CúChulainn of Eirú Book II

Chapter 2

11.

Champions of Uladh

As soon as Fergus caught sight of Eamhain Mhacha he knew something was amiss.

Riding up beside him, Naoise stopped his mount and scrutinised the fort with one hand at his brow. Clearly he too sensed that something was not right; even after so many years away, any true warrior of Eamhain would know when the people of a settlement were not going about their business as they should.

Naoise signalled to his exiles with a gesture that Fergus surmised meant that they should stay on their guard.

‘You feel it too, don’t you?’ said MacRoth.

Naoise stroked his scraggly blond beard.

‘I never imagined I would look upon Eamhain Mhacha again, let alone set foot once more on Uladh soil. So my feelings... I don’t think I can trust them overmuch.’

Fergus regarded the other warrior closely. Naoise had once been in command of the army that had been known as the Bloody Hands, and which had been dubbed the Ruddy Boars when Fergus came to Eamhain and put himself to the service of Conchobar, replacing the exiled general.

Fergus held Naoise in high esteem, for he had heard stories of his valour in battle from some of the veterans of the Bloody Hands. He had been curious as to why Conchobar never spoke of the man; all that the king had ever told him was that there had been strife between them that could never be fixed, and that was all that he would say on the matter. Fergus wondered briefly if Naoise would want to reclaim his old position at the head of the Boars, and had not been timid about putting the question to the ShadowKin during their journey to Eamhain. For Fergus was ever direct and open with people, he had no taste for half-truths or hidden ploys. As far as he was concerned loyalty and faith were simple things: you either had them or you were a scoundrel. He was satisfied then when Naoise had answered that it was far from his mind to take up his old position at Eamhain, all that he wished for was reconciliation with the king, and if he might one day serve in Eamhain’s army again, it would be his great honour to fall under the command of MacRoth.

‘But you’re right, Fergus,’ said Naoise. ‘There’s something ill astir down there. Those watchtowers and that outer wall are new to me, but I would have expected to see guards on them all the same.’

‘Indeed there should be,’ Fergus grunted. ‘And there’s far too little activity around and about for my liking. Onward!’

They urged their horses on and closed the remaining distance between themselves and the walls of Eamhain at a gallop. There was nobody at the gate towers to hail Fergus as would normally be the case, yet that posed no problem for the gates themselves hung open and unguarded. As Fergus passed through them, he shook his head and grumbled darkly under his breath. With the two great armies, the Ruddy Boars and the Wolf Horde, away on campaign it was down to Conchobar’s own guard to defend the capital. Whoever was still around would soon have their ears burned by Fergus’s ire. He reached back and pulled Caladbolg free from its strappings. The fresh yew-wood handle he had fashioned for it was still somewhat unfamiliar to his hand, but something told him it wouldn’t be long until it wasn’t.

Caladbolg

Between the outer and inner walls they saw that most of the dwellings, workshops, forges and artisanal crannógs were shut up. There were no Machra lads running wild between the buildings and no farmers working the soil. Fergus glimpsed a few suspicious faces just inside some of the doors and windows as they thundered past and, glancing back, noticed that the people came out to follow them as they progressed through the settlement, as if they had been waiting for a champion to return and set things right.

Soon they came to the hill of Eamhain and charged up the slope towards the entrance of the Craobh Ruadh, before which there were a few warriors and others milling about, scratching their heads in agitation and holding animated conversation.

Craobh Ruadh,

Fergus called out to the first of them, a man he recognised as Dáire, a young-blood who was soon to be brought before the king to evaluate his worthiness to become a Red Branch Knight.

He isn’t covering himself in glory today, thought Fergus to himself, perhaps a little harshly.

He isn’t covering himself in glory today,

‘Young Dáire! I’m trying hard to recall ever seeing Eamhain so limply defended. What’s happening here, man?’

‘Fergus!’ cried the warrior, and his expression on recognising the legendary champion without his fiery beard was one of surprise, relief and consternation.

‘It’s glad we are to see you! It’s the king - his recent behaviour has us mystified!’

Fergus and Naoise briefly exchanged uneasy looks.

‘Nothing’s changed so,’ said the ShadowKin dourly.

Fergus screwed up his face in irritation. The soldiers he saw before him were wearing the emerald brooch and thick, ochre-dyed fleece cape of the watchmen.

‘What are you all doing, gathered around here and not at your posts?’

‘That’s just it!’ cried Dáire. ‘The best of us have been taken from our posts. Taken in there.’

