by James Wilde
‘Or else they’re catching their breath and building their strength,’ Solinus countered. ‘The greater battles lie ahead. They’ll not want to rush into them.’
The booming was coming from a waterfall cascading down the gritstone to churn into a meandering river below. A westerly wind was blowing and it whisked up spray vertically from the lip of the fall as if the world had been turned on its head.
‘Myrrdin said this fall was called Kinder Scut,’ Lucanus said. It was a good enough landmark, dwarfing any he had seen near the wall.
Slipping from his horse, he waved his wolf-brothers away to search for any sign that might have been left to show Catia and the others had been here. When they returned, their grim faces told him the answer.
Bellicus clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s a hard ride and they have an old man with them.’
‘They should have been here by now, you know that.’
His friend nodded, slow and sad. ‘We can’t stay. There’s no shelter.’
As he walked away, Lucanus started to follow him and then stopped. Turning in a slow arc, he yelled ‘Catia’ at the top of his voice.
The Grim Wolves waved agitated hands to quiet him, knowing full well his voice could carry for miles.
He called her name again, and again.
‘Could you ride any slower?’ Myrrdin appeared as if from nowhere two spear-throws away, his cloak billowing.
Lucanus sagged with relief.
The camp squatted in a hollow invisible to anyone looking out across the heathland. Black gorse bushes clustered around the edge and Lucanus breathed in the sweet aroma rising from their yellow flowers as he wandered down to where the horses grazed beside the wagon. Menius was sitting by one wheel, sipping from a skin. Amarina knelt beside him, no doubt tending to him with more of her herbs. Amatius was carrying an armful of peat, ready to make a campfire, while Aelius struggled to thrust a branch through the carcass of some fowl for roasting. Decima and Galantha knelt beside him.
Lucanus stopped himself from sprinting down the slope when he saw Catia holding Marcus’ hand. All they could do was smile at each other. He looked away from her stare after only an instant, knowing that she did the same.
Amatius watched him, his thoughts writ large on his face too. Jealousy. Resentment. Perhaps even loathing. Their survival was no joy to him, there was no doubt of that.
‘Rest and eat,’ Myrrdin said, ‘and then I will tell you what chance you have of living to see the winter’s snows.’
As streaks of pink coloured the western sky, Lucanus wiped the grease from his mouth and tossed the bone into the campfire.
‘Come.’ Myrrdin passed him and kept walking as if Lucanus was Catulus who would follow him at will.
And he was a dog, clearly, for he saw no choice but to go after the druid.
The shadows were rushing over the heath like a tide coming in. After a short while, they came to a glassy pool that reflected the scudding clouds. As deep as the sky, Lucanus thought.
‘Across this land there are places that have always been filled with the power of the gods,’ Myrrdin said. ‘In those places the otherworld is only a whisper away. Some say an unwise man can wander through to the Summerlands and never be seen again.’
‘I have heard those tales.’ Lucanus eyed the pool. Like the Isle of Yews.
‘The wood-priests have been the keepers of those places since the first days. In our schools, this is the first thing a novice is taught. Where they are. Why we must be wary when we are near them. How they set our spirits afire and make us new again.’
He skirted the edge of the pool, staring into the shimmering waters.
The sun died and the dark swept in.
‘We are told that a nymph lives here upon the heath. Every day, she bathes in this pool,’ he continued. ‘If a man meets her in this place, on the right night, when the stars are aligned and the moon is full, she will take him down to a cavern far below and there she will make him immortal.’
‘You have many stories, wood-priest. I wonder how many are true and how many are part of that spell you weave to bend people to your will.’
‘Oh, all are true, Wolf. In their own way.’
Lucanus gritted his teeth. For now he decided to play along, and after a moment’s thought said, ‘True, as in gold can be gold or a man grown wise. A dragon can be a dragon or a man reborn—’
‘Or an idea reborn. A way of life reborn. Good. You’re not as thick-headed as you look.’
