“My lords, you came from Cronine,” Casey said, “and you crossed this bridge to do it. It’s a famous bridge, and many good men have shrunken from its challenge. How did you manage? I’ve never crossed it before! Cú Ama guards this pass.”

“Cú Ama never emerged when we crossed,” the younger knight said.

“Cú Ama is a dog, and dogs smell fear,” the elder knight rationalized.

“I’ve lived here sixteen years, and I’ve never tested this beast. It’s not something a person just casually does. Do you know how many people have disappeared because of Cú Ama?” Casey felt his anxiety escalating as he spoke. His words spilled out faster and faster as he worried. Expressing his fear gave life to it. His heart pounded and his face warmed as he named the people Cú Ama took. He didn’t notice that Colm had dismounted from his horse until Colm backhanded him soundly across the face. Casey collapsed. He placed his hand on his upper jaw where the elder knight’s hand struck him. Blood warmed his fingertips. He looked at Colm’s hand—the elder knight wasn’t even wearing his gauntlets.

The younger knight, Ryan, dismounted from his horse and took a closer look. “You’re going to need stitches for that.” He opened a pouch at his hip and pulled out supplies for treating a wound. As Ryan cleaned and stitched the wound, Casey made a quiet, incredulous student of the knights’ words.

“There is a load you’re selected to carry,” Colm reminded him from a cold distance. “A man in your situation—or anyone who claims the title of man—is not permitted to express fear. Fear eclipses the real problem and immobilizes the man, but most importantly, fear spreads panic among everyone who depends upon a man. You’re the pillar of temperament in a crisis.”

“You struck me,” Casey said.

“You learned from me,” Colm reminded him, “and I will remind you if you forget. You’ve known enough tragedy and suffering to possess the sobriety of character courage requires. You have that in you.”

“There’s going to be a scar,” Ryan said as he stood up and looked at his handiwork.

Casey stood up and gently touched the wound. The pain still dazed him; he’d never been struck so hard in his life.

Colm mounted his horse and said without an ounce of remorse, “Better a scarred man than a dead man.” Colm pointed at the bridge. “Lead the way, hero.”

Casey walked in front of the knights and their horses. He touched his aching face and probed his thoughts. He wondered if the knights truly had his interest in mind if they placed him in the front. He doubted his own resolve. Had the terror been his mother speaking through him? She gave him so many blessings, but her fears didn’t serve him as an adult. The bridge drew nearer.

The wood of his staff touched the first stone in the walking path of the bridge, and he paused. He’d encountered this place in brave moments of his childhood before, but he never dared to get this close. The bridge seemed to be only stones, and the water underneath it held no secrets. He looked closer. The grass on the other side glistened in the sunlight, but some kind of heartbeat seemed to move the earth. The roots of the trees throbbed with life.

“Show us the way,” Colm insisted. Both knights stopped their horses behind him.

Casey tapped the stone bridge with his staff again, testing it. As he did this, storm clouds moved in overhead. The light of day became diffused. Shadows became fuzzy and disappeared. The sunlight and the blue glow of the sky vanished. Casey listened closely, and he heard the voices of people long gone. They came and went, as if carried on the wind, or echoing from a distant place.

“Cú Ama has kept us in this awful place.”

“Go back, Casey. Go home.”

“Cú Ama is coming.”

The voices confirmed what he’d known all along; this was an impossible place to travel. The storm clouds thickened overhead, and a heavy mist rolled into the landscape. Casey heard Cú Ama as soon as he saw him. The black dog’s heavy paws thudded on the earth as he walked with a spring in his step. The beast must have smelled Casey and anticipated an exciting encounter. It arrived at the end of the bridge, as tall as two men standing upright. It grunted and sniffed at the air. His eyes seemed golden from a distance, but as he turned his head, they caught the light and glowed yellow at certain angles. Cú Ama stood at the far end of the bridge, daring Casey to take another step forward. He gave a single, grumbling bark to warn the teenage boy. Casey focused on what the dog told him.

Casey approaches the first bridge! [https://i.imgur.com/gofee4i.jpg]

“A dragon collects wealth, but I’m crueler and more selfish,” Cú Ama said as he paralyzed Casey with his yellow eyes. “I consume years of your life. I don’t believe you’re fit to cross my bridge. Test me, now. Cross the bridge. You can stitch a wound, but you can’t mend lost years.”

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One of the knights uttered something indecipherable behind Casey, and Casey looked back to them for support. Neither knight had an answer; they sat on their horses, hands on the hilts of their swords, and made no move. The sheer scale of the dog posed a problem. The knights’ swords were toothpicks for Cú Ama.

Casey looked back to the dog, who noticed his moment of uncertainty and encroached several steps. Whatever this game was, Casey felt himself losing it. The knights put him up to this awful test, those cruel brutes, and Casey didn’t see a way through it. It was the fear that summoned this beast, and the fear that made him draw nearer. As Casey saw through the game, he isolated the emotion in his heart that had been the root of so much trouble.

Casey forced his leg forward and took a step. His calf trembled a bit, but he walked forward, nonetheless, claiming that much more of the bridge for himself.

