by Jim Ware
Rury stepped out into the open and waved a hand at them. “This way!” he shouted. “Isn’t it any faster you can go?”
The leader, a narrow-faced fellow with a wispy red beard, wiped his brow and spit as the group drew near. “We’re coming as fast as fast may be, carrying such a load. Is it miracles you want?”
“Not miracles, Sengann,” answered Rury as the rest of the group came trooping in under the branches, “but something like. For here’s a miracle in our midst to be sure—a visitor from the world above!—and a storm following after. No rest for us when Fomorians pursue. It’s forward we must, and no delay.”
He turned to Eny with a slight bow. “Little’s the leisure we have for introductions. But you must know that we are the Fir Bolg—People of the Bags. Here is Sengann, my right hand, and Slanga his brother, and Crimthann carrying the bundle of spears. There’s Liber, my wife, and Genann with his woman, Crucha, and Anust the daughter of Dela. Silly geese, you may be thinking, and right enough from a certain point of view. But tough they are, and good-hearted, and enemies to her until death!”
Eny cast a glance around the circle. Not man or woman in it stood above five feet in height. Like Rury and Eochy, all were long-armed, bow-legged, brown-faced, and wrinkled. The men had beards and were dressed in rags. The women wore plaid shawls over long skirts of gray or tow-colored linen, frayed and liberally patched. Rury was bony and grizzled, Liber gray-headed and stout, Genann and Crucha white with age. Anust, small and round-faced, smiled pleasantly as she bound up her long red hair in a tattered blue cloth. Slanga, dark and thin, leaned on his staff and inclined his head in greeting. Crimthann, yellow-haired and taller than the rest by a good three inches, grinned and winked. Sengann muttered and scowled. Besides the heavy packs on their backs, each had a bulging leather bag or pouch dangling from a rope or a leather strap about the waist.
At sight of them a host of questions crowded Eny’s mind and danced on the tip of her tongue. But there was no time to satisfy her curiosity. No sooner had Crimthann handed out the weapons—spears with short oaken shafts and dull stone tips—but they hefted their baggage and set out. Sengann led the way, his unruly red head bobbing from side to side at the end of his sinewy neck. Rury trotted in the rear, keeping watch like a wary gray wolf. Crucha marched with Eny directly in the center of the line, holding her firmly but gently by the hand.
They moved at an incredible pace, running whenever possible, leaping over fallen logs, ducking under dangling branches, skirting around patches of marshy ground. The deeper they penetrated into the forest, the stranger and more marvelous grew their surroundings. Soon they were among trees and plants like none Eny had ever seen before. Ivory-white trunks like pillars of marble soared into a lofty canopy of green-gold leaves. Smaller trees, their twisted and blackened boughs heavy with reddish-purple fruit, took shelter in the shaded avenues. Around the travelers’ knees nodded ferns and flowering shrubs, their fronds and branches quivering softly in the liquid play of dappled sunlight, every leaf and blossom glistening with rainbow-refracting dewdrops. Moisture from the sea dripped in a soft but relentless rain from the interlacing branches. Delicate gold-winged seedpods and wisps of gossamer spiraled down through the mote-spangled air. Ropes of budding vines and nets of curling tendrils hung in loops above their heads. Birds, broad-winged and multicolored, darted from bough to bough, and gigantic yellow butterflies and big orange bees buzzed and fluttered past their ears. On all sides the green thickets rustled and shook with the movements of tiny hidden creatures.
They trekked for several miles before emerging from the wood onto the rounded brow of a treeless hill. Here, behind a screen of low-growing gorse and purple lilacs, Sengann halted and signaled a short rest. As soon as the order was given, Crucha, releasing Eny’s hand, dropped her pack and plumped down on the ground where she was. The others followed her example—all except Rury, who skipped to the edge of the height and stood gazing out over a broad grassy plain, divided by a meandering silver stream, to a heap of velvety green hills in the blue distance. Eny, shaken and exhausted, came up and crouched beside him.
“That’s our road,” said Rury. “Through the pass of Beinn Meallain. Beyond the settlements of the Tuatha De Danann, on the south side of Mag Adair, lies the dun of my brother Semeon. There we’ll get shelter.”
