Exile to Érenn - 6. Chapter 6

Aiden and Declan worked side by side in the second chamber of the tomb, brushing dirt into trays under the glow of the lamps. Every few minutes, Aiden glanced toward the entrance, tracking the sun’s climb across the sky. He still wasn’t sure what Cianàn had meant by “when the sun is high.” Had he misunderstood? His stomach twisted with nerves.

So far, the morning finds had been good. There were several pieces of worked flint, plus five perfect amber beads that caught the light like tiny drops of honey. Declan had grinned when Aiden showed him.”These are rare finds for this site.”

At noon, Rowan appeared at the cairn with lunch in a canvas bag. Toasties made from yesterday’s soda bread, thickly sliced and grilled with melted sharp cheese and ham, plus the leftover apple tart, still warm from the oven.

Declan and Aiden stepped out to meet him at the barrow’s entrance.

“Where’s Cianàn?” Rowan asked, peering past them. “I thought he was meeting you today.”

Aiden shook his head, throat tight. He felt like he might actually cry if he didn’t show.

Then soft footsteps crunched on the gravel behind them. Cianàn stepped into view, his hair tousled by the wind, and looking as calm as ever.

Aiden’s face lit up like the sun had just broken through the clouds. “I was afraid you weren’t coming.”

Cianàn pointed back the way he’d come. “I was waiting on the rise for you and Declan to pause. I did not wish to disturb your work.”

“I was hoping you’d be here,” Rowan said, unpacking the food. “Plenty for all of us.”

Aiden and Cianàn sat on a flat rock maintaining a respectful distance from each other, facing Rowan and Declan. The sun was warm, the breeze gentle, and for a while they just ate, laughed about nothing, and enjoyed the easy company.

After lunch, Declan wiped his hands and stood. “That’s all for today. Aiden, why don’t you and Cianàn go off and amuse yourselves? I’ve got a few items to log, then I’m quitting too.”

“You want to go for a hike?” Aiden asked, already on his feet.

“Yes,” Cianàn said softly. “These hills… I have not walked them in a very long time.”

Declan raised an eyebrow but said nothing as they packed up the plates.

As they started walking, Declan called after them, “Aiden—be home before dark.”

They trekked a few kilometers uphill to Aiden’s favorite overlook spot. The view opened out over the water, sparkling under the afternoon light.

Cianàn stopped short. “Loch Arbhach!”

Aiden blinked. “Huh? It’s Lough Arrow. Always has been, right?”

Cianàn gave a small, distant smile. “Not always. Long ago it bore that older name. And the plain below… it was the field of a great battle once. The last great clash between two powers.”

Aiden turned, eyes wide. “Battle? Declan never said anything about a battle. He just calls this place ‘old’ and ‘important.’ What kind of battle?”

Cianàn lowered himself to the grass and drew his knees up. “A battle of ancient powers. I… was present for it.”

Aiden sat down close beside him, curiosity sparking. “For real? Tell me everything. Like, who was fighting? What happened?”

Cianàn gazed out over the lake, voice measured at first. “One side, the Tuatha Dé Danann, were masters of craft, of song, of healing, of war. They were people of great skill and beauty. The other were the Famorians, vast raiders from the sea, bringers of chaos and tribute. The ground shook from their coming. And one of the skilled ones, the Dagda, a giant of a man with endless appetite, sat eating an enormous bowl of porridge right before the fight began. He ate deliberately slow, to hold back the tide.”

Aiden made a dramatic face, pretending to gag. “Porridge? That’s disgusting! Imagine the farts after that. Total rank. He’d have gassed the whole army!”

Cianàn blinked, then let out a surprised, soft laugh, genuine, almost startled. “The… farts. Yes. It was quite effective. The raiders waited, growing impatient.” He paused, testing the word. “Rank. That is a good word.”

Aiden grinned, scooting a fraction closer. Their shoulders touched.

Cianàn glanced at him, then pressed his shoulder back, warm, steady, lingering a second longer than necessary. “Their king of the Tuatha was Nuada. He was strong and fair, but he lost his arm in an earlier fight and could no longer rule, for their law demanded a perfect leader. So they chose Bres instead. Bres was beautiful, but cruel. He taxed his own people harshly, starved them while he feasted, humiliated their poets and craftsmen. He favored the Famorians, his father’s kin. Many hated him for it and even now his name carries a shadow.

Aiden nudged him lightly. “Bres? Like the Bresnahans?”

Cianàn’s eyes darkened briefly. “Exactly like them. The tension never quite faded.”

Aiden bumped shoulders with him again, playful. “Go on, what happened next?”

