The sound of hoofbeats approached from the north. Finn recognized the silhouette as it neared.

“Siobhan has Niall stable and sleeping,” Maeve said. “But he’s noticeably weaker. She can’t cleanse whatever turned his wounds green.”

Maeve dismounted and handed Finn the shovel.

“She had this yoke waiting for me when I arrived. ‘Niall’s orders,’ she said.”

She pointed at the chiseled stone slab laying in the withered grass next to the crypt.

“What’s that?”

“A stone coffin lid we pulled from the crypt. I assume it’s his. We’re going to need it right before we’re done. We’ve got to dig a hole big enough for that thing here and bury this stone over him.”

Finn looked up at the sky. Dawn was coming, but the midnight blue wasn’t letting go yet. He plunged the spade into the ground well behind the crypt. He directed Donal to clear away dirt around the hole as he tossed it out. He handed the spade to Donal after ten minutes to switch jobs.

“A three-person rotation works better,” Maeve said as she pushed away the dirt Donal tossed up.

“When do I start widening the hole?” Donal asked.

“You don’t,” Finn answered. “We’re putting him in headfirst, like Ávertach of legend. He was a tyrant whose people begged a nearby chieftain, to rid them of the him. Turns out he was a dark sorcerer as well. The champion, Cathain, defeated him several times but Ávertach returned from the dead each time, and each time he came back with more cruelty. It was only after they buried him upside down that he stayed in the ground.”

A line of light blue peaked over the horizon. Maeve and Finn each gave Donal a hand and pulled him out. Maeve hopped down. The hole was now deep enough to hinder the digging.

“You think this is him?” Donal asked.

“I can’t say for sure without checking,” Finn said. “Ávertach’s supposed grave in the east. But I doubt it. My guess—and it’s only a guess—is whatever magic gave the original Ávertach his cursed powers was put upon this one as well.”

“Why did you two pull out his coffin lid?” Maeve asked.

“We mean to place it over him,” Finn said.

“To prevent his magic from returning?” she asked.

“To prevent eejits from accidentally digging him up,” Donal said.

“We should probably bury that a little, too,” Finn said. “To prevent curiosity and all.”

Finn checked the sky. A faint glow of pale orange emerged from the horizon.

“We’re out of time,” Finn said. “We should be out of sight by the time the locals wake up. Give me a hand, brother.”

The pair pulled Maeve above ground. Together they carried the ávertach and placed it toes-up in the hole and replaced the dirt. They cleared extra space at the top and capped it with the stone lid before covering it with the remaining dirt.

“Hopefully nobody notices the fresh pile of dirt until time wears it down,” Maeve said.

“It is the best we can hope for,” Finn said.

“Let’s head back to camp,” she said.

Maeve led them behind the houses on the east side of town until they reached the river. Finn glanced to his left between the passing houses.

“I don’t see any fear gortas,” he said to his brother. “Do you?”

“I do not,” Donal said. “I was hoping you might have a guess as to why.”

“They would only be guesses,” Finn said.

They crossed the bridge and exited the road left toward camp. Siobhan still knelt over Niall. She had one of the cloaks over his torso and upper legs and propped his head up with his own. His forehead was drenched in sweat and his body shuddered. She stood up as they entered camp and dismounted.

“Is it done?” Siobhan asked.

“We took care of it,” Maeve said. “How’s Niall?”

“He wakes up for a short time and then goes back under,” Siobhan said. “He says his arm is freezing from the inside but he’s sweating like a fever. I was able to close the wounds, but I don’t have any spells or materials to heal the curse.”

“We could get lucky and find a healer here in Creeslough,” she said. “But we’ll likely have to run straight through to my grandparents’ castle at Doe. We can make it in a day, but it is several miles away.”

“What about the fear gortas?” Donal asked.

“You saw more?” Siobhan asked.

“We saw several in town when we were chasing that thing,” he said. “But we didn’t see any on our way back just now.”

Siobhan looked between Niall and the town to the south.

“Siobhan?” Maeve prodded.

“The last thing I want are those things wandering through a town, but I don’t think we have time to both secure the town and save Niall. Anyone disagree?”

“I don’t think we have time to keep talking about it, either,” Maeve said.

