In an age long past the Gods walked the land and warred among themselves in the great war men named the God Wars. In that terrible time the Dark God was locked away in the Otherworld of Tir na Scáil, the Land of Eternal Shadow, by the Gods of Light, the Shining Ones. Now he again reaches out to touch the world in search of an ancient weapon forged by the Smith God. If he finds it the Long Night will fall forever over the lands of men. Waiting in his room to be summoned to the Hall of Mirrors to receive his penance for violating the Goddess Danu's Sanctuary, Ciarán, a young Celtae warrior, is enveloped in a golden light and given a perilous quest-journey across the Forbidden Lands, the realms of the Dark God's powerful Psi'ans, the Ring Lords, and find the Sunspear before it falls into the hands of the Shadow. In the crucible of the Forbidden Lands Ciarán learns the true price of being a Psi'an-the constant struggle he must wage against his Darksoul each time he opens a vortex to his Psi, the vast psionic power of the inner mind. If his Darksoul escapes into his conscious mind, he will become a creature of the Dark God. Book I of The God wars of Ithir, Warrior of the Three Moons begins the great quest to claim the Sunspear by Ciarán and his companions: The one-eyed Battle Druidess, Scáthach, The mysterious Red Druid, Oisín, who teaches Ciarán to use his psionic powers, and the tiny Sean Priestess, Rillsong, who lays claim to his heart.

Warrior of the Three Moons

Book I of the God Wars of IthirBy J. Michael Robertson

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 J. Michael Robertson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-7806-9

Contents

Chapter 1. The Flight Of The Wood Elf..........................1Chapter 2. Confrontations......................................17Chapter 3. Man-Day.............................................33Chapter 4. Scáthach's Secret..............................51Chapter 5. A Voice In The Light................................67Chapter 6. The Ard Fáinne.................................83Chapter 7. Destiny's Path......................................97Chapter 8. Rise A Warrior......................................111Chapter 9. Battle Druidess.....................................125Chapter 10. A Gift Of Farewell.................................139Chapter 11. A Dance Of Spears..................................151Chapter 12. The Shame Of A Thousand Years......................169Chapter 13. A Dream Of Passage.................................183Chapter 14. Rillsong...........................................199Chapter 15. Plans Within Plans.................................211Chapter 16. Troll Hound........................................227Chapter 17. Wolfbrother........................................243Chapter 18. Dark Dream.........................................255Chapter 19. The Stone Of Tears.................................271Chapter 20. The Quest Begins...................................285Chapter 21. Into The Forbidden Lands...........................301Chapter 22. The Horse Clans....................................317Chapter 23. Women's Business...................................331Chapter 24. The Gleaning.......................................349Chapter 25. Shadow Priest......................................363Chapter 26. The Turning........................................379Chapter 27. One Cup Of Wine....................................391Chapter 28. Breaking The Thirteenth Circle.....................405Chapter 29. Warrior Of The Three Moons.........................419Glossary.......................................................429The People In Warrior Of The Three Moons.......................453

Chapter One

The Flight Of The Wood Elf

"Dream-fair, beside dream waters, it stands alone. A winged thought of Lugh laid its corner stone. A desire of his heart raised its walls on high, And set its crystal windows to flaunt the sky." The Shadow House of Lugh - Anonymous, Ireland, 8th Century

The Wheel of the Year has turned four thousand times since the Gods defeated their brother, the Khem Úru, the Dark God, in the God Wars. A thousand years have passed since the Battle Druid Cuhulain, the last Warrior of the Three Moons, was slain at the Raven Stone. In that desperate time the mythical Sunspear forged in the God Age by the Smith God, Goibhniu was lost to the sight of men. Now the Dark God again reaches out to touch the world. With his stirring, the Long Night begins to fall over Éirinn, sacred land of the Celtae.

* * *

The boy crept stealthily to the edge of the thicket of maple and hemlock lining the riverbank. He cast a quick look up and down the fast moving Erináen and then scrambled down to the shoal of pebbles below. This trip, with the help of old Angus MacRaibh, a traveling tinker, he had sneaked a sword, bow case, and horn bow out of Sky Stone. By leaving before morn had chimed and hiding in Angus' wagon, he had eluded the young Ainnir who had begun shadowing his every waking moment.

