Looking back, Donal wished they hadn’t attempted to rest. He was bone-weary but he rarely nodded off during the hour and a half that they lied in wait. Instead he spent the time cursing the birds of the fields that sang in their full pre-dawn voices. Silence surrounded the abbey in Gartan—as did Breaslin’s men. What made this location different?

  Ninety minutes spent lying one hundred yards away from a larger opposing force. Too tired to think about anything else but sleep but too anxious let himself nap lest he allow stray snore or cough to give away their location.

  Donal cracked his eyes to monitor his friends. Finn laid on his back with his eyes on the branches above. He was attempting the breathing exercises he often instructed Donal to do. Siobhan twisted her body in every direction but prone. No matter which way she turned, her eyes inevitably opened and focused on one of her friends. Within a minute she’d spin her body a new direction and the cycle restarted.

  Donal found Maeve’s demeanor most unsettling. She squirmed in place, fidgeted with twigs lying on the ground, even bouncing her knee on several occasions. Still, her gaze rarely left the ruins or the main road. Donal’s eyes were open for several minutes before she noticed he was lucid and looking at her. She saw Finn’s state and Siobhan’s tossing and turning. Finally, she closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Has anyone slept?” she asked.

  “Ten minutes in one stretch,” Finn said.

  “I’ve nodded off a few times, but never for long,” Siobhan said.

  “Same,” Donal said.

  “Maybe this wasn’t the best idea,” Siobhan said.

  “None of us have any experience with this,” Finn said. “So far you two have been sound with your plans. We’re all just making it up as we go along at this point.”

  “So we’re moving on?” Maeve asked.

  “We are,” Siobhan said. “What’s happened down there since?”

  “They changed watch ten minutes or so after you lot laid your heads down. A single rider—likely a scout or messenger—checked in with the man on watch soon after. A pair of horseman rode up to the abbey a half-hour ago and immediately turned around.”

  “They have at least one patrol,” Siobhan said.

  “At least,” Maeve said. “An archer and a spearman.”

  “So we have at least half of an hour before the next one,” Siobhan said.

  Maeve pointed her chin to the east. “We won’t have that long,” Maeve said. “They have no roof to block the sunrise. They’ll be waking up soon.”

  “How many of them can you hit before they can respond?” Siobhan asked.

  “Two,” Maeve said. “Three if they were all asleep. I’d have to get that watcher first.”

  “Can you get him?” Siobhan asked.

  “Not from here,” Maeve said. “I’d have to move up to the right side of that clump of trees in front of us.”

  “Hang on, are we riding out of town?” Donal asked.

  “Of course,” Siobhan said.

  “Are we meant to fight down there, run back to the place where we tied the horses?”

  Siobhan nodded at Donal. “Here’s it, then,” she said. “Fellas, you’re with me. We’re going back to mount up and creep back here as far as we can without giving our position away. We’ll signal Maeve to move up and take out the watchman.” She skimmed the grounds and pointed at a clearing left of the abbey. “When she fells her first target, we’ll ride over to that point south of the abbey. Harder for anyone coming up from the main road to spot our horses.”

  “That’s good,” Maeve said. “They’ll hear you coming and run out of that opening at you. I can hit another one before your feet hit the ground.”

  “Stay up here as long as possible, Maeve,” Siobhan said. “The sun will be rising right behind you. Let’s go, lads.”

  Siobhan led the brothers east through the woods to their horses. Donal mounted Scáth and followed his brother as the horses hugged the treeline. They stopped seventy yards from their resting place.

  “This is close enough,” Siobhan said. “Wait.”

  “What is it?” Finn said.

  “We never worked out a signal,” she said.

  “I could try whistling,” he said.

  “Do it,” she said.

  Finn whistled a three-note staccato call, unlike any bird Donal had heard before. No noise came from the abbey. They saw no stirring from the camp or the trees from which Maeve would loose the first arrows. Finn’s signal likely was lost in the choir of birdsong that filled the valley.

  “Again,” Siobhan.

  Finn tried an exaggerated version of his first whistle. It was met with no action. “Are we going to have to run over there and tell her?” Finn asked.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Donal said. “They’re going to wake.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and faced Maeve’s last known location. “Cock-a-doodle-do!”

