Oath of the Brotherhood

by C. E. Laureano

  “Do you understand what you’re asking, boy?” His gaze, sharp and predatory, pinned Conor in place. “Do you really know what this Labhrás was telling you to do?”

  Conor swallowed his fear. “My uncle has answers I need. I just want to speak with him.”

  “Men who enter Ard Dhaimhin rarely leave. Crossing our borders means you surrender your life to the will of the brotherhood, whatever that may be. Are you willing to do that, Conor Mac Nir?”

  Conor’s heart rose into his throat. Once he went to Ard Dhaimhin, he might never be allowed to leave? Had Labhrás known what he asked when he sent Conor here?

  “That’s the price of your answers. Make your decision now. You can come with me or return to Lisdara, but you’re in danger if you stay where you are.”

  “I’m not much of a fighter.”

  The Fíréin brother only stared back at him, unblinking.

  Conor cast a look north, where they would soon find his horse, blood-smeared and riderless. What choice did he have?

  “I’ll come with you.”

  The man just nodded and walked away. Conor stared at his back until he realized he was meant to follow and then rushed to catch up.

  “My name is Brother Odran,” the warrior said when Conor fell into step beside him. “Try to keep up the best you can. It’s several days’ walk to the city.”

  Walk was a misnomer, and the exhortation to keep up might as well have been an instruction to fly. Brother Odran moved with the speed of a hunting cat, eating up long swaths of ground without leaving any sign of his passage. Apparently, the Fíréin’s reputation was based in fact, not legend.

  Conor pressed forward, stumbling over half-buried roots and protruding rocks. After what seemed like hours, though it could have been mere minutes, his legs began to ache, and his lungs burned. If Odran kept up this pace for two days, Conor would save them the trouble of killing him and drop dead here in the forest.

  A few times, he thought the man had given up on him and left him behind, but each time, he rounded the bend to find Odran waiting. The brother said nothing, just took the lead again and set the pace faster. He might have been a spirit and not flesh and blood for the way he moved. After Conor’s encounter with the sidhe, it was not a comforting thought.

  Odran at last stopped beside a fallen log and passed a water skin to Conor, who gulped the cool liquid gratefully. “Not too much. You’ll cramp.”

  Conor returned the water skin and sank down onto the log. His legs throbbed and tingled. “I tried to warn you. I’m a complete weakling.”

  “A scholar, are you?”

  “A musician.”

  “Truly? Who taught you?”

  “I taught myself to play, but lately I studied with the bard Meallachán.”

  “Master Liam will find that interesting.”

  Conor wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Who is Master Liam?”

  “The Ceannaire, our leader. He will be the one who decides what happens to you.”

  Conor swallowed. That didn’t sound promising. “Master Liam knows Master Meallachán?”

  “Aye. Can you go on?”

  Conor stood and tested his aching legs. “I will do my best.”

  Odran moved away, leaving Conor to shoulder his small pack and hurry after him. A sick feeling crept into his middle. Why had he thought this would be simple?

  By the time daylight faded from the forest, Conor wanted to die. His limbs cramped painfully, his lungs felt as if they would burst, and he could barely stagger forward in a straight line. When Odran stopped for the night, he was too tired to do anything but collapse in an aching heap on the forest floor.

  “You all right?” Odran squatted to light a fire with a knife and flint. “You look tired.”

  Conor shot him a scathing look.

  “We’ll need to pick up the pace tomorrow if we’re to reach Ard Dhaimhin by nightfall. We didn’t cover as much ground today as I’d hoped.” The tinder caught, and Odran stoked the flames until a fire crackled between them.

  Conor scooted closer to the flames, not dignifying the comment with a response. He eased himself back on his elbows and closed his eyes until a booted toe nudged him.

  “Here.” Odran offered him a morsel of meat on the point of his knife.

  Conor sat up and took the food. Odran dissected a roasted rabbit on a piece of clean-scraped bark, while a second one cooked on a spit.

  “You had time to hunt? How long did I sleep?”

  “An hour, perhaps.” Odran gestured behind him with the knife. “We’re following a trap line.”

