Iamerge stepped out into the day and closed the guesthouse door behind him.  He was more than a little disappointed that Rhuary UiBirlinn was nowhere to be seen.  Another opportunity squandered, he thought.

Nothing to be done about it.  I’ve things to do anyway.  Iamerge headed for the refectory.  The wounded men were waking, and along with herbal remedies to deal with their pain would be a their need for food. 

Fortunately, the monks had done a good job supplying that need after a bumpy start.  At first, they counted up mouths and imagined they need only supply that much more, but the monks of the Biblious Monastery kept themselves on very short rations.  Wounded men needed much more, not just to feed them what they were accustomed, but also more to fuel their recuperation.

Iamerge had benefited from this realization.  It was a benefit of being with the wounded that he was fed like one.  The monks were unstintingly generous as soon as they realized their error.  Iamerge expected that there would be ample food waiting for him in the Refectory.

In a community without doors one hears things.  It wasn’t long before Iamerge began to hear urgent words.  It seemed that the meeting between Gospels and UiBirlinn had moved indoors and the refectory had become the conference room.

It was awkward, but Iamerge decided he might best be served by hovering near the door while the conversation continued.  It was not difficult to hear Rhaury UiBirlinn, “This hill of yours is indefensible as it now stands. . .” Perhaps my opportunity is not gone, Iamerge thought.

“We do not need to defend it, this place is the Lord’s,” said a voice that Iamerge guessed was the new abbot.

“Master UiBirlinn, you needn’t worry about us.  Our lives are in God’s hands.  If we die we gain reward, if it is for Christ’s sake.  Every man of us is commited to it.”  That seemed to be from Gospels.

“What madness is this?  If you mean to commit suicide, go find the monsters.  I am sure they will oblige, but do not provide the meal that brings them to my gates.”

“We do not wish death. . .” began Gospels, but the new abbot spoke louder.

“For a chance at martyrdom we would indeed count ourselves blessed, every man of us.  We do our duty before the Lord, and if He will offer us this cup of martyrdom then how can we refuse?”

“You are mad then.  These are not devils to tempt you, they are monsters who will eat you.  If you think defeat at their hands will be some honor, you go to them, but you will do nothing but feed them.  You will gain no honor, at least nothing that I would call honor.” Iamerge thought about stepping in, but then UiBirlinn continued, “Is the cow honored to be roasted, or the hog blessed bacon to be?”

“It is not that,” spoke Gospels, “ just, all things, even something that might seem senseless or tragic, can be made into good by our Lord.”

“That would be some trick, that.  The lot of you killed and consumed and that to the good?  Will you sour in their bellies and so bring them down?  Wear thee hemlock and nightshade as you go, for eat you they will.”

“Pardon us Master UiBirlinn.  We take your point, I think, but you do not know our Lord.”  Gospels had a way of speaking that could silence you with a whisper, his very softness seemed to make his words more potent, “At one time we had plans for a tower.  It was to house our bells, famously, the very ones for which the town is named.  Perhaps we should consider making a tower to hold us safe as well as to house the bells.”

“It seems to me too late for that sort of effort. . .”

“Indeed, it was half a century ago that the plan was abandoned Gospels.”

“True, and yet our guesthouse is the foundation of that tower and the bells rest in vaults beneath it.  If God provides this extremity, perhaps he can provide the stone masons and crafters to make us a tower now that we need one.”

“Do you imagine that it could be so, brother Gospels?”

“Give glory to God brother abbot.  His timing is not man’s timing nor are His thought my thought.  Still, I have long wanted to see those bells installed, and if God will have a fortress, perhaps he will provide it and home for my bells as well.”

“If you find stone-masons then you’ve found a rare thing.  I need such myself.  I plan to raise a wall above the current palisade, but at low tide an army could walk around the fortifications near the water.  I need to extend the wall into the bay or perhaps build a wall across the dockside and fortify the wharf.  Either way I’ll need stone work if it is to be done right.”

“Are you going in?” The question from behind nearly made Iamerge jump out of his skin.  Iamerge whirled to find brother Corinthians behind him.

“I hadn’t yet decided,” he managed, but Corinthians seemed unaffected by his eavesdropping and he calmed.

“They ran me out, or rather invited themselves in and started all that and I felt the call else-where.” Corinthians smiled, “I expect you’re looking for the victuals for the wounded and the pain mendicants.” a look like concern drifted across the old man’s face, “What do you imagine they are on about anyhow?”

