Bec

Then a fox darts out from under a bush and pelts away from the undead beast. It howls and lumbers after the animal, arms flapping up and down.

Silence, broken after a few seconds by Drust. “The only two who didn’t reach for their weapons were Bec and Goll. And Goll’s asleep.” A short pause. I sense his smile in the dark. “Now that you’ve seen my magic at work, I hope you act less rashly next time. You nearly gave our hiding place away.”

We sleep better after that, though at least one of us remains awake at any given time, watching out not just for the undead and the Demonata—but also keeping an eye on the mysterious Drust.

Under Drust’s stern eye, I begin practising magic and learn quickly, feeling my power grow. But I’m unable to make the new spells work. Men’s magic is different to women’s. We take power from the earth, trees, the wind, sun, moon. The world is charged with natural magic which we channel. We’re creatures of nature, and like bees take pollen from flowers, we pluck grains of magic from the land and air around us.

Drust’s magic is different. He only reveals fragments of his secrets to me, but he seems to draw most of his power from the stars. Some of it from the sun and moon, but mostly from the heavens beyond.

“Gods are in motion up there,” he says to me on the fourth night. Drust sleeps by himself, but tonight he asked me to sleep close by. There aren’t many clouds in the sky, so we have a good view of the stars. “Demons too. And the spirits of the dead. They battle, toil, love—like us. But their actions are greater than ours. They inhabit forms hundreds or thousands of times our size.”

His eyes are fixed on the stars. From their light I can see the tattooed stars on his head moving slowly. His expression is soft for once.

“When they come here, they come in forms similar to ours,” he continues. “This world is too small for them otherwise. But up there…” He sighs. “Male magic comes from the forces generated by the gods, the dead and the Demonata. We’ve learnt to tap into their power, the way priestesses tap into the roots of trees or the hearts of bears. But the magnitude… the dangers…”

He turns on his side—only slightly, so as not to break the masking spell—and trains his gaze on me. “Man wasn’t made to share the universe with gods. Their ways are not meant for the humble likes of us. But we’ve decoded some of their secrets regardless. Like worms, we’ve grabbed on to the talons of eagles and learnt some small truths and means of flight. But we can never really fly. We try, and succeed to a certain extent, but the fall is always—will always be—there. To be a druid is to embrace death, dance with it a while and finally fall prey to it. That is why we’ll never rule this world. We have the power to bend all men to our whim, but are forever pushing ourselves further, trying to fly higher… and falling.”

A silence. His gaze returns to the sky. He looks troubled.

“We could have crushed the Christians hundreds of years ago. They were weak then. If we’d been aware of the threat they posed, we’d have bound their tongues and turned their fingers to stone so they couldn’t speak or write. Their religion would have died with them. But our eyes were on the Otherworld, the stars, the gods. We didn’t keep watch on the world around us. And when we eventually lowered our heads and studied the waters closer to home, it was too late.”

“You could still stop the Christians,” I mutter quietly, hoping he won’t punish me for disagreeing with him. Drust’s a harsh teacher. When I make mistakes, he slaps the back of my head or stamps on my foot or lashes me with a knotted rope. Banba was tough too, but not as cruel as Drust.

“Could we?” Drust sighs. “Some believe it’s not too late—even as they retreat from the world of man and hide in caves or deep in forests. I don’t agree. Our time has passed. We’ll survive in some form or other, I’m sure. But we’ll never be this strong or fly so high again.”

He says nothing after that, and I know better than to disturb him. Lying on my back, watching the stars until my lids grow heavy and close, I think about his words and try to imagine a world where druids and magic have no place. And I realise, just before I fall asleep, that in such a world I would have no place either.

Marching. Eyes half closed. Feeling power around me—power from the stars and those who drift among them. Trying to absorb it. Muttering the words of a spell which Drust taught me. I’m holding a small rock. If the spell works, the rock will float for a second or two.

I stutter on a key word and lose my place. Drust’s hand instantly connects with the back of my head. “Concentrate!” he snaps.

“I am!” I snap back. It’s the seventh or eighth time he’s hit me in the last hour. I’m sick of it. “I can’t do this stupid men’s magic! Teach Bran, why don’t you!”

Bran’s head rises. He’s been walking along just behind us, humming a tune.

“He couldn’t do any worse than you,” Drust snarls, slapping me again, harder this time. That’s it! My right hand comes up. I’m going to slap him back—see what he thinks! But before I can…

“People often say I’m too small to be a smith.”

Drust and I look up, startled. Fiachna, who was marching ahead of us, has stopped and is smiling.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Drust growls.

“I never said it had,” Fiachna replies. “I’m just remarking—people often say I’m too small to be a smith. They think smiths have to be large, burly men who can swing two heavy hammers at once and bend iron with their hands. And most are. But they don’t need to be.

“My master was a gentle man. He had a bad leg. He broke it when he was a child and it didn’t heal properly. So he never fought. But he made some of the finest weapons imaginable. He knew iron, how to bend it to his will and get the best out of it. He’d always talk while he worked, happily chatting away, seemingly to himself. People thought he was mad but he wasn’t. He was talking to the iron, learning from it, easing and teasing it into the shape he wanted—the shape it wanted.”

“I don’t see—” Drust begins but Fiachna talks over him.

“He taught me to work that way too. He never beat me or shouted or lost his temper. I wasn’t his first apprentice or his last. He’d take boys on for a while, teach them his ways, observe them, then let them go if he felt they couldn’t learn from him.” A short pause, then he adds, “Apologies for telling you your business but that might be the best way to teach Bec. Unless you think she can’t learn.”

“She can!” Drust shouts. “She has potential. I can feel it.”

“Then hitting her won’t help, will it?” Fiachna says calmly. “My master always said you couldn’t beat a skill out of somebody. They had to learn in their own way and time. If you rushed them, you only delayed them. You had to be firm but not cruel. Cruelty is a barrier and barriers slow people down.”

“My masters beat me unconscious whenever I made a mistake,” Drust says and he sounds like a bitter child.

“Did you learn anything while you were knocked out?” Fiachna asks.

Drust starts to roar a retort, then stops and frowns.

“Hard to learn when you’re dead to the world,” Fiachna says, nodding slowly. Then he turns and starts walking again.

Drust looks at me and catches my smile. He scowls. “I don’t like being spoken down to by a smith,” he huffs and my smile fades. Then his expression mellows. “But only a fool ignores good advice simply because it comes from an unlikely source. Very well, Bec MacConn. We’ve tried it my way. Now we’ll try it Fiachna’s. No more beatings for a few days. If you improve, well and good. If not…” He grins tightly. “I’ll have to whip you all the harder!”

I gulp, torn between the relief of the present and the threat of the future. Then I take a breath, relax and start again, drawing in power from the sky, chanting the words of the spell, focusing on the stone, willing it to rise.

AN UNINVITED GUEST

Another night in the open. No trees, so we sleep in a field littered with rocks.

It’s been a day of disappointment on the magic front. Drust stopped hitting me but that’s all that changed. I can’t get the hang of this new magic. It’s too different. I wish Drust would focus on natural magic and help me improve that way. I learnt a lot from Banba but my powers have grown rusty. I think we should work on the type