“The raiders’ champion was Balor—a giant whose single eye burned with death. Four men lifted its lid; when it opened, armies fell. But the skilled ones, the Tuatha, had Lugh, the champion who could do everything: warrior, smith, harper, poet. He waited for the moment the eye opened wide. There was chaos everywhere and he sent a stone flying. Straight through Balor’s eye. It burst out the back, felling more behind. Balor collapsed. After that, the Tuatha surged with wounds closing by magic, and broken weapons mending. The raiders fled to the sea. Many drowned. Many simply… faded.”

Aiden stared at the water, pulse quickening. “And who won?”

“The Tuatha Dé Danann. Lugh became their leader after the battle. But Bres… he was captured, begged for mercy, and traded secrets of planting and seasons to save his skin. Even in defeat he schemed.”

Aiden shook his head in awe. “That’s crazy. You’re messing with me. You can’t have been there.”

Cianàn turned to meet his eyes. Serious for a heartbeat before the smile returned, softer, almost shy. “Some places remember longer than lives do, Aiden. And some memories… they feel new again when shared like this.” They leaned into each other.

The wind stirred the grass. Aiden felt his cheeks warm, his heart thumping harder than the story alone could account for. He didn’t move away. Neither did Cianàn.

Aiden and Cianàn agreed to meet the next day and hike to Lough Arrow. Rowan and Declan were okay with it. Declan had a meeting in Castlebaldwin late afternoon to discuss the vandalism with community leaders and could give them a ride home afterwards. Cainàn came by the farmhouse to pick Aiden up.

“Are you hungry Cainàn?” asked Rowan. “Breakfast’s almost ready.”

Cianàn joined Aiden at the table.

Rowan ladled big scoops of oatmeal into bowls. Aiden and Cainàn looked at the porridge and then at each other and laughed uncontrollably.

Rowan turned and said. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing,” Aiden said between bursts of laughter. “It’s just something we were talking about yesterday.

Rowan smiled while shaking his head, sat and began eating his own oatmeal.

The path from the farmhouse wound downhill through a patchwork of green fields and low stone walls, the kind that had stood for centuries without mortar, just carefully balanced limestone. Aiden led the way at first, boots crunching on the gravel track that turned to packed earth after the last gate. The air smelled of cut hay and damp moss, and the late-afternoon sun slanted low, turning the grass tips gold.

Cianàn walked a half-step behind, quieter than usual, eyes scanning the landscape as if cataloguing changes he hadn’t seen in lifetimes. They passed a small ringfort—barely more than a circular ditch and bank overgrown with hawthorn—half-hidden in a corner of a field.

“That’s Lisnacreagh,” Aiden said, pointing. “Declan says it’s Iron Age, maybe earlier. People lived inside those banks, raised cattle, and watched for raiders.”

Cianàn paused, fingers brushing the lichen-crusted stones of the nearest wall. “Raiders came here too,” he said softly. “Not long after the last battle. The Fomorians who fled Mag Tuired tried to regroup on the shores of Loch Arbhach. They thought the water would hide them. It didn’t. The Tuatha hunted them down along the reed-beds. I remember the screams echoing off the hills… and then silence.”

Aiden stopped walking. “You mean… right here? On the lake?”

Cianàn nodded once. “Near the southern end, where the river feeds in. There used to be a standing stone, tall, carved with spirals and marking the place where Lugh cast his final spear after Balor fell. The stone stood until the monks came, centuries later. They toppled it, said it was an idol. The pieces are probably under the water now, or buried in someone’s field.”

Aiden stared toward the lake, visible now as a silver sheet between the hills. “Declan never mentioned that. He just says the area’s full of ‘multi-period activity.’”

Cianàn gave a faint smile. “Scholars use careful words. The land does not.”

They continued down the slope. The track narrowed, bordered by wild fuchsia and foxgloves still blooming in defiant pink. A pair of hooded crows lifted from a gorse bush, cawing harshly as they passed overhead. Cianàn watched them go, something unreadable in his expression.

The ground leveled out near the lake’s edge. Reeds whispered in the breeze; dragonflies skimmed the surface. The water was calm, reflecting the sky and the dark outline of the Bricklieve Mountains beyond. Aiden kicked a pebble into the shallows.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Quiet. It’s hard to imagine a battle here.”

Cianàn crouched, trailing his fingers in the cold water. “Battles leave echoes. You feel them if you listen.”

Aiden crouched beside him. Their shoulders brushed, familiar now, comfortable. Neither spoke for a long minute. Then Cianàn stood, brushing wet hands on his pants.

“We should go. Declan will be waiting.”

They turned inland, climbing back up toward the road that led to Castlebaldwin. The village lay a couple of kilometers on—whitewashed houses clustered around the church spire and the small parish hall beside it. Smoke drifted from a few chimneys; the faint sound of music carried on the wind, the last notes of the Midsummer Gathering still lingering on the green.

