AFTERMATH
SURVIVOR
The warrior opened his eyes slowly, grimacing. It was dark, as quiet as an old barrow of the Elder Race. He blinked his eyes several times. The darkness was a surprise. The last he remembered, it had been just after dawn when the noise of battle began to lessen. The stillness was strange. Before oblivion, the moans of the wounded had been audible; the noise of the dying provided a backdrop to the relative quiet inside the hostel in the vale of Glencree, where they had taken refuge. Now, there was no sound, not even the pleas for mercy and the screams of those being assisted into the mound of Donn by victors with sharp blades and no mercy.
“What of the king?” he asked of the still. It did not answer. There was no sound. Nothing. Am I in the Otherworld? he wondered. Excluded from Donn’s mound? Sidhe forbid such an unfitting end.
“Connery, are you there?” Again, there was no answer; nothing but the dark and the stillness. He tried to lift his head and cursed as it struck something unforgiving.
“Bundún! Tóin!” Lights flashed before his eyes.
His head span, nearly causing him to vomit. As he laid back down, he felt a wetness under his nape. Gingerly, he lifted his right hand and probed the area. There was stickiness, but he could not feel any fresh welling, so knew the bleeding to have stopped.
“Bodalán,” he hissed, “but that hurts.”
He took several deep breaths, trying to ease the throbbing. It seemed to work. The queasiness abated a little, so he edged himself to the side and lifted his head for a second time, slowly, more cautious. This time, there was no obstruction, and a limited amount of light replaced the darkness. He realized he had been under a bench.
“Not dead, then. Thank the Sidhe,” he said before feeling shame at the sentiment. He should be dead. When a battle is lost, death is the reward. Those still alive did not merit the name warrior.
The nausea was there, nagging, but the gagging was not as adamant as the first time. He turned slightly. The light was coming from the open maw of the hostel, where the battle had raged, where the battle should be raging still.
The warrior took hold of the bench and pulled himself up so he was kneeling. The initial nausea threatened again. Almost as fiercely as the first time. He took several more gulps of air, head close to his knees, fighting back the bile. The air tasted of charred wood, making him realize he had a terrible thirst. He climbed to his feet and staggered to where the butts were stored at the rear of the common room.
They were empty.
He remembered that before the siege began, a flight of arrows had interrupted the king’s retinue while gathering supplies. Three had died, and others had taken injury.
There is water in the butts outside, he remembered. As he turned towards where the doors used to be, his eye caught a glint. He leant closer and saw his sword and shield hidden behind one of the butts. He rubbed his face in confusion. Who would hide a sword and shield? Even more strange than the who was the why. Why would any sane person hide tools of war in the middle of a battle?
Finding no answer in the murkiness, the survivor sheathed his sword in the copper sheathe still on his belt, picked up his shield and made his way towards the hole, where the light showed the brightness of a clear autumn noon. He approached warily. The reavers might be there, quiet, relaxing after a hard-fought battle.
When he made the doors, he saw the desolation.
He stood in the hole and shielded his eyes from the watery glare. Although weak, the sun made his head hurt. He looked at the scene between the throbs. The reavers had gone. The vultures of war had not yet arrived. The dead were lying where they had fallen. It seemed the reavers had not even looted the bodies, which was strange to the survivor, almost as strange as the hidden weapons. The doors were smoking, blackened, resting where they had been torn down.
Scanning more slowly, he saw the cairn with its grisly trophy. He did not need to approach to know the head would be that of the King. No other would be so exalted after the battle unless it were the pirate, Ingcél. The warrior knew there was little chance of the reaver’s death. The battle had been all but lost when oblivion had taken him.
“He did right by you, then,” he said as he approached the head. The body of the High King was beside the cairn. It showed no signs of mutilation.
“I will bury you, King Connery, overlooking the place where you fell,” the warrior said as he gathered the torso in his arms.
By the time the warrior placed the last stone on the cairn, it was approaching mid-afternoon. He looked from the dingle over the vale. It seemed a fitting place. He knew there was some urgency, but a nagging tiredness weighed him down. He supposed it was the head wound. Although superficial, he guessed he had lost blood, and by the stickiness, much of it.
“I will sit against this tree and catch my breath. Just a quick rest before I get after the cow’s udder and his rag tag warband.”
