The Hound of Ulster by Rosemary Sutcliff

Ulster has lost her courage and is dishonoured!’
    Hardly had he made an end than Laery sprang from his seat. ‘Not yet is Ulster without a champion! Give me the axe, and kneel down, fellow!’
    â€˜Not so fast! Not so fast, manikin!’ Uath the Stranger laughed and began to caress the gleaming axe blade, murmuring over it in a tongue that was strange to all men there. Then handing the weapon to Laery, he knelt and laid his neck over a mighty oak log beside the fire. Leary stood over him, swinging the great axe to test its weight and balance, then brought it crashing down with such force that the stranger’s head leapt apart from his body, and the blade bit deep into the log.
    Then a horrified gasp broke from all beholders, for as Laery the Triumphant stood back, the body of the stranger twitched, then rose and pulled the axe from the block and picked up its own head from where it had rolled against the hearthstone, and strode down the hall and out into the wild night; and it seemed that the very flames of the torches burned blue behind his passing.
    And Laery stood beside the fire, looking as though he had been struck blind.
    Next evening the Red Branch Warriors sat at supper in the King’s Hall. But they ate little and talked little; and all eyes were turned towards the door. It burst open as before, and in strode Uath the Stranger, with his hideous head set as firmly as ever on his shoulders, and the huge axe swinging in his hand.
    As before, he came and leaned against the roof-tree and looked about him with yellow eyes under his brows. ‘Where is the warrior with whom I last night made a bargain?’
    And King Conor Mac Nessa demanded also of his warriors, ‘Where is Laery the Triumphant?’
    And up and down the benches the warriors looked at each other, but no man had seen Laery the Triumphant that evening.
    â€˜So not even among the flower of the Ulster Warriors is there one to keep his word! Never think again to hold your heads high among the Chariot Chiefs of the world, oh small whipped curs of Ulster who cannot count among you one champion whose honour counts as much with him as a whole skin.’
    Conall had returned from his hunting and was in the hall that night, and he sprang up, crying, ‘Make the bargain afresh, oh Uath the Stranger; make it with me, and you shall not have cause a second time to cry shame on the men of Ulster!’
    So the stranger laughed again, and made his magic in a strange tongue, and knelt for Conall as he had knelt for Laery. And again when the blow had been struck, he rose and took up the axe and his own severed head and strode out into the night.
    The next evening Conall took his accustomed place among the warriors at supper, white and silent, but determined on his fate. Only when the door burst open as before, and the dreadful figure came striding up the hall, his own courage broke, for it was one thing to die in the red blaze of battle, with company on the journey, and quite another to lay one’s head on the block in cold blood, for such an executioner; and he slipped down behind the benches and made for the small postern doorway of the hall.
    So when Uath the Stranger called for Conall of the Victories, there was no answer save the click of the falling door pin.
    Then Uath looked about him at the shamed and angry faces of King and warriors. ‘A pitiful thing it is to see how men such as the Red Branch Warriors hanker after a great name andyet lack the courage to deserve it! Great warriors indeed you are, who cannot furnish forth
one
man to keep his faith with me! Truly even Cuchulain, though he is nothing but a boy that must stain his chin with bramble juices when he wishes to seem a man, one would think too proud to behave as these two mighty heroes have behaved!’
    Cuchulain rose from his place among the Royal kinsmen, and flung his defiance down the hall in a trumpet shout, ‘Young I may be, Uath the Stranger, but I keep