Scamp watched her back as she walked to the roundhouse, got down on her knees and crawled into her cold store. He’d heard of the legendary éigeas, who lived in trees, never cut their hair, and stank like badgers living in an overcrowded sett. Some said they would rise with the dawn and make love to the trees in nothing but the flesh the Creator blessed them with. He remembered a lot of disagreement regarding the sages—the one thing all agreed on: they were as mad as a sack full of kittens someone had just dumped in a river.

  If anyone would believe in a sect of mad tree humpers, it would be her.

  Scamp went to stand beside where she was rummaging through her stores and asked, “What do we need with an éigeas?”

  “Times is telling us,” she replied in a muffled voice.

  “Telling us what?”

  Crawling out from the hole, Upthog climbed to her feet, swiping dust from the knees of her pants. “What d’ye mean, telling us what? It’s not really that complex. Myrddin is the last of the sages. He’s been an éigeas since long before I was born, and he’ll know what we need to do.”

  “But—”

  “There ain’t any buts, Boy. Ye want me help, we’re going to Scéine’s Cove.” I never said I wanted your help. You knocked me senseless, somehow and here we are. “Well, d’ye want me help, or not?”

  “I s’pose.”

  “Ye don’t sound overly sure, Boy.”

  Scamp shrugged, realising he knew little about Upthóg and was sensible enough to keep his own counsel.

  “How far’s this cove we’re going to?”

  “Far enough. Now, go get yer things. It’s time we were on the road.”

  Scamp collected his bag from beside her cot. There wasn’t much in it, but the meagre belongings he’d packed when running, most of which now seemed childish but they were all he possessed, and he was loath to leave them—most of them, anyway. A clean undershirt and smalls were the only sensible things, apart from his flint and tinder, of course. After climbing back down her ladder, he loosened the bag’s drawstring, took out his leather ball and tossed it out the door, doubting there would be any ball games. He took out the lump of cheese he’d stolen from his ma’s cold store and started to nibble on it.

  “Hurry up, Boy,” Upthog called. “We’ve to move. There might have been a bit of laziness from them White Cloak trackers fertilising the road’s verge, but the rest will be hard after us soon enough.”

  Now you murdered a pair of them.

  Walking into the glade, he saw her on her knees, bent before the sett-like hole under her roundhouse, pulling out food and either packing it in her saddlebags or discarding it.

  “What’s the point?”

  “How so?”

  “They say this White Cloak captain, Volt, could find an ant hiding in an anthill. He’ll have us before we reach the Narrow Sea.”

  “Not if we’re cagey.”

  “Cac on that. His team’s the best. Hunted down all the witches, no trouble.”

  “Not all, Boy, and they’d help.”

  “What help?”

  “Never mind. Take the bags to the donkey, would ye?” she asked, walking into the roundhouse. She returned momentarily carrying a satchel he’d never seen. He supposed she’d taken it out of the chest at the bottom of her bed.

  Take the bags to me donkey, would you? he mimicked in his head, wanting to stick out his tongue. Instead, he lifted them and followed her to where Rosie was cropping the grass of the clearing. After slinging the saddlebags over the donkey’s back, he tied his leather sack on top of them and fell in beside Upthog as she took hold of the makeshift reins of plaited rope.

  “You not gonna shut the door?” he asked as she led the donkey up the path heading away from the King’s Highway.

  “To what end? They’ll rip the heart out of me house soon as they get here. They’ll say they’re searching for sign, but it’ll be frustration. That and it’s how they are, so it is.”

  “Where are we going?” he asked more as a distraction than through genuine interest in the answer.

  “We’ll head into the mountains. I know some deer track we can use to hide our sign.”

  “The Impassable Mountains? You know, the ones we can’t pass.”

  “Lear to listen. I said into, not over. Skirting the range, we’ll be on bare rock. Harder to track.”

  “Hmm,” Scamp scoffed.

  “Ye’ve a better idea, boy?” Scamp shook his head. He’d no ideas, never mind better ones. “Then shut yer eineach and get moving.”

  ***

  Evening had flopped into night before he began to worry. The boy should not have been able to avoid Oisín and Ruairí for long. Most rogues and mischief-makers would find hiding from mediocre trackers beyond them, never mind his experts. Volt had no indication that this Scamp differed from the usual boy of sixteen summers. Kathvar said he was a pain in the hole, nothing more.

