The road between Gartan and Kilmacrennan should have appeared less foreboding in the daylight. Given their situation, however, each hillcrest and bend in the road filled Donal with added dread, like stones dropped into a pail. How much farther could they go before the pail was too heavy to move?

“So what are we doing with this thing?” Donal asked.

“What do you mean?” Siobhan asked.

“Say we just fought our very last fight,” Donal said. “What—”

“—Will you stop doing that?” Maeve yelled behind her.

“I’m not saying we have,” Donal said, “but when we have, what are we meant to do with something that we can’t even touch?”

“We have to cleanse it,” Finn said.

“I gathered that much, thanks,” Donal said. “How do we do it?”

“Focus, please,” Maeve said. “The turn back to camp is up ahead. Let’s make it back safely and then figure out the rest.”

“We don’t even know if Gavin and Niall are still there,” Finn said. “They might have been forced to flee further up the hills, or somewhere else entirely. Wouldn’t hurt to have that back-up plan Siobhan talked about.”

Maeve veered left down the road to Gartan and then fell even with Finn and Siobhan.

“I cant listen to you lot behind me and focus on what’s ahead,” she said. “Talk.”

“Finn, why can’t you do what you did back at that field with the sluagh?” Donal asked.

“Because I’m not keen on setting one of the Four Bleedin’ Treasures on fire?” Finn said. “Because it wasn’t filí magic and thereby pure luck that I didn’t make things worse? Pick a reason.”

“But you didn’t make things worse,” Siobhan said, “and we’re well past the point of playing everything safe. What would you need?”

“A stone circle or a place like it.”

“What about that portal tomb we passed on the way into town?” Maeve said.

“Given the kind of magic Breaslin and Dother are using—and their likely ties to Crom Dubh—I don’t think attempting this in a portal or passage tomb is a good idea,” he said. “We should avoid any place that’s underground.”

“Any place like that in this area, Siobhan?” Donal asked.

Siobhan wrinkled her face and tilted her head.

“Maybe, but—”

“On the left!” Maeve yelled. “More of those creatures!”

Maeve reined in Scáth. Finn and Siobhan followed her lead.

Donal leaned past Finn’s left shoulder. Nine fallen people approached them in the middle of the road carrying wooden clubs, boughs and staves. On the far side of the meadow on their left, a road led up a small hill and ended in front of several small mounds.

“It’s an old druid burial ground,” Siobhan said. “Maybe a thousand years old. Something felt wrong about this place on our way in, but I couldn’t see anything at the time.”

“Could have mentioned it,” Maeve said.

“You’re right,” Siobhan said. “But neither of us saw anything, remember? I didn’t want to stop us for something that might not have been there.”

Five former druids were halfway down the side road, heading for them. Eight more followed them from the mounds.

“Run or fight?” Finn asked.

“We clear a path,” Siobhan said. “Finn and I from down there, Maeve stays mounted.”

“What about me?” Donal asked.

Siobhan examined the state of his face and the damage to his armor.

“Stay up there with the cauldron.”

Donal squeezed his cloaked charge. He the swollen areas in his face throbbed.

“Are you joking?” Donal asked.

“Not in the least,” Siobhan said.

“I’m twice the fighter he is! When will you stop trying to shelter me?”

“And when will you start giving me some credit? Of course you’re the better fighter—but look at the state of you! You’ve got one good fight left in you. I don’t want to waste it clearing a path through these things. Can you let us handle this, or will you keep trying to prove me wrong until they surround us?”

Donal clenched his jaw, shook his head and looked down the road ahead.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Siobhan and Finn dismounted. Finn held the cauldron as Donal inched into the saddle. Finn handed Donal the cauldron.

“You’re going to have to pull her next to Airgid and then pony him,” Siobhan said. “We’re not going to fight them all, and we don’t want waste time running all the way back here.”

Once Donal was in place, Siobhan handed Airgid’s reins to him.

“This won’t be easy with that thing in your lap,” she said. “You’re going to have to keep calm and let us take care of our end.”

Siobhan and Finn ran ahead, followed by Maeve riding along the left. Neither Finn nor Siobhan resorted to much magic, though Finn winced a few times while wielding his sword in his sore left arm.

