CHAPTER THREE
Out of the frying pan.

Within the closeted walls of Ossageel Asylum in Ireland, Cú lay in a private room with walls painted in pale tranquil colours of cream and lilac. The pains returned, forcing him to wake from the blissful drifting darkness of his subconscious. He moaned, and the power of his voice startled him. His eyes were burning. He was covered in cold sweat.

Another voice, not his own, reached down to him:

"Well now, Cú, my great hound-dog!"

It was a man's voice, warm and gentle, close to his ear. An old man's voice.

"I believe I'm on the brink of a solution to what ails us, you, me, the others."
His thought processes began to stir, like a leg or an arm that had gone to sleep. He felt the pins and needles in his brain.

"Pains," he thought. "Yes, a solution. That is what I want. So kill me quickly."
The man was talking again, this time in an urgent whisper.

"You must never tell a soul what I have told you already, nor what I'm about to tell you now. It's our secret. If anyone gets wind of it there could well be an end to our hope."

Cú struggled to remember something, anything about a confided secret; but the pain was too much and the darkness began to deepen again, beckoning him into another moment of respite.

The man was muttering excitedly about rune-stones, Ogham (he pronounced it the Gaelic way, O-am) script, unlocking the supernatural secrets of the Tuatha de Danaan.

The old man's voice penetrated Cú's brain filling his mind with strange images, and he cried out. The pain began to get the upper hand of the darkness and the approach of his longed-for Nirvana but then he felt something cold against his lips.

"Here, my bold Cú, drink this. It won't kill you and it might help to cure you."
He ventured to open his eyes briefly. He saw in that instant an incredibly skinny old man with long, lank white hair, milk-white skin stretched taut like new vellum across high, sharp cheek bones. He had a long, straggling white beard and his aquiline nose gave him a birdlike aspect. He closed his eyes and considered the old man's words.

"If it cures The Pains, wonderful, if it kills me, wonderful," he thought.

His lips searched and found, not a cup or a glass but some kind of a bottle neck. He took a mouthful and swallowed it quickly. Instantly he was filled with a great wave of heat. It was not the heat of his agony but a soothing, calming warmth as though he were being filled with warm water. The wave seemed to rise in his feet.

It surged rapidly up through his body and broke with a roar inside his skull. He heard himself asking:

"Who was that woman who sat here all day?"

The old man smiled warmly.

"Ah! I've made contact. Here we are conversing in the old Gaelic of Ulster and Scotland. Good! The woman? It was Emer, Emer the gentle. Emer the bright and beautiful. Emer the one light of joy in our darkness."

Darkness did he say? Speak of the Devil. The darkness was rushing back, bearing down on him. Devil?

The word sent a chill like a shaft of ice through the rising warmth. He was trying to say something that made no more than a glimmer of sense to him:

"Oh this sickness is a curse!"

"It surely is," agreed the man, "but tell me, what do you feel? How do you ..."
"It's a curse," he croaked. "It's the curse, the curse of Macha."

His voice trailed off as he wondered what the words, his own words, could mean. The man shook him gently.

"What is that you said? Tell me! Did you say Macha? The curse of Macha?"
"Yes. Macha. Tinneas Noínden or Mallacht Macha."

"The curse of Macha? The sickness of the Ulstermen? Then, you can't be Cúchulainn. He was immune from the sickness of the Ulaid, The Pains."

Cúchulainn laughed softly, briefly.

"Propaganda," he whispered. "Propaganda."

"Propaganda? What do you mean?"

"It was King Conor Mac Nessa who invented war propaganda. If the enemies of Ulster knew that all the Ulster champions, to a man, were indisposed simultaneously it would have been the end of us."

"I see," said the old man, his eyes wide with interest. "So they put the story about that Cúchulainn was not plagued by The Pains, not subject to the curse of Macha!"

"Yes, the story also got about that I had been seen single-handedly to slaughter a hundred men at a time at Ulster's river crossings without pausing in the midst of a meal."

