“Sounds simple enough. When can we get started?”
“Now, if you’re willing.” Godfrey bent down and picked up a walking stick leaning against a gravestone.
“Lead the way. Where’s your wagon?”
Godfrey laughed heartily. “I’m a friar, not a priest. We have no need of horses. I wander Leinster and go where the people need help.”
Together, they set off on the road south on foot with a cool wind blowing at their back. Godfrey whistled a lively tune for most of the journey. Despite the circumstances, he walked with mirth in his eyes and the hint of a smile on his face, as if he knew some secret about life he found amusing. Berengar, who saw little good in the world, found the friar’s cheer off-putting.
“I’ll warn you, I don’t know what awaits us at the farm,” Godfrey said after a while. “I arrived in Alúine at winter’s end. Spring brings rebirth and renewal, but here it has brought only death and disease. There is a pestilence upon the land. Mark my words, the missing villagers and monster attacks are not by chance. I sense a darker influence at work in Laird Margolin’s territory.”
Though the words were unsettling, Berengar agreed. There were already fewer magicians, herbalists, and alchemists in Leinster than anywhere else in Fál. With the advancement of human society, the fairies had all but disappeared, and the church’s monster hunters had driven the populations of other magical creatures to the brink of extinction. That so many missing persons and monster sightings were concentrated around a specific area was likely no accident.
“Could it be the hag?” Perhaps Godfrey could shed light on the witch that had cursed him. “What do you know about her?”
“Her name has been lost to time,” Godfrey said. “None know her true age. The people believe she’s lived in the bog for at least a century, if not longer. She has a hold over Alúine. Desperate villagers seek her out for her magic, but she makes deals that always turn out ugly for those involved. Even those wise enough to avoid the bog still fall under her sway, as it’s believed she visits villagers in their sleep and influences their actions and behaviors through their dreams.”
Faolán let out a growl as the farm’s outline slowly materialized under the gray sky. While modest, the property boasted a barn and a well of its own. Hoofprints marred the soil, suggesting that someone else had traveled to the farm relatively recently. There was no sign of the occupants.
Something’s not right. The breeze died, and the sound of buzzing flies filled the air. The air was thick with the overpowering smell of decay. It was a scent Berengar knew well—one that meant death. Goats and pigs lay dead in their pens and enclosures. A precious few clung to life, but only just. They’re starving. His gaze fell on the door, which stood open. “It’s been forced. Keep on your guard.”
Faolán barked to them from the spot where a corpse lay propped against the well. Godfrey waved away the swarming flies and knelt down to inspect the body. “It’s Donald, poor devil.”
“Look at this,” Berengar said. The farmer’s shirt was stained with dried blood. “He’s been stabbed.” The dead man held the handle of a broken hoe clutched in his hand. “Whatever it was that attacked them, he tried to fight them off, and they left him for dead. Looks like he managed to drag himself to the well before he died of blood loss.” He glanced at Godfrey. “I’ve heard there are brigands living in the area. Do you think they had a hand in this?”
“It’s doubtful. The brigands are enemies of Laird Margolin and those loyal to him. It’s not like them to butcher commoners. It would turn the people against them.” Godfrey bit his lip, obviously troubled by something. “Donald’s sister mentioned that when he and his family were last in the village, his wife told her something about an apparition that gave her quite a fright.”
“What sort of apparition?”
“She didn’t say.”
Faolán sniffed the air and led them to the barn, where a woman’s body rested on her side.
“It’s Maude,” Godfrey said. “Donald’s wife. These bodies haven’t been here long.”
Berengar was well acquainted with the process of death and decay. It seemed curious a friar shared his familiarity with the subject. He studied the corpse. “It looks like she was trying to reach the stables when she died.” There were lash marks on her back. “These wounds are strange.” He reached into one of the wounds and dislodged a bony fragment embedded in her back. “I’ve seen injuries like this before.”
“Where?”
“At Móin Alúin, I stopped a rider in black from riding down a child. The rider used a whip fashioned from human bones.” Berengar held up his bandaged hand. “And…he had no head.”
Godfrey’s expression darkened considerably. “It can’t be. I heard stories about him as a lad, but I always assumed he was a myth.”
“The thing I fought was no myth. Tell me what you know.”
“He’s known as the Dullahan,” Godfrey explained. “He roams the earth collecting souls. According to the stories, he can only speak one word: the name of his intended victim, which brings death when uttered.”
“What does he want? Can he be stopped?”
“I don’t know, but if the Dullahan is involved, the situation is more dire than I thought. The legends say he comes from the underworld to travel the land until he finds his next victim. He should have moved on to somewhere else after killing Donald and his family, but you saw him at Móin Alúin.”
“Could something be controlling him? The hag, perhaps?”
“Only very powerful magic could control a being like the Dullahan. Even the hag may not be capable of it.” As if struck by a sudden realization, Godfrey stiffened and slowly looked around.
“What is it?” Berengar asked, sensing his discomfort.
“There are only two corpses here. Donald and his wife had a daughter.”
Berengar followed his gaze to the woods. “Do you think she might still be alive?”
A low moan came from the forest, and the friar shook his head. “No. I don’t think that at all.”