A couple of well-placed wind gusts by the duo knocked down the remaining undead on the road, allowing Maeve to move forward and thin the group of five approaching the main road.

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“I’ll take these last two,” Siobhan said to Finn. “Get yourselves squared away on Gála. Let’s get moving before we have to contend with that bunch up top.”

Finn didn’t have to go far. Donal had the horses right behind them.

“You did good with this,” Finn said. “I’ve never done it myself.”

Finn was back in the saddle and Siobhan was ready to mount Airgid. She paused and squinted her eyes at the road behind them. Faint hoofbeats sounded behind them, half of a mile away from them at the furthest.

“That can’t be him,” Siobhan said.

“I knew I should have chased their horses away again,” Donal said.

She settled atop her horse, and they caught up to Maeve as she felled the third creature of its group.

“I’m not sure why some of them take more than one arrow after getting hit in the same spot,” she said.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Siobhan said. “Dother’s behind us.”

“I’ll grant him this,” Maeve said. “That creep can run for having an arrow in his leg.”

Their horses galloped for half of mile until they heard an unnatural animal noise around the next bend. All three of their horses stopped abruptly. Donal had to hook his brother’s torso to stop himself from falling off. Airgid bucked, but Siobhan managed to stay in the saddle.

“It can’t be!” Finn said. “What is he doing here?”

“What’s wrong?” Siobhan said. “Who is it?”

Finn kicked his heels and urged Gála around the bend for confirmation.

“The dullahan.”

The headless rider waited for them two hundred yards away. Siobhan and Maeve joined the brothers’ side.

“This is impossible,” Finn said. “A dullahan doesn’t come out in the sun. I’ve never read about them traveling in daylight. Now he’s done it twice.”

“Sure look, you go tell him that it’s past his bedtime,” Maeve said, “and we’ll just take the cauldron and catch up with you later.”

“We’ll be needing that back-up plan now,” Donal said.

“Indeed,” Siobhan said. “The good news is that we’re near a place that might—I say, might—help Finn remove the curse on the cauldron.”

“I don’t think we can be choosy at this point,” Finn said. “What’s the bad news?”

“It’s two hundred yards past yer man over there.”

“It’s too cramped here with the hedges,” Maeve said. “I don’t think we should fight him here.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Donal said. “Here he comes.”

The dullahan fanned the reins and sent his steed toward them.

“Tuck in behind me,” Maeve said. “I don’t think one arrow will drop him, but it can knock him off-balance.”

“He’s going to raise his arm right before he cracks that whip,” Finn said. “That’s your opening.”

Maeve kicked Scáth down the road with an arrow already on her bowstring. Finn and Siobhan followed her. The dullahan pulled his whip from his side. Maeve would be within range in a manner of seconds. She loosed her arrow at the first twitch of the rider’s shoulder and planted it an inch to the right of its collarbone. It hunched over and grabbed its shoulder as the group passed by.

“There’s the turn!” Siobhan said.

A road led to the left ahead of a dense pine forest.

“We’re going to Doon Rock?” Finn asked.

“Doon Well, actually,” Siobhan said. “But they’re in the same general location.”

“But that’s supposed to be a Catholic well,” Finn said. “That’s not supposed to work with sílrad magic. Right?”

“Honestly, you’d have to ask Murrough or my mam about that. What I do know is that druids considered it sacred long before the Church did.”

They turned south and rode up the hill. The early dawn light that radiated off the fields to their left could not break through the forest on their right. Soon the forest spread across the road, leaving only a distant window of light in front of them. The window widened as they approached until most of the clearing behind it was visible.

The area was more a valley in between treeless hills than it was an open meadow. A slope on their right ran up a steeper hill that extended behind them, towering over the pine forest from which the group emerged. A softer hill on their left was the backstop that kept the turf below it sodden with rainwater.

Mismatched stones were arranged in an asymmetrical pile closer to the middle of the valley.

“Doon Rock, I presume?” Donal said.

“That would be the well,” Siobhan said. “The Rock is atop that hill behind us.”

“Grand, beats havin’ to haul this thing up there,” Donal said. “Crack on, Finn.”

“Did you forget about what’s coming our way?” Maeve asked.

Siobhan turned to the brothers.

“Let’s get the horses on the far side,” Siobhan said. “Hopefully they won’t get far in the confusion. Maeve, are you comfortable with covering us from horseback?”