The old man's eyes widened further, into great white globes of wonder.

"Just like Dirty Harry in ...." he began distractedly.

Then, refocusing continued, drawing back and pointing a long, skeletal finger at the prostrate Cú.

"You? You really are Cúchulainn, slayer of Culainn's hound? Champion of Champions?"

Cú opened one grey-blue eye and regarded the old man as though he had just realised that water was wet.

"Of course I'm Cúchulainn. Where have you been, old one? In the underworld? And anyway, who are you?"

The old man's eyes had glazed over once more, his gaze wandering off into the far distance.

"Clint Eastwood, wasn't it? Dirty Harry?"

"Clint who?"

"Who am I you ask? In this age I'm known as Professor Tim Travers, though not as a direct descendant of the Tuatha magicians, I am at your service young warrior."

The old man grasped Cú's hand in both of his and beamed with excitement.

"In this place they call me Amtashtalee. Actually, I tell them I'm a descendent of the Tuatha. In fact I'm first generation Tuatha de Danaan."

"Am-taistilí? Time traveller?"

"The same."

He placed his lips against Cúchulainn's ear and whispered with a gleeful titter:

"They all think I'm mad, you know!"

"Who does?"

"All of them. The staff and the patients. Especially the red one with the poison tongue!"

"You mean the one with the mean face and the oily red hair?"

The old man cackled with delight.

"You have him tagged all right. He's the chief consultant here. Name's Brick, Roderick Brick. The patients call him Brick Rua, Red Brick."

The darkness of Limbo had abruptly won Cú back before he could respond ...
"He's been like that for four days now."

It was her voice coming from a great distance, arriving in his darkness as gently reassuring as aeons-old starlight on a moonless night. Emer's voice. Dear gentle Emer.

"Wait," she whispered. "I think he's coming round at last."

His eyes flickered open.

"I've been in a state of non-being for four days," he thought. "Well better luck next time. Next time I may go for ever."

This time, however, the light didn't hurt. There were four figures, three in white coats. Three men and a young woman. The tallest one was a youngish man with a small sharp nose, thin lips and small, grey, glinting eyes. His receding, severely back-combed red hair glistened with oil.

He gave off a cloying perfume whenever he moved. Dr. Brick? He looked vaguely familiar. Brick Rua? Name rings a bell.

Where had he seen him before, a long time ago? The second man, the one in the crumpled brown jacket and grey trousers, was small, fat and unshaven with tousled black hair and very dark brown eyes. The third was tall, distinguished looking, middle-aged with silver, wavy hair. The extra light confirmed his earlier impression of the woman. She was young and she was pretty. She gave him a winsome smile.

"Emer?" he said.

"You recognise me?"

Her mouth and eyes smiled. Her eyebrows ascended, in surprise, beyond her auburn fringe.

"I recognise your voice. You are Emer."

"You speak English!"

"Prebabelian," he said without comprehending the word himself.

She gave a short, musical laugh.

"Like Omniglot?"

She had taken his response as a witticism.

"You really do remember me then!"

She smiled delightedly and brought her face close to his. She was not just pretty. She was very pretty. No. She was beautiful.

"I recognise you from before, when the dandelions...."

She laughed that same soft laugh.

"The pee-the-beds?"

There was a sudden stab of severe pain in his feet. The pain swept quickly up his legs into his groin, his abdomen, chest, neck. Before it reached his head and snuffed out consciousness he heard a man speak:

"I'm afraid he's not out of the woods yet."

Another voice, far away, said something about psychogenic pain.

"Psychogenic my arse," he thought and went under.

When he awoke again it was pitch dark and deathly silent. He felt the cool neck of the bottle at his lips again.

"The pundits are all safely tucked up in their beds," said Amtashtalee's voice. "I think I've cracked it this time Cú. I've increased the amount of spirit of Beacán Bearaigh, magic mushrooms to the young ignorami of the twenty-first century. Here, take a swig."

