Pride of Lions (20 page)

They refused to take Gormlaith, however.

She was left with Neassa at Corcomrua

"to keep you safe." No matter how she raged, her son was adamant, although Conor's own womenfolk were not too happy at the prospect.

As Donough rode away, the January air smelled crisp and clean, sweeping the smoke of too many late-night fires from his nostrils.

He did not see the woman who stood in the gateway, watching him go.

While Donough was on his way to Kincora, Domnall Mac Donohue gradually

approached Limerick, the Norse trading town at the mouth of the Shannon. Teigue was making no move to intercept him, so he took his time. His men were marching through rich countryside, and plundering was good. The Owenacht felt no responsibility toward the smaller, weaker tribes of Munster.

Brian Boru had been the mortar that held them all together, but he was gone.

If this raid was successful, Domnall was considering challenging Cian for leadership of their tribe. And that might be just a steppingstone.

Anyone, no matter how obscure, could rise to the highest honors in Ireland--had Brian Boru not proved it?

No one was more surprised than Teigue when Donough arrived at Kincora with a small army at his back. At first he refused them admittance. But at his wife's urging, he finally met with Donough in the great hall.

Donough's followers were kept outside the stronghold, however, and their weapons taken from them while the two brothers talked. Conor and Fergal and some of the others wandered down to the river to throw stones across the water and wager who could hurl a missile the farthest.

Teigue faced his younger brother in an atmosphere sparking with tension. The timbers of the hall still seemed to echo with their anger of the preceding summer.

The older man would not bring himself to apologize for the argument between them, and it never occurred to Donough to apologize. But he did say, "We lost a lot of Dalcassians at Clontarf, and you might not feel you have enough men to confront Domnall.

So I brought you as many as I could gather."

"You brought warriors for me?"

"Of course."

"Who said I was going to fight Domnall?"

"You are, aren't you? This march on Limerick is just the first step in a campaign, anyone can see that. Stop him now, or fight him and Cian and their whole tribe before next winter."

Teigue scowled. "Who told you to say this to me? That scheming mother of yours?"

The skin around Donough's eyes

tightened but he held his temper. "Gormlaith isn't with me now. I don't need anyone to do my thinking for me. I'm trying to think like my father--

and so should you, if his kingdom means anything to you."

"You brought this on us, quarreling with Cian."

"It isn't Cian," Donough pointed out,

"who's attacking Limerick. You have to stop him."

The Abbot of Kill Dalua kept making the same argument. After considerable soul-searching, Teigue had been about to give in when Donough arrived. His unexpected appearance was like an omen. Still, Teigue could not surrender without a struggle--not to Gormlaith's son.

"Perhaps I'll think about it," he said grudgingly.

"Think fast. I expect Domnall's at the gates of Limerick by now."

Domnall Mac Donohue was not at the gates of Limerick--not quite. He and his men were still some miles south when they learned an army was rushing toward them from Kincora.

Domnall was frankly surprised. "I didn't think he'd fight!" Dispatching runners to collect his scattered, pillaging warriors, he prepared for battle.

Teigue's Dalcassians were not scattered.

As they had learned to do under the late Ard Ri, they formed into a tight battle formation and marched with grim purpose. Donough rode with the other officers, glancing back from time to time to be certain his personal followers stayed close behind him.

All his being was concentrated on the battle to come. He no longer thought of his mother, or Neassa--or even the girl in the red skirt.

Whatever importance they had in his life would be in abeyance while man met man to fight to the death.

He felt both weightless and intensely alive.

Soon he would be in battle. Not simple skirmishing, but war as Brian Boru had known it, roaring overwhelming war, hundreds of men running at one another in white anger, wielding their weapons with singleminded ferocity. War that defined a man, showed him his own strengths and weaknesses, exalted his courage or laid bare his cowardice.

How could a man know himself until he experienced war?

All his life, it seemed, Donough had been waiting for this day. It did not matter that he followed Teigue's banner. What mattered was having the opportunity to prove himself to himself.

