Scamp squinted at the champion sitting on the dais. Volt’s face was a picture of confusion. The other warrior, Mesroeda, had spun on his heel and was staring at the door, sword still in his hand.

  “How’d he do that?” Mesroeda asked as he sheathed his sword.

  “Some sort of powder, I’d warrant, thrown in the firepit. No witchery needed,” Volt replied. “Just a trick.”

  Scamp watched the champion staring in the same direction as the warrior; if anything, his confusion was more pronounced after the declaration. He heard a rasping in the air caused by the men at their bristles, one rubbing his chin, the other rubbing his head.

  Volt doesn’t believe his own words, he thought, sticking a knuckle in his eye.

  “He ran ‘cos the dailtín accused him ‘o witchery. Sign ‘o guilt, for sure,” the cnapán said.

  “If he is a witch, that’s still what he would do. There’s no power in them. It’s all smoke and shadows.”

  Scamp was wondering. It seemed to be something more. Like Upthog when she left him in the woods, Kathvar had been on the dais one moment and gone the next.

  “He vanished,” he said.

  She told me he’s a witch. I didn’t believe her.

  “No. It just seems that way. He caused a bang and slipped out while we were distracted,” Volt continued, pleading to the tabletop.

  Scamp turned from the dais to the door and wondered how distracted they’d been. There was only one way out of the long hall, which must have been twenty strides or more. He couldn’t have passed unseen unless he changed into a rat; shape-changing was not something Scamp would ordinarily believe. And yet Upthog vanished into the loam in the time it took him to glance away and back. How had she done it if not by changing into something small enough to be invisible in the foliage?

  Is Upthog a witch—a shape changer? Is everything she told me real?

  The thought made Scamp consider how his idea of Upthog had changed. He remembered her words when he mentioned Volt had hunted down all the witches. Not all, she’d said. It had just seemed a flippant remark. Now, he was less than sure it was something that slipped out unnoticed. Now, it had meaning. He’d heard somewhere—probably from his Ma—that shape changers were witches with a particular skill. He’d always taken it as further nonsense from a superstitious woman. Now, was he still sure? Perhaps not.

  “I ain’t so sure ‘bout that, Volt,” the cnapán said, rubbing his chin more vigorously, raising the volume of his irritating rasp. “How’d he get past me and the dailtín unless he’s a shape changer? We’d ‘ave seen him. And there’s two of my Leathdhosaenon the door. Did you see him, boy?”

  Scamp shook his head and bit his lip.

  “I already told you, Mes—”

  “And whatever ‘bout just now, how’d he known in the glade? He’d known the boy had been there and where he’d gone. How’d he—”

  “Enough, First Warrior. Get after him. By his actions, he’s a King’s enemy.”

  “After him where?”

  “I’d try the stables first, man.”

  Mesroeda spun on his heel and strode up the hall, muttering under his breath. Scamp thought he heard something about the witch being long gone.

  “And bring me that woman,” Volt shouted at the retreating warrior’s back.

  As Mes ducked out the door, villagers began to duck in, returning from working the fields. They were covered in soil, except the beefiest, who was covered in soot streaked with sweat, no doubt the village smith. Whether soot or mud-covered, they all appeared to be thirsty. Uncaring about magic and its application, they talked about banalities as they found their seats and started to demand service. Scamp noticed the counter in the shadows by the door, which he’d missed before because the cnapán kicked him beyond it when they arrived. A gruff-looking barrel-chested man began pouring drinks and delivering them to the tables.

  Scamp listened to the banal conversation for a few moments, discussions about new ploughs and belligerent goats, before asking the Champ, who was staring at the tabletop, “What about me? Can I go home now?”

  “Eh?” Volt lifted his head, showing a slightly vacant expression. Shaking his head and still rubbing a hand over the stubble on its top, he said, “Go home? No, I don’t think so. Maybe Kathvar did kill the gate guard, but you and the woman have to answer for the murders of Oisín and Ruairí. I’m bringing you and this Upthog—when we find her—to Murias. One or both of you will hang from the King’s gallows.”

  “But I ain’t done nothing.”

  Volt ignored him, calling the guards in from the door. “Lock him in the granary. We ride for Murias tomorrow.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ***

  When Volt called the guards on the door and ordered them to lock him in the granary, Scamp’s heart skipped. If it were anything like the granary at Caer Scál, he would be out and into the forest soon after the witching hour. He had yet to see the barn capable of keeping him locked away. And then he would search for Upthog and confront her with his suspicions. Or, more likely, she would find him. She was probably waiting for him in the forest. He was determined to demand the truth from her either way. She didn’t need to answer immediately. They would spend a lot of time together, and he would be patient and wear her down. He had no intention of going all the way to Scéine’s Cove and the last éigeas—this man Myrddin—but like she’d used him, he would use her.

  His glee was short-lived.

  Scamp got the first clue to the depth of cac he was about to land in when they guided him out of the village gates and round the palisade towards a blockhouse similar to the drinkery, only larger. He thought he might have seen it from the road as they neared the village: a big brooding monstrosity between the palisade and the forest edge.

  “What’s that?”

  “Granary. What d’ye think, bundún?”

