Morrigan
The First Cyric King had come to the Highland moor, and war followed with him.
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The First Cyric King had come to the Highland moor, and war followed with him.
When the sun rose on that first summer morning, it dawned over peaceful lands. The moor was green and good. Its flowers bloomed in the morning rays and its creek wound through the hills, languid as ever. Only the beasts who called this place home trod upon the dew kissed grasses; the hare, the deer, the fox, the badger. Yet as the sun climbed higher and the morning dew dried, hoof and paw were replaced with leather shod soles as two armies drew up their lines.
Cathal the Fair, so named for his sandalwood hair and pale complexion, stood with his Highland kin at the fore of their army. He was neither their leader, nor a man of high status, nor of noble blood. His father was a farmer, as were his grandfather and great grandfather. Local stock, low bred, salt of the earth. Such was the make of Cathal’s humble line, but he was different. He was destined for greater things, a fact he’d known since boyhood. He only needed the opportunity to prove it.
That chance came four years prior, during the first skirmishes between the Lowland Ires and the Highland Gahls. Conflict between these two loose-bound factions wasn’t uncommon, though it was usually relegated to small engagements between a handful of men from each side. One day, that changed, though at first no one knew why. The Gahls laid accusations upon the Ires, saying they’d stolen Gahlish women in the night like the louts they were. The Ires then blamed the Galhs, claiming them butchers and thieves who sacked their hamlets.
These harsh sentiments were both common and long lived. For as long as men have inhabited the Cyric Isle, the Ires and Gahls laid fault for their problems at the other’s feet. However, buried amongst these age old insults were rumors of a man who would be King. A unifier, they said; a man from the Isle who long ago set to sea and returned with the grandest of goals in mind: uniting the disparate tribes of Cyric into one people under his rule.
Lachlan, the First Cyric King.
Cathal cared little for such rumors. The doings of men who bestowed lofty titles on themselves were of no matter to one such as he. Greatness was given by destiny, and he needed no titles to showcase his greatness.
“Give me a sword,” he’d say, “and I will mark for you my destined path!”
And he had.
Despite his lowly background and humble beginnings, Cathal proved himself time and again before the Gahlish chiefs, as he would do today. With claymore in hand, he hewed his way across that bloody battleground. Steel bit flesh, cracked bone, and watered the summer grasses in the warm, red blood of the Ires. On this day, Cathal the Fair would prove himself great enough to be remembered in rhyme and song.
On this day, he would take King Lachlan’s head!
“Are you sure about this, Cathal?” Declan asked.
Worry played plain across the soft features of Cathal’s younger brother. He didn’t fault the boy for this. Declan was a good lad, hardworking and mindful of Mother and Father. He didn’t have Cathal’s rebelliousness in him, and as such, Cathal didn’t expect him to follow after hearing about the fight with William, the butcher’s boy from down the road.
At first, Cathal thought the little weevil would tell Mother, which earning him a dozen lashings from Father’s belt. Instead, Declan chose to come along and stand at his side. That wouldn’t change much if William’s entourage chose to join the fight, but it was better than nothing. Truth be told, it felt good for Cathal to have Declan there to watch, even though he knew his younger brother disliked fighting.
They stood on an isolated road. The night was late, the moon out in full. Its silver form cast the surrounding glade in blueish hues. William stood across from Cathal on the opposite side of the road. Leaning forward with palms pressed against his knees, a wide smile split his fat face.
“What’s wrong, farmer? Afraid?” he taunted, following it with that obnoxious laugh of his, “Haur, haur, haur!”
William was sixteen, a year older than Cathal. He was big, too; thick armed, portly, and tougher than his rotundness suggested. Yet Cathal didn’t fear. William was bigger, but he had strength and endurance to spare, built up over years of helping Father in the fields. The same was true of Declan, despite his timidness.
“Let’s just go home, Cathal,” Declan whispered.
“Aye, run home, farmer!” William’s smile widened. “Take your coward brother home to your coward father.”
Cathal said nothing. Taking two steps forward, he spat at William and raised his fists.
The spittle spattered on William’s fat face, and his smile twisted into a scowl. Then he howled and rushed at Cathal with both arms raised high. Ducking left, Cathal threw two blows into William’s right flank. The butcher’s boy grunted, then grinned, protected from Cathal’s hard strikes by his layer of fat.