"Is he really crazy? If he is mad he may kill me with this potion of Beacán Bearaigh, toadstools, fairy caps, sheep's farts. He went through the myriad Gaelic folk names for the fungus. If he does, what harm?"

He drank eagerly.

"Kill or cure. It's all the same. Freedom from the curse of, what was that name again? Clint Harry!"

This time the liquid seared his throat. His gullet felt as though it had burst into flames. The liquid surged into his stomach like molten metal. His ears began to sing. The singing grew rapidly louder and higher in pitch. It had all but gone beyond the audible range when it changed abruptly into a terrifying bedlam of noise.

"Am I in Hell?"

The sound seemed to take hold of him and bear him along at a terrifying speed. On and on he sped into a rapidly gathering darkness. He was being thrown from side to side. His head kept banging against something metallic. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! ....

Back to ancient Ulster CLANG! When Cúchulainn opened his eyes, his helmeted head, lolling limply from side to side, was knocking against the side of his chariot.

He opened one eye and studied a knotty, muscular leg. It belonged to Laeg, his charioteer. He shook himself fully awake and rose unsteadily to his feet.

"Must have dozed off," he muttered.

The two speckled horses had slowed down, he noticed. He breathed revitalising lungfuls of sea air. His eyes made a rapid sweep of his surroundings. His mind grasped feebly at the fleeting fragments of the strange dreams from which he had just awoke; but the more he tried the more mercurial they became. Then he could not even remember that he had been dreaming. Fully awake now, his present situation demanded all his attention. Dreams would have to wait. Besides his anxiety he had an unsettling feeling that he was being watched.

It was early afternoon when Farroch, Cúchulainn's Spirit Guardian, broke through the curtain of time-space, two thousand feet above the Plain of Muirtheimhne on the rim of an opal-blue Muir Meann, on a fine spring day coming up to the month of Bealtaine. A fresh south-easterly breeze whipped up a few white caps on the sea. Farroch had responded to stress impulses from the Ulster Knight who was returning from a punitive expedition in Leinster. Farroch's supernatural vision zoomed in on Cúchulainn in his golden chariot as it tracked northwards along the long, dun strand.

The legendary Ulster warrior's scarlet tunic and purple cloak contrasted with the yellow tunic and turquoise cloak of Laeg, his charioteer. His bronze breastplate, helmet and arm-guards, as well as his large muscular frame distinguished him as a warrior champion. His raven-black mane, spilling from under his pointed bronze helmet, fluttered in the light sea breeze. His grey-blue eyes, flashing beneath puckered brows, betrayed a certain apprehension. The charioteer Laeg, older, sparer, with lean, knotty arms was the other half of a formidable partnership in battle. The galloping horses, the golden chariot, the two colourfully attired men, the sunlit seashore, they added up to a pretty enough sight except for one thing, or more precisely, twelve things, severed human heads swinging by their ginger hair on the rail of the chariot.

Cúchulainn began to argue animatedly with Laeg as they sped homeward from the Boyne valley where they had overtaken and slain a dozen Fomorian sea raiders. They had kept the Fomorian ship in sight as it tacked south to Inver Colpa, the estuary of the Boyne. From there they had shadowed the shallow draft vessel up the Boyne, to Brú na Bóinne. The encounter with the Fomorian pirates had been brief and bloody. Dispatching twelve men was but a slight task for Cúchulainn. The problem was the boy.

He was long gone for the nearest Fomorian camp by the time the twelfth red head had parted company with its owner. No point in pursuing him.

By daybreak they were back on the long strand along the hem of the open plain of Muirtheimhne. Increasingly more fearful of pursuit by half the Fomorians in Ireland, or of sudden ambush, they drove the jaded horses relentlessly. If they were to shake off any pursuers, they would need to gallop all the way home to Eamhain Macha, the fortress of Conor Mac Nessa, King of Ulster.

Cúchulainn smiled to himself momentarily, thinking how the King would probably close his eyes and make an uncoordinated gesture that suggested he was fighting off a swarm of bees at the tale of their adventures.

