A Spark is Struck in Cruachan

by Bill Stackhouse

  “A brave man, our soldier,” Brynmor answered. “However, I now know the location of the kidnappers’ encampment.”

  “What shall we do with him?”

  “Line him up with the others,” Brynmor said with a casual shrug, devoid of any trace of remorse. “Unfortunately, he was unable to survive his injuries.”

  As Brynmor continued on past him, Finbar noticed that the elf used the edge of a sheaf of straw to wipe blood from the blade of his dagger.

  Yewday - Wolf 49th

  Cairbrigh Shire

  After their midday meal, the bowmen had returned to the archery range and resumed their practice under the watchful eye of the boss-man.

  From outside the encampment, two riders approached at a gallop, halting at the large boulder and waiting for the concealment/containment spell to be lifted.

  The boss-man said something to Slim, who, apparently, had been chosen as the designated runner. The groom sprinted toward the longhouse.

  Within a few minutes, the wood-nymph and phooka sensed both spells dissolve.

  The two riders raced across the ford directly to the corral. As they dismounted in front of the boss-man, the dual spells were reinstated.

  “Hurry! Get the bowmen ready!” the ambush-team leader shouted. “They’ll be here within a half hour!”

  The man-in-charge gestured to Porky, who immediately took off toward the main building; however, not nearly as fast as had his fellow groom.

  “Where’re the rest of your men?” the man-in-charge asked, dumfounded at seeing only the captain and one bowman.

  “An Saol Eile,” came the reply, laced with disgust. “Thanks to your faulty intelligence.”

  “What do you mean? How many men were there with the prince?”

  “It wasn’t how many,” the captain replied. “It was what kind. I was lead to believe that he would be accompanied by a contingent of Cruachanian Defense Forces. Instead, he had elves!”

  “Elves?!”

  “Yes, elves! And I don’t know how many. I got the slightest glimpse of only one of them, but there had to be at least a half dozen from the way they picked off my men. There were also two swordsmen with the prince; and, by the way, our prince is an excellent swordsman himself. I don’t know who trained him, but he managed to best one of my seasoned veterans without breaking a sweat.”

  Running his hand through his thinning hair, the man-in-charge was clearly exasperated.

  “But that’s not the worst of it,” the captain continued. “There was also a wizard. She hurled balls of lightning at my men and fried them where they stood.”

  The man-in-charge felt his stomach tighten. “Since you’re here, am I to assume that you didn’t harm her?” he asked, hopefully.

  “Harm her?! It’s sheer luck that the two of us managed to get away.” He gestured toward the bowman at his side, a man with fear in his eyes who had added nothing to the narrative, but simply stood there beside his leader bobbing his head in agreement.

  This is all falling apart, and rapidly, the boss-man thought. What he said, was, “She isn’t a wizard, Captain. She’s the Lady Máiréad, daughter of Earl Eógan and Countess Kyna, a mere gifted one.”

  “You didn’t see her in action! I did! And I’m telling you, when the prince’s party arrives here, she’s the first one your archers need to target.”

  The boss-man gave a wry laugh as he shook his head. “No, no, no, no, Captain. My archers will target the prince; then, we’ll all beat a hasty retreat and declare our mission accomplished.”

  “What?!”

  “Orders, Captain. Orders. The Lady Máiréad is not to be harmed, under penalty of death.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Someone much higher in rank than either of us.”

  By now, the Northman had arrived from the main building, and the boss-man began to translate the captain’s report on the botched ambush for the him.

  * * *

  “Doesn’t appear that he brought good news with him,” Siobhán remarked.

  “But good for us,” Yseult countered. “That was the horseman who left the compound yesterday as you galloped in.” She then proceeded to tell the phooka about the bits and pieces of the conversation that she had overheard the day before between the horseman and the boss-man.

  When the wood-nymph had finished, Siobhán said, “Then Paddy’s friends are on their way here. In order for the bowmen to target them, the containment barrier must be lifted. The time has come, Yseult. Let’s go down and make sure our Paddy’s ready to go when the opportunity presents itself.” Stepping behind the hawthorn for cover, she wriggled and shape-shifted into her dark-maiden form.

