Inloth leaned on his walking stick, primmed his lips, and groaned. His hips were sore. His shoulders were stiff. His back ached in places he hadn’t known existed. No matter how he twisted his neck, he couldn’t get a crack to relieve the pain. Hmph, he grumbled. Maybe willow bark tea this evening.

Rain trickled from the leaden sky that hung like a doom over the northern mountains, but the air at last befitted a spring day. Inloth fussed with his woolen cloak. Better than yesterday, thank Belenos. Frigid winds had fallen from the still-snowy heights through the night. Nothing worse than a bone-chilling wind through rain-soaked blankets.

The weather was just another of the wretched difficulties from which Inloth and his band of pilgrims had suffered on their long journey. Since setting out from the southern coast more than a fortnight ago, robbers and bandits had harassed them, and chieftains who were little better than both had taxed them. The changeable spring weather had teased them with summer’s warmth before plunging back into a wintery mix of rain and cold. Faith and courage had seen Inloth and the eleven priests of his mission through it all, but many of the pilgrims who’d set out with them had deserted along the wayside.

That morning’s gruesome march had been particularly difficult. Some battle had been fought—that very morning, said the ragged survivors they’d met—along the trail. Deserters skulked among the pine branches and the oaks coming into their spring leaves. Fresh corpses littered the trail, mangled and crow-plucked. More manly scavengers filched boots and coins from the bodies.

“Your Reverence?” Finntonn, one of Inloth’s assistants, tugged at his elbow. “Who are those men?”

Dark-haired men wearing the heads of wolves and wildcats for hoods picked through the carnage. Clad in brown and black leather harness, they arrested survivors, and put those beyond saving to a merciful end with their swords and javelins.

Inloth pursed his lips at the mangy sight of their shaggy fur cloaks. “Those’re Huntsmen. Warriors and woodsmen who guard the shrine of the Abred-Mother in the Vale. They protect and guide lost travelers and honest peasant-folk hereabouts.” His heart sickened to see the aftermath of so much violence.

Snatches of song, somber and grave, drifted through the rain. Blue-robed priestesses roamed the battlefield with herbs, poultices, and linen bandages. They chanted the healthful prayers of the Abred-Mother as they bound the wounds of the survivors.

Inloth pointed them out to Finnton. “Sisters of the Vale. Medicine and chirurgery have been carefully studied at the shrine since the earliest times.”

Inloth noted the tartans among the bodies. Most wore none to identify their kindred and seemed like nothing more than lordless brigands. But others wore colors that caught his eye.

“Those are the white and red colors of the Cailech tribe.” He put a scented cloth against his nose to ward off the stench, and directed Finntonn’s eyes to another unsightly body, the skull smashed and a limb missing. “And that was a man of Droma. The Droma and the Cailech are neighbors.” Inloth hadn’t been back to his homeland in many years, but things hadn’t changed much, it seemed. “Not very friendly neighbors.”

A long line of some three-score warriors in tartans of white and red stood idle along the trail ahead.

“Mind yourself. More Cailech-men,” whispered Inloth as they picked their way past.

Ragged and sullen-eyed, the tribesmen fingered their weapons and appraised the pilgrims like hungry wolves.

Inloth swallowed a knot in his throat, blessed them as he passed, wished them peace. His junior priests took him for a model and did the same.

At the head of the column, a man in furs and tartans kneeled over one of the slain. The corpse had once been a stout fellow, a stern warrior in life no doubt. Inloth noticed the eyes had been plucked from the head.

The kneeling man looked up from the corpse, assessed the band of pilgrims, then rose to his feet, a big, brutish man who towered over Inloth. His dim, piggish eyes betrayed neither sorrow nor grief, but anger. “He was me sister’s son.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Inloth made a blessing over the corpse to speed the soul on its way to the otherworldly feast of Tirn Aill.

“Thank ye, Drymyn.” The brute laid a meaty hand on Inloth’s shoulder. “I’m Dunchath, King of the Cailech. Find our camp in the Vale and I’ll be glad to repay yer kindness.” He spat in the direction of Huntsmen who had taken a red-and-white tartaned survivor into custody. “It’s more’n these bastards’ll do for him.” Then he turned to his men, barked an order—“Burial detail!”—and marched away down the column.

Inloth led his pilgrims on through the carnage.

The Huntsmen took other Cailech-men into custody, and a handful of the lordless brigands as well, but never the Droma-men, Inloth noticed.

“Whatever happened here,” he remarked to Finntonn, “the Huntsmen seem to have taken exception to the Cailech’s part in it.”

Then, at the top of the pass at last, he set his eyes upon the village of the Vale.

