The Emerald Isle Trilogy Boxed Set

by Vincent, Renee

  Domaldr looked confused. “But I committed no crime, you did. You stole her from this land and took her to yours. If anything, I could say I was bringing her back.”

  Dægan nodded in agreement. “Aye, you could. But I am confident Breandán will see to rectifying that part of the account in my favor. I did save his life.”

  Domaldr seemed to grow restless with the exchange of battle banter, for it was obvious he was totally disadvantaged. But eventually, a smile engraved his remorseless face. “Breandán may have swindled his way into my life, but I would wager he did the same to you, too.”

  Dægan took his place, his shield on the left outside position, in order to hide his injury as well as to protect it, and his sword in plow, ready for the first of many wards. “You will have to do better than that, Domaldr. Save your tricks and lies for someone who doesn’t know you as well.”

  “Oh, I would not dare lie now. Not when I am about to run you through,” Domaldr bragged. He stepped to his left, marking a target at Dægan’s head. “As your twin, I feel compelled to warn you of Breandán. He is not the man you think he is.”

  Dægan matched him step for step as they continued to throw words at each other like sharpened daggers. “What I think of Breandán is irrelevant compared to what I think of you, hence the reason you are a marked man and he is not.”

  At that moment, Dægan took the first opportunity to swing a brutally heavy blow at Domaldr’s shoulder, forcing him to raise his shield in defense and expose his entire left leg. As Dægan’s sword pounded into the wood of Domaldr’s shield, he quickly retracted and sliced downward, cutting Domaldr’s thigh just above the knee.

  Domaldr fell, his wound gaping and bleeding from under his breeches. He cried out in pain, dropping his shield to tend his open gash. Dægan sighed, unimpressed with his brother’s lack of hand-to-hand tactics. He shook his head, trying to fathom the idea of not only killing his brother, but also at utterly slaying an unworthy opponent so quickly. So easily.

  He stepped backward, giving Domaldr time to regroup and limp back to his place on the field, hoping Domaldr would at least show some ability with the sword.

  “Come on!” Dægan snapped back, irritated with Domaldr’s mollycoddling.

  Domaldr angrily looked up from his maimed leg and forced a half smile. “As I was saying…it seems that Breandán is very skilled in putting on a mask. He did for me, that is certain, but he still was not proficient enough to hide his fondness for your wife. That, I could see from the moment he laid eyes on her. And to think I actually gave her to him as a gift for his loyalty. I did,” Domaldr insisted. “By the gods, I must have drunk at least six steins of mead before he ever returned from her tent.”

  Dægan clenched his jaw and marched forward. “Fight me!”

  Domaldr backed away, still baring a grin as he caroused around Dægan’s easily pricked pride. “I would have thought a young man like that would have barely spread her legs before spewing his bollocks. He must have learned to pace himself.”

  “I said fight me, you milksop!”

  Dægan lunged and thrust his sword low at Domaldr’s gut, and finally Domaldr made known his agility in countering a heavy blow for himself. The next two strikes were also that of Domaldr’s, clearly menacing as a warrior should boast. But Dægan returned the fierceness, his iron smoothly shifting in wards. He charged closer, tiring Domaldr with repetitive blows to the shield, forcing him to constantly lift it in defense.

  Somehow, amid the momentum of the countering blows, Domaldr was able to strike out, driving his own blade into Dægan’s open right flank.

  Dægan felt a hot, blunt pressure as the blade impaled his armor just under his ribs, and a burning sting as Domaldr withdrew it. He staggered backward and looked down at his bloodied mail, quite surprised by the lancing of metal and flesh. Domaldr had succeeded in wounding him—a gash so deep that, until he checked for himself, he thought it exited out his back.

  Domaldr laughed, but only briefly, for Dægan attacked him with his iron aimed at his head. Domaldr instinctively lifted his shield in defense, stumbling as he absorbed the blows from overhead. In a desperate attempt to escape Dægan’s might and speed, Domaldr spun in a clockwise motion sweeping his sword upward to catch an unprotected right hip, or more precisely, an extended sword arm.

