“Someone must go for water; I am terribly thirsty,” High King Connery said. Macc looked at him with barely concealed loathing. They were all suffering, and their thirst would not be quenched by An Ruirthech.

It could not be helped.

The mead in the barrels stacked at the back of the common room would only increase their thirst and addle their minds. The water vats were outside the hostel walls. It would take a brave man to go out for supplies. Anyone who got close enough to the sealed main gates could feel the heat from the naphtha fires set to weaken the doors. The light of those fires would brighten the night.

There was no way to hide from the archers.

Macc frowned. He felt thirst as much as the next man, but he would not alienate those around him by whining for water. It disgusted Macc that the High King of Ériu was begging for a drink when he needed strength to show his warriors he was a man worth dying for.

“We are all thirsty, my lord,” Conall said. “The arrival of Ingcél’s bowmen meant we were interrupted before we could get water into the hostel,” he tried to explain with patience. All this information had already been given to the High King, but he seemed to have forgotten.

Macc watched as Conall explained the more obvious truth to him. The champion had already decided he could no longer listen to Connery’s weakness. “I will go for water,” he said.

Conall looked at him with a question in his eyes. Macc could see the warrior of Ulster did not believe what he was hearing. A warrior abandoning his charge to go in search of water was inconceivable.

“You are going for water?” Conall asked, his skepticism even more evident in his tone.

“I will take Lee Flaith to safety,” Macc improvised, “and return with water once he is safe.”

“How will you get past the besiegers?” Conall asked.

“It is after dark,” Macc thought as he spoke. “There are watchfires, and they will have sentries, but those men will be tired. If I go quietly, I should be able to sneak out through the culvert and make it to the hills.”

“And you will save Lee Flaith?” Connery asked.

“I will save your son, my lord. You have my solemn oath.”

Connery nodded and walked to the rear of the common room to be alone with his thoughts.

“I cannot carry my shield, Conall. Will you keep it safe for me?”

Conall looked at Macc with ill-disguised disdain. Macc knew he could do nothing. Given time, the champion of Ulster would come to understand. There is no time, Macc realized. Would Donn turn him away? He thought not. Donn would understand even if Conall was unable to do so.

“Put it there, against the wall,” Conall said with a dismissive wave.

“I will be back quickly, Conall,” he promised to his friend’s retreating back.

Conall ignored him. Already regretting his impulse, Macc swore he would return to the hostel before the end. He turned to the king’s son.

“You must go first, Lee. The riverbed is deeper at the back but still not very deep, so make sure you keep your head low. Do you understand?”

Lee Flaith nodded his understanding, and the two, boy and man, crawled through the culvert without hesitation.

***

The brothers were bored and did not watch the culvert as instructed. They knew as well as the warriors who had laughed at Ingcél’s order that no one would attempt to leave the hostel. Because of that inattention, they did not see Macc and the boy until they climbed out of the culvert a spear’s throw away from where they were sitting, hidden in the night shadows on the forest’s edge. Lee felt Gar tense when he saw the shadows rising from the culvert. He took hold of his brother’s wrist, preventing him from running after Macc in a headlong rush.

“We go slowly and do this right,” he said in a lowered voice.

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“But he will get away, Lee.”

“He will not get away. We will follow him at a safe distance.”

“It is the deepest night, Lee; how will we see him?”

Lee shook his head and frowned. “Listen, Gar.”

“What am I listening for?”

“Can you not hear them?” Gar listened more intently and realized Lee was right. They could hear the boy and the warrior pushing through the forest trees. The exact direction from which the sound traveled was not easy to discern. Still, they could hear the general direction well enough to be able to follow.

The brothers followed the pair for what seemed like forever. Eventually, the noise stopped, and they thought the quarry was lost. However, nearing the edge of a glade, they could see a small fire dancing in the area clear of trees. From the edge, they saw Macc Cecht thrust the child at a hag sitting beside the fire and stride off into the darkness on the other side of the glade.

“What now?” Rogain hissed.

“We continue to follow the warrior,” Lee responded.

“By that crashing, he seems to be heading back to the hostel,” Gar said.

“Quick, we must intercept him before he gets back inside,” Lee almost shouted, throwing caution to the wind.

