Oatie was moving quickly up the hill.  The exuberance of youth.  No respect for elders, thought Lugh.  He was about to ask her what the rush was when she stopped, looking out from where she stood.  Lugh saw that it was the top of the ridge and he saw that she was gazing out over the landscape below.

“I love this view,” Oatie said.

It was beautiful, the land laid out in green and blue, a patchwork of wilderness.  Perhaps more to a Norfolk like Oatie who might think, there’s where I planted those trees, hey look there is my field of wildflowers.  “I see what you mean.  You can see for miles up here.”

She looked at him and smiled, “Know what you don’t see?”

He scanned the land laid out before him.  It was beautiful, there were lakes, hills crowned with trees, swaths of color, but it was a puzzle to him what she meant.  He looked back the way they came, searching for some idea.  Strangely, but not really, the Norfolk intended, but still, it was surprising that the world seemed as empty behind them as before, “I can’t even see the sidhe from here.”

She laughed again, “That’s it!” Without another word Oatie Moss began to march down the path, whistling as she went.

Lugh paused to look around a bit more and to ponder.  He hadn’t pegged Oatie as being anti-social.  Perhaps she had her reasons.  Lugh, for his part, was accustomed to solitary periods.  Fleeing for one’s life makes it preferable, but Lugh thought he mostly liked to be around people.  Whatever, his current company had improved.  He thought, It seems that Oatie might not actually hate me at all, but rather she might have suffered the oppression of the thick human soup that was life in the sidhe. 

Lugh started after Oatie.  Not for the first time, he wondered why he found her so intriguing.  Then she turned and smiled at him and there was no more reason to think.

Scota and Teutates fought side by side.  Wave after wave of Lyr’s raiders broke against their shields and were thrown back by spear and sword.  There were always more who came, pounding relentlessly like the sea.

“Too many,” panted Teutates, “They are like the endless coils of a snake.”

“We can beat him,” Scota cried, “Shut up and just keep fighting.”

“No, this is Lyr’s doing, but we could kill all his armies and not stop him.” Tuetates caught a heavy blow with his shield and casually stabbed the frenzied axeman in the unprotected thigh. The man howled in pain and rage, rearing back for another savage blow.  Teutates ducked past the man and drove his short sword through the man’s back and into his heart, his return stroke hamstrung another warrior.

Moira dispatched the stumbling cripple with a quick thrust through the man’s throat, “So we run?” The bitter contempt in Scota’s voice made Teutates shiver.”

“Not that,” Teutates pulled a spear from a corpse and hurled it through a skinny raider with a ridiculous horned helmet and a sword, “We waste our strength on Lyr’s coils,” Teutates pointed his bloody sword toward the cluster of sheilds and spears on a small rise around the standard of their brother, Lyr, the lord Balor to his raiders, “There is the head!”

“Cut it off and the serpent dies.  The bloody head is the thing,” Scota gathered like a storm cloud.

She was beautiful in her rage, but all Teutates said was, “I love you Ota,” his words were lost in the battle noise.  Louder he commanded, “Organize our guard into the kind of spear-point that can reach that standard, I’ll get with our commanders to thin our way.”  He did not look to see if she would do her part, he knew her.

The forces opposing Balor were hard pressed, but a line was formed and a broad push launched at Balor’s spear bristled hill.  A thin line of reserves was withheld and Teutates and Scota, with their guard, prepared to exploit their enemies lack of discipline from a tight packed wedge formed up behind the screen.  The push seemed to threaten to reach even to Lyr himself before it was thrown back.  With a nod from Teutates the recall was sounded and the assault seem to dissolve in disarray.

Teutates watched as the rabble around Balor’s command began to pursue what seemed to be their opponents fleeing after one last attempt.  Satisfied that all was well he ordered the charge and the war horns sounded the charge.

Beside him Scota screamed, “Crush the Head!” and as one they drove toward their brother Lyr’s battle standard, the bloody flag of Balor of the Fomor, with black murder in their hearts.

Their hand picked warriors surged after.  It was a hero’s charge, enemies fell to the left and right.  Their narrow wedge thrust into the confused Fomor ranks, bringing destruction.  Teutates’ powerful sword arm wrought death on the right while Scota’s brilliant sword work killed foes to the left, hundreds fell.  Nothing survived between them and Lyr’s shield wall, nor did it stand before the two gods of the Gael, but their guard was slaughtered behind them.

It only took a moment to see they’re success was a trap.  Swords pressed them on all sides.  They fought on, grimly taking wound after wound until Teutates fell unconscious and Scota’s sword slipped from her bloody hand.  She collapsed to the ground next to her husband and expected quick death.

