The Sword of the Gael cma-5

by Andrew J Offutt

  “That’s a woman of Eirrin!” Cormac amended. “And… Samaire… it’s after these many years of exile I return, and another seven-day or so in overland travel seems but little.”

  She smiled. “Aye, and it’s pointing out the beauty of Eirrin to ye I’ll be, Cormac mac Art!”

  Wulfhere said absolutely nothing, but gazed stonily ahead along their course. Several of those years Cormac had mentioned had been spent in the Dane’s company. Their relationship had been ever good, with many adventures of the sword and good times withal.

  The ship slipped across the water. Toward sunset they saw the sight that actually brought tears to one pair of eyes: the far coast of Eirrin. Rather than begin the business of working against the wind at this hour, Wulfhere suggested they furl sail and remain asea until after dark.

  “Unnecessary hours with nothing under these feet but the planks of Norse trees and all the water in the world? Ceann groaned. “Methinks I might not be able to bear that, Wulfhere!”

  “We’ll not be long in fetching the coast after sunset,” the Danish giant told him. “Consider how much better all three of ye’ll be with a bit of rest and sleep.”

  “Sensible,” Cormac said, nodding.

  Both Ceann and his sister glanced at their fellow Gael, but neither said aught to the contrary. Despite their being royalty, and of Leinster, it was the son of Art of Connacht they considered leader and best head among them.

  Rocking asea, they made their meal, with Ceann plucking tender, lingering notes and singing very quietly:

  “The warbling of the blackbird of Litir Lee,

  The wave of Rughraidhe lashing the shore;

  The bellowing of the ox of Magh-maoin,

  And the lowing of the calf of Glenn-da-maoil.

  The tossing of the hulls of barks by the waves,

  The yell of the hounds of fair Laighin,

  The cry of Bran at Cnoc-an-air,

  Or the cry of eagles about Mount Leinster.”

  “Was there ever a place, above or below,” Samaire murmured,

  “Better than Eirrin,

  ’Tis there Samaire would go,

  At the side of Art’s son.”

  She did not notice that all three men gazed at her, and that two of them looked at Cormac son of Art, and back at her, and then hastily away.

  They rested, but little sleep was got by any. of the four that afternoon.

  “But-we have assumed… why Wulfhere, you must join us!”

  Twitching the rudder to angle the ship toward the shore, Wulfhere shook his head. “I will miss your minstreling, Prince of Minstrels,” he said. “But no, Eirrin and its business are none of mine. It’s enough danger there is for you three, fugitives all, without your bringing ashore a son of Odin from the land you Lochlinn… my Dane-mark.”

  “But Wulfhere-” Samaire began, frowning deep.

  “I can handle this craft, and ye have no use for it. Soon I’ll find a crew, and return to… what I know and do best.”

  “And love best,” Cormac said, and Samaire noted well the wistfulness in his voice.

  “And love best!” Wulfhere agreed, with his back to Cormac.

  The little ship slipped shoreward beneath the stars. A division of their spoils was no easy matter, with them wanting to leave Wulfhere more and him refusing, saying they’d need all to make their way through “civilized” countryside-meaning among people where goods or their equivalent, money, spoke loudly.

  They contrived to leave him more than he knew, nevertheless, with him busy at the rudder. Ceann and Samaire took little note of Cormac’s staring ahead; they had not the experience to know that any shore was a hostile one, and particularly to those who came quietly by night.

  The Dane took their battle-won ship in to a spit of sandy land that came right down to the water and ran up immediately into loamy soil sprouting a wealth of greenery. In the moonlight they looked at each other, and tears sparkled on more than one Gaelic cheek.

  “Be there objection to this ship’s being called Minstrel Prince?” Wulfhere asked, thickly as though he had swallowed something to lodge in his throat.

  Ceann shook his head, tried three times, and at last got out his quiet, “None.” After a moment he added, “And it’s honour I’m done, at that.”

  Wulfhere’s teeth flashed in a smile. Then he looked at Cormac.

  “We two be veterans of many adventures and strong sword-reddening combats,” he said. “Bloodbrothers?”

  Cormac nodded. “It’s enough we’ve shed together! Blood-brothers, you ugly great bush-face.”