Maeve nodded. She followed the rest of the group as they rode past the well. Siobhan, Finn and Donal dismounted near an abandoned hut at the base of the hill.

“What about the cauldron?” Donal said.

“I’d keep it near us,” Siobhan said. “If we leave it alone the dullahan could grab it and ride out. We’d have to go through all this again.”

“You’re assuming it’s coming for the cauldron and not us,” Maeve said.

“Not necessarily,” Siobhan said. “I’m only eliminating a risk. I’d love to be on higher ground, but we don’t have time to run up to the Rock.”

She pointed to Donal.

“Put the cauldron next to the well. We’ll fight from there. I only wish I had a better sense of how that dullahan was going to come at us.”

“Not just the dullahan,” Finn said.

He gestured to the valley entrance. Dother entered alongside the dullahan.

“Mind if I try to talk some sense into the nice man?” Finn asked.

“You’d have some of your own first,” Maeve said.

“Give me a lash at him, Siobhan,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, Maeve can put an arrow in him.”

Siobhan looked at Maeve, who sighed and replied with a single nod. The group turned to face their adversaries. The sorcerer pointed to the cauldron in Donal’s hand.

“My friend and I will be taking that back, if you don’t mind,” Dother said. “Seeing as it belongs to us.”

Finn tilted his head.

“But we do mind, actually,” he said. “Seeing as it never was yours in the first place.”

Dother dismounted. Both sides crept toward the well in the center of the valley. Maeve held Scáth in place, her hand on the bow, her eyes locked on the dullahan. The only sign of her last arrow strike was a hole in the collarbone area of its leather tunic. There was no stain on it and no hitch in its movement.

“What would you want with it, anyway?” Dother asked. “It no longer serves its original purpose. Let me take it and we’ll all live to fight each other another day.”

Siobhan caught Donal’s attention as they approached the well. She looked at the cauldron and then cast her eyes downward, prompting Donal to set the cauldron down. She drifted away from Finn’s left side. Donal did the same in the opposite direction. Finn’s focus remained on his conversation but he did flash a look of confusion toward Donal for dropping the cauldron. Finn stepped toward it.

“It doesn’t serve its original purpose at the moment,” Finn said. “That can be remedied.”

“Can it now?” Dother asked. “By you? A week’s training as a bard and now you can undo something that required an entire month of work from two sorcerers of our skill to complete?”

“Of course I can,” Finn said. “Sure, it might take me a whole day but I might get lucky and get it sorted before lunch.”

Dother reshaped his grin into a sneer.

“The mouth on you,” Dother said.

Finn’s hand gestures bordered on theatrical.

“It would explain why Breaslin made his move and summoned a dullahan to abduct me before I could be taught,” Finn said. “He couldn’t have someone as naturally adept as me interfering. Look what I did to his curse at that abandoned farm.”

Dother’s brow wrinkled above glaring eyes.

“Or was that your curse?” Finn said. “It did seem rather easy, looking back on it. But perhaps that level of skill is why I was taken.”

Dother’s face darkened until he glimpsed Siobhan. She spent the conversation approaching from the sorcerer's right. He smiled and reengaged with Finn.

“If you say so,” he said.

“Oh, come now,” Finn said. “There’s no need for secrets among peers. Especially since your boss is buried under a stone wall.”

“If you say so.”

“You don’t need the cauldron now that he’s gone,” Finn said.

Dother’s smile widened.

“If you—”

“—say so. Right,” Finn said.

Whatever move Finn was planning, Dother sniffed it out. Donal found himself jealous of the restraint. His brother was adept at baiting him into doing something that he didn’t want to do. Instead, the sorcerer stopped limping towards the well to keep Siobhan and Donal in his periphery.

“So the dullahan took me for no reason at all?” Finn asked.

Dother shrugged.

“It would appear so,” Dother said.

The sorcerer’s smile was so wide his teeth parted. Finn smiled back.

“Ah here, I see now that it’s your open and sharing nature Breaslin treasured the most,” Finn said. “Little surprise as to how your allegiance worked so well for you.”

Dother chuckled. Finn’s smile flattened.

“Until it didn’t.”

Finn flicked his hand. A silver-headed arrow loosed from behind him.