Laeg was boldly chiding Cúchulainn for his recklessness. It was not from insolence that the charioteer was talking so forthrightly to Cúchulainn. The Knight, sensing Laeg's silent resentment had commanded him to state what was on his mind.

"It's all to do with the grand prize, The Champion's Portion," shouted Laeg.

"Be more specific," Cúchulainn responded testily. "Come on man, feel free to speak your mind. What has our latest business got to do with The Champion's portion?"

"Clearly, since you know you are now on a short-list of three for the title, Champion of Champions, you and your two close rivals, Laoghaire and Conal, are bound to be taking more and greater risks to prove your courage and your prowess in battle."

"So," snorted Cúchulainn, "when barbarians bring plunder, pillage and rape to our people I am driven by vanity, self-interest and ambition rather than a sense of outrage?"

"All I'm sure of, is that you have exposed both of us to unreasonable risk by pursuing the raiders so far. Horses, as you well know, have a limited range between rests. The farther they are driven the slower they are able to travel. That boy got away, remember, back to their base. By now the hunt for us is in full cry."

"And you believe I would risk my life and yours for the honour of cutting the first helping from a roasted pig?"

"Come on man, you know there's more to it than that. There's the esteem, the privileges, the hysterical adulation, the young, bright-eyed girls!"

"Enough of this Laeg! I thought you knew me better."

Laeg continued to urge the horses, shouting at them and skelping them gently with the ends of the reins. At last Laeg heaved a long sigh and gave Cúchulainn a sidelong look. His features were softened by a faint smile.

"I do know what a noble man you are Cúchulainn. And you know I would follow you to the Underworld. But good people are not necessarily inviolable. The best who ever lived had to struggle against self-seeking ambition."

Cúchulainn maintained a sullen silence for several minutes before responding.

The two men listened to the wheezing of the horses' breath, the hiss of the chariot wheels on the wet sand, the occasional crackle of a cock oyster shell and other sliogáns under the wheels, and the jingle of the bronze and silver harness fittings. All that against the background sough of the sea.

"May I confide in you, Laeg?" Asked Cúchulainn quietly without making eye contact with the worried charioteer.

"You know you can, you hulking great hound slayer," Laeg answered with a grin.

"If you must know, I personally don't care a fig for The Champion's Portion or for the adulation of men and women. It's just that, well my wife Emer has been badgering me. She says I have to be more assertive now. I have to stretch myself more to impress the King and to enlarge my sphere of influence in Ulster "

"Because you are at once nephew and foster son of the King you have more to prove than the others?"

He thought of his wife Emer, gentle, beautiful Emer. He thought of her wise counsel:

"One's gifts are meant to be translated into service to others. If we fail to do so our neglected or misused gifts will, in the long run, work to our detriment."

The charioteer resumed his urging of the jaded horses. Farroch, from his high vantage point could make out the blue ghost of the Welsh Mountains across the sea to the south-east; and to the north, the dark mass of the Mournes with the Cooley hills at their feet. The Sugarloaf Mountain and Lug na Coille dominated the ranges of hills and mountains far to the south, beyond the Liffe. Directly below, the golden chariot twinkled in the sun. As Laeg intensified his goading of the horses Cúchulainn kept glancing nervously over his shoulders for signs of pursuit. The Fomorians, he remembered, had mysterious resources like the ability to communicate over long distances.

They had, it was said, uncannily accurate methods of navigation, even in dense fog. For months the insolent raiders, taking advantage of the absence of a large contingent of King Conor's warriors who were helping allies in Scotland, had been terrorising settlements daringly close to the powerful, but temporarily undermanned Red Branch Knights, Eamhain Macha.

