when the aid of the Red Branch was close at hand indicated to Macc that the warrior from Ulster might indeed lack some of the courage for which he was famed.
I won’t know unless we fight.
It seemed like no time before they were on the northern shores of Lough Ree, watching the smoke rising above the settlement of Átha Luain. Raiders had arrived before them and had been there long enough to subdue the settlement and fire their roundhouses. Macc frowned at the smoke. It was dense and black, as though the raiders were burning naphtha. He supposed that with the recent heavy rains, it was perhaps the only way they could set fires. He also suspected the raiders were using the fires to herd the High King’s retinue further south.
“We have no choice but to continue south and west,” Conall said. “The Red Branch is to the east.”
“We cannot keep running south and west,” Macc said. “Finn’s message was for them to meet us in Átha Clíath.”
“What choice is there? We are followed by a warband at least three hundred strong and armed with bows. We do not know the size of the forces who have fired Átha Luain, but they have captured a strong settlement and put it to the flame, so they must number in the hundreds.”
“The settlement was probably poorly defended,” Macc said.
“Even poorly defended, Átha Luain was strong enough to defend itself against a small force. The warband before us is too strong to face. That we can see,” Conall said, pointing at the black column of smoke. “We will send another messenger to the Red Branch and tell them to intercept us on Slíghe Chualann as we head north.”
“Why do we not set an ambush of our own?” Macc asked. “We could wait on either side of the road in the forest for those chasing us, as they were doing when we came across them.” He looked expectantly at Conall as he asked, waiting for the warrior to describe why it would not be feasible.
“We are surveilled, Macc. Any ambush would be discovered before it was even set.”
Macc nodded. He knew Conall was talking sense, but it did not make him like running from a band of renegades. He wanted to fight and win or die. He knew for the High King’s reign to continue, Connery needed to survive. Not many were too worried about whether his reign continued, but it was Macc’s life task to make sure Connery survived.
“What, then, do you propose?”
“As I said, we must continue south and west. We can keep scouting and swing east towards Slíghe Chualann when we get far enough ahead. The raiders are on foot. We are riding.” He paused briefly before continuing, “Then we head north.”
“We will do as Conall suggests,” Connery said. He had approached the arguing warriors without their noticing. Macc nodded and went to remount his horse.
They rode south and west until they had left the smoke of settlement fires behind. Scouts were sent out to feel their way through the terrain. The raiders still seemed everywhere except to their south, so the party continued into Munster. They were in sight of Slieve Anamon when a scout returned and informed them the roads to the east and north were finally clear of raiders.
“We will halt for the night,” Conall said. They had been riding for ten hours with very few breaks. The riders were all hungry and tired.
“We will roast the remainder of the boar. There are no raiders close enough to see our smoke.”
The men who heard Conall’s words looked concerned. The warriors would be glad to have warmth and meat in their bellies but were also wary of being watched. What Conall said about there not being raiders nearby might not be true. There were no large parties near enough to harm them, but there might be scouts who could bring larger parties. Macc voiced that concern when the camp was set and the fires were lit.
“Do you not think that lighting fires at night is a risk? Will the flames not be seen?” he asked.
Conall glanced at Macc. His skin seemed to dance in the firelight, so his expression was unreadable. Finally, he said, “Have you not been suspicious that the way south is clear?”
Macc shrugged. “They landed at Indber Colptha. We are further south than they have managed to reach.”
“That might be true,” Conall said. “But they might also be pushing us south for a reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“To me, they used naphtha to set fire to Átha Luain as a warning to us.”
“They are trying to trap us. Why would they warn us?”
“I am thinking Ingcél is waiting for us somewhere to the north. I suspect he needs time, and we have been herded south to give him that time.”
Macc nodded his understanding. Conall continued, “Do you think we are being watched?”
Macc nodded.
“We set fires, eat meat, and settle in for a night’s rest...”
“And then we slip away in the dead of night,” Macc interrupted with a grin, showing his approval of the plan.
“And then we slip away in the dead of night,” Conall agreed.
The following morning, after a hard night’s riding, they crested the rise before Slíghe Chualann descended into the plains around Átha Clíath, and could see the lowlands of Leinster and Meath. The sun was rising and was still below the heavy cloud bank, shining up onto the base of the clouds.
From their vantage point, they could see several settlements in the plains were on fire, the reflection of the flames adding to the red of the rising sun. It seemed to Macc that all South Meath and North Leinster were burning. The clouds were roiling in heavy winds. The redness of the flames and the shapes of the clouds looked like red riders galloping across the sky in front of the High King’s retinue.
Three red Gods, harbingers of death, riding before the retinue, skipped through his mind.
He shook his head and looked at the High King, just in time to see Connery rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes as if tired, or crying. All in the retinue who saw the gesture pretended they had not.
“We seem to have discovered the reaver’s trap,” Conall said, looking at the settlements burning on the lowlands.
“What do you suggest now, Conall?” Macc asked.
“We need to find somewhere defensible, where we can wait for the arrival of the Red Branch.” A messenger had left the main party in the night with instructions for the Red Branch to meet them on Slíghe Chualann.
“We can return to the hostel of Da Derga in Glencree. Da has been a warrior and knows how to make a place secure. The hostel is defensible,” Macc said. “The Red Branch will keep heading south. Eventually they will reach us.”
Conall nodded his agreement and said, “We ride back.”
The riders turned their mounts and rode south, back towards where Da Derga’s hostel lay in the vale of the River Dothra.
The column stopped shortly after the riders had turned and started back. Macc rode up to the vanguard to investigate why there was a delay. When he reined in, he could see a man and a woman herding pigs up the road, blocking the progress of the lead horses.
“Why has this farmer not been moved aside?” he asked.
“They refuse to move the herd and let us pass, lord,” one of the lead warriors explained.
At the sound of the voice, the farmer stopped and turned. He had a walking stave in one hand and a small pig under the other arm. Macc nearly gasped at the sight of the man. He was the ugliest man he’d ever laid his eyes on. When the woman turned, she, too, was ugly. Macc thought he knew why they had become pig farmers, because they resembled the animals they were tending.
“Why will you not let us pass?” he asked, his tone trying to reflect patience and understanding.
“This road is free for all comers, Yer Majestic Highness,” the man said with a sneer. “We’re taking our pigs to sell at Brí Chualann, so we are. And if late, we’ll not meet the morning tide, begging yer indulgence, Yer Magnificence. We don’t have time to let the high and the mighty pass us by.”
“I can see that your need is great, pig herder, but we are in a hurry. We must arrive at Da Derga’s before our enemies.”
“So, because you are a mighty king, your need for haste is greater than ours?” the ugly man asked with a sneer. “If we miss the morning tide, our herd’ll be with us through the winter. How will we feed them?”
“What is your name, man?” Conall asked as he reined in beside Macc.
“I am Calliu, the pig farmer, and she,” he said, pointing at the ugly woman, “is my wife, Cichuil.”
“Well, Calliu and Cichuil, the High King will compensate you with silver. You must let us pass.”
“And if we do not?”
“Then we will have no choice but to put your herd to the sword and pass anyway.”