"Fianna, Ronan´s plight" by Anne M. Leath

“Mous..Murr..Murron!” Ronan bellowed as the small feine rushed ahead of him, hell bent on her course of action.  Crazy feine.  Always rushing. He snuffed out his cigarette in the palm of his gloved hand and looked around carefully.  He hadn’t liked the way this place felt.  Ronan wasn’t ‘in’ to feelings and strange senses of things, he left that to his feine, Maire. It was she who he would trust on the most scant amount of credible proof.  He would walk into the pits of hell for HER.

But THIS ONE, she’s not the full shilling.  He sighed.  The petite mage stomped ahead, her layers of dark broom skirts snagging in the brush and low reeds, tendrils of curly red hair getting caught in the wind and sailing out behind her like flaming serpents. She must be ninety pounds in those skirts, soaking wet and holding a brick. It was an ongoing joke that you could clothe Ireland in the number of skirts she wore in a day to mask her diminutive stature.

 He wished Maire was here as well.  Fergus and Iain had needed her back on the Heath, they were looking for Wyvern and she could see them before they would actually be there. Sometimes well before. 

But that didn’t matter in so far as they still had to deal with the situation in town.  Murron was a better negotiator when it came to getting the most and giving the least on something, Not many people will stand up to that little firebrand, especially if they have an ounce of fear in their bones.  Ronan wasn’t afraid of anything, but even he had to admit that a look from the combat mage’s eyes when she set her mind to something was enough to stop a man cold in his tracks. 

They had gone into town early that evening, leaving Colin, Murron’s feoil, with the other three.  Ronan wasn’t about to leave them without someone that could actually shoot worth a damn, even if the Wyvern weren’t supposed to be THERE for another day or so.  Provided Maire’s “soon” is not NOW. Colin hadn’t been happy about being separated from his feine, but Fergus thought it was better to send someone older with her rather than having the youngest members out on their own, alone, and in town.

He was sure that they were off track a bit, this wasn’t a route he was familiar with, this far from their usual beaten path.  This side of Limerick was wilder, but there had been several large battles fought here in the past ten or so years and there was still a feel on the heath of old secrets yet to be uncovered.  He loped forward a bit faster, trying to catch up with her, reaching out to lay a large hand on her boney shoulder.

“Slow down there, I think we should head a bit more west nor’ west..” He flicked through the GPS in his combat computer, loaded automatically into his bionet. 

“It should be no more than thirty minutes straight ahead, and I have a bad feeling from Colin, I think there may be a sitch…” she looked flustered, irritated.

His eyes refocused and he tried to tell if he felt the uneasiness from Maire as well.  He didn’t feel much of anything from their connection right now, usually a good sign when apart.  But the feine were sometimes more sensitive.  I should probably listen to her, she IS a mage.

“Alright Mouse, but lets veer t’other way a bit, I think we’ve just gotten a bit off course.”

“Fine.” She said in a huff and started off again in the same direction.

Ronan sighed quietly and followed.  Damnit.  This will take twice as long.  If we don’t see signs in a click, I’ll carry her if I have to.

CLICK.

In a split second he heard it as she stopped to free her skirts from another scraggly bush, the snap of a pressure point landmine clicking into loaded position.  His hand shot out onto her shoulder, firmer this time and pushing her into the ground, “Don’t move!” He ordered, his face deadly serious.

Murron’s expression hardened and she looked up at him ready to spit fire when she saw that his gaze was locked onto the ground, at her feet.  “What?! What’is it?!”

He bent low and pulled the branches of the bush out of the way, lifting the hem of her skirt and brushing some loosened peat from around the heel of her boot, careful not to shift her weight with his examination.  “It’s a G4 mech pressure mine, it will blow the second you take more than twenty five percent of your weight of the trigger.  In your case, about ten kilos.”

She knew he wasn’t joking.  “What the hell?! What do I do?!”

He bit the corner of his lip thinking.  The only other time he had seen one of these mines it was disarmed on a table of various explosive devices they studied in Into Demolitions.  “Hang on, Let me back up and see if I can find something, we’ll have to replace your weight with something, or wedge it…or..”

“Ronan, where in the hell are you going to find a ninety pound something to wedge in my place out here!? You HAVE To be kidding me? THAT’S YOUR SOLUTION?”

“Well, I cannot simply disarm it with your person standing on top of it, and my taking your place will only leave me with one hand instead of two to do so. That IS unless you keep ranting and move, in which case neither of us may have any hands to do ANYTHING with!” He raised his voice only slightly, the first time she had ever heard him do so.

“Sorry.” She was still.

He ran through all of the scenarios he could think of in his mind.  Have to move her to disarm it manually. Can’t do that without unloading the trigger, and she’s so small it won’t take much.  I can load it with more weight if I shift her, but then I’m stuck with it and she can’t possibly disarm it.  We might be able to move it after I load the trigger down if I can keep enough pressure on it, we might not either.  I could try to get it further from her.  Damnit.  He knew he didn’t have a choice, he would have to take the risk himself, to let the feine get injured, possibly killed wasn’t an option.

“All right.” He pushed his fingers into the peat and soft earth. “I am going to find the trigger under you and push it in further, load it more, when I feel it go down, I’ll tell ye to move, when I say..you move—backwards, not forwards. Got it?”  He looked up at the usually fierce girl, her face was calm.

“Got it.” She nodded and closed her eyes. 

He looked down, large brow furrowing in concentration.

“Wait!” she whispered anxiously, “My skirts are still snagged on the bush, I can’t move back without stepping over you!”

