The Dark Mirror

by Juliet Marillier

  THE MACE STONE WAS considered the most impressive of all the Kin Stones that marked the ancient territories of the Priteni. Greater than a tall man’s height, it was carven on either side with patterns of subtlety and grace. The north face bore the tale of a great conflict: at the top, a king and his warriors advancing into battle, the monarch astride a stocky horse, his men marching behind, spears at the ready, curling hair bold and fine across their shoulders, eyes set straight ahead. In the center was depicted a melee as the Priteni clashed with their foe; here, the king drove his spear through the breast of his adversary. At the bottom could be seen the heads of the enemy displayed on pikes and the corpses of the slain set in neat rows. Beside them a hound devoured a goose. Perhaps each king had one of these creatures as his kin token.

  The south face of the great stone had a less formal pattern—it was a wild and joyous tribute to the gods, the entire surface filled with small carvings of every kind of animal that was to be found in the kingdoms of the Priteni: wolf, stag, fox and badger, marten and vole, eel and salmon, bull, boar and ram, all rioted across the face of the stone in wondrous celebration of life. On the eastern and western sides of the Mage Stone were great swirls of interwoven snakes, with here and there small, grinning faces of man, woman, or creature.

  Bridei had never seen it. The Mage Stone stood far to the west, where King Lake opened to the sea, and in an ill season the Gaels had moved in and seized control of the hillside from which it had looked down for generation on generation. It was Broichan who had first described the stone to him: “It is a true wonder, Bridei; not merely a marvel of the carver’s craft, but heavy with the lore of our people and full of the mystery of the ancestors.” Erip had told Bridei, later, that the strange little faces on the sides were the sculptor’s own touch, his personal contribution to the overall design; in all great works of art, he’d said, one would find such evidence of a need to break free of established patterns, if one looked hard enough. That had provoked a heated argument with Wid; Bridei remembered it fondly. He imagined the two old scholars, back home at Pitnochie, still devoting their days to endless debates on philosophy. It was good that they had Tuala to teach now that he was gone; she was clever and would keep the old rascals well occupied. Thinking of that, imagining the three of them before the hall fire, telling tales or playing games or arguing a point of history, made Bridei feel better. Knowing that world remained at Pitnochie awaiting his return was like knowing he had an anchor to keep him safe, or being assured his spirit would remain strong even when he must see unthinkable things, face unknowable risks.

  It was not that Bridei was afraid. He had been taught to assess any situation, weigh up opportunities and dangers, make a decision and act on it. Years of Broichan’s tuition had ensured he responded thus no matter what the event; Talorgen had commented, when Bridei began his seasons of battle training among the warriors of Raven’s Well, that in strategic grasp, in decisiveness, and in making sound judgments, Broichan’s foster son had little to learn. On the other hand, no young man, however promising, knows just how capable he is until his first real taste of war. The small skirmish in which Bridei and Gartnait had taken a prisoner apiece was one thing. A genuine battle was quite another. Talorgen had trained them hard. They’d had long expeditions across country in weather fit to freeze the stoutest man; they’d been hungry, exhausted, angry, bored. It seemed to Bridei that they must by now be ready for the real thing. He knew, all the same, that perhaps one could never really be ready.

  It helped having Donal around. Donal did his best to tell it straight; to prepare Bridei for both best and worst.

  “Remember what I told you once,” Donal said when the two of them were alone together, snatching a moment’s peace between the endless training sessions. They were riding out soon and the pace was relentless. “The first time’s always the worst. That’s the time you think about the fellow you’re killing, what’s his name, does he have a wife and children, is he scared and so on. You stick your knife into him anyway, because if you don’t, he’ll have you. After that, you learn to snuff out that part of yourself, the part that asks questions like, should I really be doing this? You don’t think of them as men like yourself, you think of them as the enemy, stinking Gaels with your countrymen’s blood on their hands and pure darkness in their souls. Then you don’t strike to kill a son, a husband, a father; you strike to destroy the bane of Fortriu. There’s no other way to do it, Bridei. It seems odd to say this, but the best way to fight isn’t with your heart or even with your belly, it’s with your head. Cold, clean, detached. Not a killing, a just execution.”

