“As well as I can.” They had pored over the maps, determining the best place to cross the boundaries of Fíréin territory. Once there, Conor would be under the brotherhood’s protection or their judgment. Conor didn’t want to think about what would happen if Labhrás had been wrong.
“Ride fast and don’t look back.” Dolan took a breath, as if he would say more, then just clapped Conor on the back.
The servant took him as far as the gate, where he handed the guard on duty a slip of paper. Dolan had said he would take care of this part, though Conor couldn’t fathom how anything short of an order from Calhoun would get him out before sunrise. The guard scrutinized the paper, then Conor, before at last giving the order to crank open the gate.
Conor mounted his mare and rode through the narrow opening. For the first time, he grasped the enormity of his undertaking. The horse sensed his nervousness and danced sideways. “Easy, girl,” he murmured. “We have a steep road to travel in the dark.” He cued the animal forward and began the descent from Lisdara.
By the time Conor reached the tree line, the first touch of morning light brightened the horizon. Despite Dolan’s warning, he turned back to drink in the dark silhouette of the keep for the last time, and his resolve wavered. Then he imagined Labhrás, walking to his death with his head high, giving himself to his destiny without complaint.
Conor turned the horse and plunged into the trees.
The outer forest was young and widely spaced, and thick underbrush grew in the dappled shade. Conor threaded a path between the trees, aware of every creak and crackle in the steadily growing light. It was too quiet for a time when the birds should be awakening and the deer foraging for their breakfast.
Still, he pressed on until the slender saplings gave way to the giant trees of Seanrós, too large for a man to reach even halfway around. Here, the tangled branches formed a nearly impenetrable barrier, stopping the dawn in its progress. The light touch of magic tickled his senses, not unlike what he had felt from Meallachán’s harp. A boundary of some sort, perhaps. Did that mean the Fíréin now knew of his presence?
Conor dismounted. He removed a small canvas pack containing a single change of clothing, some food, and a pouch of small coin from his saddlebag. Then he rearranged the contents so it appeared nothing was missing.
When he unsheathed the knife on his belt, he hesitated. It had to be his blood. If the druid demanded evidence of his death, he would use magic to determine if it belonged to Conor. He laid the blade across his forearm, gritting his teeth against the pain. Blood welled from the cut. He smeared it across the horse’s blanket and quickly bound his stinging arm with a strip of linen.
“Sorry, girl,” he murmured to the mare, stroking her soft nose. “This is as far as you go. Off with you now.” He slapped the horse hard on the rump, and she took off like a carelessly loosed arrow, galloping back to her comfortable paddock at Lisdara.
With the horse out of sight, Conor became aware of how alone and vulnerable he was on foot with only a dagger at his belt. All right, Comdiu. This is where I find out if I’ve understood Your wishes. Please, guide me.
He shouldered his small pack. Even though he possessed no wildcraft, he took a heading the best he could and set off south. His footfalls thudded in the otherworldly quiet. If there were any Fíréin nearby, they could not help but notice his stumbling, crashing progress through their forest.
A breeze rustled the trees like a breath, lifting the hairs on the back of Conor’s neck. He spun, but he saw only the shadowy shape of vegetation through a fine layer of mist. He shivered in a sudden chill.
Conor.
The voice. He had been foolish to think they wouldn’t be waiting to devour him as soon as he left the protective circle of Lisdara’s wards. He cast a panicked glance over his shoulder just before he stumbled into an object in his path.
“Are you all right?” Hands reached down and lifted him to his feet.
“I’m fine,” Conor said automatically. His eyes moved to the speaker, and his mouth went dry.
He had been spellbound by Niamh’s beauty when he first saw her in Lisdara’s hall, but she did not compare with the woman who stood before him. She glowed in the shadowy forest, slender and pale, clad in a diaphanous green gown.
“Are you lost?”
Her voice was so melodious Conor could barely resist the urge to throw himself at her feet. He shook his head.