Not wanting to reveal what he overheard Iamerge said, “God only knows”

Corinthians beamed, “Surely that is true. He does.”  Being reminded of Providence seemed good enough for Corinthians.  God knew and so he had no need to concern himself.  “Wait here, I’ll get you what you need and be back in a few moments.  Corinthians patted Iamerge on the way by and slipped in to the refectory.

Again I’ve let my chance pass, Iamerge thought.  With nothing to do but wait, he let his attention drift back to the conversation within.

WHERE DO I FIND THE REST OF THIS STORY?

I’ve noticed that little stories I intend to wrap up in a post or two often blow up into epics that never seem to end.  This is a character flaw, I know, and it is one that I don’t know how to begin to remedy. 

For now I think I’m going to have to accept my propensity to elaboration in the present and try to offer remediation, or organization outside of my normal tendency.

To that end, I offer these links to guide you through my most current efforts.

Child of Moss began with a character, Lugh of the long journeys (imagined  as a recurring character in many novels) sitting on a hill beneath a tree.  Now many posts later I’ve added characters and ideas so that it is clear that some organization is desperately needed:

1. Why did Lugh need to go North?  The first pre-post
2. Von’s gift helps get Lugh under that tree.  The second pre-post
3. Lugh under the tree.  The original first post of Child of Moss
4. Introducing Oatey Moss.  Introducing Oatey Moss
5. Who is Lugh and what Oatey does.  Lugh Follows Oatey
6. Lugh, Oatey, and a dead goat.  The old 4th post
7. Oatey Moss, giant fighter.  Oatey kills a giant
8. The celebration after the fight.  Lugh in the corner 
9. Lugh meets the man.  Another character crops up
10. Martel Jones of the Norfolk.  The brewhaha continues
11. Lugh lost in the sidhe.  A little more about miss Moss
12. Thinking about Oatey.  Child of Moss (old part 10) part 12
13. Breakfast in bed. More character development
14. Through the Sidhe.  Child of Moss part 12 (14)
15. Oatey’s pain.  What Lugh sees on Oatey’s face.

There is more Child of Moss to come.  I’ve plotted at least two more giant hunts and a visit to a truly ancient place that is the closest thing Oatey has to a real home.

The Deer Riders

The Deer Riders was the first of my stories to really go off the rails.  I had an idea about a people group on Tir na Nua, people I called the Norfolk or Bramblewood Elves, but my point of view character ended up stealing the show.  Okay, confession, I don’t even know what his name is.

1. Why do I need to start a story by introducing four characters who really have nothing to do with the actual Deer Riders? Concerning the Deer Riders
2. Dream-Walker and how he found a way past the brambles. Deer Riders Continued
3. Dream-Walker in the sidhe.  Deer Riders Conclusion (when I began the post I thought it might be. Boy, was I wrong.)
4. How Dream-Walker’s gift and a Deer Rider shows a way out.  Deer Riders Ending part 1
5. And he can travel through time.  Deer Riders Ending part 2
6. Dream-walker learns that there are worse things than being stuck in the sidhe.  Deer Riders Ending part 3
7. As this little stories ending lurches on into the absurd, I, LSO, end it. Deer Riders Ending part 4

Having created an interesting character, the Dream-Walker (I still don’t have a name for him yet) I made another little story that started to get out of control again so I cut it off.  I may follow some of the rabbit trails I imagined at a later date.

1. Dream-Walker takes his youngest grand-son fishing and a story breaks out. Dream-Walker and the Giant
2. The conversation turns to Giants. Dream-Walker Tells Bres The Story of the Dagda

1. The Red Son of Concubar 
2. the Coming of CuRuada the Red Son of Concubar
3. The Red Son of Concubar Meets His Father
4. Cathbad discusses the Red Son of Concubar
5. The Naming of the Red Son of Concubar
6. Fergus and Concubar Discuss the King’s Red Son
7. Cathbad’s Caution
8. CuRuada meets Emer (oops, I forgot they hadn’t met before)
9. The Games of Macha
10. Cathbad’s Oracle at the Games of Macha (this introduces the practice and sets up the Consumption Vision Quest).

What she was, Lugh thought, was socially awkward.  She was precocious in her understanding of giants and in mobilizing her folk to fight them.  She was sweet and, it seemed at times, flirtatious by turns with him.  She knew him, knew of his extremely long life, understood to some extent what that meant, could hold her own despite his experience, and yet Oatey seemed totally awkward in the rest of her life.

He found her fascinating.  He found her frightening.

