“That sounds like Brendan!” Brigid said.

  She upped her pace from jog to sprint and headed toward the noise. Maeve struggled to keep up.

  Three more indecipherable shouts—two tenor, one baritone—sounded to the right of the original shout. Brigid slowed her run, raised both fists above her head, brought them low with an exaggerated plant of her right leg and pushed up with a grunt. She now bounded across the forest floor with the speed of a doe.

  She was out of sight in less than a minute. The good news was that the new shouts were louder and their point of origin stopped shifting.

  Brigid let loose a battle cry which was followed by a squeal and a dull thud. The only remaining noises came from Brendan.

  Maeve dropped to a knee once she rejoined the group. Brendan lay prone in between two young trees. Brigid hunched over her brother, pressing part of her missing sleeve onto his wounded left leg. Fergal knelt next to his right side. Brigid’s spear pinned the body of a wolf to the ground behind them.

  “Is he alright?” Maeve asked, gulping for air between words.

  “He’s bleeding,” Brigid said, “but not badly, considering.”

  “What happened?” Maeve asked.

  Brendan smiled with gritted teeth.

  “My luck ran out,” he said. “We drew out that second wolf and had just finished off when a third came up and tried to drag me away.”

  “‘Drew out?’” Brigid said. “It was you two melters we heard howling like eejits.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?” Brendan said.

  Brigid added a gratuitous amount of pressure to his wound in reply. He stifled a yell.

  “You were clinging to a tree trunk for dear life,” Brigid said. “Was that part of your genius plan, brother?”

  “Here, you need to be ready to adapt any good plan when the situation changes, sister.”

  Brendan groaned from another response of undue pressure.

  “Oi! I’m thinkin’ maybe we just wait for it to scab up if that’s how you’re going to be,” he said.

  “Brendan, are you that incapable of thanking the lady for saving you?” Fergal asked. “I don’t know how she caught up to you before I did.”

  “Did she, now?” Maeve asked.

  “Hai, I wasn’t far behind. She jumped higher and farther than any person I’ve seen. Finished off that thing with one blow from above.”

  “How bad is his leg?” asked Maeve.

  “He’ll be limping for a while,” Fergal said. “But no major shredding. Mostly puncture wounds.”

  “Jammy fool,” Brigid said.

  “While we’re resting, let’s take stock,” Maeve said. “We felled five of those things now. Just a few left. You two see any signs of their handlers?”

  Fergal shook his head.

  “Naw. I assume we have to hunt them down as well?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Maeve said. “Otherwise they’ll curse a new pack of beasts and start anew.”

  The reality of the situation spread across the Fergal’s face.

  “Wild animals are one thing. You mean us to truly…”

  The porter finished the thought with twirled hands.

  “It’s not something any of us want to do,” Maeve said. “Sooner or later innocent people—those with no knowledge of the world the twins and I live in—are going to die because of the ones we’re tracking.”

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “It won’t matter if they are Norman or Gael,” Brigid said. “Only those like us are equipped to stop this from getting worse.”

  “And if we get caught?” Fergal asked.

  “Best to not get caught,” Maeve said. “How’s the bleeding, Brig?”

  “Slowing,” Brigid said. “I’ll wrap it soon. I’m worried about infection, though.”

  “Not much we can do about it now,” Maeve said. “Let’s keep pushing east. If we don’t see anything by morning we’ll head back to town and get this one properly treated. Then we’ll deal with the likelihood that they’ll be long gone by tomorrow night.”

  “Let’s get going, then,” Brendan said. “Wrap my leg up, sister.”

  “If you don’t start showing me a little more gratitude, I’ll be wrapping your mouth up as well,” Brigid said. “Where’s your walking stick?”

  Fergal found Brendan’s staff lying a few feet ahead of them and handed it to Brendan.

  “You know yourself it’s no mere walking stick,” Brendan said.

  Brigid tied the rest of her missing sleeve around her brother’s leg and ruffled his hair with a grin.

  “Sure I do,” she said. “It’s now your crutch.”

  A man’s voice echoed from the east. Maeve’s whipped her neck toward the sound and stiffened her back.

  “Oi! I think it’s one of the scuts,” Maeve said. “Get down!”

