Nighttime was not far away as they crested the rise and caught sight of Bull’s Head Rock. Volt drew rein beside Upthog, who was clucking gently to her mount and stroking its neck. The ride from the Great Forest had been challenging, and her horse was skittish and whinnying.

  “Your mare is a bit on the nervous side,” Volt said, trying to make conversation.

  “Ye ever been to this place?” she asked, nodding at the twin horns sticking from the headland like the points of a battle weapon. “It’s enough to make any sane creature skittish.”

  Volt shivered and shook his head. “I never came further south than Donn’s Needle. Never felt the need.”

  He wondered about the implication of her words. If there was one thing he was sure of, this woman had a complex past that would take a lot of delving to uncover.

  Do I want to uncover it, though?

  “There’s nothing to fear here,” Fachta said as he reined in beside them.

  “Are The Four not here?” Volt asked. The Tuatha just grinned at him as though he thought the question infantile. Volt supposed it might very well be infantile. Where else would The Four be? “I mean, should we not fear the servants of Dhuosnos?”

  “We are the Tuatha. They bow to us, Horse Warrior,” Maga said.

  “And if there are demons?”

  “Witches control demons, I think. I brought along a witch, so we have nothing to fear.”

  “Depends what I order the monster to do, no?” Upthog said with a grin.

  “If you order it to do anything I don’t like, then I will kill it.”

  Upthog laughed at Fachta’s confidence. Volt was not sure it was misplaced. He’d seen the Tuatha use his sword, and all the bedtime stories agreed with Maga: it was the mythical beings who drove Dhuosnos and his vassals back into their holes at the end of a Scourge. Admittedly, he’d not seen the demon Upthog and Fachta said was with the boy, but the Tuatha were… well… Gods. At least according to all the best bedtime stories and Maga, they were superior to all other beings.

  But are they just stories and arrogance? he wondered, rubbing his bristles and listening to the rasp with a sense of satisfaction.

  Volt was aware he didn’t know enough to decide. He glanced at Upthog, conscious that she had been about to tell him something about witches, when they’d been interrupted by her friend, Sainreth. Since then, he’d had no chance to ask her because it took time for Upthog to convince the captain to let them continue to Bull’s Head. Sainreth had been all for bringing them to the clan stronghold at Sliabh Culinn on the forest’s eastern edge.

  “Enough talk,” Maga said. “We need to get down this hill and ensure the summoner is there.”

  “And, if he ain’t?” Upthog asked.

  Volt could hear the derision in her tone, but Maga seemed to have missed it, ignoring the dig and nudging her horse into motion down the slope.

  “If the boy is not yet here, we will hunt for him,” Maga called over her shoulder.

  Staring at the rocks below the tower, at the dark entrance to Bull’s Head: the domain of evil, he thought he saw movement. It was a fleeting glimpse of a lighter shade in the dark surrounding it, not something he could be sure of.

  Shrugging, he nudged his horse into motion and followed the Tuatha down the hill. Reaching the level before the tunnel, Volt saw two horses grazing near the entrance and several ponies scattered nearby. He wondered why the horses weren’t tied to a rail beside the rocks.

  “Come, let’s get into the Arena,” Maga said as she swung from her saddle.

  Volt wondered what she meant. He wondered if there was some fighting ring under the rocks of the headland. Swinging out of his saddle he sighed, realising it didn’t matter what she meant. He would be heading into the hole in the rocks with the rest despite having an ingrained aversion to dark, cramped spaces. Before he followed them, he hesitated and drew a breath. He needed iron to enter this hole, and iron wasn’t something that came to him naturally.

  Grinning at the idiocy of a warrior without iron, he adjusted his sword belt on his hips, rubbed his bristles, and walked towards his destiny.

  Volt was surprised to find a spacious and well-lit corridor waiting beyond the maw. From outside, the tunnel had appeared dark, and he realised some shield was stopping the light from breaching the tunnel’s boundary. A broad set of stone stairs led down into the rock’s core. He saw the others were already nearing the bottom, so he ran to catch them. Reaching the others, Volt saw a long corridor ending in a tall arch with grotesque beasts carved into the stone columns. They seemed so lifelike they appeared to be monsters leached of colour and frozen in the act of writhing towards the arch’s apex.

