The Chief

The Witch's Daughter: Chapter 7. Near Duncormac Bran looks for the foreign warriors. Hilde struggles to escape her accusers and speak to the Chief.

Thunderheads hung in the sky above Duncormac Hill. Trees reached up to the lowering moon, their spindly black fingers swayed into a permanent lean by the prevailing north wind. Two men slowed their horses to a walk as they climbed the hill toward the sea.

Waves crashed on the nearby shoreline, a long spit with scrubby vegetation. The light breeze carried a fresh, salty tang of sea air, and it mixed with the scent of rain on fresh earth rising from the cropping fields north of the hill. The river snaked around the sand flats east and south of the hill in a narrow delta before turning west to run along the coastline.

The men’s arrival near the crest of the hill disturbed angry crows that had already settled in the dusk. The lane the men were following ended at a cul-de-sac, bordered by a rock wall, and marked by a wooden trough. A plough and oxen harness leaned against the wall.

Duncormick Hill, Ireland. © 2024 Sarah Smith

“Wait,” Bran said, holding up a hand. He patted the heaving flanks of his horse.

Bran swung from his saddle and tested the water in the trough. There’d been heavy rain and the water was fresh. He led his horse to it.

“We ride like mad men all day, for what?” the other man said, shifting in his saddle.

“We’ll stop here,” Bran said. “The horses can’t take much more tonight anyway.”

“But there’s no sign of the foreigners,” the other man asked. He strained his eyes out over the sea. “What if they didn’t come?”

“They’ll be here,” Bran said, his voice testy.

“Sir, pardon me for asking. What signs do you see?” The man’s flinty eyes lent him a look of permanent suspicion. Wariness was good trait in a lookout, irritating in a companion. The man jumped from his horse. He ran his weathered hands over the horses flanks.

Bran stood next to the shorter, sinewy man, and pointed west. “Their ships’ll be in Bannow Bay.”

The other man turned his eyes in that direction, squinting into the dusk. “Can’t see anything.”

“Fin, King Diarmait sent us. Speak up if ye think ye have something better to do,” Bran said. He filled a leather bound tankard with water. He kicked at the tall grass growing in the lee of the wall. “Pasture here looks good, eh?”

Fin, nodded. Bran let his horse feed on the lush greenery. The man was irritating but he knew his horses and pasture.

Fin checked the horses feet. He brushed his mare as it watered and joined Bran’s in grazing. He dropped his weapons to the ground, and unstrapped his kit from his horse. Fin took a big swig of water, then struck a pose with one sinewy arm braced on the rock wall, looking back in the direction they’d come.

“I don’t like it! Nothing about this feels good,” the smaller man said.