Lugaid could see Cú Chulainn’s horse tethered beside the secluded glade next to the river Boyne. He could not see his champion, but he knew where there was a horse there would be a warrior.
He made his way to where the horse stood, grazing on the grasses that grew under the forest eaves, protected from the snow fall by the trees. The river was swollen because of the heaviness of the snow and Lugaid found himself wondering briefly if Cú Chulainn had fallen in to be dragged away by the current. He was looking up the river with his eyes shielded when he heard, “What, you think I fell in, or jumped, maybe?”
Lugaid started. The voice seemed to have come from immediately above him, as though Cú Chulainn had become one with the air of the forest. He looked up and over his shoulder to see the warrior sitting with his legs either side of the first main branch of the same tree to which his horse was tethered.
“Danu, but you gave me a scare, Setanta.”
“Ah, but we all know how easily you are scared, Lugaid.” Saying which, the warrior swung down from the branch and stood beside him.
“Why are you hiding up a forest tree?” Lugaid asked with a tilt of his head.
“What makes you think I am hiding?”
“Emer told me of your news, and of your reaction.”
“Oh, I see. Well, Lugaid, for your information I was not hiding. I was thinking.”
“You should be celebrating, not thinking. It might be a boy. Emer might be carrying your son.”
“And you think that is a good thing? You know me Lugaid. Do you think I would make a good father for an impressionable child?”
Lugaid did not say anything for several moments, despite knowing the longer he took to answer, the more Setanta would think he thought it true. In some ways, he supposed he did think the warrior would not make a suitable father, but they were different reasons to those of his friend, Lugaid suspected. As far as his own thoughts went, the High King did not think any warrior would make a good father. As a group they tended to take too much time raping, fighting, and drinking, leaving the rearing of children and the management of the estate to the women. His own experience of fatherhood was short lived, nothing but a few months, but he already knew it was going to be hard and not something that should be taken lightly.
“You are a strong man. You are a fair man. You are a man that any child could look up to.”
“There, you see. I told you. I would not make a good father.”
***
Cú Chulainn looked at his foster son and wondered whether the discussion would be happening if the High King had any idea where the warrior had spent the previous night. He suspected not. He hated himself for it, but neither he nor Dervla seemed able to stop. He supposed that their first union, all those years before, had created some sort of a bond between them that neither was able to sever.
“I did not say that, Setanta. You are putting words into my mouth. There are many traits that go to making a good father. You might not possess them all, but you do possess more than most. I look up to you. You are my father and I am proud of you. In truth, the only real father I ever had.”
“I am your protector, Lugaid. I took you underwing because the king asked it of me.”
“Mm, since when did the Mighty Hound ever do anything because someone asked it of him?”
“It is true.”
“You can stand there, Setanta, and tell me that you feel nothing for me, but I know it is not true. You would die to protect me and the child that Emer is carrying, as you would die for Emer.”
“Yes, all true, but I am still not sure that would make me a good father.”
“Look around you, Setanta. How many good fathers do you see in the Five Kingdoms? Very few I would wager.”
“I see warriors and mothers. Their tasks in life are different, I know that. What I do not see is a warrior who is a good father.”
“And do you think my father is a good man, or yours? Most do the best they can, some not even that. You will do your best. Of that I am sure.”
“I hope so, Lugaid. I truly do.”
“We should return to the feast before all the mead is drunk,” the younger man said.
“You go on before me. I will catch you up in a little while. I want to sit here and enjoy the moment.”
***
Lugaid looked down at his foster father and smiled. There had been a change in him since hearing Emer’s news. To see the warrior thinking about anything was not normal. Although he had been less than honest in his reactions with the carrier of his first child, Lugaid could see through his bluffness. Becoming a father was something the warrior welcomed, regardless of any protestations to the contrary.
“What shall I say to Emer?”
“Say nothing. Just enjoy the feasting. She knows I will be along shortly.” Lugaid hesitated, smiling still. “Go. Go, before I lose my temper.”
“Oh, no, no one would want you to lose your temper,” Lugaid laughed and danced back out of reach of Cú Chulainn’s playful swipe.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“I will see you in a little while.”
Lugaid felt both proud and happy as he walked back towards the Fort of Kings. He seemed to have had a worthwhile morning, having talked his foster father into believing in himself. However, those feelings of achievement were ripped from him when a scream rent the air and caused his heart to skip a beat. The scream came from the vicinity of the feast hall and Lugaid began to run in that direction.
***
Setanta was deep in thought as he made his way back to the Fort of Kings. Lugaid had not known of his infidelity, or if he had known, he had not mentioned it. The warrior did not understand why Emer objected but he knew he would end the relationship with Dervla. He would not lose Emer because of an infatuation with the Jute. He did not love Dervla but was under some sort of spell, which he had failed to control up to now. He knew he would not have any difficulty controlling it going forward.
As he handed his horses reins to the stable boy at Grainne’s fort, he noticed the deathly quiet for the first time. It was a feast day. What could possibly have caused the revellers to lose all voice? And then he realized the lateness and knew the warriors would all be comatose on the floor of the feast hall.
His smile faltered as he entered the Fort of Kings. The women were milling about and seemed distracted. As he walked through the crowd, he could feel an unease in the air. But not only an unease. There was also a sense of fear and something bestial, which were palpable, like invisible shields trying to hold him back from discovering the truth. None of the women in the crowd would meet his gaze. Their heads were down, their hands were behind their backs, their feet were scuffing in the snow. Despite the cold, their faces were flushed with an inner heat.
