Ruirech was gazing at her across the fire. Bee couldn’t tear her mind away from the primaeval roar that split the plains as they rode away from the camp. Fear had caused her to look over her shoulder. Whitehead was standing outside her command tent, watching them ride away, her axe on her shoulder. The warrior made no gesture but turned to head towards the palisade.

  They had ridden throughout what remained of the day before the rebel nodded at a hill to the left of the road. Digging her heels in, Bee followed him up the steep slope and found herself gazing into a small valley with a large cave entrance at the base of the opposite slope. She was just in time to see the rump of Ruirech’s mount vanish into the darkness.

  By the time she reached the entrance—moments only—Ruirech already had several torches mounted in sconces on the cave’s walls, burning brightly. The torches revealed a space, deep and easily large enough for them and the three horses. Bee whistled as she led her mount and the packhorse to the stalls at the rear.

  “What are you better at, horse care or cooking?” the rebel asked.

  “Horses, for sure.”

  “Right, I’ll get the oats on.”

  A short time later, they were eating, sitting opposite each other over a roaring fire. “How did ye find this place?”

  “I’ve been a rebel since I was born. Hiding places keep me alive. You can never have too many.”

  “I’ll keep that in me mind, so I will.”

  “Something I still do not get,” Ruirech said, before hesitating. He continued after Bee nodded. “Why did Dagda send you?”

  “I wish I knew, Ruirech. It’s a question I keep asking meself.”

  “Oftentimes, I find talking through a problem helps to find an answer.”

  “I’ve not stopped thinking about it—”

  “But not talking about it,” the rebel interrupted.

  Bee ran a finger along her scar as she gazed at her companion and wondered what to say. She felt so alone, and someone she could rely on would be welcome. Ruirech might well be that person, if she could only overcome her natural instinct to rely only on herself. One thing was certain: he wasn’t happy about how Danu’s Three had treated him; or The Smith, at least. The boy had grown up believing Dorn to be his friend, but he had turned into something else.

  If ye need someone, why not this rebel? she asked herself again. She had been asking the question since he grabbed her arm in the compound.

  “I remember lying on me cot with me eyes screwed shut,” she said, thinking back to what seemed so long ago, even though it was only a few days.

  Bee recalled not wanting to open her eyes, because she could feel that the light was a blinding and unwelcome, and giving her a throbbing pain above the bridge of her nose. She’d been dreaming about the last hours of the Scourge when Dagda woke her. She’d been going over the Maiden’s cruelty, wondering if it was justified.

  “I didn’t understand why I’d woken. Me scar was itching—”

  “You got that during the Scourge?” Ruirech interrupted, nodding at her chin.

  “Aye. Got a little too close to a demon’s talon. Or it got too close to me, so it did.”

  “How long do you sleep?”

  “Usually about five hundred summers. Scourges tend to happen every thousand summers, or so. Sometimes two. When I’m not sleeping, I’m preparing.”

  Fight, sleep, prepare. Fight, sleep, prepare, she said to herself. The cycle. She wanted to scream and rent her hair.

  “That sounds a bit monotonous.”

  “Ye think? Anyway, I was so tired. The exhaustion caused by using that much Earth Power goes much deeper than normal tiredness.” Ruirech nodded his understanding. “It took him a while to wake me…”

  Bee related the detail of everything that had happened since her Master dragged her out of the depths of her sleep. Ruirech said nothing, just listened as she explained about the wait for Finn and the warriors who attacked them; she explained about meeting Dorn in Bacca and how he’d killed Finn on the edge of the Western Wall. She told of her capture and escape, trying to describe the stench of the Void when the God tore a hole through the wall. She told him about Whitehead and the original claim that Fis was an aide, which she didn’t believe, forcing them to admit that he was one of Danu’s Three, Credne, the Silversmith.

  When she finished her story, the rebel sat regarding her with an expression of pure concentration. Bee liked that he used his head before speaking. He’s quite good to look at, too, she thought, before barking a sharp laugh.

  “Is this situation not a little serious for levity?” he asked, eyebrow cocked.

  “I’m older than the original King Ochall,” Bee said, grinning. Ruirech shook his head, his face a picture of confusion. “Anyway, Luchta is supposed to be here, too. Although, I haven’t met him yet.”

  “The Carpenter too,” Ruirech mused. “All three in the Kingdoms. That’s not usual.”

  “Fis—Credne, I suppose—claims they were sent by Danu when she felt a surge of power in Breshlech. He said that Dagda felt it too, but that my Master didn’t believe Danu’s explanation and sent me to stop Bren from doing whatever he’s supposed to be doing. The God said they’d been playing fidchell when they felt—”

  “What, all three?”

  “Aye, why?”

  “Dorn has been my companion for many summers. I don’t think even Danu’s Three can be in two places at once.”