  Volt held his breath as he followed the others down the corridor and through the archway. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the light, what he saw made him blow his breath out in a gale of pent-up energy.

  He could see why Maga described it as an arena. The room was a hexagon with a high, vaulted ceiling. Columns similar to those at the entrance joined each wall of the hexagon, their lifelike demons writhing up and joining at the apex. Each wall of the hexagon was constructed of some dark material that absorbed the light, seeming to be at battle with the room’s torches. Aside from the entrance where he stood, there were doors in four of the walls. Either side of each doorway, sconces held braziers emitting enough light to see by but not enough to win the battle and diminish the arena’s gloominess. The floor had a channel shaped like a pentagram—its point aimed at the dais.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  In front of the sixth wall was a dais with a massive throne of black stone and a cauldron on a tripod above a firepit. The boy was sitting on the throne. Mac Da Tho was standing beside him. Mesroeda leant over the steaming cauldron, stirring the contents with an iron rod, unaware of their arrival.

  “Ye can’t continue with this nonsense, Bren,” Upthog said from beside Volt.

  Bren?

  Mesroeda looked up from the cauldron with a grin on his face. He hefted the rod as if he was thinking about throwing it at her. Volt put his hand on his sword hilt, watching his former First Warrior’s face develop a tic causing the skin to ripple like a pond with a stone thrown into it. Volt frowned as the ripples grew more violent and Mesroeda let out a growl of pain, shaking his head as if to counter the agony. When the shaking stopped, Mesroeda was no longer standing on the dais. In his place, stood a young man with obvious genetic connections to Upthog. They could have been identical twins.

  Shape changer. So, they do exist.

  Of course, he’d known they existed. Maga told him. However, Volt had always put more faith in his eyes than in the words of others—especially those who had proven unreliable in other ways.

  “Is that you, little sister?” the shape changer asked, tilting his head.

  “Aye, brother, it’s me. And who did ye think He would send to stop this madness?”

  “It’s not madness, Bechuille. Far from it. Me and the boy will rule over an age of true darkness, not Dagda’s pithy imitation of a scourge. A true scourge.”

  “Ye truly believe ye have the power to usurp the giant? If so, Mother has more than her hand on yer shoulder, Bren.”

  “Mother?” her brother said, confusion etching his feature. “Oh, you mean the Moon Goddess. She’s more your mother than mine, Bee,” the shape changer said, the grin on his face not shifting.

  Volt looked from one to the other. He’d known the woman was hiding something, or if not hiding, at least not being open about what was happening. The Tuatha said she was Dhuosnos’s disciple, meant to get the boy to the Arena to begin a Scourge, but that now seemed far from her actual task. She always told him Kathvar had killed her brother and now it transpired Kathvar was her brother.

  Who are they? Witches they say but what does that mean.

  “What is happening?” Maga demanded. Fachta was fingering the hilt of his sword, preparing to meet the situation in the only way he knew.

  The boy, Scamp, was concentrating on the siblings, his face a mask of confusion and something akin to horror.

  “You think me touched by the moon? I will show you, who your Mother favours, Little Sister.”

  With the words, Mesroeda lifted his hands above his head and Volt thought he could hear him incanting under his breath. The witch seemed to speed up the incantation until he finally threw his hands forward and shouted something unintelligible.

  Nothing happened.

  “Ye’ve exhausted Dhuosnos’s Earth Power, Bren,” Upthog said with a smile. “Running all over the Kingdoms in different shapes is a costly exercise. Ye knew the lore once, no. Have ye forgotten it?”

  Volt watched a gamut of emotions wash across Mesroeda’s face. He was at once scared, surprised, and angry. Anger was the overriding emotion. Anger and hatred so deep and vile it seemed to shine out like a beacon of negative light, forcing the braziers to dim even more.

  “I might not have Earth Power, but I do have a demon. Bábdíbir, show yourself.”