Eny nodded. But she wasn’t really listening. Her mind’s eye was filled with dreadful shapes and horrid apparitions. Her mouth was dry, her hands cold, her head drenched with sweat. She stood up and bent close to the little man.
“Who are the Fomorians?” she whispered, somehow fearing to speak the name aloud. “Why are they chasing me?”
Rury turned and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you not knowing?”
“Me?”
“And why not? Plain it is those lumbering apes have taken a keen interest in you. Not twice in a hundred of your years do we see an Overlander in the Sidhe! And you not to be knowing why!”
“But if you don’t know, why are you helping me?”
“The Fomorians themselves are reason enough.”
Eny groaned. “But this is crazy! How am I supposed to know what’s going on? I’m not even sure what the Sidhe is! Is that my mother’s Irish fairyland?”
“Faery it is, whatever your mother may say. What is it brought you here?”
Eny shut her eyes and pressed the palms of her hands against her temples. Her brain was reeling, and her head felt dizzy. “I’m not sure. It’s all so confusing! I saw a green island. And a crow, and an old woman. There was a strange light, and harp music. I heard a lot of talk about a Stone. I sank in deep water and fell into a dream. I—”
Rury gripped her by the arm. “Stone did you say?” His eyes were round and filled with fire. He stepped back and examined her at arm’s length. “That face!” he exclaimed. “Those eyes! Is it possible—?”
But his words were cut short by a terrible din. From the forest behind them came sounds of shattering wood and crashing timber. The earth quaked, and the trees flailed from side to side as if bent by a violent wind. Rury leaped down from the rock, peering back in the direction of the wood. Already Sengann and the others were on their feet.
“Dark shapes coming after us!” Sengann cried. “Like hounds after the hare!”
“Follow me, you flat-footed clumps!” shouted Rury as they quickly shouldered their burdens. “Across the meadow and over the water! They’ll find it harder to catch us among the folds of the hills!”
They were off at once. Down the slope they dashed, out across the plain, their packs rattling on their backs, their leather bags bouncing at their waists. Eny kept pace as best she could, jumping over little hillocks of grass, stubbing her toes on outcroppings of rock, scraping her shins against dead tree branches that lay hidden in the tall grass. Her legs felt like rubber, her lungs burned for want of air. But she pushed on, running as she’d never run before. They were nearly at the stream when her foot broke through the crumbling earth at the edge of a rabbit hole and she fell sprawling on her face.
When she looked up the others were already plunging into the shallow rivulet. Groaning, she scrambled to her knees. She opened her mouth to cry out, but her voice stuck in her throat. She tried to get up, but her legs and arms wouldn’t move.
In that instant everything changed. Sound and motion ceased. Time seemed to stand still. A veil descended over the scene, a hazy indistinctness clouded everything within her field of vision—everything, that is, except the jewel-like pebbles that lay shining beneath the bright water in the shallows of the stream.
Suddenly a figure appeared among those sparkling stones: a woman in a blue shawl standing ankle-deep in the water and washing a pile of old clothes. She looked up from her work and fixed Eny with her large green eyes. Her face was pale and oval-shaped beneath the shadow of her broad-brimmed hat. She smiled and reached out her hand. With a painful effo
rt, Eny struggled to her feet and took a single step forward. But then someone laid hold of her arm.
“After me, now!” said an urgent voice at her ear. “Across the stream! Already they’re upon us!”
She looked. Rury stood at her side. The strange vision had passed; the washer at the ford was gone. Glancing back over her shoulder, she caught sight of three gigantic men, tall as trees, thundering down the side of the valley and into the plain, pounding over the ground with heavy, booted feet, waving their ham-fisted hands above their boulder-shaped heads, filling the air with their deep-throated curses and shouts. Something like a bolt of electricity shot through her brain, and she turned and fled with Rury over the brook.
“It’s stand and fight we must!” shouted Sengann as they came splashing up on the other side. “All other hope is past!”