  “Could he not have gone back and forth?”

  “There’s no portal near my hideout. So, I can’t see how.”

  “No,” Bee said, nodding, realising it had been right in front of her nose all along. She’d had a sense that something about The Silversmith’s scélaí was not right. It took a human to reveal it.

  “Fis—Credne lied to me.”

  “And your Master,” the rebel finally said. “He told you your brother stole through the portal, but he was sent.”

  “The demon said Danu sent Bren, not Dagda.”

  “But he knew. At least, according to Credne, who we know to have lied at least once.”

  Bee opened her mouth to respond but realised he was right. Either Dagda or Credne had lied to her. Or more probably both had lied to her. “The question is why,” she mused.

  “Do you trust Dagda?” Ruirech asked, which was one Bee felt she couldn’t answer. Not without causing an amount of inner turmoil she didn’t feel ready for.

  “What now?” she asked, ignoring the question.

  “Now we go looking for Dorn and your brother,” Ruirech said. “With Credne lying, maybe Danu’s Three are all working against you. Whatever the truth, we won’t get answers from anyone except Brenos, I think.”

  “But that’s for tomorrow. Now, I need to sleep.”

  ***

  When they rounded a bend in the South Road and laid eyes on the fortified city of Dun Ailinne, Bee drew a breath through pursed lips, as if trying to suck a whistle back in. Despite having seen Etercel’s magnificent structure many times, it never failed to impress her. From the south, the multi-tiered city seemed to be cloaked by the Great Forest, the canopy on either side of the road appearing like the raised collars of a royal vestment and the city, the crown atop a shadowed, regal face. Ruirech drew rein and sat with his arms crossed over his saddle pommel, glowering at the sight.

  “Are ye feeling well?” Bee asked.

  She thought he wasn’t going to reply, until after several moments, he said, “This is my ancestral home. I’m descended directly from Eterscel, who built this city.”

  “I know,” Bee said, leaving out that she had been there when the great King built all his magnificent works. She’d been saddened when he died and the Kingdoms erupted into war because his demise weakened Middle Kingdom.

  “The man sitting on my throne, Balor, gave my people’s land to his Fomorii warriors. My people lost everything. I should only be returning here at the head of a triumphal march, after I witness the usurper’s hanging.”

  “The usurper is long dead,” Bee said, gently. The one thing that the humans she had known seemed to lack was the capacity to forgive and forget, or at least the parts that didn’t put the lie to their claims. Ruirech seemed to have forgotten that the Fomorii had been living in the Kingdoms long before Dagda moved the humans across planes to populate his new land—his self-proclaimed creation. It might be true that Balor gave the lands to his faithful at the expense of Ruirech’s people, but to call him a usurper was not. Indech Mor usurped Middle Kingdom before the last Scourge, more than three hundred summers before. How many kings had come and gone in that time? Bee had no way to know because she’d been sleeping, but with humankind’s short lives, she knew it was more than one or two.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  As they sat watching, Bee felt, rather than saw, Ruirech sit up straighter in his saddle. Turning, she caught him about to draw his sword.

  “What is it?”

  “A patrol has just come through the gate.”

  Shielding her eyes, Bee was amazed at the human’s sight. She’d not noticed the mounted Fomorii riding down the South Road in their direction. She thought her eyes were good, but then supposed a rebel needed to have impeccable senses.

  “Ride on, with yer hands off yer weapons, and pull yer hood up,” she said, throwing off her cowl to expose her Fae origins. “If they think we’re Fae, they won’t do anything.”

  Nodding, Ruirech raised his hood and kept his head low. As she knew he would, the patrol’s captain glanced at them when riding past but said and did nothing. Bee watched the patrol as the warriors rode around the bend and out of sight.

  “How did you know they wouldn’t stop us?” Ruirech asked.

  Instead of answering, Bee dug her heels into her mount and continued to the Southern Gate. She wouldn’t tell the rebel that most in the Five Kingdoms, and especially the Fomorii, had an unhealthy respect for the Fae. They considered them all to be Gods, even though it was only true of the Higher Tuatha. There was little understanding of the Tuatha caste structure, and that Bee was a vassal to a God, just as the Fomorii were vassals to King Balor. She said nothing because she knew the human would not understand.

  Much like the patrol, the guards at the gate regarded them watchfully, but said and did nothing. Although war was threatening, the gates were still open, at least to a degree. The guards were interrogating and searching humans who were seeking entrance into the city mindful that the rebel army was in the forest, not many leagues from the walls. Bee suspected that when Ruirech’s father ruled the rebels, the city had been lax after so many summers of peace, which was how they could break into the dungeons and release the prisoners. The guards seemed to have learned a lesson.

  Between the inner walls, the streets were narrow, and often crowded. As such, Bee preferred to leave the mounts at the stables, which was just inside the city gates.