Meanwhile, King Conor's intelligence network had revealed that the main concentration of Fomorians on Tory Island in the far north had divided themselves into smaller, more mobile military units and dispersed to secret bases around the coasts of Ireland, Britain and Mannan. They relied on surprise sea-borne raids on remote farms and settlements. Under cover of darkness they would beach their ships in a sheltered cove or river estuary several miles from their targets, march swiftly overland and strike just before dawn. Some of their bigger ships had retractable keels so that once into a navigable river they could retract the keel and punt or row right up into shallow reaches to raid an inland settlement.

Cúchulainn glanced over his shoulder once as they drew closer to *Mullachlár. Hunching steeply from the train of esker ridges and towering limestone folds to the west, *Mullachlár's gigantic, green-fringed, rocky foreland bowed eastward into the sea. Such a formidable obstacle could spell the end of the race for the two exhausted horses. Added to this was the realisation that he was being overtaken by the deadly illness, Cess Níonden Uladh, the result of a curse placed upon nine generations of Ulstermen by Macha, daughter of the Milesian Chieftain, Aedh Ruadh.

Macha had uttered the curse in her death agony as she gave birth to twins after she had been forced by the King of Ulster to run a foot race against the swiftest horse in his stables. The pangs of the Noínden Uladh, which thenceforth seized Ulstermen in times of stress, were like the pains of childbirth multiplied a thousand times. In the grip of the pains the victims became completely debilitated and often drifted into a delirium filled with terrifying hallucinations.

Despite Laeg's loud urgings the gait of the two horses now faltered between canter and trot. Finally they lapsed into a dispirited walk. They were clearly spent and close to collapse. A sudden wave of pain, like the contractions of birth, racked Cúchulainn's innards. He leaned on the chariot rail, wincing and moaning softly until the spasm passed.

As his head cleared, a vague thought of his Guardian Spirit, Farroch, flitted across his mind. That was the moment in which Farroch was empowered to intervene. Ever faithful and mindful of his charge, Farroch had responded to the feeble thought impulse as eagerly as if it had been an ardent, prayerful summons.

From his thousand-foot vantage point Farroch shifted his gaze far to the south along the long ribbon of sand. Two large ships of the Fomorians had entered the Bóinn estuary at Inver Colpa. They had lowered the massive triangular sails and beached the ships on the northern side of the river behind high sand dunes. He could see the ferryman who had hastily abandoned his raft, rope and winch. The man was fleeing through the dunes to the south of the estuary, unwilling, no doubt, to be questioned by the Fomorians about the two men and their grisly chariot decorations he had that morning ferried across the estuary to Béal a' Trá.

Farroch watched a large party of heavily armed and armoured men splash ashore from the ship and set off northwards at a jog. All they had to do was follow the chariot tracks. They had not gone far when about half of them split off and headed northwest, no doubt in a flanking manoeuvre. By some mysterious means, spiritual or telepathic, Cúchulainn was aware of Farroch's observations.

By now the two Ulstermen had dismounted from the chariot and, though weary, hungry and thirsty, strove with the horses to inch the chariot up to the lowest crossing point on *Mullachlár. The wheels began to lurch ominously as the sand gave way to a scatter of tilted, flat rocks, slippery with wrack and riven by treacherous clefts and fissures and deep, narrow pools in which a horse could break a leg or a wheel become wedged.

Then came a steeply rising bank of polished, flat stones, multicoloured pebbles, the whole glinting with galaxies of shattered white sea shells that crunched and cracked under their feet and under the chariot wheels. The horses began to slither and slide noisily, sometimes sinking to their haunches in this unstable mix. Aided by the two men, the tired horses strove valiantly to retain a footing and to generate traction for the chariot.

After the struggle up this steep foreshore they were now on an ancient track, beaten over centuries by men and animals. It followed a meandering line of least, though not inconsiderable, resistance up and over *Mullachlár, now towering menacingly above them. Cúchulainn, wracked with pains in his belly and groin, heaved mightily on the spokes of one wheel. Laeg, likewise uncomplaining about the curse of Macha, strove on the spokes of the other wheel.

"Give it all you've got Laeg. Never say die!"

