Chapter 37: Slaughter
Conall stood on the rampart behind the palisade of Átha Clíath, his heart heavy with the weight of recent events. The morning mists lifted, revealing a rag-tag warband on the opposite bank. They seemed lost, unsure of what to do—not the same warriors who had poured into the vale of Glencree, screaming defiance at the High King’s retinue. The thought of Connery's death at their hands was hard to fathom. Conall's mind was filled with questions, his emotions in turmoil.
Something has changed, he realized. Is it the unknown that deters them?
It was not just the unknown that deterred the invaders. The river, fast-flowing and swollen from the autumn rains, presented a formidable barrier. The fords were barely passable, and anyone attempting to cross on foot would have to fight the current all the way. Conall watched the invaders, their hesitation palpable, unsure of what awaited them behind the palisade.
“Can you see him?” he asked the farmer beside him. The man hesitated, shading his eyes from the early morning glare of the river. “Well?”
“I cannot see him, lord.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes, lord. When he attacked the settlement, he rode a gray. His hair was silver and tied with a leather band. He carried a massive war hammer and bore golden torcs on the biceps of both arms. I see no hammer or torcs. I see no silver-haired warriors. I see no horses. He is not there, lord.”
Conall nodded, happy that the pirate had fled. Although not an honorable action, the Briton’s running had made Conall’s task more straightforward, at least initially. The leader of the invaders still needed to be caught. The blood debt needed to be honored, or the people of the Five Kingdoms would openly revolt.
“Have the scouts been dispatched?” Conall called to no one in particular.
“Yes, captain,” the warrior closest to him confirmed. Conall had ordered scouts south of the river to search for rebels who attempted to escape.
“Hoist the signal,” he called down to the lieutenant standing before the three hundred Red Branch warriors armed with bows. He watched the red hand banner climb above the settlement roundhouses, knowing it would be visible to the horsemen waiting just out of sight above the rise behind the milling rebels.
The Red Branch warriors cheered as the wind caught the banner and unfurled it. When the cheer reached the rebels, they looked at the settlement in confusion. Conall knew they could see the banner and that some would understand what it meant.
The Red Branch was in Átha Clíath.
Conall had found the three hundred men in the settlement when he rode from the hostel at Glencree the previous day. The lieutenant who hoisted the flag had informed Conall that Fergus led the rest of the Red Branch warriors north of the river, out of sight of the men at the fords. He told Conall of the planned signal. The signal that would unleash the fury of the mounted warriors just out of sight of the invaders.
Not out of sight for much longer, Conall thought, watching the red hand flapping above the settlement roundhouses.
***
When he saw the red-hand banner rise above the palisade, the warrior made the only decision he could. He had been toying with the idea of melting away into the night ever since the Briton told him he was to take over the captaincy of the warband. The warrior’s suspicion had flared when the Briton said he would scout south of the river. He seemed to think the warrior of Connacht was lacking a brain. The invasion fleet was south of the river, beached at Brí Chualann. Doubts were quashed when Ingcél announced he was taking his crew to act as outriders. It did not take the insight of a druid to realize the Briton was running.
The invasion had come to an ignominious end.
The warrior heard the thunder of a horse charge just as he slipped into the river downstream from the fords. He had known the rebels would face a charge from the Red Branch the moment Dond Desa’s sons agreed to join the Briton in an invasion of their homeland. It was doomed before it even began. None of the tribes had a warband that could stand against the Red Branch, and this band was mainly made up of adventurers, bored farmers, and the inexperienced sons of Ériu’s chieftains.
As he turned downstream, the warrior saw the handful of fighters who were left after the Briton had skulked away into the night, slipping into the river, experienced enough to know what it would take to stand against a charge of the Red Branch and that the warband did not have it. There was no glory in running but no sense in dying for a man who had already abandoned the field.
When he heard the order, “Archers atop the ramparts,” from behind the palisade, it only reinforced his decision.
He listened to the men’s panic as they ran into the fords, blithely unaware they were running into an iron-tipped storm. The river’s flow hampered the men, who would soon face a flight of arrows from the settlement. He heard the whoosh of the first flight just before ducking under the river’s chop and swimming underwater for the opposite bank.
***
The men behind the palisade did not have to wait long before hearing the distant thunder of three hundred horsemen at the canter. Conall watched as the rebels beside the river turned in confusion, unsure what could create such a noise. The few with enough experience to recognize the beat turned and fled into the river, joined by the others as soon as the Red Branch warriors became visible over the rise.
“Archers atop the ramparts,” Conall commanded.
The men took seconds to mount the earthen ramp behind the wooden defensive structure of the settlement. “The command is yours, Lieutenant, but do not loose until you can see the whites of their eyes.”