William swung with his left, throwing all of his weight into the strike. Powerful, but slow. Cathal ducked leftward again, avoiding the blow, then stepped back as William made a backhand swing with his right.
Their fight continued in this manner, with the boys who came to observe cheering on the fighter they supported. Declan, meek boy that he was, celebrated Cathal’s blows with excited shakes of his fists. And when Cathal took hits, he exclaimed his worry hits with barely audible utterances.
William’s friends were far more boisterous. They cheered the butcher’s boy loudly when he landed a heavy blow, then they jeered and threw pebbles anytime Cathal got a good hit in.
Both boys were winded after a short while. Like he had before the fight started, William stood leaning with both hands on his knees. He wasn’t smiling anymore, and sweat sheened his face as he panted heavy breaths. Blood trickled from his lower lip, which Cathal split with a hard right hook, and his left eye started to swell shut.
Cathal hadn’t fared much better. His lip swelled, his nose bled, and a cut on his brow dripped blood into one of his eyes. The cheering from both sides had stopped, and worry dominated the expressions of both Declan and William’s friends. All recognized that neither boy would back down until one of them lay unconscious in the road.
Cathal raised his fists again. Growling, William spat blood onto the dirt path and stood upright with both fists clenched tight at his sides. He said something to Cathal, probably an insult muffled by the blood filling his mouth, but Cathal didn’t hear him. His attention was stolen by a familiar sound, a nearby fluttering of feathered wings that commanded his attention.
Looking up over William’s head, the black shape of a crow stood upon a low branch of a nearby oak. Its eyes flashed in the silvery moonlight as it turned its head this way and that, until its gaze seemed to fall upon him. Hawr!–the crow called. Then Cathal’s vision suddenly filled with the large form of William, both hands raised high to smash down onto his head.
Cathal didn’t know how he reacted so quickly, but before William’s hammer-hands came down, he ducked low, stepped into the butcher boy’s guard, and threw his right fist upward with all his strength. William’s teeth clashed as Cathal’s fist smashed up into his jaw. He staggered backwards, stumbled as he tried to regain his footing, then fell limp onto the hard packed dirt of that moonlit Highland road.
The armies gathered in the Highlands were neither grand nor vast. No more than three hundred men were fielded by each side. Compared to old tales from the mainland, with their great kingdoms and mighty empires that waged war with soldiers numbering in the tens of thousands, this battle was little more than a sortie.
Ah, but for the men who clashed upon the moor? This savage battle would change far more than just their lives.
Presently, Cathal waded into the thick of combat. Gahlish forces collided with Lachlan’s Ires just beyond the banks of the winding creek. The waters had been pristine that morning. Now they ran dark with mud, blood, and the gore of men both dead and living.
Cathal was responsible for no less than six of the dead. Among the combatants, some were content to leave foes they struck down to die slowly. He wasn’t among them. Though he reveled in combat, hungry to prove himself by facing all comers, Cathal was neither cruel nor foolish. Leaving men to suffer in their dying was as wretched as it was unwise, for thoughts of vengeance would surely take hold should they survive. Better to kill quick and be certain.
The Gahls pushed the Ires nearly twenty paces back from the banks of the creek. The Lowland men were already starting to scatter. Seeing this, Cathal loosed a fearsome cry, soon echoed by those around him. Axe and pikemen followed as he charged the Iresmen’s breaking line, trampling over the fallen to rout their foes.
Yet the Iresmen hadn’t entirely lost their fighting spirit. Many pikemen stood their ground, a handful of others meeting the Gahlish charge. Among them was a youth with hair so dark it bordered on black. Rangy and tall, his face and chest were painted with thick lines of blue and green. He came for Cathal, an axe in each hand and battle-lust in his eyes.
Cathal smiled, and met him.
The setting sun painted the cloud-spotted skies over the Cyric Isle in hues of yellow, orange, and violet; and stained the mountains with the ink of shadow. It was the third day of the fifth week of Spring. Cathal marched by torchlight with a contingent of two dozen men led by Brann Doyle, chief of the Doyle clan. Declan marched to Cathal’s right. Meek and wiry as a boy, Declan had since filled out his frame and proven himself a competent pikeman. In their many skirmishes against Iresmen who stood beneath the banner of their so-called King, he stood shoulder to shoulder with his older brother and fought with earnest courage.
