Challenge of the clans

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En

Book One

The JoaRNEY Begins

Chapter One

CONSPIRACY

"I will not allow you to leave Tara before the Samhain festival, Cumhal!" threatened Conn, high king of all Ireland.

"There's little you can do to stop my going!" came the heated reply from Cumhal MacTredhorn.

The angry voices echoed clearly, hollowly in the vast hall of Tara, rebounding from the circle of timber walls and the planks of the high peaked roof. Their violence drew the startled gazes of the servants working in the room to the two men arguing by the main doors.

Conn was of truly aristocratic bearing, lean and long-featured and fair, with ice-blue eyes and blond hair curling loosely about his shoulders. He glowed richly with the gold ornament of his station. His four-folded dark red cloak was golden fringed. The enameled brooch that fastened it was of red gold, as were the tore about his neck and the wide bands at his elbows. He was a wily and ruthless leader who had earned the title of Hundred Fighter in as many savage battles, but he had met his match in the man who faced him now.

Cumhal was both larger and darker than the king. His body was more massive and his features more broadly drawn. His eyes were the deep brown of Ireland's rich sod, and the long hair plaited loosely at his back was coarse and black. In dress he seemed only a common warrior, unornamented save for a simple iron pin to fJEisten his woolen cloak. In truth he was the captain of

the Fianna, those bands of professional soldiers whose task it was to serve the ruling classes of Ireland.

"It is unknown for any Fian chieftain to refuse to attend me here," Conn pointed out with towering indignation.

"Then I will be the first," Cumhal told him, unmoved by his king's ire. "My wife will be giving birth to our first child very soon. No power—no power at all— will keep me fi-om being with her."

With these words, he turned and strode through the open doorway, out of the hall.

Astonished by this insolence. Conn stood frozen a moment, staring after him. Then he noticed the servants' curious eyes upon him. He cast a chilling glare about at them, then started in pursuit of the departing warrior.

He followed Cumhal across an earthen causeway that bridged a defensive ditch and linked the hall to an encircling outer mound of earth, and down a steep slope to the level of the fortress yard. This was an area of several acres in extent, enclosed by a high palisade of thick logs. It was now bustling with the inhabitants of Tara, busily making preparations for the Feis of Samhain .

This yearly six-day festival to mark the end of the growing season brought chieftains, territorial kings, and learned men fi-om all over Ireland to the great fortress. One party of mounted warriors was even then riding in through the outer wall's main gates. They were closely bundled against the chill air of the fall day, the brightly checked cloaks of their clan making a brilliant flash of color against the brown countryside and the iron sky behind them.

As Cumhal started away from the base of the halFs mound, Conn came up close behind him.

"How dare you defy me before my own people!" the high king said in outrage. "You have forgotten yourself, MacTredhom!"

The leader of the Fianna stopped and swung toward Conn. His expression was hard and his voice chill.

"I've forgotten nothing. High King," he said, spitting out the title with contempt. "Every day I'm re-

minded that you are the Great Master of Ireland. But I know that it's the blood of my warriors that's soaked into the sod. For all these years weVe fought to keep your power for you. And I never forget that, for all weVe done, we're still treated with less kindness than you show your cattle and your hounds. Well, that time is ending!"

"Are you mad, speaking that way to me?" Conn asked in disbelief "You are bound to me by the oaths of the Fianna. You must serve me!"

"I'll serve you, as I should. But I'll have everything that's owed the Fian bands, and I'll have respect for us as well. That, or you and your rich, pampered lords will find yourselves enforcing your laws and fighting your battles yourselves."

Conn choked oflP his angry reply. He knew well enough that no fighting force in Ireland, or possibly the world, could match the strength and courage of the Fianna warriors. And he knew that, for all their oaths of service to the king, their true loyalty lay with their own captain. He could not risk pushing Cumhal to open rebellion. By an effort of will, he remained silent.

"Now, I am leaving for Almhuin as soon as my warriors are ready," Cumhal went on, as if he were a teacher instructing a small child. "I mean to be there before my wife gives birth. And there I mean to stay for the winter. When Beltaine comes, I'll return here and be at your service, as is proper. I'll not return before. So, my high king, a fine Samhain to you."

Once more he turned away, crossing the yard to the stable buildings with a confident swagger. This time. Conn let him go, staring after him in hatred and fi-ustration. Many more of his subjects about the yard had witnessed this second humiliation. He wanted no third confi-ontation with the Fian captain.

Casting a burning gaze about him at people who hastily averted their eyes, he started back toward the hall, shaking with barely suppressed rage that had no outlet. As he came through the gate onto the causeway, he saw with some surprise that someone awaited him at the hall's threshold.

It was Tadg, his court's highest-ranking member of the druidic class, that learned body of men who served as advisors to Ireland's rulers. Known for their great wisdom and their proficiency in the magic arts, they were very powerful figures in the Irish hierarchy, and very dangerous ones as well.

Like the high king, Tadg was a slender man, but his features were finer, almost to the point of frailty. He had a delicate beauty, like that of a winter's new frost, and he had its chill quality as well. His eyes were large, bright silver gray, his nose slender, his mouth small and finely shaped. His high-domed head was covered wispily with white-gold hair. His thin body was draped in the gleaming white robe that marked his status in the sacred order.