  “What’s a trap line?”

  Odran picked up a stick and scratched a diagram into the dirt. “The forest is divided into quadrants, and each quadrant has a grid. Along each intersection of the gridlines is a trap. We follow trap lines so we don’t have to hunt while we patrol the forest. The sentries are responsible for maintaining the traps on their section of the grid.”

  “What sentries?”

  Odran smiled for the first time, a true expression of pleasure. “We’ve passed at least a half dozen since this morning.”

  Conor gulped. No wonder wanderers disappeared so easily and invisibly in the forest. “How many Fíréin are there? Total, I mean, not just on guard.”

  “Right now, including novices? Close to four thousand.”

  Four thousand. That made Ard Dhaimhin the largest city outside the seaports on the Amantine, but it boasted more trained fighters than all of them put together. Tigh could probably muster only half that many.

  Conor dared another question. “What will happen to me once we get to Ard Dhaimhin?”

  Odran passed a portion of the rabbit meat on a shard of bark, then removed the second one from the spit. “That depends on your abilities. Every man is required to train in fighting arts and study various subjects. Not everyone is suited to becoming a warrior. Some find other occupations, like farming, fishing, or weaving.”

  “You do all that in Ard Dhaimhin?”

  “We couldn’t have remained separate all these centuries if we weren’t self-sufficient,” Odran said, smiling.

  Conor studied Odran closely in the firelight. Perhaps he wasn’t as humorless as he thought. He just didn’t find much very funny. He was younger than Conor had assumed from his demeanor, too, perhaps only five-and-twenty. He didn’t carry himself like warriors Conor had known, but he was dexterous and well-muscled, without a single ounce of fat on his body. “What are you?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You can fight, but I don’t think you’re a warrior, at least not in the usual sense.”

  “You’re right. I’m a tracker.”

  “Like a hunter?”

  Odran smiled again. “Something like that.”

  Conor thought of how the sword had just appeared at his throat. Odran could have killed him before he ever knew he was in danger. “You track people. People who breach the wards.”

  “You’re quick.”

  “And you kill them?”

  “Usually.”

  “Were you going to kill me?”

  “What would you rather I say, aye or no?”

  Conor looked down at his food, his appetite gone. “I think I’d rather not know.”

  “Good decision.” The tracker tore meat off the skinny rabbit bone with his teeth.

  Conor rolled onto his side by the fire, recalling his childhood fascination with the Fíréin. How naive he had been.

  He slept fitfully, his dreams tangled with images of Lisdara and fragments of harp music. He started awake beside ashes, alone, his heart hammering wildly. When he tried to stand, his muscles cramped in protest, and he collapsed onto the dirt.

  Had Odran given up on him? Had he just left him there?

  The brother appeared through the trees, still moving soundlessly, as if his feet didn’t touch the forest floor. He tossed Conor the newly filled water skin and scattered the remnants of their fire. “Let’s go. We have a lot of g
round to cover.”

  Conor barely restrained a moan. His legs felt like lead, if lead could feel such agony. Even his back and shoulders ached. He felt as if he’d gone a dozen rounds with Glenmallaig’s house guard. And Odran expected him to move faster today?

  He had no choice, though. Any sympathy Odran might have felt had dissolved overnight, and Conor had to keep up or be left behind. The brother no longer waited for him. If Conor slowed his pace, he had to redouble his efforts to catch up. Despite his alternately numb and aching body, he drew on hidden reserves of strength and matched the tracker’s pace. Perhaps he wasn’t so pathetic after all.

  Never mind that Odran looked as if he had been out for a stroll, while Conor staggered along, sweating and panting. The brother had told him to keep up. He hadn’t said he needed to look impressive while doing it.

  “How much farther?” Conor asked between gasps. “Will we make it to Ard Dhaimhin tonight?”

  “At this rate, we won’t make it to Ard Dhaimhin for three days.”

  It was probably just sarcasm, but the pace increased after that.

  Conor’s pain increased, too, until he was one aching, quivering mass. His shaky legs threatened to give out with each step. Weak from lack of rest and food, he no longer cared if he collapsed and Odran left him behind. At least then he wouldn’t have to walk anymore.

