Women of War

by Alexander Potter

  Keeping pace beside her older siblings Isien and Tierney, Brae Diardin ran as if nothing in the world existed beyond the wind whistling through her ears and the rich scent of sun-warmed earth and flowers mingling with the heady odors of the dog pack all around her. She wanted to bark and howl and jump high in the air with the thrill of it. With a double skip, she suddenly veered sideways, leaping straight over her younger brother Cullen—just fifteen and newly accepted into the Fianna—then put on a burst of speed and danced away as he snapped at her flank. She could have run for days but all too soon Goll’s high, piercing whistle called them back to camp. Fothran and Pepitain turned in a wide arc and, behind them, the pack flowed through the trees like so many streams of fur and flashing collars of gold and silver.

  They reached the outskirts of the Fianna’s summer encampment within minutes, the children of Diardin and their hounds breaking off at the edge of the orchards. One moment four white and four brindle-colored dogs milled about; the next, four long-legged, copper-haired youths sprawled on the ground, laughing and panting with their hounds dancing about beside them. Ever practical Isien immediately made for the place they’d hidden their clothes while Tierney aimed a punch at Cullen. The younger brother avoided it neatly, then tripped over a small hillock and went straight over backward. Laughing, Brae walked a few paces away, enjoying the feel of the wind on her skin and the last of the scents of field and woods that slowly faded from her mortal senses.

  She noticed the heavy-set man standing in the nearby copse of ash trees long before he tossed her a tunic with a disapproving snort.

  She grinned widely at him. “Thanks, Cunnaun, it’s Tierney’s.” She threw the tunic at her older brother, ignoring the egregious frown of her battalion’s Sub-Captain with practiced ease. “Are you looking for Sarrack?”

  He glowered at her. “I was looking for you and the rest of your irresponsible kindred,” he growled, then grunted as his own hound stuffed her nose into his groin. “Yes, and you too, you fickle little wretch.” He fondled the dog’s ears before turning a new scowl on the children of Diardin. “And have been for the past hour,” he continued. “Put some clothes on, for Anu’s sake; I need to talk to you.”

  Accepting the tunic Isien held out to her, Brae cocked her head to one side. “Is there word from Tara?”

  He shook his head. “From Glencolumbkille in Donegal. A vast company of strange, martial creatures were seen rising from the sea two days ago.”

  “Creatures?” Isien asked.

  He nodded as Tierney and Cullen ambled over to join them. “Some were like men but thin and twisted like blighted branches; others were the size of trees and as broad across.”

  “Giants?”

  “Could be. Apparently they had green beards and long, flowing hair, like strands of kelp.”

  “Sea giants.”

  “Again, could be. The messenger didn’t see them herself; she just has the word of a terrified villager from Stranoran. Goll wants a scouting party sent to check it out. One that’s fast and silent. Naturally I thought of you.” He glanced over at the four youths, noting with a frown that the two brothers were now attacking each other with rolled up tunics. “For the fast, anyway. You’re to leave at once and be back by dusk tomorrow at the very latest. I need two minimum,” he said, holding up two large, scarred fingers.

  “I’ll go,” Brae offered at once. “We’ve been here too long already and I’m bored.”

  “Count me in. I’m bored too,” Tierney added, catching Cullen’s head in the crook of one arm.

  “You’re not leaving me behind,” his brother warned in a muffled voice.

  Cunnaun cast an expectant glance at Isien, who stretched languidly before raising a copper-colored eyebrow at him.

  “What?”

  “Only three eager volunteers among Diardin’s heirs?” he asked in a sarcastic voice.

  She glanced over at her siblings, who gave her three equally wide grins, then sighed. “I suppose. I had wanted a bath and a nap. And what are you doing?” she demanded as Brae began to pull her tunic off again.

  The younger woman blinked at her. “If we go in hound form we can run on four feet the whole way,” she answered. “It’s faster.”

  “And spy on the enemy without weapons or clothing,” Isien replied caustically. “It’s stupider.”

