***
It was still dark when they emerged from the cave and into the icy air. Standing at the craggy entrance, Liath Luachra stared up at the perforated layer of white flakes cascading out of the darkness overhead. She shivered and pulled the hood of her cloak down lower over her forehead. The snow fall was not heavy but it was steady. The absence of wind meant that it would settle on the ground, leaving a fresh layer to obscure all trace of their passage. She exhaled slowly and a phantom mist momentarily frosted the air about her lips. Night still cloaked the land but her instincts told her that it would not be long before the first grey tinge appeared on the horizon, followed soon after by the streaky white blur of dawn.
‘Stay close now, Bearach.’
The youth took a deep breath and nodded. Like Liath Luachra, he had packed lightly, bedroll and three javelins strapped tight across his back to allow maximum freedom of movement. Both wore their fur mittens, wool hats pulled tight over heads crowned with wide oilskin hoods.
They set off in a southerly direction, dropping from the hill to the flat ground that snaked between the ridges, trudging through snow that was ankle deep in places. South for Ráth Bládhma thought Liath Luachra. South for home.
Still struggling against the gluey clutch of sleep, the boy relinquished all responsibility for their path. Liath Luachra pushed them forward with her characteristic intensity but maintained a measured pace that kept them warm without causing the thick film of sweat that could pose a lethal risk if they were forced to stop and their body temperature dropped.
They’d been travelling for some time when the woman warrior stopped abruptly, so abruptly, in fact, that Bearach ran into her, buffeting his nose against the javelins strapped across her back. For a moment, the boy teetered and struggled to regain his balance. Ignoring his predicament, Liath Luachra peered forward into the gloom. Although Bearach knew better than to interrupt her when she was preoccupied, she sensed him easing up alongside, curious to see what she was looking at. Both of them stared at the dim smear of light in the distance, set at the base of a broad hill known as Drom Osna – the Ridge of Sighs.
‘What is it?’ Bearach asked at last, finally running out of patience.
‘It’s a fire. But it’s distant. Or reflected off the trees. Hard to tell at this distance.’
Liath Luachra frowned up at the darkness stretched tight across the heavens and scratched her cheek with a mitten. The snow was easing but the sky was still black and viscous as a bog pool.
‘Do you think it’s that fian?’
She grimaced at the boy’s enthusiasm, shaking her head in exasperation. ‘They were headed east. They couldn’t have come back this way so quickly. Besides, a single fire for so many? It ...’
Her voice trailed as off as her mind became absorbed with the possibilities. Eventually, she swore, unable to come up with a feasible explanation. Curious by nature, she hated not knowing the detail of things. ‘Hell’s testicles! This country is busier than a spring fair! People are traipsing all over the place.’
She bit her lip and squinted at the distant glow.
‘Bearach,’ she said at last. ‘I’m going closer. I want to see who it is.’
‘Wouldn’t it be safer to go back to the ráth?’ He stared at her with serious eyes from beneath the cowl of his hood.
‘Safer perhaps. But we’d be no wiser on the nature of those parties tramping around our territory. Better to look them over before running back to cower behind the walls, no?’
Uncertain, the youth refrained from comment, stamping his feet to keep the circulation flowing.
Liath Luachra removed her javelins and blanket then divested herself of her heavy woollen cloak as well. She handed the awkward bundle across to Bearach. ‘Keep these safe until I get back,’
‘I’m not coming with you?’
The question took Liath Luachra by surprise and she looked at him blankly. After a moment, she pointed to a nearby clump of forest. ‘You see those trees?’
He nodded.
‘I want you to hide there. Stay out of sight when I leave. If you hear a noise, any commotion at all, you run directly for Ráth Bládhma and you don’t stop until you get there. Understand?’
Bearach swallowed and nodded nervously, fingers struggling to get a decent grip on the meagre substance of his budding moustache.
‘You don’t stop,’ Liath Luachra insisted. ‘If there’s trouble here you need to warn the ráth about the fian. Bodhmhall and Aodhán will know what to do but tell them if there’s any trouble they should leave and make a run for Dún Baoiscne. They’ll ... they’ll protect our people.’
