‘I think you resided in Dún Baoiscne long enough to know that I was taken by the draoi as a child. I had eleven summers on me when I was removed from my family.’
‘Yes, I had heard that. You were under the tutelage of Dub Tíre were you not?’
Bodhmhall stared directly at her but said nothing. Despite her misgivings, it was possible that Muirne was making a genuine attempt at conversation, albeit on a topic fraught with sensitivity. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘They say he was very uniquely talented.’
‘He had some talent.’
‘You sound as though you did not hold him in great esteem.’
The bandraoi felt something harden inside her and realised that her fists were clenched. ‘That is because I knew Dub Tíre for what he truly was.’
Muirne nodded understandingly. ‘So, is that why you killed him?’
***
She left Muirne in the roundhouse to share her scheming with the refugees from Ráth Dearg. Absorbed with their own problems, however, she couldn’t imagine they would have much of an ear for her intrigues. It was no surprise therefore, when she saw Gnathad, the blond haired woman, emerge from the dwelling a short time later, trailed by three of the eldest children. An erratic breeze was brushing the sides of the ráth and the four stood by the empty fire-pit, staring miserably at the swirling ashes.
Bodhmhall approached the little group. ‘I see you, Little Ones,’ she said, addressing the children.
The young ones, two girls and a boy, looked up shyly. The oldest, a dark girl with long ringlets, nudged the younger, red haired girl in front of her. The younger girl stared in terror at the bandraoi then blurted, ‘The wind makes my fingers sting, Cailleach.’
Bodhmhall considered the little girl. Her cheeks and the bridge of her nose were spattered with freckles and she had wide blue eyes that were gaping at her with dread.
I see my reputation has spread to Ráth Dearg, at least.
‘Put your fingers into your armpits,’ she suggested. ‘Like this.’
After some initial reluctance, the girl also attempted it and seemed pleased with the result. ‘It works!’ she declared with enthusiasm, her earlier dread evaporated.
‘Of course, it does.’
‘I have to show my grandfather. He likes tricks like that. He says I’m his favourite.’
‘Cathal? Is he your grandfather?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded sagely. ‘He’s leader at Ráth Dearg. Do you know him?’
‘We have met.’
The girl nodded.
‘I’m cold too,’ the little boy announced suddenly. He couldn’t have had more than five or six years on him and he was small with long, dark hair and a pale face. He wiped his cheeks with the back of his hands and sniffed.
‘It is cold,’ Bodhmhall agreed. ‘But, here in Ráth Bládhma, if you’re cold you can go back inside the roundhouse and be warm. Better than out there.’ She gestured towards the gateway.
‘You mean out with the bad men?’ asked the redheaded girl.
‘Yes,’ said the bandraoi. There didn’t seem to be any point in being untruthful, given what these children had already been through.
‘Why do the bad men want to kill us?’
‘I’m not certain. But your grandfather and I will stop them.’
‘Good.’ The little girl gave a surprisingly adult nod of approval, a gesture she must surely have picked up from one of the older members of her settlement. ‘They killed Elec, Bran’s mother. Didn’t they, Bran?’ She looked encouragingly at the little boy who stood there, tears welling up in his eyes.
‘Bamba!’ The fair-haired woman who’d remained to one side observing the conversation finally intervened. ‘Don’t bother our host. Take Bran with you and go off to play. Now!’
The redheaded girl gave her mother an impatient look but did as she was told. Taking the little boy’s hand in her own, she led him away, following her elder sister who’d already wandered over to the pens to watch Bearach feeding the goats.
Bodhmhall considered the young woman. She was only slightly shorter than the bandraoi herself and had bright, intelligent eyes, red from shedding too many tears of late.
‘You are called Gnathad, are you not?’
The woman nodded. ‘Thank you for helping us, Bodhmhall ua Baoiscne. I will see that the children do not forget your kindness.’
Bodhmhall nodded. ‘They are yours?’
‘The two girls. As you heard, poor Bran’s parents perished back in Ráth Dearg. We are his family now.’ Gnathad’s earlier composure suddenly looked close to cracking.