It did not come for her.  “Good,” Boomed a commanding voice, “I wanted to have a word with you sister.”  Scota looked up to see a hulking shape that seemed to squat on a sort of mobile dais.  With a wave from lord Balor, who was her brother Lyr, the press of soldiery stepped back, “You’re looking lovely Scota.”

“I’ve looked better,” murmured Scota, “But you, Lyr, look like a hideous bloated toad.”  There were gasps all around.  Scota wiped the sweat from her face, replacing it with a smear of blood from her arm.

Lyr chuckled, unconcerned, “You see?  This is how we gods converse, one big happy family.”

Scota laughed without humor but made no more comment.

“I always admired you Scota. . .”

This she couldn’t let pass, “I’d rather die than let you touch me.”

“I do what I like,” said Balor without heat.

“Not to me . . .”

Balor shrugged his thick shoulders and chided, “I think you know better than that.  I can do to you whatever I wish.  Question is, do you want to live sweet sister?”

“I told you, I would rather die than sleep with you Lyr.”

Lyr laughed derisively, “You flatter yourself, it’s not your (body) I want.  I like your violence.”  Lyr rose and stepped off his dais.  He was very nearly seven feet tall, thickly muscled and massive.  Only a bloated paunch hanging at his waist spoiled the martial effect.  He hefted a huge double bitted battle-axe one handed, and with ease.  “Choose Scota, life or death, it’s up to you, sister.”  Lyr was a far larger man than Scota remembered, he’d not stopped growing in his over 200 years. “Killing you both just leaves me with two less headaches.” Lyr stepped closer, menacing, swinging his great axe.

Scota glanced around her feet, desperate to find her sword.  She looked up to see Lyr smirking, obviously reading her, but not caring.  Their eyes locked, but Lyr’s smirk didn’t change.  What was she missing? Did he want to kill her himself?

Lyr’s eyes flicked away and he nodded. A soldier with a spear, standing out from the general press, raised his spear and drove it into Teutates’ chest.  It must have killed him instantly because even the man twisting and wrenching the spear free of her husband’s body didn’t illicit any response from Teutates.

“No!” Scota heard herself scream.  Lyr’s laughter lent everything a nightmarish quality.  Scota threw herself across Teutates body.  His eyes were staring sightless and his jaw was slack.  Scota’s hand closed around the hilt of a sword.  As quick as thought and before the spear-man could bring his bloody spear to bear Scota shoved the sword into the man’s guts.  She leaned against the man, taking pleasure in watching the light go out of his eyes, before shoving his corpse back and off her sword.

Lyr seemed to find this extra measure of death even funnier.

Scota turned on Lyr, but made no move.  Balor, god of the Fomor, stood casually with his axe resting on his shoulder, “I never liked him,” said Lyr.

For a moment, Scota thought he meant the spear-man she had just killed, but Balor was looking at Teutates body, “Why did you kill him?”

“Because I do what I like,” Lyr stared at her a moment, during her perhaps, “It seems to me you’ve chosen life, wise.” Lyr nodded to the other body on the ground, “The man you just killed was the captain of one of my elite battalions.”

“Do you expect . . .”

“Shut-up Scota, I am the lord Balor and not even a goddess may interrupt.” Lyr shouted her down.  Lyr spoke loud enough for all to hear. “There is a price for raising your hand against a god, even if your are obeying the orders of another.  In this case death.”  Then to Scota, “You killed my captain, so I’m making you captain, his battalion is yours.”  Without another word Balor turned and walked to his dais.

“You’re mad!” Scota shouted, baffled.

Balor sat his seat and with a wave he was raised onto the shoulders of his bearers. “Use them wisely, sweet sister.”  The heavy platform turned slowly away so Balor had plenty of time to call back over his shoulder to where Scota stood stunned. “Your second is one of my sons.  I got him on some whore.  What was your mother’s name boy?”

“The lady Angelata Morel my lord.” called a handsome young man.

“Meet your second, Andalyr.  Andy, my sister Scota goddess of the Gael,” Balor chuckled to himself, amused by his wit or simply mad, “He’s half a god himself, so don’t kill him.  He’ll be of use to you.”

With blaring trumpets and shouted orders, Balor left the field.  Scota was left on the little hill with two dead bodies, and her five hundred.

Iamerge didn’t want to feel like he was being imposed on, but he did.  Six times a day, interminably it felt sometimes, all the monks of the community were at prayer.  Only five men remained in the guesthouse-turned-hospital, but for all those hours of chanted obeisance to their god it was left to Iamerge to tend to the needs of that hand full of men.

