“Oi!” yelled a lady from the front yard. “I’m lookin’ for the littlest MacSweeney. Dya’know where I can find her?”

“Where have you been?” Siobhan asked as she stepped out of the house.

Maeve O’Connor finished tying her dark draught horse to a tree and rubbed the journey from the waves of her long, black hair.

“Where haven’t I been?” she said. “I was out past Derry when Niall caught up with me, told me the news and sent me back here to find out what happened.”

“It’s been ten days,” Siobhan asked. “I trust you went to Magheroarty first before you turned up here?”

“I did. It was—”

“Hello, Maeve,” Siobhan’s mother called out from the threshold. “I trust your mother raised you better than to greet your hosts in such a manner?”

Maeve dipped her eyes toward the ground in front of the widow.

“Apologies, Mrs. MacSweeney,” she said. “Back from Dunfanaghy?”

“I am.”

“The boys going with Murrough, then?”

“They are not. At least not for now.”

The visitor smiled.

“For what it’s worth, I agree with the old man. It’s a nice, quiet place they got there, and I hear they don’t get out much, anyway. That said, I don’t see the need for this plan of secrecy and watching from afar. We should tell ‘em, and—”

“—Thank you, Maeve,” Mrs. MacSweeney said. “Your views on the matter will be taken under advisement. Again.”

Maeve squinted and craned her head from side to side as she peered into the house.

“Is he here?”

“He is,” Siobhan said. “Working with the boys in the field. He’s better, but his heart’s still in bits.”

Maeve had been riding through the late-April morning, but Siobhan knew that wasn’t the reason color now spread across her friend’s cheeks.

“He is kind of a softie,” she said as she pulled her hair behind her ear. “I’m sad to hear he’s taken it so hard.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Siobhan asked. “He lost childhood friends, he’s the sole survivor, and… well, by now you know yourself what he saw.”

“Some of it,” Maeve said. “I ran into some of the people from town as I was scouting the area. They took it upon themselves to move the poor souls from the grounds. They told me about how they found our people—never heard of anything like it.”

“That’s exactly what’s weighing on Gavin," Siobhan said. "Tell me you found something that might bring him some peace.”

“I’m not sure there would ever be much peace taken from a scene like that. Unless…”

Maeve wrinkled her nose and tilted her head.

“If we can get him back to Magheroarty, I think I can help with that. It’ll take both of us to convince him to come, though.”

A shout came from the field to the south. Cathal and Ciarán approached the house with Gavin right behind them.

“Oi!” Cathal yelled. “Did I hear Maeve O'Connor serenading our sister again?”

“Shut your bake, Third Brother,” Maeve said, “or Ciarán here will inherit your title.”

Cathal winked over a wide grin. Maeve did neither. She stepped toward the trio. A faint smile flickered across her face as she saw the trailing member of the group.

“Howya, Gavin?”

He nodded and smiled with only a flash of eye contact.

“Always good to see you, Maeve.”

Siobhan couldn’t help but grin. The person best suited to bring Gavin around had arrived—even if neither of them knew it.

****

The closer they came to the ill-fated campsite, the more agitated Gavin’s movements became.

A long beach stretched into the distance on their right. Past the beach, a small strip of green between the road and sea alternated between grazing fields and overgrown meadows. Soon the wagon would turn away from the sea and up into the hills that provided a covered view of everything coming from and going to Tory Island, the ancient home of the original Fomori.

Before she pulled the reins to turn off the road, Siobhan leaned over and kept her voice hushed.

“I know our options are limited, but are you sure coming here won’t make it worse?”

“MacSweeney, you’re the one that asked for my advice on this!” Maeve said, her volume to match. “Am I certain this will work? No. Do we have anything better to try? Also no.”

“You’re right,” Siobhan said.

“I’m what?” Maeve asked. “Sure look, you must be desp—”

“Stop!” Gavin yelled.

Siobhan slowed their pace. Maeve turned around.

“Gavin?”

