A Daughter Who Never Was
An Eachann and Connor Adventure
Witnessing his friend expire, elderly and frail before his own eyes, Connor resolves to find a way to the time before Eachann’s fateful battle. The cost, however, is one that even a hardy warrior like him would shudder at—especially one indebted to a brother at arms such as his best friend.
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Gasps and sobs interwove Saorla’s keening song, making most of the words unintelligible to Connor as he crested the hill of the dun. Stones and chunks of clay surrounded Eachann’s body, wrapped in his great cloth. Scían Tethrach lay at his side. Connor realized the Eachann he sought would need those items more than this one. He looked at Saorla, her form shook as she piled the stones and sang, and he sighed. When Saorla’s song trailed into silence, Connor spoke:
“Saorla, let me lift those stones.”
She did not turn her head from the task.
Connor stepped beside her, knelt, and gently caught her wrist before she could place down another stone. “My race always carried heavy burdens; let me carry these for my friend.”
Saorla looked at Connor, her eyes were red, their lids swollen; thin red scratches ran down her cheeks, and some of her clothing was torn as well. “But I must see to my father.”
“You may, in another way,” Connor thought back to the druid’s instructions, “can you find peat and herbs? As much as you can gather.”
“For what reason—”
“The druid has a rite in store for his spirit.” Connor’s heart beat a little faster as he spat the half-truth at the face of his greatest friend’s daughter, whose watry grey eyes stared into his own, unblinking and unbreaking.
Saorla softened her grip on her hand clutching a rock and let it thump upon the dry yellow grass. “I will return.”
She descended the hill, beginning a new song, louder than the first; this one consisting of long wails and shrieks in the stiff air. Connor took her place by the pile of rocks she already gathered and slowly placed a few upon Eachann. He did not look back at Saorla, but waited until her song thinned with the distance between them. When her voice barely touched his ears, Connor relieved Eachann’s body of the great cloth and Scían Tethrach. He wrapped the dirk in the cloth and sat upon both items, hoping to conceal them for when Saorla returned. With that, he resumed piling the stones into a cairn. Though he knew if everything went as he wanted, Connor would see Eachann as his youthful self once more, but he moved the stones as though it were the final grave of his friend. He looked upon the wizened, bearded face of his friend as the stones rose over his neck; a flicker of a smirk seemed to play on his lips, or perhaps something out of Connor’s memory.
Regardless, Connor hissed a laugh. “O Eachann, even in death you find something to smile at; what do you see, friend?” But no answer returned, and a knot of dread welled in Connor’s stomach. I will not let this happen, he swore to himself and covered Eachann’s face.
***
The orange sky muddied to a dim, brownish color by the time Connor managed to lead Saorla away from Eachann’s grave. He carried the great cloth and Scían Tethrach tight under one arm. Saorla focused more on her father’s grave to notice, walking in a daze once they left it. She stopped singing aloud, but mumbled runs on the way to the cave. The peat and herbs she cradled at her bosom; the earthy smell of the fuel mingled with the stinging notes of the plants in the air about Saorla. Connor bore a small torch, taken from a branch laying in the fire within the dun. Its pitiful glow did little to light the ground, but Connor knew the way well enough—he needed just a spark.
At the cave’s mouth, Saorla stepped a little faster and entered before Connor who paused at the threshold. Her figure faded in the darkness. His fingers tapped the haft of his club. Gritting his teeth, Connor descended into the cave. Murmurs from below drifted up to his ears. His pace dragged on the way down, and he paused once more at the end of the tunnel and opening of the cave; Saorla stood at the center, beneath the small hole the moonbeam had crept through the night Eachann vanished. She faced the druid, and the mummy stared back at her. Connor divided his gaze between them until Saorla finally moved away and set the peat bundles and herbs about the cave. She did not look up from her work or ask for aid.
Connor left the threshold and approached the druid, whose stare remained on Saorla. “What spell have you put her under?” he asked.
“No spell,” said the druid in a thin whisper. “I have told her what must be done.”
Connor followed the druid’s gaze as Saorla continued her task until her hands and sleeves held only grit from the peat. She returned to the center, facing the druid once more.
“Now a fire must be made,” said the druid.
Connor took up the torch, its flame shrunk to a small orange blade pulsing along the scaly, blackened haft of the branch. He went to each bundle and ignited all of them, filling the room with the heavy, earthen smell of peat laced with slight stings of the herbs; the firelight swelled along the ground, the aura of each bundle growing until they met each other; thin locks of smoke curled and spiraled in the air and against the light, forming a webbed haze within the glow.
Once Connor finished, he let the torch fall and its flame wither, then stepped up behind Saorla. She kept her body and gaze faced towards the druid. A small black circle formed around Saorla’s feet as she stood in the light. Connor looked to the druid; his fingers wrapped tighter around the haft of his club.
“Now,” said the druid, “you know what must be done; step into her shadow when I decree it.”
Connor lifted his club, reminding himself of the Eachann he knew who would miss no daughter. He clenched his jaw along with his grip and swung over his head. Before the hardened head landed upon the soft, brown one of Saorla, Connor thought he saw her make a move to turn—did she break from her grief in the moment? He did not dwell on it, for his next movements flowed without pause once the club struck Saorla. A massive crack filled the cave and her body went limp; her shadow changed and lengthened as she fell forward.
“Step!” hissed the druid.
