Nectan’s a slave, captured abroad when he was a boy. Goll won him in a fight with another clan’s king. He’s as much a part of our rath now as anyone, a free man in all but name.
I enjoy cleaning fish. Some women hate it, because of the smell, but I don’t mind. Also, I like reading their guts for signs and omens, or secrets from my past. I haven’t divined anything from a fish’s insides yet but I live in hope.
The women grind wheat in stone querns, to make bread or porridge. Some work on the roofs of the huts, thatching and mending holes. I’d love to build a hut from scratch, draw a circle on the ground and raise it up level by level. There’s something magical about building. Banba told me that all unnatural things—clothes, huts, weapons—are the result of magic. Without magic, she said, men and woman would be animals, like all the other beasts.
Most of the men are sleeping, but a few are cleaning their blades and still discussing the night’s battle. It was one of our easier nights. The attack was short-lived and the demons were few in number. Some reckon that’s a sign that the Fomorii are dying out and returning to the Otherworld. But they’re dreamers. This war with the demons is a long way from over. I don’t need fish guts to tell me that!
Fiachna is working by himself, straightening crooked swords, fixing new handles to axes, sharpening knives. We’re the only clan in the tuath with a smith of its own. That was Goll’s doing when he was king. Most smiths wander from clan to clan, picking up work where they find it. Goll figured that if we paid a smith to settle, folk from nearby raths, cathairs and crannogs would come to us when their weapons and tools needed repairing, rather than wait for a smith to pass by. He was right. Our rath became an important focal point of the tuath—until the attacks began. The demons put paid to a lot of normal routines. Nobody travels now, unless it’s to flee the Fomorii.
When I get a chance, I walk over to where Fiachna is hammering away at a particularly stubborn blade. I watch him silently, playing with a lock of my short red hair, smiling shyly. I
But it’s not just his size. I like his kind nature and gentle face. He has a short beard—dark-blond, like his hair—which doesn’t hide his smile. Most of the men have beards so thick you can’t see their mouths, so you never know if they’re smiling or frowning.
I often dream of being Fiachna’s wife, bearing his young, fighting demons by his side. But it won’t happen. I’m almost of marrying age—my blood came a couple of years ago, earlier than in most girls—but I can never wed. Magic and marriage don’t mix. Priestesses and druids lose their power if they love.
Sometimes it makes me sad, thinking about not being able to marry. I find myself wishing I could be normal, that the magic would fade from me, leaving me free to wed like other girls my age. But those are selfish thoughts and I try hard to drive them away. My people need my magic. It’s not the strongest in the world and I’m in dire need of a teacher to direct me. But it’s better than having no magician in the rath at all.
Fiachna looks up and catches me staring. He smiles, but not in a teasing way, not like Connla would smirk if he saw me looking at him. “You did well with the bees last night,” Fiachna says in his soft, lilting voice, more like a fairy’s than a human’s.
I feel my face turn red. “It wasn’t much,” I mutter, sticking my big right toe out over the lip of its sandal and stubbing the ground.
“You’re getting stronger,” Fiachna says. “You’ll be a powerful priestess soon.”
We both know that’s a lie but I love him for saying it. I give a big smile, like a baby having its tummy tickled. Then Cera calls me and tells me to give her a hand dyeing wool. “Do you want me to help you with the weapons?” I quickly ask Fiachna, hoping for an excuse to stay with him. “I can bless the blades. Put magic in them. Make them stronger.”
Fiachna shakes his head. “There’s no need. I’m almost finished. I’ll work on farming tools in the afternoon.”
“Oh.” I try not to let my disappointment show. “Well, if you need me, call.”
Fiachna nods. “Thank you, Bec. I will.”
Simple words, but as I dip strands of wool in a vat full of blue dye, they ring inside my skull for ages, making me smile.
In the afternoon, while the men are stirring in their sleep and the women are working on the evening meal, a lookout yells a warning. “Figures to the north!”
The rath comes on instant alert. Demons have never attacked this early—there’s at least two hours of daylight left—but we’ve learnt not to take anything for granted. Men are out of their huts and reaching for weapons within seconds. Female warriors throw away their looms, combs, tools and pots, and hurry to the rampart. Those outside the rath are summoned in. They come hastily, anxiously driving the animals ahead of them.
Conn emerges from his hut at the centre of the village, eyes crusty, looking less worried than anyone else. A king should never look scared. He climbs the rampart and strides to the lookout. Stares off into the distance. Connla shouts at him from the ground, “Demons?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Conn grunts. “Human in shape. But maybe they’re dead.”
The dead often come back to haunt us. The demons get the bodies from dolmens or wedge tombs. They use dark magic to fill the corpses with evil life, sometimes stitching bits from various victims together. We’re not sure why they do it. Maybe some of them can’t make bodies of their own and have to steal the bones of our dead. We’ve gone to all the local tombs that we know of over the last year, burning the corpses. But there are many hidden and forgotten tombs. The demons are always finding new bodies. At times, it seems like there’s more dead than living in the world.
Conn watches for several minutes, more of the clan joining him, shading their eyes with their hands, studying the approaching shapes. I see the more hawk-eyed among them—Ronan, Lorcan, Ena—relax and I know it’s all right. But nobody says anything before Conn. It’s his place to give the all-clear.
Finally, Conn smiles. “Not to worry,” he says. “They’re human. Alive.”
Calm settles over the rath and everyone returns to their normal routine. We’re curious about the strangers but we’ll find out all about them in good time. No point standing around guessing, when there’s work to be done.
They arrive half an hour later, ragged and weary from battle and the road. Four men, three women and four children. We know them—the MacCadan. When the demons first attacked, Conn sent an envoy to Cadan and asked if he was open to an alliance. There had been bad blood between us but Conn wanted to make peace, so we could fight the demons together. Cadan refused. He said his people could stand alone. We haven’t heard from them since then.
Cadan’s not among the eleven. The leader’s an old warrior—even older than Goll—who limps awkwardly and trembles pitifully when he’s not on the move. He announces himself at the gate as Tiernan MacCadan and requests entrance. The eleven trudge into the rath and present themselves miserably, heads low.
Conn goes straight to Tiernan and clasps his arms warmly, welcoming him. He asks if they’re hungry or thirsty. Tiernan says they are and Conn gives orders for a feast to be prepared. The women set to the task immediately.
Conn leads our guests to the area in front of his hut and lets them settle. They haven’t brought much—spare clothes, a few weapons, some tools—but it’s plain this is all they have. I know what’s happened, just as Conn and everybody else knows, but nobody says anything. We let Tiernan explain.
The demons overwhelmed them. The end had been coming for a long time but they held out stubbornly, even past the point where they knew it was folly. Their best warriors had fallen to the foul Fomorii, their children had been taken, their animals slain, their crops destroyed.
“Many argued against staying,” Tiernan sighs. “We said it was madness, that we’d perish if we didn’t join forces with our neighbours. But Cadan said we’d lose face if we retreated. He was a proud man, not for bending. But eventually, like all who refuse to bend, he snapped. The Fomorii took him last night, along with three others. This morning, before the sun had risen, we packed our goods and marched here. We hope to fight with you, to offer whatever aid we can, to…”
He trails to a halt. Two of the men are seriously injured and Tiernan’s no chick. One of the women is a