“It’s settled, then,” Siobhan said. “Lads, tear down the camp and load the wagons. Maeve, check on the horses. Finn, you’ll take the wagon, I’ll ride with Niall in the back. Donal, you’re on Airgid. Maeve, can you ride behind us and keep him upright?”

“I can,” said Maeve, “but have we ruled out tying him to the saddle with some rope?”

Siobhan looked at Maeve with a flat expression but didn’t respond.

Given what he knew of Maeve and how well she got along with Niall, Finn was caught off guard by how quickly she fell in line behind Siobhan when Niall’s health was in jeopardy.

“C’mere to me, brother,” Donal said. “I’ll show you how to take these Norseman tents of his down.”

“Good,” Finn said. “And we better secure them to the wagon, I have a feeling that we’re flying to Doe.”

****

“I know I’m the least experienced rider among us, but are we positive that Gála can keep this pace?” Donal shouted over the hoofbeats to the wagon ahead.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I suspect that all the horses will get an extended rest once we arrive,” Siobhan said.

She dabbed her patient’s forehead with a spare scrap of linen.

The road east to Doe Castle was much narrower than the main road. Thickets stretched into the roadway from both sides, reinforced by walls of ash and Scots pine. Siobhan wasn’t exaggerating when she said they would run straight through to Doe. The road rarely bent, rose or fell. Smoothness, however, was another matter. Aside from the times they slowed for oncoming travelers, their horses ran at a controlled gallop. Every divot or bump the wagon wheels struck caused the back to bounce higher than the front, always ending with a groan from Niall when he and Siobhan landed.

Finn called out from over his shoulder.

“The horses might handle this run, but are we sure Niall can?”

“I don’t want to find out what happens if we slow down,” Siobhan said.

“Just let me know where to turn,” Finn said.

“I’ll do my best,” she said. “I’ve only been here one time.”

“Isn’t this your granddad’s place?” Maeve asked.

“It’s still a new place, isn’t it? Siobhan said.

She glared at Maeve and returned to sopping the sweat from Niall’s brow. Donal caught her grimacing—an expression he’d rarely seen on her face. His mind searched for a reason behind her defensiveness and anxiety. Instead he got a bump to the shoulder from Maeve. He had eased Airgid too far to the right and was crowding her horse.

“Don’t lose focus,” she said. “You can’t rely solely on the horse to navigate a road.”

The group hurtled down the deserted road for another three quarters of a mile before the path curved to the left.

“Slow down, Finn!” Siobhan said. “The road dead-ends into another on the other side of this bend. You’ll want to turn right. We’re almost there.”

“Then why can’t we see it from here?” Donal asked.

“You’ll see it soon enough,” she said. “Just focus on keeping that horse on the road.”

The thickets and trees along the right side of the road relented as they neared the crossing. Donal had to strain his eyes to distinguish a bay head from the valley floor to his south. Rolling hills pushed against the horizon on the other side.

Finn, too, must have lingered too long on the view. He yelped as he jerked on the reins. The wheels on the wagon’s right side lost contact with the road long enough to create a thud when it returned to the ground. Niall groaned after that impact, too.

“Just do us a kindness and stop that thing before it runs through the front gate,” Maeve said.

Finn threw up an apologetic hand.

“We’re here, by the way,” he said.

Donal craned his head to see over the wagon. A tower house rose fifty feet above the ground, looming over the bawn wall and two shorter structures that surrounded it. Two armed men clad in green flanked the narrow gatehouse door.

The wind from Sheephaven Bay buffeted them as they entered a clearing in front of the castle. The guard on the left stepped inside the gatehouse while the other stepped forward and waited for the oncoming group with a raised hand. Siobhan climbed to her feet as the wagon rolled to a stop.

“What’s all this?” the guard asked.

“Please let us inside,” Siobhan said. “I’m the king’s granddaughter and my friend is gravely hurt.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed under his bushy black brows. He circled around the back of the wagon, glancing twice at Maeve.

“I don’t recognize you,” he said, turning back to Siobhan. “Are you one of Diarmait and Orlaith’s children?”

“Treasach’s, actually,” she said. “I’m his youngest, Siobhan.”

“My apologies.”

The guard gave Niall a cursory examination.

