Tír na nÓg Trilogy, Book II: The Rising Dark

Conchobar's Demand

Three days later, Emery and Tess went with Oonagh to help with her family's gardening. Her mother grew simple crops outside their roundhouse—beans, carrots, and turnips, mostly—and Oonagh and her sisters were expected to help keep the vegetables growing. Or, at least, Oonagh's sisters were expected to help. Since Oonagh had been attached to Emery, she'd not had to partake in her previous tasks; nevertheless, she said it would be good for her new friends to get out and occupy their minds. Besides, everyone always needed help. There were so many jobs to be done. Oonagh's mother would appreciate the assistance. So the three of them headed across the village late morning, dressed in their layers, Tess and Emery enjoying the camouflage the attire brought them.

For her part, Emery was happy to get out and work. She and Tess had been trying to do more each day, knowing what Oonagh knew: that they needed to be busy and that people would be glad for the help. They couldn't just sit around and feel sorry for themselves or, in Emery's case, dwell in discomfiting thoughts. There was so little they could do without Cathbad, and even he'd admitted to Emery that he was stuck, that he had hardly an idea of what to do when it came to Charlie and Carman, their top priority.

As for all the other information the druid had given her, Emery hadn't any idea what to make of it. All the things Cathbad had said about dark forces--it felt too far removed from her present existence. Nothing of intrigue had happened since she'd come back; it had all been adjustment. There hadn't been nightmares of any Dark Man or events that could be interpreted as ill omens or encounters with anyone or anything that seemed suspicious or dangerous. In fact, the most frightening thing any of the girls had been through was that walk through the forest to get to Cathbad, and they hadn't gone back since. With nothing inciting her to alarm, Emery hadn't been inclined to seek out Cullen and ask her the questions Cathbad wanted her to ask. Unless she absolutely had to talk to him, she wasn't going to, and she hadn't seen him since the king's men had arrived, anyway.

The riders had come three nights ago. Cathbad had taken Emery home and then gone to speak with them, presumably, or perhaps just to offer some sort of support for Cullen--Emery didn't know. She'd gone right back to the girls to talk about some of what Cathbad had told her. Not all of it. (She definitely didn't tell them the part about the Hill of Tara--she just couldn't bring herself to discuss it all again. Besides, Oonagh would no doubt freak out if Emery started talking about the wrath of the Gods.) And then they'd pondered what the arrival of the king's men could mean.

Oonagh didn't have much to say about King Conchobar, surprisingly, except that he'd been king for quite a while, for most of her life, anyway. She'd never seen him herself, but she'd heard stories that he was powerful in battle, that he was ruthless but fair in his judgment, that he was rumored to be rather lecherous, and that he owed a lot to Cuchulain..

That had reminded Emery of what Cathbad had mentioned . . . some event where Cullen had fought off all the men of Connacht single-handedly. When she'd brought it up, Oonagh had become animated, describing in detail the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or the Cattle Raid of Cooley, as she'd explained. It'd been several years ago, when she herself was a young girl, but everyone knew of it, for it was how Cuchulain's name had spread far and wide. There'd been rumors of his battle prowess, but not until the Queen of Connacht sent her army to attack the men of Ulster to steal a great white bull did anyone know just how impressive Cuchulain was. The Ulstermen had taken ill, cursed by a Goddess, and were unable to fight--all save for Cuchulain. He alone went out to meet the entire Connacht army, invoked the right of single combat, and fought off each of the Queen's men one by one (though sometimes the perfidious Queen would send a few men at once), defeating the whole army over a few months. By the time King Conchobar and the Ulstermen were able to fight, they no longer had to.

And that had been when Cuchulain was hardly seventeen.

Tess and Emery had listened to Oonagh in disbelief, and her story impressed them both, though while Tess candidly spoke her admiration, Emery chose to keep hers inside. She had such conflicting impressions of Cullen that she didn't know how to express any coherent ideas about him. She knew he was a great warrior. Cathbad had told her as much back when he'd fought off Dark with his fancy sword and when he'd gone off on that quest to get the spear he'd used to kill her father . . . she'd heard all about him. And while knocking off an entire army on his own as a teenager was undoubtedly amazing, Emery couldn't help but envision all the punctured and decapitated and dismembered bodies that must've been stacking up around him. He was violent and savage, and while his deeds sounded glorious, Emery couldn't understand how anyone could go around doing the things he did and not be psychologically and emotionally damaged by them. That was the reality. Life wasn't a fairytale; human beings weren't impervious robots. The things he'd done and continued to do . . . they had to have molded him into something inexplicable, and she couldn't merge the contrasting images of him, the man of gore and brutality and power and the man who'd save a novice druid for choosing not to harm a child.