The lieutenant took Conall at his word and waited for the men to wade far enough into the fords that there would be no escape. Conall’s impatience grew because when he would have ordered the arrows loosed, the lieutenant only ordered them nocked and drawn. Conall held his breath, waiting for the command. It seemed that he could see the whites of the warband’s eyes when the lieutenant finally cried, “Loose!”
Three hundred iron points loosed into one thousand men packed together through panic and hampered by fast-flowing knee-high water had a devastating effect. The front runners were so close to the palisade that Conall could see the shock in their eyes as the arrowheads ripped their flesh. They took the full force of the arrows. They wore no armor. They had no shields. Scores of men fell to that first flight. And then the charge plowed into the rearmost men with leveled lances. The dead in the first few moments of the fight were legion. The river ran red with their blood, as well as the blood of the wounded. Those unlucky enough to survive the onslaught were summarily executed in the shallows, stabbed, clubbed, or strangled where they were, crying for their mothers.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Conall watched the slaughter from the ramparts and began to sweat despite the coolness of the autumn dawn. The screams, the smells, the thuds of lances striking flesh, the splashes of the dead and dying hitting the water—these were sounds Conall would never forget. The slaughter did not last. It seemed it had only just begun when it was already over.
“See to the survivors,” Conall said as he jumped from the ramparts and ran towards the gate.
The lieutenant and the Red Branch warriors dropped from the palisade with daggers drawn, intent on sending those unlucky to have survived to the Otherworld. They were also keen to loot the dead before the hags arrived. Not that they thought this motley warband would have much in the way of plunder. The Briton would have claimed the lion’s share.
As Conall reached the gate, Fergus rode in at the head of the Red Branch, who were not looting the dead. “Conall, you are alive,” he called.
“Of course, I am alive, cow’s udder. Did you bring Dornoll?”
“Do you think me so lax I would forget your mount, Conall? You must credit me with more insight,” Fergus laughed. “It is good to see you, my friend. I thought you dead with the others at Da Derga’s.”
“And yet you brought my horse?”
“Dornoll is the finest mare in the Five Kingdoms. As soon as I got confirmation of your death, I was going to take her as payment for all the silver you owe me.”
“What silver?”
“Do not act coy, Conall,” Fergus laughed as he swung from the saddle.
“Any news of the invader?”
“None. He is definitely not north of the river or among the dead.”
“You would know him to see?”
“Yes, he is very distinctive. Unless he disguised himself, he is not there.”
“I have scouts out to the south. They should be back shortly.”
Conall was not wrong. Fergus had only just dismounted when a rider galloped in through the open gates of the settlement. He did not wait for his horse to stop before he leaped from the saddle and ran to his captain.
“A large body of men is riding south down Slíghe Chualann.”
“How many?” Conall asked.
“Between thirty and fifty.”
“They are making for their ships on the beach at Brí Chualann,” Fergus said.
Conall nodded. “We must get after them. If they reach the beach, then they will be beyond our reach. We cannot exact the blood debt if they set sail.”
***
“The horses are exhausted, Conall. We must rest,” Fergus said after two hours of hard riding.
Conall nodded, although he begrudged the time. If they rested now, they would only give the rebels more time to set sail and escape.
“We are nearing Glencree,” Fergus said. “We should rest at the hostel.”
Conall looked at his deputy with a grim expression. It had been only three days since he had buried the High King and one since he had buried Macc Cecht. He did not think he would return to the scene so soon.
“We have no choice, Conall. The horses are fit to drop.”
“You are right. We will rest at the hostel.”
As they crested the rise above the vale of Glencree, Conall and Fergus reined in, signaling a halt to the warriors behind them. The charred and ruined gates of Da Derga’s hostel were plainly visible, the remnants of the battle from three days before, when the invaders had killed High King Connery. Sitting cross-legged in front of the blackened wood, was a lone warrior with silver hair, golden torcs, and a war hammer across his knees.
“Wait here,” Conall told Fergus.
“It might be a trap.”
“No matter if it is. I must do this, and I must do it alone.” With which Conall rode down the slope into the vale.
“What happened to the High King’s head?” Ingcél asked as Conall reined in beside him.
“I buried it in the forest with his body and that of Macc Cecht.”
“Ah, yes, the High King’s champion. I would like to have met him. Was he not here during the battle?”
“No, he died on the rise, up there,” Conall pointed to where he had found Macc’s body surrounded by the bodies of Lee, Gar, and Rogain, the High King’s foster brothers. “He killed three rebels but was mortally wounded.”
“Ah, yes, the foster brothers. Three more worthless specimens you are not likely to ever meet.”
“Worthless?”
