[COMPLETED] The Vixen and The Thief

Cpt 30

Evening was drawing nearer, its dusky shadows beginning to creep from the east. Though still the earth itself held onto the light, the grass and heather glowing with deep colours as the sky darkened.

 Beside her father at the head of the force of men, Beibhinn crept dismounted up the gullie of the mountain. They were well above the treeline now, in the realm of heather, soft shifting earth and jagged white rocks. The same gully - or so she hoped - that she had so precipituously descended with Conn. 

It was hard to tell, but she remembered or so she thought, the shape of the mountain's flank and in the woods below where they had left the horses after riding to the mountain, she had felt that she recognised the trees and rocks as those they had passed in the second day of their flight.

Though to be sure, it had taken much searching to even try to retrace their route.

Beibhinn fingered the little cross and begged that she had not led them wrong. 

And if she had led them right? What then?

An end to the terror and destruction which An Beitheach had wrought. Peace in the lands about the mountain. A result which she would have had a large part in bringing about. A heroine's name for her.

The thought brought her no peace. There had been something so vulnerable in An Beitheach's voice the last time she had seen him. So pleading.

 I need you Beibhinn,  she remembered the tone as though it were being said to her now, I love you. She had deceived him that time also; for all his words.

Beibhinn shook her head, her face settling into a scowl.

We do not trade in words, but in deeds.

In deeds he had proven his heart and for the good of all, this deed before them must be done.

"Beibhinn, are you certain that this is the correct way?" her father asked in her ear, startling her from the strange haze of her thoughts. They had been climbing for a long time and she realised her legs and arms ached. She drew breath, trying to still the fear that it was not the path. Above the gully boggy moor stretched on either side. Moorland where the will-o-the-wisps had danced.

"I hope and believe so," she whispered back, "Though - I may be wrong. But soon we should come to the tunnel mouth."

On the far side of the mountain The O Chinnéide and his men would be riding about, trying to appear like a force preparing an attack. Hoping to drew the ears and eyes of the mountain elsewhere.

For some time longer they climbed in silence, scrambling over loose stones.

A small stream gurgled through the rocks at their feet. Here lay the reeking remains of a sheep. There a great white stone torn fron the edge and lying in the path... Yes. Yes.

Then there ahead the sdes of the gully drew nearer and nearer, reaching together to form a low tunnel, enough for a man to crawl up.

"Here" whispered Beibhinn raspily to her father, her knees shaking.

"May God Guard us," he said.

"Amen."

****

The plan was simple. She must lead them through this little passage until it joined what would become the great through-way of the fortress. Then the men, under her father's leadership would be able to stream into the main areas of the fort. Undetected - hopefully - they would be  fall upon their foes and take control of the mountain. If the winding paths of An Beitheach did not lead them wrong.

Her own part was tamer - no fights for her. Two men would go with her, as she requested. A hopeless endeavor, that's all it was. Small chance of even being rewarded with a corpse at the end of it. But she must find and follow the way she remembered and hope somehow to find the way back to Ruadhan.