John Lenahan - Prince of Hazel and Oak

‘Have you ever fought against Banshees before?’ I asked the old warrior.

The question made him look older. ‘I have fought with them – never against them.’

‘So what about that Banshee sixth sense? If they can tell when they are going to win a battle, doesn’t that mean we have already lost?’

Dahy gave me a look like I had just cursed in church. ‘I spoke with the troops about this before you came out this morning. The Banshees have a very good sense of how a battle is going but they cannot predict the future. Just because they are good at knowing which way the wind blows doesn’t mean that winds cannot change. They are not the mystics they think they are. They drop their trousers to crap just like the rest of us.’

‘But if they attack, doesn’t that mean the wind is blowing their way?’

Dahy laughed. ‘There is a tornado blowing our way, son. Any fool can see that. I have sent wolves to Castle Duir and to the Pinelands. I wanted to send the bird but I needed her for reconnaissance.’ He looked to the sky but it was empty. ‘Our only hope is to hold out until we get reinforcements. When we do, the Banshees will turn tail. That sense of theirs also tells them when they are going to lose.’

A screech above us forced our eyes to the sky as a streak of black came towards us. I stepped instinctively back but Dahy just reached into his satchel and took out a silk robe. Th hawk landed between us and as it raised its head it continued to grow into a black-haired woman. Dahy handed her the robe.

She looked at me and then, like a bird, sharply turned her head to the general. ‘They are here,’ she said.

Just as Dahy had predicted, Cialtie’s army, using Turlow’s intelligence, ignored the stone ramparts, swept wide behind the Hall and prepared to attack what yesterday had been the unprotected hill. Cialtie’s forces took their time setting up. If their sixth sense was warning them about the buried gold barrier, then they weren’t showing it. We stood in a row, two deep, banta sticks in hand, waiting for the attack.

The previous night there had been a pretty heated debate about whether we should be defending with swords or sticks. Spideog said we were at war and should be using swords like warriors, but I said no. These people were not monsters or robots – they were men and women whose only crime was to have their minds corrupted by evil men. Spideog pointed out that they would not give us the same courtesy. Before I could reply Essa said something that finished the argument.

‘What would we win,’ she asked, ‘if after we defeat our enemy, we then become just like them?’

At that moment I wanted to kiss Essa square on the mouth – but then again I could say that about most moments.

The battle began with a mortar attack. The enemy cheered as they sent conch shells sailing overhead. Except for the one that Essa batted back like a major league baseball player, half a dozen shells landed on the ground with smoke rising out of them. We backed away expecting the worst but they did nothing. Finally brave souls picked them up and threw them back. Our enemy’s cheering stopped and for a while they looked confused. Orders barked from the back of their ranks refocused the troops and they strapped short shields to their arms, drew their swords and waited for the order to charge.

The silence, as the old expression goes, was deafening. I looked to my left and saw Yogi morph into a bear and growl. I looked to my right; Essa nodded and spun her banta stick. There wasn’t a smiling face to be seen. How I wished Fergal was there with me.

I didn’t hear the order to charge but I sure saw the results. A couple of hundred screaming Banshees and howling Brownies charged up the hill under the shadow of a flock of arrows launched from the rear. The attackers must have seen the arrows explode into flame as they crossed the gold barrier. They probably expected it. What they didn’t expect was what came next. As the first line of Banshees crossed the point where we had buried the ribbons of gold, their swords and shields vanished in a puff of smoke. Their forward momentum carried them straight into our waiting sticks. It was like hunting in a zoo. Baffled and surprised Banshees ran straight at us as we mercilessly clubbed them and then dropped back so as to let the next line step up and have a fuwing. Banshees, then Brownies, dropped like bowling pins and piled up on one another. Others collided and tripped over confused retreating soldiers who were running in every direction. It was horrible. The sound of it was sickening and the look on their faces just before we hit them was pathetic. I thank the gods we weren’t using swords. I don’t think even the hardest of us could have withstood that guilt.

When they finally retreated, what remained was a long pile of moaning Banshee and Brownie bodies lying twisted in a heap three deep.

Since we had no provisions to take prisoners, a detail of soldiers was chosen to untangle and roll the unconscious aggressors back down the hill. Among them were Nieve and her little cabal of sorceresses. They stuck most of the enemy in the leg with one of my aunt’s special paralysing pins – when they woke up, they found it difficult to use that leg for a day or so. It would make a little bit of a difference but not much. Cialtie’s forces were still substantially larger than ours.

It was too late for my uncle to mount another attack. Since he knew he had the upper hand and we had little chance for reinforcements by tomorrow, they simply backed out of archery range and made camp.

‘Well, it looks like we won round one,’ I said to Spideog.

‘War is scored with the dead, Conor,’ the old warrior said. ‘This battle has yet to begin.’

I continued with my morale-man job, dispensing pep talks as deemed necessary for a while, and then went to headquarters to check if I was needed or maybe get a little nap in. I caught my Aunt Nieve by surprise and she quickly turned away and wiped her eyes.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

She tried to put on a brave face but at the last second she told the truth. Her voice wobbled as she said, ‘No,’ and sat down.

That was an answer I wasn’t ready for. Of all people Nieve was the last person I would have expected to crack under pressure. I sat on the arm of her chair and put my hand on her shoulder.

‘How did he die?’ she asked, not looking at me.

That question hit me like a slap. How should I answer that? How did Brendan die? If I was truthful I would have told her that one of her spells made him powerless to move while he was burned alive, but instead I said, ‘It was instant, and painless, he wouldn’t have even known what hit him.’

That seemed to do the job. She wiped her face, stood up and said, ‘Right, we have a battle to prepare for, yes?’

‘Actually I was hoping to have a kip. Do you think that’s OK?’

‘Of course,’ she said as we gave each other a proper hug. ‘You may be our Prince but you’re still just a Faerie.’

I nodded and left for my tent. I understood what she meant but it still didn’t sound right.

I willed myself to not dream but that didn’t work. Once again in dreamland I zoomed to my father’s side. I have to admit that even though I would never abandon my comrades, I’d be lying if at that moment flying away to Castle Dudersn’t what I truly wished I could do.

It was well after midnight when I awoke. I walked to the battlements and found Spideog with a very short Imp sorceress. The sorceress mumbled over an arrow and then handed it to the old archer, who notched it into the biggest bow I had ever seen. He let it fly and I lost it in the night sky. I started to look away but Spideog said, ‘Keep watching.’