The summer skies of Inver Colpa vanish in one black swoop. The noise of battle is muffled. My feet leave the ground. I hear my horse scream. My own cries are choked off and silenced with a jerk of tight binding. The world turns upside down.

My first instinct is to fight for my life. That impulse is immediately abandoned when I hear a man's triumphant laughter.

"Now we'll get the prize! They'll pay any price for the life of their Rian mor Tuatha. And a few bloody battles into the bargain."

The life of the Rian. But for what prize?

I stop struggling. I let myself go limp, a dead weight flopping over someone's shoulder. I summon all of my senses to my head for listening, smelling, and gathering whatever clues I can from the happenings around me.

The few words I heard were spoken with a Laigan drawl. I smell pine needles crushed underfoot. The Boinne babbles softly somewhere nearby. We are leaving the road, going towards the river. I don't hear or smell any horses, how strange! The man who carries me grunts under the burden. He sweats and curses in a southern dialect. I can tell by his tone that he is well-bred.

Who could this be? We have few enemies among the neighboring tribes. Our troubles have all come from renegades and outlaw raiders. My father's wizened face floats before my blinded eyes, then my beloved Fenian, the spearman Fraoch, the dear bard-turned-warrior MacMorna, the Iceni ambassador Belenus, all of them caught up in this web of darkness. Their lives for mine?

These racing thoughts stagger and halt when an abrupt chill comes over me. Footsteps sound louder, as if tramping on stone. I hear a quiet and steady plop, plop of water. My body slips forward as my abducter bends low, but trudges onward. There is no more sweet scent of trampled greenery.

I am deposited unceremoniously but gently on the cool floor. My back rests against rock.

We're underground.