  Bridei greeted this with silence.

  “Believe me,” Donal said, “you can’t afford any scruples. That’s why we practice the forms of it over and over, swords, spears, knives, bare hands—so when it comes to the point, we just do it. Helps hold back fear, too, if you know the moves so well you could do them in your sleep. Don’t look like that, Bridei. You will be afraid. We all are. Even Talorgen.”

  Bridei glanced at him. “I didn’t think you would be,” he observed. “Donal, victor of more battles than I’ve got fingers and toes to count them on, isn’t that what you once told me?”

  Donal grinned. “I doubt if you’d notice when I’m on the field,” he said. “Fear’s good, if you use it right. Keeps you sharp; keeps you on your toes.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be afraid,” Bridei said. “I think I’ll be able to do it.”

  “Aye,” said Donal. “I’ve no doubt of that. But you’ll see things you won’t like, things it can be hard to come to terms with. There’s no way to prepare a man for the death of his friends, nor for the acts of savagery that are the daily bread of these Gaels. That can stay with you a long time.”

  Bridei did not ask a question, simply looked at his companion.

  “I’ve learned to put it away,” Donal said quietly. “Lock it away inside where it’s best kept. Sometimes it comes back. Sometimes I dream. Not often. A man can’t well afford that if he’s to be any use as a fighter.”

  Bridei considered, not for the first time, the fact that Donal, a man of middle years, had neither wife nor children to his name. He said nothing.

  “I’ll be with you, lad,” Donal said. “Don’t expect it to be easy, that’s all.”

  “I’m not a fool,” retorted Bridei, feeling a flush rise to his cheeks.

  “No,” said the warrior, “and I did not say so. All I’m saying is, a druid’s wisdom may teach you a lot, things far beyond the comprehension of a simple man like me. But it can’t prepare you for this, and nor can all the combat training Talorgen and I can give you. Just so you know.”

  “I do know,” Bridei said, thinking of the Dark Mirror. “The gods have shown me.”

  “They show glimpses, images, shadows,” said Donal. “This is blood, gore, hacked limbs, severed heads, women lying sprawled where the vermin have left them, infants smashed, houses torched. It’s the smells and the sounds that go with that. Worse, it’s your comrades turned suddenly into strangers. That’s the hardest part.”

  Donal’s voice had changed; Bridei looked at him sharply.

  “What do you mean?”

  Donal folded his arms. His close-set eyes took on a distant look. “Maybe it won’t happen,” he said. “Maybe you’ll walk through it shielded by the breath of the gods. Would that it might be so. Now, I think I can hear Elpin calling us; must be our turn for spear throwing. You coming?”

  THEY MOVED DOWN the Glen in groups of ten, setting out from Raven’s Well as soon as the leaf buds began to swell on the birches. A small force was left behind to guard Talorgen’s property from raids; his family had traveled up toward Serpent Lake, heading for the safety of court.

  Talorgen’s army numbered close to a hundred men when it set out. It was, by its leader’s choice, principally a force of foot soldiers, although there were horses with them, pack ponies to bear supplies and a few riding mounts which allowed the quick relay of messages wh
en the terrain was suited to it. There had been a debate over this: whether the problem of fodder outweighed the creatures’ usefulness in the field, where a mounted man had increased visibility, range, and speed. There was a further dispute concerning the use of the lakes; forces and goods could be quickly conveyed by sailing vessel or barge, saving long, weary marches that sapped the men’s energy and dampened their spirits. The reverse argument was that boats were clearly visible to spies on the open hillsides above Mage and King Lakes; there’d be no element of surprise if they used the water paths. Besides, carrying the vessels overland beside the linking streams was just as wearying as tramping the whole way on foot.

