His eyelids grew heavy, but he fought back against their weight. He sat up and shook himself of his exhaustion. Across the camp, the trees shuffled softly as they swayed in the wind, surrounding the Scalp like a great wall of wood. In the shadows of their trunks, dark shapes shifted through the clearing.
There was no noise. No screeches or cries for mercy like before. All Farris saw were the two black figures converging where the red Simian stood guard.
“Run!” Farris yelled, squinting through the darkness. It was fortunate that the moon was out; otherwise they would have truly been lost. The silver outline of two beadhbhs feasted on their kill, their plumed tails pointing upwards, swaying like black wraiths in the night. More came charging through the trees, shrieking with that familiar, vicious cacophony.
Sir Bearach rose quickly, already fully armoured.
“This way!” he bellowed as the others scrambled awake. The knight held his great claymore tight in two gauntleted fists and dashed past Farris into the trees. Without thought, Farris followed, away from the reach of the moon and into the dark of the undergrowth.
The forest was denser than before, but Farris welcomed the branches and thorns that swept past his face. Can the beasts navigate through here? Without a thought for who else had made it from the Scalp, he kept running, ignoring the lingering pain building in his knee. No words were spoken; only the rustling of trees and the cracking of twigs whispered as they pushed further into the forest.
The forest around them grew thinner. The mountains of the Glenn stood above, like stone giants watching over the night. The path curved towards the river; the ground slowly rose upwards below Farris’s feet. As the last trees fell away, he skidded to a halt. Before him, a huge wall of rock and stone stood in the way, towering twenty feet overhead.
“We need to climb!” roared Sir Bearach. The others appeared from the woods, too, but Farris didn’t stop to count how many had made it. Each threw themselves against the wall, searching for a foothold. Farris took a spot right under where Bearach had started climbing. He couldn’t help but admire how the knight scaled the rocks so swiftly, despite the weight and restrictions of his armour. Sir Bearach still carried the beadhbh feathers in his cloak, fastened around his neck to keep his arms free.
The things we do for gold. Farris pulled himself off the ground, fingers pressed against the cold rock. He heard quick, soft footsteps below as he reached upwards for another grappling point.
“Chester!” cried Sláine from above. “Hurry!”
He didn’t need to be told, for a quick glance was enough to inform him that the beadhbhs were right below, clawing and biting at the corpse of one of the crewmen. Two beadhbhs stood with their beaks covered in blood while three more hopped in circles, flapping their useless wings in a feeble attempt to gain height.
When Farris reached the top, only four others had made it: Sláine, Fionn, Sir Bearach, and the bearded mechanic dressed in blue.
What a strange company we make. The bards should surely write a song about this adventure! He rolled onto his back to catch his breath.
After a moment’s peace, the beadhbhs still shrieking below, Sir Bearach stood to speak.
“We can’t linger here any longer. They can’t reach us, but as long as they keep up that racket, more will join them.” He pointed into the darkness, northwards towards the other side of the valley. “We’ll keep the river over our right shoulder and make our way west. I don’t care if we have to fall, roll, or plummet down the other side of the mountain, we’ll be safer than we are now.”
There was certainly no arguing with that, and the others pulled themselves to their feet. Sláine the White gasped when she saw Sir Bearach fixing his improvised sack onto his shoulder.
“You’re still carrying that?”
She marched over and pulled the cloak from his back, spilling the beadhbh feathers onto the ground.
“You fool!” she said, jabbing a finger into the knight’s armoured chest. “You’ve brought them upon us! The beasts have come all this way, hunting us, stalking us, all because they were following the scent of the cursed feathers you stole from them!”
At this, the others chimed in with their own words of contempt, but Sir Bearach barely flinched. Farris smiled.
Just tell them. Tell them that black market gold is more valuable than the lives of a few strangers.
“Please, Sláine,” Sir Bearach said. “Feel free to make as many accusations as you want once you take the time to read a book or two.” He turned to the others and raised his hands in submission.
“Beadhbhs are birds,” he began. “They do not fly. They hunt Humans and other large mammals, true, but they are still birds. Like other birds, they lack the sense of smell mammalian hunters are famous for, relying on other senses to track their prey. As sure as the poison that fills this valley, I am not the one who brought these beasts upon us.” He turned his attention to Sláine. “It’s simply a matter of magnitude, my lady. With so many packs of beadhbhs pouring through these lands, it’s a wonder we haven’t been spotted sooner.”
The healer rolled her eyes but didn’t press the matter further. Sir Bearach retrieved his loot and strutted past her, whistling softly into the night. Sláine sighed and beckoned the others to follow the merry knight deeper into the hills.
***
The route through the rocks proved difficult to navigate, especially in the darkness. For the most part they walked, but often they had to stop and climb over piles of rockfall and steep slopes. As they left the valley behind, Farris glanced back every now and then, checking if the beadhbhs were following.
“They’ll find their way up eventually,” said Sir Bearach, sensing Farris’s anxiety. He pointed towards the forest below. The cliff was less steep there, with a slope low and gentle enough to walk through. The knight shook his head. “If one of them picks their way through here, the rest will surely come. They’ll follow us out of the Glenn into the Clifflands if they have to.”
“So, what do you propose we do?” asked Farris.
“We keep going, of course. No need to worry the others.”
Farris nodded, then noticed something about the man’s armour. The steel appeared to be white, but where the paint had been chipped and scratched, a faded blue tint shone out.
“Your breastplate, it’s Simian-made, no?”
The knight smiled. “Aye, the Church prefers we stay away from the Simian smiths, but I have yet to find castle-forged steel of better quality.” He tapped his shoulder with a heavy fist. “And besides, only the Simians of Penance have truly mastered the art of break mechanics.”
“Break mechanics?” It was a long time since Farris had been inside a Simian smithy.
Sir Bearach raised his arm, revealing a thin, wiry cord dangling under his shoulder. “Geomancers defeated the Simian soldiers by crushing them in their own armour. If I’m assaulted by a mage now, all I need to do is pull here and my whole suit will collapse to the ground.”
“Clever,” said Farris. “It’s a shame we didn’t think of that before Móráin’s Conquest.”
The knight shrugged. “Well, the Simians never had a need for it until we came.”
Each of the rock faces looked the same, and Farris found himself wondering over and over if they were even heading in the right direction. Twice they met with dead ends and were forced to trace back on their steps. They tried to keep the river on one side as Sir Bearach had suggested, but with the winding path bringing them deeper into the mountains, the valley was often completely obscured from view. Not to mention the darkness that seemed to fall heavier as the hours drifted by.
When they reached the third dead end, Fionn groaned with frustration.
“I’m so tired,” he said. “We’ll never find a way out.”
Farris was hoping that Sir Bearach would have something smart to say, but the knight held his own tongue. Nobody spoke, as though they all secretly agreed with the Pyromancer.