  “You eejit!” Finn hissed. “I’m going to clatter you if they don’t come up here and do it themselves.”

  “Whisht!” Siobhan said. “I think she’s moving in.”

  Donal squinted at the small bit of field in front of the forest and found Maeve’s silhouette creeping toward the clump of trees. “How long dya’think before she—”

  A distant cry interrupted Donal’s question.

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  “Move!” yelled Siobhan. She kicked her heels and urged Airgid over the short stone fence.

  The brothers followed behind her. Once Scáth hurdled the fence, Donal looked right and found Maeve ducking to the other side of the group of trees. He followed her eyeline back to the ruins and saw the sleeping guards sitting up and looking in each direction.

  One guard locked eyes with Donal and pointed. He opened his mouth to yell for his fellow guards but an arrow to his upper chest prevented his warning. Donal followed Siobhan until they reached the designated clearing.

  Donal was the last one off his horse, but the first one through the right gap in the abbey’s broken southern wall. Four men had slept next to the fire. Three of them now stood over it, weapons in hand, scanning the trees for Maeve’s location. The fourth man, the one that had seen Donal, lay on the stone floor of the old abbey. Another man’s body hung halfway out of the right hole in the northern wall. Two men were crouched next to the hole on either side of a slightly larger and more ornate version of the cauldron Breaslin destroyed under the abbey in Gartan.

  “It’s here!” Donal yelled.

  One guard jumped back in surprise at Donal’s exclamation, two others turned and advanced toward him, their green eyes glowing in the early dawn light.

  They might not be here of their own accord, Donal thought. Just like Faelan.

  Donal chopped the nearest man’s spear to the ground, shoved his handle in the man’s jaw and swung the head of the spear around, striking him with the side of the spearhead and knocking him out.

  Two more men entered through the missing western wall. Siobhan and Finn rushed toward them.

  “These folk may be twisted by Dother and Breaslin,” Donal said. “We need to be careful.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Siobhan said, “but we may not get that choice with all of them.” She pointed to Maeve’s first two targets with her staff in between strikes. “We’re here to save a lot more than just these dozen or so people,” she said.

  Donal dropped his spear and his guard as he processed what Siobhan told him. Only a last-second dodge saved him from one of the soldier’s attacks.

  “Nobody’s happy about it,” said Finn. “We’ll do what we can.”

  Maeve punctuated Finn’s comment with an arrow in the other guard still standing near the fire. She advanced down the slope toward the ruins. He shoved the middle of his spear into his foe’s face and cued the butt end of his spear into the man’s diaphragm and once more in his forehead.

  “How did they slip past you fools?” boomed an icy voice from outside the ruins. A chill spread down Donal’s spine.

  “They came from the east, éamon.” another man said. “Your messenger told us they were riding from Gartan!”

  “They were,” Breaslin said. “You three, go around the outside and find that ranger! We can take the rest.”

  “Donal!” Finn yelled. “Help her out!”

  “Sorry, fella,” Donal said. He ran up to a guard next to the cauldron. Spinning away from the guard, he raised his spear and swung it back around, toppling the man in one blow.

  Through the window he saw a spearman and two archers passing along the outside of the northern wall. From the corner of his eye he saw the other guard approach. He deflected the man’s sword, bowled him over and ran around the end of the wall.

  An archer ran past Donal as he turned the corner. He collided with the second and both of them fell to the ground. The spearman charged at him. Donal rolled to the side in time to see the man’s spear driven into the ground.

  Donal pulled himself up by the grounded spear. The spearman drove a knee into his jaw, spreading waves of pain throughout his skull. He fell backwards holding the side of his face.

  His foe removed the spear from the ground with a grunt and stood at his feet. Donal looked to his right and reached for his spear, but he could not wrap his fingers around it. The spearman smiled as he raised his weapon over his head. The man would not miss again.

  Donal had one move left. He raised both legs and drove his heels into the man’s knees. The man cried out and dropped the spear, its head slicing through Donal’s brogue and nicking the outside of his left leg. He stretched in vain for his own spear but he could not reach it. His hand warmed, and with his next swipe he grasped his spear as if it was that close to him the whole time. He pushed the spear upwards and tipped the man’s body to the side.

