Chapter 13: Horse Turds and Whiteheads

Oh, Tuatha forbid it, she prayed, staring off into the forest, hands on her hips.

“Watch yerself, bundún,” she said when a loud slap warned her of Bren’s arrival, and he nearly pushed her over in his haste to get through the portal.

“Well, why did you stop? Only an eejit stops on the threshold.”

Bee shrugged, unsure what to say to him. She didn’t know how to tell him that begging for help from Bairrfind was dampening her love of gambolling through the forest—even if it was as simple as asking her to lower the lift. Their relationship had always been fraught because Bee answered to An Dagda, and Bairrfind liked everyone to answer to her. But more than that, her Maidens, the two thousand warriors tasked with defeating each scourge’s demon horde and driving them back into Tartarus, needed witches to protect them from magical attack. If Bairrfind resented anything more than not being the highest apple on the tree, it was being beholden to witches, whom she considered to be nothing more than the worms infesting each apple. And, during the last scourge, Bee had told the woman to uncross her legs and enjoy something that would break the rigidity of the spear shaft she used to keep her back stiff and straight.

I wonder if the virgin is still upset. Of course she is. I insulted her maidenhood.

Neit’s Maidens took an oath of celibacy. Most ignored it, but not The Whitehead. She was renowned for rigidity when it came to codes and oaths. Usually, Bee would allow people to follow their beliefs, but The Whitehead’s arrogance and bigotry towards all those not of the Tuatha warrior caste made not goading her impossible.

“Ye should learn to curb yer tongue,” she said.

“What was that, Girl?” Dornálaí asked.

If he calls me girl once more…

“Nothing. I was speaking me thoughts, so I was.”

“She said she’s to learn to keep her tongue,” Bren said, from where he was standing beside The Smith, acting the puppy with someone new. Bee glowered at her brother, thinking he should learn to recognize his allies.

But then, who are his allies? Certainly not me, she thought.

“I said curb,” she elaborated and then cursed herself for doing so.

“So, what have you not been curbing?” Dornálaí asked, tilting his head and smirking along with Bren.

“It’s nothing. Just leave it,” she snapped, striding into the undergrowth.

“This way,” Dornálaí said, laughingly. Looking up, she saw him walking away from her.

“What are ye smirking about?” she hissed at her brother when she fell into stride beside him.

“Nothing,” he said, trying to hide the grin.

“Ye’re a turd, Bren,” she said as the underbrush gave way to the road. “Did I ever tell ye that?”

Ignoring his hurt expression, Bee gazed up the long avenue. The evening sun was dappling the way with dancing light, illuminating motes and fallen leaves, raising her mood, if only briefly. Sighing, she strode up the road at a pace that prevented any further conversation. It seemed like no time before they rounded a curve and saw the fortress the Whitehead called home. Bee would never get used to the way the rocks of Sliabh Culinn looked like a pile of dung a monstrous horse had deposited, which its rider then scythed the top from in a fit of petulance. Lichen covered the boulders, making them the dung-green that horse turds would be, only speckled with gray streaks. Early evening mists were rising from the rocks as they cooled faster than the air around them, adding to the illusion, as if the horse had lifted its tail so recently the turds still steamed.

“You seem distracted,” Dornálaí said as he stopped, placed his knuckles in the small of his back, and stretched.

“Bechuille is always distracted,” someone said from beside the avenue. Bee knew the voice, so was not surprised when a warrior with a massive ax stepped out from the underbrush and onto the road. “You have returned.”

Bee wasn’t sure who the warrior was addressing until Dornálaí said, “I said I would, Whitehead. And I have the boy with me.”

“He’s not a boy,” Bee and The Whitehead said together.

“Just acts like one,” Bee said under her breath, but not as quietly as she’d intended, judging by the fierce eyes Bren turned on her. “How did you know we were coming?”

“My new adviser, Fis, set an alarm on the portal so we know when someone uses it.”

“Since when have you needed an adviser?” Bee asked, with an eyebrow hiked.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Well, in truth, he’s more an aide than an adviser. Good with his hands, too. The alarm is really clever.”

“Alarm?” Bee asked.

“On the portal. Counts the slaps, so we even know how many are coming. There’s a bell in the map room, tinkles at each slap. Come. You can tell me what is happening when we get back.”

There was little in the way of talk as they walked the rest of the way to the fortress of Sliabh Culinn. Bee was not surprised when a cohort of Maidens materialised out of the forest around them. Bairrfind had ever been a cautious warrior and would not answer the alarm her aide had created with fewer warriors than would give her an advantage. Eventually, they were sitting around the massive table in Bairrfind’s map room staring at each other with evident wariness, if not disdain. Bee barely acknowledged the aide when The Whitehead introduced him, seeing little more than a slight male—his species unclear, her glance was so short—sitting at the head of the table.

“Why are you here, Bechuille? Should you not be in your mound, deep asleep?”