And then arose a tumult so great that Eny could hardly hear own thoughts. Genann and Crimthann came clattering down to the stream and stood beside them, their short spears at the ready, their heads thrown back, their voices raised in a shrill battle cry. On the bank behind them stood the women, screaming and wailing, tearing at their shawls and skirts, ripping up clods of grass and dirt and tossing them into the air. In front of them the three giants came on, their big round heads lowered like the heads of charging bulls, their great boots plowing up the earth, their massive legs devouring fifteen feet of ground at a single stride.
“Now!” shouted Rury as the first of the Fomorians drew near enough for the ugly, bulbous features of his misshapen face to be clearly discerned. “Now or never! Cast and thrust! For Semeon and Erc!”
And with that the Fir Bolg heaved their awkward little spears straight at the advancing giant. Sengann’s cast was most successful: the stone tip of his spear struck the steel toe of the giant’s heavy leather boot and glanced aside. The other three weapons fell short and bounced crazily end over end through the grass, their pointed ends too blunt to stick firm in the earth. With shrill cries of dismay, Genann and Crimthann picked up their feet and retreated to a position just in front of the women. But Rury seized Eny by the elbow and urged her to run.
“Split up!” he shouted to the others as the huge shapes descended upon them. “Liber with me and the girl! To the hills we’ll go! You others run south along the water! It may confuse them,” he added as he helped Eny up the bank. “It’s none too smart they are.”
At that moment Eny knew what she had to do. In two more strides the first Fomorian would be at the water’s edge. In three he would have them in the iron grip of his massive paw. With a sudden, violent motion she twisted aside and freed herself from Rury’s grasp. Then she reached into her pocket and drew out her little leather sling. Stooping down, she scooped up a smooth round stone from the bed of the stream. Quickly and deftly, for there was not a second to be wasted, she folded it into the sling’s pouch. Then she straightened up, faced her enemy, whirled the sling above her head, and let it go.
Crack! A sound like a baseball coming off a bat split the air. In the brief silence that followed Eny saw the Fomorian stop dead in his tracks. His hand shot upward to his eye. A look of pain and confusion crossed his dull features, like a flash of lightning rippling over the underside of a thick gray cloud. Then he tilted his face up to the sky and let out a wail that shook the earth and raised the hair on the back of Eny’s neck.
Rury ran up beside her and pointed at the other two giants. “Look!” he said. “It’s running away they are!”
He was right. In complete dismay at the sight of their leader’s discomfiture, the companions of the wounded Fomorian were turning around and stumping back toward the forest. It was obvious they hadn’t expected to encounter resistance—at least not resistance of such a sharp and stunning kind. In the next moment the injured giant was stumbling after his fleeing comrades, screaming and cursing furiously, his hand still clamped tightly over his bleeding eye.
A cheer went up from the Fir Bolg. Eny looked back at them and grinned, a hot flush spreading over her cheeks and up behind her ears.
“On to Beinn Meallain!” ordered Rury, seizing her by the arm and dragging her up the rocky scree on the far side of the brook. “We haven’t a moment to lose! Take this chance and make it good, and it’s clean away we may be before they come back!”
Together, Eny and the Fir Bolg set off at a run toward the soft green hills at the eastern edge of the plain.
Chapter Thirteen
The Song of the Stone
Once among the wooded glens and dales of the mountains the little troop slackened its pace and slipped beneath the shadows of a dense growth of aspens. Here they fell immediately into single file and, after a brief moment’s rest, addressed themselves to the ascent of the steep-sided slopes. As earlier in the day, Eny marched at the center of the line, just behind Crucha, who, in spite of her white hair, pressed forward at a rate sufficient to stretch the young girl’s endurance to the limit. By the angle of the intermittent light in the forest Eny could tell that the path was climbing southward. Between the slender black-and-white stems of the trees, she sometimes caught glimpses of lush green hillsides, lavishly starred with tiny white flowers, steadily rising toward a yoke or saddle between two sharp peaks at the top of a rocky ridge.
“Where are we going?” She wheezed. “Is it far?”
