29
____________________
The next day, the host of Choilltean began to move.
Raegan rode at the head of their army, proudly balanced over Rìoghail, with a Red Macaw on his shoulder picking at his hair constantly.
Shea and Niamh rode just behind him atop Milis and Sonus, both fit with long stretches of leather armour, a sword on either hip, and a shield over their backs.
Niamh had managed to tie her bow and quiver into a strap around Sonus’ neck, who was either very unhappy about it or was being berated by bugs.
Killian, whether he liked it or not, walked alongside me. We were several rows back from the Prince and his ceadan, wedged between healers and their wagons full of powders and mists and fluids, and the beginning of an infantry who were stomping along to an obnoxious beat behind us.
“They—” Killian pointed way behind us, to a row just visible to my eye, “—are the marcaich. It takes decades and decades of training to become one.”
I was glad to be next to Killian with his radiant smile and never-dull outlook on life keeping me distracted. “Why?”
Just as I asked, the reason became apparent.
It wasn’t a horse or a pegasus or even a fly that one of the marcaich that I could see rode, but a cat.
Not just any cat, but a beast with the build of a bull and the pelt as black as the midnight sky, covering up the faintest of patterns across his sides.
The marcaich, it seemed, rode panthers.
“Oh my,” I breathed, unsure of what else to say.
“Riding a horse is one thing. But riding a panther? The way they twist and turn, their bodies are freakishly agile and not many can stay seated. But the true test is when they start to climb. We’ve lost a lot of proud soldiers who couldn’t refuse the chance to try.”
“Do I even want to know where you found panthers?”
Killian’s eyes flashed mischief at me as his mouth remained still. I chuckled, rolling my eyes.
~
We were just making it out of Choilltean, soon to be upon the sandy beach that prefaced Uisge.
“What else is there in the army?”
Making conversation with Killian was the only thing keeping me sane. That, and Urram who was perched on my shoulder and pinched my neck every time I went too quiet.
“We have a ridden quadrant. Horses and pegasus’, for the few lucky enough to obtain caraid with them.
The ground units, spears and swords mostly.
And a flying quadrant, though those numbers are less and less each year.
That’s where Niamh should be, considering her skill with a bow, but she refuses to leave Raegan’s side. ”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
Killian huffed an agreement, his eyes struggling to lift off of the Prince's head.
“Have you ever been to war?”
Killian tensed, his body less fluid as we continued to trudge along.
“I’ve trained my whole life for it. The end of King Ronan’s war came about while I was still learning to use a sword.
After that, I just never imagined I would need to.
It’s been skirmishes here and there, but nothing of this magnitude, no. ”
“What about Raegan?”
“Same thing. He was still in Cluaineach when Ronan finished his tour and by the time he was brought back to Choilltean and trained, there was no longer need for such a host.”
“Have any of the ceadan seen a battle like this?”
“A few, I’m sure. Shea has. She was alongside King Ronan during his rampage.”
“But not Niamh.”
“Not Niamh,” Killian sighed. “I’m not completely convinced she should even be here. She’s too young, and while she is definitely skilled, I don’t think fighting is her true calling.”
I considered that as I watched Niamh, a wild grin on her face as she bothered Raegan and Gliocas with some strange game of knock-the-parrot-from-the-shoulder using pebbles.
“But you believe fighting is your calling?”
He shrugged. “It’s what got me here. It’s what has brought honour to a long line of farmers and maids. This very battle will be the one that cements my name in history.”
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I nodded as if I understood.
But I didn’t, not really. For all of his burly exterior, Killian was soft of heart where it counted.
He was kind and gentle and generous, I only wished I understood why he felt the need to prove himself in a world where no one truly cared.
“What about you? Do you believe you have a calling?”
“Helping, I think.”
He glanced sidelong at me, forever a childish gleam in his eyes and a roguish smile on his lips. “You’ve done plenty of that here already.”
“It never feels like enough. I became a vet to help those who needed it. And in a life where I found joy in very little, that one small thing was enough to let me sleep at night.”
“Back to gloomy, are we?”