Born in the month of the Willow Moon, he was named after Ciarán of the Long Spear, a long dead hero of the Éireanni, his mother's people. Left to his own devices, which was seldom, he devoted himself to becoming a great warrior like Long Spear. Tall, with broad shoulders and narrow waist, he was nearing the size of the man he would become and had to stoop to enter the cave the Erináen had carved into its bank. Straightening, he felt along the shelf of rock until he found the glow lamp and lifted its shutter. When his eyes had adjusted to the light, he turned the hourglass sitting beside it. Then smugly congratulating himself, he wrapped sword, bow case and horn bow in oiled cloth and placed them on a ledge. He quickly inspected the clothing, mail shirt, short sword, belt knife, and other items that he had stored in the cave before winter had frozen the land. He breathed a sigh of relief. Sulis, Goddess of rivers and lakes, had favored him. The river's spring flood had not risen to the rock shelves carved in the cave's walls.

Finishing his inspection, he glanced at the hour glass. More than half the sand remained in the upper globe. If he hurried, he could finish the raft he needed to ferry his equipment across the Erináen when the time came. He took a pouch of leather thongs from a ledge and went to the pile of four-span-long poles stacked by the cave wall. Selecting four stout ones, he carefully lashed them to the cross members of the small raft. When it was finished, he leaned it against the wall next to the entrance. After making sure everything was securely wrapped, he shuttered the glow lamp and crawled out onto the stony beach.

Rain spattered into the stones, forcing him to pull up the hood of his cloak. Pushing a lock of raven-black hair from his eyes, he looked at the sky. The storm that had come during the night had settled in the Erináen's broad valley, cloaking the early morning in grays and silvers. Ostara, the festival marking the beginning of spring lay a month in the past, but the wind swirling through the trees was cold, as though the Frost Giants, who ruled the eternal winter of the Cairngorm's high peaks, were reluctant to give up their hold on the land. He shivered and picked up a hemlock branch lying by the entrance. Slowly backing up the path, he brushed away all signs that he had been here.

He paused at the top, his breath clouding the chill air in little puffs. Northward across the Erináen, the Coill mór Dubh rose ridge behind ridge of gray and green into the morning until it faded, featureless and shadowy, into the deep curtain of rain. In another month, if things happened as he thought they would, he would have to survive there. Stories told by the bards said that the Black Forest was the land of Sean. He pulled his woolen bratt close against the rain. The Faeryfolk, if they existed, were a problem for the future. He had a more immediate challenge to overcome.

Up river Sky Stone, Clan Donnachaidh's great hold stood like a sentinel at the tip of its peninsula. Even here, two leagues away, the massive pillar of white granite was impressive. Legend held that Llew, Lord of the Morning, had raised the oval shaped monolith in the God Age when he walked among men, and battled the Dark God in the War of the Gods. It was not until after the Raven Wars that the Stone, long abandoned by the God, became the Clan Hold of the Donnachaidh, a Highland Clan of the Scotti.

Cold rain stung his face, driving him from his musing. "Quit woolgathering," he muttered. "The Ainnir are hunting you by now." He had not forgotten the promise they had made the last time they had caught him outside the Clan Hold. "Bond servants do not come and go as they please, Wood Elf," Kiara, his foster sister had said. "If you leave the Stone again without a woman's permission, my battle sisters will give your rump a welting, and bring you back tied to a carrying pole in nothing but your skin." It was a warning he could not heed, even if he wanted to. He had to have his trail kit stored in the cave before the festival of Beltaine.

He slipped into the woods, taking care not to break the tightly curled fronds of giant male ferns pushing their way up through the dense pack of leaves and needles covering the forest floor. In another fortnight the ground would be covered with the waist-high ferns that thrived in the gloom beneath the forest's thick canopy. He paused to let his eyes adjust and took a deep breath. The moist air smelled of growing things and the pungent tang of cedar and pine. Moving silently over the leafy carpet, he came to the large, dark pool of snow-melt and rain that lay between the road and his cave. The mating songs of wood frogs and spring peepers quieted in advance of his footfall, only to start up again as soon as he passed. Avoiding soft ground where he would leave tracks, his thoughts turned to getting back into the Stone. Free of winter's grasp, the Caer Isca road was crowded with merchants and craftsmen eager to sell or trade their goods at Stonehaven's market. If the Gods favored him, he would be able to slip through the Sword Gate masked by the throng of early arrivals waiting to get in.