“Then would you mind if I walked with you?” She smiled, and Conor struggled to think clearly, enwrapped in the wonder of her beauty.
No. This wasn’t right. Why would a woman be alone in the old forest?
Magic crawled over his skin, sinuous and seductive, yet somehow repellant. The voice in the mist. She had been waiting for him to leave behind the charm. She had him now. He was powerless against her.
He choked back a sob of terror.
The sidhe can’t harm us. They can only try to deceive us, and we see more clearly than some.
Dolan’s words cut through the spell and exposed Conor’s thoughts as a lie.
“Go away,” Conor said. “You won’t deceive me. I am a child of Comdiu.”
Her lips curled into a malicious smile. “Dear naive boy. Do you think your god holds power here? This is our forest. He gave it to us. The only power here is me.”
Conor wavered. Didn’t Treasach say Comdiu had relinquished the earth to the fallen Companions?
No. The only power she had over him was the power he gave her.
“Leave me,” Conor said, gathering strength in his voice. “In the name of Comdiu and His son, Balus, be gone from here!”
Her expression turned feral. Then her shape shimmered, and she winked out of sight. Conor fell to his knees and began to laugh. Dolan was right. The sidhe had only the power granted to them. How close had he been to believing her lies?
Conor shouldered his bag, about to rise, when a quiet voice said in his ear, “Don’t move.”
Only then did he see the bright blade at his throat.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Conor did not move. He could scarcely force himself to breathe.
“Who are you?” the voice asked.
“That depends,” Conor said carefully. “Who’s asking?”
His captor chuckled and withdrew the sword. Conor heard an oiled hiss as he returned it to its sheath. “You’ve got spirit. I’ll give you that.”
Conor struggled to his feet, but before he could confront the speaker, four more men stepped from the shadows. No sound had indicated their presence. They all bore staves, swords, and several knives, and their dark clothing blended into the forest. Each man wore his hair bound into a single long braid.
The speaker circled around him, arms crossed over his chest. He was dark and wiry, and his voice, Conor realized now, had a distinct Siomaigh lilt.
“Fíréin?” Conor asked, more confidently than he felt.
“Aye,” the leader said. “And you are . . .”
“Conor Mac Nir.”
Several of the men exchanged glances, but the man before him showed no emotion. “Why are you here, Conor Mac Nir?”
“I’m looking for my uncle, Riordan Mac Nir.”
“If you’re delivering a message about King Galbraith’s death, Brother Riordan is already aware. There was no need for you to put yourself in danger.”
The man’s tone grated Conor’s raw nerves. Even though they could kill him where he stood, his words still came out with an irritated edge. “My message is for Brother Riordan. I must deliver it in person.”
The man surveyed Conor and then turned away. “Go back to Lisdara before anyone misses you.” He gave a discreet signal, and the other men melted back into the forest.
“Wait!” Conor cried. “Please. I don’t have anywhere else to go. Labhrás Ó Maonagh said to come here and seek Riordan if anything should happen to him.”
Why the plea should have stilled the leader’s departure, he didn’t know. Perhaps it was Labhrás’s name or the desperation
in Conor’s voice, but the Fíréin brother turned back.
“Do you understand what you’re asking, boy?” His gaze, sharp and predatory, pinned Conor in place. “Do you really know what this Labhrás was telling you to do?”
Conor swallowed his fear. “My uncle has answers I need. I just want to speak with him.”
“Men who enter Ard Dhaimhin rarely leave. Crossing our borders means you surrender your life to the will of the brotherhood, whatever that may be. Are you willing to do that, Conor Mac Nir?”
Conor’s heart rose into his throat. Once he went to Ard Dhaimhin, he might never be allowed to leave? Had Labhrás known what he asked when he sent Conor here?
“That’s the price of your answers. Make your decision now. You can come with me or return to Lisdara, but you’re in danger if you stay where you are.”
“I’m not much of a fighter.”
The Fíréin brother only stared back at him, unblinking.