  “Mayhap we’ll meet again, if I were of a mind to have do with a battle-hogging son of a Gaelic pig-farmer.”

  “I regret ever the day I told you my father had pigs on our land!”

  “Get thee off my ship, ere one of us says the ridiculous!”

  “Or weeps,” Samaire murmured, watching the two men. The ship rocked, lapped by gentle tide-waves, bumping the sandy shore.

  “All the gods be with you, Wulfhere Skull-splitter, and fair weather!”

  “And you, Cormac an Cliuin, and may ye ever avoid Loki and the plots of men and gods.” A moment he stood there, back to the moon, a huge dark figure with a bristling beard. Then he said it again: “Get thee off my ship! I’ve places to sail to, and work to do!”

  Without another word, Cormac turned and slipped over the side. Samaire was looking back at the Dane, about to say something; Cormac hissed her to silence and Ceann made as if to hand her down. Instead, she swung over the side as Cormac had done, with the splash of one foot. Ceann followed.

  They stood there long, watching the moonlit retreat of the Viking craft from the shore, marveling that the one man handled her at all, much less as he did: well and competently. Cord and wood creaked; up went the striped sail. It puffed out in the breeze. The ship scudded northward, to ride as swiftly between Eirrin and Britain as her lone crew could push her.

  Ceann sniffed a second before Samaire.

  Then the three of them, Eirrin-born, slipped stealthily onto the soil of Eirrin… creeping like thieves in the night onto the sod of their own homeland.

  Chapter Ten: Picts!

  The ocean’s caverns, where armies daren’t go; The mighty cataract of the great Eas Ruadh; The rolling wave of a spring-tide’s flow: Were the meet images of CORMAC’s wrath.

  – Ceann Ruadh

  It was natural enough that the fisherman and his family were suspicious of a trio that appeared as if from nowhere, and that after dark, and not looking like the fisherfolk that abode along this coast. But Samaire talked persuasively, and Ceann rhymed and played for them. Soon Dond and his family-up late because the day’s catch had been so good-put aside their suspicions. They extended hospitality to the trio; it was the Irish way.

  Nevertheless Dond retained some nervousness. Samaire was offered the little shaggy-roofed house for the night. That was all the room there was within, the fisherman said as if reluctantly. The two men were welcome to spend the night in the shed…

  Cormac and Ceann accepted with alacrity, understanding Dond’s reluctance to admit them into his home, and it night and them armed.

  They watched Samaire enter with Lendabaer, Dond mac Forgall, and his very young but powerfully built son Dondal, and their younger son and daughter, Laeg and Devorgill. The contrast was fantastic, and not just in their colour; Dond and family were of the old dark, black-haired race as was Cormac, while Samaire was red of hair and dusted with freckles. It was not just in her slenderness, either, while Lendabaer had swelled with her birthing five children-two they had lost-and had remained swelled, on a diet of much plentiful seafood and barley-bread and oatmeal and leeks and sallit.

  There was the clothing as well, and the bearing Samaire could not disguise. Dond and his son wore the lightest of tunics, the boy’s without sleeves, and lightweight flax-knit leggings or trews that were a thousand wrinkles. Bustling Lendabaer with her rich mass of black hair (bound back with no less than three ribbons,
of three several colours) wore a long skirt of dull blue. It flowed from beneath a tunic of unbleached white, with a voluminous apron over that.

  Though Samaire was not so tall as five and a half feet, she stood several inches above Lendabaer and was nearly the height of Dond-but hardly that of the early-developing boy of sixteen. Plaited into Samaire’s flaming hair was the ribbon, and a leathern jerkin covered her white tunic. It was belted to drape over the leather leggings she’d worn at the time of her kidnap-and they vanished into the soft, striking boots that rose above her knees and that she had contrived to fasten to her belt with hide thongs.

  “She has the look of a warrior about her,” Cormac muttered.

  “Every inch,” Ceann said, nodding.

  Then the two men saw the family and Samaire disappear into the little house, and they heard the lowering and bracing of the heavy bar across the door. Exchanging a small smile, Cormac and Ceann entered the shed and found places to stretch out.

  “Whew,” Ceann commented, and Cormac chuckled.