  * * *

  During the better part of the trip, not a word had been spoken. There had been no need. Everyone knew what lie ahead.

  Cadwgawn, astride his blond stallion Taran, took point. Next came Brynmor and Finbar in the open-bed wagon that the elf had brought out of the Central Federal Region with the artillators’ wares. Following them, Liam, with the Lady Máiréad by his side, drove the farrier’s wagon. Lairgnen and Killian brought up the rear of the convoy.

  Due to the escape of the ambush leader and singular bowman, the party no longer felt the need to be concerned with secrecy. By now, they figured, everyone in the kidnappers’ encampment knew the make-up of their little band.

  Periodically, Cadwgawn would turn and look back at Máiréad. Each time, Finbar did likewise. Whenever they did, the girl’s response was always the same. She shook her head, sending her flame-red curls in motion, indicating that she sensed no one lying in wait for them along the forest route.

  From his position out front, Cadwgawn came to a bend in the road before any of the others. No sooner had he rounded it, then he wheeled Taran around and galloped back to the open-bed wagon with his father and Finbar, holding up a hand for them to halt.

  Brynmor reined in the draught horses. Liam eased Stumbles and Clover up to them. And Lairgnen rode up from the rear to join the group.

  “The boulder that supposedly marks the entrance to the kidnappers’ encampment is just around this curve,” Cadwgawn whispered. “Would you please check again and see if you can detect anything, Lady Máiréad?”

  While the girl closed her eyes and sent out a mental probe, the others kept silent.

  Finally, opening her eyes, Máiréad frowned and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t detect any men or horses. However…however, I am getting a strange sensation. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it. I can’t quite figure it out, but I feel that there’s something definitely up ahead.”

  Brynmor looked up at his son and gave a single nod. Cadwgawn quickly dismounted and disappeared into the forest.

  About a quarter of an hour later, the elf reappeared. His countenance displayed a deep scowl. “I did not see or hear anything. No men. No horses. Nothing at all.”

  “No disrespect intended,” Liam said, keeping his voice down as had everyone else. “But are you sure this is the spot?”

  “No disrespect taken, Your Highness,” Brynmor answered. “However, I have absolutely no doubt that the bowman I questioned told me the truth as he knew it.”

  Lairgnen shook his head and let out a low groan. When everyone looked over at him, he asked, “That strange sensation, My Lady. By any chance, could it be the presence of magic that you’re feeling?”

  Máiréad considered the troubadour’s question for a moment, then remembered back to the day before the new year at Fox Pond:

  She had stopped while Pádraig had kept on walking. When he had gotten a half-dozen steps ahead of her, she flicked the fingers of her left hand in his direction, sending a miniature lightning bolt at his backside.

  No sooner had she loosed it then she felt the sensation of Pádraig’s magic detecting it.

  Without turning around, he made a movement with his right hand, deflecting the energy spike off into the pond where it sizzled as the water extinguished it.

  Máiréad raised an eyebrow in surp
rise that he had been able to not only sense but repel her magic without seeing it coming. She flicked her fingers again, sending another power-surge toward him, this one twice as potent.

  Again Pádraig sensed and deflected it without ever turning around.

  Yet a third time she tried, redoubling the power of the energy.

  Once more, without physically seeing it coming, the boy detected and stopped it before it made contact with him. Only this time, instead of deflecting it into the pond, he sent it back toward her so that it exploded at her feet.

  Closing her eyes, the young gifted one probed the forest ahead of them once more. After but a few seconds, she snapped her eyes open again and let out an “Oh!” Excitedly, she answered the troubadour’s question. “Yes! That’s it! That’s it, exactly! But a more powerful magic than any I’ve ever encountered. Much more so!”

  “What is it that you’re thinking?” Finbar asked Lairgnen.

