Bec

No bluff in the threat. Conn knows he’ll have to fight the crazed warrior to stop him. He sizes up the situation, then decides it’s better to let Amargen go. He shakes his head and turns away. Waves to those near the gate to open it.

Amargen quickly hooks the chariot – a cart really, nothing like the grand, golden chariots favoured by champions in the legends – up to a horse. It’s the last of our horses, a bony, exhausted excuse for an animal. He lashes the horse’s hind quarters with the blunt face of his blade and it takes off at a startled gallop. Racing through the open gate, Amargen chases the demons and roars a challenge. I hear their excited snorts as they stop and turn to face him.

The gate closes. A few of the people on the rampart watch silently, sadly, as Amargen fights the demons in the open. Most turn their faces away. Moments later — human screams. A man’s. Terrible, but nothing new. I say a silent prayer for Amargen, then turn my attention to the wounded, hurrying to the rampart to see who needs my help. The fighting’s over. Time for healing. Time for magic. Time for Bec.

REFUGEES

→ No clouds. The clearest day in a long time. Good for healing. I take power from the sun. It flows through me and from my fingers to the wounded. I use medicine, pastes and potions where they’re all that’s needed. Magic on those with more serious injuries — Scota and a few others who were struck by the Fomorii’s fire-blood.

The warriors are tired, their sleep disturbed. They’ll rest later, but most are too edgy to return to their huts straightaway. It takes an hour or two for the battle lust to pass. They’re drinking coirm now and eating bread, discussing the battle and the demons.

I’m fine. I had a full night’s sleep, only coming on watch a short while before the attack. That’s my regular pattern on nights when there isn’t an early assault.

Having tended to the seriously wounded, I wander round the rath, in case I’ve missed anybody. I used to think the ring fort was huge, ten huts contained within the circular wall, plenty of space for everyone. Now it feels as tight as a noose. More huts have been built over the last year, to shelter newcomers from the neighbouring villages in our tuath. Many of those who lived nearby were forced out of their homes and fled here for safety. There are twenty-two huts now, and although the walls of the rath were extended outwards during the spring, we weren’t able to expand by much.

The use of magic has wearied me and left me hungry. I don’t have much power, nothing like what Banba had. The sun helps but it’s not enough. I need food and drink. But not coirm. That would make me dizzy and sick. Milk with honey stirred in it will give me strength.

Goll’s sitting close to the milk pails. He looks downhearted. He’s scratching the skin over his blind right eye. Goll was king of this whole tuath years ago, the most powerful man in the region, with command of all the local forts. There was even talk that he might become king of the province — our land is divided into four great sectors, each ruled by the most powerful of kings. None of our local leaders had ever held command of the province. It was an exciting prospect. Goll had the support of every king in our tuath and many in the neighbouring regions. Then he lost his eye in a fight and had to step down. He’s not bitter. He never talks of what might have been. This was his fate and he accepts it.

But Goll’s in a gloomy mood this morning. He hates making mistakes. Feeling sorry for the old warrior, I sit beside him and ask if he wants some milk.

“No, Little One,” he says with a weak smile.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I tell him. “It was a lucky strike by the Fomorii.”

Goll grunts. That should be the end of it, except Connla is standing nearby, a mug of coirm in his hands, boasting of the demon he hit with his spear. He hears my comment and laughs. “That wasn’t luck! Goll’s a rusty old goat!”

Goll stiffens and glares at Connla. Eighteen years old, unmarried Connla’s one of the handsomest men in the tuath, tall and lean, with carefully braided hair, a moustache, no beard, fashionable tattoos. His cloak is fastened with a beautiful gold pin, and pieces of fine jewellery are stitched into it all over. Unlike most of the men, who wear belted tunics, he favours knee-length trousers. He was the first man in the rath to wear them, although several have followed his lead. His boots are made from the finest leather, laced artistically with horse-hair thongs. He looks more like a king than his father does, and when Conn dies he’ll be one of the favourites to replace him. Most of the young women in the tuath desire him for his looks and prospects. But he’s no great warrior. Everyone knows Connla’s an average fighter. And far from the bravest.

“At least I was there to make a mistake,” Goll growls. “Where were you, Connla — combing your hair perhaps?”

“I was in the thick of the fighting,” Connla insists. “I struck a demon. I think I killed it.”

“Aye,” Goll sneers. “You hit it with a spear. In the back. While it was running away.” He claps slowly. “A most courageous deed.”

Connla hisses. His hand goes for a spear. Goll snatches for his axe.

“Enough!” Conn barks. He’s been keeping an eye on the pair. He always seems to be on hand when Connla’s on the point of getting into trouble. The king steps forward, scowling. “Isn’t it bad enough that we have to fight demons every night, without battling among ourselves too?”

“He questioned my courage,” Connla whines.

“And you called him an old goat,” Conn retorts. “Now shake hands and forget it. We don’t have time for quarrels. Be men, not children.”

Goll sighs and extends a hand. Connla takes it, but his face is twisted and he shakes quickly, then returns to the small group of men who are always huddled close around him. As they leave, he starts to tell them again about the demon he speared and how he’s certain the blow was fatal, boasting of his great skill and courage.

→ Later. The gate of the rath is open. The cows and sheep have been led out to graze. Demons can only come at night, gods be thanked. If they could attack by day as well, we’d never be able to graze our animals or tend our crops.

I go for a walk. I like to get out of the ring fort when my duties allow, stretch my legs, breathe fresh air. I stroll to a small hill beyond the rath, from the top of which I’m able to look all the way across Sionan’s river to the taller hills on the far side. Many of the men have been to those hills, to hunt or fight. I’d love to climb the peaks and see what the world looks like from them. But it’s a journey of many days and nights. No chance of doing that while the demons are attacking. And for all we know, the demons will always be on the attack.

I feel lonely at times like these. Desperate. I wish Banba was here. She was more powerful than me and had the gift of prophecy. She died last winter, killed by a demon. Got too close to the fighting. Struck by a Fomorii with tusks instead of arms. It took her two nights and days to die. I haven’t learnt any new magic since then. I’ve worked on the spells that I know, to keep in shape, but it’s hard without a teacher. I make mistakes. I feel my magic getting weaker, when it should be growing every day.

“Where will it end, Banba?” I mutter, eyes on the distant hills. “Will the demons keep coming until they kill us all? Are they going to take over the world?”

Silence. A breeze stirs the branches of the nearby trees. I study the moving limbs, in case I can read a sign there. But it just seems to be an ordinary wind — not the Otherworldly voice of Banba.

After a while I bid farewell to the hills and return to the rath. There’s work to be done. The world might be going up in flames, but we have to carry on as normal. We can’t let the demons think they’ve got the beating of us. We dare not let them know how close we are to collapse.

→ After a quick meal of bread soaked in milk, I start on my regular chores. Weaving comes first today. I’m a skilled weaver. My small fingers dart like eels across the loom. I’m the fastest in the rath. My work isn’t the best, but it’s not bad.

Next I fetch honey from the hives. The bees were Banba’s. She brought them with her when she settled in the rath many years ago. They’re my responsibility now. I was scared of them when I was younger, but not any more.

Nectan returns from a fishing trip. He slaps two large trout down in front of me and tells me to clean them. 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 returing 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 like Fiachna. He’s shorter than most men, and slim, which is odd for a smith. But he’s very skilled. Stronger than he looks. He swings heavy hammers and weapons with ease. If I could marry, I’d like to marry Fiachna. If nothing else, we’re suited in size. Maybe it’s because of the name Goll gave me, or perhaps it’s coincidence, but I’m one of the smallest girls in the rath.

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.