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AD 793
In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky.
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Worcester and Laud versions)

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Chapter 1

Hard, golden eyes narrowed against the summer sun as the tall, pale-haired warrior surveyed the dark sands and glistening mudflats stretching out before him. Twice a day, for a few brief hours, the ebb tide laid bare a damp, miry path which led to a small jewel of green set in the cerulean sea and lying not far distant from the shore of the mainland… a small jewel of green for which the warrior was now bound. A flicker of distaste flashed across his face as he stared at the route he had to take.

"You'd best not tarry, prince," warned his large, gruff companion. "Whilst you contemplate the likely fate of your boots, the full flood closes in. We will be forced to wait for another turning of the tide if you do not make haste now."

The warrior whipped round at those words. His sharp, auriferous eyes skewered the troll who had uttered them. There was a long moment of silence and then Nuada inclined his head.

"You are right, as always, Mr Wink," he replied sardonically.

In the blink of an eye, the chiselled planes of his face dissolved into the muted colours and weathered lines of a human face, and the gleaming fall of his white, gilt-tipped hair became nothing more than a few straggly wisps of dull, dirty straw. His black, tooled-leather armour took on the appearance of a coarsely-woven woollen tunic, covering him from neck to foot, and his soon-to-be-sacrificed boots – which could surely be counted amongst the finest exemplars of Fae artisanship, and which were certainly the most comfortable pair he'd ever owned - were transformed into roughly-stitched, cowhide turnshoes. His sword metamorphosed into a small pack whilst the Silverlance became a sturdy, gnarled oaken staff. The transformation was complete.

Or almost complete, thought the cave troll to himself. The washed-out human eyes staring back at him still held the cold, deadly light of the elven eyes beneath, and the proud, uncompromising carriage of his body clearly marked Nuada as a man of the sword rather than the man of God for whom he hoped to pass. But the humans, suspicious though they were, generally only saw what they wanted to see and despite these small tells, the elven prince stood a better-than-even chance of deceiving them as to his true nature - for a day or two, at least.

"I will go now. You wait here until the next turning of the tide, when you can slip over to the island under cover of darkness," ordered Nuada, somewhat unnecessarily, as he faced the sea once more. They had gone over their simple plan several times now and each knew his part well enough.

Wink merely grunted in return and took up position alongside one of the standing stones on the small rise above the beach. As his companion headed down the grassy slope, towards the sand and mud that marked his way, the large troll rested his back against the menhir and folded in on himself. Soon enough he was part of the landscape, indistinguishable from the surrounding stones except for his one dark, shining eye which remained firmly fixed on the retreating figure before him. His care for Nuada was real enough but he also knew that should any great harm befall the prince, the elven magic protecting his own thick hide would fail and he would turn to stone for all time should he be unlucky enough to be caught by the killing rays of the hot, golden sun. The elven warrior had proved himself difficult to dispatch thus far, and Wink murmured a quick prayer to the ancient Gods that the prince's luck – and his own - would continue to hold; there was a distinct lack of cover on this windswept stretch of coastline and the cave troll wasn't at all certain he fancied the idea of waiting out eternity in such an unfamiliar spot so far from the land of his birth.

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Down on the sands, Nuada's worst fears were realised the very second he stepped out onto the glistening causeway. Dark, slimy mud oozed up over his feet, slowing his steps and making the going hard. The hem of his conjured-up tunic dragged in the thick, sticky stuff, and he cursed the need to ruin his glamoured boots by walking to the island as a human would instead of using his magic to transport himself across the treacherous strait. But success depended on his blending in with the inhabitants of the small community long enough to gain their trust and prise from them the information he sought - assuming they had that information. A sudden appearance in their midst would not help his cause in that respect. At least this way, the lookout posted at the island's approach would see him coming and the humans would think him no different to any other new arrival. Compared to the prize in the offing, he supposed his boots were a small enough price to pay - as was the affront to his senses which came from having to mingle so closely with the detested foe.

As he trudged through the mire, Nuada cast his mind back to the beginning of summer, to when he'd first heard the rumours. They had started as vague, half-formed whispers, as such talk often did, and in those early days he'd paid them little heed. Ruthlessly repressing the faint flare of hope engendered by the nebulous words – for how could he dare to hope - he'd gone about his business as usual, which is to say, he had continued to study the enemy and occasionally defend those of his people whom he could against the encroaching tide of humanity. It was little enough but with his plans for the Golden Army in tatters and his hands bound by Balor's edicts, it was all he could do in this self-imposed exile. However, as the season had worn on, the rumours had only gained in currency until, at last, he could no longer disregard what was being said… just as he could no longer deny the flame of hope which now burned bright in his breast For it seemed he might be on the brink of discovering a way to deal with the old enemy once and for all.