‘I’m sorry, Gnathad. You have seen much suffering these past few days but yet I see you occupy yourself with all the Ráth Dearg children. And your friend. The other girl.’
‘Cumann?’ She released a soft sigh.
‘Your friend is not well.’
‘She was always a delicate girl. I think this has all been too much for her. She saw her husband die.’
‘As did you.’
The Ráth Dearg woman’s head drooped. When she raised it again, her jaw had a determined set to it. ‘My husband used to tell me I had a heart as stout as a tree stump. He ...’ Her voice trailed off and she swallowed. ‘I find - that is why I try to help. When I help others with their pain I cannot feel my own.’
Bodhmhall nodded in sympathy. ‘I promise you, Gnathad. We will do everything within our power to protect you and your children.’
‘Thank you, Bodhmhall. I know your offer is sincere but if the fian come there is little you can do. I have seen the enemy and Ráth Bládhma simply doesn’t have enough warriors. They will flow over your walls like an incoming tide. Nothing you do can prevent that.’
She paused to pull a woollen cap from her pocket and clamped it down tight about her head. ‘That is why I came out. To look for you.’ Gnathad shuffled nervously, scraping a wound into the mud surface of the lis. ‘I was talking with Muirne, the girl in the roundhouse who has a baby. She made me think of you.’
Bodhmhall nodded, wondering where the girl was leading to.
‘She says that you are a healer, a potion maker. She says you gave her a draught, a sleeping draught that made her sleep.’
‘Yes,’ said Bodhmhall carefully.
‘Can you make potions to sleep forever? With no pain?’ She looked away in embarrassment. ‘Forgive me, Bodhmhall. It shames me to ask but this … this is for Cumann and my children. I do not want them taken by the fian.’
Bodhmhall stared at her with a freezing heart.
But she had no words to say.
Chapter Eight
Liath Luachra floated up to consciousness on a bitter wave of nausea and a headache that felt as though she’d been hit with a club. The physical sensations were familiar, of course. She’d had bad hangovers in the past but this would surely qualify as one of the more painful.
Peeling her eyelids apart, she attempted to make sense of the blur that materialised before her. When her eyes finally cleared she could see that she was in the cavern, lying on a fur blanket that stank of wood smoke, stale sweat and other, more objectionable, body odours. A few paces away, seated on a curved rock between her feet and the cave entrance, Aodhán was wrapped in an unfamiliar fur cloak, presumably obtained from one of the dead warriors. Preoccupied with the task of reattaching a pointed metal head to the haft of a javelin, he hadn’t noticed her come to her senses.
‘Aodhán,’ she croaked.
The óglach raised his head and glanced towards her.
‘How long?’
‘You’ve been in dark sleep all night and all morning. The sun has already passed its peak.’
Liath Luachra cursed.
It was sheer will power that got her up. Ignoring the pounding in her head and the brewing clouds of nausea, she pushed herself off the rough blanket and onto her feet. Despite the effort, it actually felt better once she was upright, although her entire body trembled. Stumbling on shaky legs towards the mouth of the cavern,
she stood and gripped the rock wall for support as she inhaled the cool, fresh air and peered outside.
It was another grey day, cloudy but fresh. It wasn’t too cold and, to her immense relief, it wasn’t raining. A short distance in front of the cave entrance the rocky depression lay empty and forlorn in the muted sunlight. There was no sign of the warriors or the Tainted One and with the numbing effects of the hangover she could almost have convinced herself that the events of the previous day had never happened, that it had all been some twisted dream.
Stepping outside, she padded swiftly forwards and allowed the downward momentum to carry her into the rocky hollow where the standing stone was located. From this central point, it was possible to see that the depression was not a natural feature as she’d originally assumed but had been hand carved out of the rocky surface. She considered the standing stone with fresh reverence, wondering at the effort it must have taken the Old Ones to set it there in the first place. Despite the fractured upper section, the monolith was still more than a head taller than her. The granite surface was smooth to the touch, sanded down by wind and rain over the ages. Traces of the spiral patterns that would have once coated the entire rock remained, but they were faint and coated in parts by tufts of moss or lichen.