Lugh rubbed the tethered divination bones around his neck.  Again he wondered about those bones.  Did the Norfolk woman, Von, protect her kin with their guidance and not him primarily?  Could bits of bone be more than their substance?  Of course, he used them for guidance. 

With a jolt Lugh realised that in truth he did depend on them.  What madness?  He trusted their directed randomness when he was unsure, likely when decisions were the most critical.  What could he do but shake his head, was his life no more than a string of accidents and this of Oatey Moss just the latest of centuries worth.

Lugh sighed, she had been inconsolable, weeping from embarrassment for leaving him, at least she had represented that as her reason for her tears.  He had held her while her tears drenched him, stroked her hair through wracking sobs, and layed beside her in confusion when she drifted off to sleep.

Finally, he too had slept.  He hadn’t sensed her leaving, so it was alone again that he woke in her room full of books, abandoned, still not knowing her or even the way out of this infernal warren.  Oatey Moss was frustrating like Von had never been.

He drew off his bones and unstrung them from their cord.  They were old, yellowed, and polished by his chest where they rode, and the by the years.  He knew the marks well, but their original intent he could not guess, had never even thought to imagine.  Perhaps Von had her revenge after all. 

Perhaps by these she knew him, after he had fled, reading his heart where they lay, and then she must have hated what she saw there.  “Oh bones of Von. . .”  He caressed them with familiarity, like a talisman of self, though they were no such thing.  These had been given him and they had shaped him by accident or by intent, for twice a hundred years and more.  The urge came to throw them away, but it was the feeling of a moment only and he pressed them between his palms and whispered them,  “Tell me true, do you serve me?” 

Lugh breathed his life on them like an incantation and released them upon the bed.  They fell, he read, one mark first, and three marks. . .” His stomach lurched, he felt a moment of sickness, but then he saw, and with a rush was relieved, “. . . gods be good, two marked, so yes.”

How important was it to know if he could trust his most trusted councilors, these bones?  He was alarmed when a mad titter slipped out unbidden.  Was he mad?  No, he meant to wonder if he was mad to trust the bones, surely, “Oh bones. . .”  He cursed himself for weak foolishness.  “One and Two and Three can’t tell me what I don’t know to ask.” 

Lugh pressed bones and cupped hands against his forehead, though his mind was empty, but fearful.  Tension built in him.  He should throw, how else to know?  But what to know? He felt himself casting without a question, his body doing without thought.  Can I trust her? It came to his mind as the bones spilled.  There was rustling he heard, someone coming. 

“I thought we might need some breakfast.  I hope I found things you like.” Oatey said in a bright happy voice as she swept back into his world.

Lugh glanced and thought he saw a three and maybe another before he scooped up his divination bones.  “I wondered where you’d got to.”  He said with casualness that he knew for a lie.

Iamerge blinked, dazzled by the brightness of the day as he walked out of the inn.  He cursed himself for a fool, looking at where he’d nearly been run down in the street and Jim Cooper had hauled him out of danger.  Were his street skills so impossibly rusted as all that?  If the self-styled Mayor of Rat Town had meant him ill he’d have dispatched Iamerge without breaking a sweat.

Despite the warm sunshine Iamerge shivered.  What madness, what trouble, what had come of all his plans?  The world had conspired to relieve him of his worldly possessions, true he’d done the better part of that by turning his back on his accumulated wealth and all its restrictive constraints by dying one of his convenient deaths, but he’d had hopes for the little boat and what little he’d taken on her, now smashed to pieces on Gospels’ skellig and scattered on the floor of the sea.  And now, coming to gather his well hid seed money, he’d nearly been trampled by the man he meant to find.  And there was another ill turn the world had thrown him, it wasn’t the man he’d hoped, but his son. 

Iamerge took more care as he entered  street again, this time he had more company and less scrutiny, there was no Jim Cooper and everyone else seemed intent on their own business.  Iamerge blended into the human stream and walked into town toward what he guessed would be a town square. 

He walked, carefully now, and he observed.  Iamerge had nothing at all in the world that he could call his own, but he’d risen to rule empires again and again.   It shouldn’t matter.  But when had the world been so against him?

Iamerge laughed, Stop your mopeing old Smoke.  You saw worse when you lost your first boat to pirates and avoided slavery only by merest good fortune.  That time you’d never survived and thrived half a dozen times, but that first time you did like all the rest.  Iamerge grinned, “What could be better for a life grown stale then a little adventure?” He said and winked at the old woman who looked at him questioning, perhaps his sanity, him talking to himself or the air and all.  Iamerge walked on whistling a tune and looking for opportunity.

