Secrets of the Druids

Chapter 20 Catbads tower.

Chapter 20.

Catbads tower.

Abbie pushed the wheelchair through the mirror.

She found  herself walking out of the same mirror into  a large round castle room.

She knelt down.

Waited and took a good look round to see if she was safe. 

Torches hung round the old castles stone walls.  A dying fire was in the fireplace. Sunlight poured in from an arch window beside her.

She guessed it was morning.

The sunlight fell on a large wooden table cluttered with odd jars and bottles of different shapes and sizes.

Two dark wooden  chairs  stood beside the table.

Then she saw it.

Leaning against one chair was Catbads blackthorn stick.

This she guessed was Catbads home.

But where was he?

She wondered what strange potions did he make in the jars and bottles on the table.

She had one last good look round.  There was still no sign of Catbad.  She stood up.

Keeping her back to the wall she made her way to the window.

Abbie took a quick look outside. She was up high in a stone tower.

Outside was the sea and a beach.

She recognised where she was.

There was Howth head.

Beside it the island,  Ireland's eye and across from the tower  was landbay island.

She was in a castle tower by the beach in Portmarnock. 

Her home town or will be in 2000 years or so.

Then she heard barking.

Coming from inside the room.

She spied on the  other side of the room a big black iron cage.

Abbie knew that bark.

She ran towards it.

"Bran."

She cried reaching the cage.

Bran jumped up on the cage bars and tried to lick her.

He had a bandage around the wound were the arrow hit him.

"Oh! Bran I thought you were dead." Abbie cried.

Bran growled angrily.

Abbie was taken aback until she realised he wasn't looking at her.

But at something  behind her.

She turned.

"Werewolf hounds are hard to kill."

Smiled Catbad a goblet in one hand.

"Their blood has great healing powers."

He drank deep.

Then licked the blood on his lips.

Abbie ran trying to get to the door.

She saw Catbad throw something at her.

It hit her leg and seemed to sting her?

She winced in pain and  fell hitting the ground hard.

The thing that stung her slid away.  It was a small yellow and green snake.

It didn't sting her leg the snake had bitten her. 

She could feel the warm venom numbing her legs.

She crawled.  But the numbness was spreading up her body.

Her arms stopped working. She felt the numbness enter her head. She could move nothing.

She watched as the snake slide across the floor. Crawled up Catbads leg and wiggled into his robe  by his belly.

Bran was barking madly.

Catbad  seemed to leap across to her.

"Easy my little queen. The snake venom will slowly wear off. "

He scooped her paralysed body and settled her into  the wheelchair.

"-Thanks for bringing me a wheelchair. I wish all my victims were as thoughtful." 

He wheeled her in front off the mirror. 

Placed her hands on her knees and fixed her head so she was looking at her reflexion in the mirror.

Catbad smiled behind her.

"-Why did you come back? Do you think you can change history Abbie?" He asked her.

1. "-Today the red branch knights end and Cu Culainn the greatest warrior in Ireland dies his glorious death. You can come back a thousand times to this moment try and change history and fail. It can't be changed ever."

Catbad looked into her eyes.

"-Youth still think it can change the world!"

His smile dropped.

"Time to face reality."

He waved his hand and in the mirror the imaged changed.

She could see a battle.

Cu Culainn and the red branch knights fighting hard. They stood on a lake shore fighting in a semi circle with their backs against the lake.

Connought men surrounding them attacking in waves.

The red branch were losing.

"-Before I kill you it's only right you watch the end of Cu Culainn seen how you helped create it." 

Abbie could not say a word.

But inside she was screaming.

--------------------------------------

Next update Wednesday

Chapter 21.

The last of the red branch knights.