Tales from Tyrconnell

Tale 2: The Twins and the Wolves

“Why are we here, Maeve?” the man asked.

Maeve O’Connor rose from her stooped position and clapped the dirt and grass from her hands. She eyed the pair that stood across from her in the early dawn.

“You were the ones that asked for my help,” she said.

“We did,” he said. “But that was down in the Creeve. Yer man sent for us, and now we’re sixty miles from home, well past the Foyle and Swilly, standing at the foot of God-knows-where.”

Maeve raised her right hand and pointed its fingers in the air.

“I’ll repeat myself, O’Cahan,” Maeve said. “You asked for my help. Dya’think your issues are incapable of crossing the River Foyle?”

Brendan O’Cahan scratched a patch of scruff near the back of his jaw. There wasn’t enough hair above his mouth to meet the most generous definition of a beard. Wide-set eyes of pale green glanced toward his sister, Brigid. She tilted her head in Maeve’s direction.

Brendan shifted in place and reset his staff on the ground.

“Go on, then,” he said.

“What do you see?” Maeve asked with a nod to the ground.

“The Holy Father and King Edward sittin’ for tae.”

Brigid swung the back of her right hand into Brendan’s midsection with enough force to send her brother’s shoulders forward. She was sturdier and stronger than her brother, and two days of travel with him had eroded her patience.

“Besides the stag at our feet?” she asked. “My brother’s charm notwithstanding, it’s a bit early for lessons, Maeve.”

Maeve gave the sister a conciliatory nod. It was, in fact, too early for open-ended questions.

“Look closer,” Maeve said. “What do you see on its body? What is missing?”

“Hard to miss the bite marks about its throat,” Brendan said.

He squinted and gave the the carcass a more discerning look.

“The green around the wounds doesn’t look natural.”

“It does not,” Brigid said. “Maybe that is the reason why there are no other marks on it. Not even the scavengers have taken a piece from it, and this is not a fresh kill.”

Brigid knelt and pulled back the red locks obstructing her view with her left hand, which she then used to block the stench of carrion. She traced the exposed patterns on the ground with the index and middle fingers of her right hand.

“Wolves,” she said.

Maeve nodded.

“Doesn’t it remind you of the attacks near the Creeve a few months ago?” Maeve asked. “The ones for which you bade my services?”

“So why, then, aren’t we looking at a cow or sheep closer to home?” Brendan asked.

“Because there haven’t been any lately,” Brigid said. “They’ve moved west, apparently.”

Brigid stood and scanned the hills behind Maeve. The June morning sun bathed the bone-colored outcroppings surrounding Knockalla in orange light. Maeve fixed her eyes upon a detail further downhill.

“We must have passed a dozen farms between here and Rathmullan,” Brendan said. “Why are they messing with a stag with all the cows standing about?”

“For that matter, what made them decide to leave our land and come here?” Brigid asked.

“Not ‘what,’” Maeve said.

She stepped away from the twins and walked toward a wild growth of shrubs a hundred yards away.

“Where are you going?” Brendan asked.

“Someone was in those bushes,” Maeve said.

The ground was even with no pits or stones obscured by the shaggy grass. That didn’t stop the twins from stumbling a few times as they neared the target area. Maeve pointed to the broken branches and trampled turf at her feet.

“Someone was standing here, alright,” Brigid said. “How did you see this from over there?”

“Everyone always underestimates how much time I’ve spent sitting on my own,” Maeve said. “It leaves a lot of time to stare at the world around me. A lot of time to think. A lot of time to notice the patterns nature makes. When one of those patterns is broken, that spot may as well be on fire as far as my vision is concerned.”

Brendan’s jaw pushed on the middle of his upper lip as he nodded.

“Fair play,” he said. “What does this mean, though? Are we looking at the footprints of the luckiest person on the peninsula?”

“I don’t think it’s luck,” she said. “I think he had a part in this.”

“What, they were his pets?” Brendan asked.

“You tell me,” Maeve said. “Make yourself useful.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Brendan smiled.