  Dægan had already anticipated the move, and turned in the same direction, deflecting Domaldr’s sword with his shield. Unfortunately, his broken ribs quickly reminded him that any movement of his left side would always come with a great price. He immediately gave into the pain and hunched over, staggering away from Domaldr’s reach. But of course, Domaldr followed him, lifting his sword in ox-ward.

  Dægan heard Domaldr’s sloppy approach and turned just in time to avert a fatal strike in his back. But he was oblivious to Domaldr’s shield coming across his midline, walloping him square in the face. The blow was hard, but not as painful as falling on his left side. Dægan rolled, curling into a ball to favor his moving bones, only to gasp and wince in reckless tremors.

  Domaldr stood more confidently, seeing that Dægan harbored an injury much like himself—and quite possibly more crippling. Taking advantage of the situation, he made quick to charge in at Dægan, this time his sword in high-ward for taking off his head.

  Dægan knew he had no time to stand, and without thinking, he gripped the outer rim of his shield and threw it like a disk at Domaldr’s legs. The shield caught Domaldr’s bad knee, tripping him to the ground. The two men crawled at opposite sides of the circle, catching their breaths while their hatred for each other grew with every inhale.

  Dægan was the first to stand, his jaw locked in anger. He threw his sword aside, jerking one of the two spears from the ground. He decided it was better to keep Domaldr distanced with a long spear, than let him have another opportunity at his broken ribs.

  As young boys, Dægan would often win bets with the cocky older lads who had come to bullying him, by waging a game of spear throwing. He had even learned to catch a spear in flight, turning with the momentum of the stake to launch it right back at his opponent. Fortunately for the older lads who were not too quick on the take, the spears were only that of blunt wood, leaving bruises instead of puncture wounds. And that was at age ten. Each passing year brought Dægan an even better aim, and a stronger, faster release.

  Domaldr cringed at seeing Dægan arming himself with a spear, but cleared his throat and dished out another insult. “If your wife’s womb happens to swell with child, I wonder whose babe she will carry—yours or Breandán’s?”

  Dægan tried hard to conceal his anger or even the remote sense of irritation from Domaldr’s taunts. He lifted the spear at shoulder height, gently tossing it a couple times to balance it just so, keeping his mind on his target and not of Breandán, as Domaldr clearly wanted.

  “Have you thought about that, Dægan? I doubt you will ever truly know until he is birthed. I hope for your sanity that child is born with flaxen hair.”

  Dægan spread his footing to sturdy himself and set his aim straight for Domaldr’s mouth. For once, he truly wanted another comment, another belittlement to escape Domaldr’s lips so that he could heave the spear right down his throat. But just as Domaldr stepped foot in front of a large pine, Dægan saw a better target and took it. He hurled the spear with such force that it broke through the top right corner of Domaldr’s shield and pierced his brother’s shoulder, pinning him to the softwood tree.

  Domaldr cried out, dropping his shield to try to remove the long stake from the right side of his body, but it had lodged itself far too deep into the pine. He cursed and growled, and then panicked when he realized his sword had also been thrown from his grip.

  Domaldr futilely jerked on the wooden pole again and again, but it would not budge, nor could he do anything about Dægan, who had retrieved his father’s sword from the ground.

  Dægan double-fisted the hilt and extended the point of the blade over his right shoulder, aiming for a swift de
ath at his neck.

  “Come on, Brother,” Dægan encouraged. “Out with it! I know you would like to have the last word…you always do. Say your peace!”

  Domaldr panted through the pain. “There is not much more to say. You have always been the better brother, the better warrior—the better son. But before you send me to the Underworld, know that with your own wrath, comes mine. What you have always loathed in me, you will possess the moment your sword cuts through my flesh. And just as we had shared the same home in our mother’s womb, we, too, shall share the same home in the Afterlife. I will wait for you, Dægan. I will wait for you on the River Geine and smile at the glorious irony when one day you shall fall from this Earth and rejoin me in Hel! You will never sever yourself from me. Not even in death.”