  “Aye, and now ye know, Ceann, why they noted no smell of the sea on us. I’d lay wager that the interior of the house smells no less fishy than this shed!”

  Ceann stirred in the darkness. On Irish soil, the two men drifted easily into sleep, despite the hardness of their pallets and the stench of fish and the salt sea.

  Cormac awoke. It was still dark. His had not been a life that allowed a man to sleep deeply, and he awoke both easily and swiftly. He sat up. And heard the sound again; a twitching thrashing, accompanied by the faintest of whimpers.

  Frowning, he slipped sword noiselessly from sheath and stepped as quietly to the door of the shed. Just outside, he saw the source of the sounds that had, roused him.

  It was the dog Flaith, and he twitched and whimpered no longer. From his throat stood a slender wand of wood that had ceased to shudder with his movements. Staring at the arrow, Cormac mac Art needed not step forth to examine it; he knew it was a flint tip that had stolen the dog’s life, and that in moonlit silence.

  With the blackness of the shed’s interior behind him, he looked out onto Dond’s moon-splashed land. He saw squat burly figures ghosting silently. They were ringing the silent little house. With an equal lack of sound, Cormac returned into the fisherman’s shed. He crouched beside the sleeping Ceann. He knew not yet what sort of man Ceann was, save that his life had not paralleled his own. Wulfhere said the redhaired prince fought like a warrior born, but-how did he waken?

  He was woken this time by two iron hands: one closed on his arm to shake him, the other pressed over his mouth.

  The moment he moved, Cormac, bending close, whispered, “It’s Cormac. Be silent. Wake and take up weapons-the house is about to be attacked.”

  Ceann tensed, then Cormac felt him nod. He withdrew both hands. Ceann rose quietly. He asked no questions, but bustled. The prince had permanently borrowed himself a scalemail corselet from one of the Vikings on Samaire-heim, as well as a good sword and two daggers, with belt sheaths. The round shield he had worn on his back, like Cormac. Both men, in order to seem less warlike and fearsome, had arrived here wearing tunics and cloaks over their body armour. Nor had they removed aught for sleeping but shields and weapon-belts, and Cormac his helm.

  They had just buckled on the broad, sheath-pendent belts and taken up their bucklers when the night air was rent wide by a hellish wolf-yelling that rose from many throats.

  “God of my ancestors! What-”

  “Picts,” Cormac snapped, brushing past him on his way doorward. “They shriek when they attack. It’s supposed to strike terror to the hearts of their prey, and render them stone-still with fear.”

  Ceann saw the other man’s broad shoulders and helmeted head, filling the doorway where it was lined in the moonlight. And amid the din of the banshee-howling Picts arose another battle-yell, a ferocious bellow. The charging Cormac vanished. With a swift jerk of his head to clear it of the awful sounds, Ceann charged after him.

  These Picts of the far coast were short and squatty men, powerfully built, with shocks of black hair they often bound with silver fillets. Few wore armour and indeed most had little clothing besides. They were normally armed with flint or bronze; when they bore steel, it was stolen. They attacked in wild beast frenzy, savages that struck and hewed without interest in prisoners or heed for cries for quarter.

  Ceann reached the shed door to see them in a dark ring they’d made about the fisherman’s hut, their number surely a dozen. They whirled from their encirclement to meet the man who ran upon them like a flying shadow. His Viking-won shield was up and ready to tip this way or that, and his sword was carried well out to his right side, streaking through the night like a flying ribbon of cloth-of-silver.

  The next Pictish cry Ceann Ruadh heard, as he went running after the other man, was not one of those challenges; a shriek of bloody death rose as Cormac’s sword ripped the warrior open. An arrow rang off his helmet and another thudded against his chest just inward from his sword arm. Turned by his good chaincoat, it dropped away-and the nearest of the yelling charging savages fell silently with a death wound under his heart.

  Ceann hadn’t time for niceties. The man starting to lunge at Cormac’s back happened to have his own back turned to the prince of Leinster-but that was his fault. Ceann did not slow down. He slammed his shield into the man’s back and arm and flailed over it to cut the Pict’s other shoulder nearly off his torso. The short dark man went falling in a spray of blood from a wound that would empty him in minutes; it was too huge for coagulation.

