The defiant voices of the Droma-men rumbled through the darkness.

Oh-hooo…

You'll never beat the Droma

No matter what you do

You can put us down! And keep us out!

But we'll come back again!

      Eithne shook her head at the brave, resilient fools as she limped to the edge of their camp.

You know we are the fighting Droma

And we'll fight until the end

You know you should have known

You'll never beat

The Droma!

      The sentry on picket stopped her for a moment, then gaped at her. “My lady?”

      “Aye. I’m sorry, Gaeth. I’m afraid I don’t know the password.”

      “Oh, no matter, my lady, no matter.” He waved to a pair of passing soldiers. “You there. Escort the lady straight to the king’s pavilion. Hop to it!” Gaeth knuckled his forelock. “Good to have you back, mum. Any word of the king?”

      She gritted her teeth. “No, damn it. Not yet. But believe me, I intend to get some.”

      Gaeth’s eyes rounded at the expression on her face. “Gods help ‘em when you do, my lady.”

      “Aye.” She patted him on the arm as she passed. “As you were, Gaeth.” She looked back beyond the sharpened birch stakes of the camp. “There are strange folk abroad.”

      The soldiers took her to her father, who sat in council with Medyr and the Lord Lorcán in the king’s pavilion. The Lord-Drymyn took one look at her and hustled them off before she could get a greeting out of her mouth.

      “Out, both of you. You can see she’s wounded. We all have questions, but questions will keep! Out!”

      The first honest relief she’d felt all day flooded through her. Medyr had earned her trust on their long dangerous journey to the Vale. She raised her hand to stay Father’s objections. “It’s alright. Please. I need his attention before yours.”

      They scowled deep in their beards, but went as they were told. Medyr found a cup of honest ôl for her and fussed over her wounds.

      She leaned over her knees as she sat on the field cot, sipped at the stout brown drink, and told the priest her tale. Medyr dabbed with a linen cloth at the painful bite on her shoulder, and she winced.

      “You say bats made these wounds?”

      “Aye. Monstrous bats.”

      Medyr lifted her arm to regard the puncture wounds. “Mmhm. They would have to be, wouldn’t they?” He pressed the linen against the fang-marks.

      She winced. “Ow! Are you almost done?” She’d pulled off the ruined linen gown to let Medyr do his work, but her bare skin prickled and her nipples hardened in the cool evening air. The fire burning in the pit at the center of the tent did little to keep out the chill.

      “Hush.” Keeping his eyes studiously on her wound, he handed her a blanket, then poured a foul smelling linament onto the cloth and pressed at the wound again.

      She hugged the blanket to her chest.

      “There’s a risk of fever, my lady. Less monstrous bats, they are sometimes mad. Like dogs become mad.”

      Fear settled into the pit of Eithne’s stomach. Dog-madness was no idle threat.

      He knelt to examine her leg. “That Belenosian priest bandaged this?”

      “Aye.”

      He harrumphed. “Well, I can’t say he did a bad job of it.” He clapped her on the knee and rose. “In any case… I’m finished for now.” He dropped the soiled linens into a brass basin. “If you feel any tingling at the site of the wounds, let me know. Gelynion recommends a preparation made from the skull of a hanged man. No doubt we’ll have plenty of those hereabouts before too long.”

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      She thought of all the bandits and Cailech-men that had attacked their caravan on the trail. “No doubt.” The priestesses wouldn’t judge kindly those who’d brought war to the very mouth of the Vale. There’d be hangings for sure.

      A servant had been sent for her baggage, and Eithne pulled a fresh tunic over her head. It settled on her shoulders lightly.

      Medyr scowled at her as he washed his hands and wiped them on his light blue robes. “You should have stayed at the temple, my lady. You’d be safer there.”

      She put her injured leg gingerly into a pair of leather breeks, then the other leg, and stood to pull them to her waist. “Thank you, Lord-Drymyn, but I can’t think of a safer place than with the men of Dolgallu and Droma.” She cinched the breeks into place on her hips.

      He gave her a dead stare. “Then you haven’t thought very hard on it, my lady.”

      “Tell me something.” She squeezed her hand into her leather bracers and tightened them over her wrists. “What quarrel do these reformationists have?” Her meeting with the Belenosian pilgrims troubled her. Something about them seems… not right.