  Dægan stared at his brother, his words strangely putting resistance against his readied iron. His sword felt heavy, his hands numb, and his arms weak. He stood there frozen, unable to follow through with the final swing. For the first time in Dægan’s life it was as if his sword were no longer an exquisite extension of his body, but an unfamiliar piece of metal. A weapon, not fashioned for status, but for the sole purpose of killing another. That was all it was, and all he would ever be, as long as he held it in his hands.

  Dægan dropped his arms as if weights were tied to his wrists and then slowly, methodically, he sheathed the weapon at his side.

  Domaldr exhaled a sigh of relief and leaned his head against the pole jutting from his shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” Tait asked as he trudged up beside Dægan, shoving a wad of cloth, cut from his own tunic, into his chieftain’s stomach wound.

  “I cannot do it,” Dægan said, allowing Tait to finish crudely nursing his new injury. For the first time since Domaldr had pierced him, he felt the throes of it—that pivotal moment when adrenaline recedes and pain resurfaces. He ignored it, since willing it away was nigh on impossible, and walked onward.

  Tait followed. “You do realize that hanging Domaldr has now become doubly difficult since he is speared to a tree!”

  Unimpressed with the drawback, Dægan suggested, “Then leave him for the Irish king.”

  Domaldr jolted his head in attention. “Ah, come on, Dægan, you would not do such a thing!”

  Dægan kept walking. “I would.”

  Tait neared his chieftain, muttering his next words for only Dægan’s ears. “But what if he escapes? You know he will come back for you!”

  Dægan stopped and looked over his shoulder at his speared brother who was frantically entreating others for pity and assistance. “He will have to cut his own arm from his body to escape, and we both know he is not capable of that. He can bleed to death for all I care, but I will not kill him. I would rather spend a lifetime looking over my shoulder for Domaldr, than spend one more hideous moment like him. I came one fatal swing from being him, and thanks to his long-winded sermon, he reminded me that I am not. I am my father’s son. Not my brother’s twin.”

  Suddenly Havelock and his men came thundering through the forest on sprinting horses with Breandán right behind them, a look that foretold of something dreadfully wrong.

  The Irishman dismounted and approached Dægan with caution. Through his steps, he was thoroughly distracted by the bloodied battlefield of littered bodies and smoking remnants of camps and warships that lay in waste around the lake’s western bank. The silence, the moonlit shadows, and the morbidly departed who blanketed the once-beautiful Erin field, left a grim sense of what God’s forsakenness might look like. Breandán couldn’t help but look at each body, every bludgeoned skull, and lanced torso—their last expressions petrified on their faces. They all had a story, a mirthless account of their last moments on Earth, their final breaths being that of Dægan’s name.

  “Speak, Breandán!” Dægan finally shouted as he lunged forward. “What is wrong?”

  Breandán glanced at the two large hands entwined in his tunic. “Mara has been arrested.”

  “Arrested? Under what charge?”

  “The king has accused her of treason!”

  “For what?”

  Breandán hesitated as Dægan slightly lifted him from the ground. “For marrying you.”

  Dægan’s eyes smoldered as he scrutinized the raven-haired messenger. There was not an inkling of dishonesty to be found in the savvy Irishman. Dægan released him. “‘Tis not quite the reaction I would have expected from a relieved father.”

  Breandán breathed easier now. “I tried to dispute it and defend your name, but he threatened to clap me in irons and withdraw the reward he granted me and my father, should I continue. I assure you ‘twas not an easy decision to leave Mara in Dún na hAbhann, but I accepted the king’s leniency and left with my tongue in knots.”

  Dægan shook his head. “‘Twas not leniency he showed you by letting you leave, Breandán, but a clever tactic. He was hoping you would come warn me of Mara’s arrest in hopes to draw me out.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Did anyone follow you here?”

