The Dreamstone

“Where in such haste?” asked the King. “Dare I guess?”

A lie tempted Evald. He rejected it and looked Laochailan in the eye. “My messengers have the habit to come and go. Should the enemy know more of what was done on this field than my own folk?”

It was perilous. The King’s eye had that chillness that went with his deepest wrath. “Cousin,” said Laochailan, “messages are mine to send. Do you not agree?”

“Then I beg you send Beorc and quickly. He knows the way.”

“I will not have it said a man of this host vent home, not the lord of Caer Wiell, not his steward’s son, not the least man of his following.”

“Lord King,” said Ciaran of Caer Do

“You make yourself a part of this contention,” the King said wryly, and he frowned, for Do

“Lord,” Evald said, hot with passion, “but the choice of a defender might be a sortie if he hoped for no help—they are brave, my folk, but they may also be desperate.”

“Lord King.” It was a voice hitherto unheard in council, Ciaran Cuilean, the younger son of Do

There was a deep frown on his father’s face and on his brother Do

“Never lost,” the younger Ciaran said. He laughed, tallest of all his kindred, fairer than most and more lighthearted. “I have scoured those hills often enough. I can ride through them with less trouble now, if the King will, and maybe quicker than Beorc, who knows? He has not had the hills for his hunting, and I have.”

“Then you will carry lord Evald’s message,” the King said. “Do you frame it for him, cousin, and let us be done with it. I have given you all I will.”

A fell suspicion came on Evald then—that his cousin the King had some fear of him, feared messages and secrets passed—feared this kinship with him. It was a dark thought and unworthy. Others followed it, as dark and fearful. He drove them all away. “Lord King, my lord of Do

“Lord,” said the younger Ciaran, taking the ring, “I will.”

“There will be peril in it,” Evald said.

“Aye,” said Ciaran, just that, which so quietly spoken mended all his thoughts of Do

“Speed well,” Evald said earnestly,” and safely.”

“Your leave, sir—lord King.” So Ciaran embraced his father, but his brother would not, and excused himself to the door of the tent.

“I am in your debt,” said Evald quietly. His pride was hurt, and anger still rankled in him, for it was less than he had wanted. A terrible fear was in him that the King wished the war to go toward the dale and batter down its strength awhile, for it was too rich and too well-situated and its lord was a kinsman. But that was too dire, even thinking what the war had come to. It was too great a waste. He looked on the young man Ciaran as young and high-hearted as once he had been, and all his heart went with the man as he walked from out the tent and into the dying day. But he ached with his wounds, and there was counsel to be held. He set his hand on Beorc’s shoulder, silently wishing him to peace, and Beorc’s arm was hard and stiff with anger.

So the King took counsel of them, how they should map the last assault on An Beag and Damh and the Bradhaeth, while the cries of the wounded and of the carrion crows mingled in the evening. Evald shivered and drank his wine. He served the King as his father would, if he had lived to see the day; and for his mother’s sake; and little for his own.

“That is a good man they sent,” Beorc said quietly while the King called for wine. “They speak well of the youngest son of Do

“So shall I,” Evald said, “of all Do

As for Ciaran, he delayed little in his going, seeking after the best horse he could lay hand to, taking his brother’s shield with the crescent moon of Do

“Take care,” his brother said, Do

“I shall,” Ciaran said soberly, seeing to the gear, and took the wineflask his brother pressed on him. “That will come welcome on the trail.”

“You should have kept silent. You never should have thrust yourself into this.”

“It is no small message,” Ciaran said, “the saving of the dale.”

“He never trusts the dale. Never. It is unsavory. And never you forget it.”

“I shall not,” Ciaran said, and hung the shield on his saddle, with the parcel of bread and meat a servant brought him. He slung his sword there too, and turned and embraced his brother longer than his wont at partings. “Evald galls the King. But that is not saying he is no true man, far too true to lose . . . Keep you safe, Do

“And you,” his brother said, holding him by the arms. “You take it far too lightly. As you take everything.”

“And you are far too worried. Is this more than riding into the same hills with the enemy in strength in them? More to fear is Dryw: I should hate him to take me for some wild man of the Bradhaeth. Keep yourself safe. I will see you at Caer Wiell—and I shall have been dining on plates and sleeping in a fine soft bed, while you shiver in the dew, Do

“Do not speak of sleeping.”

“Ah, you are too full of omens. I shall fare better than you do, and worry more for you before the walls than myself behind them. Only see that you come quickly and we will push the rascals north and be done with them. Be more cheerful, Do

So he took his leave, and flung himself into the saddle and rode away, taking the longer path at first, which was less littered by the dead and seeming-dead. The smokes of fires lit the hills, campfires and the fires lit by the pit where they dragged the dead.

It was not an auspicious hour. He would gladly have rested. But he served the King and lived to do it when others he knew had not. And he had to take Dryw’s way through the hills and not fall into ambush, either of Dryw or An Beag.

He lost no time in going now, through the wrack of war. Truth, he was not as light about the matter as he had told Do

TWELVE

The Faring of Ciaran Cuilean

It was not so swift a ride, from Dun na h-Eoin’s ruins through the hills. Once Ciaran met with Dryw’s folk, but only once, and that was to his liking, for the southrons were sudden men and apt to haste in their killings. He suspected their presence sometimes, a silence of birds where birds ought to sing, a strangeness in the air that he could not put name to. But at last he had passed all of that ma