Conor cast a look north, where they would soon find his horse, blood-smeared and riderless. What choice did he have?
“I’ll come with you.”
The man just nodded and walked away. Conor stared at his back until he realized he was meant to follow and then rushed to catch up.
“My name is Brother Odran,” the warrior said when Conor fell into step beside him. “Try to keep up the best you can. It’s several days’ walk to the city.”
Walk was a misnomer, and the exhortation to keep up might as well have been an instruction to fly. Brother Odran moved with the speed of a hunting cat, eating up long swaths of ground without leaving any sign of his passage. Apparently, the Fíréin’s reputation was based in fact, not legend.
Conor pressed forward, stumbling over half-buried roots and protruding rocks. After what seemed like hours, though it could have been mere minutes, his legs began to ache, and his lungs burned. If Odran kept up this pace for two days, Conor would save them the trouble of killing him and drop dead here in the forest.
A few times, he thought the man had given up on him and left him behind, but each time, he rounded the bend to find Odran waiting. The brother said nothing, just took the lead again and set the pace faster. He might have been a spirit and not flesh and blood for the way he moved. After Conor’s encounter with the sidhe, it was not a comforting thought.
Odran at last stopped beside a fallen log and passed a water skin to Conor, who gulped the cool liquid gratefully. “Not too much. You’ll cramp.”
Conor returned the water skin and sank down onto the log. His legs throbbed and tingled. “I tried to warn you. I’m a complete weakling.”
“A scholar, are you?”
“A musician.”
“Truly? Who taught you?”
“I taught myself to play, but lately I studied with the bard Meallachán.”
“Master Liam will find that interesting.”
Conor wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Who is Master Liam?”
“The Ceannaire, our leader. He will be the one who decides what happens to you.”
Conor swallowed. That didn’t sound promising. “Master Liam knows Master Meallachán?”
“Aye. Can you go on?”
Conor stood and tested his aching legs. “I will do my best.”
Odran moved away, leaving Conor to shoulder his small pack and hurry after him. A sick feeling crept into his middle. Why had he thought this would be simple?
By the time daylight faded from the forest, Conor wanted to die. His limbs cramped painfully, his lungs felt as if they would burst, and he could barely stagger forward in a straight line. When Odran stopped for the night, he was too tired to do anything but collapse in an aching heap on the forest floor.
“You all right?” Odran squatted to light a fire with a knife and flint. “You look tired.”
Conor shot him a scathing look.
“We’ll need to pick up the pace tomorrow if we’re to reach Ard Dhaimhin by nightfall. We didn’t cover as much ground today as I’d hoped.” The tinder caught, and Odran stoked the flames until a fire crackled between them.
Conor scooted closer to the flames, not dignifying the comment with a response. He eased himself back on his elbows and closed his eyes until a booted toe nudged him.
“Here.” Odran offered him a morsel of meat on the point of his knife.
Conor sat up and took the food. Odran dissected a roasted rabbit on a piece of clean-scraped bark, while a second one cooked on a spit.
“You had time to hunt? How long did I sleep?”
“An hour, perhaps.” Odran gestured behind him with the knife. “We’re following a trap line.”
“What’s a trap line?”
Odran picked up a stick and scratched a diagram into the dirt. “The forest is divided into quadrants, and each quadrant has a grid. Along each intersection of the gridlines is a trap. We follow trap lines so we don’t have to hunt while we patrol the forest. The sentries are responsible for maintaining the traps on their section of the grid.”
“What sentries?”
Odran smiled for the first time, a true expression of pleasure. “We’ve passed at least a half dozen since this morning.”
Conor gulped. No wonder wanderers disappeared so easily and invisibly in the forest. “How many Fíréin are there? Total, I mean, not just on guard.”
“Right now, including novices? Close to four thousand.”
Four thousand. That made Ard Dhaimhin the largest city outside the seaports on the Amantine, but it boasted more trained fighters than all of them put together. Tigh could probably muster only half that many.