  Tierney threw one arm over his birth-mate’s shoulder. “Ah, c’mon, Sis, you know it’s ... funner.”

  “Funner?”

  “Sure. And this way you won’t have to listen to Cullen complaining the entire way, either. That’ll be quieter.”

  “Hey!” Pulling out of his grip, his brother glared resentfully at him.

  Isien nodded. “Very good point.”

  “You put us down in a patch of nettles.” Twisting his right forearm to peer at the line of fine stickers in his wrist, Cullen shot an injured look at his older sister.

  “Shh!” Tierney snapped at him, then turned to stare out at the coast of Donegal. “This is not good,” he breathed.

  Beside him, Brae and Isien nodded.

  They’d run until the sun had set, then taken a few hours sleep—curled up together with their hounds under the lee of an ancient and moss-covered portal grave—then continued to run through the moon-silvered pastureland of Armagh and Donegal until Brae scared up a hare. They broke off to give chase then, after a quick—very small—meal of rabbit meat shared between eight, carried on running. Just after dawn they reached the coast and climbed a high, limestone outcropping overlooking the sea. As they peered through the scant underbrush at the dawn-streaked beach, they saw dozens of huge figures rising from the surf to join those already on land. A heavy trail of broken underbrush and churned sand leading east told them that far too many had already begun the trek inland.

  His eyes wide, Tierney nudged Isien in the shoulder.

  “How big would you say they were, Sis?”

  “Ten, twelve feet tall, maybe?” She squinted. “The smaller ones only look five though.”

  “They could be goblins,” Brae supplied. “Daighre mac Morna says that giants traditionally use goblins as servants. And that Tory Island,” she gestured out to sea with her chin, “is the ancient home of the Fomair: giants, goblins, and demons.”

  “I don’t see any demons,” Cullen said, his tone almost disappointed.

  “Yet. Or maybe they’ve already landed.”

  “That’s a comforting thought.”

  Moving his lips silently, Tierney made a swift count of the figures on the beach. “Twenty-odd in sight, likely the same from the look of that trail, maybe five or six times that number still in the waves that I can see.” He turned. “We need to get back.”

  “But we still don’t know why they’re here!” Cullen protested.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious,” his older brother snapped at him. “They’re armed and armored. They’re not here to trade, whelp.”

  “But ...”

  “We’ll track those that have already left the beach as far as they’ve gone and try to estimate some numbers and some intent,” Isien decided. “C’mon.”

  Cullen frowned. “So, we’re not going to do anything about the ones on the beach?” he asked.

  Tierney rounded on him. “What do you suggest?” he snarled. “Take them all on just the four of us?”

  Cullen pulled back behind Brae. “No, it’s just ...”

  “Just what?”

  “We’re just gonna run?” he asked plaintively.

  “No,” Isien answered. “We’re going to track, then we’re going to run and run fast and hard back to Armagh and report what we’ve seen as we were ordered to do. We’re scouts today, Cullen, not fighters.” Returning to hound form, she plunged back down the hill with Tierney and Brae and the dogs behind. After one, last, uncertain glance at the beach, Cullen followed.

  “Dozens?”

  “Many dozens of dozens.”

  “Giants?”

  “And goblins.”

 
; “Fomair.” Cunnaun spat a disgusted wad of phlegm at the wall of the council tent while his brother Goll fingered the pommel of his sword with a deep frown. Brae and Isien shared a knowing glance while beside them Tierney and Cullen argued over a hunk of salted pork, uninterested in a conclusion the four of them had already reached.

  The siblings had arrived in camp by nightfall and been taken immediately to see Sub-Captain Goll mac Morna, the leader of the Armagh Fianna. Now as his brother began to mutter darkly, he fixed them with a penetrating stare.

  “Did you see any commanders?” he asked.

  As one they shook their heads.

  “Weapons?”

  “Spears,” Brae supplied.

  “More like tridents,” Tierney amended around a mouthful of meat.

  “Armor?”

  He frowned. “Maybe leather.”

  “Maybe?”

  “It could have been leather stripping, it could have been plates, it was hard to tell from a distance,” Isien answered.