  “Where now?” Ruirech asked as they joined the throng in the street after paying the stable master far too much silver.

  “This way,” Bee said, turning right and heading towards the eastern gate in the walls of the second tier. As there were two gates in the outer wall, so there were two in the inner walls, on the east and west, rather than north and south, for the first inner wall, and then back to the north and south for the second inner wall. Eterscel designed the city in this manner so that if attackers breached the gates, the ramparts of each inner wall would provide additional defences to whatever barricades they might have time to erect. The walls only had buildings against their insides, making any attackers open to missiles from above but also preventing easy access to the ramparts. As such, most of the city’s houses were in the upper tier, behind the fourth and final wall. As were the hostels.

  “It’s a long walk. Steep too, so it is,” she warned.

  The effort needed to climb up through the tiers kept their conversation light. Each time Bee visited Dun Ailinne, the streets were teeming with people: merchants and shoppers, with the occasional city guards. Now, it was thronged with city guards and a few shoppers and merchants. Bee could feel her neck hairs tingling while they walked, and it was not because of the heavy presence of guards. Although she kept looking back suddenly, she saw no one. Even when she darted into a shop, as if interested in the cloth displayed on benches outside, she saw no one hesitate and pretend to see something that interested them.

  “What was that about?” Ruirech asked when she left the shop with a frown.

  “Can’t ye feel it?” she asked.

  “Aye, someone is following us. They’ve been following us since we left the stables.”

  “Why didn’t ye say something?”

  “Bringing it to your attention would have made you look. I’ve been waiting for a place where we can stop and catch them without giving it away.”

  “There’s no such place before the upper town, so there isn’t.”

  “Aye. Best if we do it in the hostel. He’ll know where we are, but I think there’s only one, so if we can catch him, we should be safe enough.”

  Bee stopped outside a hostel in the narrow streets of the fourth tier and put her hands on her hips. “Things are always changing, so,” she said with a frown.

  “What?” Ruirech asked.

  “Last time I was here, this was the One-Legged Heron.”

  Ruirech looked up at the sign above the door showing a fat and jovial king surrounded by other fat a jovial men.

  “They do that sometimes,” he said, opening the door and stepping back so Bee could enter.

  “If youse be wanting food and drink, head into the common room and I’ll be with you shortly,” the portly man in an apron with rosy cheeks and the look of one who had too much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it. Entering the common room they found it empty.

  “No one in. That’s good, so it is.”

  “You sit,” Ruirech said, nodding at a table directly opposite the door.

  With a wry smile, Bee obediently went and sat with her back to the wall so she could see who came in. Ruirech retreated into the shadows beside the room’s only entrance and waited. The wait was short. Just after Bee had made herself comfortable, a man walked into the room, slowly, as if expecting trouble. Seeing where Bee was sitting, his face became animated as if he’d just seen an old friend for the first time in many summers. He took a step towards her. One step was all Ruirech allowed as he moved silently to the man’s back, threw his arm around his neck, and pressed a dagger into the flesh under his chin.

  “Good of you to finally join us,” he said, drawing a little blood.

  Bee stood and moved to join them. The man didn’t take his eyes off her. He remained perfectly still, not even breathing, or so it seemed to Bee.

  “Why are ye following us?” she asked as she arrived before him.

  Rather than respond, the man shocked her with a question. “Be you the witch, Bechuille?”

  Ruirech put pressure on his dagger point, causing the blood to run down the man’s neck, but Bee took his wrist and glowered at him until he relaxed. “What of it?”

  “If’n y’are, I’ve to give you this,” the stranger said, waving a scroll that appeared from his sleeve as if by draíocht. Ruirech looked down at the man’s arms, surprised to have been so easily circumvented. If the scroll had been a knife, Bee might well be fighting for her life, which convinced her that the scroll was genuine, whatever was written on it. Opening it, she read:

  Leave now. Do not delay. Do not light any fires on the road. Come to Caisel, where we are waiting. D

  Bee handed the scroll to Ruirech, who took it in his dagger-free hand. He kept the point of the dagger pressed to the messenger’s skin. She watched his expression as he read the words, but he gave nothing away.

  “It’s a trap,” he said as he rested his elbow on the messenger’s shoulder.

  “Ye think so. I’m not so sure. He could have killed me. Instead, he gave me a scroll from Dornalai.”

  “Why would the ring fighter send a scroll? Anyone could read it.”

  “I be a Master Messenger,” the man said. “None can read the scroll except those who was meant to.”

  “Hmm,” Ruirech scoffed.

  “It’s a thing, Ruirech, so it is,” Bee said. “I believe him. Besides, if it ain’t true, we’re not exactly swimming in a sea of choices.”

  “How do you stop someone reading it?” the rebel asked, disbelief in his tone as well as in his eyes.