“I can’t do it,” he said.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Gavin—”

“—I can’t go up that road. I can’t walk that path to camp. I can’t see the grounds and see all of them laying there.”

“I just came back from there,” Maeve said. “Everyone and everything was taken away.”

“That won’t stop me from seeing them.”

Maeve nodded.

“Do you trust me?”

Siobhan didn’t turn her head to view his answer, but her interest was piqued. She’d known Maeve for five years and if Siobhan had to label anyone as her “best friend,” it would be Maeve. Since Niall brought Gavin into their sílrad circle a few years ago, the hunter and the blacksmith had met a dozen times at the most for various reasons and purposes. There was a warm, playful side to Maeve that Siobhan rarely saw anymore. When she did see it of late, Gavin was always nearby.

“I suppose I do,” he said.

“Most of what I have to show you happened outside of the campsite. Close your eyes for now and trust that Siobhan and I are only trying to help.”

Gavin laid on the floor of wagon and closed his eyes. For the remainder of the trip, Maeve provided directions only through hand signals. As with many places around Tyrconnell, the “side road” was actually two ruts divided by a broken line of weeds. Siobhan was surprised to find nary a tree around here but the bushes and shrubs grew taller and thicker as they ascended the hill. If a group was careful with their fire these hills would provide an effective hiding spot.

It wasn’t long before the ladies noticed the red streaks on the ground, though much of it had been faded by foot, hoof, wheel and even wind. Siobhan needed no signals to recognize the path to the left toward the camp; the red stains were thicker and had not faded. They rode for another three hundred yards before Maeve signaled her to stop in an area of level ground. They hopped down and rounded the wagon’s rear.

“Gavin, don’t open your eyes yet,” Maeve said. “We went a bit farther up the road to the area I’d like you to see. You could keep your eyes closed and we can walk you there, but I can’t promise you won’t get slapped by some bushes along the way. Can I talk you into walking there with your eyes open?”

“You’ve put a lot of effort into makin’ this easy on me,” he said. “We’ll try it your way.”

“Grand,” she said. “First thing I want you to do is look at these marks at our feet.”

Siobhan joined him in following Maeve’s finger as she swung it from one edge of the road to the other. She noticed several gouges the ran across the clearing, leading to paths of bent and broken branches in both directions.

“What is this?” he asked.

“I’m simply asking you to remember it for later,” she said. “Follow me.”

She pushed her way through the broken path on the right, walking away from the place where Gavin found his comrades.

“It might be hard to see through bushes, but we have countless wolf tracks going in many directions,” she said. “There are three sets of human prints as well, but they are going in just two directions: back that way toward camp, and in the direction we’re heading now.”

Fighting through bushes and undergrowth forced a slow, uneven pace for the next four hundred yards. Maeve stopped at the edge of a bald spot in the hillside. Siobhan traced the clearing’s edge and noticed the start of three other trails much friendlier than the one they followed here. Blood stains were found throughout, in greater quantity than what Ciarán described a week ago.

“This is where it happened,” she said. “I don’t know why but our people came up from the north using that trail to our right. I can’t tell you how many animals they fought here. It was either a number too absurd for natural occurrence or a group of six to seven creatures cursed by the people who entered here from that trail leading southwest, likely to nearby Meenlaragh. Given the skill of our people, the creatures had to have been corrupted to fell them.”

“How far away is camp?” Siobhan asked.

“Too far for any of this battle to take place there.”

Gavin stepped toward the clearing.

“But the way I found ‘em…”

“Remember those marks in the road?" Maeve asked. "Those were drag marks. It took two trips for the three of them to move your friends and set up that blasphemy you found.”

“The stains by the camp were what, then?” Siobhan asked.

“My best guess? To throw us off their scent,” Maeve said. “They wanted us distraught with grief and horror so we couldn’t find this place.”

Gavin dipped his head and turned away.

“Might have been onto something with that,” he said.

Siobhan circled in front of him.

