Chapter 15 #2
Scáthach nodded. “The visions were often like that for me—not comprehendible at first, only to become suddenly completely understandable in a flash when I’m in the right situation.”
“I knew that you didn’t always speak of your visions when they happened,” said Uathach.
“Or sometimes ever. I’ve had visions I still haven’t spoken of, mostly because they still haven’t been made clear to me,” said Scáthach. “Would you like to share your vision with me? Perhaps I can help you see more clearly.”
“Not yet. It’s all too abstract and strange. Let me consider it for a little longer,” said Uathach. “I only just had the vision as we waited for this boat. It’s not even straight enough in my mind for me to explain it to you.” She leaned her shoulder into her mother. “Though I thank you.”
Scáthach let her head rest against her daughter’s. “Always, Little Fry.”
They sat like that, pressed against each other, lost in their own thoughts as the boat slipped smoothly through the water.
Riding within the sturgeons’ wake, they were carried swiftly to the fort’s islet.
As soon as torchlights glowed through the fog, the sturgeons circled the boat, bringing it to a halt.
“We’ll swim from here,” said Scáthach as she secured her sword and daggers to her body.
Uathach closed the lid on her quiver, threaded the bow across her back, and made sure her sword was strapped into its scabbard.
They did not need to conceal themselves with the underwater feat; the fog cloaked them.
They would need another feat to get them into the castle.
“Shall the lad and I wait for you here?” asked Taog.
“No need,” said Scáthach. “When we leave the fort, it will be through the front doors after Aife and her army have been defeated.”
“Then on to victory, Queen of Shadow,” said Taog with a bow.
“Victory!” Iain echoed, grinned, and bowed.
Scáthach and Uathach slipped over the side of the boat. Each took a long reed pole with her. Scáthach led, holding her floating pole in front of her as if it was a very skinny log. Escorted by sturgeons, they kicked to shore.
They left the water silently and crouched within clumps of grasses, holding their long vaulting reeds.
They could hear voices lifting from inside the fort, but not only did the fog vastly hinder visibility, it also muffled sound so that it was impossible to tell exactly where the voices came from.
Periodically along the top of the wall, torches glowed yellow, creating misty halos that illuminated little.
“In all this darkness and fog, how are we to know whether we’re vaulting into a group of warriors or even atop a roundhouse?” Uathach whispered to her mother.
“We don’t but the shadows do,” said Scáthach.
She led Uathach to a deeply shadowed part of the wall between lit torches.
She concentrated on the darkness nestled against the wall and it responded to her, expanding her senses as her sight flowed with it over the wall and down into the fort.
Scáthach and the shadows swirled in the deep darkness between roundhouses, guiding her to a part of the fort that was, for that moment, empty of people.
“Vault right after me. Place your pole where I place mine. We go over the wall and drop down into concealing fog and darkness, but we must hurry,” she spoke quietly.
“And from there we follow the wall around to the front,” said Uathach.
“Yes. We take the guards and sentries and open the doors to the fort. While Tabiti and the guard destroy Aife’s army, I’ll find Cuchulainn,” whispered Scáthach.
“We’ll find Cu. Together,” corrected Uathach firmly.
Surprised, Scáthach began to protest but saw the iron within her daughter’s gaze and remembered Uathach’s unclear vision. “Ah. Yes. I will be pleased to have you at my side as we free Cuchulainn.” She grasped her pole. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
On silent feet, Scáthach left the clump of grasses near the water to be embraced by the shadows that dwelt at the base of the fort’s wall.
They circled their queen, cloaking and concealing her and her daughter so completely that their movements seemed only to be the night breeze flowing within mist and darkness.
When she spotted the correct place for their vault, Scáthach nodded to her daughter, placed her hands on the pole, and then sprinted forward.
Planting the spiked end firmly into the soft, mossy ground, the vault carried her up and forward.
Her legs pointed skyward as she flew over the wall, reaching to arch at the apex of her vault before she twisted in the air and dropped back to earth, silent as a cat.
She landed in the rear of the fort, where Aife had hobbled Lethra’s peerless horses.
The herd began to snort and shift nervously, but Scáthach was quick to soothe them and move them aside before Uathach dropped from the sky.
Together they petted and calmed the herd before they jogged back to the wall.
Cloaked by shadow, they followed the wall around the fort, which was overcrowded with horses and Aife’s men.
It was difficult to count through the mist, and many of the warriors were inside tents they’d erected between roundhouses.
Campfires glowed dimly, their smoke adding to the shrouding fog far more than they illuminated.
Normally if a group this large visited the fort, like at Samhain or Beltane or any other feast day, they would camp on the mainland between the stone bridge and the pine forest. Their horses and wagons would not enter the fort, leaving room for all.
Aife’s men crowded the fort. Scáthach thought about how foolish Aife had been to put herself in a situation where the fort could be kept under siege.
They did not have enough supplies to last long.
Her precious herd would be the first to go, starved by their lack of pasture and by Aife’s lack of common sense.
Scáthach frowned as she noticed tents pitched atop kitchen gardens, and too many campfires over which spitted goats and pigs roasted, perfuming the air with the succulent scents of meat.
So wasteful, she thought. Her army shows no discipline. The fort’s supplies should be rationed.
The two women paused frequently to allow groups of warriors to pass, sometimes so close Scáthach could smell their sweat and the beer on their breath.
They were overloud, blustering and bragging and laughing with great barks of sound that made it obvious the warriors were drinking to try to drown their nerves.
Aife should be out and about in the fort, calming and bolstering the morale of her warriors.
Scáthach watched for her sister but caught no glimpse of her.
More and more she agreed with Geirr and the wise people of Lethra. Aife was unfit to lead.
None of the braying warriors so much as glanced their way. What was there to see? Nothing but the deepest of shadows.
The shadows got them as close to the front doors and the sentry stations above them as possible, but tall braziers had been lit and torches hung from the stone wall on either side of the double doors as well as above on the lookout platform.
Even though fog wafted like smoke throughout the fort, the area around and above the entrance blazed with light, allowing Scáthach to see the thick iron drawbar that ran the width of the doors, holding them securely closed.
From deep within the last of the shadows, Scáthach counted six sentries on the raised platforms—three above and on each side of the doors.
Their backs were to the fort as they focused on the bridge and the fog-blanketed forest beyond.
Two more heavily armed warriors stood by one of the braziers very near the front doors.
They wore the distinctive cloaks of the elite Lethra Wolfskins.
Her lip curled in a sneer. Traitors to Lethra.
Scáthach studied them carefully. They were young, far too young to have known her as a child but they might have seen her earlier that day.
She assessed her options and sighed softly.
She knew the quickest way to silence the two Wolfskins, though she did not look forward to it.
Scáthach tapped her daughter’s shoulder, motioning for her to retrace their path back into the deepest of the concealing shadows.
They crouched against the wall, heads tilted together as they spoke in whispers.
“I can handle the two by the fire, but you’ll need to take out all six sentries before they can alert the fort. ”