Chapter 8 #3
Fionn turned to him fully. “Because every drop of blood, every death, and every vow spoken with breath still warm feeds the roots of this world. Tír na nóg is the land of the forever young. Honor, tradition, and the magic of my people are what separates it from the world you came from. This land will never forget what happened here, and neither will we.”
Ward didn’t have an answer to that. Not one that made sense, anyway.
He wanted to ask how an old man who could barely move had gone into the portal he had built and come out a giant.
Was it the magic of this place or something else?
How was he restored to where he looked to be not much older than his son?
There were so many questions rattling around in his head.
Still, by the time he figured out which one to ask first, Fionn was already striding across the clearing toward where Trace helped a younger Fianna warrior pull a broken wheel from the husk of a burned chariot.
His back bore fresh scars and new blood streaked down one thigh, but he didn’t slow or stop working alongside the warriors.
Juice crouched beside Zero, who was poking at the remnants of an axe with the butt of his rifle. “It just… disappeared. That’s not possible.”
“Nothing about this place is,” Ward murmured, still watching the fireless pyres consume the last of the enemy’s weapons. “And yet… here we are.”
Kaze dropped to sit on a mossy rock with one hand pressed to his bleeding side. “We went down a tunnel under a volcano and ended up in a type of Valhalla, only it’s Irish style. What the actual fuck, man?”
A ghost of a smile flickered at Ward’s lips. “Technically, Valhalla’s Norse. But yeah. Same vibes.”
Somewhere behind them, a horn sounded again—this one low and melodic, not a call to arms but a call to something else he didn’t understand. Oisín passed by with a nod, voice booming. “We return to Dun Fianna. The Rí rides home.”
The king.
Fionn.
God, how can this be real? How?
Ward’s gaze lingered on the man once more. Myths and legends weren’t just stories in books anymore. They were climbing on a freaking war horse next to the chariots they were directed to.
Viper jumped onto the chariot closest to them and held his hand out to him. “C’mon, Sutherland, let’s blow this joint.”
“Ward.” He scrambled up behind him. “Call me Ward. Just calling me Sutherland is weird.”
“Sorry, force of habit. We call everyone either by their nickname or surname. We rarely use first names. But for you, I’ll try to remember.”
The chariot jostled under him like it had a personal vendetta against his spine, making him forget what he’d been about to say.
Ward clung to the side rail with one hand, the other bracing the strap of his pack like it was a lifeline.
The wheels hit a rut, and he nearly bit through his tongue.
“This thing has no suspension,” he gritted out.
A massive, red-haired warrior with shoulders like a bull and a nose that had clearly been broken a dozen times at the reins let out a bark of laughter. “What’s suspension?”
“Never mind.”
They rode three to a chariot—Ward sandwiched between Viper and the Fenian warrior, while ahead, he could see the rest of the team had been spread out among the carts, alternating between bracing for impact and gaping at the landscape they thundered across.
Tír na nóg didn’t look exactly like the Ireland he’d seen in pictures.
It was wilder, more vivid, the green so saturated it looked like someone had cranked the contrast up to eleven.
The mountains rose ahead of them in layers of blues, browns, and grays, shrouded in mist that caught on their peaks like an ancient breath that refused to dissipate.
A river wound along the valley beside their path, bubbling over rocks while salmon jumped from its waters to catch a meal.
Ward watched the dark ribbon of water until they turned right and started climbing into the mountains.
They crested a ridge, and ahead of them, a massive boulder loomed beside a stand of ancient oaks.
It sat tilted in the earth like some drunken god had dropped it mid-stumble, and its size was absurd—easily the size of a small house, flat-faced on one side and tapered like an arrowhead on the other.
Recognition slammed into Ward, and he leaned forward.
“That rock… I’ve seen that rock. But how?
The rock I saw was in the Nire Valley in the Comeragh Mountains.
They said it was a glacial erratic, dropped by a retreating ice sheet ten thousand years ago. ”
The warrior snorted like he’d swallowed a mouthful of river water. “Ice sheet?” He shot Ward a grin over his shoulder. “That boulder? Fionn threw it.”
Ward blinked. “He what?”
“Aye, lobbed it clean across the valley from the peak over yonder.” He pointed toward a crag in the distance. “Took offense after Diarmuid pissed in his mead barrel and spoiled the rest with goat’s milk.”
Viper barked a laugh. “You’re shitting me.”
“Would I lie to a blood-sworn brother of the Hound?” The Fenian warrior thumped his chest with pride. “Sent the rock flying, missed Diarmuid by inches. The bugger ducked, and it landed where it’s been ever since.”
Ward stared, jaw slack. “That’s… that’s Cloch na Nollaig. Christmas Rock. People in the modern world use it as a marker between grazing fields. But it was used as a mass rock for Christmas day service during the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland.”
The warrior chuckled. “Aye, well, Diarmuid always said Fionn had terrible aim when he was drunk. Nothing magical about it. Fionn got mad and threw it at Diarmuid, but missed. We were all too tired to move it back to Sliabh na mBan, where it came from.”
Viper cackled so hard he almost fell out of the chariot. But Ward didn’t laugh. He was still trying to reconcile his years of academic training with the image of a legendary warrior throwing a mountain-sized rock because someone pissed in his holiday booze and failing. Utterly failing.