He wondered if he would be sufficiently courageous. Before his very first skirmish he had been nervous and excited but not fearful, because he did not know what to expect. Now he knew. He had seen and heard and smelled death and he knew that most men were afraid, though they did not admit it to one another. Admitting fear weakened a man, somehow.

Marching to face the Owenacht, Donough knew he was afraid--not so much of death, as of a failure of nerve.

Or worse--of failing to live up to what he expected of himself.

Chapter Twenty-six

Domnall Mac Donohue veered away from Limerick and led his warriors along the east bank of the Shannon, looking for a battleground that would give him the advantage. He decided to await Teigue at a rocky ford above a series of falls, a place where men of the Uaithne tribe built small boats for fishing. Coming down the west bank of the Shannon from Kincora, the Dalcassians would have to cross the river to attack. Armies were always vulnerable while fording. A barrage of well-thrown spears could reduce Teigue's force by as much as half before they ever gained the riverbank.

Domnall gave the order to pitch camp. His Owenachts erected barricades of loot covered with leather hides; their recently acquired plunder included everything from chests of clothing and casks of wine to farming tools and sacks of corn. They settled down behind this makeshift stockade in anticipation of their next success.

They did not have to wait long.

Brazen trumpet and goatskin-covered bodhran announced the approach of the Dalcassians. As so often that spring the day was cold and wet, with a numbing wind that carried the sound.

Domnall of Desmond, a tall, dark man with blue eyes as hard as polished stones, surveyed his warriors with approval. Behind their barricades they waited to hurl javelins at the Dalcassians as soon as they reached the midpoint of the river. Those who survived the first onslaught could be expected to form a broad line and charge the Owenacht emplacement, but a second barrage should complete their destruction.

A broad line no more than two or three men deep had characterized Celtic warfare since the days when the Gauls fought Caesar. Having studied Caesar's campaign strategies, Brian Boru had attempted to introduce new tactics to his own warriors. Abandoning the frontal assault that risked everything on a wild charge, he had developed more complex and subtle formations, varying them to suit the terrain and situation.

With his death, however, the warriors of Ireland had quickly reverted to their old familiar battle style. Not enough time had passed to turn Brian's innovations into tradition. So Domnall was confident that the Dalcassians, like his Owenachts, would fight as their ancestors had fought; as their grandsons would fight.

Brian Boru was dead and nothing had really changed in Ireland after all, Domnall thought, grinning mirthlessly as the first Dalcassians emerged from the trees on the far side of the river.

"Get ready, lads," he called to his waiting men.

They shifted behind their barricades; peered cautiously over; hefted their throwing spears.

On the far side of the river, Teigue looked first to the left and then the right, gathering the eyes of his officers. He was not a warrior by inclination or disposition, but the men with him were what remained of the army Brian had forged.

"Now," he said.

They flowed forward to take the shape of a spearhead, each man half-shielded by the man in front of him. Meanwhile flankers moved wide to circle above and below the falls, closing in on the Owenacht camp from the rear.

There would be no expected broad frontal charge.

The point of the spear, as they began fording the river, was Teigue himself, riding a stocky bay horse with a black mane, descendant of the Norse horses imported two centuries earlier by the Vikings. His two largest captains rode behind him, and behind them were four almost as large.

Instead of the traditional round shield, all carried shields specifically shaped to protect the upper body while on horseback. The shields were worn on the arm of the hand that held the rein, leaving the other hand free for weaponry. The warriors' heads were protected by fitted leather helmets reinforced with metal plates, lighter than the old bronze Celtic helmet, more comfortable than iron Viking headgear.

As the leaders splashed through the shallows they formed an almost invulnerable wedge. Close behind them more Dalcassians maintained a tight formation.

Ronan was among them, and Fergal. They had fought this way before, they knew exactly what to do. They roared across the river and hurled their human spearhead straight at the heart of the enemy.

