Donal wrapped the safety rope around his hand and hunched over the entanglement. He glanced left and right to confirm his action went unnoticed.

  His currach skimmed across the waves faster than at any point in their journey yesterday. Niall mentioned to Brigid he wanted to push the pace to test out the sluggish seas. Indeed, the ride was so smooth Donal closed his eyes and wondered how different this felt from taking flight.

  “These islands we’re heading to,” Donal shouted to Niall, “they are unique to this plane?”

  Niall turned his head and nodded. “Most of them, hai,” he said. “There are tales of important islands like Hy-Brasil and Hy-Falga appearing occasionally when the veil is especially thin, but it could be years of waiting in between those moments.”

  “Oi!” Maeve yelled. “Water’s getting shallow. We’re getting close.”

  “There!” Brendan said, his finger waving toward the distance on their right.

  A small island crested over the horizon. Maeve leaned forward and squinted.

  “That’s not an island,” she said. “It’s coming at us too quickly.”

  The mound was halfway between the boats and the horizon. It had a shiny, even slimy, look about it. Its slopes were dark and the ridge across the top was light grey, perhaps even flesh-colored.

  Donal tapped Niall on his shoulder. “That island looks like the top of someone’s—”

  The island rose out of the water forty yards ahead of Siobhan’s boat off her starboard side. A face emerged, then two shoulders, two long arms and a humanoid torso. Seawater cascaded down from its shaggy hair, blurring its unflinching face.

  “Giant!” Brendan yelled. He dove into the boat and pulled out his staff.

  “Is that a true Fomori?” Finn asked.

  “Does it matter?” Maeve asked. She leaned forward and ordered her boat to decrease its speed by half, a lead the other captains followed. She grabbed her bow and loosed an arrow into the creature’s right shoulder. It did little damage but the giant bellowed in all directions ahead of him. Bubbles formed fifty yards in front of Niall’s currach.

  Brendan swung his staff forward. “Lía?rit teine!” he yelled. The fireball ascended toward the giant’s face but the projectile’s arc sagged and it struck the water in front of its waist.

  Another giant head extended from the area of bubbles ahead of them. Drops of water falling from its beard slapped the water in front of Niall’s boat.

  “The novelty of this plane is officially lost on me,” Brendan said.

  “Oars out!” Siobhan yelled. “Follow us to the left.”

  “Torann nert!” Ciara yelled. A concussive wave struck the giant in his upper abdomen, causing him to double over.

  The second giant wrapped a fist in his other hand and threw it down at Siobhan’s boat.

  “Doingaib?!” Ciara yelled.

  The giant’s hands struck a translucent purple shield that surrounded the boat. Ciara’s shield prevented them from taking damage but it did not blunt the force of the giant’s strike. The blow squeezed the shield against the ocean and Siobhan’s boat shot forward like an apple seed pinched between a finger and thumb, speeding past the other boats.

  “Take us to Hy-Brasil,” she ordered. Her boat veered further left toward an island with steep slopes covered in a coniferous forest.

  “Now that is an island,” Brendan said. “Is it the one we’re looking for?”

  Siobhan shrugged. “It’s the one we’re being led toward at the moment.”

  An inlet opened as they neared. The water that passed the entrance shook unlike anything else they had seen today.

  “Far side of the island!” Maeve called out. “Something’s moving.”

  A third hulking figure waded from behind the island. It released a guttural roar that shook Donal’s chest despite the distance between the two.

  “Make for the inlet,” Niall shouted.

  “And if we get cornered?” Brigid asked.

  “If it’s the right place, the boats will stop,” he said. “If it’s the wrong place, the boat wouldn’t have led us there. If we’re cornered, we’ll fight.”

  The third giant reached into the forest that covered the island and grabbed a handful of trees. The creature reared back and flung four trees toward the party.

  Ciara flung her arms forward. “Gealáin sínid!”

  Lightning arced from her hand toward the flying trees and struck three of the trunks. They popped and split and fell into the water.

  “Missed one,” Brendan said. “Pléasca? guirid.” A blast of heat obliterated the last trunk, sending splinters harmlessly to the ground.

  Maeve and Niall followed Siobhan through the entrance. Siobhan and Brendan drug their oars to navigate island’s interior waters.

  “I don’t think we’ll be cornered,” Maeve said. “This isn’t an inlet but a gap between two islands.”

  The pine-covered slopes on either side of them dropped onto a wide, sandy plain littered with rocks and boulders. Much like the bays of Ballyness and Dunfanaghy, a single channel wide enough for five currachs weaved between shoals.

  The oversized pursuer struggled to fit through the narrow gap.

  “At least we know those giants can’t be hiding in this little river,” Donal said.

  Maeve groaned. “You MacLaughlin boys never lea—”

  “—Bocóit!” Finn yelled. He conjured a pale yellow dome over the right side of his boat just as a bright blue ball of light crashed against it.

  “What are those angry aul’ wans doing?” Donal asked.