He was almost to the road when his warrior's sixth sense set off alarms in his head. The only warning that Ainnir were in the woods was a brief flicker of movement in the trees ahead. He dove under a hemlock's drooping branches and went still. Dressed in the dark-grey trousers and tunic he wore in the Stone's training Yard, he blended with the shadows. He held his breath as two battle maids flitted past, silent as woods wraiths. A faint scent of lilac wafted into his hiding place to mix with the loamy smell of damp earth and decaying needles. Inhaling slowly, he forced himself to patience and waited. He had almost convinced himself that it was safe to leave when they were suddenly back. Stopping only a few spans away, they paused to drink from their flasks.

"I think Sián mistook where he left the road," one said in a low voice.

"She does not make mistakes like that, Eadith," the other answered. "He is around here somewhere, and we will find him." There was a soft giggle. "Do not worry, sister. You will get your reward."

"My reward? What are you blathering about, Nimue?"

There was another giggle. "You will get to see him air clad when we catch him."

"Nimue!" Eadith's voice was scandalized. "You are worse than a flatland wanton."

"Aye, sister. Watching him dance the swords makes me feel like one at times."

They caught a fit of giggles and moved off, leaving Ciarán blushing beneath the hemlock. Going to the road and intermingling with merchants and travelers was no longer possible. A few minutes later, he was stealthily making his way through the forest. As he walked, his mind drifted back to the day six years ago when he had carried out the foolish quest to sneak into the Women's Quarter and bring out a prize. The Women's Quarter was a place of mystery. Laws old when the Gods walked the living world forbade warriors, or any man for that matter, to enter unescorted. Even his father, the Clan Chief, had to be escorted by a maitrun when he went there. He had asked everyone from bondservants to the Yardmaster why men could not enter without permission. The answer was always the same—women's business. Whatever the reason, violators were severely punished. For his law-breaking, the Geal Fáinne had placed him in bondage to the women of Sky Stone for six years.

That was not the only law he had broken that storm-filled night. He had entered Danu's sacred grove on top of the Stone, a place no male was allowed to go—ever. From there he had gained entrance into the rooms below using the huge vent shafts connected to every hearth in the Stone. It had not been a woman's apartment he had slipped into, but the sanctuary of the Goddess Danu. There in the huge chamber hollowed out of the rock beneath the Moon Temple, he had found the Staff of Virgins. To a boy of eleven name days, the oaken staff seemed unimportant compared to the glittering gold and silver implements of ritual stored in the alcove. "How was I to know its importance in the rite used to raise girls to womanhood?" he muttered.

The night she had captured him trying to return the staff, Máironwy ni Pádraigín, the High Priestess of Danu at Holy Rood, had told him he would know the penance for his transgression against the Goddess on his seventeenth name day. That was why the battle maids were shadowing his every waking moment. His man day—the day he would be deemed a man and given his punishment for desecrating Danu's Sanctuary, was a week away. The maidens, led by Kiara, were making sure he did not run away. "As if I would do anything so dishonorable," he snorted indignantly. "My mother already thinks I am without honor for what I did as a reckless child. I will not shame her by running from Danu's retribution."

The ululating war cry of the Ainnir echoed through the forest. "Idiot!" he murmured. "Woolgathering with that lot hunting you will get your neck in a captive's knot before you can blink." Even with his attention focused on the forest around him, it took all of his skill in woodcraft to evade them. Mid-morning found him concealed in a Rowan grove at the top of a low hill overlooking a wide meadow. Beyond it lay the moat and the thirty-span high Dragon Wall that ran across the southern end of the peninsula. The great massif of Sky Stone towered a thousand spans into the sky behind the wall. A league away, the Caer Isca road was crowded with merchants and travelers afoot and on horseback, seeking entrance.