And what needs.  Iamerge had never felt particularly paternal.  Of the children born to his wives it seemed likely that none were of his blood.  Perhaps that was not an excuse for his indifference to them, but it might well be a reason.  These men, in need of every sort of help, were not even known to him before a few days ago, and with the exception of Conal, he had no interest in continuing the association.

Conal, for his part, did what he could from his pallet.  The good-hearted, one-limbed, man supplied a needed interface between Iamerge and the others.  Iamerge had no sense of their need, nor desire to meet them, so as a team they managed, the cripple and malcontent.  Still the best that Conal could do was identify more tasks for Iamerge to do and the only reward was a little less moaning and complaining.

Iamerge sighed, dealing with foul smelling dressings on the fellow who Iamerge felt certain would die next seemed more than he could bear.  He stifled the wish that “whimpers in the night” (Iamerge’s name for the poor man) would succumb sooner rather than later. 

Despite the best efforts of the monks, Gospels in particular, three of the eight severely wounded that had crowded the guesthouse had died soon after the long trudge from the disaster.  Two of the fellows who had seemed fine and gone on to town, had grown worse and not died before Ui Birlinn could bring them out to Gospels.  Only one man, first admitted to the makeshift hospital, had rallied and asked to go home instead of staying with the monks.  Iamerge had some suspicion that at least one of men he was forced to tend was malingering, though this fellow, ”whimpers in the night,” at least, was not one of them.  And of course there was Conal, who was greviously wounded, but somehow didn’t seem like an inmate, but rather one of the monks now, just waiting to assume his duties.

Iamerge sighed again, the man whimpered, jabbering away in some strange dialect that Iamerge didn’t recognise at all.  It made the man even less appealing, an alien. 

“Steady there Jonesie,” said Conal, “You’re do’n fine.  Iamerge’s fix’n you up good and noth’n to worry about now.  You’re in the LORD’s house.”

The wounded man was delirious, Conal could talk himself blue and that wouldn’t do a thing for these infected wounds.  So Jonesie was the man’s name then, not whimpers at all.  Well, Jonesie, good luck to you, Lord’s house or no.  Iamerge let out yet another self pitying sigh. 

Conal mistook self-pity for concern, “Is it bad Iamerge?” 

“Is it as bad as it smells, do you mean?”  Iamerge barked and immediately repented of his harsh words, “It is bad enough to kill him if he doesn’t want to live, maybe even if he does.”

Conal considered the words, but found nothing further to say.  Iamerge finished with the bandages and took the mess with him toward the door and fresh air outside.  Leaving “whimpers in the night,” Jonesie rather, Iamerge reminded himself, as he walked by Conal who smiled at him encouragingly. 

It was too much.  Too much doing for men he didn’t care for.  Too much laying awake while they moaned in the night.  Iamerge looked out from the guesthouse down the hill and saw a rider coming toward the monastery.

It was the time of the sacrifice of the bull and the subsequent seeing of Cathbad.  Nobody knew what the chief druid would see, what he would divine from the liver, and from reading the entrails of the sacrifice.  Ever since Cathbad had risen to the chief druid this sacrifice had always been a great show.  People crowded around, hoping to hear a good word, fearing to hear bad.

Concubar found it all a bit too theatrical for his taste.  The process could have been finished in a quarter of the time and all the show could be put aside in favor of the point of the thing, the oracle.  In the main, the visions were not for the rabble, the visions involved the king, his men, and his leadership of the Tuath.  As such, though he found Cathbad’s show an annoyance, there was no denying the power of the chief druid’s auguries.

Concubar sat with Fergus and a few captains of his Red Branch warriors.  They were comfortable enough, but this kind of thing was not for men of action like them, it was the purview of magicians.  As such they sat, feeling like men awaiting the judgement of the Brehon.

Fergus huffed, “by the Dagda above, why can’t they get to the point?”  There was mumbled agreement and Concubar felt the same without being able to express it.  Still it felt good to know that his fellows felt like he did.

It was his bull that was going to get the knife, it always was, and standing there among all the druids it looked as befuddled as Concubar felt, poor fellow.  Cathbad thrust the long thin knife into the air and there was a hush that fell over the crowd.  Quick as lightning Cathbad reached under the young bulls neck and with a quick slice slit it ear to ear.  All the druids hemmed it in and before it truly knew its end it collapsed to its knees and moments later was dead.

Blood was carried away, and Cathbad and his druids fell too with knife and skill.  Cathbad, red to the elbow in sacrificial blood, dominated the center of the maelstrom of druidic activity.  His concentration was absolute, focused on what remained of the animal as his assistants took away parts with practiced efficiency.  “Good water, good crops, good birthings, good wine, all this I see.  Good increase, good trading, good. . .”  Cathbad frowned and bent lower over the entrails, “. . . I see gold, good mining.”