Queen
She was sitting on her husband’s throne, an indiscretion that would lead to execution for anyone else. She was the queen and, as such, did not follow the rules laid out for others. To say Ailill was king would be pulling the truth so taut it was in danger of snapping. He was king in name only. The queen was known throughout the Five Kingdoms to be the ruler in Connacht. Ailill was happy for it to be so. The people were not. The people saw it as an aberration.
But the queen had more pressing matters.
Medb stared morosely at the smoke hole, worried for her favorite son, Mane The Honey-Tongued, champion of Connacht, warrior, and traitor. My son is a traitor; how can that be? She was sure they had raised him well, sure the fault did not lie with them.
Not even Ailill could be blamed.
She knew Ailill was also worried, but he was not there. If she were to guess, she would say he was most likely in the hostel, possibly in his cups. When news was bad, the king of Connacht often sought solace from the flagon. Usually, she did not mind. Each dealt with hardship in their own way. On this occasion, she wished her husband was by her side.
Mane!
Her heart pulsed when the messenger Finn arrived, informing them of the invasion. Some had sighted the King’s foster brothers, Lee, Gar, and Rogain, with the invader. Mac Roth reported that his spies saw her son with them on the rise above Indber Colptha. If Mane was still with them, he was committing treason. That treason could end in only one way: execution.
“Tell me my son is still in Alba,” she said to the smoke hole, “and I will rest easy.”
“Lady?” the bodyguard behind the throne asked.
“Nothing, Mac Roth. Nothing of import, at least,” she said, but it was a lie.
Mane! her thoughts screamed.
Bard
His legs ached because his boots could not gain any purchase in the mud, and he was slipping down as much as he was moving forward. Sighing, he dug in his heels and pulled hard to move the handcart.
“Sidhe take this weather,” he hissed.
Although they had now stopped, the rains had been unusually heavy, so the mud of Slíghe Chualann, the mountain road south of Átha Clíath, was thick and clinging, pulling the handcart laborious. An irritating dampness stuck his breeches to his lower legs. Even Black, the wolfhound, had lost his youthful exuberance and plodded beside his master.
“Come, Black, not far now,” he told the dog, although he was trying to convince himself.
Amergein’s Da named him for the bard. He did not feel like a bard. There was no harp, no songs, no mead or torcs to pay for his services; just a handcart full of next to useless silver trinkets to sell at the Autumn Festival in Temuir, the seat of the High King.
The festival started the following day, and he was late. The unusual rains had delayed him because he needed to pull his father’s wares through the cloying mud, a constant reminder that summer had gone. He was angry. He knew the journey to be a waste of time. Each year, his father had gone with high hopes, only to return covered in mud with a nearly full handcart, and a despondency that was sad to behold.
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Now, it was his turn to make the trip and feel the despondency. Twelve summers had passed since Amergein’s first squall, so he was a man, a provider, Da said. He just wanted to be a bard and travel with a harp, singing songs and telling heroic tales of Conall Cernach and the Red Branch warriors—some hope. His father always reminded him that telling stories and singing songs did not put meat on the board.
Amergein knew that to be wrong; the bards who visited the village were always opulent, always had a fat belly and a fancy torc. He knew that being a bard was only outweighed by being a druid, and no one ever saw the elders outside Ynys Môn, the island of the druids, except when there was a need for them. Apparently, that need had not arisen in the Five Kingdoms for many years, because Amergein had never seen one.
“You might meet the High King,” Da had said when he told him it was time to take over the annual pilgrimage. “He’s usually at the festival. I sold him a necklace once,” the oft-repeated claim to a successful festival, which his Da used to remind Amergein about the usefulness of metalworking.
Not that Amergein needed reminding. He knew metalworking to be a respectable trade, but it did not have the same romantic fascination as traveling from common room to common room telling tales of heroism and of the Gods of the faerie mounds.
No chance of meeting the High King, Amergein thought, as he once again slipped knees-first into the mud of the road. The Peaceful King, he knew, would be engaged in more important pastimes, righting some wrong, or judging some infringement of his peaceful kingdoms. Ireland had not seen much excitement for many years. At first the people considered Connery’s reforms to be enlightened. He brought peace to the Five Kingdoms. Now, they were considered boring. For villagers, boring meant more security and less bloodshed; for bards, boring meant having to tell the old tales and sing the old songs; for warriors, boring meant no plunder and a sagging gut.