William marched on Cathal’s left. The butcher’s boy had long since graduated to a proper butcher under his father’s tutelage. Rivalry still existed between the William and Cathal, but the hostility of their adolescence had been buried. No longer were their contests predicated on who could beat the other to the ground first. With proper foes to face, they turned their hunger for fighting against them instead.
What hadn’t changed with William was his size. He was still among the tallest and strongest from their township, with a girthy belly and limbs so corded with muscle that Cathal thought the trees must be jealous of his mighty arms and legs. Those powerful limbs served William well when he brought his own claymore to bear, a most imposing sight.
Butt for all his size and strength, William couldn’t quite keep up with Cathal on the battlefield. To date, the so-called King’s war had raged for two years. Two years of skirmishes against not just those men under his banner, but all the Ires clans. In the minds of the Gahlish chiefs, Lachlan’s move to unify the Cyric Isle was an ideal excuse to drive out the hated Lowlanders and claim the Isle for themselves. Alas, this played to Lachlan’s favor by frightening more reluctant Lowland clans into joining him.
The troop was headed for Pike’s Gully, near the Highland moor. Carved out from the upland creek that ran down into the woods, the gully fed water to a generations old fortification dubbed Pike’s Wall. Clan Byrne kept the fort since its construction over a century prior, and it helped establish them as the strongest Gahlish clan. Since its founding, it became the meeting place of the Gahlish chiefs whenever troubles that concerned all clans arose.
Cathal sighed as the sun dipped below the darkly shadowed peaks. Chief Brann’s troop hadn’t even reached the wood’s edge, and it would take at least an hour to reach the gully once they did. Then came the long trek through a dense forest of birch, ash, and oak to reach the Wall.
Why hadn’t they left sooner? Cathal knew, but didn’t dare speak the answer. Long as anyone could recall, the Doyles and the Byrnes had rivaled, and stubborn Chief Brann saw being summoned to Pike’s Wall as an insult to his pride. Time was needed for his kinsmen to convince him otherwise, that Ronan Byrne simply recognized the threat a unified army under Lachlan posed.
When they at last reached the forest’s edge, dusk had turned to night. The moon had risen, gibbous and waxing. Cathal glanced up at it whenever it peeked between the leaves and branches above. A beautiful thing. Haunting and secretive, it pulled at his heart and mind, demanding his attention. Cathal struggled to pinpoint what about the moon he found so alluring. There was just something special about it.
Hawr!–came the caw of a nearby crow.
Pinion feathers clapped as it swooped overhead. The noisome flutter made the men duck on instinct; even Chief Brann dipped his head down. Only Cathal stood fully erect, gazing on the corvid’s silhouette. It stood among the birch branches, blacker than the night against the moon’s silver sheen. Its head darted hither and thither in distinct avian fashion, and though Cathal couldn’t see its shining eyes, he could feel them upon him.
Hawr!–it called again, and Cathal quickly turned to his right.
“Declan, raise your torch,” he whispered as he gripped the hilt of his claymore.
Declan looked upon him with concern. This wasn’t the first time Cathal was taken with strange suspicions, and he’d long since learned that his elder brother’s instincts were usually correct. He did as bidden, the other torchbearers quickly following suit as Cathal scanned the surrounding woods. For the faintest moment, Cathal saw the Ires coming before he heard them.
“Ambush!” he howled, and he stepped forth to meet the oncoming attackers. He didn’t know how many their were, nor would he ever learn. It was enough to know they were here, that his sword was in hand, and the crow’s eyes were upon him again.
Cathal cleaved through the clavicle of the first man to enter his reach, and the sounds of battle erupted around him. The melee lasted scant minutes. The Ires expected their arrival, but not to be spotted. Cathal had no exact count of their force, but he could tell it was sized outnumber the two dozen traveling with Chief Brann.
Yet those two dozen men, knowing their hated foe descended upon them, fought as if triple the ferocity. Cathal, William, and three other long-swordsmen, including Chief Brann himself, cleaved their way through the nighttime waylayers. Axemen hacked and chopped, pikemen thrust and skewered, and four Ires fell for every Gahl.
