John Lenahan - Prince of Hazel and Oak

As the lost arrow began to descend, it started to glow then it exploded on top of a tent, showering it in flames. Screaming and cursing could be heard wafting up from the enemy camp.

‘You havin’ fun?’ I asked.

‘We are not sleeping tonight,’ Spideog said. ‘There is no reason why they should.’

We spent the rest of the night lobbing arrows into Cialtie’s camp. By morning Essa, Yogi, Dahy and Nieve had all joined us and we giggled like schoolchildren every time Spideog let an arrow fly. Some of Spideog’s archery students tried their hand with the big bow but none of them was as good as the Master. It was amazing how many tents he hit even though he couldn’t see them until they went up in flames.

With the troops assembled at the ramparts, Dahy asked me if I wanted to address them again. I told him I had already done my bit and maybe he should do it. He didn’t disagree.

‘Today will be different from yesterday,’ Dahy said, raising his gruff voice. ‘Today, we use swords – today, there will be blood. But the first victim of your sword should not be your enemy, it should be the little voice inside you that is saying that this battle is already lost. You must find that voice and kill it – because all is not lost. I would not have us here if it was. I have trained you and I know what you can do – and this – together – we can do. Today there will be swords – today there will be blood – let us make sure that the blood that runs is not ours. Let us make sure that those who would take away who we are will pay for their arrogance. Today there will be blood and today we shall endure.’

The crowd went wild. I patted my old master on the back and said, ‘Awesome, dude.’

Spideog turned to Dahy and said, ‘I thought it was a bit flowery,’ then he smiled and the two old rivals shook each other’s hand.

‘Are you ready to go into battle with me again – old friend?’ Dahy said.

‘Who are you calling old,’ Spideog replied. ‘By the by, remind me that I have to tell you something when this is all over.’

Dahy was just about to ask what, when someone cried, ‘Incoming!’ and the battle began.

The sky blackened with arrows. We all ducked behind the battlements and watched in horror as soldiers who were caught out in the open scrambled for cover. Then I saw a conch shell hit the ground about twenty-five feet behind me. This one, unlike the ones yesterday, wasn’t smoking. I peeped over the battlements and seeing that there were no arrows on the way, I dashed over intending to throw it back. I was no more than an arm’s length away when I heard an ear-piercing sound and was instantly doubled up in pain. All around me men dropped to the ground pulling their knees yest to their chest. I’m sure that like me they were howling in pain but nothing could be heard other than the screaming sound that was coming from the shell. I knew we had to get rid of it but every time I tried to straighten my legs, the pain, which was already unbearable, doubled. I had started dragging myself forward with my fingers in the dirt when I saw Essa, obviously in pain but on her feet, stagger over to the shell and then smash it with her banta stick. The sound and pain went as suddenly as they had come. Essa poked through the rubble of the shell and picked up a small gold amulet that was buzzing with a tinny sound. Then using her teeth and fingers she bit and twisted it until it stopped.

Dahy, who I am embarrassed to say was on his feet much faster than me, walked over and took the amulet from Essa. ‘It’s a gleem,’ he said.

Gleem, where had I heard that before? That was the thing that Cialtie had used on Dad to win the boat race. It inflicted the pain of childbirth.

‘Well, that settles it,’ I said. ‘I’m not ever getting pregnant.’

Someone shouted, ‘INCOMING!’ and we ran back to the ramparts for cover. Spideog kept his nose over the wall and then popped up to shoot a second shell out of the air like a Kentucky skeet shooter.

Essa ducked next to me. ‘Didn’t that gleem thing hurt?’ I asked her.

‘Of course it hurt but it was nothing I couldn’t take.’ She rolled her eyes and shook her head. ‘Men.’

Cialtie’s first attack was small – designed to force us to show our strengths and weaknesses – it was also designed to fail. On strictly a tactical standpoint I guess it was sensible but using any other yardstick, especially a moral one, it was despicable. It was a suicide mission – that is if the attackers in the first wave volunteered. If they were ordered to go, then it was a death sentence and we were the executioners. About seventy Brownies dashed directly at the ramparts. The first thing they discovered was that Dahy and the Leprechauns had, for months, been hammering every flat rock or piece of shale that they could find into the ground in front of the stone defences. Running on it at any speed was almost impossible – it was a minefield for ankle twisting.

Many Brownies tripped and many more were mowed down by Spideog and his archers. Only four Brownies reached the wall and when they did they seemed not to know what to do. Several of their attacking comrades had been carrying siege ladders but they had been stopped by arrows. As our archers bore down on the four, Dahy ordered them not to fire.

‘Brownies,’ Dahy called down to them, ‘you have fought bravely but you have no chance to scale these walls. I offer you safe passage if you go back now.’

As I watched, I prayed that they would take his offer. They looked like lost cold orphans shivering in a big city alley. If they defiantly started to climb we would have no choice but to kill them. I can’t tell you how quickly I was getting tired of this war stuff. They huddled up and then accepted. With their heads held high, they marched back over the ankle-twisting stone field. About halfway across, a huge volley of arrows from Cialtie’s camp dropped all of them as one. It was my uncle’s way of showing the rest of his army how he felt about surrender.

Dahy made no comment, nor showed any emotion in regards to the slaughter, he just nodded like this was business as usual. ‘Cialtie and Turlow have learned all that they need to know,’ the general said. ‘The next attack will be all of them.’

I stepped off my post in hopes of getting to the wash tent so I could splash some water on my face and maybe wash away some of the horror that I had just seen – some of the horror that I had just been part of. I used a shortcut that brought me around the back of the tent and there I found Spideog sitting with his back to a low ruined wall, his knees up and his face in his hands. I hesitated before I disturbed him. I hoped that when he removed his hands that his eyes were not awash with tears. If Spideog broke under this pressure, what chance had the rest of us for surviving unscathed? But surviving unscathed was probably impossible anyway.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked, crouching down to his level.

He looked up. His eyes were clear but filled with a millennium’s worth of sadness. ‘May the gods damn your uncle.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed, ‘and they will have to get in line. There are a few of us around here who would like to damn him and do a bit more.’

‘Those Brownies…’ Spideog paused – on his face he wore the sorrow of a man searching through old, painful memories. ‘Those Brownies fought like the Fili. During that war, Maeve threw her Fili at us like they were toy soldiers that could later just be glued back together.’ He shook his head and looked down. ‘How do they do it? How do these madmen get their people to follow them with such suicidal abandon?’

‘I don’t know, Master,’ I said. ‘I don’t think we will ever know but isn’t that what makes us better than them?’