As he pulled himself out of the mud, Amergein thought his legs would not be able to cope with much more.
Still, the hostel is close, he thought, looking forward to the comfort of a warm fire and a haunch of boar.
Da Derga’s renowned hospitality had seemed a dream for most of the day, but now the hostel was only a mile away in the vale of Glencree, and Amergein was thinking of a creamy flagon of mead and a warm bed. The more he thought about the hostel, the more difficult pulling the handcart became. It was as if the Gods were determined he should not reach the comfort of a fire and the entertainment of the songs sung during the evening feasting.
His eyes were down as he walked, and the cairn would have gone unnoticed had it not been for Black snuffling in it and whining. The whining made him look up from his wet misery and see the big pile of stones a little back from the road. His heart leaped. A cairn could mean many things, but none of them were good. Black ran back to him when he called but continued to whine.
“Don’t worry, boy,” Amergein said, ruffling the dog’s ears to calm him.
He hesitated in the mud near the pile, wondering what to do. When he looked up towards the bend in the road, he saw a flight of black birds, which might have been ravens, and a column of smoke rising above the treeline. Worry changed to fear. One of the things the cairn might indicate was a Destruction; it might be a memorial to those who were about to die. The column of smoke hinted at a Destruction. He thought that the High King had forbidden the practice of raiding, pillaging nearby villages, stealing their cows, and raping the women. Surely it was a thing of the past? However, the birds indicated death; the cairn indicated death; Black’s whining indicated death.
“Shush,” he said, patting the dog before looking at the rise again.
He knew himself to be less than a mile from the hostel. He knew Glencree was in the next vale. He knew he should turn back and tell his father there was no Autumn Festival this year, but he could not. desire had driven him to be a bard from as far back as he could remember, and that driving force was pushing him to go on.
He hid the handcart in a copse of trees, back from the pile of stones, and followed the road north toward the vale where Da Derga’s hostel and the Gods only knew what else waited. Amergein forgot the risk of theft because of his need to see what had caused the ravens, harbingers of death, to gather. He had no weapons, or indeed courage, only his curiosity, which his father said would kill him. When he rounded the bend and witnessed the horror in the glen before the smoldering gates of the hostel, Amergein did not see death; he did not see arms and legs and headless torsos; he saw an opportunity.
The hostel was still standing, but the gates were shattered and burning. The ravens feasted on the eyes of those dead warriors who had kept their heads; dogs and wolves feasted on the rest. Amergein could see old crones grubbing about for loot. He knew it was the usual scene after a Destruction, but he was shocked by the heartlessness of the women. They had no respect for those immortalized by the cairn where Amergein had left his father’s wares.
As he watched, he saw a wounded man hold up supplicating hands to one of the looters as she neared. The woman had a young boy with her, tied to her belt by a rope. The boy’s head was down, and even at this distance, Amergein could tell he was unhappy to be tied to the old hag. Although they spoke, Amergein could not hear what was said. He saw the woman leaning over the man with her hands down as if applying pressure to a lid to shut it. He watched the warrior’s feet drumming in the mud where he lay. When they stopped their tattoo, the crone moved on, impatiently tugging the boy after her. She seemed to be muttering while putting something in the bag by her side.
Amergein looked at the man’s stillness and knew his supplications had been useless.
With a shudder, he decided to move up the hill behind the hostel and watch the looting out of reach. Black followed, completely cowed. As he looked at the dog, who had his nose down, Amergein realized the animal had more reverence than the hags, even if he seemed to lack the curiosity of a hound.
“Some wolfhound you are,” the boy said with a snort.
As he made the rise, Amergein saw a dead warrior with blond hair propped up against a tree. The bodies of three men were sprawled about a slight depression and were only visible from where the boy was standing. A blood trail showed where the dead warrior had dragged himself to the tree before he died. He was holding a decorative sword across his lap. The sword had a red stone in the pommel that looked to Amergein like it might be a ruby. The warrior’s eyes were fast shut, and he seemed to be grimacing against the fate that had caused him to be mortally wounded and left to die sitting against a tree on the edge of a forest.