  “Like so,” the messenger said, clicking his fingers.

  Ruirech dropped the scroll with a yelp as it burst into flames. All three stood staring at it as it went from yellow flames to blackened parchment, to ash, all in a matter of moments. They would have continued to stare at it if the hostel keeper hadn’t bustled in at that moment and demanded their order.

  “Lamb be particularly—”

  “Nothing,” Ruirech interrupted, pushing the messenger away and sheathing his dagger before the keeper saw it. “Something’s come up.”

  They left with words about how the portly man was trying to run a business and didn’t appreciate time wasters in their ears, and headed towards the stables. Bee turned to ask the messenger how long he’d been waiting in Dun Ailinne to find he’d gone.

  “Are you sure you can trust him?” Ruirech asked.

  “He could have killed me,” she repeated. “He could have drawn any weapon from those sleeves.”

  “He’s got draíocht. That means trouble to me.”

  “Why d’ye think he can access Earth Power?”

  “Really? How did he find us, and how did he burn the scroll?”

  “I doubt he found us. He was waiting for us. Dornalai knew that at some point, we would arrive in Dun Ailinne. The burning of the scroll was most likely sleight of hand. He had his back to ye, and I wasn’t watching him but ye. Besides, I would’ve sensed any draíocht that close.”

  ***

  They were halfway to Caisel on the rolling plains of Talamh Thortuil before they made cold camp. Ruirech was in a foul humour, so Bee decided not to tease him about a lack of hiding places out on the plains. There was nothing here except lots and lots of grass. In high summer, the grasses would be leached of colour and swishing like the sea. In autumn and winter they were a deep green and swishing like the sea because this far south the climate was not harsh enough to suppress them.

  “You sleep and I’ll take the watch,” Ruirech said.

  Despite his tone of command, Bee didn’t argue. She was far too tired to be bothered. No doubt, at some time in the near future, she would need to put the human in his place, but not today. Wrapping herself in her bedroll, Bee turned her back to him and wondered whether she would find any solace in sleep…

  When she awoke, it was a gradual thing. Different noises brought her awake slowly. An owl hooted, far off in the distance. A wolf howled. Something was scratching in the soil not too far from the camp. When bats began chittering directly overhead, Bee opened her eyes, only to close them again because of a blinding silvery light. She tried to remember if she’d ever seen the moon so bright, but could not recall. After a few moments, she opened her eyes again.

  Sitting with his back to her, Ruirech was staring off into the silvery vista the plains had become. She could see a carpet of mist creeping up from the wet grass. At first, they were the occasional wisps, like tendrils of smoke from a newly lit fire. Slowly, the tendrils thickened and began to coat the ground surrounding their camp. The rebel continued to sit as if he were frozen to the spot by some draíocht she’d not felt.

  Bee turned away, convinced it was another dream, only to catch sight of a shadowy figure in the mists not far away. The figure was motionless and seemed to be staring into the camp. Not into the camp, but at me, she thought. She couldn’t be sure because the mists were shrouding whoever it was in a gossamer cloak that allowed only hints and glimpses. Bee was about to pinch herself and see if she was truly dreaming, when the breeze picked up, shredding the shroud in moments, and she could see the figure in all its magnificent beauty.

  A naked woman stood with her arms crossed under her breasts. Bee remembered seeing such a perfectly formed body in her dream. Marbh. The demon was standing with one knee slightly raised and angled over the other, pressing the tops of her thighs firmly together. Some modesty then, Bee thought as she raised her eyes to regard the beautiful face. The eyes that she saw were in contrast to the rest of the perfectly formed woman. They were blood red and without pupils, pulsing like an exposed artery feeding a heart; a heart suffused with evil. Bee’s gut leaped into her mouth, and she had to suppress a scream. She’d never seen so much malice concentrated in so small a space.

  She remembered her the dream on the way to Breshlech. The red eyes in the clouds. Was it part of the earlier premonition? Do your duty. What did it mean? What duty, and to whom? Premonitions were never exact. But besides the evil, Bee felt something else, like a deep rooted longing and it scared her. Consciously forcing herself to wake, deciding it was best to wake from the nightmare, she opened her eyes. Opening her mouth to warn Ruirech, she closed it when the apparition vanished.

  If it had been a dream, it was different from those that went before. Bee rubbed her eyes trying to free them of the image. She could feel the blood pulsing in her neck and temples, as if called to the fore by the demonic orbs.

  The wolf howled again, lamenting the monster’s passing.

  “By all the Tuatha,” she hissed.

  Ruirech looked over his shoulder at her. “Ah, you’re awake. Did you ever see such a beautiful moon?” Bee shook her head, turning to look at the mists slowly dissipating around their camp.

  Not a dream, so. What have I got meself into? she wondered again.