Gallen and Seamus had no warning before the attack. The road from Clere to An Cochan was usually well empty by that time of night. Both moons were down. The heavy rains had dampened the dirt road, leaving a thin glaze of water so that the stars reflected off the mud, making the road a trail of silver between columns of dark pine and oak.

They were near the edge of Coille Sidhe, so Gallen moved cautiously. Once, he caught sight of a flickering blue light deep in the wood. Wights, he realized, and he hurried his pace, eager to be away from the guardians of the place. The wights never attacked travelers who kept to the road, but those who wandered into the forest couldn't count on such luck.

Just over the mountain, the land flattened out into drumlins, small hills where the shepherds of An Cochan kept their flocks. Gallen was eager to reach the relative safety of human settlements.

One moment Gallen was walking the muddy silver road, leading Seamus's old nag through a ravine while Seamus hunched in the saddle, singing random songs as a man will when he's had too much whiskey, when suddenly half a dozen voices shouted in unison, "Stand! Stand! Hold!"

A man leapt up from the margin of the road in front of them and waved a woman's white slip in their faces. The horse whinnied and reared in fear, pulling the reins from Gallen's hand, dumping Seamus off backward. Seamus landed with a thud, shouting, "Ruffians, blackguards!"

The nag leapt off up the side of the ravine, her hooves churning up dirt as she galloped through the hazel.

Gallen was wearing his deep-hooded woolen greatcoat to keep out the night chill, but the coat had slits at his waist that let him get to his knife belt quickly. He palmed two daggers, not wanting to show his weapons until the robbers got in close, then spun to get a better view. The robbers surrounded him, swirling up out of the brush. He counted nine: three up the road toward An Cochan, four coming behind on the road from Clere, and one more on each side of the ravine.

Seamus sputtered and tried to find his way up off the ground. The old man was nearly blind drunk, and he yelled in a deep brogue, "Off with you thieves! Off with you varmints," and the robbers all swirled toward him shouting, "Stand and deliver!"

In the starlight, Gallen could hardly make out the soot-blackened faces of the robbers; one of them had curly red hair. They were big men mostly, down-on-the-luck farmers sporting beards and armed with knives, the kind of aimless rogues you often saw sloughing around alehouses in the past two years. Drought one year and rot the next had thrown many a farmer out of work. Gallen made out the gleam of a longsword. Another young boy held a shield and a grim-looking war club.

Old Seamus began cursing and fumbled at his belt in an effort to pull his knife, but Gallen grabbed Seamus's shoulder, restraining him. "Don't be a fool!" Gallen warned. "There's too many of them. Give them your money!"

"I'll not be giving them my money!" Seamus shouted, pulling his dagger, and Gallen's heart sunk. Seamus was the father of seven. He could either let the ruffians have his purse and watch his family suffer, or he could fight and probably die. He was choosing to die. "Now back me, will you! Back me!"

Dutifully, Gallen stood back to back with Seamus as the robbers closed in. That is what Seamus had paid him for. Three

shillings, Gallen realized. I'm going to get killed this night for three shillings.

The tall man brandished his sword. "I'll be thanking you to drop your purses, lads." From his accent and curly red hair, Gallen estimated that he was a Flaherty, from County Obhiann.

"I beg you sirs," Gallen said, "not to go making free with our money. I've got none to spare, and my friend here has a wife and seven innocent children."

One robber laughed. "We know! And Seamus O'Connor just made forty pounds while hawking his wool at the fair. Now out with the loot!" he shouted angrily, waving his knife. "An' if you give it to us casual, we won't hurt you so bad." Gallen watched the men close. One of their number must have seen Seamus's money at the fair and waited until the old man got on this desolate stretch of road before setting the ambush.

The robbers had them circled now, but held off a pace. Gallen thought of running. It was only a mile over the hill to An Cochan. A bead of sweat rolled down Gallen's cheek, and his heart was hammering. He glanced around at the circling men in their dark tunics. Seamus was growling like a cornered badger at Gallen's back, and Gallen could feel the old man's muscles, hard as cords, straining beneath his coat. Gallen wanted to stall, hoping that even with his mind all clouded by whiskey, Seamus might see that it made no sense to leave his family orphaned. An owl soared over the ravine.

Seamus began swearing and shouting, "Why do you have your faces blacked, you ugly bastards? I'm not a child to be frightened by a sooty face! Off with you! Off with you!"