  Except the bundún is hiding something.

  “He’s just a brat, you said.”

  Kathvar was grinning at him over the edge of his cup. He wanted to take the cup and smash the man’s teeth. Perhaps one day. Finding the boy and getting him to face justice was more important for now. Or getting Kathvar to reveal what he was hiding, perhaps. Volt knew that demanding answers from the Summoner would be ineffective, except if he was before the King. Connavar had a way that meant men would not attempt to deceive him. He could see into a man’s soul.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Yes. Nothing more than a boy whose parents are unable to control him.”

  Kathvar refused to look at him as he spoke, and Volt shook his head. It didn’t matter what secrets the Summoner thought he was keeping; Oisín and Ruairí should have dragged the boy into the hostel already. He stood and walked to the door to check the time. The sun had long since fallen. Stars were pricking the night sky, myriad tiny lights in the deep blue.

  Walking back to the table, he said, “Mesroeda, take the First Leathdhosaen and ride for Caer Scál. From there, follow the trail and see what’s taking Oisín and Ruairí. They’re probably in some hovel drinking a cup. I want them here with the boy before moonrise.”

  “Aye, Champ,” a heavyset warrior said, climbing to his feet and walking briskly from the hostel.

  ***

  The night was quiet. Those few revellers who remained in the drinkery when the White Cloaks arrived had gone to their roundhouses, leaving the horse warriors and Kathvar to their worrying. The bar keeper glared at them from behind his counter while wiping cups with a dirty cloth. He was angry because they’d driven away his customers or kept him from bed. Either way, if he didn’t stop glaring Volt would go over and find a new place to house the cup the insolent bundún was cleaning. It couldn’t get any dirtier in any case. The storyteller—the only patron who stayed—was sitting alone, mumbling to herself, probably not upset that they’d driven her audience away but moaning nonetheless.

  Volt had propped his sword against the wall. His helmet was on the table beside the mead flagon. The horse warriors were talking in low voices, each nursing a cup and no doubt longing for a cot, but none would leave until they’d received some news. The horse warriors’ bond ran deep, and nearly everyone was concerned about the late return of Oisín and Ruairí.

  Running a palm over his stubbly head, causing a satisfying rasp, Volt asked Kathvar, “What is it about this boy you’re not telling me?”

  The Summoner gulped from his cup but didn’t answer, convincing him even more that the bundún was keeping something from him. Volt opened his mouth to repeat the question, but thudding hooves at a gallop stopped him. Someone shouted at the gate guard, and he thought he recognised Mesroeda’s guttural growling. Whatever Mesroeda said, the gallop did not lessen until the horses were outside the hostelry. He pictured the guard frantically opening the gate in time to avoid a gruesome accident.

  There was much snorting, whickering, and shouting as the First Leathdhosaen reined in. Mesroeda didn’t stable his horse but shouted for one of the six riders from the unit to do it. The door to the hostel banged open, and the First Warrior strode up to the table with a stern expression.

  “Not good news, Champ.”

  “Spit it out, man.”

  “Sorry, Volt, we found Oisín and Ruairí partially hidden by the side of the road, arrows in their heads. Luck, really. Torch reflected off Oisín’s helmet as we rode past on our way to Caer Scál, otherwise we woulda missed ‘em. Had his helmet tied to his belt instead of on his head, but that’s another story. Ruairí wasn’t wearing his, either. Guessing they thought it was an easy snatch.”

  “No sign of the boy?”

  “Difficult to read in torchlight, Volt. We did follow a donkey trail to a roundhouse in a glade. No one out there, and it’s too dark to search for spoor. We’ll have to get at it with the dawn. I’m not hopeful. It’s thick forest around the glade. Someone with skill could make it hard to follow. It’s threatening rain, too,” Mesroeda said with a shrug.

  Volt sat staring up at his leading officer. He was finding it difficult to absorb the information. It seemed nonsensical. How could a mischief-maker, an unarmed mischief-maker, kill his two best trackers? As far as Volt was concerned, he couldn’t. Something inexplicable was happening, and he was confident that Kathvar knew what it was.

  And if he doesn’t tell me, I’ll cut his head off.

