Kevin Hearne - Hounded

“Aenghus Óg certainly thinks so,” I hedged.

“That is no answer.”

“That is because I have reason to be cautious, or even paranoid, where that subject is concerned. I mean you no disrespect.”

She eyed me steadily for a full five minutes, trying to get me to talk by merely remaining silent. It works well on most humans, but the Druids taught that technique to the Tuatha Dé Danann before I was born, so I kept my smile on the inside and waited for her next move. I busied myself in the interim by trying to find patterns in the popcorn ceiling and idly stroking her right arm, which was tattooed like mine, ready to draw the earth’s power with an effort of will. I found a woodpecker, a snow leopard, and what might have been the snarling face of Randy Johnson throwing a slider before she spoke again.

“Tell me the story of how you came to possess it in the first place, then,” she finally said. “The legendary Fragarach, the sword that can pierce any armor. I have heard several versions of it in Tír na nÓg, and I would like to hear you tell it.”

It was an appeal to my vanity. She wanted me to lapse into braggadocio and get so carried away with my tale that I’d wind up blurting out, “It’s in my garage!” or “I sold it on eBay!” or something similar.

“All right. I stole it in the Battle of Magh Lena, when Conn of the Hundred Battles was so bent on slaying Mogh Nuadhat during the night that he hardly cared what weapon he was holding in his hand.” I raised my fist as if it grasped a sword. “Conn was outnumbered and knew he’d have little chance of winning in a straight-up fight, so he decided to attack in the night to skew the odds in his favor. Goll Mac Morna and the rest of the Fianna refused to fight until the morning, citing something about honor, but I have never had much of that in the middle of a war. Being honorable is an excellent way to get yourself killed. Witness the British getting their hair lifted by this continent’s natives in the eighteenth century because they refused to break their silly formations.”

Flidais grunted, then said, “This was before Finn Mac Cumhaill led the Fianna?”

“Oh, aye, well before. So I slunk away from the Fianna’s fires and went to join Conn in the slaughter. He was hacking his way amongst Mogh Nuadhat’s army—which was about seventeen thousand Gaels and two thousand Spaniards, if you can believe it—when his hands, slick with the blood of his fallen enemies, slipped on the hilt of Fragarach as he raised it for another blow, letting this magnificent sword sail behind him, over his head, to literally fall at my feet in the chaos of a night battle.”

Flidais snorted. “I don’t believe you. He simply dropped it?”

“ Threw it would be more accurate.” I raised my right hand. “Every word is true or I am the son of a goat. I picked it up, felt the magic thrumming through my arm, wrapped myself in mist, and exited the field with my prize, never to return until the time of Cormac Mac Airt.”

“Nay, they did not let you simply exit with Fragarach!”

“You’re right,” I chuckled. “There was a bit more to it than that. I thought you might enjoy the short version, though.”

Flidais seemed to seriously consider whether or not she had enjoyed it. “I appreciated the denial of expectations; it is similar to when prey refuses to behave in standard fashion, making the hunt more interesting. But I know that you have skipped many details, and it already differs from what I have heard, so now I must know it all. Tell me the longer version.”

“Wait. What did you hear in Tír na nÓg? The short version.”

“I heard that you stole it from Conn through chicanery and guile. In some tales you put him to sleep through use of a potion; in others you switch swords with him using an illusion. You come across as little more than a scheming, cowardly footpad.”

“How delightful. All right, then, I think perhaps it is crucial to know my state of mind leading up to the point where the sword dropped at my feet—for that is truly how it happened. Night battles are ridiculously crazy; I wasn’t sure that I was always facing people from the opposing army, you know? The only illumination saving it from being black as tar was the pale glow of a crescent moon, the stars, and a few distant campfires. I may have accidentally killed a man or two on my own side, and I was paranoid about being cut down in a similar accident. So I was thinking, this is absurdly dangerous, why am I doing this, and why am I here, and the answer that I came up with was this: We were all killing one another in the middle of the night because Conn had a magic sword given to him by Lugh Lámhfhada of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Fragarach’s power had allowed him to conquer most of Ireland. Great as he was, he could not have done it without that sword. Conn would have never had the stones to attack Mogh Nuadhat without it. Everyone who died in the battle to that point had done so because a single sword gave one man in power the lust for more. And as I maniacally hewed down whoever faced me, I realized that, even as we fought for Conn, Conn was fighting for the Tuatha Dé, manipulated by Lugh and his cronies as sure as a tree drinks water.”

“I remember this now,” Flidais said. “I stood apart because I have never had much interest in human affairs outside the forest. But Lugh was very interested, and Aenghus Óg even more so.”

“Aye. I think they wanted to bring peace to Ireland at the point of a sword. They encouraged Conn to do what he did—and all the High Kings after him. And perhaps it would have been the best thing for Ireland, I don’t know. What bothered me is that the Tuatha Dé were manipulating human events, when they were supposed to have been removed from them centuries before.”

“Meddlesome, are we?” Flidais grinned sardonically.

“In that particular case you were. I was mentally cataloging which of you were on Conn’s side and who was on Mogh Nuadhat’s when the sword fell at my feet. I knew immediately what it was; I could feel its power pulsing through the ground, calling to me. And that’s when I heard a voice in my head, already half expected, telling me to pick it up and exit the field. Pick it up, the voice said, and I would be protected.”

“Whose voice was it?” Flidais asked.

“Cannot you guess?”

“The Morrigan,” she whispered.

“Yes indeed, the old battle crow herself. I would not be surprised if she had something to do with it slipping from Conn’s grasp in the first place. So I picked it up. When you’re in the middle of a killing field and the fucking Chooser of the Slain tells you to do something, you do it. But of course there were many agents, human and immortal, who objected to this.”

“Conn came after you?”

“Not personally. He was too busy fighting for his life with a normal sword he’d snatched from a corpse. He was in the very thick of the mêlée, and thus he sent some of his chiefs behind him to find Fragarach. What they found was a Druid holding his sword and not particularly anxious to surrender it. In fact, they found me trying to summon mist to cloak my escape.”

“Only trying?” Flidais raised an eyebrow. I noticed that she had a few freckles underneath her eyes, high on her cheeks. She was comfortably pink all over and slightly bronzed from the sun, not the marble white of the Morrigan.

“It was rather difficult to concentrate. Aenghus Óg and Lugh were in my head, telling me to return the sword to Conn or die, and the Morrigan was telling me I would die if I gave it back. I said to the Morrigan that I wanted to keep Fragarach for my own, to which Aenghus Óg and Lugh both shouted no, so of course the Morrigan instantly agreed.”