  As they drew near, he saw the door was heavy oak and the walls solid timber. It was far from the rickety planks that formed the granary in Caer Scál. After they pushed him through the door and threw the bolt, he didn’t hear his imprisonment but the drop of a certain six-person gallows. He’d never seen a gallows, only heard of the King’s constantly busy scaffold in Murias—the scaffold where The Coven had met their end, all organised by the stubbly-blond sitting in the hostel.

  Cha chunk.

  Kathvar used to delight in telling Scamp he was sure to dangle under the trapdoor—as sure as chickens lay eggs, Scamp would eventually face the long climb up the steps in the square outside the King’s hall: a long climb followed by a short drop. He’d always laughed it off.

  He wasn’t laughing now.

  I must be able to do something.

  He scouted his prison using the little light left, which was peeking through the cracks between the logs. There wasn’t much to see. The lower parts of the walls were covered in daub, no doubt to stop the grains from leaking through the gaps. He could see some metal hooks in the walls; he would think it had been used as a tool shed before becoming the granary, except they were too high. No one would hang tools where they’d need a ladder to get them.

  Tools for working the grains when the shed’s full, he realised.

  Scamp briefly thought about pulling one of the hooks and using it to dig through the wall. They were out of his reach and appeared to be firmly embedded. Would it be worth trying? He wasn’t sure he would succeed. However, hearing that cha chunk of the bolt hitting home and thinking of the gallows in Murias had to be enough reason to try.

  He began to search for some way to reach the hooks.

  The answer came from the deeper shadows at the back of the barn. Barrels stacked, no doubt waiting for the grain to pay the King’s taxes each year.

  Taking a barrel, Scamp rolled it under a hook that seemed likely to come away easily. Climbing atop his makeshift ladder, he grabbed it with two hands and tried to lever it up and down. It was frustrating work—tiring work with his arms above his head. As he worked, so he sweated. Ultimately, he lifted his feet off the barrel, dangling and using his body weight to free the hook. He jerked and jerked again, getting a sense of movement before his sweaty palms slipped from their precarious grip, and he banged back down onto the barrel, which teetered below his feet.

  “Cac,” he yelled as the barrel toppled, and he hit the packed soil of the granary with a resounding thump, which made him bite his tongue.

  Scamp felt his mouth fill with copper-tasting blood, which he spat out into a just visible smudge. The bite was bad enough to cause his mouth to fill again, and he gobbed a second wad into the dust.

  “There’s the blood of a…” he stopped.

  Blood of a virgin, he’d been about to say. He told his nightmare’s hostess that he didn’t know any virgins. I think you do. Go now, try it, Marbh had replied. Gazing at the ever-darkening smudges, he understood her meaning.

  Everything that happened since Upthog said she was leaving him with the donkey had sorely tested his lack of belief. The Four, the Lord of Darkness, and the Scourges had always been nonsense to him. Well, at least from when he was old enough to understand. Go now, try it, Marbh’s words in his dream. And the more he thought about recent days, the more he was tempted. But was any of it true? Could any of it be true?

  It isn’t possible, his logic screamed at him, but then the opposite argument rose from the shadows. Whatever it isn’t, it is a reason to try.

  Righting the barrel, he climbed up and studied the metal hook in the quickly fading light. This time, he wasn’t checking the end buried in the wall, but the end exposed to the air of the granary. He was searching for a sharp edge. He needed more blood than he could get from a split tongue, he imagined. Sure enough, the spike had sharp edges caused when the heavy hammer drove the metal into the wall.

  Gritting his teeth, he pressed the edge into his palm until he felt it bite, then dragged his hand backwards while gripping as hard as he could.

  At first, he felt no pain.

  When the first wave washed up his wrist, he was too excited to feel that, either. He only felt it when it started to throb and sting together. It was then that he also felt the blood dripping between his fingers. Cupping his palms, he searched for something with which to draw. Marbh told him to draw a pentagram and ask Dhuosnos to send him a demon, an ifreannachshe’d called it. She gave him a phrase that he’d memorised in his dream. He hadn’t forgotten it. His memory had never let him down. It was, A Thiarna, tabhair dom diabhal – please send me a demon.

  Finding a stick loose on the floor, he let his blood splash into a small puddle and dipped the stick in. It was a meagre amount, and he knew he would be hard-pressed to draw a pentagram with the little he had.

  “It’ll have to be small,” he told the hardened-mud floor. Taking a deep breath, he scratched a crude pentagram and gazed at his work proudly before realising he had very little time. The light coming through the cracks had taken on a less vibrant colour, a colour that said dusk was upon him. Just before the light finally failed him and the grey became dark blue, he took his place at the top point of the pentagram, closed his eyes in concentration, and recited the words as Marbh had instructed.

  Holding his breath, he waited.

  And then he waited some more.

  And…

  Nothing.

  “Cac.”

  But then a scrabbling sound came from one of the walls. Something was coming. His heart leapt. It was true…

  Squeak, squeak.

  Rats.

  “Cac,” he yelled. “Knew it was Tuatha-forsaken nonsense,” he said, slumping down against the wall beside the makeshift ladder.