The scuffle of leather soles on rock made her turn. Aodhán had joined her and was standing behind her, filling the space with his mute presence. She stared numbly at the young warrior for there seemed to be something different about him, a new sense of self-assurance behind his habitual competence. All of a sudden it struck her. He had grown up. He had become a man.
‘Where did you drag them?’
Silently, the óglach pointed to a nearby break in the tree line.
Liath Luachra grunted and started in that direction.
She found the bodies just a few paces inside the forest, strewn like tumbled lumber amongst the damp grass and scrub. In death, they looked smaller than she remembered, but then her memory was, understandably, hazy after the quantity of uisce beatha she’d consumed.
A full flask. I’m fortunate to be breathing the fresh air of a new day.
The two warriors sprawled beneath a thick holly tree, half obscured by the shadow thrown down by the branches. In the half-dark, the ugly faces appeared even more repellent, contorted with those facial tattoos and blackened lips that made them look like apparitions from an exceptionally evil nightmare. One of them had gone so far as to file his teeth down to jagged points to make his appearance all the more terrifying. Liath Luachra made to shake her head in disgust but the ripple of pain that shot through her head stopped her before she’d completed the action.
A small patch of dried blood had formed beneath one of the warriors. Despite the cold, it had already attracted the interest of ants although the insects had yet to start feasting on the open wounds. The nose and ears of the nearest warrior looked as though they’d been nibbled on during the night. A fox, she guessed. Possibly a rat.
Leaving the warriors, she moved to examine the third body which had been dumped a little further into the trees.
Because of the shadows, the Tainted One could have been mistaken for a pile of bones wrapped in a ragged blanket. It was only as you got closer that it became identifiable as a body. You could also have been forgiven for assuming it to be someone’s ancient grandfather at first, some old man quietly passed away in the middle of the forest.
Until you looked at the face, of course.
Then, with its sewn-up mouth and empty eye sockets, it looked like nothing so much as a vile, unnaturally large, rag doll.
She stared down at the spindly legs poking out from beneath the dirt-stained robe and wondered how the creature had ever managed to stand upright. Studying the Tainted One’s corpse through slitted eyes, teeth tight against the throb in her skull, she found that the sight prompted strong feelings of hatred and revulsion. Despite her triumph, she still felt beaten, sickened at what he had been able to do to her. Was that insult redressed, she asked herself. Was this really a victory?
But she already knew the answer to that.
‘What should we do Grey One?’
Aodhán at her shoulder again. The óglach, understandably, was growing impatient, keen to return home to protect his family. She looked up at the sky, pale grey patches through the prickly green leaves of holly. Her stomach still churned, they’d lost most of the day and they’d have to camp overnight in the Great Wild on the way back but, like Aodhán, she felt an overpowering need to leave this haunted place.
‘We return to Ráth Bládhma. We’ve achieved what we set out to do.’
‘Will you be able to run?’ Aodhán eyed her uncertainly.
Her response was a glare. Her chin set in a stubborn line.
The óglach shrugged.
‘You did well, Aodhán.’
He looked at her in surprise, unaccustomed to such unguarded praise from the stern warrior woman.
‘Listen, carefully,’ she continued. ‘What do you hear?’
Curious, the óglach cocked his head to one side and listened as he stared around the glade. After a moment, he shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing but the wind in the trees. The call of the thrush.’
Liath Luachra nodded. ‘Exactly The wildlife has returned, Aodhán. If nothing else, we have made this little corner of the world a safer place.’
***
They had to stop twice for Liath Luachra to throw up on the way back. The first time wasn’t long after leaving the Tainted One’s campsite. Stirred and jiggled by the physical action of running, the contents of her stomach refused to stay down and she abruptly spewed up off the side of the trail. Bent over, one hand grasping the bark of a large oak for support, she was grateful that she’d tied her hair up with a leather thong as the last involuntary spasms racked her body and vomit dripped from her mouth. Gasping for breath, she considered the expelled material, surprised to recognise hard tack from the previous day and even traces of the porridge that Bodhmhall had made prior to their departure from Ráth Bládhma.