  “You and I both know how skillful elfin interrogation techniques can be. We also know how effective the mental probe of a gifted one is. There can be only one explanation. The kidnappers’ compound is surrounded by a concealment spell.”

  “Is that even possible?” Liam asked.

  “Very possible, Your Highness” Finbar said. “Not easily so, but very possible for someone with the appropriate training.”

  “And that would be a very learned wizard,” Brynmor added. “A graduate from the Academy who has, at least, attained journeyman status.”

  “Suppose you’re wrong?” Liam asked.

  “There’s a quick way to find out,” the troubadour replied. Gesturing to the two elves, he said, “One of you fire an arrow into the forest beyond that boulder and see what happens to it.”

  Brynmor said, “Let us all observe the test.”

  Everyone dismounted, leaving their wagons and animals where they were. As a group, they walked up to the bend in the road and peeked around the curve.

  Cadwgawn notched an arrow in his bow and let it fly directly over the boulder and through an opening in the trees. It hadn’t gone more than eight feet into the woods before it shattered against an invisible obstacle.

  “What in the world—” Máiréad started, but Finbar put a hand on her shoulder to silence her.

  “Twenty feet to the left,” Brynmor whispered to his son.

  Both elves drew arrows and fired—Cadwgawn’s to the left of the first arrow and his father’s to the right. Again, both projectiles shattered at a distance of less than three yards into the trees.

  “What does that mean?” Liam asked. “That the concealment spell is impenetrable?”

  “It means that there are two spells, Your Highness,” Lairgnen replied. “A concealment spell and a containment spell.”

  “So we can’t get in?” Máiréad said.

  “No, My Lady,” Finbar answered. “But neither can they get out, unless whoever controls the containment spell lifts it.”

  “Then what do we do? Wait them out?”

  “No, My Lady,” Finbar again replied, this time with a wry smile. “We get them to lift it.”

  The prince seemed confused. “And how are we going to do that?”

  “By giving them what they want, Your Highness,” Brynmor answered.

  When Liam stood there, still looking perplexed, Cadwgawn pointed at him and said, “That would be you, Your Highness. They have another ambush planned and are waiting for us to ride into it.”

  “Finbar, please tell me that we’re not really going to do that,” Máiréad said, her green eyes registering the fear that she felt.

  “Well, we’re certainly not going to do it blindly, My Lady,” the farrier told her. “I need you to stand right here with Cadwgawn and concentrate on that dual spell that you sense, while the rest of us go back and get the wagons. When we get up closer, we’ll need to know the exact moment you detect any change in that spell.”

  “All right. But what will that tell you?”

  “That the containment portion of the spell is being lifted,” Lairgnen replied. “And we need to know it immediately, because in a few seconds after that, a volley of arrows will come flying out of that encampment, though the concealment spell, directly at us.”

  * * *

  After tying Taran and Killian to trees out of sight of the boulder, Finbar, with Liam beside him, drove the farrier’s wagon up to the curve. Brynmor and Lairgnen followed with the open-bed wagon.

  “Get in the back!” the prince told Máiréad.

  Once Cadwgawn had helped her up and over the tailgate, and he had climbed in the back of his father’s wagon, both the farrier and elf raced their respective carts up to the boulder. Finbar turned the horses in a tight circle, bringing them around so that they were on the side of the wagon opposite the encampment. Brynmor brought his wagon up and parked it so that his draught horses were next to Clover and Stumbles, and also protected by the farrier’s wagon.

  While Cadwgawn and Liam helped Máiréad down, Finbar and Brynmor removed all the weapons and goat-skin water bags from the two wagons. Everyone then took cover behind them.

  “What now?” the prince asked.

  Finbar looked over at Máiréad. Still monitoring the magic spell, she shook her head, sensing no change in it.

  “For now, we wait,” the farrier replied.

  * * *

  While all the kidnappers concentrated intently on the ford. Siobhán, once again in the form of the black mare, stood beside a large pine on the corral side of the pond, pretending to do what horses do best under the afternoon sun—nap. Pádraig, dressed in Liam’s clothes, with the brown horse blanket for a cloak, had snuck over there with her, and now concealed himself behind the tree, out of sight of the bowmen, guards, and wolfhounds. Yseult had made her way through the forest to as close as she could get to the kidnappers’ longhouse.