His gaze swept the field of knee-high yellow oat lying between him and the gate. Nothing moved, but a battle maid could make herself invisible on a slate floor. As he watched, a dozen of them rose from the grass a hundred paces to his left and trotted into the woods. His eyes narrowed when he saw the long switches in their hands. Then two more groups got to their feet and disappeared into the forest. If he had run for the gate from here, he would have blundered right into them—and a beating.

Rolling slowly onto his back, he stared into the woods, trying to see through the mist that had risen there. There was no movement or sound; the birds and squirrels had gone quiet. A gust of wind tugged at his bratt, bringing with it the smell of burning wood from Stonehaven's chimneys. Cold drops shaken from the rowan spattered into the bushes around him, pulling his eyes to the low clouds scudding overhead. The patter in the rowan became a roar as another rain squall swept over his hill. Hopefully the heavy rain would make the Ainnir think more about staying dry instead of catching him.

A ram's horn bleated in the woods. It was answered by others coming from the right and from the river on his left. There was a moment's silence and then a chorus of wild ululating war cries echoed in the hills behind him. He quelled an urge to make a run for the gate. Easy, boyo. They know you are on the river side of the road and are trying to scare you into the open. He had no doubt that there were more Ainnir hidden in the yellow oat. Those who had gone into the forest had let him see them on purpose to make him careless. Just as all the caterwauling coming from the woods was meant to panic him into running. "Wolves after a stag," he muttered.

To his right, a thick stand of trees jutted into the field. He would make his dash for sanctuary from there and set off along the hill, making sure he stayed below its crest. Reaching a point above the trees, he scuttled down the hill into the thick underbrush at its foot. Using the heavy rain to mask his movement, he crept toward the meadow. A quiver of movement in a stand of Hawthorn froze him into stillness. He stared at the spot. A crouching Ainnir slowly materialized. Had she not moved, he would not have seen her. How many were with her? As his eyes adjusted to the pattern of the trees he found four more.

He pulled his belt knife from its sheath and cut a limb from a Maple sapling. A mirthless smile touched his lips. Rumps were going to feel a switch's kiss this morning, but it was not going to be his. He was almost to the kneeling battle maids when one of them turned and saw him. Before she could give warning, he bolted past them, leaving startled yelps of pain in his wake. Their confusion was short-lived. He burst from the trees with the Ainnir in full cry behind him.

"After him, sisters! A silver mark to the one who brings the Wood Elf down."

He grimaced. It was Kiara. A horn sounded three sharp trills. A score of Ainnir rose up from the grass near the river and ran along the moat to cut him off. More ran up the road. A chorus of war cries came from behind him. He spared a glance over his shoulder and almost ended up on his face. A hundred more were running across the field in pursuit, waving switches over their heads. "Keep your eyes on those to your front, lack-wit. They are the threat." He picked up his pace.

People were gathering on top of the wall, staring through the crenels to see what the ruckus was about. Ainnir, no doubt, come to watch the Wood Elf run down and carried into the Stone tied to a carrying pole. Anger seeped into him. "Hurt them!" a voice whispered from within. Startled by the alien thought, he formed the Flowing Burn, letting the soothing waters of the mind stilling carry his anger away until only cold resolve was left.

A shout came from the Ainnir. He lengthened his stride, feeling as though he could run forever. "Why are there were none between me and the bridge?" he wondered aloud. "Kiara would not be that careless." The words were hardly out of his mouth when half a dozen leaped up from the yellow oat twenty paces in front of him. Cheered on by their battle sisters, they came at him in a bunch. There was no time to avoid them. He put a shoulder into the first one, sending her flying into the battle maid behind her. At the same time he shoved another into two more. They went down in a yelling heap of flailing arms and legs. Then he was past them, sprinting for the bridge—and sanctuary.

He reached the road thirty paces ahead of those running up it. Merchants and travelers gaped as he darted between wagons and pack horses waiting to cross the moat. Gone was the clean smell of the forest. The dank air he sucked into his burning lungs smelled of algae-covered stone, the pungent odor of horse droppings, and a hundred other smells coming from wagons and packs.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Warrior of the Three Moonsby J. Michael Robertson Copyright © 2010 by J. Michael Robertson. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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