  It was, in the end, the long, slow way, the more covert route that was chosen. The small groups went severally, camping close but keeping each to itself, covering their tracks as best they could and keeping to the natural concealment of rocks and trees by the water’s edge. Cold and wet it certainly was; clothing never quite dried after the first drenching rainstorm, and Bridei became used to the smell of ill-dried boots, sweat-soaked wool, and unwashed bodies huddled close. They caught their food on the way, when they could, to conserve the supplies the ponies carried.

  They had set out not long after the festival of Balance, and the journey stretched out until some of the men were heard to utter dour jokes about not getting there until time for Rising. When it was possible, the daily marches were long, but the season did not always smile on their endeavors, and there were times when mist or rain slowed their progress to a painful, creeping advance. An ailment that caused retching and purging stopped them in their tracks for many days on the southern shore of Mage Lake. They lost two men to that, burying them with a brief ceremony before they moved on again. Day merged into night and night into day; suppers were taken for the most part in silence, the men like dark, despondent shadows around their little fires.

  Bridei kept a count of the season’s passing, neat lines incised on a birch twig he carried in his pack. It had been many days’ walking, many nights’ restless sleep. They sent scouts ahead, but saw nothing of the enemy. Gartnait grumbled that he wished they could hurry up; his hands were itching for a Gael’s throat, and he wouldn’t be so careful of the fellow’s safety as he’d been last time. Donal told him to shut up, and he did. There had been no meat to share that night beyond a couple of rabbits among the whole team, and their bellies were complaining.

  At a point where Bridei judged they must be nearing the bridge that marked the northern tip of King Lake, Talorgen called the groups in for a council. What had set out as a force of near a hundred had become somewhat larger as it passed down the Great Glen. There were two other chieftains here now, Morleo of Longwater, tall, lean, dark-bearded, and Ged of Abertornie, a flamboyant, cheerful man given to garments woven in bright colors and elaborate patterns of stripes and squares. Each of these leaders brought his own substantial force; Ged’s had adopted their chieftain’s mode of dress and Donal commented, behind his hand, that the Gaels would see them coming from halfway down King Lake, for they shone bright as beacons in their red and yellow and green.

  The council was businesslike. Several leaders there might be, but all understood this was Talorgen’s undertaking, done in the name of King Drust and of all Fortriu, and that when it came to it, decisions must be reached quickly and effectively, with a single voice. After conferring with Ged and Morleo and the most trusted of his own men, Donal among them, Talorgen addressed the assembled forces. The men were gathered in a place where a stony outcrop hung above a natural clearing. A stream ran there, and the mossy ground was like a soaked sponge, but it was the only open space big enough to let all of them see their leader as he spoke. Bridei stood at the back with Gartnait; he wondered how he would feel if Talorgen were his own father. He supposed that, as his father Maelchon was a king, there would indeed have been times when he had stood thus before his troops and exhorted them to courage. Bridei thought he might have liked to see that. He could not tell if Gartnait was proud of his father; Gartnait seemed to have nothing on his mind these days beyond an anticipation of killing Gaels.

  “We are a strong army,” Talorgen was saying, “bold of heart and steadfast of spirit. But this is not the kind of battle in which we can charge forward in numbers, assailing the enemy and overpowering him with the sheer force of our initial assault. Gabhran of Dalriada knows this country now” At the mention of this name there was a general hiss of disapproval. “His folk are settled far and wide across what was once our own territory”

  “And will be ours again!” someone was bold enough to shout, and other voices arose in support.

  “At Galany’s Reach, where the Mage Stone stands, there is now a fortified settlement. Our spies tell us it’s not heavily manned. A garrison of thirty, perhaps; more if they’ve had word of our coming. There are also ordinary folk there, wives and children, craftspeople, slaves.”

  “Scum,” someone muttered.

  “A force the size of ours could take it easily. But as I’m sure you realize, holding it would be a different matter. That hill and the lonely vale below it were once the lands of Duchil of Galany, one of the bravest of our chieftains. Duchil was slain in the last great struggle against the Gaels,” Talorgen bowed his head briefly. “Those of his folk who survived were driven out; they live their lives in exile. Fokel, son of Duchil, will ride with us at the end, he and his warriors.”