“Christ Murr.”  He cursed and saw that she was indeed, hopelessly snagged in the branches.  “Why do ye have to wear ten layers of skirts anyhow?!” He took out his pocket knife and ripped through the bottom half of layers of material now married to the knotty vegetation.

“Are you ready now then?”

“Yes.”

CLICK. CLICK.

He felt the trigger ratchet down two more slots as he forced his hand onto the pressure plate. “Off!”

She stepped back quickly, inhaling deeply and immediately concentrating on what they needed to do next.  “We have to get help. You can’t disarm it by yourself can you?”

“No, not really..gimme a second.”

Suddenly he felt concern.  And it wasn’t from himself.  Maire,  what is it?  He had been careful to stay calm, or so he had thought.  She couldn’t know exactly what was happening just yet, she was worried about something else.  Strangely, Murron’s face changed at exactly the same moment.

“Something is wrong. They’re running.”  She looked over the horizon, then back down at Ronan, shaking her head and flattening her palms on her thighs, “Nevermind. Ok. We need to focus.”

They both heard the scream at the same time.  It wasn’t human.  It came from above and not so far off, coming closer.  A high-pitched, blood-curdling vibration in the air, a sickly slow moment of recognition…a Wyvern’s scream.

“Pistol in other pocket Murr, I can’t get to it with me left hand.” Ronan eyed the horizon, not moving his right arm and hand, buried in the earth.

She shoved her hand in his coat pocket and handed him the pistol which he immediately palmed and readied with one hand.  For her part, he saw, her eyes now glazed over a bit, she was checking the meta.

“There are two.”

“Great.”  He crouched and waited, tethered to the ground. 

She snapped back and paced behind him, waiting for the first to appear, a small flame gathering and spiraling in her right palm, swirling into a small ball of fire.  Then as suddenly as she appeared to have decided her plan of action, she abandoned it, the flame going out with a –poof--.

“Aren’t you gonna launch it at em Murr?” He said, glancing in concern across his shoulder at the mage, “ Last time that seemed to work..in Connaught.” Has she lost her nerve?

“No, not..yet..don’t move, I’m putting a forcefield under you, your hand, I need to get the angle right, don’t move.” She crouched behind him, her tiny frame approximating against his hulk, slender arm sliding down his until her palm wrapped around his wrist like a fragile bracelet. 

“Why didn’t you think of this before?” He half-joked as the screaming grew nearer.

“Shhhhhsh.” She hissed into his ear, wrapping her other arm around his waist, “I can form it with all our weight and keep it here for twenty feet or so. But I cannot hit the Wyvern too at the same time.  It will try to attack us, if you can wing it and bring it down for a moment, we can move out of the way and—“

“I get it.” His breathing picked up as he saw the beast come into view, wings spread wide as it let out another piercing shriek.

“Hurry with the field! He’s a moving target!”

The rest happened so fast, it came in fragments to his mind, focused on the beast, his hand, the trigger, the feine at his back, the aim of the pistol.  He felt a surge of energy through her arm, running like a bolt of lightning down against his skin, out her hand, through his and into the ground. Something’s snapped in place, her barrier.  He felt a small tug on his wrist as he sucked air into his lungs, letting off the trigger.  Wings moving air close to his face, screaming, a horrible smell, teeth, claws ready for attack, He aimed with his left hand, firing once and again rapidly at the creature’s wing. A horrible wet crunch as it swiped his arm with a dagger-sharp claw, retracting its leg quickly, the bullet hit its mark and exploded. 

God I love explosive rounds.

He pushed himself up with one leg, taking her with him, she clung onto his waist and shoulder, focusing down on the ground, she was used to feoil maneuvering around as their feine cast spells. Backing away quickly as the giant beast came down in a crumpled heap, its wing folding beneath it, trickles of red blood staining the membrane between the shoulder and first phalangeal bone, he turned and ran.

Five, ten, fifteen feet..”Do it!”  She let slip the forcefield as he continued to run, the force of the explosion behind them still pushing them forward into the loam as blood and tissue and earth showered them completely. 

Another scream in the confusion, as a hulking mass rolled and skidded towards them, pushing up earth as it came, fast.  Damn! The second!  He grabbed at her body and rolled, trying to get up and sliding as his foot couldn’t purchase solid ground.  He ended up snatching at what remained of her skirts and giving a mighty yank.  The wyvern spat and sputtered, eyes rolled back in its head as it flopped down, no longer moving.  He was face to face with it, its green stained teeth dripping…

“Urghhhhhhh.” came the moan from beneath him.  He shoved himself up from the ground onto stiff arms, one of which was stinging like the dickens..

Just then, he recognized Iain’s boots, legs, form as he jumped onto the body of the now corpse-wyvern. “Just as I thought!” the brown-headed feoil shouted, driving his fist into the sky and grinning ear to ear, “Here they are!”

Ronan looked down into the back of Murron’s head as she lifted her dirt smeared face up to see the approaching group through strands of matted hair.  He coughed up a clod or three of peat and grimaced, his arm smarting. 

“Would ye mind to get off my feine.” Colin hopped over the wing of the creature and crouched down offering Ronan his hand and Murron his other arm, “And explainin’ to me exactly what it was that happened?” He raised a blonde eyebrow at the two of them in the dirt.

Ronan’s vision blurred as he searched for her face, eyes coming to rest on her worried expression as she came into view. “Maire.”  He groaned pulling himself up with Colin’s help and rolling to the side.

He took her hand and stroked her smooth skin with his thumb as he closed his eyes, coughing again.  “’Twas a landmine.”

“Yes. “ she placed her hand against his cheek and said something else he couldn’t quite hear…just yet.