He understood neither their unease nor their fear.
This was a feast day. The women should be drinking in the hall, dancing, laughing, or rutting behind a hedge somewhere, their buttocks making imprints in the snow. They should not be milling about the settlement with equal measures of fear and savagery oozing from their pores like an autumn mist.
The warrior felt his own unease building as he moved through the silent crowd, an unease that turned to fear as he saw spots of blood in the snow. At first, they were just little spots, but as he made his way nearer to the feast hall, so they became thicker, more abundant, until eventually the last of the women stood aside and Setanta was looking down at Lugaid, who seemed to have a butchered animal cradled in his lap.
“Lugaid, what is the meaning of this?” The boy did not respond, just kept staring down at the bloody mess.
“Lugaid?” Still nothing.
Setanta knelt beside his foster son and lifted his chin. The neck was very loose, not supporting the weight of Lugaid’s head. The High King’s eyes were open and staring sightlessly. Setanta knew what was wrong, but his inner being refused to allow him to admit it.
“Lugaid?” he asked for the third time, although he knew there would be no answer.
The boy was dead. He did not know how, but somehow in the hour they had been apart, the boy had met his doom. Setanta lifted his son’s chin for the second time and saw the hilt of a dagger protruding from where the boy’s neck joined his torso. Setanta’s scream of agony might have been heard across the Five Kingdoms.
He took Lugaid’s head in both his hands and held it steady so he could see into the eyes. Although sightless, their life long since departed, they spoke to the warrior about the last minutes of life. Setanta looked down at the bloody mess the boy was cradling in his lap and realized that it was Dervla. She who had been a near perfect example of womanhood, beautiful, both within and without, was a tattered remnant of humanity. His second scream was more like a roar and louder than the first.
He looked up at the women still milling about and wondered why they did not run. They should have scattered throughout the Five Kingdoms and beyond to avoid his wrath. He did not need to ask what had happened to two of the people he loved most in the world. For some reason, the women had torn Dervla to shreds. Whatever had caused the savagery must have been dire indeed. The women of the Five Kingdoms were not a forgiving group, but to physically rend another to such a state, took demonic rage. Her infringement must have been of the worst kind. She must have lain with their husbands and slaughtered their children. She must have poisoned their parents and strangled their sisters.
She must be one of those Danish monsters that he had heard about, a Grendel or a Nokken. Surely, they tore her so because she was the spawn of some Scandinavian Evil. Maybe the day he had found her she was not being sacrificed but executed.
He stared into the eyes of the late High King.
Lugaid was still talking to him in his death, telling him that he had taken his own life because of Dervla’s passing. He had taken his dagger and thrust it downwards into his left shoulder and down into his heart, another act that would take demonic strength. The gruesome death of the woman he loved had wrenched his will to live from him and he had done what Setanta would never have considered him strong enough to do. Setanta did not believe he would have the strength to do what Lugaid had done, and he was much stronger than his foster son had been in every sense.
His tears were flowing unchecked. He did not care who saw the hurt in his face. The deaths before him required an explanation. He could guess what had happened, but he needed one of the women milling about to give him confirmation. But more than confirmation, he needed to know why.
“What happened here?” he asked, just above a whisper. The women did not hear him and remained silent. He looked through the crowd, seeking Emer. Thankfully, she was not there and seemed to have played no part in the bestiality that had occurred.
“What happened here?” he repeated, louder.
“They were jealous,” Kathvar said as he made his way to Setanta’s side.
“What do you mean, jealous?”
“They held a pissing contest to determine who was the most desirable. Dervla won, so they tore her into pieces.”
Cú Chulainn’s third scream was louder still. It was also punctuated by his standing and removing the war hammer from his back. In one movement, he swung the weapon with such force that it took the nearest woman’s head from her shoulders.
And now the women run, screamed through his mind. And they did run, but it was too late, because Cú Chulainn was a born athlete. He was lithe and tall, strong, and fleet. He carried Dond Desa’s hammer, which in the hands of one trained by the Shadowy One was a killing machine of awesome power.
He hunted them through the settlement and through the forest until he could find no more. He crushed the life out of every woman he found. One blow to the head with the hammer was enough. No one could withstand a blow from such a hammer.
When he could find no more women hiding, he returned to the bodies of Lugaid and Dervla and moved them into the roundhouse where they had been staying. It was not the king’s roundhouse, Lugaid had not wanted such opulence, but it was large enough for the purpose Cú Chulainn envisaged. He placed the bodies side by side on the bed and then began to gather the women he had killed. He piled them in the roundhouse starting at the wall opposite the door. He continued to pile them until he could find no more women and there was no more space. As soon as that had been achieved, Cú Chulainn knocked out the lintel above the door so the roundhouse was sealed and then piled brushwood all around, which he took from the dry woodshed beside the settlement’s hostel.
Wood stacked around the roundhouse, he set tinder to kindling and fired the logs around the wooden walls. It did not take long for the roundhouse to catch and was soon blazing with an acrid smelling black smoke. The winter winds were high, the smoke blown apart before it could pervade the settlement and warn the sleepers something was amiss. Not that the sleepers would have noticed an acrid smelling fire even under their own beds. They were stupid with mead and festivities.
Cú Chulainn watched the blaze for a few minutes before he made his way to the king’s roundhouse to talk to Mac Nessa. He had made up his mind. He would do as the king had requested and take command of the Red Branch. He would become The Hound of Ulster in more than just name.