  Turning to the Summoner, he said, “A boy with weak parents, you told me.”

  “Actually, what I said was parents who couldn’t control him,” Kathvar scoffed. “Father’s a drunk. Mother’s too cowed to stand up to his drunken abuses. Boy’s a rebel. Understandable, I suppose.”

  “So, how do you explain my trackers’ deaths?”

  “Unrelated.”

  “What in the name of the Tuatha do you mean, unrelated? Of course, it’s related.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “They were hunting the boy. They get killed. No sign of the boy. There has to be a connection.”

  “Unrelated,” Kathvar repeated. “Anyone could have killed them. You’re creating a connection through desperation.”

  “Who owns the roundhouse in the glade?”

  “I’ve heard she’s a recluse. A herbalist. The village girls go to her with girl issues. No threat to anyone, except maybe to boys who create girl issues.”

  Volt shook his head. It seemed there were a lot of people around Caer Scál who were no threat, and yet his two best trackers died while hunting one of them.

  “What is she to this boy, Scamp?”

  “As far as I know, they’ve never met. I doubt the boy even knows she exists.” Kathvar picked up the mead flagon and ordered another on discovering it empty. After the bar keeper slammed a fresh one on the table with a curse, the Summoner continued, “My guess is she walked that stretch of the highway with her donkey before the guards were killed. Besides, Scamp is so caught up in himself and his fires I doubt he notices anything else. When we were closer...”

  Volt raised his eyebrows in question. Nothing Kathvar had said hinted that they’d had any relationship, never mind a close one.

  “I tried to teach him last summer—”

  “Wait. You taught him?”

  “I tried to. It was like trying to hammer a wooden peg into an anvil. Useless,” he concluded, shaking his head.

  “Do you teach all the village children?”

  “No. I’m far too busy.”

  “So, why teach this Scamp?”

  Kathvar hesitated before answering. He pouted to one side of his mouth, making his face grotesque as if trying to distract Volt. Eventually, he said, “I suppose I felt sorry for the boy.”

  That doesn’t sound true. Everything you’ve said and done belies those words.

  “Sorry for him? And yet you accused him of murder.”

  “Unrelated,” the Summoner scoffed.

  “You like that word, Kathvar. Unrelated, you say. But I am not swallowing your horse manure. Something is going on, and you’re aware of it if not actually causing it.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Volt frowned and wondered why men asked that question when they knew the answer. True, he hadn’t said Kathvar, you’re a liar, but his words couldn’t mean anything else.

  “Where’s the boy, Kathvar?”

  “I would recommend caution, warrior.”

  Is he threatening me?

  “Where is he?”

  “Balor and his Fomorii take you, Volt. You seem to be forgetting who you’re talking to. I am—”

  “Answer the question, Kathvar, or I will arrest you.”

  “And then what, Chief’s Champion?”

  “And then I will bring you before the King and force you to answer my questions.”

  Volt wasn’t exactly sure what he expected the threat to do, but creating near-hysterical laughter from the Summoner was not it. He might have anticipated outrage or fear, not laughter. And as the man laughed, Volt felt his anger rising. The laugh reflected everything that had gone wrong since he rode his horse up the hill to Caer Scál: an alleged murderer, an escaped suspect, two guards dead—two friends in truth—and now this laughter. The White Cloaks glanced at each other and then at Volt as if they expected him to do something. Finally, he stood, picked up his sword, pulled it from the scabbard and levelled it at the Summoner’s throat.

  The laugh stopped. Not a tapering out over a few moments but an abrupt end like someone had cut the man’s head off. Kathvar stared up the length of the blade and into Volt’s eyes. Or, more accurately, through his eyes and into his soul. He thought he saw a flash of red in the man’s pupils, brief, so quick he couldn’t be sure it had been there.

  Kathvar said nothing but stared unblinking into Volt’s inner being. He felt a bead of sweat on his upper lip. His sword suddenly felt so heavy that he struggled to hold it up. The more he thought about the weight, the heavier it seemed to become. Eventually, the tip dropped to the table beside Kathvar’s cup with a loud thunk. The Summoner said nothing, but a grin split his face, and his eyes twinkled with mirth.

  Volt slid the scabbard over the sword, clipped it onto his belt, and stormed from the hostel.