The clouds drifted away and the moon came out. As Lucanus looked across the heathland, he jerked. In the lambent light, he thought he saw a figure watching them, silhouetted against the starry sky of the horizon. It was gone almost as soon as he looked at it, but some aspect of it was familiar, though he could not be sure why.
He grabbed Myrrdin’s arm. ‘We’re not alone,’ he whispered.
The wood-priest shrugged. ‘We are never alone.’
Lucanus searched the dark landscape, but when he could find no sign of any movement he decided he must have dreamt it. ‘Why have you brought me here?’
‘Would you be made immortal, like the nymph’s lovers, Wolf?’
‘One life is enough for me.’
‘You’ve already died once and been reborn, in the cold waters of the lake where you found your sword.’
‘I did not die.’
‘Your body did not.’
‘More riddles? One day I’ll fall into a sleep at the sound of your voice and never wake up.’
Myrrdin reached out his left hand. ‘Everything that has happened to you has brought you to this place, at this time. One thing leads to another, then another, then another, and only the gods know where it all starts. There is a pattern, a warp and a weft, but we see only the strands around us.’
Lucanus watched Myrrdin’s other hand disappear inside his cloak, and for a moment he thought the druid had brought him there to murder him, a knife in the gut, his blood drained, a sacrifice to those old gods the wood-priest revered. But when he withdrew his hand, he was holding a switch of hazel which he waved towards the still waters.
‘The man you were is long gone,’ he said. ‘We have called upon Lugh’s shining light. Now we must turn our eyes to the dark. Now we must ready for war. Now we must summon the Morrigan.’
Lucanus thought he heard a beating of wings, but it was only the wind in his ears. ‘Another of your old gods?’
‘The Phantom Queen has never left us, Wolf. She is a sister too, and like Hecate she comes three-fold. Badb, Macha and Nemain. Should you meet her, do not look her in the face, for your wits will be dashed from your head and you will be struck dead there and then. The Morrigan is doom, Wolf. Doom in all its forms. In the shape of a crow, she flies above the battlefield, foretelling who will be cut down. She brings night down upon the day, and winter to summer’s end. She is the storm and the shadow and the blood.’ Myrrdin bowed his head and muttered something more, but the words were snatched away by the breeze.
Lucanus shivered, from the cold, he supposed.
When he looked up, the wood-priest’s face was drawn, his eyes coals, haunted. ‘She is known everywhere. In Hibernia they call her the Morrigan, as do we. But she has other names. One and the same. Three as one. Now, when you see a crow upon your travels, it is the Morrigan watching you as you go. When you see a raven feasting upon carrion, it is the Morrigan. She is with you now and always, Wolf. And you will feel her might fill you up whenever you draw Caledfwlch, and you will hear her shriek for blood and death, and her fire will make you a warrior-king, ready for what is to come.’
‘And what is to come?’
‘War. A war the likes of which this land has never known.’
‘I have four wolf-brothers, that is all. How can I fight a war?’
Myrrdin slipped the hazel wand back into the depths of his cloak. ‘If you do not fight the war, you and all you love will be destroyed. The gods have already decreed this.’
Lucanus felt hi
s anger rising. ‘I will fight. For Catia, for Marcus, for my brothers. I’ve never said otherwise. But without an army? You’re mad, wood-priest.’
‘That may well be true.’ The druid scooped up a handful of water and wiped it across his brow. ‘But you are no longer merely Lucanus the Wolf. You are now the Pendragon, and that is a title which has long since carried some weight upon this island.’
Lucanus felt eyes upon him again and he whirled, but it was too dark to see far. All the talk of the Morrigan had unsettled him, he was sure, but still he wondered what secret allies the wood-priest might have.
‘There is nowhere to run now, nowhere to hide,’ the druid said.
‘You think you’re the hand of the gods,’ Lucanus spat. ‘You and your kind make your plans and believe you can bring about all that you hope for, through will alone. But you can’t. That’s been proved now. You have no power over the barbarian horde. They do as they wish. You never expected them to sweep on, destroying all they encountered. Say it.’