Gallen half-closed his eyes and wondered, If I were the greatest knife fighter in the world, what would I do?

In an instant, it was as if a familiar mantle began to fall over him. Gallen's muscles tightened into coils and the world moved into sharper focus. Gallen felt the blood pounding hot in his veins, and his nostrils flared wide, tasting the night air. He sized up the ruffians before him, and though it was dark, subtle shades

of light began to reveal details about each man. They were breathing hard, the way men will when they're afraid.

Nine men. Gallen had never fought nine men, but at that moment it didn't matter. He was, after all, the greatest knife fighter in the world.

Gallen tossed his head back so that his hood fell away, letting his golden hair gleam in the starlight. He chuckled softly and said, "I must offer you men fair warning. If you don't back away and give us the road, I'll have to kill you."

One robber gasped, "It's Gallen O'Day! Watch him boys!" The men swarmed around Gallen and Seamus faster, moving warily, but none dared venture in too close. The tallest robber shouted, "Take him, boys!"

Gallen didn't worry about the robbers at his back. Seamus had his knife out, and even though he was drunk, no sane man would try to tangle with him. Instead, Gallen sized up the five men to his front and sides. Two of them hung back half a pace-cowards who didn't want to look it. Another man stood close in, but he was tossing his knife back and forth between his left and right hand, hoping that the sight of it would strike fear into Gallen. Another robber was stocky, with an unsightly bulge under his cloak, and Gallen realized it was a breastplate; this robber breathed heavily and bent low to the ground on legs that were tense, ready to spring. The last of the five closest was their leader-a tall man with a longsword who likely would avoid joining the fray with such a weapon for fear of lopping the head off one of his own men.

Gallen heard the scuffling feet of a robber lunge behind. The robber grabbed Seamus's arm and tried to throw him to the ground, but Seamus twisted away at the last moment and made a stab. The robber yelped in pain, and hot blood splattered across the back of Gallen's neck.

"Take that for your trouble!" Seamus jeered, as if he'd won something, and then more robbers surged behind. A sharp blow from a club sent Seamus to the ground.

Gallen had been watching the man who tossed his knife from hand to hand. The knife was in the air, and Gallen leapt up and kicked it away, disarming the robber. He whirled and kicked an attacker off Seamus, slashed another across the throat. The lad with a club raised his shield to protect his face, and Gallen could have dropped beneath the boy's guard and lunged past, run to win his freedom. But Gallen knew he had to keep the highwaymen from slitting Seamus's throat.

Gallen dodged and came up behind the young robber, grabbed the boy's hair and put a knife to his throat. "Hold where you are," Gallen shouted. "I don't want to have to murder this lad!" The boy struggled, but Gallen was ready for any move he tried. Gallen wrestled him still. "Now, off with you! Give me a clear road."

The highwaymen moved around them, keeping a safe distance. Gallen could see from their determined faces that they didn't value the lad's life. It wasn't worth forty pounds.

The boy cried, "For Christ's sake, Paddy, tell them to back off!" The boy was panting hard, and he began to cry. The sweat pouring off of his neck made him slippery.

Gallen looked up at the tall one with the sword, Paddy. Since it seemed that the boy was a worthless hostage, Gallen decided that Paddy might value his own hide more.

Gallen tossed the boy to the ground. The robber who wore the breastplate leaned forward, dagger at the ready. Gallen had already slipped beneath one attacker's guard, and the men held their weapons low, preventing any similar moves. One man lunged at Gallen from behind; Gallen sidestepped, slashed the attacker's knife arm nearly in half, then Gallen leapt at the man in the breastplate. He put his toe at the top of the man's throat and let it slide down till it hit the armor, then stepped up and used his momentum to somersault over the robber's head.

He hit ground, swung around and put his knife to Paddy's throat. It all happened so fast that the robbers could barely react. Paddy swore and threw down his sword.

The boy with the club sat on the ground for a moment, crying. Other than the boy, one of the robbers was dead, another was knocked unconscious, and two were nursing serious wounds. Paddy was disarmed. The last three robbers hesitated, not knowing what to do. Paddy said to his men, "All right lads, listen to him! Drop your weapons and give the man the road! Now!"

The three robbers all dropped their weapons and backed away.

"Paddy, you're a lousy bastard!" the boy shouted, still sitting on the ground. "You were going to let him slit my gullet, but you'll save your own? So you think you're worth forty pounds, but I'm not worth a bob?"

