Chapter 10: The Road Ahead

"Some roads aren't meant to be traveled alone." ― Chinese Proverb

Ireland 1916

"Ah, there you are Cargill, I was wondering if they had shipped you and your platoon of misfits to Dublin," a voice sarcastically called out and the young English officer looked up from his bunk towards the figure on crutches standing in the doorway. "It seems that General Lowe has mustered all the able body men he can find and marched them off to fight the rebels. That old coot hasn't seen battle since the Boar War."

"He took everyone but you Hobbs, but I guess he didn't want an officer hobbling around on crutches either?" the younger officer chuckled while the older officer thumped his way across the room and towards a chair. "You make too fine of a target that even a Paddy couldn't miss."

"Now there, don't speak badly about all the Irish. We have a fair share of loyal lads who took up the King's call to fight the Huns and the 10th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 3rd Royal Irish Regiment, and 3rd Royal Irish Rifles are the first to take the fight to the rebels in Dublin. Hell, the rebels even shot down some of those old men in the home guard as they marched down Northumberland Road. I heard they killed a whole lot before they realized they were shooting their own grandfathers, those poor bastards were too elderly to climb over the walls to safety and got gunned down trying."

"I guess we will get the call when needed?" the Lieutenant sighed as he put his notebook back into his canvas bag.

"Someone has to guard good old Curragh Camp," Hobbs replied as he stretched out in the chair. "And so that is our job, cripples and rejects…oh and you!"

"My men are quite capable…" Cargill began to object.

"Is that why the major had you march off into the backcountry to poke around?"

"Someone had to do it."

"Maybe someone like you, whose uncle has enough political pull to keep his favorite nephew from the trenches in France?"

"He didn't keep my father and brothers from those trenches, now they are all buried in that foreign ground."

"So true and I 'm sorry about being a whiney old bag, chap. I just wish I could do my part in the war and not be stuck here babysitting rebellious bastards. No glory in that is there?"

"There isn't much glory in the mud of France and the low countries either!" the young Lieutenant softly said. "My father thought so when war was first declared."

"He died early on, at Mons, didn't he?"

"His company was decimated in the canal salient."

"Is it true that Saint George and the ghostly bowmen of Agincourt appeared? I heard the story that they did and used their divine arrows to drive the Hun back."

"Do you really believe that nonsense?"

"Smithy saw it in a copy of Illustrated London News last November and told me about it. I've also heard stories that many of the German dead were found with arrows in their bodies."

"Stories…" Cargill began and then he drew quiet when he realized that there were many more strange things in this world than he would have believed just days ago, such strange things as talking foxes. "Just stories!" he bitterly finished with a sigh. His hand moved into his rucksack and touched his notebook where the odd page was safely tucked within. "If Saint George and God were on our side, why didn't they stay to fight?"

"Who knows the ways of God?"

There was a shuffling sound as an orderly appeared at the door and saluted. The officer saluted back and stood to receive the note he was given. "Well, it seems that my platoon is going to Dublin after all," he commented even as he read what was written on the sheet of paper.

"God go with you, chap!" Hobbs said. "Give those rebels hell!"

Cargill gave a thin smile and a nod towards the other officer before he rushed from the room to find his platoon sergeant.

The fox had spent most of the day time in misery while he tried to curl up and nap within a small hole in the ground that he had found. The friendly sprite had disappeared into the leaves of a nearby tree. For the whole day, men were rushing up and down the road which they had traveled upon the previous night and this continued well into the evening. Finally, it seemed safe to once again continue his travel towards the town of Kildare.

"The town we are going to is named Cill Dara in the old tongue, which means the church of the oak, and it was given to good Brigid by a human king who once ruled the land from Dún Ailinne. The mortal king did not know that Brigid was a goddess and he promised in jest that she could have as much land as her cloak would cover. When she spread her cloak upon the ground it magically stretched out to cover the entire Curragh, of course, the king took this as a miracle and lived up to his promise," Gnat said while she flittered before the fox.

"Just how do you think we are going to get inside of the town?" Nick asked before he shouldered his small bundle. "A fox and a sprite are not going to be able to walk down the main street without drawing some attention."

"I wasn't counting on you coming up with a brilliant idea," she laughed before she gave a twirl in the air. "After all you are not a sly as your brethren and the town's dogs would be on you as soon as they caught your scent."

"Then how will we get to where this Brigid is living?"

"I have friends in the city who have lived there long before the mortals came to this land. We walk the high road tonight, but they rule the low road."

"The low road?"

"You will see!" Gnat giggled while she fluttered about.

The small village's priest had returned to the old manor again to look around, for it seemed that its owner had fled after the English had come.

"So Fitzgerald ran, I guess he feared that the revolt was coming our way and that the Irish Volunteers would hang him for his service to the English bastards," the burley farmer scoffed as he too looked around the now-empty rooms. "I heard that he wasn't even a real Fitzgerald, but an American who weaseled his way into becoming the heir."

"I thought you Sinn Féin liked the Americans?" the priest asked with a small grin. "God knows they have sent enough money to fund a revolt."

"Clan na Gael and others have been generous enough with money, but have you heard of them coming to join our fight?"

"Did you ever stop to wonder just how they were going to get here? They couldn't just hop into a boat and start rowing. The British Navy rules the seas and besides the German's are sinking ships too. Who can forget reading about what happened to the Lusitania? They torpedoed her off of the Old Head of Kinsale and the bodies were washing up on the coast near Cobh for weeks, I forget just how many Americans went down with her."

"Aye, that was a sad thing but war shows no mercy."

"No, mercy is in short supply these days."

