Continuing...

From the 17th...Until the first laughter came...

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It drifted past him as a beautiful whisper of tenderness. Soft. Gentle. Cold and cruel. Seductive. Like the quietest of bells. More followed, echoing through the darkness. 

"Stand firm!" he said, stronger but barely in control. He ached to reach for his sword. To slash at the things he knew were close by. He had to grip the edge of his tunic to keep from doing so...and tore the fabric.

Then a hand barely caressed his face. Soft fingers trailed along the line of his chin. Tenderly touched his cheeks. The laughter light but joyous and teasing. It drifted into his ear on the barest trail of breath. The finger gliding down his neck, still soft, almost loving...until he felt sharp talons drag along his skin. Cut into it. Tear open a sleeve of his tunic. 

"We are not to be harmed!" Mícheál cried, fighting his fear. His hand on the handle of his axe. "It is your promise!" 

The laughter echoed around him. Hollow and terrifying. Evil to the core. 

But also softer. 

And softer. 

The sounds drew farther away. They were keeping the oath. They were headed for Caoimhín. 

Mícheál felt such relief in this. His men had not been harmed. But an instant later, the horror of what was about to happen returned to him. 

Caoimhín heard the soft genial laughter draw closer and closer. But this time...this time there had been no cries of pain or terror, not like so many times since the beginning. For that, he was thankful. 

The mist grew lighter and three forms appeared in it. They had the look of women, beautiful in shape and movement, but he knew what they were. He was the only man who had seen them and lived.

It was in the midst of an attack on his settlement. The mist surrounding them all, to where nothing could be seen. He was searching under Aoibhinn's flowing branches, trying to find his brother, who was protecting the child named Pádraic from one of them.

He could barely hear the sound of howling, from both Mícheál and that beast. And the sharp whipping sounds of his axe, the only thing that could keep one of them at bay. 

Caoimhín was rushing to help but heard shrieks of death and turned to see the mist part for a moment... 

To show four of his best men being slaughtered by a thing that had the form of a woman, to be sure. Her head and upper body. But in place of hair, black shining feathers flowed over her neck and shoulders, and while she did have hands, they were part of powerful wings that made up her arms, black and shining, each of them longer than a man was tall. Sharp cruel talons gleamed on her fingers, also black, and her lower body was covered in more feathers with claws for feet and larger, sharper claws.

She used them to tear his men to shreds without the least bit of trouble, their swords and spears having little effect against her. When she was done, she'd flicked their bodies aside like they were nothing.

Then she had turned to him and that hideous laugh had drifted from her. She had flown at him, shrieking like some mad beast. 

“Femlimid!” he had screamed at Mícheál. “Femlimid!” 

Then he had slashed at both the creatures with his sword and knife, distracting them enough to give Mícheál time to grab the boy and dive into the stream under the cover of Aoibhinn’s drifting branches.

One’s claws still dashed into the water to grab for him, but Caoimhín used its distraction to plunge his silver dagger into the base of its skull. It screamed in full horror and anger, causing her sister to dance back, in shock. 

This gave Caoimhín the chance to jump into the water and hide in the reeds. The wounded beast’s screams of pain cut through even the silence of the water. Shrieks that would chill the blood of any man, living, as she slowly, slowly died. 

Then came the howls of anger and frustration, roaring wild enough enough to make the bravest man run in terror as her sister flew about the reeds, trying to find him. She dove and danced around and dove, again. 

But then another of her sisters howled in pain and others called in fear and she danced up and dashed away, giving Caoimhín time to slip away...and find Mícheál had hidden the child in a narrow cave between the roots of the great towering oak, Fedlimid. 

It was after this attack that Morriggan and The Dagda had joined with them, and within the course of one moon a treaty was forged with terms agreeable to both sides.

Now the Ui Briúins were honoring their part. And it seemed these things would honor theirs, as well.