  “I wanted to get closer,” Cullen said to no one in particular.

  “It looked like scales to me,” Brae said. “Green scales.”

  Cullen nodded vigorously.

  “Could they have been wearing copper armor?”

  “Maybe. Or scales,” she stressed.

  “Shields?”

  “Greenish, with a wave and dolphin crest embossed in the middle,” Isien said.

  Cunnaun swore. “King of the Sea.”

  “I thought he was a myth,” Tierney protested.

  “So did we all.”

  “We tracked several dozen around Skelpoonagh Bay toward Ballybofey,” Isien continued. “There was a large farm-stead on the way. Destroyed. They didn’t even bother to butcher the livestock; they just ate it raw and left the bones.”

  “Farmers?”

  “We didn’t see any bodies. Hopefully they fled.”

  “They might have gotten eaten too,” Tierney added with unnecessary force. Beside him, Cullen glanced down at his piece of pork, then dropped it with a grimace.

  “So what do you mean, no mortal weapon can harm them?”

  The four Diardin had been dismissed a few minutes later. They’d taken a loaf of bread and another hunk of salted meat to one of their favorite spots, a small copse of birch trees to the west of the encampment. Isien replied to Cullen’s question with a shrug as she handed him a piece of bread. “It’s not that they can’t harm them, it’s that apparently only one in three blows ever strikes true,” she explained. “The last time the Fianna faced the King of the Sea was forty years ago. His giants killed dozens of our people and nearly overran all of Ulaidh before they were stopped.”

  Tierney looked up from where he was sitting and stroking his hound Keenoo’s ears. “So how were they stopped?” he asked.

  “I’ll bet Captain Fionn challenged the King of the Sea to single combat,” Cullen said excitedly.

  Isien smiled at him. “In a way, yes. He bargained for the aid of the Tuatha De Danann. The greatest of their number, Gwyn ap Nudd, the Lord of Annwn, gave Fionn the sword of Nuada, from which none could escape, and the Spear of Lugh, which ensures victory. With them, he challenged the Fomair’s greatest champions, one by one, and slew them all. Finally he faced the king’s eldest son Morcail Octia, a warrior as tall as an oak and as ferocious as a wild boar. They fought for a day and a night, and when Fionn finally struck Morcail’s head off, his body turned to stone and sank into the earth to become a great standing stone that’s said to have magical healing properties. With the cream of his army slain, the King of the Sea fled back to Tory Island, swearing that some day they would return and enact a terrible vengeance.”

  “Looks like today’s the day,” Tierney noted.

  “So where are the weapons now?” Brae asked.

  “Fionn returned them to the Lord of Annwn.” Isien leaned forward. “If we could get them back, we could defeat the King of the Sea again; maybe even kill him this time, once and for all.”

  Brae cocked her head to one side. “They say Gwyn ap Nudd is the god of dogs and that his hunting pack, the Cwn Annwn, number in the hundreds,” she mused. “That would be a lot of help if we could convince him to join us in battle as well as lending us the weapons.”

  “Yes, but they also say the entrance to his kingdom is guarded by a sacred labyrinth that no mortal can traverse,” Tierney pointed out.

  “But we aren’t mortal, are we?”

  “No, but it’s on Ynys-Witrin in southern Logres. That’s a long way. Across the sea. The giants would have overrun the entire country by the time we got back.”

  “Not if we take an otherworldly road,” Brae answered, scratching absently at one ear. “I remember Mam telling me stories about her adventures with the Sidhe when I was a whelp. She says all the graves of ancient times are linked by a network of magical passageways where time and distance flow differently.”

  “Differently how?”

  “Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. You could travel for years and years and only be gone a single night, or travel for miles and miles and have it only feel like an afternoon stroll if you knew what paths to take.”

  “Wish I’d known about that when I was a whelp,” Cullen noted, sniffing absently at a blackberry bush.

  “You’re still a whelp,” Tierney retorted.

  “Bite me.”

  “Bring your leg over here and I will.”