Gripping the banister, the priest slowly climbed up the stairwell to the second floor and paused when he saw the burned-out room. "Twas a terrible thing that fire!" the farmer called out from below. "But that is what you get from courting the devil."

"Courting the devil," the holy man muttered with a shake of his head before he stepped inside of the fire-charred room. "Oh, what unholy acts were you performing here, and may God forgive you for it brought ruin upon you both in your body and soul." With a sigh, he stood inside the room while he looked at the demonic symbols scratched upon the wooden floor. "I should have brought some holy water to cleanse this place of its evil," he called out to his companion, but the farmer did not answer.

"Holy water?" there was finally a guttural-sounding chuckle and the priest turned to face the figure standing in the doorway. "Do you really believe you can wash this room clean with water?" The farmer seemed to be lounging casually in the doorway while he glanced around.

The priest gave a short gasp when he saw the farmer's now pitch-black eyes. "God save us!" he cried out even as he grasped the silver cross hanging around his neck and held it with shaking hands before him. "Release him, demon!" he stuttered out in fear.

"No!" the creature who was known as Nekron simply said.

"In the name of God, release him!" the priest commanded again. "Begone, you vile creature!"

"Stop waving that around," the demon chuckled. "Do you think that a cross with the image of a crucified preacher would be something I should fear? All you priests are the same no matter which god you follow. It took much of my power to cross over into this dimension and possess the owner of this body, so why should I give it back?"

"This represents Christ, the Son of God!" the holy man answered while he thrust the cross towards the possessed farmer.

"Ah yes, don't they say he returned from the dead?"

"He overcame death!"

"I know all about death, but the Death you are speaking of is vastly overrated and she has been defeated by others before. She was even turned mortal, but I guess you wouldn't know about that since it was forgotten by all mortals after all of the realities were reset."

"What do you want here?" the priest said as he retreated a few steps from the figure at the door.

"I want to know where the missing page is being hidden. Did you take it or was it that fox?"

"Fox?"

"The fox that was ripped from where he lived by the explosion caused when those who think they are my masters seized the book from the scientist."

"I don't know anything about a fox or any missing page?"

"I was afraid of that," Nekron sighed before he stepped aside to reveal two lurking dark dog-like creatures. "Go ahead my dears and feast on this mortal's flesh and then find the page's scent, we must track it down and recover it soon."

With a growl and gashing teeth, the hellhounds charged towards the wailing priest and his cross did not save him, for in his terror his faith had failed him. Jaws snapped at the whimpering priest while he desperately held his hands out in futility to try to ward off his doom. "STOP!" the creature in the farmer's body suddenly hissed out and the hellhounds slank back in confusion. "If you kill him then Death will know, for she must appear to release his soul."

The priest curled up against the wall. "What should I do with you?" Nekron mused as he looked around. "I cannot just let you free and yet I cannot kill you?" It was then he saw the still partially opened space in the wall, it was the Priest's Hole where Nick had been hiding. "Inside!" he commanded the human, who stumbled as he obeyed. Slamming the door shut once the priest had entered, the creature used his immense strength to drag the remains of a wardrobe and then other heavy furniture to block the doorway. "That should keep you from running around!"

The priest knew he was sealed inside the room with no hope of getting free, but at least he was still alive.

"Now come on you two, we need to find that page!" Nekron growled to the hellhounds who were now sniffing around the room and soon they set off down the stairs following the page's unholy scent.

Inside of the small room which had offered sanctuary from the protestants to those who were his predecessors, the priest bitterly looked down at the cross in his hands. "I have failed the Lord," he sobbed. "In my fear, my faith fled. I am not worthy to be a priest..." He held the cross up in preparation to throw it aside but instead hesitated while he looked upon the upside-down cross and image of the man being crucified. Peter..." he whispered. "Saint Peter too lost his faith when called upon by the Lord, three times his faith failed, and yet he was forgiven." Clutching the cross to his chest he began to pray, first to Saint Peter to intervene on his behalf and then to Saint Patrick. After a few desperate moments, he remembered a local saint to whom he had only mouthed the traditional prayers on her holy day in early February. "Saint Brigid, you were a woman of peace..." he started her prayer.

Brigadier-General William Henry Muir Lowe was a veteran of both the Egyptian Campaign of 1882 and the Second Boar War from 1900-1902. He was retired, but rejoined the army after the outbreak of war in 1914 and was commander of the 3rd Reserve Cavalry Brigade, stationed at the Curragh Camp when the 1916 Rising began. He would initially lead the British forces at the start of the battle and would accept Patrick Pearse's final surrender of the Irish rebels. For his service, he would be given the honorary rank of major-general when he retired in 1919. Oddly, his obituary in The Times would fail to mention his role in Dublin. His son, who served first in Gallipoli and then as his father's ADC in Ireland, would later become an actor under the screen name of John Loder. One of his many movie roles would be playing one of Roddy McDowall's brothers in the classic film, How Green Was My Valley.

Of the British casualties during the 1916 Rising, three were unarmed members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, fourteen were members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and twenty-two were other Irishmen in military service.

The American organization Clan na Gael raised money for the Irish rebellion and some of its members actually negotiated with the German's for their assistance, securing a shipment of rifles. The ship carrying the weapons was masquerading as the Norwegian flagged SS Aud, but it was intercepted by the Royal Navy and its crew scuttled the ill-fated ship to keep the guns from British hands.

Nekron is yet another personification of death found in the Darkest Night series of comics and belongs to DC comics.

Tradition tells us that when Peter was martyred, he begged to be crucified upside down for he did not believe himself worthy enough to die in the same manner as the Lord.