  Along with the bowmen, guards, the boss-man, and the Northman, the young farrier and phooka had seen Cadwgawn round the bend in the road, quickly wheel his horse about, and gallop back the way he had come. They had also watched as the arrows that the two elves had fired into the containment barrier had shattered. Now that the rescue party had brought their wagons up to the boulder, the waiting game had begun.

  The two grooms had been positioned as relays between the longhouse and the archers—Porky up near the main building and Slim halfway from there to the ford, looking directly back at his comrade.

  * * *

  “What are they waiting for?” Máiréad asked.

  “It’s gamesmanship, My Lady,” Finbar replied. “They figure the longer we sit out here and wait and wonder, the more nervous we’ll become.”

  “Guess what?” she said. “It’s working.”

  “Don’t let it, lass,” Lairgnen told her, softly and reassuringly, putting a fatherly hand on the girl’s shoulder and giving it a slight squeeze. “You have a very important job to do, here. Keep your mind focused on that barrier. Take my word for it. Killian is nervous enough for us all. Right now, Taran has his work cut out for him, keeping that poor old mule from becoming overwrought with the vapors.”

  Liam, Finbar, and Máiréad smiled. Had the two elves been human, they would have as well. However, their eyes did twinkle as they exchanged glances with each other. The elderly troubadour had broken the tension that everyone had felt.

  Giving the girl a wink and a final pat on the shoulder, Lairgnen crept over next to Finbar.

  * * *

  The waiting game had come to an end.

  Porky, directed by someone inside the longhouse, started to wave. Slim turned around and signaled toward the archers.

  The boss-man gave a nod and six of the bowmen who were fairly far away from the straw-sheaf barricades where the other archers hid, drew one arrow each from a bucket of liquid, and notched them in their bowstrings. All the projectiles had a four-inch cloth wrapping tied with twine just behind the arrowheads.

  Six guards, who had been standing next to a small campfire a few yards to th
e rear of the archers, each picked up a flaming stick and brought it forward toward the bowmen.

  The boss-man signaled to Slim, who relayed the sign to Porky.

  * * *

  “The arrows are probably soaked with oil,” Pádraig said, his voice filled with urgency. “They’re going to target the wagons. I have to stop them.”

  As he raised his arm, Siobhán gave him a strong admonishment. “No! Not yet! We have to wait for that containment spell to be lifted!”

  “But as soon as it is, the bowmen will fire!” the young farrier protested.

  “But unless it’s lifted, we won’t be able to escape. They have two-dozen archers in addition to the guards and dogs. You give us away now, and they’ll hunt us down. And once they’ve dealt with us, they’ll lift the containment spell and torch the wagons anyway. Don’t-do-anything! Just get ready to hop on my back the instant you feel that field lift. And hold on for dear life, because I’m heading straight across that ford at top speed. We’re not stopping for anything.”

  After a few seconds of silence, the phooka said, “Paddy?”

  Another few seconds passed and finally Pádraig uttered a very reluctant, “Okay.”

  * * *

  When things started happening, they transpired rapidly and almost simultaneously.

  By the time Porky started to wave at Slim, Pádraig and Siobhán had already sensed the containment spell lifting. Pádraig, although not completely in prime health, leapt onto the phooka’s back and she, with her ears back, immediately started galloping toward the ford.

  Two guards, stationed near the pond, had been the ones trying to capture the black mare earlier. Attempting to stop her now, one threw a rope around her neck as she raced by, and both men pulled her to a rearing halt.

  Instead of fighting the noose, Siobhán simply jumped straight up in the air, tucking her forelegs under her, while at the same time kicking her hind legs straight out at the top of the jump. Each hoof caught a guard squarely in the face, knocking both of them backward and into the water.

  “Get that thing off of me!” she directed Pádraig, as she came down on all four hooves.