Come the melee’s end, the crow called. The Ires were decimated, and only nine of the chief’s company lay dead. A victory by any reasoned account, yet those who lived wouldn’t claim it.
Cathal was the first to see, his eyes drawn to the cawing crow. It had descended from its perch to stand atop one of the corpses. The man had fallen forward, body curled into a heap, and blood oozing from an axe wound in his neck. Cathal couldn’t see his face, but his curly brown hair, garments of red and blue, and the jewel-pommeled claymore he still clutched told all.
Chief Brann Doyle was dead. The enemy had slain him.
Men rushed past Cathal on either side in pursuit of the retreating Ires. Declan was among them. He would have stopped to aid his brother in his battle with the painted axeman, but Cathal ordered him onward. He needed no aid to put down this brazen fool, no matter what he saw in his dreams.
The Iresman closed and swung both axes in a horizontal arc. Cathal caught them on his sword, holding the rangy man back as the Gahls flooded around them. They wouldn’t interfere. He wouldn’t permit it. He must prove himself to demonstrate his greatness, lest he die forgotten.
“I know you,” Cathal growled, shoving the painted man back. “I’ve seen you, Iresman. Tell me your name, I want to know what my challenger calls himself!”
“Iresman?” his foe laughed. “I’m not of your Cyric blood, Highlander. I am Ivar, son of Gundmund–and I, too, know your face.”
“One of Lachlan’s sea dogs.” Cathal spat, then splayed his arms wide in challenge. “Face me, Ivar, son of Gundmund! I am Cathal the Fair, and my sword will carve my destined path through your flesh!”
Facing down the painted Northman, Cathal’s grin widened. He’d heard the crow’s call.
Camp was lively on the eve of battle. Gathered around their cookpots, Gahlish men feasted on hearty venison and rabbit stews. They cracked casks of ale, poured strong wines, and drank deep of metheglin. Spirits were high, for though Lachlan had succeeded in gathering the Ires under his banner, the Gahls knew their Lowland neighbors couldn’t match them in a direct fight. The tactics of Iresman were cowardly, nighttime ambushes and hit-and-run raids. In open combat, they broke easily, and there was nowhere for them to hide upon the open field of the moor.
Cathal drank late with Declan and William. Despite his great size, William was the first to sleep. He’d never been much of a drinker, a result of the prudence practiced by his family. Cathal and Declan kept up well into the dark of the night, draining pint after pint. And the more they drank, the more they talked of the morrow’s looming battle.
“I can’t figure it, Cathal,” Declan said. “It doesn’t make sense for King Lachlan to attack so directly, and in the openness of the moor, no less.”
Cathal was only half listening. He tilted back another cup of metheglin, a sweet honey wine steeped with rose, thyme, and rosemary. Belching a grumble after downing the potent mead, and he dropped his cup by his crossed legs and scoffed.
“You worry too much, Declan,” he said. “Lachlan knows the Highlands won’t fall from sneaky tricks, so he’s fighting desperate. And he’s not a king. Best remember that, lest you speak poorly around less forgiving ears.”
He wouldn’t admit it, but Cathal knew Lachlan’s gains had the Gahlish chiefs more worried than they let on. After slaying Chief Brann Doyle two years prior, the Ires had grown bolder in their action. Ambushes came more frequently, costing three more Gahlish clans important men. The Mac Brádaighs and Forrestals each lost their firstborn sons. Then illness took Byron Mac Brádaigh, patriarch of the fearsome mountain clan. This left them to be led by Arthur, the family’s sole remaining male, who’d barely seen twelve years. Then came Lawlers losses, followed by the Hughs, both of whom lost the heads of their clans from sneak attacks during pitched engagements.
It wasn’t all defeats for the Gahls, though. They’d routed many incursion attempts by the Ires in that time, claiming the lives of many a Lowland leader. Colm McElroy, Arthur Munro, and Teahan O’Keane were all felled trying to gain Highland ground, though such losses ended up meaning less for Ires than they did for the Gahls. The elders hated admitting it, but Lachlan had done impressive work banding the once unstable Lowland clans together under his leadership.
“Bah, where’s my damn cup?” Cathal grumbled, feeling around in the grass for it.