Amergein decided to take the ornate weapon. None of the grubbing women had made it to the top of the hill thus far, and he supposed it was a chance to get something of renown, something to show to his father on his return to the village. He was leaning over the body, intent on prising the warrior’s right hand from the hilt, when the corpse spoke.
“My sword is not for free, girl!”
Warrior
The head of Dond Desa’s war hammer rested between Ingcél’s feet. Fearsome to look upon, the Briton was also called Ingcél of the One-Eye and Ingcél the Reaver. Many had crossed him since the invasion, so the warrior of Connacht was wary, waiting, and keeping his own counsel.
The Briton’s chin was propped up on hands resting on the shaft sticking up between his knees. Firelight was dancing across his long silver hair and square-jawed features. In deep contemplation, he seemed to be somewhere other than sitting on a felled tree beside a fire on the north bank of the river An Ruirthech at Átha Clíath, The Ford of Hurdles. The Briton’s entourage were milling about behind him. The Connacht warrior stood opposite the fire with his hands crossed behind his back, impatient because he had been waiting too long.
“You sent for me, lord,” the warrior finally prompted, sick of being at the man’s whim and wondering, not for the first time, why he had joined the brothers after Connery exiled them. His gut had prompted him to rebel against the asinine laws of the High King, and his head now berated him for doing so. He had made mistakes during his short life, but none so grave as following his heart. His mother would be appalled if she saw him standing before a madman with his hands crossed behind his back.
“Yes, I have good news for you,” Ingcél said.
“What news?” the warrior asked warily.
He knew the invader’s news would be anything but good. The king of the Catuvellauni—nothing more than a pirate, truth be known—had used the inexperience of the brothers, most particularly Lee, to talk them into invading their homeland. It had been a foolish choice for them and—therefore—for the warrior by association. A choice which they had paid for with their lives. A choice which was looking more and more like he would pay for in like manner. If not murdered by the lunatic on the log, then no doubt his mother would kill him.
“I am promoting you to captain of the warband.”
“Captain. I see. And you think this warband needs more than one captain?”
“I am not sure I understand you.”
“Are you not the captain?”
“I am going to scout south of the river. I can smell the Red Branch on the night air. We need to know their strength and disposition.”
“But why you, lord? You have many scouts in your warband.”
“I do not trust them.”
“What about me? Do you trust me? I can mount my horse and take the ferry upriver to the south side. I would be back before the sun has crested the forest eaves.”
“You have no horse.”
“What do you mean, I have no horse?”
“I have sequestered your horse for my outriders.”
“Your outriders?”
“Yes. I am taking my longship crew as outriders.”
“And you are going to scout south of the river?”
“Yes, is that really so hard to understand?”
“Not hard, lord, just suspicious.”
“How so, warrior,” the Briton asked with a quiet menace. The Irishman knew to be careful when the reaver spoke in a calm voice. It usually presaged a violent outburst, but he could not stop himself from speaking his mind.
“South is where you beached your longships.”
“Yes, south where my longships are. What is wrong? Do you not trust me?” Ingcél held up an open palmed hand to stop his entourage from attacking the warrior.
The warrior looked over his shoulder at the gesture. The hands of the reaver’s crew were grasping their sword hilts. It did not matter to the invaders that their leader was running. They trusted him implicitly. It was apparent to them that the invasion had run its course and failed. There was no point in dying for nothing in the Five Kingdoms. They knew the best thing to do was run and spend the riches they had amassed.
The Connachtman looked at the stern faces of the Britons. These men were the select crew of the reaver. The warriors who went with him wherever he invaded. They were not the same motley would-be army lying about the fires around the north bank, drinking mead and worrying about the coming battle, who were not even warriors, most armed with rusty swords or farm implements. Some few were the sons of Irish chieftains who had followed the High King’s foster brothers into exile. They were better armed but no less would-be for that.
The warrior knew the Briton was running for his ship and taking his prize crew with him. The fight was gone from them. However, he could see no point in dying beside the night fire by calling Ingcél a craven. He had witnessed the Briton murder because he did not like the cut of meat he received.
“I will do my best, lord,” he said before turning and striding away.