Opening his eyes, Scamp rolled over and looked at the sky. It was already a light azure; despite the sun having risen recently, there were no clouds to taint it with red. He wondered where Upthog might be, only to remember he’d left her in a bit of dingle just after darkness fell, unable to forgive her lies and treating him like little more than a newborn puppy.

  And she’d done nothing to prevent him from leaving.

  Arms folded, the losán had watched him hoist his leather backpack, saying nothing. Still, he had expected her to stop him when he climbed the side of their hiding place, but she sat watching him with a tight mouth and fiery eyes. Then he expected her to run after him, calling his name, but he’d been disappointed again as he pushed his way through the tall grass, whistling between his teeth to distract him from his fear.

  Scamp had no idea how long he’d walked, where he intended to go, or even which direction he was walking in. He’d heard some could navigate using only the stars, but he wasn’t one of them. When he tried, he saw twinkling lights and the moon grinning down at him, not a map.

  Whistling didn’t help because Scamp’s fear had grown as he walked. At one point, hearing an animal sawing somewhere in the dark, he’d considered returning to the witch to the extent that he stopped and stared back at his trail, visible in the grass despite the darkness. Then he thought about how she would laugh at his weakness, so he wrapped his arms tightly around himself and continued walking.

  Eventually, he’d come across another depression in the plains, which was as deep as hers, he thought, and so made a camp of sorts. After eating some dried meat, he’d rolled himself in his blanket, intent on watching the stars and listening for danger, sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep only to awaken with the sun.

  A new dawn.

  After relieving himself and eating, Scamp climbed the side of the dell and once more gazed back the way he’d come. His path of the previous evening was evident in the trampled grass, and he half expected to find Upthog following in his wake. Again, there was no sign of her.

  She’s angry that I left.

  “What did she expect? She’s a witch,” he said to the grass with a frown before realising he was in the middle of nowhere with no guide, powerful demon, or friends. He studied the grass, the sky, and the trail he’d left and felt like screaming at the injustice of it all.

  There are bears in Middle Kingdom. Are you there, Bábdíbir?

  Nothing.

  “What am I going to do now?”

  He could hear the grass sighing and sighed in return, collected his pack, and started walking with the rising sun on his left side, deciding to search out the éigeas in Scéine’s Cove. Upthog might have been using the sage, Myrddin, as support for her subterfuge, but Scamp could think of many worse things to do than ask for help from a wise man. Someone so well respected would surely know what to do.

  But is he real? And what of the Four? They will hunt for me. According to Upthog, they’re already hunting me, but did she lie about that to frighten me south, like she did with this Myrddin?

  The question caused him to hesitate, but only for a moment. Glancing over his shoulder, he realised it was continue or go back. It would be too embarrassing to even think about returning to Upthog. Besides, if The Four were hunting him, no doubt the best thing to do would be to keep moving.

  With another sigh, he walked on.

  As the sun continued to rise, he drank and ate only sparingly. Upthog told him there would be no more water until he reached Dún Ailinne. He had no silver and couldn’t buy food, but he thought they would give him water. He had enough dried meat in his pack for several days, thinking it would be enough to see him to Scéine’s Cove, where the sage would feed him.

  How far did she say it was?

  Scamp crested an incline, and from the slight elevation, he gazed over a sea of grass, amazed at the waves rippling it. He’d never seen anything quite as beautiful. Oh, a winter’s forest was a sight to behold, as were the autumn colours, but this waving field of browning grass had a beauty all its own.

  Fears of the previous night forgotten, Scamp started whistling on the downward slope, suddenly happy to be alive and walking through the tall grass of Middle Kingdom’s northern plains. The warmth of early morning was pleasant. He might not be full, but neither was he hungry. Life—very nearly—was good, something to celebrate, for once.

  Clippity-clop. Clippity-clop.

  His gut flipped, and his heart began racing. At first, it was a faint, distant sound coming from behind. Remembering the swath of broken grass, he realised whoever followed wouldn’t need to be a tracker. He couldn’t tell how many horses were coming, only that it was more than one.

  Clippity-clop. Clippity-clop. The sound grew as he wondered what to do.

  It’s probably Upthog? Maybe not. You should hide.