“Well, since we’re out here and all,” he said.

He hands moved in a clockwise circle in front of him.

“Sellaid síabrad.”

A faint blue light washed over his eyes. He looked down at the ground in front of them.

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “There are wolf tracks all around us, and the person’s footsteps are lit up, too.”

“Just around this area?” Brigid asked.

Brendan pointed his chin to the left of the stag’s location.

“They lead that way,” he said. “I think I can keep this going for another minute or so.”

He led the women to the left with slow, methodical steps, showing care not to break the movement of his hands.

“They traveled side-by-side,” he said. “Is that normal?”

“I’d need more information,” Maeve said, “but that’s not the makings of normal behavior.”

“I’ll bet those tracks break right soon,” Brigid said. “The stag was probably ahead of us when… well, it’s pretty clear at this point that the wolves were loosed upon the it. It probably ran to our right and they caught it where it now lays.”

Brendan took two more steps and dropped his hands to his sides.

“Right you are, sister,” he said. “They made the turn ten yards ahead of me. Looks like they kept perfect formation.”

Maeve shook her head and placed her hands on her hips.

“That’s certainly odd. But I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Brigid furrowed the brows above her eyes. They weren’t spread as far apart as her brother’s, but their green irises were just as pale.

“You run into a lot of magically-controlled wildlife out here in Tyrconnell?” Brigid asked.

“Not a lot, but this is at least the second attack I’ve seen that could fit this pattern.”

“What was it?” Brendan asked. “Sheep or cow?”

Maeve fought back the rush of heat to her head. As brash as he was, he could not have known how disrespectful his off-hand question was. Maeve considered the most direct yet gentle answer to his question.

“No,” she said. “Six weeks ago, several fellow sílrad were killed near their camp west of here.”

Brendan’s shoulders sank.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I—”

“—Even if you knew about their deaths, how could you have known the circumstances?” Maeve asked. “Niall and I aren’t sharing that part until we learn more.”

Brigid reached to her left to grab hold of her brother’s arm.

“That why you were called away from the Creeve?” she asked.

Maeve nodded.

“The attacks near your home had stopped,” she said. “Something I saw at the Magheroarty camp reminded me of your own problems. I spent a few weeks tracking any signs of similar activity and it led me here to Fanaid. I sent for the pair of you once I knew was close. This is only the other case where the scene had more than just oddly-aligned wolf tracks.”

“Do you want me to try following more traces of magic?” Brendan asked.

“We’d be out here all day,” Maeve said. “Let’s ride back into Rathmullan and ask about any strange sightings along the way.”

----------------------------------------

Brigid hopped backwards to dodge the slamming door.

“Such kindness and hospitality!” she said to the middle-aged man on the other side. “Can’t wait to tell my family back home that the reputation you folks in Tyrconnell have is bang on.”

She gave Maeve’s glare a second look.

“What?”

“You know you’re standing on their land, banging on their home in early morning, right?” Maeve asked.

“Why are you defending them?” Brigid asked. “You’re not from here, either. Are you going to stand there and tell me that they’ve embraced you as one of their own?”

Maeve folded her arms, shifted her weight to her left foot and held Brigid’s gaze with a furrowed brow.

“That’s what I thought,” Brigid said.

Maeve raised her chin and did not blink. Brigid’s shoulders sunk.

“This is the fourth farm within sight of that location,” she said. “Somehow nobody saw anything and nobody heard anything. Maddening.”

Brendan turned from the fields and put a hand on his sister’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t a fresh kill,” he said. “Maybe they just forgot and moved on.”

“Just like the folks in the Creeve all forgot?” Brigid asked. “I didn’t buy it then and I don’t buy it now.”

Maeve nodded and scanned the areas further down the slopes.

“It doesn’t help that we’re all from somewhere else but that’s not the reason people are keeping quiet,” Maeve said. “Did you see their faces? These people aren’t merely annoyed. They’re afraid.”

“Of what?” Brigid asked. “Wolves are nothing new.”