***

Macc knew they were making a lot of noise but did not think it would matter. He thought the warriors outside the hostel would be too engrossed in trying to get inside the refuge to be overly worried about night noises from the forest. His mind was in turmoil over how he had left the High King and how Conall had reacted. He could not blame his friend. He knew he would have reacted the same way if Conall had volunteered to go for water.

Macc kept thinking he heard someone following, but there was nothing each time he stopped to listen. He decided it was just the noise of night animals and continued trudging through the trees. Lee Flaith seemed to understand his mood and stayed quiet, not daring to disturb his father’s champion.

They seemed to have been walking for hours when Macc noticed the flickering of flames somewhere ahead. He cautiously approached the fire, holding the boy back from moving too quickly forward; he reached the treeline from where the light was coming. There was a fire in the middle of the glade and a figure in a cloak hunched over, muttering. In the dancing firelight, the figure looked like a giant crow. Macc shivered, thinking of the Morrígan, the prophetess of doom, a harbinger of death like the crows she kept as pets. He was loath to enter the glade and confront her.

Eventually, the figure twisted round, seeming to look directly at Macc and the boy despite the darkness making it impossible. In the firelight, Macc saw a face withered with age. It was not the Morrígan, just an old woman who was no threat.

Macc beckoned for Lee to follow him into the glade. Nearing the fire, he heard the woman muttering Niamh and realized it was the same hag begging for food at the hostel when the reavers arrived. Macc had been sure they had gone miles but now knew it could not be so. He could see a ramshackle lean-to on the other side of the fire. Da had said the woman sheltered in a glade in the next valley. Hope heaved in his chest as he realized he might be in time to help save Connery.

“Good evening, good lady,” he said as he approached.

She looked up and spat into the fire. The spittle hissed and danced before it evaporated.

“What do you want, Macc Cecht?” she asked.

“You know me?”

“Of course, I know you, champion of Ériu. Who would not know you, great big lump you are?” she cackled, showing a mouth with intermittent black teeth.

“I need someone to nurture Lee Flaith so I can return to the High King’s side,” the warrior explained.

“And what is that to me?” the old woman asked.

“I thought you might take him somewhere safe.”

“The battle is lost already, then?” she asked.

“No, no, it is just a precaution.”

“And what use do I have of a small boy, even if he is the grandchild of a great champion?” she cackled.

Macc frowned. How could the hag possibly know the boy was the grandchild of a champion? No one knew who the king’s father was. He decided he had misheard the woman and let it lie.

“Please take the boy,” the warrior pleaded. “I must return to the High King.”

The crone nodded once as if reaching some decision that had been playing through her mind. Macc did not trust her. He could see calculation in her eyes, even in the limited light of the fire, but felt he had little choice. He needed to get back to the hostel as quickly as he could.

Macc knelt before the boy and placed his hands on his shoulders. “Lee, stay with this lady. She will care for you. I must return to the hostel and defend your father.”

The boy nodded. He did not speak, moan, or complain, showing a resilience Macc found surprising, considering his heritage. “Good boy,” he said before thrusting the child into the arms of the hag and striding from the glade.

He looked back only once but could see nothing of Connery’s son or the woman because trees shielded them. He turned back with a frown. It was not yet light enough for him to distinguish anything more than a few hands away.

Macc hoped he had done the right thing in giving the child to the unknown woman, but if he was to stand any chance of saving the High King, he knew it needed to be so. He turned back to the path and began to run towards the hostel.

The dawn light was breaking into the valley as Macc reached the edge of the forest at the back of Da Derga’s. His heart leaped as he heard the strike of iron against iron, which told him the warriors still held. He thanked Donn as he made it to the edge of the rise.

Macc looked down and saw that the hostel gates had been torn down and burning. A wall of warriors was fighting to hold the entrance. They were opposed by another wall, maybe three times their number, but were holding. Other invaders were milling about, waiting to join the fray. Macc wondered if the messenger had made it to the Red Branch and, if so, how long it would be before they arrived. If the shield wall could hold, then the High King’s men had a chance to survive.

He was about to start down the hill when he heard, “So, champion. We meet again.”