  The terrible cries continued to rend the air. There was added now the grunt and gurgle and gasp and cry of fighting men, accompanied by the ring and skirl of steel on steel-and its chunking sound as it found flesh, or brittle cracks when it bit to bone-depth. Cormac had gained the door of the house, and in his wake lay three bloody Picts.

  With a bloodcurdling shriek a short, ape-built man sprang high into the air, having run in from the side. He landed directly in Ceann’s path. Up went the barbed Pictish blade for a death-stroke-and Ceann lengthened the man’s navel, splitting him with the full force of his own charge after Cormac.

  The Pict was carried back several feet, and his slayer had to pause and back a step himself, to free his blade. An Eirrin-made sword struck hard on his shield with a frightful clang and a force that staggered him. Narrowly avoiding a thigh-full dagger, Ceann kicked with all his might straight into the dark warrior’s crotch. Only a loincloth of well-tanned hide protected the Pict, who was hurt so sorely that he could not even make an outcry. He dropped puking to his knees and soon was curled up there, twitching, holding himself.

  Ceann had no time to end that foeman’s life; two Picts came at him at once. He took a hardswung blow on his shield and another far down his sword, close to the guard so that the weapon was nearly carried from his hand. Blindly, he swung both buckler and sword inward toward each other, arms extended before his body. The shield sent one man staggering back with a grunt of pain, while the sword cut the empty air. That Pict had crouched under it. Despite his desperate swiftness in hurling himself aside, Ceann felt the cold kiss of steel on the skin of his leg and knew his leathern trews had been opened like linen.

  His whistling blade came back around even as the Pict yanked his own sword back. For a moment the dark, burly man stood there holding it as if unhurt, though a great crimson stripe crossed his belly from flank to flank. Then, staring down at the eruption of his own entrails, he dropped to his knees. Ceann saw no more of him-he was rushing past toward Cormac.

  Cormac stood with his back to the door of the hut, while his sword flashed and whirred in the air, round and round, keeping at bay the five squat dark men who strove to get at him like yapping dogs with a cornered wolf.

  A Pict sprang at Ceann with high-lifted dagger, and lost teeth to the violently-driven edge of the Gael’s shield. Then a sword struck Ceann’s left shin with such force that he toppled, though no blood spurted.

&nb
sp; Flat on his back he looked up to see his death coming, from a high-raised sword that would chop through two such corselets as he wore.

  “HE-E-EEEEEEEYYAAA-A-A-AAAAAAAA!”

  It was a ghastly, inhuman shriek, and a new one that shivered on the air from behind the Pict standing over Ceann. The fallen Leinsterman saw the squat body jerk, bowing-and then the point of a fish-spear appeared in a bloody spray from the man’s muscular belly. He fell.

  Ceann rolled away from the dying Pict, and gained his feet to find that he had been saved by Dondal, son of Dond the fisherman.

  Having launched himself from one of the house’s two shuttered windows, the strapping boy of sixteen had seemingly gone berserker on the instant. Now he had to use his foot against his victim’s back to free the spear’s barbed tip.

  “Leave it, and with thanks,” Ceann called. “Can ye use this?” He extended the Pict’s sword-which was of good Irish steel stolen from some fresh corpse. It seemed more than fitting that it return into Gaelic hands the same way.

  “Aye!” Dondal said-or rather shouted. He snatched the sword. With a blood-rage dancing in his eyes, the boy swung about.

  He was just in time to find himself staring at a charging Pict who held his sword before him like a foreshortened lance. A heavy swing of Dondal’s arm lashed the sword away with a heavy clang, and on the backswing he took the Pict’s arm off.

  “Dondal!” Ceann called, heading again for the house and Cormac, for though the Pict was down and down to stay, Dondal stood over him and hacked and hacked as if he were at the business of making kindling.

  Dondal looked up, and Ceann had never seen such eyes. “Araughhh!” Dondal the fisherman’s son snarled, and pounced forward, unarmoured and without shield, ready to face a world of steel.

  Bodies strewed the ground before the cottage, and still Cormac was against the door, with four men lunging and feinting and hacking at him. The din was loud, chaotic; awful. There was the smell of gore on the air.

  Abruptly the door jerked open behind him and an astonished Pict died two seconds later with a fishing spear in the throat.