The massed people gasped, the word gold spread to every mouth, whispered  throughout the crowd.  

“Wait!” shouted Cathbad, “Good wheat, good cattle, good oats, but tragedy and woe . . .” Cathbad cut into the liver and examined it avidly, ”Good mining, good milling, good calving, good fishing, but there is trouble.  There is war, there is loss, there is death.”

Concubar sat forward.  This was a telling that he must address, “Tell on druid, what is our path?”  Cathbad turned toward the king, his eyes were dead, vacant as they were when he was thus entranced, dark portals to a wider, darker, world.  “Speak, what should we do?”

“There is no ban, no geasa, no sacrifice that can forestall this.”

“War and doom and no way to avoid it?” Concubar frowned, concentrating, “Who is this augury for?  War certainly, but from where, and who might die?”

“Will.  There is no might in this augury,”

Concubar laughed, “Will die!  But don’t we warriors all hope for this?  Is this woe to a druid, but glory in battle for a man?  Why all the hand wringing Cathbad?  Who dies?  Tell me that so that he can put his affairs in order and make certain there is a bard near to remember his glory.”

Concubar’s statement was reinforced by the men around him, but Cathbad sneered, “Oh yes, a good rousing song is better than you deserve.  Do you think you are the only ones who suffer in war?”

“Tell us then, who suffers loss, who will die?”

Cathbad frowned and looked down at what remained of the sacrifice, “The signs are not clear.”  Cathbad looked puzzled, “Kingly, but not you oh king. A battler, a warrior, a youth. . .”

“This is meaningless”

Cathbad stared hard at the ground, but then shook his head violently, “I can not see.  Maybe if I do the consumption vision.  I can not say for sure.”  Cathbad’s assistants looked appalled.

“Advise me chief druid,” said Concubar, “If this is truly important then choose.  If not. . .”

“I will seek the consumption vision.”  A forceful nod from Cathbad sent his assistant druids scattering.

When Rhaury Ui Birlinn arrived with fresh horses and men Gospels had already whipped the brothers, the wounded, and Ui Birlinn’s guard into an organized column ready to make their way home.  It was much easier for Iamerge to turn off his mind and simply do as he was told. 

None of the work was particularly strenuous, just lifting and carrying and moving this cart behind that.  There were the wounded to load.  Some of that was difficult, not for the work, but because so many of the men were sorely wounded, afraid, and in pain.

With ruthless efficiency and tender care, the monks prepared their charges and then stepped out on their way home.  The brother’s chanted songs of praise seeming to be alter them into a work song that gave tired muscles strength in their need.  Iamerge felt it himself but saw even more the effect on Conal.

Conal was one casualty who bore the pain and indignity with indomitable spirit and good cheer.  Iamerge naturally gravitated to the man so that when the column pulled out of the camp it was Conal’s cart that Iamerge walked with, helping to push the ungainly thing up out of the valley.  Once that difficult stretch was passed Iamerge could walk beside the cart and listen to the man chat about life and a future in the midst of a situation that Iamerge could never imagine having hope.

“. . . In the LORD I take refuge. How then can you say to me: “Flee like a bird to your mountain. For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart. . . “ the brothers sang.

Iamerge shook himself.  Not for the first time he realized that his defenses had gotten sloppy.  Walking along with the brothers he had forgotten completely about the threat that caused these men their injury in the first place.  Yet he’d walked along not even aware to the degree that he followed the psalm singing of the monks much less look to the flanks for possible snipers bent on murder.  glancing around and cursing his laxity he noted that Ui Birilinn’s men were cautious even if he was not.  There were outriders he could see moving swiftly up and down the column as well as a few men in among the wounded as well.

“What is it Iamerge?” ask his charge.

Iamerge glanced over and saw that Conal looked distressed himself.  He was flushed and obviously uncomfortable, “I could ask you the same.”  Iamerge shook himself. ”I’ve no complaints.  My feet are a bit sore. . .” Iamerge realized his stupidity too late.  He looked over at Conal and would have apologized profusely, but Conal only laughed.

“I only wish I didn’t have the same problem.  I know they’re gone, but they hurt all the same.”  Conal cleared his throat, “Fact is, I’d really like some of that birch tea.”

“I’ll see if I can get you some,” said Iamerge.

“I’d thank you for it Iamerge,” said Conal, laying back on his pallet.

“I’ll get you some.” said Iamerge as he left to find what he could along the column.