As Berengar looked on, a shadow detached itself from the trees and took on a humanoid shape. Its skin seemed to ebb and flow, almost translucent in the pale light. The shade staggered forward, all but ignoring Berengar and Godfrey as it wandered the farmstead. Loose strands of raven-colored hair covered much of its face like a shroud, and two empty holes occupied the place where its eyes should have been.
“It’s her,” Godfrey said. “Or what’s left of her. I think she’s returned as a sluagh.”
Berengar thought again of the things that lurked in the darkness beyond the castle walls. “I saw something like it at Blackthorn.”
“What were you doing at Margolin’s castle?”
“It’s a long story. What are we going to do about this one?”
The friar took a moment to consider the matter. “The church believes the sluagh are the spirits of sinners doomed to wander the earth without peace. Those who hold with the old ways believe they are lost souls unable to pass on to the next life. In either event, she will haunt this place until her spirit finds peace. That means we must lay her to rest.”
“And how do we go about doing that?”
Faolán paced back and forth in front of them, watching warily as the sluagh moaned and rasped like a creature caught in a trap, bound to follow a variation of the same path.
“I’m a friar, not a spiritist. I have no power of my own—only faith. Though I suppose I could attempt an exorcism.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
Godfrey shrugged. “Tradition says they’re harmless during the daylight hours.” He delved into his satchel and removed a bottle of holy water. “If you don’t mind standing watch, I know the words.”
Berengar nodded in assent. “I’m ready.”
Godfrey pried the lid off the bottle with his teeth before closing his eyes and invoking the words of the ritual under his breath. At first, the sluagh kept to its course as if nothing had happened, but wh
en Godfrey sprinkled holy water on it, the spirit spun around in anger. Its eyes glowed with fiery red light and a mouthful of razor-shaped black teeth took shape. The creature reached out a shadowy hand, and Berengar intercepted it before it could reach the friar only to find himself in its grasp.
“I thought you said they were harmless,” he said, struggling against the restless spirit.
Godfrey continued chanting as if he hadn’t heard him. Berengar reached into his boot and plunged the silver dagger into the creature’s side. The dagger passed through the spirit with no resistance, and tendrils of shadow quickly filled the hole it created. He swore and brought an arm up to shield himself from its open jaws.
The sluagh drove him back in the mud in an effort to get at Godfrey, who to his credit refused to budge an inch. It reached out with long, slender fingers that stopped just short of the friar’s cross, as if paralyzed, and Godfrey took hold of his walking stick and cracked the creature over the head with surprising speed. When the sluagh stumbled back, Berengar seized it from behind and hurled it against the well. It roared with anger and crouched to leap at him, and he braced himself. Just before the collision, the sluagh dissolved, replaced by a blackbird that took to the sky and vanished into the trees.
Berengar wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and took in a deep breath. “You handled yourself well.”
Godfrey chuckled and held up his wooden hand with a grin. “I wasn’t always a friar.”
“I don’t know many priests who can use a walking stick like that.”
“I learned early in life there is evil in the world. I wasn’t going to spend my life in some monastery poring over scrolls when I could do my part to fight it.”
Maybe he’s not so bad after all. For a holy man, anyway. “So is that it? Did it work?”
“Aye. I believe it did. All the same, I should purify the area to prevent any chance of her return.” Godfrey gestured to the bodies of the farmer and his wife. “We need to bury them.”
Berengar pried the hoe from Donald’s grip and set about the task while the friar sanctified the farmstead. “You said the sluagh were souls of the dead. Do you think this one was somehow related to the Dullahan?”
“It can’t be a coincidence. If the Dullahan was here, he probably killed the girl’s parents and abducted her to claim her soul. Her shade must have returned here afterward out of some fleeting sense of familiarity.”
Were the spirits I saw at Castle Blackthorn also victims of the Dullahan? Berengar wondered. Maybe the hag had summoned the Dullahan to collect souls for her. But if that was true, what was her purpose?
When they finished, Godfrey stopped to say a short prayer over both graves before starting on the return journey to Alúine. It was well into the day by the time they reached the village. So far he’d found lodging for his stay and learned more about the headless rider, but there was much left to do, and each passing hour brought him closer to the fulfillment of the hag’s curse. He accompanied Godfrey to the home of Donald’s sister, where the friar broke the news of her brother’s demise. Though Godfrey wisely omitted the grisly details of their deaths at the hand of the Dullahan, the woman was heartbroken nonetheless to learn of Donald’s sad fate.
As they departed, Berengar counted the forty copper coins he’d received as payment. Perhaps Iain would have a lead on a horse when he returned to the inn. He stopped short when he noticed a familiar face among the crowd of villagers.
“What is it?” Godfrey asked.
“It’s the boy I saved from the Dullahan.” He survived. At least his ill-fated duel with the Dullahan hadn’t been for naught.
The boy accompanied a woman who had just filled a bucket with water from the well. Judging from the way they interacted, Berengar guessed she was his mother, which meant the child came from Alúine all along.
“You,” Berengar said. “What were you doing at the bog on your own?”
When she noticed Berengar, the boy’s mother quickly averted her gaze. “Come along, Lucas.”