Conor dared another question. “What will happen to me once we get to Ard Dhaimhin?”
Odran passed a portion of the rabbit meat on a shard of bark, then removed the second one from the spit. “That depends on your abilities. Every man is required to train in fighting arts and study various subjects. Not everyone is suited to becoming a warrior. Some find other occupations, like farming, fishing, or weaving.”
“You do all that in Ard Dhaimhin?”
“We couldn’t have remained separate all these centuries if we weren’t self-sufficient,” Odran said, smiling.
Conor studied Odran closely in the firelight. Perhaps he wasn’t as humorless as he thought. He just didn’t find much very funny. He was younger than Conor had assumed from his demeanor, too, perhaps only five-and-twenty. He didn’t carry himself like warriors Conor had known, but he was dexterous and well-muscled, without a single ounce of fat on his body. “What are you?”
“What do you think?”
“You can fight, but I don’t think you’re a warrior, at least not in the usual sense.”
“You’re right. I’m a tracker.”
“Like a hunter?”
Odran smiled again. “Something like that.”
Conor thought of how the sword had just appeared at his throat. Odran could have killed him before he ever knew he was in danger. “You track people. People who breach the forest.”
“You’re quick.”
“And you kill them?”
“Usually.”
“Were you going to kill me?”
“What would you rather I say, aye or no?”
Conor looked down at his food, his appetite gone. “I think I’d rather not know.”
“Good decision.” The tracker tore meat off the skinny rabbit bone with his teeth.
Conor rolled onto his side by the fire, recalling his childhood fascination with the Fíréin. How naive he had been.
He slept fitfully, his dreams tangled with images of Lisdara and fragments of harp music. He started awake beside ashes, alone, his heart hammering wildly. When he tried to stand, his muscles cramped in protest, and he collapsed onto the dirt.
Had Odran given up on him? Had he just left him there?
The brother appeared through the trees, still moving soundlessly, as if his feet didn’t touch the forest floor. He tossed Conor the newly filled water skin and scattered th
e remnants of their fire. “Let’s go. We have a lot of ground to cover.”
Conor barely restrained a moan. His legs felt like lead, if lead could feel such agony. Even his back and shoulders ached. He felt as if he’d gone a dozen rounds with Glenmallaig’s house guard. And Odran expected him to move faster today?
He had no choice, though. Any sympathy Odran might have felt had dissolved overnight, and Conor had to keep up or be left behind. The brother no longer waited for him. If Conor slowed his pace, he had to redouble his efforts to catch up. Despite his alternately numb and aching body, he drew on hidden reserves of strength and matched the tracker’s pace. Perhaps he wasn’t so pathetic after all.
Never mind that Odran looked as if he had been out for a stroll, while Conor staggered along, sweating and panting. The brother had told him to keep up. He hadn’t said he needed to look impressive while doing it.
“How much farther?” Conor asked between gasps. “Will we make it to Ard Dhaimhin tonight?”
“At this rate, we won’t make it to Ard Dhaimhin for three days.”
It was probably just sarcasm, but the pace increased after that.
Conor’s pain increased, too, until he was one aching, quivering mass. His shaky legs threatened to give out with each step. Weak from lack of rest and food, he no longer cared if he collapsed and Odran left him behind. At least then he wouldn’t have to walk anymore.
Just as Conor was about to abandon his pride and say he couldn’t go on, Odran stopped. Conor stumbled to his side, silently praying for rest. Then he followed the tracker’s gaze, and his mouth fell open in amazement.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The stories about Ard Dhaimhin left Conor unprepared for his first look. The ground sloped steeply before them to a massive loch, which spread like blue glass to each end of his vision. Half a dozen crannogs dotted the lake’s surface, the small islands connected to the shore and to one another by a web of ropes and pulleys attached to bark boats. Thatched cottages and stone clochans spread from the shore. Beyond, thousands of acres of crops stretched to the distant tree line at the mountains beyond.
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