He pointed at the firmly closed doors of the Craobh Ruadh and Fergus could see with mounting annoyance that the young man’s hand was trembling slightly.

Craobh Ruadh

‘Speak clearly, lad,’ commanded Naoise. He had clearly lost none of his bearing as a leader and Dáire immediately accepted him as a superior.

‘Every so often a message is sent from inside those locked doors asking for such and such a warrior. Some of the most renowned knights of Eamhain on rest from campaign have been called and some of the most venerable druids. It goes the same each time - he goes in and he doesn’t come out. This has been going on since not long after you left. We watchmen and soldiers have decided to get to the heart of the matter ourselves, haven’t we men?’

The others nodded and raised their spears - in a decidedly noncommittal way, to Fergus’s mind.

‘The doors are locked? Why…’ he trailed off, truly puzzled, but he had not long to consider the question for as he spoke the heavy oaken portal was creaking open and a pitiful form staggered out.

The man, a druid by the cut of his robes, came hesitantly forward, his arms and hands held out quivering before him, and covering his eyes was a bandage of linen under which Fergus could see blood seeping through.

He stopped a few steps in front of Fergus and Naoise, more by accident than design, and his voice was feeble when he spoke.

‘The… great king Conchobar… calls on… Bhrionn Mac…’

He would never finish this final request, for Fergus had leapt from his horse and swatted the druid aside. Then he, along with Naoise and the exiles, flung aside the doors and stormed into the Craobh Ruadh.

Craobh Ruadh.

There he found the king, head bowed in what seemed to be concentration, his hands placed firmly upon a spear that was driven into the great carved stump representing all the known regions of Eirú that served as the strategy board for campaigns. His son Muirgin sat despondently in the corner, clearly at a loss as to what he should do.

‘Conchobar?’ Fergus said uneasily, at the same time nodding his reassurance to his son, who looked eternally relieved to see him.

The sovereign jolted at a little at the sound, then looked up at Fergus almost distractedly.

‘Fergus...?’ His face hardened for a moment, then he shrugged and made a gesture that seemed like he was dismissing the champion, and returned to gazing at the map. ‘You should have been at Cruachán by now. Those were your orders as I recall.’

Fergus brought his fists to his hips and scowled.

‘I decided it would be better for me to return, and I see I was not wrong to do so. There are some affairs you need to deal with.’

Naoise stepped forward and bowed curtly to his erstwhile king.

‘With me.’

Conchobar continued to study the map intently for some long moments, an act which nettled the two champions. Finally he slid his regard slowly towards the newcomers.

‘He said you would come back, both of you. Him also, all of you…’ he murmured incoherently.

Him

‘He said? Who said what?’ Fergus barked, his already limited patience at an end. ‘Naoise is here now, Conchobar, under my guarantee and with good intentions, so…’

He

Naoise eased Fergus down with a hand to his shoulder and a nod. Then the former champion stepped closer to Conchobar and knelt down on one knee.

‘I remember well the oaths I took for the Lord of Uladh,’ he said in a tight but proud voice. These were clearly words he had practiced many times in his head over the long years of his exile, and he used the High Speech.

‘The gleam of battle was ever in our eyes. Together we fought, a brotherhood of stony resolve. Conchobar, I have heard the true way of things about that day. If sorrows can’t be forgotten, if hurts can’t be hunted from our hearts, I can live and die with that.

‘But I remain a loyal champion of Uladh; my bones have been hardened and my blood has been filled with the sap of the ChrannGréinne, the tree that gave life to the Red Branch itself. My purpose is to serve these lands. I am ready to return to your side if that is good for you.’

ChrannGréinne

Conchobar was visibly stirred by these words. He took his hands slowly from the spear shaft that stayed upright in the map and came forward to lay them on the shoulders of the old friend whose only wrong against him had been to love a woman whom Conchobar too had desired.

‘Naoise. The once champion of Uladh, here before me again. Time has driven a hard wedge between us, that’s true. I…’

Conchobar seemed hesitant then for a moment, his gaze confused. Then another voice called out, pernicious and shrill, from the adjoining private king’s lodge.

‘But you already have a new champion, king of Eamhain!’

The deerskin curtain flapped open and, to the surprise of Fergus, Naoise and the other exiles, a slender young boy with spiked, sandy hair walked into the main chamber of the Red Branch, sneering wickedly.

‘No need for this old traitor.’

‘Who in all the Sídhe is this?’ Fergus shouted, his arms thrown up in exasperation.