"Where did you come fi*om, Tadg?" Conn asked, somewhat surprised by his unexpected appearance. "I didn't know you had arrived '

"iVe been here for some time. High King," Tadg answered, his voice a soft, clear melodic sound. "I've watched your confi-ontation with Cumhal. Now do you agree with me?"

"Yes!" Conn tersely replied. "Cumhal has gone too far. He's become dangerous. "

Tadg's lips parted in a sweet, engaging smile. "Yes, High King. And he must be destroyed."

The stark pronouncement caused Conn to glance about him quickly. But there was no one nearby to hear them. He moved closer to the druid.

"How can I act against him?" he asked in a hoarse whisper. "It would bring the chieftains of all the Fians against me!"

"Ah, but youVe no need to worry," Tadg assured him in a soothing way. "The answer to your problem is arriving now. Look." He lifted a slim hand to point down into the yard. Conn turned to see another mounted band of warriors, in the green and yellow plaid of the Moma clan, riding in through the gates.

"It is others of the Fianna clans who will deal with Cumhal for you," said the druid. "All you must do is

see that tonight, after the festival is under way, young Aed MacMoma is sent secretly to me."

Conn eyed the druid closely, seeing in that guileless, gently smiling face the real intent behind his words. He nodded, and then he quickly walked away.

After that evening's feast, Aed MacMoma and his brother Conan slipped from the fortress into the night and moved down the hillside toward the sacred enclosure of the druids.

Both of them were dark, thick-bodied men, their features similar enough to prove their blood relationship. But Aed MacMoma was the more pleasant looking of the two, his features coarsely handsome, his form solid, powerfiil, and moving with an aggressive sure-ness. His brother Conan was larger, inclining toward stoutness, his movements more ponderous. His round, soft face was marked by an enormous, spiky mustache that seemed to be vainly trying to make up for his balding head.

A chill, nagging wind tugged at their cloaks as it worried the fall-browned grasses of the fields on either side. Aed strode along briskly, looking neither right nor left, intent only on his goal. Conan moved with an obvious reluctance, casting nervous looks about at the dark countryside and gazing back often and longingly at the fortress fading away above them. He was yearning for the comforts of the hall, with its blazing fire, and for the companionship of his clansmen, now earnestly engaged in their late-night carousing. He had no wish at all to be out in the chill and blackness of a Samhain night, and especially on such a strange mission as this.

"Are you certain we have to go there, Aed?" he asked in a growl.

His brother cast an exasperated glance at him. "Conan, Til not warn you again. If the high king com-m^uids us, there's nothing for us to do but obey!"

"I don't like this. Not at all, I don't!" Conan mumbled on. "Him pulling us away fi-om the feasting like that and sending us out here. As if he didn't want the others to know of it. And this high druid of his. There's

a very unpleasant sort. Nasty sorts of powers I've heard he has. They even say hes of the sidhe blood himself! That he—"

"I know the rumors as well as you/* Aed said sharply. "Now will you please close your mouth and keep up with me?"

They reached the bottom of the hillside and skirted a small copse of trees. The moon made a sudden appearance, the clasped hands of the clouds opening, pulling back, to release it momentarily. Its stark white light turned the sky gray, throwing the bare tree branches into sharp relief, revealing the wood as a grove of oaks, the sacred trees of the druids.

Their upper branches thrust like skeletal fingers toward the sky, the shifting breezes making them seem to clutch desperately for the sailing moon before it could drift into the sheltering banks of clouds again. And the wind made the trees wail mournftilly like a discordant chorus of Ban-Sidhe keening for some hero's death, accompanied by the dry rusthng of the few dead leaves still clinging stubbornly to their limbs.

Conan hurried by them in his brother's wake, careful not to look into the blackness lurking deep within the grove. Past the oak trees, the two men reached the druids sacred enclosure. It was another stockade of upright logs. But, unlike the fortress above, this one formed a long, narrow rectangle.

The walls were solid save at one end, where a single, narrow opening allowed entrance. Conan stopped some distance from it, staring at it with uncertainty. Aed paused by the opening and looked back at his brother, his face taut with impatience.

"Are you coming, then? Hell be waiting for us."

"Yes. All right," the other said without enthusiasm. He moved on, following Aed into the enclosure, out of the wind's punishing blast.

The interior was one long open space. Along either side, just within the wall, was set a row of stakes, each topped by a human skull that gleamed in the moonlight. Down this macabre avenue they passed, toward a small roofed structure at the farthest end.

Before this hut there burned a fire in a circle of stones. The white smoke of it streamed upward until it reached above the sheltering walls where the harsh winds snatched it abruptly away. To one side of this fire yawned the black mouth of the druid's sacrificial pit. Behind the fire, just before the doorway of the hut, Tadg sat alone on a mound of piled furs.

His eyes remained closed until the two men stopped across the fire from him. Then they opened and the gray eyes fixed on them. A gust of wind flicked down into the enclosure, whipping the smoke into a sudden wreath, striking cold through the visitors. Conan shivered.

"So, youVe come," Tadg said, the soft voice rustling like the night breeze through the dry leaves of the fall trees.

"Yes," Aed replied. "As the high king wished."

"And no one else knows of your coming here?"

"The way they were when we left them, they'll not even know where they are come morning," Conan said, essaying a smile in an attempt to counter his nervousness.