I strike without thinking, shifting forward on my right foot with the full force of my weight behind the swing. The earth scrapes beneath my foot, a minimal sound but enough to draw the scout’s notice. He turns towards me but by then it’s all too late. The axe slaps his head with a gristly thunk that vibrates up the length of my arm. Even in the physical intensity of that moment, I wonder if he’d heard the whirr, the rapid sound of it cutting through the air before the blade struck.
The blow knocks him forward and tumbling to the earth. Grasping my weapon, I move in to follow with a second blow but then pause, for he’s stretched on the ground, inert and still.
Except for his right foot. That twitches a brief and solitary jig before it too stops moving. Staring down at that twisted body, I feel a growing unease, an unnerving sense of having broken some unspoken rule, some fundamental taboo. First the father and now the son. A family wiped out in a morning’s work.
Pushing such thoughts aside, I drop to one knee and flip the dead man onto his back, studying his face closely as I wipe my blade on his tunic. I‘ve dreaded the possibility of seeing my son’s features behind those gruesome tattoos. To my relief, there’s nothing but the nose, the jaw, the vacant eyes of a stranger.
With a grunt, I rise to my feet and step back to regard my handiwork, my pulse still racing, my nostrils full with the tang of blood-iron. I know my actions have saved Ráth Bládhma but the fian – the war party – remains out there, poised and waiting in some shaded nook. Having travelled this deep into the heart of the Great Wild, they won’t just depart without achieving their goal.
Whatever that is.
In the end, those troubles are Ráth Bládhma’s. They are not mine.
Turning my back on the bloody corpse, I start walking north towards the hollow and the other dead scout, back to the trail leading down to Ráth Bládhma. The trill of birdsong grows stronger with Father Sun’s ascent. I tell myself that this will be a day of brightness.
But deep down, I know the brightest days can cast the darkest shadow.