  But in the open plains—plains he’d revelled in only moments before—there was nowhere to hide, not even a dip. The grass wouldn’t conceal him from those mounted on horses, either. He could move off, duck down and hide in the tall blades, but the same tell-tale trail would give him away.

  Shrugging off his pack, Scamp dumped it on the ground and sat on it to wait, his heart in his mouth. He briefly hoped the riders would turn off and go elsewhere—that they weren’t following his trail—but the sound of hooves in the sod grew ever nearer.

  Eventually, the horses came over the rise—their riders visible first. When Scamp saw who was coming, he had no idea what to do. Running would be useless and fighting even more so. Instead, he stayed where he was, shielding his eyes with his hand and said, “You’re the last person I would’ve expected here.”

  “Is that so? Well, Scamp, everything is strange these days,” First Warrior Mesroeda said, grinning so widely he was in danger of splitting his face.

  ***

  They were riding side by side atop the dyke when Volt saw the Leathdhosaen of warriors riding north towards them. He reined in and put his forearms on the pommel of his saddle to wait.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Maga glanced at him before turning to Fachta and saying, “You know what to do.”

  “Aye, Ma,” Fachta replied with a grin before spurring his horse on.

  “What’s he going to do?” Volt asked with a frown. He didn’t like the sound of Maga’s statement. It had an ominous ring to it—a ring that he would not have associated with her before they started this journey together.

  And what does that mean? You don’t know her from Danu.

  It was a sobering thought. The warrior had beaten him at the battle of Caer Usk. What more did he know? She’d treated him fairly after the collapse of his shield wall, and they’d buried the dead together. But what else? They had met intermittently over the ten summers or more since the battle, but not so they would know each other.

  “He’ll assess them, then do whatever’s needed,” she said staring intently after Fachta.

  “I am not sure what that means.”

  “If he deems it necessary, he will destroy them.”

  “What, all of them?”

  Volt could hear the disbelief in his words, even if Maga could not. Something about the warrior and her son had been striking him as strange. This claim that the gormless dailtín would destroy a Leathdhosaen alone didn’t put the suspicions out of his mind. He tried to recall when his suspicions about the pair first arose. After a moment, he realised it all stemmed from watching Fachta grooming his horse in the ship’s belly.

  “There are only six.”

  “Only six…” he trailed off. Maga’s confidence in her son gave weight to the fears he’d felt mounting over recent days. A horse warrior who would best six in a fight would be renowned throughout the…

  No horse warrior would not know how to groom, he suddenly realised. What is happening?

  And as he sat there, everything about their appearance seemed less than usual. They sought him out after someone had abducted Connavar. Like a mouse digging into the granary, the question of why had scratched at the back of his mind ever since. Glancing at her, he saw she was concentrating on Fachta’s approach, seemingly oblivious to his thoughts. If she could read his mind, she would be defending herself. In fact, if she could read people’s minds, she would have prevented the King’s abduction, notwithstanding her lame excuse for not doing so.

  So, that was a lie, but to what end?

  Concaire, whom Maga claimed was real, asked Volt what they wanted. When he thought he was dreaming, it had just been part of the dream. Now that he realised it had been an actual event, a message from one of the Four—from Marbh, Concaire had said—the words were no longer his subconscious trying to warn him, but something firmer like a cowpat that’s been drying in the sun for a moon’s cycle.

  Dhuosnos’s disciple warned me about them.

  And then he found himself wondering if the King had even been abducted. With all the talk of shape-changing, could these two not also be impostors? He’d seen no sign of the madness prolonged change was said to induce, but what did that mean? As Maga rightly said, they were dealing with bedtime stories coming to life. No one knew reality from the exaggeration introduced by countless millennia of storytelling by scélaí in hostels all over the Kingdoms.

  Thinking it through, he realised by telling him she could see inside his head, Maga had been trying to hide how she was party to his dream, so if she wasn’t reading his mind, how was it possible? To Volt’s mind, there was only one answer. She could see and hear Concaire—as could Fachta—but that just made the situation more complicated.

  She wasn’t reading my dream but watching the disciple.

  If he were honest with himself, Volt would admit to being afraid. He’d agreed to come with mother and son out of some sense of duty to his King. Sitting astride his mare and watching Fachta ride towards an unknown group of riders, he feared it had been a mistake.