Conchobar turned and looked at the boy for a moment, then swung around again and, with his arms outstretched, declared in a voice that was an odd mixture of hesitation and firm proclamation:

‘This… this is the new champion of Uladh! Does not a king need a champion of worth? One who does not stand against his wishes in front of his subjects?’

The boy seemed to be only half listening to Conchobar’s confused announcement. He walked around the Red Branch and laid one hand upon the red-golden bark. His fingers erupted into flame and he hastily pulled them back, shaking his smoking hand and giggling.

‘Oh! The last Quicken Tree indeed! They don’t grow them like that anymore, eh?’

Fergus scratched his head and unbuckled Heaven’s Call from his belt - he had seen more than enough of this bizarre interloper already.

‘The new champion, is it? CúChulainn is the named and rightful First Champion, Conchobar. I don’t know who this whelp is but since he hasn’t introduced himself, I’ll just have to beat his name and his reason for being here out of him.’

The boy ignored Fergus completely and instead pointed towards Naoise, who had risen to his feet and was subtly gesturing to his men to take position around the strange youth.

‘And this is the one who brought great misery and shame to your house for so long, good king?’

Conchobar clasped at his side and winced. His face was covered in sweat, his eyes glazed and confused.

‘This is… he… Naoise…’

‘Then let me show you how effective your new champion is!’ the boy called.

With that he extended his arms and semi-liquid brownish growths sprouted from his wrists. These swiftly solidified into whip-like tentacles each terminating in razor-sharp bony extrusions.

He leaped at Naoise and the old champion barely managed to keep the strange, blood-slippery whips away from his vitals, parrying the close-quarters strikes as best he could with his long-sword Luithech.

Luithech.

‘Madness!’ cried Fergus, and he dashed forward swinging his axe towards the boy’s head.

But the blow did not land. The lad was swifter than anything he had ever seen, and with the bone-blades slashing and flailing about from his wrists he seemed more than capable of taking both of them on at once. Nonetheless he appeared to take care to avoid the swings of Heaven’s Call for Fergus’s ancient Fir Bholg weapon, the Caladbolg, was festooned with runic charms.

Caladbolg

‘To me, ShadowKin!’ yelled Naoise. The call was unnecessary, for his men had already unsheathed their weapons and were darting forward trying to get under the deadly whipping blades, but more often than not being forced to flip back out of their deceptive range.

When they did land their strikes, however, Crommlai didn’t seem to even notice, for his ever-growing limbs were instantly replaced by fresh spike-tipped members that lashed out viciously to counter-attack each attempt at harming him.

Fergus and Naoise both quickly realised that the confinement of the Craobh Ruadh put them at a disadvantage against the demon who had grown four more tentacles from his ribs and had already scored them deeply across their forearms and thighs. They nodded to one another and began to retreat back out of the doors and into the courtyard.

Craobh Ruadh

The other ShadowKin, who had been ripping and cutting at Crommlai with great skill but to no noticeable effect, instantly understood Naoise’s intention and made to leap after the him and Fergus towards the doors.

But they would never make it.

Crommlai, sensing their flight, collapsed into a shapeless form and plunged into the earth leaving a plume of magickal fire and dirt after him. Faster even than any of those supremely accomplished warriors in the Craobh Ruadh, Crommlai burrowed under the earth and before the ShadowKin could reach the door, suddenly jagged lances of stiff muscle-and-bone surged up and impaled them from below.

Naoise himself narrowly avoided instant death, but found himself skewered bitterly through the thigh nonetheless. Fergus and four other ShadowKin were the only ones lucky enough to receive brutal - but thankfully not mortal - flesh wounds.

A moment later, when the cries of surprise had died down, the blades retracted, becoming soft tentacles once again, and the bodies tumbled to the earth where they began shuddering as Crommlai siphoned into himself their remarkable powers, capacities, memories and strength.

Naoise screamed in horror. The spike that had gone through his thigh had also changed back into tentacular form and was greedily sucking his life force. But Fergus was by his side instantly, and he slammed his axe down on the quivering member, severing it, before he yanked Naoise to his feet.

‘This could be the death of us, Fergus!’ cried the veteran fiercely.

Fergus nodded and clapped him on the shoulder as Crommlai, now back in human form, emerged from the newly ruptured hole in the earth grinning and licking his filthy lips.

‘There is a chance of that alright, what say we make it legendary?’

‘Aye, so,’ Naoise answered bitterly and they, along with the four remaining ShadowKin exiles, roared every oath they knew and charged down the demon.

All the while King Conchobar sat on his throne staring vacantly at the horror and desecration unfolding before him in the sacred hall of the Red Branch.