  “Nay,” Breandán said quickly.

  “Then I think you were naught but a pawn. You were merely cast into the wolves’ den with my wife’s detainment as bait, hoping I would bite.”

  Tait stepped in. “The question is, will you?”

  Dægan gave Tait a look as if he was offered a dare. “Oh, yes,” he said agreeably. “Quite frankly, I have had enough of coddling this king like a toddler. ‘Tis time I meet the man beneath the crown!” Dægan glanced at Breandán. “For the sake of Mara, I am going to need you.”

  “It seems I am no stranger to that phrase.”

  “Just say you can help me breach Dún na hAbhann’s walls.”

  “A fox’s den always has more than one opening. In this instance, a countermine shaft would be your means. Not afraid to crawl on your hands and knees, are you, Northman?”

  Dægan grinned, thinking of that life-altering morning at the church in Inis Mór. “It has been known to happen in more recent days.”

  “I am going with you,” Tait made sure to say.

  “Not this time,” Dægan said resolutely. “I will need you to create the diversion. My only companion will be the chest that has been buried for far too long.”

  An exchange of confused glances was made within the group, as every man thought the chest only newly buried this night. But no one dared questioned Dægan on his obvious exaggeration of time. They only followed the direction of his eyes as he was staring up at the trees that hovered above. Thinking. And summing figures in his head.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The mighty fortress of Dún na hAbhann stood preeminently in the open space of Connacht’s skewed checkerboard fields and plowed pastures, never deterred by the threats of enemies. Its earthen walls, built generations ago, had settled durably against the high, timbered ramparts that enclosed the stronghold, making the palisade—although weathered with time—a prevailing and prominent first defense. It was the solid backbone of the fort, the very carapace that safeguarded those within.

  To add to its security, a grand assembly of armed soldiers guarded the wall walk, each with their own replacement should they be sniped by enemy fire. A single square wooden keep rose high from the center of the bailey at a strategic distance from the gatehouse, which boasted two sturdy iron portcullises at its entrance and an arsenal tower above. The tower height itself paled in comparison to the keep’s, but the hillside in which Dún na hAbhann resided gave the tower an immense vantage point overlooking the stretch of land in the forefront.

  To the west lay an unrolling of paddocks, vast meadows, and clustered trees blackened by the shadows of the night. To the east, rested the waters of the Loch Rí mirroring a reflective stripe of the brilliant moon above. As one would expect during the hours of late evening, all seemed naturally undisturbed and tranquil. But for this very night, with enemies sure to be drawing close, Fergus and Callan reckoned it downright peculiar.

  “It makes n
o sense,” Callan finally said from atop the arsenal tower. “As much as Breandán upheld that Fionnghall’s honor, I would have wagered my life that he would have made a desperate attempt to collaborate with the Northman one last time. One last time for my daughter’s freedom.”

  Fergus didn’t answer and Callan noticed his deep circumspect.

  “Let me ask you something, Fergus. What kind of man rids an enemy from my lands without expecting some sort of payment in return? Better yet, what kind of man steals a woman of birthright, seduces her into marriage and his bed, and then sends her home with another, never to show his face again?”

  “A man who is up to something,” Fergus murmured into the cool air.

  “Then for what does he wait?”

  “He is wearing you down, Sire. He is hoping this war will be won before it starts, especially if he can keep you battling with your own thoughts. If it puts you at ease, I would have wagered my life as well that Breandán would have run straight to the Fionnghall for help, seeing how the feigned arrest of Mara affected him. He nearly came undone.” Fergus paused over a brief thought. “But we should realize that Breandán survived these savage men and there is no telling what travesties he went through during his capture—or what acts of deception he mastered in order to escape them. Though this chieftain he brags of is still a Northman like his captors, Breandán was smart enough to know who would be the better ally. He chose well, as your daughter is safely home. To say that Breandán is just a lad fit only to trap animals is quite narrow-minded. I would even go so far as to say he may have fooled you, moreover.”