“True,” Brendan said. “But wolves that work under someone’s bidding with this level of precision—that’s something entirely new. Not to mention the nature of the wounds.”

He canted his head and glowered at Maeve.

“Are we boring you?”

Maeve shook her head without looking back at the twins.

“No more than usual,” she said. “I’m wondering if the ones that are buttoning these farmers’ lips are still around—or at least giving that impression to the people here.”

“And how would they manage that?” Brigid asked.

“I’m not certain,” Maeve said. “But let’s move on before we draw too much attention to this family.”

Maeve climbed atop Scáth and urged the dark draught horse forward with a kick of her heels. The trio headed west, away from the waters of Lough Swilly, and took the next road that led south.

“Tell me straight, Maeve,” Brendan said. “These are not your people. You can’t tell me that you prefer it here in Tyrconnell rather than back east with us and the proper sílrad.”

Maeve scoffed.

“‘Proper,’ he says.”

“Oi!” Brigid said. “Keep that ire focused on that gobdaw.”

Maeve looked at Brigid, closed her eyes and tilted her head in acknowledgment.

“Fine,” Maeve said. “He still needs to explain what he means.”

“We’re not some loose connection of culchies shepherded by a couple of old men and a mother of druids,” he said.

Maeve pulled Scáth to a halt.

“I don’t care how gifted of a sorcerer you are or how ‘proper’ your kin are,” Maeve said. “If I hear you talk like that about Niall MacRannell and my friends again I’m done with the lot of you.”

“C’mere to me Maeve,” Brigid said. “There’s no need to be dramatic about it.”

“I’m not being dramatic,” Maeve said. “I’m just stating facts. I like you two, and you O’Cahans and O’Neills have been as welcoming to me as any here in Ulster, but do not mistake where my loyalties lie.”

Brendan urged his horse closer to Maeve. The glint in his eyes and grin from his mouth were gone.

“I’m sorry, Maeve,” he said. “Truly. It was all just meant to be a bit of slagging, and I took it too far.”

“You did,” she said. “But thank you.”

She kicked her legs and resumed the ride to town. Brigid pulled even with her and leaned close.

“You know it’s because he’s always been a bit mad about you,” Brigid said.

Maeve glanced at Brigid from the side of her eye and nodded.

“Not the best way of showing it.”

Brigid chuckled.

“He’s just waitin’ for you to stop pining over that druid girl in Ballyness,” she said. “As if that were the only reason you’d turn him down.”

Maeve jerked her head back and showed her whole face to Brigid.

“Siobhan?” she asked. “That’s… not happening. And I’m not the pining type. She was never going to go for it, and I moved on years ago.”

She smiled.

“It’s for the best, anyway. It’s bad enough humoring her brother Cathal when I visit,” Maeve said. “To have that melter as family? No thanks.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Brigid said. “But there is somebody for ya, right?”

Maeve felt her cheeks warm and turned away in hopes that Brigid wouldn’t notice.

“So there is,” Brigid said.

Maeve closed her eyes as she sighed.

“Ah here, this is exactly what we should be discussing right now, isn’t it?” Maeve asked.

“You’re right,” said Brigid. “Back to business.”

The twins let the next minute pass in silence. Maeve’s mind drifted back to the stag at the foot of Knockalla. She had begun to compare this scene to Magheroarty—the place where the six sílrad were slain nearly two months ago—when she heard Brigid clear her throat.

“That person who turned you scarlet just now,” Brigid said, “it’s not me, is it? You’d tell me, right?”

Maeve groaned to the sky and pushed Scáth into a gallop. Even a few moments spent out of earshot of the twins would be bliss. That point was still some ways away, however, as she could still hear Brigid’s calls from behind.

“I swear I’m just teasin’ ya, Maeve! Come back and you’ll not hear another joke the rest of the way!”

“Sorry, boyo,” Maeve said to her horse as she rubbed the side of his neck. “I promise you’ll get some rest once we hit town.”

With that, she kicked Scáth into a sprint.