She grimaced involuntarily. Even naming the Baoiscne fortress out loud left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Without another word, she turned and started walking, intent on reaching the mysterious light. After only a few steps, however, something made her halt and look back over her shoulder. Bearach’s face, staring miserably after her, was a pale moon amongst the shadow of the trees and she blinked, confused by the sensation it stirred up inside her chest. Unsettled, she shook it off, brushing all thought of the boy from her mind as she turned and focussed once more on achieving her objective.
The distant light proved an effective beacon, drawing her in towards it like a moth to a flame. Unhindered by javelins or blanket, she was able to move swiftly, slipping easily over the crusted snow until she reached the densely forested hill several hundred paces south of Drom Osna.
Pausing, she considered the light once more. It was a fire all right. Now that she was closer she could see that it was situated in some kind of hollow or depression at the base of the hill, just in front of what seemed to be a large cavern in the rock face. Although the source of the light was out of her direct line of sight, the glow from the flames reflected off the frozen surface of the leaves on the nearby trees and a light haze of ice crystals hanging in the air.
Foolish.
Liath Luachra sniffed in disapproval. The hollow was a poor choice to site the fire. Not only did it signpost their location but the occupants were more than likely night blind as a result of the fire’s proximity.
All the better for me.
Moving at a low crouch, she followed the hill to a point less than a hundred paces from the cave. Here, she dropped to her belly and started to slide forwards across the snow. Fifty paces out, she stopped and lay motionless as she took the time to scan the trees for any flicker of movement, any unusually shaped shadows. She was relatively confident that she was safe where she lay. Around her the surface was rough and uneven, the snow folded up into low banks by the prevailing wind that would obscure her from most eyes.
She remained in the same position for a long time, before finally satisfied that there were no guards posted, none at the extremities of the hollow, none along the tree line of the lower hill. It was hard to believe but the occupants appeared to have taken no precautions of any kind.
What are these strangers thinking! They must have a death-wish.
She was about to move forward again when a sudden sound reached her ears and she froze in place. Startled, she drew her feet up, ready to take flight but as she listened to the low, humming drone, she began to relax. It was a chant. Someone below in the hollow was chanting.
Very thoughtful. That should cover any noise I make.
With one last sweep of the tree line, she began to move again, circling away from the hill to approach the hollow from a different angle. Further out from the hill the surface of the snow flattened out, becoming smoother and unblemished. Another slow, careful crawl brought her to within spitting distance of the lip of the depression but, spotting a fallen tree off to one side, she began to manoeuvre herself towards it, intending to use the trunk as cover when looking down into the hollow.
Easing in beside it, she lay with her face pressed against the trunk, her cheek stinging from the touch of the ice-coated bark. Shivering, she briefly regretted her decision to leave the wool cloak behind but almost imme
diately dismissed the notion. The extra fur-lined layer would have been welcome but the garment’s bulk would have been too restrictive for what she needed.
Without warning, the chanting ceased. Once again, Liath Luachra froze in place. With shallow breaths, she sniffed the air but smelt nothing other than wood smoke and the sharp scent of snow.
Removing her right mitten, she gripped the wooden handle of her knife and drew it silently from the leather scabbard tucked into her belt. Placing the blade against her palm, she felt the coldness of the metal surface suck the warmth from her fingers. She hefted the weapon in the palm of her hand, comforted by its solid weight. If discovered, she had no intention of staying around to fight but the weapon would give her a slight edge – literally – if someone tried to stop her.
Drawing her knees up close to her chest, she carefully adopted a crouching position. Craning her neck forwards and around the side of the tree trunk, she cast a quick glance into the hollow, withdrawing back into cover in a smooth movement. Back in the lee of the log, she paused as she attempted to make sense of what she’d seen.
The hollow itself was wide, circular in shape and, unlike the land around it, empty of any snow layer whatsoever. In some ways that didn’t surprise her. It was clearly a site of old knowledge, a place of the Old People who’d gone before and whose origins were now lost to memory. Two standing stones were situated at its centre, ancient monoliths for one of them had cracked in two a very long ago, the upper half tumbling to lie alongside the remaining stump.