  Seven older women stepped from behind boulders. Thinning white hair waved above their heads as if each stood against a gale. Their bodies twisted and moved as they cast their magic with the grace and speed of people half their age.

  Maeve planted an arrow in the chest of one of hags, to little effect.

  “I’m going to use all my silver broadheads before setting a foot into the Otherworld,” she said, rifling through her arrows.

  “Hang on,” Finn said. He flicked his hands over her arrows. “Cuma?tae díadae.” A faint grey light radiated from the arrow shafts.

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  Maeve’s second arrow struck the hag a few inches to the right of the first. The hag clutched the arrow as a pale light spread across its chest. It collapsed a few seconds later; a green light flashed from behind its eyes and inside its mouth.

  “That’s more like it,” she said with a grin.

  Brendan and Ciara lobbed fire and lightning at the remaining hags, dropping two of them and wounding the third.

  “Almost clear!” Siobhan yelled.

  The three currachs escaped into a strait. Faint shapes of larger islands darkened the mist to their right. The mist to their left thinned, revealing a handful of nearby sandbars and islets. Nothing was visible through the mist ahead of them yet the air felt open, as if they could sail for hours without interruption.

  The group maintained their formation—Siobhan’s currach led, Niall’s currach trailed—and all boats were under orders to reach Hy-Brasil.

  “Dya’think they were waiting for us?” Brigid asked ahead to Niall.

  Niall’s head bobbed. “Hai, it seemed like it,” he said. “I’m not sure if they were under-prepared or we’re the jammiest bunch of people around.”

  The heat of battle over, Donal noted a chill at his feet. In all their maneuvers, the boat had taken on water. At the moment it was barely enough to clear the wooden ribs that supported the craft, but a clenching feeling inside Donal’s stomach warned him this wasn’t their last fight today.

  “Oi!” Maeve yelled. “There’s an island just poking through ahead. It’s big and I think our currachs are heading straight for it.”

  “We could use the good luck,” Siobhan said. “Eyes ahead, everyone.”

  A small crest swept across the water from left to right. Maeve’s boat rose three inches and sank to the others’ level once more.

  “What was that?” Fergal asked, his head hanging over the side of his currach.

  The hump of water flattened twenty yards past the line of boats.

  Niall shook his head. “There’s not enough good luck out there to think that whatever it was will stay away. Our ranged friends should prepare.” He squinted into the middle distance. “Dya’see it, Maeve?”

  “I do,” she said, “and it’s got fins.”

  Three spindly, wavy appendages extended nearly a foot out of the water. They slipped below the surface ten yards from the boat. Maeve’s boat again was lifted by a small crest. As it crossed to their left side a tail snapped out of the water on their right and struck the starboard side of the boat. The currach tilted away from the impact and bumped Finn and Maeve a few inches into the air. Maeve’s paddle flew overboard.

  “Enough of this,” Maeve said. “Time to make it mad.”

  She stood on her seat and set her base. She drew back her bowstring and waited. The tips of the unknown creature’s fins were all she needed to range her target. She let fly and her arrows landed in between two of the fins. The fins dropped below the water’s surface, replaced by something much larger.

  A large serpent burst out of the sea. Two sets of eyelids blinked away the water as it slipped between scales the size of spade heads. Its jaws opened, revealing rows of narrow teeth. A head the size of an outbuilding hovered twenty feet above the water as it stared at the boats below.

  “What is that?” Fergal shouted.

  “An olliphéist,” Finn said. “A dragon that loves the water.”

  Several spines poked through the water as the beast’s back and shoulders crested. The olliphéist drew back its head and coiled its body before lunging toward the group.

  "Pléasca? guirid,” Ciara and Brendan called out in unison. Two blasts of heat struck the dragon in its face, causing the creature to pause its attack. It spun away from the boats and lifted its tail out of the water.

  The creature torqued its body to create more leverage with its tail and flung it at the group. The tail smacked the stern of Niall’s currach, splintering its frame and knocking its occupants into the air.

  The frigid seawater stung Donal eyes, plugged his ears and overloaded his brain. His first few moments in the sea left him too shocked to do anything but sink. Instinct kicked in, however, and he flailed his extremities enough to draw his head above water.

  The sloshing of the surf prevented him from hearing anything his comrades said, but he could see both Maeve and Siobhan leaning forward in their boats, looking in Donal’s direction while shouting commands.

  Maeve’s currach spun back and sailed toward Niall. Finn and Fergal each took one of the man’s arms and pulled him aboard, showing much concern about capsizing the craft.

  Something hooked Donal’s right arm. He whipped his head in that direction and found Brigid bobbing atop the meager waves.

  “There you are,” she said. “This will make Siobhan’s job easier.”

  Brendan and Siobhan pulled Donal into the boat. He slid past Ciara and sat on a bag between the middle and rear seats while they pulled Brigid aboard. The currach was riding low now.

