Drust looks up eagerly. “You play?”

“No. One of the slaves in our tuath had a set but it was only played by men. I picked up some of the rules by watching but I don’t know them all.”

“A pity,” Drust sighs. “It’s been a long time since I had anyone to test my wits against.”

He concentrates. Moves a white piece shaped like a horse’s head, then one of the many simply shaped black pieces. Everyone’s interested in this new game. We’ve never seen it in our tuath. Orna explains about the game while Drust plays but it’s hard to follow the rules, especially as Orna is unsure of them herself.

“The main aim is to keep your king from being taken?” Lorcan asks.

“Aye,” Orna says.

“Why can’t he fight?” Ronan frowns. “A king should be a fine warrior, yet the kings in this game seem scared. They hide at the back.”

“It hails from a different land,” Orna explains. “In some places kings don’t fight. They send others to battle in their place.”

Angry mutters from the men—

“It’s not right!”

“Barbarians!”

“The likes of those wouldn’t last long against demons!”

I ignore them and focus on Drust and the way his hands linger over the pieces. Long, slender, unmarked fingers. They move the pieces swiftly, smoothly, from one spot to the other. I get the sense that he could move us just as easily. And maybe already has.

After lunch, Drust marches beside me again. But now, instead of asking questions, he says, “I can teach you if you’re willing to learn.”

“Chess?” I reply eagerly.

“No. Magic.”

I come to a halt and stare at him as if he’d slapped me. Fiachna and Connla stop behind us, hands sliding to their weapons. I start walking again before they ask what’s wrong. Drust keeps pace beside me, waiting for me to speak. Bran’s on the other side, following a butterfly. My head’s buzzing with conflicting thoughts. I’d love to learn magic from a druid—they can do so much more than priestesses. But men teach boys. Women teach girls. That’s the way it’s always been.

“I wouldn’t teach you all the spells I’d teach a male student,” Drust says, reading my thoughts. “There are secrets not fitting for one of your gender, just as you know secrets not suitable for a man. But we could work on your technique. I could show you where you’re weak, help you improve and teach you some new spells, those which you deem acceptable.”

“But men… girls… it isn’t done,” I mutter, red-faced at the thought of sharing my spirit with a man, as I must if I allow him to become my tutor.

“Just because something hasn’t been done doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be,” Drust says. “I’d prefer a boy to work with, just as you’d rather learn from a priestess. The fact is we have only each other. We can be bold and make the most of this opportunity or we can be prim and let it pass. Bec?”

He waits for my answer. After a long, dry-mouthed moment, I nod clumsily. “I would be… glad to learn… from you.

“Good,” he says, then rests his left fingers against my forehead. “Close your eyes and think of the moon. Before we begin, I want to teach you how to clear your head of all the rubbish you’ve let it fill with lately. Your mind is too much that of a human, not a priestess.”

A rush. A buzz. Tingling all over. My head… my body… my spirit… full of… magic.

Four days marching. Four nights spent in the open. We lie down each dusk, singly or in pairs, sheltering beneath trees. Drust comes to each of us in turn, touches us and mutters spells. We have orders not to move during the night, even if we need to empty our insides.

“Go where you lie if you have to,” Drust says. “Just don’t leave the spot where you settle. The spell will break if you do.”

The first night—nothing. No undead or demons. I sleep fitfully, tucked up next to Goll, aware of Drust’s magic—the air flickering around me—wondering if it will hold.

The second night, a beast pieced together from several humans stumbles by. It’s moaning and scratching at the earth with bone-exposed fingers. Starving, hungry for any kind of flesh, even that of insects. It passes within four or five strides of where I’m resting with Orna. We hold our breath. I feel Orna’s fingers slide slowly to her sword. I want to whisper, “No!” but I’m afraid to make any noise.

The undead creature stops. I think it’s seen us. Orna hisses. Her hand finds the hilt of her sword. Her fingers tighten.

Then a fox darts out from under a bush and pelts away from the undead beast. It howls and lumbers after the animal, arms flapping up and down.

Silence, broken after a few seconds by Drust. “The only two who didn’t reach for their weapons were Bec and Goll. And Goll’s asleep.” A short pause. I sense his smile in the dark. “Now that you’ve seen my magic at work, I hope you act less rashly next time. You nearly gave our hiding place away.”

We sleep better after that, though at least one of us remains awake at any given time, watching out not just for the undead and the Demonata—but also keeping an eye on the mysterious Drust.

Under Drust’s stern eye, I begin practising magic and learn quickly, feeling my power grow. But I’m unable to make the new spells work. Men’s magic is different to women’s. We take power from the earth, trees, the wind, sun, moon. The world is charged with natural magic which we channel. We’re creatures of nature, and like bees take pollen from flowers, we pluck grains of magic from the land and air around us.

Drust’s magic is different. He only reveals fragments of his secrets to me, but he seems to draw most of his power from the stars. Some of it from the sun and moon, but mostly from the heavens beyond.

“Gods are in motion up there,” he says to me on the fourth night. Drust sleeps by himself, but tonight he asked me to sleep close by. There aren’t many clouds in the sky, so we have a good view of the stars. “Demons too. And the spirits of the dead. They battle, toil, love—like us. But their actions are greater than ours. They inhabit forms hundreds or thousands of times our size.”

His eyes are fixed on the stars. From their light I can see the tattooed stars on his head moving slowly. His expression is soft for once.

“When they come here, they come in forms similar to ours,” he continues. “This world is too small for them otherwise. But up there…” He sighs. “Male magic comes from the forces generated by the gods, the dead and the Demonata. We’ve learnt to tap into their power, the way priestesses tap into the roots of trees or the hearts of bears. But the magnitude… the dangers…”

He turns on his side—only slightly, so as not to break the masking spell—and trains his gaze on me. “Man wasn’t made to share the universe with gods. Their ways are not meant for the humble likes of us. But we’ve decoded some of their secrets regardless. Like worms, we’ve grabbed on to the talons of eagles and learnt some small truths and means of flight. But we can never really fly. We try, and succeed to a certain extent, but the fall is always—will always be—there. To be a druid is to embrace death, dance with it a while and finally fall prey to it. That is why we’ll never rule this world. We have the power to bend all men to our whim, but are forever pushing ourselves further, trying to fly higher… and falling.”

A silence. His gaze returns to the sky. He looks troubled.

“We could have crushed the Christians hundreds of years ago. They were weak then. If we’d been aware of the threat they posed, we’d have bound their tongues and turned their fingers to stone so they couldn’t speak or write. Their religion would have died with them. But our eyes were on the Otherworld, the stars, the gods. We didn’t keep watch on the world around us. And when we eventually lowered our heads and studied the waters closer to home, it was too late.”

“You could still stop the Christians,” I mutter quietly, hoping he won’t punish me for disagreeing with him. Drust’s a harsh teacher. When I make mistakes, he slaps the back of my head or stamps on my foot or lashes me with a knotted rope. Banba was tough too, but not as cruel as Drust.