"Aye, no surrender!" Laeg bellowed with renewed fervour.

Cúchulainn, puffing, panting and groaning, heartily cursed *Mullachlár as though it were an evil giant, wilfully sprawling its great mass across his path, sunning itself and cooling its rocky brow in the sea.

The ancient trail wound steeply up through the stiff, weathered grass and bramble-infested bracken and furze, in and out through weathered outcrops of limestone, splattered with green, orange and ochre lichen. Occasionally the rocks and bracken on their right gave way to a glimpse of the cliff edge and the sea. As they climbed, the wind rose to a strong breeze bringing with it the smell of the deep sea, wet wrack and sun-dried vegetation.

A lone gull wheeled and skimmed in over their heads, circled a few times and made off again as though disappointed that the chariot was not a plough offering a feast in its wake. The smells of bracken, wild flowers, wrack and brine evoked vivid memories for Cúchulainn; memories of feasting on blackberries and fraocháns, (bilberries) hunting the hare, fishing for codling and pollock at the foot of the cliffs; netting hundreds of frenzied mackerel for his local villagers as the shoals darted after the shimmering clouds of fry into the rocky inlets. He recalled with relish sunlit mornings as he lifted large slabs of wet limestone in search of peeler crabs for bait or to capture the giant, scuttling, pink edible crabs for his mother's table;

or filling his sack with periwinkles, mussels, whelks and barneogs (limpets) the shellfish cocktail that, with wholemeal bread and curd, was his favourite supper dish. Far out at low water mark on the strand he used to rake for cockles or walk backwards over the sand, his gaff poised, until a spout of water behind him, hence the backward walk, betrayed the presence of a rapidly descending razor fish. A quick thrust, twist and pull brought the long white shells to the surface.

Then there were the fearsome, barking conger eels left behind by the tide in the rock pools around the black rock cluster known as the Sleeping Rock or Carraig 'a Choladh because of its resemblance, at low tide, to a recumbent giant.

In spite of the increasing frequency of his abdominal pains the memory of the steaming razors, boiled in goat's milk and served with watercress and hot, brown bread, smothered in curd, caused a copious flood of saliva. He remembered the thrill of diving off high rocks at the base of *Mullachlár's cliffs into the dark green depths of pools and inlets, the rush of air as he hurtled down, the thunderous explosion of water in his eardrums as he pierced the surface, the blizzard of white bubbles as he knifed down into the depths.

He recalled vividly how, at the age of four, he had made friends with a colony of grey seals. Gradually they had built up a mutual trust, to such a degree that they completely lost their fear of one another. Indeed he often suspected, after he had played with their young, that the females thought he was one of their pups. When he would climb onto the rocks among them to rest they would sometimes nuzzle him gently or roll over as though offering him their dugs.

He was jerked back into the present by a shout from Laeg:

"To the south! Look to the south!"

Cúchulainn, maintaining his grip on the spokes of the wheel, shook his head to clear the sweat from his eyes. Away to the south he saw the swiftly moving column of men advancing along the beach, their armour and weapons glinting in the sun, a confirmation that he really had received a telepathic alert from Farroch. The sight spurred the two men to even greater effort, both of them now shouting encouragement to the distressed horses. Cúchulainn shouted through clenched teeth.

"Come on, we're almost there."

As the top of the ridge drew nearer and steeper, they made a final demand on their dwindling reserves of energy to make a last, desperate spurt to the top. Now there was just the bracken-crowned edge of the ridge against the blue of the sky. In a few moments they would be admiring a silver crescent of beach arcing away up northward to Dunany point; and beyond that the wider, longer sweep of Dundalk Bay; and beyond that again, like a gigantic blue army, the grand march of the distant Mournes into the distant sea. To the northwest the plain of Muirtheimhne continued to roll away beyond dense woodland and the high bulk of Tullagh Esker into the darkening distance towards Eamhain Macha and home.