  “So how do you know what paths to take?” Isien asked, glaring at both her brothers to silence them. “We might get back only to find everyone we know is dead and dust. It does happen, you know.”

  “Mam said that both time and distance smell like water,” Brae explained. “When they’re flowing along in the now—flowing normally—they smell like water running over rocks on a warm summer’s day; flowing quickly they smell like rushing rivers in autumn; and flowing slowly they smell like melting ice dripping from fern fronds in the spring, kind of earthy and cold.”

  “What about winter?” Cullen asked.

  “Time and distance standing still.”

  “Shouldn’t you take that path then?”

  “I’m not sure you can,” she answered, but Tierney turned a frown on his little brother.

  “What do you mean, you,” he asked.

  Cullen blinked. “Well, I’m not going.”

  “What happened to you’re not leaving me behind?”

  “That was a scouting mission. This is taking off on the eve of battle. Our battalion’s leaving for Donegal at dawn. I don’t want to go traipsing around a bunch of damp, smelly underground passageways looking for some otherworldly lord who may or may not give us some kind of mythic weaponry, then maybe get lost forever in the meantime while everyone else is out killing giants.”

  “That was a mouthful,” Tierney noted.

  “Shut up. I’ll miss the battle; when Fionn calls for a champion, I’ll miss my turn. I have my rock all ready and everything.”

  “Rock?”

  “His rock for the battle cairn,” Brae said fondly, bumping Cullen with her shoulder. “So they’ll know if he’s been killed.” When Tierney rolled his eyes, she shrugged. “I carried my first rock around for weeks.”

  “And so did he,” Isien answered, shooting Tierney a warning glance. “But it doesn’t matter. If we take the paths that smell like spring we’ll be back long before dawn.”

  “And if we’re not back everyone’ll think we’ve run away,” Cullen insisted.

  Brae nuzzled his hair. “No, they won’t, pup.”

  “It’s my first battle, Brae.”

  “I know, but there’s a lot more to battle then just fighting. It’s not all sets of champions whacking away at each other, you know.”

  “Sure, there’s battalions of champions whacking away at each other.”

  “And other—just as important—elements. The champions who see them through are just as courageous as the ones who do the whacking.”

  “Like what?” Cullen’s voice
sounded so deeply suspicious that Brae laughed.

  “Strategy, tactics, supplies,” she offered.

  “And advantage,” Isien added. “You should never fight anyone without it: advantage of ground, of surprise, of superior numbers ...”

  “Of superior weapons ...” Tierney added.

  “And that’s what we’re going to find: the superior weapons of the Tuatha De Dannan so that the champions of the Fianna, Fionn and Caoilte and Fiachna and Creidne and Cunnaun ...”

  “And me,” Cullen added indignantly.

  “And you ... will have the advantage and defeat the enemy decisively with the least number of battle stones left behind. Don’t you want to be one of the heroes who turn the tide of battle to our favor?”

  “Well, sure, but I wanted to do it with my own sword.”

  “And you will. We’ll be back in plenty of time.”

  “Promise.”

  Isien rolled her eyes. “Promise.”

  “I knew I was going to miss the battle.”

  “Cullen ...”

  “We’ve been traveling for days ...”

  “Enough.”

  Brae glanced back, but on seeing that Tierney was not planning on enforcing the order with anything more than a snarl, carried on down the passageway, the scent of dripping water making her nose twitch. They’d been walking along increasingly dark passageways for several hours—not days, whatever Cullen might think—but she was starting to get as restless as he was. Now, however, she just took a deep whiff of the moisture-rich air, and carried on, the others and their four hounds trailing along behind her.

  They’d entered a court grave at Ballymacdermot a mile from the encampment with the intent of leaving their gear and clothing behind, tucked up just inside the first of the court’s segmented stone gallery chambers, but had quickly discovered that the passageways streaming out before their otherworldly sight were too many to trust to hound form; it took human brains to choose the most slowly flowing path going the most steadily westward. With the best nose in human form, Brae took the lead; Tierney with the best vision came next; and Isien with the best hearing took up the rear in case anything came up behind them.