Myrrdin shrugged, not denying it.
‘How many lives have you ruined in your arrogance? How many have been destroyed, and for naught? Because you thought all would fall into place as you wished. Any warrior … any man … knows the fates will decide those things.’ He felt the heat of his anger.
‘Be that as it may. Any hope for running … for hiding … that has all been dashed now. What point a king of this land if there is no land to rule? You must fight for it, Lucanus. You must lead an army, and die if you must, to save all there is for the sake of the royal blood.’
‘And again, wood-priest, how?’
‘I have sent out word to the four corners,’ Myrrdin continued. ‘The old names … the old tribes … they still live on. Some still remember what was and what will be again. And if they do remember, and they answer, then there will be a war-moot at the Heartstones, and your army may well appear, as if by magic.’
‘And if they do not remember? If they do not answer?’
‘Then you die, Wolf. And your woman dies. And the boy is taken. And the dream we all share dies too.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Old Friends
BLACK WINGS BLOTTED out the sun. Below, the shadows of those carrion birds swept across the green land, their shrieks drowning out all other sounds. Crows and ravens. The Morrigan was there to see what war had wrought.
Through a thick fog of smoke drifting across the landscape the dull orange of the fires glowed, and the air reeked of burning and blood.
Amarina was kneeling in a deep thicket, staring at the procession trundling past, her throat so narrow she thought she would never breathe again.
The barbarians towered on the backs of muscular stallions, spears tucked in the crooks of their elbows or swords in their hands. Faces like carved stone, eyes like coals, wild hair limned by the light from the burning homes. Stumbling alongside, half-naked women clutched on to the hands of children, filthy with soot and dappled with bruises. Looking around, bewildered at what had become of them. Men, bleeding and broken, their heads bowing so low in despair it seemed that with each step they would fall to their knees.
Amarina choked back a wave of pity that she thought had long since been wrung out of her.
Occasionally the barbarians would prod the captives with their weapons, to make them walk faster or merely for sport, and then they would bark with cruel laughter.
The invaders were making slaves of the conquered.
Amarina felt sickened by the depravities heaped on these poor souls, and she had endured many terrible things in her life. She saw some faces so ragged with despair she imagined they believed only death would save them.
Since they had descended from Kinder Scut to this blasted land, this was all she had seen – smoke and fire, ravens feasting upon the dead, and the free folk who had survived bound and forced to serve their new masters.
They had made their way through a lush land of thick forests and meadows and rushing streams, following the paths of steep, shadowed valleys. For a while, they had thought they might be able to creep past the horde by avoiding settlements, but soon they realized the numbers were swelling by the day as more flooded in from east and west. Now they were all but trapped, their route south blocked by the rampaging barbarians who were filled with such a blood-lust it seemed they would not rest until they had stripped the land bare of all that was civilized.
Her gaze settled on a girl who had seen perhaps seven summers. Naked and smeared with mud, her blonde hair hung in greasy coils around her frightened face. Amarina watched her, caught up in a storm of memories, and for a moment she thought her despair for this poor child would overwhelm her. What hope was there for her now? What hope for any of them?
Two horses rode up. On one was a man with a mane of black hair, the plaits decorated with the skulls of birds and mice. Beside him was a familiar smirking face: Motius, the Carrion Crow.
The black-haired man barked an order in a tongue she couldn’t understand; he was the leader, she thought. Two of his men slipped from their horses and dragged one of the slaves out, throwing him to his knees. The leader climbed down and levelled his sword at the captive.
Amarina felt her heart leap when she saw it was a woodsman they’d met in a copse not two days gone.
Nearby the horses churned as if sensing the bloodshed that was to come. Their riders yanked on reins to bring them under control, but they too had the sniff of blood. Amarina could see it in their grins, the cock of their heads, and she hated them for it.
Their captive trembled as the leader questioned him in his guttural tongue. Motius appeared to be translating the words into something the slave could understand.