I nudged at him, toppling his large stature off of the path where he cackled and returned himself.
“Why did you bring me here?”
Even though the host was alive with chatter, the sound of metal screeching against metal, and the heavy fall of feet and hooves and paws, silence fell upon the two of us.
“Killian?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying—” I grinned, poking at his side, “—Your left eyebrow twitches when you lie.”
He lifted both of them, likely to stabilize them as he tried to explain.
“We get many offerings from the humans. People leave their things out all the time in the hopes of a pixie collecting and offering something in return. It used to be fun, really. We’d appear, grant them something, and toss a handful of powder in their face so they were never to remember. But then I saw you…”
His face changed, no longer the charming and joyful Killian that I had come to know, but something far more serious and solemn. “I don’t think I’d ever seen someone so sad.”
“I wasn’t sad.”
“Maybe not in the way of frowning or crying, but something deep within you. And as I approached, Niamh and Shea warning me not to, I felt something within myself. Like a tug, of sorts. Before I knew it I was in front of you, and I was talking and all I remember is feeling like I just had to.”
“I do not want to leave, Killian. I cannot imagine going back and having to live with the knowledge that this — you — existed and I was a part of it, that I loved it and I can never have it again.”
Intrigued as ever, Killian nodded. He didn’t frown. Instead, he lifted his lips into a sad smile and thought that what he said next was going to make me feel better. Except it didn’t.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Olivia. You won’t remember a minute of it.”
Horror constricted me, a snake so tight and so powerful that I was lost to the mere compaction of my body and soul as I let that fact sink into me. When I was finally ready to say something in response, my mouth opened and words did not fill the air, but a hauntingly loud horn.
Everyone halted, all heads tipping to the head of the line, to Raegan who led them.
“People of Choilltean, we are passing into the Kingdom of Uisge. You are to treat their people with nothing but respect, or suffer the consequences.”
Movement began once more, leading the line of bodies out of the forest, across the small stretch of grass, and stopping once again on the edge of the beach where Queen Tonn of Uisge awaited us.
~
I wanted to find someone to shout at. Raegan, ideally, as a memory wipe had his name written all over it. But he was busy with Queen Tonn, considering King Ronan had remained back in Choilltean to watch over the lands. So Raegan was off limits.
Killian had departed from my side the moment the army of Choilltean started to spread out, doing his duty by checking on each of the different groups and assuring everyone was up to the next stretch of the journey.
Shea and Niamh had disappeared from sight, melting themselves into the masses where there was no hope of finding them.
So it was Urram who I looked to, making him step up to my finger where I could get a better angle at him to seethe.
“They’re going to wipe my memory?”
Urram said nothing, instead just preened at some feathers that were tickling the undercarriage of his wing.
“Urram?”
He squawked, content to ignore me completely.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
His silence was so infuriating, if it hadn’t been for the tight grip his talons had around my fingers I would have left him behind. Instead, I walked down towards where Raegan and Tonn conversed, only to be interrupted by the sudden commotion in the direction of the ocean.
The Uisge host.
The pixies started moving towards the shore, their hidden tails disappearing and making way for legs as they crossed the threshold.
Hair of purples and pinks and blues and greens all shimmering beneath the sun, like the reefs themselves had surfaced and not pixies.
They kept coming, more and more by the second, arriving on a variety of backs.
Sharks and dolphins, fish and whales, all coming to a stop near the shoreline and allowing their caraids off.
But alongside the pixies was a group of slow moving sea-turtles, all the same size as our horses with shells that had been reinforced with peeled rocks from the ocean, set upon their backs like blankets as they hoisted small wagons made of seashells.
“We’re ready to move, when you are,” Queen Tonn said, my ears picking up on their conversation as I crept closer.
“What do you think is the best way for us to cross? We could go the long way, but it would take weeks. Or…” Raegan sighed, looking out across the beach to the walkway between Marazion and St. Michael’s Mount.
“The two hosts could cross there, but when the tide gets low enough for the walkway to be used, the humans will be all over it.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I croaked as Raegan and Tonn spun on me, “but I think I might have an idea.”