Page 21 (1/1)

We call ourselves the Fianna The soldiers think it has so--"warriors" is how they usually translate it But it’s h Earth was abandoned so long ago the generations are now uncounted, we remember our cradle We remember Ireland, and her stories, and the bands of warriors who defended their home And we carry on their traditions, and honor theht for her

The currach nudges up against the dock, and I yank my attention back to the present when I realize I’ve heard no challenge The sentries are gone The landing is euards, and abruptly hI shouldn’t have taken that detour--they’ve found our base and beaten me back here to rescue her

I leave the trodaire in the currach, hands bound, and hurriedly tug a tarp up over her limp form to hide her froeway My wounded leg is aching asthe path the trodairí would take, predicting which caverns they’d claie as I pullsinks in: if the trodairí had found us, this place would be swaring with shouts and gunfire There’s only silence, until I makefro I can’t see nize this noise as anger, not panic It’s only the Fianna inside, and there are no soldiers here today except the one I left in ed bubble in the rock that we’ve hewn larger over ti around the walls and crates of liberated es It’s almost impossible to round us up in the sauard, asleep--but this is the biggest crowd I’ve seen in a long tiainst the walls and sitting on the ground The cavern’s full, buzzing with tension Then I hear McBride’s voice at the front, and I knohat brought the out in these caves, paying for the bloody rebellion anized, too sick and too bruised to care as in charge It’s taken a decade to coain, but the day my people could fill their bellies without fear of where the next e and experience I lack, and his talk of fighting back and finishing what my sister, Orla, started makes my people itch for action

Victory, to his faction, is beating the trodairí at any cost Casualties are glorious sacrifices to the cause Firepower is the only ht be, there’s a satisfaction in direct action that these people crave It’s the easier path--I feel ed that way too, sometimes So did Orla And that’s what killed her in the end

These people reht to the last and faced her execution fearlessly Her death buys me their sympathy, and thus their attention, but every time McBride opens his mouth, I lose a fewfor peace when their children are sick and their very freedoulations McBride knows it I know it too They all wish I wereby the air of tension in the crowd, it seems he’s jumped onthe ceasefire Only fear of retaliation and lack of resources has stopped McBride’s lieutenants fro out their own raids without the support of the rest of us That, and I’ve got the key to the et his hands on it

I tuck un away and start to work toward the front of the crowd

He hasn’t noticed ether as he calls out in i to hide in our caves, watching while they take our loved ones away? Howback and forth at the front of the cavern, the nervous energy of his steps infecting the crowd,the, Flynn Corree: violence must only ever be a last resort We are not the trodairí with their so-called Fury, their iinary disease, their excuse for the shows of violence supposed to keep us cowed But I say today we are past our last resort, and we are past the point of no return"

My own heart beats hard as I listen in spite of myself He sounds like leam When she spoke of last resorts, she meant it But these people don’t see McBride as I do They’re too desperate for change to recognize the madness behind his words

"But what about Flynn, you’re saying He wouldn’t want this He’d tell us to talk to theotten hiotten him, why he hasn’t come back This very ot Orla’s little brother bound and bloodied, no doubt trying to beat our location out of him We would betray thean answer from us"