  “And why do ye think it will follow ye and not me?’ Upthog asked. “We’re both witches, no.”

  Mesroeda laughed and shook his head. “I told it my vision; it can see a future outside Tech Duinn. It wants a future beyond the Lord of Darkness’s realm.”

  “Oh, shite,” Upthog said as a wavering of the air before the dais morphed into a horned beast of muddy-red skin, the same colour as the tiles on the towers of Gorias.

  Volt had heard Upthog describe the monster. She hadn’t done it justice in his eyes. It stood the height of three tall men and carried a massive, black-headed axe; black except for the blade’s edges, which were polished to a silvery sheen. The demon’s shoulders and chest were covered in iron plate, as were its forearms. It wore boots clad in iron with spikes above the toes.

  “Tuatha preserve us,” Volt said, just above a whisper. He now found himself doubting the ability of the Tuatha to fight this monster. Fachta might have a sword and know how to use it, but it was nothing compared to the shining axe the demon carried.

  “Come, Fachta, your time has arrived,” Maga said, drawing her sword.

  Volt heard the ring of iron on scabbards as the Tuatha Leathdhosaen followed Maga’s lead. In moments, Fachta bellowed and charged towards the monster with his sword held aloft. The rest of the warriors fanned out to surround the demon, putting it at a disadvantage.

  Volt doubted the tactic would work.

  “Why isn’t it cloaked? It would defeat us with ease if we couldn’t see it,” he wondered aloud as the clash of iron on iron echoed through the arena.

  “It can’t cloak when concentrating on something else,” Upthog said. “Cloaking needs its full attention.”

  Volt looked over his shoulder to see her standing behind him with a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Take the boy and get out of here, Volt. You can do nothing.”

  He wanted to argue, draw his sword, and enter the fray to prove his worth, but changed his mind when he saw the monster swipe its axe clean through Fachta, severing legs from torso. The stroke seemed almost lackadaisical, as if the demon wasn’t keen on killing the Tuatha. He watched as what had moments before been a capable, if somewhat arrogant, Tuatha warrior crumpled into a pile of gruesome detritus in the centre of the pentagram, his blood beginning to feed the grooves.

  Nothing can stand against that.

  “What can you do?” he asked Upthog.

  She shrugged and said, “I must try. Maybe I can convince it of my brother’s madness.”

  Volt nodded and took the boy by the shoulder, turning towards the exit. Scamp resisted him, not wanting to leave.

  “We can’t do anything here,” Volt said.

  The boy shook his head and wrenched himself clear of Volt’s grip.

  “You can’t do anything, maybe. I can, and I ain’t going to leave her,” the boy said before running towards the fray.

  Volt turned back just in time to see Maga split from crown to crotch by the demon’s axe. She had been the last warrior standing. The monster destroyed eight Tuatha warriors in the time it took Volt to wash his face. The only person left of those he’d travelled with was Upthog. She was standing before the dais with her arms by her sides doing nothing but watch. Her brother was standing behind her, laughing. Intent on the demon, Upthog hadn’t seen that Scamp was still in the arena.

  Volt called her to get her attention, and she turned to him with a frown. She replaced her frown with a look of relief when she saw Scamp standing in the middle of the pentagram, seemingly unaffected by the horror surrounding him.

  “Do ye know what to do, boy?”

  Volt opened his mouth to scream What can he do? A boy is meant to succeed where Fachta failed? but was surprised when Scamp nodded and turned to face the demon. He said in a loud, clear voice, “Diabhal a thiarna tabhair dom.”

  The words made no sense to Volt, but the demon vanished. The only signs it had been there were the smell of death and the gruesome remains of the Tuatha filling the pentagram with their blood.

  “What are ye going to do now?” Upthog asked, turning back to her brother.

  Mesroeda ignored her, instead saying, “Come, Scamp. You and I can rule this Tuatha-forsaken world.”

  Volt felt his heart stop when the words seemed to bring a cackling laugh from the archway over the main door.

  “Ah, Bach. I wondered when ye’d show yer face,” Upthog said.