“Claimed to be warriors, but they were veterans of nothing more than killing the innocent. Maybe better described as murderers.” Conall nodded his agreement. The High King had banished the brothers for raiding in Connacht, where they had done nothing but kill innocent farmers and their families in the name of glory.
“Why were they not with the warband?”
“I sent them to watch the culvert at the back of the hostel. I never saw them again and must admit, I was glad of it.”
Conall looked at the Briton intently. Despite having run from the fords, it seemed he might follow the warrior’s code. The code was essential for Conall, and he respected those who followed it.
“Where is your warband?” he asked, as though not really interested.
“Other than that sorry lot I left at the fords with their backs to the enemy?” Conall nodded. “Drunk in the hostel. They could not pass so much unattended mead without taking a tipple. They drank the barrels dry within two hours and have been asleep since.”
“Why did you not leave without them?”
“It is challenging to sail a longship without a crew. I could have kept running around the Five Kingdoms, but to what end. You would have caught me eventually.”
“Shall we do this?” Conall asked as he dismounted.
“You are carrying wounds, warrior. Do you think you are fit enough?”
“Only time will tell. But it is irrelevant. I must fight you regardless. It is my destiny and my duty.”
“I think there are many men just over the rise,” Ingcél said as he stood up and lifted the hammer onto his shoulder.
“Yes. The Red Branch is there.”
“I would have liked to have faced the Red Branch with an army of warriors,” Ingcél said with a sigh.
Conall nodded again. He knew the Briton meant what he said, that it was not just idle boasting. Before he had met him, he would not have believed it. For a captain to abandon his warband on the eve of battle was not usually a course chosen by an honorable warrior. Still, the warband were not warriors, so did the code apply?
“I thank you for showing High King Connery respect,” Conall said.
“It is nothing. He was a king. Kings deserve respect. Well, most anyway.”
“Do not make light of it, Briton. Because of that courtesy, I will ensure you go to Donn’s mound.”
“I thank you,” Ingcél said before taking a lazy swing with the hammer.
His lack of a riposte was confusing the champion of Ulster. He had shown signs of honorably following the code and should have made the same offer. Conall studied the warrior intently. He was looking at the top of the rise where the Red Branch awaited. His eyes were emotionless. Conall thought he was gauging his chances of escaping after winning the fight.
I will be lucky to survive this encounter.
“Let us at it then,” Ingcél said with a hammer swing.
Conall breathed easier after that first swing. There was no effort in it. It had been a perfunctory wave of what could have been an unstoppable force, which was easily parried. The Briton had not been gauging his chances of escape but resigning himself to his imminent death. In some ways, Conall felt sorry for him. He had chanced an invasion of the Five Kingdoms and failed. He could not be blamed for taking the chance. If successful, the rewards would have been endless, not least of which would have been the high kingship.
On the third half-hearted swing of the hammer, Conall decided to end the mockery and grabbed the shaft, pulling the reaver onto the blade of his broadsword, angling it up so that it would pierce his heart. The Briton smiled as his blood gushed from the mortal wound. He was dead before he came to rest at Conall’s feet.
***
Fergus watched the fight with his heart in his mouth. From atop the rise, it looked as though the Briton would easily crush Conall with the mighty hammer. It was only when Conall pulled the rebel onto his sword, and he sank to the ground at his captain’s feet that Fergus let out his breath. He thought as he goaded his mount down the slope that it was a blessing of the Sidhe that the battle had been so short; otherwise, he might have suffocated.
Although Conall’s blade was razor sharp, Fergus saw it took several strokes to remove the rebel’s head. As Fergus reined beside him, Conall held the head up by its hair.
“Not such a frightening monster now, is he?”
“He has two eyes,” Fergus noted. “I thought he was Ingcél of the One-eye.”
“One-eye refers to his longship. It has a single black eye painted on its sail.”
“Where are the warband?” Fergus asked as he jumped from the saddle.
“They are in the hostel, drunk. Kill them and then follow me. I ride for Temuir with proof of the Briton’s demise and news of the High King’s death,” Conall said, stuffing the dripping head into a leather sack and tightening the thong.
“They are too drunk to hear us arrive?” Fergus asked with a look of disbelief.
“Ingcél said they drank all Da Derga’s mead in two hours. If memory does not fail me, the Red God used to have an enormous stock.”
“Yes, all the barrels along the back wall,” Fergus agreed. “Why did the looters not steal it?”
“Da Derga was thought to be of the Tuatha Dé Danann. No one from the Five Kingdoms would have dared enter the hostel. These reavers had no respect for the Éireannach Gods or no knowledge, perhaps.”
Fergus nodded as Conall tied the war hammer to the back of his saddle.
“Follow me as soon as you can,” Conall said as he swung into the saddle and tied the sack to his pommel.