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plain in their eyes.
    Rioghan, too, found that she could not sit down. She took a ladle and poured a little hot water from her bronze cauldron into her cup, left it to steam on the stone wall of the hearth, and then stepped out into the darkness just beyond the light of the cave.
    Mist rolled about her feet. Thick clouds left the sky a featureless black. The only light came from the hearth and lamps behind her, and from the red-gold shine in the eyes of the many dogs trotting back and forth, growling softly, in the open meadow before the cave. A few of the dogs came over to touch her hand with their noses or stand beside her for a moment, always looking out into the darkness, always moving on again to patrol their territory and guard their home.
    Then, as one, they stopped and raised their heads. The pack faced the strip of dark forest that separated Sion from the stone circle—and after a heartbeat of standing in complete silence, they shot straight across the meadow.
    Rioghan ran after them. The dogs tore through the forest until they reached the clearing where the stone circle stood. Rioghan let them run past her and then crouched down behind the trunks of two pine trees, peering out into the darkness as the dogs began a frenzy of barking.
    The ground began to shake with hoofbeats. Across the clearing, a group of men on horseback came crashing out of the forest, riding down the same path Donaill had followed to fetch her the night before—and one of the men Rioghan recognized instantly.
    “Beolagh,” she whispered, and so it was, the same loud, greedy man who had come here with Donaill, the same man whose small eyes had lit up upon seeing the gold of Sion.
    He had brought six other men with him. Their horses’ hooves cut and ripped the damp earth as they galloped back and forth across the clearing and in and out of the stones of the circle. The men slashed their swords at the furiously barking dogs as they rode, laughing as they did, and occasionally shouting in triumph whenever one of the dogs shrieked in pain.
    Yet a seventh horse had no rider and ran loose, its reins trailing on the ground. Rioghan saw another man move out of the forest until he stood right in the center of the stone circle, facing away from her, held there by several dogs with bared teeth.
    Her fear and confusion continued to rise. Why did the dogs not attack the lone man on foot? They could make a quick end to the intruder and then help drive away the others on horseback—but as Rioghan stretched up a little taller, she saw with a shock why the dogs would get no closer.
    The man on foot held his sword to the neck of another, smaller figure.
    “Kieran!” Rioghan cried, but the Sidhe could not hear her over the baying of her dogs.
    How had these men possibly managed to catch Kieran? He was of the Fair Folk! How had he let himself be caught out in the open?
    The men on horseback continued to gallop past the other dogs, teasing and striking at them. Then, with a terrible shriek, a huge black hound flipped over in the air amidst a spray of blood. Beolagh galloped past and raised the crimson blade of his sword overhead, shouting wildly as the dog fell heavily to earth and lay motionless.
    For Rioghan, shock turned to rage. She stood up, formed her hands into fists as hard as stones, and cried, “ Madra! ”
    Instantly the dogs’ barking ceased. The pack of black and gray beasts turned away from their tormentors and raced toward her, still growling and whining. In a moment they had her surrounded and milled about in a tight circle.
    The marauding men pulled up their horses in the center of the standing stones, surrounding the one who still held Kieran in his grip. All of them kept a wary eye on the dogs, who had suddenly and inexplicably bolted to the edge of the forest.
    Rioghan stood very still within her cover of brush and trees. The men would not see her so long as she did not move, but Kieran would surely know she was there and understand why