Intro:

It is madness I say, madness, but I’m going to try writing a small story as a post. I feel like this might not be the best format for it, but it is getting me to put something in electronic format that is only written in pencil in a composition book. Since I have the power to edit these posts I am going to exercise that power when I have a title for this little story.

The Deer Riders

The three boys came screaming across the plain, bare back on horses nearly as wild as they. The old man stood watching their antics, shaking his head. As one they turned toward where he stood before his lonely tent isolated on a little rise. They galloped toward him jostling and shoving each other yelling as they came, “Grandfather!”

“OH HO!” He called to them as they halled up before his camp site and piled off their mounts as if spilled from a cup, but never stumbling or falling, “and what demon is at your heels my lads?”

The tallest boy snorted derisively, “Grandfather,” he began in patronizing tone,”we bring you food for your supper. There’s no demon…” The boy shrugged a large bag off his shoulder and over his head and shoved it toward the old man.

He caught the bag by the strap, “No demon?”  The elder rummaged in the bag and came out with an apple.

“No Grandfather” they laughed.

The old man whistled and around the tent plodded a gaunt old mare. “Here then m’lady, a sweet for the sweet.” He patted the mare and she nuzzled him. He dug a hand back into the bag and came out with another treat. “That’s enough, go on.” The horse turned and wandered off. “So lads, where’s the rest?”

The boys glanced at each other, unsure, but the oldest boy was left to answer, “The rest of what Grandfather?”

“Well Gollen, I’ve one sack from you. Surely it doesn’t take three of you to bring one sack? Where are my other sacks? Did you eat my dinner, sack and all Bres?” The old man tickled the smallest, who though short was surely the roundest. He was rewarded with a squeal of delight. “And you too Markoos. nothing for me? I’ll have to get it out of your belly too.”

The other boy shrieked as his Grandfathers fingers tormented him and he had to fling himself on the ground to escape the tickling. “Stop it.”

“No?” the boys grinning shook their heads, “Just the one bag then?” They nodded in unison. The old man tugged at his beard pondering, “What good are three boys then? What could you possibly want?”

Gollen spoke up, “We thought you might tell us…”

“…About the deer riders,” the younger boys supplied.

“Well, I guess I could tell you what little I know. Bres, here lad, give your old Grandfather a hand.” He handed the bag to the shortest boy and held back the flap for his grandsons as they jostled and shoved to be first through the doorway. “Say, that bag seems heavy enough for four dinners. Might you boys want a bite to eat?” The old man grinned at murmured affirmations. Lately he remembered his youth better than the day before and he remembered being hungry most of it.

They were settled around a little fire, bowls full of stew and thick crusted bread. They were well into their food before they noticed that their grandfather wasn’t eating. Markoos spoke up, “Aren’t you going to eat Grandfather.”

“No no, you go ahead, I already had a bit from my pot.” besides, anymore I need my meat well stewed or I can’t chew it. Say, Gollen, be a good lad and hand me that water skin.” He smiled at the boys quick crisp movements, ah to be young, “Thank you.”

He poured a bit of water in the pot, then taking out his knife cut up bits of what was in the bag and added it, stirring the whole of it, before returning to his seat with a flaming taper. He lighted his pipe and puffed on it contemplatively. “Let’s see. What do I know about the Deer Riders?”

The boys nodded, all eyes on their grandfather. “Well, I’ve seen a lot in my day. When I was born there were the Gael who ruled, and then there was us. But in those days we weren’t the folk of Scythia. We mostly walked instead of riding horse…” The boys all gasped, incredulous. “… but then that was way before we ever met and fought the uglies, before all the Gaels but the horse folk were driven back to the great mountain and we alone lived on the plain, and it was before we ever saw a bramble elf.

“A bramble elf?” all three looked puzzled, but it was Bres who had asked, “what’s that?”

“The wee folk, you know, the deer riders. They live in their faery rings mostly, but it is the same folk that ride the deer too.” The man puffed his pipe and the boys quieted. “We weren’t as brave then, not really. It took facing the foul folk and chasing them off the plains to really be brave, but we were braver than most I’d say. The world was young and we saw something new most every week.”

The Gaelic masters, for so they thought of themselves, kept demanding more and more of the other folks near them. We pitied the Browns and the Blacks, the Yellows and the red skinned folk, but our white skin allowed us freedom and we seized on it to live on the fringe. The Gaels that lived near us were decent enough folks who didn’t act on their prejudices, especially when they were poorly defined without a marked difference on the face of it. Still, back then it was always there.