“You can bite me if you choose,” Casey said with a steady voice, “but you’re going to find my belt and shoes are made of tough, old, leather, and there isn’t much meat on my bones.” Casey took another step.

Cú Ama snarled and exposed his fangs. He snapped his jaws and drooled.

Casey surrendered himself to what came next. He stuck his father’s walking stick ahead to put something between himself and the beast. Casey took several more steps forward. “I miss my friend, Brendan. You took him from us, didn’t you?”

Cú Ama snapped and snarled again and took a single step forward. His fur bristled up, and his stench reached Casey’s nostrils.

Casey walked forward until his stick could almost poke Cú Ama. “Now Holly is a widow, and her child has no father. I can’t let you take from us anymore! Get back!” With thoughts of Holly and Brendan in his heart, he lunged forward at the beast with his walking stick. Cú Ama took a step back and reached down to snap his jaws at Casey. Casey swung his stick up at the dog’s face, barely missing him.

The dog flinched. To Casey’s astonishment, and to the nourishment of his spirit, Cú Ama ducked his head and shrunk down.

Casey maintained his forward momentum and swung again. The dog stepped back several times. Had anyone ever shown courage to him before? Cú Ama lumbered and wavered like a tree in a twister as he began the awkward process of walking backwards. No dog mastered that skill. As he walked backward, his body shrank down in proportion to Casey’s diminishing fear. Casey approached faster and swung his staff with increasing speed, and the dog tumbled backward clumsily. When he sprang back onto his feet, he was a medium sized house dog.

He had no real power to hold over Casey. Cú Ama ran away.

Casey felt the soft earth under his feet and realized he’d crossed the entire bridge. He gripped the staff tightly and looked over the earth. Gaseous mist moved around numerous lumps in the ground. The grass and dirt split apart, and ethereal forms lifted up until they reached the height of common men. In several moments, the victims of Cú Ama materialized from the forms. With a moment of selflessness, Casey had brought freedom to the prisoners. Cú Ama’s power over the land dissipated, and the people he held hostage returned.

Casey stepped into the field of dazed, newly liberated people. The wind whistled through the leaves of several maple trees as if to cheer for him. The sun broke through the dense cover of clouds in luminous beams. The light fell on Casey, warming his face. Tears formed in his eyes as he saw Brendan Cameron standing in the field. He wore an orange tunic, and his long, red hair fell past his shoulders, just as Casey remembered.

“Brendan?”

“Casey, you came for me!” Brendan waved and smiled. “You must have rattled that dog’s nerves. He lost his grip on us.” Brendan’s smile faded as he paused to think. “I’m so ashamed he ever got the better of me. I had too many fears about my new family and our business. Cú Ama made quick work of me.”

“You’ll have to get out of here quickly; I didn’t kill the beast. He’s just stunned now.”

“Bravery can do that,” Brendan said as he gave his friend a hug.

“Are you okay, my friend?” Casey asked over his shoulder. He struggled to speak because Brendan hugged him so tightly. “I worried about you.”

“The months have been awful, but I’m alive and free. I’ve missed my family and thought of them every day. My wife has had our child now, hasn’t she? Is it a beautiful girl? A fine young boy?”

Casey smiled and said, “I can’t spoil these things for you; this was for your wife to tell you!”

“It was,” Brendan agreed. He took a step back and looked in the direction of the village. “What did they say about me when I disappeared? Did they hate me? Call me a deserter?”

“She loves you and misses you still. She speaks kindly of you and hates the dog that stole you from her. There’s a seat in the pub she keeps empty just for you.”

“If people still speak of me fondly, and Holly’s love for me hasn’t died, then my return will be much easier. I feared that enough time would pass for people to be flippant about me, for me to stop being a person and only be an idea or a name. Every day I spent trapped in the earth, my fear of that moment paralyzed me. Thankfully, I still have time. You can read the season of life by the words people speak! Thank you, Casey.”

“You don’t have to thank me. Go see your family!”

Brendan almost turned to start his trek home, but a thought stopped him. “Hey, what happened to you? I never would have expected you to be the one to stare down Cú Ama.”

“The loss of you sobered me up, among other things.” Casey touched his scar. “There’s no room for cowardice in the world.”

Brendan wanted to say more, but he only smiled at his friend, the man who grew courage enough to save him. With a wife and child waiting for Brendan, he left. Brendan crossed the bridge and returned to the familiar world of comfortable routines that Casey had to let go of.

Colm approached on horseback and said, “The words of the people of Abernathair—who called you a coward—are now fiction. Their spell on you is broken.”

“I’m a new man.”

“Next you’ll confront Rey Polilla himself,” Colm said with a stern faith in his voice. He looked down at Casey from his horse with an unusual hope in his eyes. “By then, we’ll have made such a man of you, that he’ll quiver at the sight of you!”

“I have a hard time believing you.”

Colm raised a single finger to punctuate the moment. With straight posture and a firm voice, he regained the air of a proper gentleman and said, “Our words are alchemy.”