Or rather, what the village became once a year. The village itself was a tiny collection of houses and a few shops, not unlike a hundred other hamlets in the Five Kingdoms. But for these few days of the feast of Cétshamain, the village swelled out into all the surrounding fields.

Everywhere, people rushed about their business. Pavilions were pitched, market stalls sprang up. Carpenters built stands beneath awnings so the nobility could watch contests in comfort. Targets were erected for archery, a sand floor made for the swordsmanship duels, a circuit drawn for chariotry. Paddocks appeared, as did wattle pens for ducks and swine, sheep and kine. Butchers sharpened their knives, and ovens were built brick by brick.

Inloth judged the sun’s position through the clouds. He’d been strict about the proper observance of the daily hours through formal prayer throughout their pilgrimage. He saw no reason to shirk that duty, no matter how weary, nor how near the end of their journey. “It’s time for Sixth Hour.”

Finntonn nodded and directed the other ten priests to their duties. The pilgrims knelt in the rain.

“O Belenos—” Inloth made a sign with his right hand, three fingers pointed downward, representing the light of inspiration descending from the sun. “—cymst oth mín árstæfes.”

The pilgrims, heads bowed, intoned the response: “O Belenos, efestest forstandan mec.”

Together, Inloth and his twelve priests sang the paeans to their sun-god, Belenos, and the pilgrims responded. In the Old Tongue of the Shynn, the words of their song whispered through the trees and the rain.

O Fair Shining One, O Lord of Light,

Who orders time and change a-right,

Who sends the early morning ray,

And lights the glow of perfect day…

On and on their voices droned. They sang the paeans, they praised Belenos, they recited the appropriate verses from the sacred scrolls, and they prayed the proper prayers of their wise men.

Then, with a groan and an effort, Inloth straightened himself upright, raised his staff, and addressed his followers in a loud, stentorian voice. “Behold, my children! The Vale of Thaynú! Holy Mother of the God, Belenos!”

A weary cheer for the god Belenos rose from his pilgrims.

Inloth extolled them to caution, and to virtue. “Yet be wary, my children! There is no more wretched nest of Kârnite wickedness in all of Iathrann! Be wary, I say! Neglect not our sacred mission! Bring enlightenment to these poor benighted people! Teach the wisdom of the Lord Belenos, advance the righteousness of His ways!”

Despite their losses, new pilgrims had joined their cause along the High King’s Road. Altogether, he was proud to bring some eighty followers of Belenos, including the younger priests, not to mention pack-mules and carts for what remained of their meager belongings and supplies.

“Master?” The blonde sister, Trebithu, had addressed him. With her, eight of his most zealous followers, with their girdles of brass-studded scourges wrapped around dark blue robes over thick goats-hair shirts, walked in a knot. They wore smiles, as always, and in spite of their weariness and the surely nettling hairs of their small clothes.

He was unsure when they’d joined the pilgrimage, for he didn’t know them from his congregation at Tóbar-na-Mela. But they’d proven invaluable on the journey. They heartened the weary, encouraged new followers by their ceaseless work in service to Belenos, and exemplified their commitment to the faith by publicly flagellating themselves every morning and night. Of the eight, the three weyward sisters, strangely enough, seemed to lead them. “Yes, my dear?”

“We’d like permission to move through the fair, Master. To bring the word of Belenos to those who know Him not.”

He laid a hand on her cheek. “Well, of course, my dear. I should have thought you’d seek your rest first?”

The black-haired woman, Bándígal, who put her fist to her breast and bowed her head. “To see so many to be brought into the Light of Belenos, it moves the spirit in us, Master.”

“Indeed, we’re eager to spread the Light.” The ginger-haired lass with the curled tresses, Tnúthét, clasped her hands before her and stood a-tiptoe.

“So may we begin, Master?” Eagerness lit the face of blonde Trebithu.

“Indeed, you may, but have a care. I was raised among these savages, before the great Máedóc rescued me from their pagan country ways. They are a fierce people, and none too patient with those of other tribes.”

“Oh, we will, Master, we will,” the three women assured him, and led their little band of eight on ahead.

Inloth watched them go with satisfaction and remarked to his assistant: “I tell you, Finntonn, if we had a legion of such servants here in Iathrann, our mission would be done.”

Finntonn, his assistant priest, nodded after them. “Indeed, Master, their zeal, it’s impressive.”

Inloth raised his walking stick once more. “Come, my brothers and sisters in Belenos! The way before us is at an end! Only a little farther to our well-earned rest!”

He waved the staff forward and hoisted his pack—Oww! A stab of pain ran through him. Damn it all. He grimaced and rubbed at the base of his spine. Willow tea this evening, for certain.