  “We’ve added too much weight, you know,” Donal said.

  “One of you could jump back in and sacrifice yourself,” Ciara said with none of the warmth of a jest.

  “We’d ask you to do it,” Brigid said, a glare in her eye, “but we’d still have to throw something else in regardless.”

  “Enough!” Siobhan yelled. “Keep your eye on that dragon, Ciara, while Brendan and I dry off these two.”

  Brendan complied with a nod and he helped Siobhan wick the water off Brigid and Donal with their own versions of wind spells.

  “Maeve’s already back on course,” Siobhan said. She leaned forward and rested her hands on the currach’s bow. “Take us to Hy-Brasil. Double our speed.”

  The olliphéist pushed forward, keeping on the group's left side. It swiped a webbed claw at them. It jabbed its head forward, snapping its jaws in Maeve’s direction. In between snaps the dragon slammed its eyes shut and shook its head.

  “Mind the tail!” Maeve told Finn. “If we let that beastie crack its tail we won’t be able to block the strike. You see it lift that tail of the water—”

  “—Lía?rit teine!” yelled Finn. His fireball struck the dragon a yard behind its right rear leg. Its tail dropped and slapped the surface of the water before slipping below the surface.

  Maeve pursed her bottom lip and nodded. “That,” she said. “Do that.”

  “Pull right, everyone!” Siobhan shouted ahead to the boat in front. “Keep in front of it so we only have to worry about its head.”

  Several paddles dropped into the water along the right side of the currachs and dug in. The olliphéist had the speed to catch the group, but Ciara kept it at bay. When the creature surfaced, she blasted it with heat. When it below, she used lightning and thunder to force it above water.

  “Rocks!” Maeve yelled. “Turn left!”

  The oars hopped over the boats and splashed into the waters off their port sides.

  Maeve pointed at Finn. “Hit that thing from our broadside when we turn if you must. Keep it from cutting us off.”

  “Shouldn't you be working your bow instead of a paddle?” Brendan asked her.

  “In these conditions? On the water?” Maeve asked. “My arrows are only so big and we can’t risk any misses.”

  “What are those?” Brigid asked, pointing to some darkened forms off the starboard side.

  Maeve’s boat banked right, giving Donal an unfettered view of the island in front of them. It reached high into sky like a seastack, but its slopes were smooth and flattened out into a respectable amount of shore. A dozen jagged rocks ahead of it split the waves like an accidental breakwater and atop several of those rocks sat misshapen human forms.

  Donal squinted and shielded his eyes from the sea spray but could not make out the lower half of their bodies. Their hair resembled manes yet moved like appendages. Three or four spikes protruded from each elbow and shoulder

  “Merrows!” Finn said. “The fight is closing in.”

  Each of them dove into the water after Maeve’s currach. They didn’t jump in. They couldn’t jump. The lower halves of their body were thick and scaly, featuring a tail fin where one would expect to find a pair of feet.

  “Ranged, take the oars,” Siobhan said. “Except for you, Ciara. Keep that dragon at bay. Donal, Fergal, Brigid, get you to work.”

  “And myself?” Niall asked.

  “As if you needed to be told what to do?” Siobhan asked.

  The first merrow surfaced between the boats and reached for the rear of Maeve’s currach. Fergal cracked it in the head with the hammer of his polearm and the creature dropped back into the water. Siobhan’s boat hopped as it skimmed over the creature.

  “More land,” Finn yelled. He pointed ahead to a large island. It was wider than the last islands they passed with gentler slopes covered in shrubs and small trees. Instead of being divided by a narrow inlet, it split their path in two directions. “Which way?” he asked.

  “We let the boats lead us,” Siobhan said. “I believe they’re leading us to the right.”

  Two more surfaced on the starboard side of Maeve’s currach. Donal heard a claw tear through the lead boat’s hide as it attempted to board. Niall slammed his club on the creature’s hand. The merrow hissed and he relinquished his grip, but with a twist and another desperate grasp, it buried its other claw into the side of the boat.

  Fergal brought down the blade of his poleaxe and separated the merrow from its left hand.

  “Niall, behind you!” Brendan said, pointing to the second merrow attempting to board near the bow. Niall raised his weapon before he turned and clubbed the merrow on the crown of its head.

  The lead boat tipped to the right seconds before two more merrows had appeared off the port side. Both had latched onto the hull with one hand to swipe at the people inside with the other. Finn and Maeve were forced to stop guiding the boat with their paddles to hold off the marauding creatures until Fergal and Niall dealt with them.

  Maeve stood up and yelled, “Siobhan! We’re taking on water! We need to—”

  Another merrow hopped out of water and struck Maeve in the back. She fell forward but caught herself on the bow.

  “—get out of here and reach the portal, as fast as we can.”

  The lead currach lurched forward, its bow in the air, its stern pressed into the water, shreds from the side of its hull flapping in the breeze as it rounded the right side of the island and out of Donal’s sight.