[COMPLETED] The Vixen and The Thief

Chapter 21

Conn screwed up his eyes and wished for a pony. Walking justly deserved to  be the preserve of beggars.

By now it was well into the afternoon and every painful step felt as though he were treading on live coals. The joints in his legs ached too. But at least, at least, he knew they were heading in the right direction...more or less.

Once Beibhinn recovered herself she had been adament that they were to start immediately.        A bit of luck had come to them shortly afterwards: on cresting a rise Conn had recognised the stretch of forest-and-bog-patched country before them. He had traversed it occasionnally on ... expeditions...with An Beitheach. A point he did not communicate to Beibhinn.

Forest and farmland gave way to brown bog, with a tiny green island and monastery, and beyond: the shadowy emerald of the hills where the O'Chinnéides dwelt. Well inside a day's journey.

But holding a course from a hilltop and holding it across country were two very different things. Much time had gone into scrambling though woods and meadows, mire, wirey commonage and a couple of rivers. Now though, they had struck a track.One which would skirt the treacherous boglands and lead to The O'Chinnéide's lands. 

Atop a rise Conn stopped - ostentatiously to survey the country, but mainly to rest his limbs, and to let Beibhinn catch up.

"Táimid beagnach ann -" he began, and then the encouraging words were broken off. Behind on the packed earth of the track came the drum of ponies' hooves. 

Beibhinn froze, standing wide-eyed, like  a rabbit sighted by a hawk. 

It is nothing, Conn told himself. Ridiculous, to consider that An Beitheach might catch up with them now, when he had not succeeded in doing so even on his own mountain.

Nonetheless, it would do no harm to climb the wooded slope on the right - just until the horsemen had passed.

Beibhinn called him and turning, he realised that she had anticipated him, being already a good distance up among the scrub. Up he went too, and crouched behind a tree overhanging the road.

Below the ponies galloped past, actively pursuing something. Their riders in brown mantles. Conn recognised the leader, and his grip tightened on the tree. His own former taoiseach, in person.

 Conn turned to look back up at Beibhinn, where her white face peered out from behind a tree, framed in its dark curls.

"Quickly!" he said, and began clmbing again.

Beyond the wooded slope the land sank into a shallow valley with a river, the sides blanketed by wirey grass and whin bushes.

If they followed it, it would go in the same direction as the road, and be a good deal harder for ponies.

Along the river they hurried, slipping and scrambling. Béibhinn kept trying to say something -  something about Ailbhe - but Conn really was not listening; his mind seething with strategy. The O'Chinnéides could not be much more than three, maybe four miles distant, as the crow flew. To be bested now would be intolerable. But he was not going to be bested. Not by An Beitheach. Not this time.

The day had clouded over, and each missed step sent him into the biting cold of the river. If only they had the ponies...

Then the river turned slightly about an enormous boulder, and Conn saw ponies. An Beitheach's group, he himself leading, as they rode up the river in a silver spray.

"Blast!" Conn came up short. Now what to do?

The feeling hit him that this was not natural. That there was no  way on earth the riders ought to have known they had left the track...what had Beibhinn said about Ailbhe?

He pushed it aside, scrambling out of the river and  barging through the thick, scratching scrub. Up the valley side, then running back down, dodging between the trees. Across the track, across the rough ground, and the earth was turning soft beneath their feet. The Bog.

Black water oozed up as they jumped from tussock to tussock, the white puffs of bog flowers coating the ground like clouds as they found a more solid patch.

There was no way ponies could come in here.

Conn glanced back. The riders were not to be seen. Not yet. But Beibhinn was coming behind, and never had he seen such desperate terror as on that face. If they were caught, he would just be killed. But Beibhinn, he suddenly understood, would be taken back alive to the mountain.

On faster so! he drove himself to run. Both of them, over the solid ground, then dodging green mires, jumping gullies full of black water. Bottomless holes and sucking peat. But they could never keep it up. His chest soon burned, his feet covered in a thick coat of peat. It was too far to those green hills. The ground too treacherous. Sooner or later a mistake and then - the ground made a sucking noise beneath his step and he jumped clear. 

Behind he already glimpsed brown clad figures, dismounted now, spreading out across the bog.

Author's note:

I suppose it's some comfort to type up your old work and realise that you have perhaps improved slightly since then.... (this is old work)

Enjoy!(?)

Taimid beagnach ann: We are nearly there

Taoiseach: Chief/leader (Also the Irish Prime Minister. But not in the 7th century!)