A few Owenacht javelins found their targets, but the Dalcassians were so tightly packed and thoroughly shielded that for the most part they shed the missiles as a turtle sheds rain.

Donough rode in the third rank of the spearhead. From the moment his horse entered the river his fears were submerged beneath a wave of exhilaration.

"Now," Teigue had commanded. Now and now!

Gallop forward now, scream now, hurl oneself at the enemy with the high, hot battle-lust pouring through the veins like wine ...

With a mighty effort Donough controlled himself.

The men around him did the same, their natural impetuosity curbed by years of training. Instead of a rash headlong charge into sure death they held to the rhythm of martial music, the rain of spears glancing off their shields providing a counterpoint to the thunder of the bodhran.

Vercingetorix of Gaul had once watched Caesar advance on him thus; cold, determined, implacable.

As the Dalcassians emerged from the river, Teigue reined his horse off to one side. "I will lead you, but I won't personally kill an Owenacht," he had informed his men when they set out that morning. "When I stand on the Rock of Cashel to receive my father's crown as King of Munster, I don't want the men of Desmond to refuse me because Owenacht blood is fresh on my hands."

Out of the corner of his eye, Donough saw his brother ride clear of the action.

The position at the front was briefly vacated.

Before anyone else could fill it, Donough surged forward. Brandishing his

short-sword he shouted, "Abu Dal gCais!" Then with sudden inspiration he bellowed his father's personal war cry, the unforgettable cry that had not been heard in Ireland since the Ard Ri died.

"Boru!" roared the old lion's youngest cub.

"Boru! Boru! BORU!

Behind him the full force of the living spearhead drove into the Owenacht barricade.

Order and discipline vanished in the wink of an eye. The mounted Dalcassians sent their horses plunging through the flimsy barriers. Within moments the muddy earth was littered with everything from pitchforks and torn hides to spilled flour and broken wine casks.

The foot warriors flooded through the breach.

Throwing down their spears, the Owenachts met them with swords and axes and bare fists, fighting a desperate defensive action, but the momentum was with the Dalcassians.

Owenacht nerve broke. First one and then another threw down his weapons.

Domnall screamed at them, but it was no good.

Brandishing his two-handed sword, the warlord from Desmond rushed forward to attack his enemy with all the mad bravado of a mythic hero, shrieking the war cry of his tribe.

Some of his men followed.

Many did not.

Without hesitation, the Dalcassians cut them down.

Watching from upstream, Teigue was aghast to realize his younger brother had so swiftly assumed leadership. But it was too late to ride back and try to wrest it from him; too late, and the maneuver would be too obvious.

Donough fought as he had long dreamed of fighting, with reckless abandon, adding to the energy of his youth the force of his pent-up frustrations. He leaned from his horse to strike one man after another.

But that was not good enough; he wanted to be immersed in battle. So he slid from his mount and fought on foot amid the press of struggling bodies.

From his observation point Teigue glimpsed his younger brother's head towering above the others. Then it vanished.

In that moment Teigue forgot the

friction between them and shouted "Donough!" When moments later Donough reappeared at the center of the melee, apparently unscathed, he felt limp with relief.

I'll let him have Kincora, he thought.

I'll let him have anything he wants, if only he survives this!

Some instinct deep within him, however, prevented his making it a sacred vow.

Through the stink of sweat and the smell of blood, feet slipping on mud compounded by spilled wine, ears deafened by screams and shrieks and the clang of metal, Donough fought.

He had no sense of time passing.

A battle axe swung toward him like death's reaper. He ducked instinctively, lifting his shield, and felt the power behind the thwarted blow shiver into his bones. He lowered the shield just enough to counterattack and caught his opponent off-balance. With a lunging thrust Donough drove his short-sword into the man's exposed armpit.

*

As Teigue watched, regretting every decision he had made, the battle spilled out of the broken barricades and spread up and down the banks of the river. By this time the flankers had crossed successfully and were moving in from the rear. Screams of anger changed to howls of fear as the Owenacht warriors realized the hopelessness of their situation.