Whatever he heard, the Scoti warrior jabbed his blade deeper into flesh, drawing out a keening cry. For a moment, the barbarian hesitated, and then, with a shake of his head, he thrust.
Amarina felt fingertips brush her arm and she jerked and almost cried out.
Mato was beside her, pressing a finger to his lips. He flicked his hand to summon her, and together they wriggled back through a sea of bracken. On the edge of a valley shadowed by dense woods, Lucanus and Bellicus hunched, waiting.
‘She was watching the war-band,’ Mato said.
‘Don’t go off on your own again,’ the Wolf said.
‘Is that an order, Lucanus?’ she replied. ‘I would have thought you would know better than that.’
‘You’re wasting your breath. She will do as she wishes, you know that,’ Bellicus grunted, though Amarina thought she could hear some admiration in his voice.
‘I saw a barbarian there, one who leads them, I think,’ she said, describing what she had seen.
‘His name is Erca,’ Lucanus replied. ‘A bastard above all bastards.’
‘That is no lie. Motius and his Carrion Crows were there too. They questioned the woodsman we met, then killed him. They’re looking for us, I have no doubt.’
The Wolf gritted his teeth. ‘We knew they wouldn’t rest. Nothing is more important to Erca now the barbarians have routed any resistance to their attack.’
‘What do we do now?’ Mato asked. ‘We can’t go south from here. And every hour we wait they circle closer to us.’
‘Erca is no fool,’ Lucanus said. ‘He knows our army, or what remains of it, will probably have regrouped somewhere in the south. Fullofaudes must be preparing for a fight. If not, he is not worthy of the title Dux Britanniarum. We only have to get past wherever he draws his line and builds his own army for the final battle.’
‘Easier said than done,’ Bellicus muttered.
Amarina thought her heart couldn’t sink any lower, but suddenly her limbs felt so heavy all she wanted to do was sleep. ‘I’m tired of talking,’ she said. ‘Words, words, words, that’s all I hear these days. Let us return to the others and make a plan that will truly save us.’
They plunged down the steep valley side, weaving among the trees, until they reached the bottom. There they followed the line
of a silver stream until they found where the others had made camp in the dark shelter beneath an outcropping shield of rock.
In the dank shadows, Myrrdin watched them draw near. Amarina could see he was reading their faces. Rarely did he have anything but a grin on his lips, yet now his face was like stone.
‘Our way is blocked,’ Lucanus told him. ‘We must find another road or stay here and die.’
Lucanus thought he heard the temple calling to them as they made their way down through the steep valley of the Black Brook. Was it the wind in the branches or the seductive whispers of old gods?
Five days had passed since they’d witnessed the horde taking slaves, five long days of creeping through dense woods towards the south-west. Weary, wary, they had bickered and snapped. But Myrrdin had led them on, promising sanctuary and an ally. And the Wolf had to admit that decision was the right one. The smoke drifted away. The clamour of slaughter faded until there was only birdsong.
Swatting away fat flies, Amarina had long been complaining about the lack of any sign of their destination. The druid had only smiled. But now Lucanus could see it, or thought he could, a place hidden from anyone but those searching for it.
Deep in the forest a cleft gashed through the rock, as wide as a man, made all but invisible by trees and grass and moss. Steps carved into the stone disappeared into the cool dark.
‘What kind of temple is this?’ Amarina asked, her voice oddly hushed.
‘The folk in these parts call it Lud’s Temple, in their way,’ Myrrdin replied. ‘The true name is Lugh’s Temple. Here in days long gone, the god was worshipped in the belly of the earth. Here, too, Cernunnos lives. But now it is the home of the Lord of the Greenwood.’
The riders slipped off their horses, the wagon abandoned to one side. The druid climbed to the top of those steps, and crooked a finger for Lucanus to join him. Together they looked down into the gloom.
The Wolf felt his skin turn to gooseflesh, though he wasn’t sure why. ‘What’s down there?’ he said.
‘Your destiny.’
‘That ally you mentioned?’
‘Perhaps.’