The second time she threw up wasn’t much further along the trail but at least, on this occasion, little else came up except bile. She was also able to keep down the water that she swallowed afterwards.
Travelling north-east, they made poor time because of Liath Luachra’s condition. Locating a series of deer trails, however, they managed to avoid the worst of the rough terrain and by mid-day they reached the marshy land of Guada. Here, they stopped to rest and eat strips of smoked venison and blood cakes. Liath Luachra was relieved to find she was able to keep everything down.
On the far side of Guada, they regained the thick forest and although, at one point, they encountered a small pack of four wolves, the animals did not attempt to harass them. In the rough land of Catrach, the pair scrambled up a small, tree-coated hill, bashing their way through thick briars to reach the crest that offered them their first open view of the land ahead of them. Unfortunately, the low, forest-coated Bládhma hills far to the north were still not visible.
After taking a brief moment to rest, they continued their journey, pausing only to quench their thirst at a tree-shrouded glen with a wide stream that flowed in from the West. Throwing themselves down onto the bank, the two travellers drank deep, Aodhán plunging his sweaty head into the freezing water to refresh himself at the same time. The óglach still had his head immersed in the water when Liath Luachra tapped him urgently on the shoulder. Raising his head, he stared at her with a quizzical expression as rivulets of water trickled down his face.
Without speaking, she pointed towards the middle of the watercourse where a grey rag was bobbing gently downstream, a red patch of blood visible on its surface. The óglach looked at her then both simultaneously turned their eyes upstream to the moss-coated boulders marking the waterway’s entry point to the glen.
‘The fian?’
The woman warrior stared longingly towards the north then responded with a weary shrug. It was a detour she d
id not need but they could not return to Ráth Bládhma without identifying the source of the bloody rag.
‘We will have to see.’
They traced the stream back to where it curved through the boulders then proceeded onwards, into the woods. Although not familiar with the local topography, Liath Luachra suspected the watercourse originated from a hillside spring some distance away. With the recent bad weather, this would have merged with several other tributaries draining rainwater from the higher ground. The cloth could have originated from any one of these but she didn’t think it would have travelled far. The stream was littered with fallen trees and brambles and it would not have taken long for the cloth to snag in one of these.
Keeping the stream to their left, they advanced through the forest, taking time to survey the ground ahead of them for any sign of movement. Fortunately, the deluge of the previous day now worked in their favour for the ground underfoot was still saturated in places, the soggy dead leaves and debris dampening any sound from their footsteps.
The dark forest stretched away in a semi-circle of infinite tunnels formed by the shadowed oak trunks and the slender branches spreading overhead like the rafters of a great hall. The space between the trees was relatively uncluttered by scrub, nevertheless they moved slowly, keeping to the shadows.
This precaution proved fortuitous a little while later when they stopped and crouched to confer in an almost silent whisper. Liath Luachra was just about to rise to her feet again when a figure suddenly emerged from the trees, thirty paces to the southeast.
The travellers froze.
There was a distinct aura of lethality in the newcomer’s demeanour. A tall man, he was clad in leather and furs that bore the trace of recent bloodstains. He carried no weapon in his hands but there was a nasty-looking hand-axe tucked into the waistband of his leggings. A forehead engraved with those disquieting tattoos marked him as an associate of the Tainted One’s bodyguards.
The newcomer halted abruptly, staring straight ahead at the point where they were squatting. Unsure whether the warrior had spotted them or not, the woman warrior’s hand tightened about the hilt of her sword. She tensed, poised to snatch it from its sheath and attack when he suddenly, and very unexpectedly, pulled his trousers down and yanked out his penis. Liath Luachra stared in shock as a watery arc sprang out before him, glinting dully in the fading light.
Fionn- Defence of Ráth Bládhma Page 21