“Here,” Declan said, holding it out to him. It was already full of frothy ale.
“That’s why you’re my brother!” Cathal snatched the wooden mug from him with a chortle and began to guzzle the beer down. However, he paused when he saw Declan wasn’t joining him. “What is it this time, Declan?” he sighed.
Declan didn’t reply. Gaze fixed on the flickering fire before them, he stared into the flames with a grim seriousness Cathal had never seen in him before. Declan had always been something of a worrier. As a boy he’d been prone to overthinking even the simplest things. This often left Cathal to be their problem solver, assuming those problems could be solved with fists. Even so, the look Declan wore now was far darker than anything Cathal had previously witnessed.
“Declan?” Cathal repeated, nudging his younger brother with his elbow.
The younger man shook his head. “I keep thinking about what you told me yesterday,” he answered. “Your dream of the moor, and tomorrow’s battle. Of the man painted in blue and green.”
A flutter of wings sounded overhead as Declan spoke. Cathal couldn’t see what they belonged to in the pitch dark of that moonless night, but he knew what it was. Peering into the darkness, he briefly scanned the nearby trees for signs of the crow.
“You mustn’t fight him,” Declan urged.
Cathal scoffed, glancing sidelong at him. “You jest, surely.”
“No, Cathal! I don’t think what you saw is a mere dream. You’re not meant to fight that man. If you do, he’ll-”
“I’m not about to be killed by some Iresman who paints himself up in pretty colors, Declan,” Cathal stated firmly, meeting his brother’s worry with steely determination. Then, a moment later, that steel broke with a chuckle. “Think about it, brother. I’m Cathal the Fair, one of the very best warriors the Gahls have seen in decades! It’ll take more than a mere Iresman to strike me dead.”
Declan did not look at him. Rather, he stared into the fire with a rueful smile upon his handsome face. “I pray you’re right, Cathal,” he said.
They shared one more drink after that, then Declan made for his tent. Not quite ready to sleep himself, Cathal stayed by the fire and poured himself a final cup of metheglin. He sipped at it slowly, thinking over Declan’s words as he stared into the low flames. Bah, they were nonsense. The warnings of a worrier, nothing more. No mere axeman of the Ires could slay Cathal the Fair!
With a shake of his head, he laughed off those lingering worries and drank the last of his metheglin. But as he tilted the drink back, his eyes fell upon a black form perched above the entrance to his tent. For a long moment, Cathal watched the crow, and the crow him. Then it flew away without a sound.
The Gahls hadn’t expected Lachlan to field cavalry. The King had never used horsemen before. They’d anticipated some form of trickery, and so had inspected the nearby hills the night before. Finding no signs of an ambush in waiting, their comfort with the familiar land of the moor lured them into arrogant complacency.
They had no idea Lachlan had moved fifty horsemen into the low hills early that morning, nor were they aware the First Cyric King would personally lead the charge.
Cathal saw it all from where he lay by the creek. His battle with Ivar proved fiercer than he believed. That Northmen could fight with such boundless savagery!
Their duel saw Cathal pushed back to the far banks of the creek. He’d taken that position to gain higher ground and force Ivar into unsteady footing within the cold, muddy waters. Alas, Ivar proved accustomed to such terrain, and pressed his attack without pause. Cathal never fought a man of his like–so vicious, so unyielding, so reckless! Ivar rushed into his guard, making no effort to protect himself from the descending claymore.
Cathal realized why when the heads of Ivar’s axes bit first into his gut, and then his collar. At first, Cathal’s grip on his claymore tightened. Then his hands grew weak, and the sword clattered into the bloody stream.
Now he lay amongst the bodies scattered along the winding creek, choking on his own blood. He lived long enough to see Lachlan’s charge. For his heart to ache as Declan and William were overtaken by the horsemen. To meet the eyes of the crow as She landed on his chest.
“Morrigan.”
He choked on Her name, spitting red lifeblood onto his chin and chest. The crow stared at him, Her eyes shimmering as she turned her head this way, then that.
“Morrigan!” he begged, and she answered.
Hawr!–came the cry of War herself. She took to the wing, and flew to Lachlan’s side.
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Touching and violent. I greatly enjoyed it, thanks for sharing!
Vivid descriptions immersed me right in to your world!