“Dya’see now, Gavin?” she said. “There’s nothing you could have done to stop this. What they did to our friends after the fact with their own weapons was as cruel as it was cowardly. Even Goibniu himself couldn’t make a piece of armor that protects someone who’s already gone.”

“I know there are going to be parts of that night that will continue to eat at you, and nobody but you can work through that,” Maeve said. “You’ll carry that night with you for a long time.”

She stood next to Siobhan in front of him to grab his full attention.

“There’s something I want you to carry even longer,” she said, “and that’s what I’ve shown you today. Gavin O’Roarke, you did not fail your friends, and I don’t ever want to hear that you’ve said otherwise.”

Gavin dropped his head and nodded several times. With a sniff he raised his head and looked them over.

“I’m still not right but, for once, it feels like I could be someday. Thank you both.”

****

“Do have everything you need?” Siobhan asked.

“I’ll give you the same answer I gave your mam inside,” Gavin said. “I have more than what I need.”

“Dya’get enough breakfast?”

“I did,” he said.

He smiled held up a burlap sack as long as Siobhan’s arm.

“And, as previously established, I’m more than cared for should I get hungry along the way. What on earth will you and your mam fret over once I’m gone?”

She chuckled and shrugged as he set the sack on the ground next to them.

“Niall will be glad to get Cáemaid back,” she said, idly stroking the horse’s neck.

“I’ll be sorry to see her go,” he said. “But she’s had two weeks of rest here while your family helped sort me out.”

“It wasn’t just us, you know.”

“Well, I’d love to give Maeve credit, but she’s never around long enough to hear it. Why couldn’t she have stayed even one night?”

“She said something about helping some acquaintances out in Derry,” Siobhan said. “I guess something we discussed yesterday in Magheroarty gave her an idea.”

“For the life of me I couldn’t imagine what that would be,” he said. “She is something.”

“Is she, now?” she asked.

Gavin’s cheekbones turned red as he realized what he said aloud.

“I’m sure she’d say the same about you,” she said.

Gavin began to stammer as his forehead turned red. Siobhan pushed matters a little too hard; time to let the smith off the hook.

“If she was around long enough, of course.”

“So, now what?” she asked after a shared laugh.

“I go back home, light a fire and then hammer on something dull until it’s sharp,” he said.

“Beyond that?”

“I think it’s going to be a while before I rush out looking for a fight. I’ll focus on perfecting the sílrad aspects of my work. Whatever you or your family need, just say the word and it’s yours. It’s the least I can do.”

“That’s very generous.”

Gavin hugged Siobhan and climbed atop Cáemaid. She handed him the bag and he draped it over his lap. He cast his eyes toward the main road and then hung his head.

“I’m going to meet those MacLaughlin boys at some point, aren’t I?” he asked.

She pursed her lips and gave her head a slight nod.

“It’s likely,” she said. “Mam’s suspects one of them could be sílrad. Murrough believes they both are. I’m inclined to agree with him.”

“And when that day comes, should I introduce myself as ‘descendant of Goibniu,’ or ‘the reason your mam’s not here?’”

Siobhan stepped toward the front of the horse.

“How about you start with ‘Gavin, the master blacksmith?’” she said. “This whole plan to keep them in the dark doesn’t feel right. I worry that when it falls apart, it’ll happen in a big way. If it does, their heads will be spinning as it is. Adding the details of their parents’ deaths would be too much."

Gavin looked back to the road. Siobhan shifted and returned to his eyeline.

"How about you help us keep them safe until we can properly tell them? That would be enough to honor Aoife’s memory, I think.”

“Then they can swear vengeance on me?”

Gavin chuckled, but Siobhan sensed there was more belief than jest in his comment.

“Finn has the makings of a good man in him,” she said. “Give him a chance to recognize that you are one as well.”

She let her advice hang in the air until he was ready to respond.

“I hope you’re right,” he said. “On both counts.”

She grinned.

“I’ve been right about a lot this week, haven’t I?”

Gavin’s laugh felt real this time.

“See you soon, Gavin.”

“You will, I’m sure of it. Slán.”