Now we’re all Scythians, we protect the children of Epona, and we are all equal, but it wasn’t always so, and it wasn’t so when I was your age. The folk at the fringe depended on each other, like we do, that was a big leveler. But  soon enough, when life grew less marginal, when you could count on more than yourself and your neighbor, you began to see that they thought they were better, that their lives and their rights were a bit more important than yours.

It is an ugly feeling to be seen as lesser. My folk always fled from it, moving out into the wilds until the civilization of the Gaels that we left behind caught us. Then we’d move off again.

So you see, it seemed that we were brave, but we wouldn’t stand up to the power of the Gael, the Celts, we ran away. Many of the border Celts who drove us ever outward choose to follow us because they despised the rot at the center of their empire and admired our industry, self sufficiency, our bravery. They followed because they didn’t like what so many of their kind had become, but still they had confidence that if a white-trash wildling could make a living on the fringe then by Cernunnos a Celt could too and do better…” The boys looked confused and a bit restless. The old man took a few puffs on his pipe.

“…but you wanted to know about the deer riders.” The man puffed and watched the boys lean back into the fire light, eyes bright. “I mentioned we used to walk instead of ride, and I also told you that my folk were in the habit of running away from the folk that came behind us. Well it was in my fifteenth year that that the running had to end for us. The far north was a hard place to scratch out a living. But it was in this place that we came upon folk who had done so for generations, the deer riders, the bramble elves, the wee folk.”

Our camp was along a wide river. there had been an amazing run of silvery fish. We had feasted on their meat and even taken the roe from the hens. We had dried the flesh, and we would have meat for a very long time. But the key to our lives was never to rest. The men of the village had banded together to hunt the bear who had gathered for the finned feast, and our women were busy curing the hides and smoking that meat too. Never waste an opportunity was our credo.

So it was that I walked northward. I had smoked bear meat and dried fish in my pack. I had a bow and many arrows. The too, I had a mission, to seek out our next opportunity.

The high places always called to me. Many others followed trails and water courses as they are the places that yield most life giving opportunities. I used these common ways too, of course, but the mountain tops afforded perspectives and allowed a foresight that one never gets in the valleys. So it was that I saw the Faery circles before I ever saw one of the little people.

I had been laboring toward just such a high place as my day was drawing to a close. Along an otherwise uniform ridgeline stood a rounded knob of bare stone. It was easy to mark when the sun was low, it fairly glowed, and so I toiled toward it up the ridge.

Pretty soon I knew that the ridge was far from regular. There were copses of short dense trees in rocky valleys, and brambles everywhere. The brambles did not fail to push me off my approach, time and again, until I actually lost sight of the rocky knob.

A coney darted out from my path, too quick for me to do aught but ready my hunting stick in case I got another shot. As the sun sank I got a couple of them and my mood improved as I roasted fresh meat over a roaring bramble and scrub wood fire.

In the morning my concern returned. My camp site was fairly clear, but all around the brush confined my vision if not my way. I considered turning back, but resolved to toil a little more up hill in the hope I might site my goal or failing that get a good look at which way I might return.

It was not far to a crest and as I topped it I was relieved to see the rocky knot, now much closer, but well off to my left. the unforgiving flora, the brambles, had driven me well off my course.

I turned to see the way I had come, and in truth my nemesis, the brambles. They were not hard to see against the trees. Oddly, it seemed the trees were not very deep, but rose again in the distance. There was nothing to be gained staring back, so I decided to continue on to the knob.

My way steepened and became precarious. the sun slipped below the crest and the wind came up, chilling the sweat of the climb on my skin. I stumbled into a small stream bed. Falling to my knees, my hand fell into wet. A short stumbling, toe subbing climb brount me out onto the top of the knob.

The stars were out in profusion, a glittery riot in the sky. I lay down, happy to be on the hard rock of the knob. I watched the traveller rise quickly and then the Mother brightened the night. I thought about the bramble walled forest below and would have risen to see it in her light, but the day had taken its toll and I found myself asleep.

It is odd to say it. I was asleep and somehow I rolled inside myself  and rose, though my body lay there. I saw me asleep upon the stone. The flesh of me more tired than the spirit who would look. There was a moon lit gem in a ring of dark wood. I saw a mound near it. It was then in fear I realized I was not upon the knoll, but instead I hung below the moon and could not even see now where my body lay. I had a panicked thought that I had died, was the Mother taking me? I looked up at her shiny face and breathed again.

This is the end of the first installment of The Deer Riders.

The Deer Riders continued