The men of Forgall lay weary and panting, sore of muscle and from blows and wounds. To their backs lay their own land. Ahead, Loch Derg narrowed into the Shannon just before that river widened again to join the sea, below Luimneach. Between the Leinstermen and the river reared jagged Slieve Argait.
All of yesterday they had fought, without succeeding in the attempt to prevent the enemy from betaking themselves up that great hill. From the position they at last reached atop a high-flung mesa, the Picts had an excellent view of the slope by which approach must be made. At sunset the Gaels had wearily retreated.
On this day, each of two charges against that excellent Pictish location had resulted in a mass wounding and considerable slaughter of the men of three Gaelic realms. The leaders of the forces of Leinster and Munster and diminutive Osraige licked their wounds while cursing Picts and Meathmen alike: the latter were cannily waiting, up along their border.
The Picts’ position high atop the brooding pile of earth and stone was a marvelously defensible aerie. The mesa’s far side formed a cliff that plunged down into the Shannon. A deeply sliced crevasse protected them on their left or northern flank. To the south and east, attackers must openly reveal themselves to scale the mountain slope-which was barely scalable, from the south.
The Picts, meanwhile, were comfortable on the broad mesa.
Keep them besieged and let the dark bastards starve, some counselled.
They’d not starve, others said; when they’ve eaten every egg and every bird and creeping creature, and stripped every scrubby tree and bush of bark and leaves, and still hungry-then will they come down from their aerie.
Fine, the counsellors of siege replied. Then we will fight them at our advantage.
But it was not the way of Eirrin, and some men pondered…
Was then one Partha mac Othna, an Ulsterman serving Leinster’s king, went quietly to his Fifty-leader. That man-Forgall mac Aed-Partha drew aside. He muttered a plan whereby Leinstermen might win the victory, and great glory-here on Munster’s soil.
Forgall gave listen. “Insane,” he said.
“Aye.”
Forgall turned to stare at the rugged slope men were calling the Mountain of Death. He remembered another insane plan of the youth’s: that of regaining the enforced tribute from Meath…
“Take a small group,” the captain murmured, reviewing Cormac’s suggestion. “March south a ways, gain the bank of the Shannon, and return northward to the base of the cliff beneath the Picts… the shore there must be no wider than a spear’s length, Partha. And… scale it? Insane. Surely… insane… to climb up there and fall on the Picts from behind-”
“Like Picts,” Cormac said.
“-like Picts. Such a force must be tiny. It would stand no chance of winning against the hundreds of Picts up there on Silvertip.”
“No. It would but turn them, distract their attention from this slope to their perch… whilst all others here, Leinster and Munster alike, charge up yon slope.” He gestured at the Mountain of Death.
“In hopes that the savages would be too busy with the scalers to sling and hurl rocks and spears on those charging up this slope…
“Too distracted, Forgall. And consider. They have shown us what comes of a charge. They did not even sling all those stones that killed and wounded and concussed so many; it’s hurled down many were, Forgall! The advantage is all the Picts’. Suppose we planned, and prepared, and made a general charge, all at once. Shields and helms and armour. Suppose it’s a thousand men charging up that slope all at once. How many would be falling ere they reached the top?”
Forgall’s face was grim. “Hundreds.”
“And if the Picts were passing busy with a group of twoscore or so maniacs who had climbed up behind them?”
“Those twoscore would surely die. But few of those who charge the slope would…”
“Is this not the way generals think?”
“Aye, and kings. It’s ‘units’ men are, Partha. ‘We shall lose three hundred units an we do such-and-so; we shall lose but two hundred units an we do so-and-such… whiles if we be asking for twoscore volunteers for death almost certain, we shall cut our losses to less than a hundred units…’” Forgall shuddered under a rush of horripilation. “Aye. It is the way generals think, and kings, Partha. It is why I can be neither.
“Suppose we take a bow, and-”
“We?”
“-and tinder, and an arrow or two wrapped in linen-soaked in oil. As soon as the summit is gained and we be in readiness, we’d be loosing flaming arrows, to arc high. That would signal the entire force here to charge up the slope, while we attack from the other direction. All the scalers need not die, Forgall.”
“It’s too late the chargers would be,” Forgall said very quietly-with thought on him, not fear. “Those who scale the riverside cliff would surely die. We could not whirl and jump to escape axes and spears; in mail and from that height, we’d drown.”
“We?” The two men looked at each other. Forgall said naught. Cormac said, “Some would survive. I cannot imagine dying, though some would go down, aye. But it’s volunteers ye’d be asking for, Forgall, from all-”
“Volunteers!” Forgall whipped his head about to stare at the youth he respected as much for his mind as for his prowess. “No volunteers! It’s our men will do it, or none, by Lugh’s beard! Tara-baiter Coichte becomes Pict-slayer!”
“Munster-slayer,” Cormac said quietly.
And so Partha mac Othna and his captain Forgall mac Aed met with not one, but three generals. Those wise and brave men agreed that the plan was insane, and…
“And worthy of those descendants of Mil, who came here to settle in a land not their own, de Dannann or no-our ancestors!”
Ferdiad the Bear looked at the youth who spoke with such heated fervor. “It’s a wild wolf ye be, son of Othna of Ulster!”
“With the guile of a fox,” Conan Conda said.
“A lunatic,” the little general from little Osraige said. “No sane man would attempt such a feat; no sane general would sanction it.”
Four men stared at him. And so it was decided, because one sneered.
Guided through the Munsterish squads by General Ferdiad’s own aide wearing the general’s own ring, two-and-fifty men stared upward at the pile of rock that bulked against the sky. The backside of Silver Mountain-Death mountain. The cliff was sheer. Trees and vegetation mitigated that fact by rising up it rather thickly for a score and more feet. After that a scrubby tree or scraggly bush thrust out only sparsely. And beyond that-
“And above that,” Forgall muttered, “the hard part.”
“Best we wait a while, until the moon comes to shine on this… wall,” Bress said, and he was right. They waited.
After a time the moon, riding high in a sky nigh cloudless, was but minutes from bathing the cliff-face in its cold light. Forgall nodded, and the fifty men moved forward, and up through the crooked trees and tenacious bushes. Three went on from there, trailing the rope that bound them together-and that was in turn secured to thicker ropes. Cormac was not among them; these men were experienced climbers. The others huddled and waited.
They made their pact, and the vow. It had been repeated fifty-two times: an a man should fall, he would not cry out. Whether to New God or Old, each prayed that he might have strength to keep such a vow, and thus not betray his companions. But each knew that he would not fall from that tower of nature bulking so darkly against the stars.
The climbers reached the top. The heavier ropes were drawn up, slithering up past the others like serpents. Then they were still. And then they were tugged up, and released: the scalers had made fast the climbing ropes for their fellows.
With shields on backs, nine-and-forty men ascended the cliff. None fell. Each was pulled over onto the mesa and sidewise to where a clump of great stones rose up from the mainly flat surface. They lay gasping as silently as they could. Now began the longer wait. They had brought no bow, no arrows. The dark Picts had advantage at night; the attackers would wait until dawn. That light would signal those at the foot of the other side of this narrow mesa, too, and they’d rush upward in silence.