“He certainly looks banjaxed.”

“We were attacked last night in our camp,” she said.

A voice called out from behind her.

“You were?”

The other guard had returned from the gatehouse with a tall, slender man with an expression of concern on his face.

“Uncle Faelan!” she said.

Siobhan climbed down to hug Faelan. Donal thought the man could pass as Siobhan’s older brother. His red hair was luminescent in spite of the drab linen sky, his smile as easy as his niece’s. The knobby middle of his long nose lined up with his exaggerated cheekbones. The question in Donal’s mind slipped out of his mouth.

“How tall are you?”

Faelan twisted his neck in surprise.

“Six feet and a half more,” Siobhan said, patting the sides of her uncle’s arms after the embrace.

“Siobhan,” Maeve said.

Maeve canted her head towards Niall.

“Family reunions need to wait.”

“You say you were attacked?” Faelan asked.

Siobhan recounted the ambush, turning to Finn to fill in any details that happened away from camp. Faelan didn’t interrupt or react, just a slight nod after Siobhan had finished.

“That’s quite the story,” Faelan said. “It’s difficult to believe, honestly.”

Maeve sighed and hopped down from Scáth, startling the guards in the process. Faelan steadied them with a wave of his hand as Maeve approached her friend lying in the wagon. She removed part of the blanket, exposing the unnatural lacerations on Niall’s arm.

“We have four reasons why you should believe us,” Maeve said.

Faelan nodded. He rested a hand on the shoulder of the nearest guard and pointed to the brothers with the other hand.

“Go fetch Nectan and have him show our friends…”

“Finn and Donal, sir,” Finn said. “MacLaughlin.”

“—Finn and Donal around. Take them to the guest quarters. They will wait there for now.”

Faelan gestured to the other guard.

“Help me get this one to Cían. Ladies, you’re with me.”

Faelan and the guard each took one of Niall’s arms and put it behind their heads and carried him into the gatehouse, followed closely by Siobhan and Maeve.

“What do we do now?” Donal asked.

“We wait,” Finn said. “Better yet, we make ourselves useful. Let’s tie up the horses.”

They had just finished tying Gála to the wooden railing left of the gatehouse when the first guard returned with someone new.

“Are you Nectan?” Finn asked.

“I am,” he said. “Dia daoibh.”

Nectan was the first person Donal had met this week younger than himself. He had brown wavy hair and his face lacked the severity of Faelan’s. The boy nodded at the guard and walked back into the castle, beckoning the brothers to follow.

“Are you Faelan’s boy?” Donal asked.

“I am not. My father is Padraig, the second oldest,” Nectan said. “I wouldn’t worry about the details yet. There’s too many of us; your head will be drowning in MacSweeneys by sunset.”

The trio passed under a pointed arch much wider than the entry. A round two-story tower crowded the entryway. Nectan led them down a stairway between the front wall and the tower. Both of Donal’s elbows rubbed against the walls. They followed the tower wall around and passed an open hallway to the right.

“Your friend was taken this way to our healer, Cían,” Nectan said. You can check on him once you’re settled in. Frankly, I’m surprised that the ladies fit inside his room at the same time.”

Four more paces put them in an alcove with two doors. Nectan opened the door on the right and ushered them through. Two beds ran perpendicular to the long wall with a ladder anchored between them. Donal twisted his body for a glimpse into the loft and saw a bed nicer than any in his own house.

“Siobhan will sleep in the tower house,” Nectan said. “I trust this room will suffice for the rest of you.”

“I suppose we can make do with this,” Finn said.

Nectan’s eyes widened. He hopped up the ladder into the loft and began to remake the beds.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe we can get some—”

“—I’m coddin’ ya,” Finn said. “Come on down. This is grand. It’ll be great not having to watch for hungry apparitions or bloodthirsty creatures while we sleep.”

Nectan stopped halfway down the ladder and stared blankly at Finn.

“What’s the matter?” Finn said.

“I’m just waiting for you to tell me that was a joke as well,” Nectan said.

“If only it were,” Donal said. “Dya’think we can see our friend now?”

“I will go check,” Nectan said. “I believe the king wants me to bring Siobhan up for a chat. You might have a wait ahead you in the meantime.”