Aiden glanced sideways at Cianàn. “You okay?”

Cianàn met his eyes. “The past is never far from the present here. Sometimes it walks beside you.”

Aiden swallowed, unsure what to say. He just nodded, and they kept walking, side by side, toward the lights of the village and whatever waited in the parish hall.

The sun was dipping low when Aiden and Cianàn reached the edge of Castlebaldwin. Music drifted from the village green with fiddles and bodhráns, laughter, and the crackle of a bonfire newly lit. A hand-painted banner stretched between two lampposts: Midsummer Gathering, Honor the Longest Day. Kids chased each other with sparklers, a woman sold woven bracelets and fresh bilberries. The fire leaped high, sparks drifting toward the still-bright sky.

Aiden’s eyes lit up. “Look at this. It’s like… a party for the sun you talked about. Bonfires and everything.”

Cianàn stood still, gazing at the flames. “They remember more than they know,” he murmured. “The fire keeps the dark at bay. As it always has.”

Aiden grinned. “Come on, let’s…”

A sharp voice cut through. “Enough of this.”

Father Michael, tall, silver-haired, with a stark collar, led a small group away from the green toward the parish hall across the road. Beside him walked old Mr. Bresnahan, broad-shouldered and scowling, along with his two sons trailing. The priest’s face was calm, but his eyes flicked toward the bonfire with clear distaste.

Aiden frowned. “What’s going on?”

Cianàn’s expression tightened. “Trouble.”

Inside the hall the air smelled of tea and polished wood. The folding chairs were half-filled. Declan was already there, his arms crossed, near the back. He nodded when he saw Aiden and Cianàn slip in and take seats near the door.

Father Michael stood at the front. “Thank you for coming. The vandalism at Carrowkeel, the scratched stones, a fire scar near the entrance, demands our attention. We must protect our faith and our community.”

A murmur rose. A woman nodded. “It’s those bonfire crowds. They dance like it’s still pagan times.”

The priest raised a hand. “The Midsummer Gathering may seem harmless, the fires for the solstice, the songs of the land, but its roots are old and dark. The mounds themselves… those ungodly cairns draw the wrong kind of attention. It’s better left quiet under God’s grace and not dug up or celebrated.”

Declan cleared his throat. “Father Michael. We went to school together learned in the same classrooms in Ballymote and our families have lived here since before the plantations. You know these sites are older than Christianity. Excavating them isn’t disrespect; it’s remembering who we were.”

The priest’s gaze settled on Declan, steady, but something flickered there: old familiarity mixed with distance. “We took different paths, Declan. You chose to study the bones while I chose souls. Understanding can become an obsession. Stirring old shadows risks superstition, especially for the young.” His eyes slid briefly to Aiden, then lingered longer on Cianàn. The boy sat unnaturally still, features too fine, eyes too deep, too watchful. Father Michael’s brow furrowed faintly, as if sensing something beyond the ordinary, a chill, an otherness. “Some presences… feel not of this time.”

Declan stiffened, but his voice stayed even. “Vandalism’s a crime, not a spiritual sign. Blaming archaeology or a local bonfire distracts from the real culprits.”

Mr. Bresnahan leaned forward. “My family’s lived under those hills forever. No trouble till this dig. Now there are outsiders poking around, fires lit on solstice night and stones get defaced. We had nothing to do with it, but it’s no coincidence.”

One son snorted. “Probably some eejit thinking he’s a druid.”

Aiden felt heat in his cheeks. He glanced at Cianàn, whose hands clenched in his lap. Cianàn stared at the Bresnahans, something ancient and cold in his gaze.

Declan stepped closer. “We’ll see about limiting access, Father. But shutting down knowledge doesn’t bury the past, it just leaves people afraid of it.”

Father Michael’s voice remained calm, edged. “Some things are better left in the ground, Declan. For the soul’s sake. I’ll speak to the authorities. And pray for clarity.”

Low scattered “Amens” rose from the congregation.

As people filed out, Mr. Bresnahan paused near Declan. “Mind your step. Some things don’t like waking.”

Outside, the bonfire still flickered. Aiden’s heart pounded. “They’re afraid of it. Of what’s in the mounds.”

Cianàn looked toward the hall, then at Aiden. “They sense more than they admit.”

Declan joined them. His face was tight. He glanced at Cianàn, curiosity, flickering and then at the retreating priest. The old friendship hung between them like smoke. It was familiar, yet strained by years and choices unspoken.

The night air carried pine and the smoke from the bonfire. Aiden stepped closer to Cianàn. Declan noticed. Neither moved away.