Connor stepped around Saorla before she struck the ground, landing his feet in her shadow as it formed the silhouette of her body. The crossing by the moonbeam went seamlessly, but the crossing by way of this dim ritual assaulted Connor with scenes of terror. Between the cave he departed and the one he sought to go to, he stepped through an array of vignettes—he heard things like snakes hissing in pitch darkness, with their scales scraping along stone; he saw corpses in at least their third month of rotting hung from trees, which still gasped for air and kicked their legs; he felt the warmth of some person near him, the gentle caress from a smooth hand, but at the same time felt a sinking coldness in his stomach; he smelled rot, smoke, and wet stone. More things moved before his eyes, so fast he could not commit them to memory—and perhaps all the better for him. At last he roared in protest of these vile sensations and squeezed his eyes shut. The sounds and touches suddenly stopped.
A voice before Connor spoke, “Are you the one the champion has been waiting for?”
Connor opened his eyes and looked upon a man in white robes. Wrinkles folded the skin on his hands and face, along his cheeks were hoary patches of stubble and wisps of hair. His eyes were a dark grey, a ways off from the black orbs they would become, but still were wells tainted with ancient secrets.
“The champion,” Connor eased his body, “the one called Eachann, where is he?”
The druid answered, “I have heard he left to find and do battle with Neglachd—”
Connor sprinted up through the tunnel and leapt onto the hillside, bounding down upon the blades of grass slick with dew. He let the slope and slipperiness carry him down; he drunk in the cool wind he made from his run, clearing his lungs of the dust and grime rampant in the air of the other place. The dim blue sky arching over him lightened in the east as he descended and broke into a sprint across the field; the land about him bore a cool, bluish hue in the gloaming ere the dawn. The dun and the hill it stood upon were silhouetted against the brighter share of the sky in the east. Keeping his eyes locked on them, Connor increased his speed, heedless of the energy he might have needed later on.
Near the foot of the hill, huts and cabins of mud and stone occupied shares of the land; Connor wove past the buildings and dutiful farmers who staggered away from the charging juggernaut. Connor’s feet ground hard into the slope of the hill as he ascended. Behind him, folk shouted and a few pairs of footsteps sounded in the grass. Towards the top of the brae, two fighters coming down took heed of Connor; one of the men held up a hand, saluting the Fer Bolg.
“Hail, stranger!” at the fighter’s greeting, Connor slowed down as he rose to meet the two.
“From which chieftain—” the other started, but stopped as Connor looked upon him with a clenched jaw and heavy brow. The pair looked at his face, but their eyes wandered a little higher than his.
“The horned one,” whispered the first fighter.
“Give me a horse,” Connor said, “and tell me where I will find the river that is home to Neglachd.”
The fighters’ eyes dropped down to meet Connor’s gaze, and the first one to speak said, “But he has agreed to meet the monster in single combat; your intrusion would not be wanted or honored.”
“But he wished to wait for me, did he not?” Now Connor clenched his club a little harder and his fist shook. “I must at least deliver to him a weapon that would be a boon to him in this battle.”
“Is it that piece of oak you wield?” asked the second fighter.
“No, it is a dirk within this great cloth.”
The first fighter made an offer, “If the only weapon you will carry to the champion’s fight is that which you are to deliver to him, you may have my horse.”
Connor hissed through his teeth, releasing some of his tension, but anger burned hot through his core and limbs. He lifted his club; his heart bore heavier as he spotted a patch of drying blood on the head and a few wisps of dark hair stuck to it. If I must, I will strike this giant with my own fists, he told himself. Connor held out the club to the first fighter. As he gripped the other end, Connor did not let go at first; the fighter glowered at his resistance.
“When I give you back your horse, you give me back this club,” said Connor.
The fighter nodded; Connor loosened his grip and he relinquished his club. He followed the two fighters down the hill to an enclosure where some horses grazed. The first fighter whistled and climbed over the fence. A brown-coated horse galloped up to its master and halted by his side. The fighter took a few steps back and dashed forward, leaping onto the steed’s back, and immediately steered it towards the fence. Connor and the second fighter cleared the way as the horse with its rider ran up to the barrier and leapt over it, landing on the other side with thunderous stomps in the grass.
“A fine thing,” Connor remarked as the fighter trotted his horse up to the Fer Bolg and dismounted. He stood by the beast and placed a hand on its breast as Connor laid his own on its back. Connor squatted and sprung, kicking his leg over the horse’s back and straddling it; the beast snorted and jerked as the new rider mounted it.
“Still, still,” the fighter patted the horse’s side. “You mind my steed; keep it away from Neglachd’s claws.”
“I will,” said Connor. “Where is the river?”
“Ride northeast, you’ll hear its coursing before you see it.”
Connor secured the bundle of the great cloth and Scían Tethrach. He leaned forward and thrust his heels into the horse’s sides, shouting into its ears. The horse snorted and took off, steered northeast. The cool air of the morning, laced with uncountable motes of moisture, blasted around Connor and the horse. He took no pressure off the it. The eastern horizon brightened on Connor’s course. Connor fought with dwindling fibers of his energy to keep his hold on the steed. Its hooves tore through the earth as it ascended the swells in the land.
By the time the first gilded beams twinkled over the black shapes in the east, the boom of a river flew to Connor’s ears. Amid the crash of the current came fragments of a grating, bone-shaking roar. Shooting between the river and the roar were shouts from a youthful, strong throat. Even with the din and distance, Connor knew the voice belonged to Eachann.
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“A Daughter Who Never Was” © Ethan Sabatella 2025 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.
I love it. Can't wait for the final battle and, hopefully, the reunion of two friends.