  “I just got up!” Brendan said.

  Maeve turned back to Brendan with her brow collapsed and nostrils flared.

  “Of course,” he whispered. “I’m just grumbling.”

  “How many?” Brigid asked.

  “Just one so far,” Maeve said. “I don’t see him yet.”

  “Wolves?”

  “Didn’t hear any.”

  “What do we do?” Fergal asked.

  “It’s not the helpers who are cursing the wolves, right?” asked Brendan. “They’re probably checking on the commotion. What if we take ‘em and trade their location for their lives?”

  “That’s not half bad,” Brigid said.

  “She’s right,” Maeve said. “Fergal, crawl behind that big tree. Brigid, find a spot to hide on the other side of him. Brendan—”

  “—Trap them in earth when they get close?” he asked, the corners of his mouth rising.

  “Lay there and act like the wolves finished the job.”

  Brendan sighed as he leaned back and rolled his head to the ground.

  Maeve and the group spent the next several minutes listening to the man wander through the forest. At one point he drifted so far to their left that she suspected he turned around and she considered rousing the group to chase him.

  A second male voice emerged from the distance.

  “Why are you out here?”

  “I thought I heard them fighting,” the first man said. “I came to see what happened.”

  “What if they were fighting? It’s not like you could stop it.”

  “Doesn’t matter either way. They’ve all gone.”

  “Hang on!” the second man said. “Are you telling me that you canny see one of them lying over there next to that body?”

  “Dry up!” The first man said. “It’s a big forest. Did yer man here actually kill one of them?”

  “Not possible,” the second man said, “but let’s look.”

  The two men started into a jog toward Brendan and the wolf next to him. Maeve caught Fergal’s eye and dipped her head in the direction of the strangers. Fergal nodded and tightened the grip on his club.

  The first man crossed the group between Fergal and Maeve. The porter stepped out from behind the tree and clubbed him in the abdomen before knocking him down with a strike across his shoulder blades while he was hunched over in pain.

  The second man ran up to Fergal with spear in hand but he dropped it once Brigid and Maeve stepped into the open with their own weapons trained on him.

  “What are your names?” Maeve asked.

  The second man scanned each of his three captors before he relented.

  “Cerball. This here’s my brother, áed.”

  “Am I safe in assuming neither of you were the ones who cursed these animals?”

  Cerball nodded.

  “Then what are you doing here, helping those others?” Meve asked.

  “Family,” Cerball said.

  “They’re also your brothers?” Maeve asked.

  “Cousins, actually.”

  “So you’re one big Fomori family,” Maeve said.

  “Oi! Where did you hear a word like that?” Cerball asked. “You’re Sílrad Déithe, aren’t ya? I’ve got nothing more to tell you.”

  “You’ll want to reconsider,” Brigid said. “Sure look, since you have no special power that we can see, we might consider letting you run free—if you tell me where those two sorcerers and the remaining wolves are hiding.”

  “You think so?” Cerball asked. “We’re not telling you anything.”

  Brendan stood up and limped over to the startled brothers.

  “You’re not dead!” áed said.

  “Ah here, you’re clearly the smart one,” Brendan said.

  He stooped to meet áed’s eyes—grunting in pain as he did so—and smiled as he flicked his hand in and out.

  “Oíbell.”

  A single tongue of flame hovered above his right palm.

  “That means you’re smart enough to know that we’re going to find them eventually. We’re giving you the chance to be somewhere else when we do.”

  áed dropped his head and sighed.

  “Keep going to the east,” he said. “There are two more loughs. Our cousins with two other wolves near the furthest lough.”

  “Wisht!” Cerball yelled. “You have no cause to be telling them that.”

  “I didn’t come out here to kill people,” áed said. “Ailill told us they came out here to scare the locals into joining our cause. Those animals were only supposed to hunt deer, cows and sheep, just like out east.”

  “So you were the ones roaming around the Creeve,” Brigid said.

  áed nodded.

  “Ailill and some of his friends kept speaking of this 'war' they were fighting—I thought it was just some of their fancy talk.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Maeve said, “and whether you want to admit it or not, deep down, I don't think you believe it yourself.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” áed said. “What matters is that I told you what you wanted to know. Are you going to free the two of us or not?”