Aye, I should, Bee wanted to scream. She wanted to tell The Whitehead that the scar she’d received during the last scourge was still itching. Three centuries between scourges was unheard of. They tended towards every millennium, sometimes two. So, why was she here? Why had the Chief woken her?

“If only I knew,” she said, not much above a whisper.

“Of course you know,” Bairrfind snapped, punching the table top with a closed fist.

“I’m sworn to secrecy, Whitehead. Ye can bluster all ye want, I won’t tell ye.” The iron-grey hardness of the Tuatha warrior’s stare pierced Bee to her core.

When the warrior spoke, though, her voice was calm. Perhaps too calm. “I am entrusted with the safety of the humans in this realm. So, I repeat, what do you know, Bechuille?”

Shaking her head, Bee said, “As it happens, I know very little. As I know nothing, what can I tell ye? I’ll say this, so I will. The Chief sent me after Bren to stop him from meeting Myrddin. I can only guess at the reason. Guessing, mind, I’d say An Dagda somehow learned that Árchú had possessed the sage.”

“Árchú?” Bairrfind asked.

“Aye. The Demon of War is using the sage as a vessel. He’s in Breshlech Mór, where he’s reanimated the Fomoriiwarriors who died during that infamous siege.”

“You had better tell me what happened since you arrived,” the warrior said.

Bee could see no reason not to tell her the story from The Cave of Cats onwards. And as she told the tale, she realized that the Chief really had told her nothing. He’d said Bren stole through the portal, which turned out to be only a half-truth. He had come through the portal, but it was looking ever more likely that An Dagda sent him. Or Danu, maybe. Perhaps both of them together.

“Árchú said Bren was carrying a scroll from Danu,” she said as the story drew to a close, “but I think An Dagda gave it to him. The demon said that Bren knows where Lia Fail is hidden, and only the Chief knows that.”

“Where is it, Brenós?” The Whitehead asked, turning to where Bren had been sitting only moments before. “Where did he get to?”

“Him and The Smith left a little while since,” Fis said.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Bairrfind asked. Bee frowned when the aide shrugged his shoulders, saying nothing, watching her through half-lidded eyes. Why is he watching me? “Imgel, please go and find them and tell them to return here.”

Turning back to Bee, The Whitehead asked, “What do you think the demon’s doing?”

“Preparing to release Partholon.”

The warrior sat watching her for several moments before she asked why Bee believed that to be true. The leader of the Maidens was aware of the implications; aware that the Chief usually called a scourge. They were meant to remind humankind of their place in An Dagda’s world. When they first tried to throw off his yoke, he’d subdued them with a flood. The humans had been chastised at the time, but it didn’t last long. As soon as the memory of the floods began to fade, they became as unruly as they’d been before. He devised a plan to release the demon horde from Tartarus, where the Fomorii had forced them in a past epoch. The legend was that the two races had been enemies for millennia, until the Fomorii won the battle of Magd Iotha. All before An Dagda sent his humans into the Five Kingdoms to create his own little toy.

“Why Partholon?” The Whitehead prompted.

“Árchú said I was to act as the witch, but he has no summoner, so I don’t see how that would have worked.”

“There have been murmurs between roundhouses,” Bairrfind said.

“Murmurs?”

“Aye. One of the other Gods has created a summoner—”

“For what reason?” Bee scoffed.

“For the same reason as always,” Fis said, his tone one of a teacher tired of the inability of his students to learn. “They are mounting a coup. They want the Chief’s throne.”

“What are ye grinning at?” Bee demanded.

Sitting at the head of the map table with long, talon-like fingers steepled under his chin, the aide shrugged and continued to grin. Something about his slightly hooded eyes made Bee wary of him. He was like a serpent preparing to strike, hooding its eyes to hide its intentions.

“Ye think it likely?” she asked The Whitehead.

“Who knows, Bechuille. You’re closer to the Chief than any. What is your feeling?”

If she were to be honest, she would say she felt like a fish washed ashore by a strong wave. She thought that The Whitehead probably didn’t want to hear that, though. The last thing anyone around that table wanted to hear was that the witch was not as strong as they needed her to be.

Or more probably landed on a hook by one of these around the table. The idea that Bee was at the mercy of these fishers was even less welcoming than the idea of a wave.

“These murmurs ye’ve been hearing; where precisely?”

Bairrfind shook her head slightly, as if to say their origins were unimportant. The glance she gave to her aide, though, gave Bee a big hint as to their origins. She was about to ask the aide what he knew when the warrior, Imgel, returned, punched her chest, and said, “They’re not in the fort, Bairrfind.”

“I must admit, I’m not surprised,” The Whitehead said. “I’ve been suspecting The Smith for some time now.”

“And you said nothing,” Bee snapped.

“I do not answer to you, witch.”

“No. But I do answer to the Chief, so I’ll return to the Realm and tell him what’s happening.”

And just as the words were out, the little bell beside the aide tinkled. Everyone stopped and stared at it, holding their collective breath. After a few moments, it tinkled again.