  Just as Conor was about to abandon his pride and say he couldn’t go on, Odran stopped. Conor stumbled to his side, silently praying for rest. Then he followed the tracker’s gaze, and his mouth fell open in amazement.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The stories about Ard Dhaimhin left Conor unprepared for his first look. The ground sloped steeply before them to a massive loch, which spread like blue glass to each end of his vision. Half a dozen crannogs dotted the lake’s surface, the small islands connected to the shore and to one another by a web of ropes and pulleys attached to bark boats. Thatched cottages and stone clochans spread from the shore. Beyond, thousands of acres of crops stretched to the distant tree line at the mountains beyond.

  Then there was Carraigmór. All his life, Conor had heard tales about the impenetrable fortress on the cliff, but the traditional descriptions missed the mark. It was not a fortress built upon a cliff, but rather it was the cliff, carved from the sheer granite rock face that dropped hundreds of yards down into the lake. He could make out glass windows and square stone balustrades, but if he hadn’t known where to look, he might have overlooked the structure entirely. It felt ancient, organic, as if it had sprung up from the land itself. He could not help but be humbled before the sight.

  Odran watched him, a slight smile playing on his lips. Conor opened and closed his mouth several times before he managed to speak. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Few who aren’t Fíréin have,” Odran said with pride. “Come, it’s still a long way to the city.”

  Conor followed Odran down the steep, narrow switchbacks, barely wide enough for a single man to pass. Occasionally, Conor heard a birdcall he presumed came from a sentry, and Odran whistled a reply.

  After nearly an hour, the switchbacks flattened into a path that bordered the marshy lakeshore. From this vantage, the lake looked more like a sea. Conor knew he was gaping like a child, but he didn’t try to restrain himself. He couldn’t imagine a newcomer who wouldn’t be impressed by Ard Dhaimhin.

  Odran paused for Conor to catch up and led him down the road into the main village, where the Fíréin’s principal industries took place: blacksmithing, candle making, weaving, tanning. Ard Dhaimhin teemed with life, brimming with sights and sounds he would have imagined only in the great seaports. The clang of metal rang above conversation and the rumbling wheels of the handcarts that seemed to be the city’s main mode of transport. Quenching iron drifted on the air, melding with the smells of hot beeswax, food, and wood smoke.

  Odran directed Conor’s attention to the expanse of fertile land beyond the craftsmen’s cottages. “We cultivate all our food. Wheat, flax, and greens are grown back there. The beehives in the alfalfa fields provide honey and pollinate the orchards. We raise goats and chickens in the pasturelands beyond. As you can see, we have everything we need.”

  Conor quickly noted the greatest difference between the Fíréin city and those of the kingdoms: the lack of women and children. It seemed odd to see men engaged in pursuits like laundry and cooking; odder still that they all appeared trim and muscular, the kind of men Conor would expect to see displaying sword work in the practice yard. Most gave Conor’s passage no notice, though a few raised hands in greeting to Odran.

  After what had to be miles, they approached the massive cliff. Hundreds of narrow steps marked the side of the mountain, glistening with the water that seeped from the hillside. Conor stared at the steps. He had forgotten his exhausted body in his awe of the city, but the mere thought of traversing this staircase made his muscles quiver.

  “Come on,” Odran said. “You first.”

  He’d come this far. It was pointless to give up now. He forced his rubbery legs forward and counted the steps as he climbed, hoping to distract himself from both the dizzying view and his bone-deep weariness.

  “King Daimhin was either very intelligent or very suspicious,” Conor muttered after he had counted two hundred steps and still the fortress loomed high above them.

  “Both, I’m sure. The climb made his lords think hard about the matters they brought before him.”

  Conor’s chuckle dissolved into a wheeze. “That’s one way to encourage men to solve their own problems.”

  The top of the stairs emptied through a tall, square doorway into a granite terrace only two spans deep and twice as wide. Smooth stone, polished by five hundred years’ worth of foot traffic, paved the floor. Another short flight of stairs led up to a nondescript wooden door, where a single guard stood watch.