“Above us stands the Pass of Beinn Meallain,” answered the old Fir Bolg woman. “The only road over these mountains it is. The two hills on either side we call Na Cupla, the Twins. Beyond them, in a sheltered vale, lies Baile Daoine Sidhe, the fortress town of the Tuatha De Danann.”
The Tuatha De Danann! Eny’s mother had told her stories of the Tuatha De Danann. A tingle of excitement ran down her spine. “Is that where we’re stopping for the night?”
“Stopping!” roared Rury from the rear. “There’ll be no stopping, by the beard of Erc! It’s straight on to the coast we’re bound. The Baile might be safe enough at a pinch, but she knows the place, though it be so tight and well defended. Besides, Bag People aren’t always welcome there. We’re for Semeon’s Dun!”
So sharp was the little man’s tone that Eny blushed with shame. She fell silent at once and made up her mind to keep her mouth closed for the rest of the journey, a resolution she knew she could keep since she had so little breath to spare in any case. Grim and mute, then, she trudged up the relentless incline after Crucha, cracking the dry twigs beneath her feet, stumbling over hidden roots, wading through pungent heaps of moldering leaves. But the further she went and the higher she climbed, the deeper her sense of disappointment grew.
Now that she had accepted the notion of being in the Sidhe at all—now that the perils of the way had made the Otherworld undeniably and terrifyingly real to her—Eny wanted to lay eyes on the Danaan people of her mother’s stories. So strong was this desire that she could almost taste it; but, chastened by Rury’s rebuke, she determined to speak of it no more. It would be wrong, she realized, to jeopardize the Fir Bolgs’ lives any further when they had already risked so much for her sake. It would be selfish to expect them to stop just to satisfy her longings. Nevertheless, a hope deferred often makes the heart grow sick, especially when it’s a hope spawned in fairyland. As the trek dragged on, Eny’s heartsickness increased and spread until it engulfed not only her heart but her head and hands and feet. Before long she was sweating great drops and trembling with pain and exhaustion. But she said nothing about it. Instead, she bit her lip and plunged on after Crucha, step after tortured step.
As they mounted upward the aspens gave way to a stand of lordly redwoods and the bed of leafy mulch beneath their feet became a cushion of dry needles. At every step, it seemed, the great trees rose higher and higher above their heads. Soon the giant trunks were so broad at the base that three men joining hands could not have compassed them about—then six men, then eight. At length the boles were as wide as small houses, some of them pierc
ed by cracks and fire-charred crevices that looked like the dark doors of elvish or gnomish dwellings. In the spaces between the gigantic trees grew smaller pines and firs, interspersed with feathery ferns and banks of flowers—purple asters and violet rhododendrons and pink and yellow columbines.
Eny saw all this as one beholds vague colored shapes through a pane of rippled glass or a watery lens. Her sickness had now become so desperate and gripping that she hardly knew who she was or where she was going. Her head spun. Her mouth went dry. Her eyes felt hot and swollen. Mechanically she placed one foot in front of the other, shaking and shuddering as her body passed from chills into fever and back to chills again.
Somewhere among the convoluted gyrations of her thoughts it occurred to her that this condition was but the flowering of a seed that had dropped into her brain at the ford of the stream, where she saw the strange woman washing clothes among the jewel-like pebbles. As she plodded onward, her forehead burning and her throat tightening, she seemed to see again the pale oval face beneath the broad-brimmed hat. Once more she trembled in the cold glow of the intense green eyes. She cried out, stumbled, and fell. Crucha, seeing her distress, stopped and lifted her. And then something happened that altered Rury’s plans and changed the course and destination of their expedition.
They were at the edge of the woods and on the point of stepping into the rocky path that led upward to the pass. Suddenly, from a brake of tall, slender flowering reeds, a small herd of deer burst out across their line of march. So unexpected was the apparition and so thunderous the pounding of the animals’ hooves that the Fir Bolg fell back and fanned out across the trail in a wide semicircle. At the head of the herd stood a huge six-pointed buck with a white mark in the middle of his forehead in the shape of a great staring eye. All the deer had red ears and flaming red eyes—all except one tawny doe, whose eyes, as Eny stared at them, seemed to glitter a cold green.