The boy got up and held his shield down low like a veteran, and he raised his nasty war club; its metal studs gleamed in the starlight. He advanced slowly, and the other robbers suddenly leered like the greedy thieves they were. As one they reached down and retrieved their weapons. Seamus moaned and began coughing. Gallen saw that he would have to fight these last four. The men quickly circled him.

Gallen listened for the sound of a scuffing foot behind him, tried watching all directions at once. His senses were overwhelmed: he could smell the wool and sweat and scent of wet humus and ash on Paddy and the other robbers. He could smell the hot blood on his knife. A cool breeze washed through the trees, hissing like the sea. Somewhere over the hill a sheep bawled out, and Gallen wished he was there, safely over the hill, out of the dark Sidhe Forest and into the village of An Cochan.

Gallen slit Paddy's throat and stepped aside to meet these four robbers, hoping that a bold challenge would shake their confidence.

Gallen knew that he stood a good chance of getting killed if he let the men circle him, so he ran head-on into a robber, stabbed the man in the chest, then tried to throw the man behind him as a shield. But the dying robber grabbed Gallen's greatcloak and swung him back into the circle.

For one brief moment, Gallen realized he was in trouble, and then he heard the whirring sound of a club. Every instinct in him, every fantasy he'd ever concocted about such a situation, warned him to duck. He dropped his head to the right as the club smashed into him.

Dozens of brilliant lights flashed before his eyes. There was a roaring in his ears, and the ground seemed to leap up to meet him. Suddenly, the robbers were on him, kicking, and one man shouted, "This will teach you! Never again will you begrudge a man for a friendly knock on the head or for borrowing your purse!"

He looked up and saw a man ready to fall on him with a knife, and Gallen tried to roll away, but his muscles wouldn't cooperate, and he knew he was going to die.

"Hold!" a commanding voice shouted nearby, and Gallen's attackers stopped. As one they looked up the hill to gauge this new threat. The wind was still hissing in the trees, and the muddy road was cold against Gallen's back. He tried to roll over, look up to see his rescuer. The newcomer said evenly in a voice hot with warning, "Those who commit murder in Coille Sidhe shall never escape alive."

One of Gallen's attackers choked in fear, and the others stood up cautiously and stepped back. Gallen heard one robber mutter, "Sidhe."

Gallen's head was spinning so badly, he could only roll over. He'd lived on the edge of Coille Sidhe all his life, and never had he heard rumors that netherworlders might really inhabit the forest. It was said that the sidhe were lesser demons, servants of the devil, and that Satan often sent the sidhe to herald his approach.

"There's only one of them," a robber said, trying to bolster the courage of his fellows. Gallen rolled to his elbows and looked up: above him at the top of the ridge stood a man in the darkness, the starlit sky at his back. He wore garments of solid black, all darker than the night, and his head was covered with a hood. Even his hands were covered with fine gloves. Starlight reflected dully from a longsword in one hand and a twisted dagger in the other. For a moment, Gallen thought it was just a man standing in the darkness, but his eyes focused on the creature's face: its face shone like pale lavender starlight, as if it were a liquid mirror. Gallen's heart pounded in terror, and the sidhe leaned back and laughed grimly at the highwaymen. In that one horrifying moment, Gallen expected the ground to split open and the devil and his legions to crawl forth.

The robbers fled, Gallen urged his leaden arms to move, flailed about while trying to lift himself up, but his head spun and he faltered to the ground. Blackness swallowed him.

Sometime later he woke in a daze. The sidhe was hoisting him into the saddle of Seamus O'Connor's mare. Gallen lurched away from the sidhe's touch, as if it were a serpent, and bumped into something behind him. Seamus was slung over the mare's back, and the wounded man breathed raspily. Seamus's head had been bandaged, and the sidhe whispered, "Hurry, Gallen O'Day. Save your friend if you can."

Gallen's head still spun like leaves in a whirlwind, and he could barely grip the horse's mane to keep from falling off.

The sidhe took Gallen's chin, and Gallen looked into the creature's eyes. The thing looked human in nearly every way-Gallen could make out the fiery yellow hairs of its eyebrows. It was very much a human face, if not for the fact that it glowed like molten metal. "Remember, Gallen," the creature said with great heaviness, "I will hold you accountable for any oaths you make this day."

Gallen had only a moment to wonder at this portentous threat when the sidhe whistled and slapped the mare's rear. She leapt downhill, heading for An Cochan. Gallen dug his heels into her flank and gave her her head.