  “Conor Mac Nir,” Odran told the guard. “He’s expected.”

  Odran turned to Conor. “This is where I leave you. Good luck.”

  Conor watched the tracker descend the steps until he realized the guard was holding the door for him. He stepped inside and once more was unable to keep the wonder from his face. A great cavern of rock surrounded him, its vaulted ceilings stretching beyond the reach of the massive, man-sized candles that lit the interior. Two long rows of oak chairs lined the sides of the hall, drawing his eye to the room’s centerpiece. The famed Rune Throne was not a chair, exactly, but an interwoven tangle of ancient roots, polished to a high shine. Tendrils cradled a marble slab upon which were etched the Odlum characters that gave the throne its name. A fitting throne for a king who had carved his fortress from a cliff.

  A second man met Conor inside the door. “Conor Mac Nir? Please wait here.” The man disappeared down a corridor, his footsteps echoing off the rock.

  He was standing in the fortress of the High King of Seare, Conor thought in amazement. Daimhin himself had walked these halls.

  Footsteps reverberated off stone, and Conor turned toward the sound. He knew the man instantly, not because they’d ever met, but because it was like seeing a vision of himself in the future. Like his younger brothers, Riordan Mac Nir possessed wheat-colored hair and blue-gray eyes, but he was taller and more slender, his wiry build corded with lean muscle.

  Riordan’s long stride ate up the space between them, and he crushed Conor in a bone-breaking embrace. “Conor! When Brother Odran sent word back, I thought he had to be mistaken!”

  Conor pulled back, recalling what had precipitated his trip. “The king is dead. Lord Labhrás has been executed.”

  A shadow of grief passed over Riordan’s face. “I know. I’m sorry, son.”

  “Lord Labhrás told me to find you if something should happen to him, so I left Lisdara. They think I’m dead.” He snapped his mouth shut on his ramblings.

  “You look halfway there. Let’s get you some food and a hot bath, and you can tell me the story from the beginning.”

  Conor nodded m
utely, surprised by the instant affinity he felt for his uncle. Despite the obvious Mac Nir resemblance, Riordan reminded him more of Labhrás than Galbraith. Still, he could not forget that this man had orchestrated his early life. To what end he was not yet sure.

  For now, he put aside those concerns in favor of more pressing questions. “Do we have to go back down the stairs?”

  “No.” Riordan chuckled. “There are guest chambers here at Carraigmór. You can stay here until other arrangements are made.”

  Conor nodded, though the mention of other arrangements stirred up nervousness. Riordan would welcome him—after all, Conor was his nephew—but would the Ceannaire?

  His uncle flagged down a gray-haired man passing in the corridor. “Brother Daigh, would you show Conor to one of the guest rooms? I’m late for my evening lesson.” Riordan glanced at Conor. “Don’t worry, Daigh will get you settled. I’ll find you later.”

  Conor looked at Brother Daigh, alarmed he was inconveniencing one of Ard Dhaimhin’s elders. “I’m sure I can find my way if you’ve other things to do.”

  “It’s no trouble. Come, it’s not far.”

  Riordan nodded reassuringly to Conor, so he followed Brother Daigh through an arched doorway. The corridor curved upward like a tunnel and climbed a steep flight of stairs carved out of polished rock. Thick torches set in iron brackets cast intersecting pools of light and painted the ceilings with soot.

  As they proceeded deeper into the fortress, Conor studied Brother Daigh. He, too, had the bearing of a fighter, despite the fact he had to be somewhere in his sixties. Why was he acting like a servant?

  “Our ways will seem odd after life in the kingdoms,” Daigh said. “I thought so when I came. But whether a novice or the Ceannaire himself, we are all equal in Comdiu’s eyes. We all take our turns serving at Carraigmór and working the land.”

  “How do you keep order?”

  “We have ranks. As Conclave members, Brother Riordan and I rank below only the Ceannaire himself, so we have the responsibility of giving direction to our brothers. But we value humility as much as we prize accomplishment.”