The talk told of wondrous, fearsome things: of lightning in the heavens on a clear, summer's day, and of strange, wild winds which set church bells to ringing; of dark-winged angels clad in the raiments of the grave, and of terrible demons abroad in the world; of an earth turned upside down and of fiery signs abounding. But most interestingly of all, to Nuada's ears, were reports of great, writhing serpents seen flying in the eventide sky. A blazing hope sprung up in his heart: maybe somehow, against all odds, some few of the Fairtheoirí Dragan Mór had returned to this world. If that proved to be the case, then he would have found his means by which to halt the insidious creep of humanity across the face of the earth. For the great dragons answered to no one, not even the King of Elfland. They would surely not countenance what was happening now and, his father's precious truce notwithstanding, would take their place beside him, joining their magic with his in order to defeat the common enemy.

Nuada's half-smile of anticipation quickly became a scowl as his thoughts turned to his first attempt to discover more about the wondrous events being reported that summer. He'd heard of a village – a human village – which had borne the brunt of a ferocious attack by a great fire-breathing dragon, or so the story went, and in his eagerness to confirm the truth of the rumour it seemed he'd forgotten everything he had ever learnt about his foe. He had suddenly – and stupidly – appeared in the middle of a small farming settlement on the northernmost tip of the great main island, sword in hand and Wink in tow, and after a stunned pause the few remaining inhabitants had taken up their cudgels and scythes and rushed the pair. The only thing he'd discovered was that there was no talking to the villagers, and that was not so much a discovery as a short, sharp reminder of what he already knew. Though he'd silenced their raucous, ear-splitting cries – something about ice-white devils and hulking fiends from Hell but not a word of any sort about dragons – he'd also, perforce, put a swift end to any chance of learning anything of value from them.

He had been more careful in his second attempt but all the same he'd fared no better. A little further down the coast he had been directed to the lone survivor of another brutal attack, this time by a flight of dragons apparently, but the experience had so broken her mind that for all the magic he'd worked on the human woman, there was nothing to be had from her other than the same few wild words about the death-dealing serpents that had swept in from the sea.

He'd almost completed the crossing now and Nuada paused for a moment. He raised his eyes to the jutting escarpment at the southeast corner of the island. The third time is the charm, he told himself as his gaze shifted to the reed-thatched priory of hewn oak sitting a short distance away from the outcrop. He had received new information only the day before, from an alseid whom he'd met in his travels, and he hoped that here, on Lindisfarne – a place sacred to his kind once and sacred still to the humans who'd dispossessed them - the old saying would prove true and he would finally find something more solid than the vague, amorphous third and fourth-hand accounts - human accounts, mostly – which up until now had been his only source of information about what had been taking place along the north-eastern coastline this summer.

A loud, chiming sound suddenly rent the air, startling Nuada and putting an end to his ruminations. He lifted his eyes to the vault of the sky. The sun was still in the eastern quarter, at the midpoint, which meant the priory bells were calling the inhabitants of the island's monastery to Terce. His lips curled in disdain as he stepped onto the sandy shores of the island; how fortunate to find he'd arrived just in time to take part in one of their daily observances. He paused for a moment, to draw all the strength he could from the blazing, summer sun, before setting forth to join the men of the new religion - the monks who sang psalms, morning, noon and night, to the glory of a God they had fashioned in their own image. With his resolve firmly in place, he pulled the cowl of his robes up over his head and turned towards the Temple of Man.

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References:

Turnshoes: a medieval shoe made of leather, put together inside out and then turned right-side-out once finished in order to hide main seam and make the shoe more durable and weather-tight.

Na Fairtheoirí Dragan Mór: (Irish Gaelic) The Great Dragon Sentinels.

Alseid: (Greek mythology) grove nymph.

Terce: (Third Hour) one of the services in the Liturgy of Hours, or Divine Office, Terce is a fixed time of prayer observed at 9 a.m. each day. Refers to the third hour of the day after dawn.

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First posted: here on fanfiction, 21st August 2013

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A/N: This story (four, maybe five chapters in total when finished) stands on its own but I see it as also adding to the context of something which happens soon(ish) in my main story, Dragon-Cursed.
Cheers
ESSI :)