The fire, an impressive blaze, was located next to the standing stones, surrounded by one or two sleeping forms lying huddled on the ground. As far as she could tell, there was only one person awake, a single figure seated on a rock before the flames, back turned towards her.
Liath Luachra bit her lip as she worked through the scene in her head again. It all felt wrong, smelled wrong. This group, whoever they were, were either insane or believed themselves under no threat of attack from man or wild animals. Curiosity burned her up inside.
She edged around the log again to get another look, shielding her eyes against the flare of the fire. The bedrolls she could see were occupied, the sleeping figures swathed in blankets and furs against the cold. Despite the size of the fire, it was impossible to distinguish their features because of the flickering shadows cast down by the flames.
In the cavern, beyond the blaze at the other side of the hollow, she caught a stir of movement. An equestrian snort confirmed the presence of at least one horse tethered within and she was suddenly very relieved that she’d decided to approach from downwind.
Fixing her eyes on the figure before the fire she studied it carefully. Wrapped in a shapeless black cloak and hooded cowl, any indication of sex or features were obscured. She continued to stare.
This isn’t right.
Some intuition stirred a tremor of fear in Liath Luachra’s belly and, unnerved, she decided to withdraw. Slowly backing away from the edge of the hollow, she saw the figure by the fire stiffen then stand straight up, turning slowly to stare directly at where she was hiding.
He can see me!
A spasm of panic spiralled through her and she almost screamed as she realised what she was staring at. There was something wrong with the face staring towards her, something terribly wrong. Even at that distance, she could tell that the figure had no eyes, nothing but an empty pair of ragged sockets. Beneath them, the nose had also been removed or cut back to the bone and the lips of its mouth had been crudely sewn together with rough black stitches.
For a moment, she was so terrified, so completely overwhelmed with fear that her bladder loosened. Ironically, the sensation of warm urine down the inside of her leggings distracted her, freed her enough to act.
Rolling desperately from the lip of the hollow, Liath Luachra got to her feet and took to her heels, no longer caring if she was seen, desperate only to flee the hideous sight behind her. The knife slipped from her fingers but she ran on, boots stirring up puffs of snow as she left it discarded in her wake.
The sound of cursing rose up from behind her, raised voices and muffled demands for clarification hurled into the night. Stirred by the uproar, the horses started neighing furiously. Even though she was running, she could hear hysterical high-pitched laughter so close that it terrified her until she realised it was her own.
Despite having succumbed to a fully-fledged panic, some part of Liath Luachra recognised that she was reacting completely out of character but, inside her head, her mind continued to scream, drowning out all rational thought. She felt her intellect diminish, reduced to an animal-like terror, a clutching desperation to put as much distance as possible between herself and the creature behind her.
After that, everything blurred. She was cognisant of nothing but the most basic of sensation: red fog, pain, the never-ending impulse to run, to keep on running.
At some point, she stumbled, hit the ground and cracked her head against something solid. Although stunned by the impact, the blow had the additional, secondary, effect of clearing her mind and for a moment, it was as though some tight mental leash had been loosened.
Where ... Where am I?
The sky was light, if slightly overcast. From the position of the sun, it looked to be well past dawn. Apart from a few shadowed patches, the snow had for the most part melted away. She gasped in pain as she tried to raise her head and discovered that she was lying on some frosted stones, the frozen detritus of a dried-out river bed. Her body was twisted on the uneven surface, blood pooling on the large boulder where she’d hit her head. Physical sensation overwhelmed her and she was suddenly wheezing, barely able to breathe in freezing air so cold it scalded the back of her throat. Her head pounded from the stress of extreme physical effort. She was, she realised, barely on the right side of consciousness.
Gods! How long have I been running?
She vomited then, the meagre but warm contents of her stomach creating minute swirls of vapour on contact with the freezing stones. Too exhausted to move, she lay where she had fallen, threads of saliva and phlegm dripping from her lips. She was close to passing out when she felt the terror building up inside her head again, a hollow wave of dread surging up to engulf her once more.
Then she was up and running again.
Out of the river bed stones, scrambling up the snow coated bank.
Deep into the forest.