Looking over his shoulder Cúchulainn was alarmed to see how much ground the pursuing Fomorians had gained. He could now make out their pale faces, their long red hair flying in the wind, their slender spears at the ready, their burnished shields flashing as they jogged steadily nearer. Suddenly one of the chariot horses sank to its haunches with an anguished whinny. The animal then fell over on its side, a terrible rattling in its throat. Its legs thrashed around wildly for a few seconds. It quivered from nose to tail in one last convulsion and lay still.

Cúchulainn shouted to Laeg to unhitch the dead horse from the chariot while he himself held onto the surviving animal, soothing it with the ancient skills of the horse-whisperer. When Laeg had unbuckled the harness the carcass slithered a few feet down through the loose shale into a clump of gorse. The remaining horse and the two men resumed their desperate efforts. As soon as they topped the crest at last both men threw themselves to the ground gasping loudly for breath. By now clouds of steam rose from the unfortunate horse as it tottered pitifully with exhaustion, its breath rasping and whistling noisily.

"Let's rest awhile, I'm about to die!" Cúchulainn panted.

"Don't!" puffed Laeg, his face buried in the crisp, dry grass. "Never say die, remember?"

As the loud gasps of the two men gradually subsided and their drumming heartbeats grew slower and softer, Cúchulainn sat up, facing south, just in time to see the tail-end of the column of Fomorians disappear behind the shoulder of the ridge. He sprang to his feet, stood still for a moment, wincing and groaning with pain. Both men began anxiously to scan the land in all directions. To the southwest Laeg spotted yet a third column of men. He pointed them out to Cúchulainn with a cry:

"Look! there. Another party of armed men. See those moss-green cloaks, and the green armour, almost invisible against the background!"

"Yes, more Fomorians. They must have split off from the main party and are trying to head us off."

At the same time, away to the north, shielded from Cúchulainn's view by the high clay and boulder cliffs of Dunany, Farroch saw the second Fomorian ship that had entered the mouth of the river at the Ford of the Paths (Áth nag Casán). In his mind Cúchulainn saw them too. The main body was heading south to meet the Ulstermen while a large contingent had split off and was moving rapidly to the south west. Through their unknown form of communication, magical or technological, the sea raiders were about to execute a three-pronged attack on the two Ulstermen.

Farroch moved closer to the spirit of Cúchulainn in response to a whispered utterance of his name. The Ulster warrior, usually obstinately self-sufficient, had on this occasion used the name of Farroch more as an expletive than an invocation. Farroch, nevertheless, responded.

Cúchulainn felt an inner jolt as his spirit made contact with his guardian and began, with a fervour and intimacy, to address him.

"Farroch, my powerful friend, I realise I have not yet fully learned the difference between bravery and foolhardiness."

"Cúchulainn, will you call on Farroch?"

"Shut up Laeg! I'm talking to him."

"Sorry! Sorry! Tell him to do something!"

"One doesn't tell Farroch. One asks!"

"Well get on with it then, you great muscle-bound oaf!"

Turning to face Laeg square on, Cúchulainn roared angrily:

"How many times do I have to remind you, you are allowed to insult me only in the heat of combat in order to provoke my battle rage."

"Sorry! I was just rehearsing. You'll shortly be needing all the goading I can muster."

"If you would stop jabbering for a moment I might be able to concentrate."

Cúchulainn closed his eyes and began to focus on his Guardian Spirit once more.

"Farroch my beloved Guardian, forgive me for this lapse. It was easy enough for me to slay a dozen murderous Fomorian raiders in combat, but I pursued them well beyond the range of my horses from Cooley to Brú na Bóinne, and knowing the Pains of Macha were due. Now they are closing in on us. Help me at least to save Laeg and the remaining horse."

Farroch sighed wearily, as Guardian Spirits frequently do:

"Your pursuers are more interested in the golden chariot than in you and Laeg or the horse. They are least interested in avenging their headless compatriots. Life to them is of no value."

He sighed again.

