Chapter Fourteen

N o sooner were the warriors at practice that morning than a runner came pelting in. One of the younger lads, it was, sent by the guard to Dornach’s ear.

“Master Dornach!”

Some frantic quality in the boy’s voice caused everyone to stop work and turn. Face red and sweaty, the lad fairly slid to a halt in front of the war chief.

“They come! Aldur, of the guard, sent me to tell ye!” He gulped air. “Our patrol spotted them at first light. Movin’ in under cover o’ darkness, they were. Dacha’s men.”

Dornach’s gaze turned hard as iron, and he uttered the kind of curse that could curl a man’s hair. “Dacha’s men, ye say?”

Not their neighbor directly to the west. He was a man named Brihan who had long been on good terms with Fearghal, and acted as a sort of buffer between Fearghal’s tribe and that of the ambitious Dacha, who had been steadily conquering the lands around him. It was rumored he’d left Brihan’s lands alone only because he considered him so weak, he might seize them whenever he decided to bother.

And because Brihan allowed him freedom to cross his lands and attack Fearghal any time he chose.

Blood had flowed on that border many times, but not that of Brihan’s men, who held back from any fray.

Now, at the beginning of the fighting season, Dacha might well be expected to strike. No doubt Fearghal and Dornach had expected it. They had left a strong and canny guard on that border, and drilled the men well.

“How many?” Dornach snapped at the messenger. “Could our men tell?”

“A large force, they say.”

“How close?”

“Approaching the border. Aldur wants to know, should he engage them?”

Dornach hesitated. The border must be held, aye. It would take him precious time to organize his warriors and reach the place. For the guards there to engage a large force, however, would mean certain death.

“Send a runner. Tell them to fall back. Tell them we are on the way. Someone run to the chief. The rest o’ ye—to arms!”

At those words, a familiar sensation flooded Ardahl. Part dread, part anticipation, part determination. It would be a large encounter, this. A fierce one. It could well mean his death.

He had never before faced such a battle without Conall at his side.

That thought struck through the dread and the determination both, and left him hollow.

How could he do this?

Dornach called orders for the chariots to be readied, and he wondered again.

How to go to battle without Conall in the cart with him? Who would drive their chariot now?

Men scrambled. There was little time to prepare. Some might hurry home under the guise of fetching their weapons, only to impart a frantic kiss on the lips of a wife or the heads of their children. No opportunity for proper farewells.

Some lovers might never see one another again.

For some reason, his thoughts flew to Liadan.

She would not care if he lived or died.

As at some inaudible signal, women came running. Always it was so. Perhaps it was as simple as one of the young lads who haunted the training field running to tell. It seemed far more magical than that.

For several moments, what had been an ordinary training field fell into chaos. Then Dornach, with Chief Fearghal now at his side, began hollering again.

“To order, men! To weapons, and take your places.”

What was his place now? Conall’s, aye, but Conall had been his driver first, and his defender second.

Chariots drawn by men and lads rattled out over the green turf. Other men led out the ponies.

Ardahl must take himself to Dornach. Tell him—remind him—he no longer had a partner.

He turned and saw someone approaching him.

She came across the grass softly despite her burden, face chalk white, eyes grave. Fixed upon him, she hurried faster when their gazes met.

“Mistress Liadan? What is all this?”

“I heard. Ye go at once?”

“Aye.”

“Ye must have Conall’s armor.”

“But—”

“Ye canna go without.” Again her gaze met his, the contact searing. “Ye have taken his place, have ye no’? Then this should be yours.”

She tossed the items down in a heap, helped him into the padded hide over-tunic. The hammered metal wrist bands.

Those had touched Conall’s skin. Protected him.

“Ye have his sword? Your own things are at your mother’s. Ye canna go without.”

He stood there washed over by gratitude and shame. He did not know what to say.

A cart rattled up beside him. The driver called down, “Ye be wi’me. Dornach’s orders.”

His name was Cullan, and Ardahl recalled his partner had been killed at a skirmish near the end of winter. The man did not look pleased to be partnered with Ardahl.

Naught to be done for it. He leaped aboard the chariot, steadied himself with one hand on the front rail.

He had time for only a single look at Liadan, who stood perfectly still in the green turf while they rattled away.

*

“Just so ye know,” Cullan said as they took a place in the line of marching men and chariots. Not where they should be, but back a goodly way. “I am only partnering wi’ ye because Dornach ordered it. Me, I want naught to do wi’ ye.”

“Understood.”

“Ye be a betrayer of the worst kind, and a false friend so far as I am concerned. Conall was a finer man than ye’ll ever be.”

“I agree.”

Cullan looked surprised at that. “If ye think so, then why did ye kill him?”

“I did not kill him.”

“Och, so it happened by magic, did it? Enchantment, maybe?”

As the chariots rattled along, clansfolk darted forward to speak hasty farewells. To sons, to husbands, to brothers, to lovers. Those they might never see again.

Ahead, in the second chariot—for the first belonged to Dornach and his driver—rode Cathair, pale head high and proud. A figure darted forward to his side—a woman it was, with her skirts caught up high. She reached out a hand to Cathair, and he reached back. Their fingers touched before she fell away.

Her long, wavy brown hair marked her identity. Brasha.

Conall’s love.

There was something in it. Ardahl felt certain of that. He had no time for such thoughts now. But it bit at him.

A force awaited them on the border. And a man who allowed his thoughts to stray from battle paid the price, swift and hard.

A broad stream marked their boundary with Brihan’s lands. It flowed over the breast of the hill and glittered beneath the rising sun. They rattled on a goodly distance, silent but for the clatter of their weapons and the hooves of the ponies. Each man contemplating the thoughts in his own mind.

A glorious day to do battle. Blue sky with a few fair-weather clouds sailing back eastward. The scent of wild thyme on the breeze. What looked like ten score men spread out on the other side, awaiting them.

Dornach drew them up with a raised hand on the high ground above the water. Accustomed every man to obeying him, they rattled to a halt, the ponies tossing their heads. The warm breeze ruffled their manes, and the hair of the men.

Fairghal’s forces had the advantage, aye, of higher ground, yet that force Ardahl saw facing them was a strong one, so strong it felt like a punch to the gut.

Brihan of Brioc must be a fool, to let so many warriors cross his land and do battle with Fearghal. Aye, he might have an agreement with Dacha that he thought would keep him safe. But should Dacha conquer Fearghal’s lands, what was to keep him from helping himself to the weaker holding that lay between?

Mayhap he had already done so. That could be why the army arrayed here looked so vast.

They could not allow Dacha a victory.

That realization seemed to spread through Fearghal’s forces. It traveled from man to man by whispers and mutters.

Even Cullan, who by his own word detested Ardahl, spoke bitter and low. “By the holy goddess, will ye look at that?”

Before Ardahl could answer, Dornach turned and addressed them from his chariot.

“That boundary protects our lands! Aye, there are twice as many o’ them. We must be twice as fierce! Ye will no’ let them set a toe out o’ that water.”

For an instant he touched them all with his gaze. Man by man. “Fight ye well. And any o’ ye who meets wi’ death, this day, fly well and truly to Tír na nóg .”

Perhaps that is what the gods intend for me, Ardahl thought. The meaning of it all. I will follow Conall so swiftly to the land of the ever-young where we will again sit together. He will tell to me then what happened, and how the knife ended in his breast.

His life counted for naught. He would not go home from this, and ’twas how it should be.

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