  “Have you been honest with me?” he asked.

  “Aye. What are you fretting about? Fachta won’t do anything unless they’re a threat.”

  That’s not what I’m fretting about.

  As the thought presented itself, he watched Fachta rein in beside the approaching warriors. The Leathdhosaen formed a semi-circle around him, which Volt thought threatening. Fachta didn’t seem worried despite them being too far away for Volt to hear what they were saying. Not only did Fachta appear to be relaxed, but he also seemed jovial until his sword swung in a wide arc, which decapitated the leading warrior. Volt watched the torso slump and fall into the dust before the horse shied and galloped off, dragging the dead warrior bumping along the highway, a foot wedged in a stirrup.

  Shouts erupted, but they were unintelligible, the distance still too great. He watched as the warriors tried to draw their swords and defend themselves, but—hampered by their proximity to each other—Fachta’s speed was far too great for them. He slashed his blade across the chest of another rider with the backstroke from the first kill. He cut and stabbed at the last four as if he was practising on a straw dummy in the courtyard of the warrior school at Dún Scáith on the Shadowy Isle. Volt felt a bead of sweat on his forehead as he heard Fachta’s manic laugh carried on the wind. Glancing at Maga, he saw a smile on her face.

  “Come,” she said as soon as it was over, digging her heels in and cantering away.

  Volt hesitated, unsure of much except he wanted to escape these two.

  Ride far and fast.

  However, the decision to ride or stay was taken out of his hands when two of Maga’s Leathdhosaen crowded his horse, preventing him from going anywhere except in her wake.

  “Forwards, Horse Warrior,” the warrior called Gul said, pointing after Maga.

  When he reached them, he found Fachta knelt beside one of the corpses, cleaning his blade on the dead man’s cloak, a grotesque grin showing his teeth. The boy delighted in murdering six warriors without reason.

  This is no boy, whatever his appearance.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  Fachta stared at him briefly before replying. “Violence was oozing from their pores like malodorous sweat. Kill or be killed, Horse Warrior.”

  “Violence oozed from their pores. Really?”

  “I cannot allow anything to stop our mission,” Maga said.

  “So, who are you, and where are Maga and Fachta? Did you murder them like he murdered the warriors of this Fianna?” Volt asked, nodding at the blood-spattered monster kneeling in the dust.

  “It wasn’t murder,” Fachta said, his grin unaffected. “Their leader made the first move. I was defending myself.”

  Volt didn’t believe him. There had been some distance between them, but even so, the leader of the warriors seemed to be talking when Fachta swept his blade through the man’s neck.

  She stared at him for several moments, seeming to weigh him before making a decision. Finally, turning away, she said, “We are Maga and Fachta, but, Horse Warrior, we are also Danu’s Guards. He’s Lugaidh, my husband, and I’m Achtan. We’ve been here waiting for the last Summoner.”

  “Danu’s Guards. You’re Tuatha.” That’s what Concaire was telling me. More children’s stories come to life.

  “Aye, we are of the Tuatha.”

  “What do you want with me?” Volt asked, feeling more confused than before he asked the first question. He didn’t doubt what she told him—her gold eyes and the ease with which Fachta had killed six horse warriors—probably skilled fighters—prevented any doubts.

  “We are tasked with ensuring the witch and the summoner are united in the Arena under Bull’s Head Rock. We wouldn’t have bothered with you, Horse Warrior, except Dagda’s seeress foretold your presence, and as Dhuosnos’s disciple has the boy’s journey well in hand, we deviated to make sure you arrived.”

  Dagda’s seeress. Who’s she? he wondered. However, he had a more pressing question to ask. “Dhuosnos’s disciple? Who’s that?”

  “The witch.”

  Does she mean Kathvar?

  His mind was in such turmoil he dropped that question and asked instead, “I thought the Tuatha were on the side of good.”

  Maga laughed and shook her head. “The side of good? How many summers have you seen, Horse Warrior, twelve? There’s no good or evil, just Creator and created. The Lord of Darkness and his disciples have a function, and we have a function. You humans are unimportant to all except the Creator, and only then because He’s proud of His work.”