"Poor Cúchulainn, how I want you to win The Champion's Portion; but you have been growing more manlike than godlike since you were a child. Your rashness will be your undoing. If only you would call on me more often, spend time in thought-council with me."

The prayer link was broken abruptly as Cúchulainn's keen eyes spotted the dark mass of men far to the north swarming over the ridge of Dunany Point, their arms and armour flashing in the sun. He shouted:

"Do you think we could make a run west up the ridge? I know a route that can't be seen from below? If we keep our heads down below the furze and bracken we might be able to ...."

"Make a run?" Laeg roared, "this horse is close to death. He's been galloping full tilt for almost two days. It's a wonder he is still alive."

Cúchulainn turned angrily on Laeg.

"We must, without fail, reach the fort at Eamhain Macha before nightfall, or I will be immobilised by the pains. Then those Fomorians are going to have our heads."

"That's precisely my concern, If I drive the horse much further his heart will give out like the other one. Then, on foot, we'll not see Eamhain Fort until tomorrow at noon, that's if our heads are not decorating a Fomorian leader's tent."

"Then our best and only chance is to make a stand at the base of the cliff."

"Have you gone completely mad? They can drop rocks on us from above. They can bring a ship close in close enough to pick us off with slings."

"No! There's only one narrow path down the cliff. They'll have to follow us in single file. As for dropping rocks on us, there's a generous overhang to shelter us. If they attack from seaward, there is the refuge of the cave, the Tigrua. They know better than to come close enough to make a landing through submerged rocks."

"Then they'll simply pitch their tents and starve us to death. Besides we'd have to abandon the horse. The cliff path is too steep and narrow for him."

"We could wait until nightfall and swim for it to the Ford of the Paths."

"No! No! No!" roared Laeg. "We mustn't abandon the golden chariot. Besides you'd be overtaken by the pains and drown."

Cúchulainn rose painfully to his feet, eyes blazing and small flecks of white spittle at the corners of his mouth.

"Then you come up with a better idea. Any kind of idea!"

Before Laeg could respond, Cúchulainn's eyes swung suddenly up the slope to the left, focusing on an unfamiliar outcrop of pinkish rock rising up out of the bracken and gorse about two hundred yards away. He could not recall ever having seen such a feature there in all the years he had lived in the region; but it was not the strange rock that most engaged his attention. It was the strange figure rushing down the slope towards them.

"Look!"

Cúchulainn's arm-guard glinted as he pointed:

"What kind of a creature would you call that? Is it a demon? Have we not trouble enough!"

But it was no demon. It was a skinny old man. Dressed in strange robes, shirt and trews with broad, blue stripes over which he wore a long, threadbare, brown coat, fastened with a red, tasselled cord. He had long, unkempt white hair and a matching white beard. Hair and beard rose like smoke on the sea breeze.

With what looked like a flask in one hand he waved his arms, shouting something in a tired voice that sounded like the cry of a seabird. Cúchulainn stared hard, studiously, at the figure. A glimmer of recognition came and went like a shooting star. Laeg, wrinkling his nose, made a dismissive gesture in the old man's direction.

"We have no time to waste on a crazy old man, Cúchulainn. At this moment our need is far greater than his."

Ignoring Laeg, Cúchulainn ran towards the strange man.

Laeg sighed heavily and sat down resignedly on the coarse grass which the hungry horse had begun to crop eagerly. He shouted after Cúchulainn:

"I've always said your soft streak would be the death of us. If it's not stray dogs and cats it's grounded birds. And if not that it's crazy vagrants. So this is it then! We might as well rest here while we await our end."

Turning his gaze away from Cúchulainn's act of folly, Laeg caught the sightless eye of one of the severed heads.

"What the hell are you grinning at?"

Will our two heroes fight their way out of this situation? If so, their chances of success are low as they are vastly outnumbered by the advancing army of Formorians, and what about the crazy old man, surely he can only be a hindrance? Log on every Sunday for further chapters.

*Author's note - The Real Mullachlár