      The Lord-Drymyn tugged at his beard. “Well, that’s not so easily told, but I’ll do my best.” He leaned back on a table formed of boards and crates. “The invasions of the Sea-Foreigners on our southern shores separated us from our Súthrhaman Brethren for many years. Many of their observances and practices have been forgotten. In some ways, we’ve returned to the sacred practices of our ancestors, before we knew Súthrhaman ways.” He paused to pour himself a cup of ôl.

      Eithne pulled stockings onto her bare feet, and then soft leather boots over them. “So we don’t worship the Gods the way those in other lands worship them?”

      Smacking his lips, Medyr nodded. “No, it’s not so much about how we worship the Gods—they have theirs, we have ours, and each Circle respects the Gods of the other Circles. No, it’s more about how we drymyn do things. Like when we celebrate the feast Damara, or how folks should be married, and how often. Or—” He reached up and rubbed at his head where it was shaved from ear to ear across the front, then ran his hand through the hair knotted and braided from his crown to his shoulders. “—how we should wear our hair.” He shrugged. “Anyway, these Súthrhaman reforms challenge the ancient practices to which our own Circle has returned.”

      “So they would have us practice as they do?”

      “Aye, my lady.” He lit his pipe from a taper, puffed at it until the leaves burned steadily. The smell of burning mulch filled the tent. “Though we are all Drymynnists in name, the reformers consider us pagans and heretics. They believe there must be a single, universal way for a Universal Brotherhood to practice its rites and rituals.”

      “And you don’t agree?”

      Medyr shrugged. “It was the practice in ancient days for each Circle of drymyn to govern itself, without foreign interference.” He puffed on the pipe, hocked back, and spat into a brazier. “I don’t see why we should change our ways simply because the drymyn of a foreign land couldn’t manage their own affairs.”

      Her father’s voice called through the tent canvas. “Eithne?”

      She pondered the drymyn’s words a moment, then: “Aye, come in.”

      The canvas flaps parted. Father, tall and lean, wore the black, gold, and red tartan of their clan draped over a jack of ringed mail. Behind him came the Lord Lorcán, her would-be husband’s brother.

      Father’s worried glance took her in, before he turned it on Medyr.

      “She should be watched for fever, my lord.”

      Eithne fetched the priest a warning look.

      But the drymyn reassured him. “Otherwise, she’ll be sore for several days, and that’s the worst of it.”

      “Thank you, Lord-Drymyn.” Then Father hissed at her. “What were you thinking?”

      Eithne reached for her own coat of ringed mail and leather. “I’m fine—”

      “Fine? You show up here, muddy, wet, and bloodied—!”

      “I’m fine!” Anger flashed through her as she winced into the weight of her own harness of steel-rings and leather. “And you’ve no idea what happened up there, Father. I—” How can I make him understand? Fear and dread clutched at her throat. “I saw— Unnatural things—”

      Lorcán stood fidgeting beside Ciaran, eyes downcast, but he cleared his throat and interrupted then. “My brother?”

      Fear and anger rippled through her at the memory of Eowain, wrapped in funereal linens, arisen from that dread cauldron. “They said he’ll be well, but I don’t know where they took him…”

      Lorcán’s concern was not much relieved.

      “But I’m damned well going to find out.” She owed Eowain that much at least. He’d been kind to her, fought to defend her. He wanted their marriage to be an agreeable one and honest, not merely some political maneuver. He didn’t deserve to be kept a prisoner.

      She buckled her armor’s weight down over the pain and bandages, then belted on her sword.

      Father scowled at her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

      “Going back to get Eowain. They’re holding him prisoner up there, as they would have held me.”

      Medyr snorted. “Nonsense. They wanted to keep you safe.”

      “Against my will.”

      Father shook his head. “Medyr’s right. You aren’t safe here.”

      “So Alva said.” She shook her head. “When will you all learn I’m not afraid to defend myself? And someone had to come and tell you what happened up there. We can’t just leave Eowain there.”

      “Eithne, be reasonable! Even with the two dozen men Fethgna brought, we’re still not—”

      “Wait— My brother’s here?”

      “Aye, and your aunt and your mother as well, but listen—”

      A guard put his head through the flap of the tent. “Lord Lorcán? There are men here from King Ardgar of Ivearda. They insist on speaking with the Lord Ciaran.”