“It’s him,” Lucas said to his mother. “The bear man. I told you he saved me.”
At the mention of the word bear, recognition flooded Friar Godfrey’s expression. The boy’s mother, however, simply grabbed her son and prodded him along. “Your father will be home soon, and he’ll want to know where you’ve been.”
Berengar followed them to their home. “Wait. I have questions.”
The woman ushered her son in through the door. “I’m sorry. We can’t talk to you.” She was scared, but did she fear him, or someone else?
She shut the door in his face, though not before Berengar saw Lucas start to open his mouth to speak, as if he had something to say.
“Blast it,” he muttered. “That boy is the only person who could have told us more about the Dullahan.”
Godfrey only stared. “I thought there was something familiar about you. You’re him, aren’t you? The Bear Warden?”
Berengar pulled him aside, away from prying ears. “Not that I’m who you say I am, but I suggest you keep that name to yourself.”
“That explains what you were doing at Castle Blackthorn. Laird Margolin sent you here to deal with the ogre, didn’t he?”
“That was before I got sidetracked by the Dullahan and the Hag of Móin Alúin. I have unfinished business with both.”
“I may know of someone who can help with the Dullahan,” Godfrey said. “A bard who passed through the village not long ago. You might have met her at Blackthorn—her name is Saroise.”
Great. Berengar remembered his last encounter with Saroise, who wasn’t exactly fond of him. Still, bards were masters of lore. If anyone knew about a creature of legend and myth, she was his best bet.
“I will send her a message,” the friar continued. “And I will keep your secret, but the people of Alúine are not fools. You can’t hide the truth forever. They will realize who you are soon enough—perhaps sooner than you think.”
Chapter Six
Berengar opened the sack and dumped its contents onto the table.
Avery—the tanner—looked down at the leather armor in astonishment. “I’ve never seen its like before.” He ran a hand along the armor’s surface, and his fingers found their way to the tears left by the Dullahan’s whip. “Who did you say you were again?”
“I didn’t.” Berengar folded his arms across his chest. “Can you mend it or not?”
Avery stared at the armor for a moment longer before nodding at last. “Aye. Can’t say it’ll be good as new, but I can get the job done well enough.”
“Good. I want it by tomorrow.”
Avery regarded him as if he had lost his mind. “Something like this would take me the entire night to fix. Why on earth would you need it so urgently?”
“That’s my business,” Berengar snapped, irritated. He didn’t like people that asked too many questions, and the tanner had a meddlesome look. “Just tell me how much it will cost.”
“Thirty copper coins.” Avery clearly wasn’t looking forward to the task ahead.
Berengar laid fifteen coins on the table. “Half now—half when you finish.”
Faolán pawed at the doorway to get his attention. Outside, a pair of villagers were conversing just outside Avery’s shop.
“The goblins stole my horse,” said a voice he recognized. It was Rose, the woman who rescued him from Móin Alúin. She sounded upset.
“Don’t worry,” replied her companion. “I’ll put you up for the night at the inn, and tomorrow I’ll take you home.”
Evander, Berengar realized. The huntsman. Iain had suggested Evander was the only man around who could help him navigate the bog.
He cast a final glance back at Avery. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” With the matter of his armor settled, he left the shop in search of Rose and Evander. They can’t have gone far. The temperature steadily dropped in anticipation of night’s descent. Between the journey to Alúine, the subsequent goblin attack, and his misadventure with Friar Godfre
y, he’d accomplished far less than he’d hoped.
“You don’t understand,” Rose protested. “I can’t stay in the village tonight.”
“It would be dark before you reached the farm, and you know what’s out there.” Evander reached for her, but she pushed his hand away.
“I’ve told you I can look after myself.” Rose stormed off, leaving a baffled-looking Evander standing alone.
Before he could pursue her, he noticed Berengar approaching. “You again. What do you want with Rose?”
“Actually, it’s you I want to talk to. I’m told you know your way around Móin Alúin.”
Evander seemed to relax with the understanding Berengar wasn’t after Rose, and his tone immediately became friendlier. “Better than most. Why do you ask?”
“I’m looking for a guide. I have business there.”
Evander shook his head. “You would do well to stay away from there. The bog is treacherous. A powerful witch dwells somewhere within, and an ogre has its hunting ground nearby. Many who venture in never return.”
“It’s the ogre I’m planning to kill. I need your help to retrieve the weapons I left behind.”
Evander’s expression shifted to surprise, and he studied Berengar with new eyes. “Who are you?”
“Someone with a score to settle, and let’s leave it at that. I understand there’s a hefty bounty for the ogre’s head. I can’t pay you up front, but I’ll split the reward with you in exchange for your help.”
Evander took a moment to consider the offer. His clothes were less raggedy than many of the other villagers’, but it was clear he needed the money. “The guards have hired me to track the goblins for them. Help me with the job, and I’ll aid you in your hunt.”
“Agreed.” If anything, Evander was doing him a favor, since Berengar had already agreed to help the guards with the goblins as a way to recover the stolen thunder rune.
Evander offered his hand, which Berengar shook. “We set out at nightfall.”
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