  “I’ve got the other two,” Maeve called out from the hill. “Get in there and help them.”

  Donal circled back around the wall and clubbed the second cauldron guard as he stood up. A sudden squeeze within his stomach drew his attention to the cauldron. The knotted pattern was much more intricate than its counterfeit and done with silver inlay. A faint yellow cloud twisted something within its belly.

  “Don’t touch this with your hands,” he said to Maeve. “It’s not right.”

  “I’d beg to differ,” Breaslin said as he stepped onto the stone floor. “We spent months getting it just right.”

  Siobhan’s last foe collapsed to the ground. Finn was landing his final combination of spell and sword strike, gasping for air.

  “It seems we weren’t the only ones that felt the need to travel through the night,” Breaslin said. “And to think you two called me paranoid.”

  Two more people entered the room and flanked Breaslin: Dother and the brute from Gartan.

  The large soldier looked over the four of them. A gleam appeared in his eye as he drew his lip into a sneer. “I see the oul’ man died,” he said. “Shame.”

  Waves of heat spread across Donal’s limbs. Without another word he brought up his spear and ran toward the opposite corner of the ruins. There was nothing else in his field of vision but the man who maimed his mentor. The brute struck the spear away, shifting Donal off-balance. Donal regained his footing and brought the butt end of his weapon into the brute’s chin. His opponent blinked but did little else in reaction.

  The soldier connected with a backhand strike against Donal’s right side. The chopping motion didn’t break through Donal’s hauberk, but it likely fractured one of Donal’s ribs and sent him flying to the left.

  He lifted his head to check on the others as he collected himself. Siobhan was working through her own aspirations of revenge. She pummeled Dother with a barrage of spells. Between each cast she cursed him anew for what he did to her uncle. It was all Dother could do to raise barriers against them, but he still felt safe enough to revel in the druid’s anger.

  Finn was left to face Breaslin. He deflected the sorcerer’s repeated flame attacks, but the wide-eyed look on his brother’s face hinted that luck was playing too big of a role in his survival. Twice Breaslin’s self-satisfied arrogance left an opening for Finn, and twice Finn attacked the opening with thunderous blasts. The second blast pushed Breaslin against the north wall.

  The soldier neared. Donal pushed himself up in time to deflect a lunge of the brute’s blade. The deftness of the move surprised Donal and he couldn’t help but smile.

  “Pleased with ourselves, are we?” the brute said, grabbing Donal’s face with his free hand.

  Donal learned the hard way that he wasn’t the only one in this fight that possessed imbáulad magic. Donal feared the heat from the brute’s hand was searing his mouth and cheeks. The loss of focus on his spear allowed the sword to inch toward Donal’s neck.

  “At least the old man put up a fight before I took his arm,” the soldier said.

  Donal wasn’t worried about his face anymore.

  He put all of his weight against his left hand, helping it to halt the sword’s movement. He pulled his right hand away, imitating his brother’s movements in Gartan. He held at his hip until it trembled, until it turned his stomach. When his left hand started to give, he struck the brute in his lower left side.

  The uppercut lifted the soldier onto his toes before he fell backwards. He landed on his right side three feet away. Donal looked down at his knuckles and immediately regretted doing so. The pattern of the brute’s chainmail was imprinted on the outside of his fingers, breaking the skin in several places. The adrenaline kept the pain at bay—for now.

  Donal didn’t close the distance and stand in front of the brute, remembering what he had done to the spearman who tried the same with him. He circled around his left side and attempted a downward strike from there. The soldier rolled out of the way and onto his knees, ready to parry Donal’s next downward stab. Instead Donal slid his right hand down and smacked the handle against the brute’s head.

  The force of the strike guided the man into a forced crouch. He dropped his hand to the side to swing under Donal’s spear, but Donal cued his spear into an opening in the right side of the brute’s torso.

  Donal did not wait for any reaction. He cued the spear three more times, missing once but catching his opponent on the outer left shoulder and cutting his left forearm.

  This was Donal’s chance. He turned his back to spin into a long swing—as he did against one of the cauldron guards—but the brute’s fist struck Donal in the chest when his face came around. Donal fell against the fragmented southern wall. His vision flashed white upon impact. His body slid down the wall and landed in a heap on the floor.