Lugh stalked off into the night.  His mind was a-whirl with thoughts, with memories that he’d shaded with pleasantness only days ago, the pleasure of Von, hopes that she might at least remember him well.  But all such thoughts were ashes.  “They killed her.” Oatie had said and he had seen in her eyes that she even feared the same from him. 

Lugh didn’t even know for sure who “They” might be, but he felt guilt for it.  Guilt for his carelessness if nothing else.  Guilt for not knowing what had become of Von and for what had come of his good intention toward her.  I didn’t think you might be in danger, I only knew that I was.

Lugh heard movement behind him.  He had no desire to talk of it, only to think and be alone with this revelation.  He had long experience with running away, he realized, and so it was no hard thing for him to slip away from Oatie. 

I needed to remember, to sort out my life.  His hand went to the bones on the thong around his neck.  I only wanted good for you, but I did nothing to make it so.  Oh bones of Von, were you ever my friend or only a curse for what I’d done?

The night among the trees was dark, but the sky was full of stars.  Lugh looked to the heavens for answers, but the stars had none.  He walked silently in the night seeking a place to think and await the dawn.  What had he done with the life that Von had given him, it seemed, at the cost of her’s?  Not much to tell.

There had been things to do.  Weyland’s kingdom under the Western Mountains had been endlessly fascinating.  Well, as endlessly fascinating as things got for a god with a short attention span.  I’d quite forgotten that when I fled the Norfolk by the Saffron River, I didn’t stop my running until I reached the Western Mountains and hid myself there.  Weyland had no more love for Lyr than did I, though Lyr wasn’t trying to kill the lord under the mountain.

I’d planned to return to Von, wanted to, expected it, planned that return, but always I put it off until there was no more reason, until Von would have looked more like my mother than a girl like Oatie.  And then, after leaving the mountain halls of Loki, after living among the tribes above the desert south, there was then no chance that she would even be alive at all. 

It wasn’t Lyr that tried to kill me then, no, a daliance in the Gallic south had nearly done for me.  The Cult of the Virgin turned those refugees of the Tuath wars into murderous monsters.  I blame the endless red day and I did not mind leaving all that behind. 

Why am I always blown from one place to another?  Weyland has his mines.  Lyr has claimed the East.  Most of my brothers and sisters live in the misty Islands of the Inner Sea.  Even Bridgit seems to have gone to ground somewhere.  I don’t hear about her moving around like I hear about my old travels.  Strange to hear the tales of your own wandering.

They, whoever They might have been, probably shieldmen of his brother, Lyr, but that was only a guess, They had killed her.  Small comfort, he was not there to defend her, he never went back even to learn that she’d died.  If not for him Von would have lived.  What to do with that realization?

Should he not simply run?  Lugh thought, turning the idea over in his mind much more than he would normally, it was a night for thinking.  Who knew if Lyr would kill him now?  And yet he ran, or at least it seemed for one reason or another, often the same one, he ran and kept running though a trail that Lyr might have followed was now hundreds of years old.  The running began with Lyr, but the habit of it was just that, a habit that had become him, not an action taken for any real reason.

Lugh drifted through a young forest that rose above their camp-site, feeling his way with his feet, arms out to tough the young trees, and eyes that grew ever more accustomed to the starry night. 

This of the Norfolk is good work, he thought, making of a barren land a garden.  Sadness washed over him, If only I had shared this with Von, seen this with her, would she even have come with me?  I wonder.

Lugh came to a prominence, a rocky projection where the land fell away all around him.  He looked up at the blaze of starlight.  Look there is the Stranger, down on the horizon the great dark moon hung.  He gazed at that great hole in the starry host.  Suddenly, Traveller set a glow on the horizon before leaping into the sky, shining in colors of blue and gold and red, as it tumbled into the starry night.  How many times have I seen you, and this time the most surprising of all?  Lugh laughed, where are you going old friend?  Why shouldn’t I come with you?  Oh, that’s right, I can’t fly.

The goat was dead, but Oatey dragged it along after her.  Lugh nearly laughed at the comic look of the small woman straining to pull the dead weight of it along.  Nearly, but then he remembered how she had caused the wound that caused its death, how quickly and how offhandedly.

She turned, sweat and dust stained, to look at Lugh, “Here, make yourself useful.” she said and tossed him the rope.  Lugh made an awkward grab for the line but missed it.  He noticed her brief contemptuous smirk as he picked it up off the dirt, but also how the sweat glistened on her body.

Perhaps Oatey noticed his regard as well because she turned and separated her doe skin shift from the bundle she carried.  Items attached to her loincloth were tossed on the remains of the bundle and she quickly shrugged her way into the dress.  She bent again, catching up a belt, and anchoring all at her waist.  She quickly turned to what remained of her bundle and wrapped it together with a thong that let her throw it over her head to rest across her shoulder.  She turned back, hands on hips and the same amused curl of her lips, “Its a rope Lugh.  Pull it.”  Her eyes laughed at him.

“Its not my rope.” Lugh began.  But for reasons he couldn’t pin down he threw it over his shoulder and  walked  toward her.  She turned and began to stroll along a trail that he’d been finding the blood that led him to her. 

“I bled the goat too quick,”  Oatey sighed, as if it was a mark on her professional pride.  She let him draw even with her and then glanced over at him to say, “That or I picked the wrong goat.  I would have had a real hard time of it without your help.  Thanks.” 

Lugh was almost as surprised by her expression of thanks as he was by her casual bleeding of the goat in the first place.  He dragged the goat, mulling that revelation before asking, “Oatey, why are we dragging the goat?”

“We. . .” Oatey chuckled, “. . . are dragging the goat to the next goat unless you don’t have the strength.”

Lugh trudged along, dragging the dead goat behind, and mulling her answer.  She had ignored his question and stabbed his pride to make him continue to do something that made no sense.  Now he was sweating as much as she had been and climbing a little rise was making him breath hard.  “So Oatey,” he puffed, “How far to the next goat?” 

Oatey ignored his question, “Are you ready for a run?” She stood at the top of the rise and gazed back the way they had come.

“A run, what?” but as Lugh turned to look back the way she was looking his question died on his lips.  A huge figure, roughly man shaped, stood above the little trees that had surrounded the meadow where he’d been sitting.  The thing was walking slowly, but following the path they had marked in blood.  Even at a distance Lugh could see that he pushed aside the trees as if they were tall grass.

“When a giant wakes he’s hungry, real hungry.  There’s no room for anything but feeding.  No thought but the smell of blood and of woman.  He thinks I’m a giant wife, if he thinks at all.  Mostly he just wants the goat.”  She turned and pointed down the other side of the rise,  “And then he’ll want that next goat.  Here’s good for that one.”

Lugh dropped the rope and looked again at the giant.  “Its nearly twenty feet tall.”

“I don’t think over fourteen.”  corrected Oatey

“Fine, more than twice the height of a man.” Lugh blanched. “What are you doing with it.”

“Me?” Oatey laughed. “What happen to WE, Lugh of the Long Reach, god of the Gael.  I think you better stick with me now.  That giant is going to have the scent of you soon enough.  More than a goat, more than even a giant wife, that thing wants man-flesh and you look like a tasty bit to me.” Oatey grinned wickedly, and then started off down the slope toward her next goat victim.

“Fine, what are WE going to do with it?  Lugh called after her, looking back at the looming giant’s slow progress along their path.

“WE are going to kill it.” Oatey called over her shoulder.