  A couple of the men greeted this with a half-hearted cheer; most were silent. Perhaps, thought Bridei, they had heard what he had about Fake!, a man whose name was seldom mentioned without the words mad, wild, or unpredictable alongside it.

  “We know,” Talorgen said, “that we can take the settlement and the hill. We know also that the moment our force emerges from the woods to cross the bridge at Fox Falls, the enemy’s forward sentries will carry word to their leaders of our approach. That word will go to all their fortresses, all their strongholds; it will reach their king at Dunadd soon enough. The speed of their response depends on where their fighting men are currently deployed; the information we have on that is now somewhat stale, I think. We might hold Galany’s Reach for one turning of the moon at most. Likely we’d be surrounded by Gabhran’s forces long before then, and find ourselves besieged on the hilltop. I’ll put it to you plainly, men. This is a symbolic mission; a taste of what is to come for the forces of Dalriada. We go in, attack, withdraw. We destroy their garrison and we take hostages: the leader, the women and children. We retreat.”

  To Bridei this made good sense. It was precisely the way he would have conducted the mission himself, had he been leader. Erip and Wid had taught him the long history of this struggle. The three of them had analyzed exhaustively the great and bloody battles between Fortriu and Dalriada, the heroic advances down the Glen, the harried retreats, the patterns of victory and defeat. It was plain to Bridei that a force the size of Talorgen’s could not hold a territory so far to the west for long. Without the backing of the armies of Circinn, Fortriu would never drive the Gaels back to their homeland. These men, however, had not had the benefit of his education. Their blood ran hot with the desire for vengeance; their every energy was fixed on the killing of Gaels. A chorus of protest rang out.

  “Retreat? We’re not in it to retreat!”

  “What, let the scum keep the lands they’ve stolen? Not likely!”

  “Kill ‘em all, I say!”

  Morleo of Longwater, who stood beside Talorgen, raised his hand and the shouting subsided to angry muttering. “This venture,” he said gravely, “is a sign to them that we are bold, quick, and clever; that our numbers are growing, our alliances strong. That we have not forgotten the ills they have inflicted on our people. We raise there the banner of Drust the Bull, and beside it those of Raven’s Well, of Longwater, and of Abertornie.” He nodded acknowledgment at Ged. “We raise also the stars and serpent that are the ancient symbols of Galany’s Reach itself.”

  “And then,” said the brightly clad Ged, “we hold a cerem
ony. Perhaps the feast of Rising, perhaps another ritual. We stand on that hilltop around the Mage Stone and we consecrate it once again to our own gods: to the Flamekeeper and the Shining One, to Bone Mother and the fair maiden All-Flowers. We ensure our captives are present to witness it. We release one or two of them to convey the tale of it to Gabhran and his henchmen. Then we retreat. In time we will return. We will return with a greater army than these Gaels have ever dreamed of.”

  The warriors roared approval; Ged had an amiable manner about him and a rousing tone of voice, and the simplicity of his speech touched something in the spirits of the men. Bridei did not cheer. His mind was on that army, the force that would be big enough to scour the land forever of the menace of Dalriada; the army that could never be assembled until Circinn came to Fortriu’s aid. Not until the divided kingdom of the Priteni was united and working for a single purpose might this be achieved. He observed the men’s shining eyes, their looks of pride and purpose, and knew they were thinking they would do this next summer or perhaps the one after. They did not think beyond the bright words of hope. They did not know true victory would be a very long time coming. Perhaps, on the eve of battle, that was as it should be.

  They moved on in the morning, now in bigger groups. They stayed with their own leaders, Talorgen’s men together, and Ged’s and Morleo’s, though one or two of the fellows had friends in the other teams, and campfires were shared at night along with the occasional prize such as a whole roasted sheep—the farmer must be compensated later—or a lucky catch of fat trout. Tales were told and songs sung, always quietly. The weather improved; Talorgen ordered two days of rest, and the lower branches of alder and willow were festooned with garments steaming in the spring sun’s faint warmth.

  They were now not far from the bridge at Fox Falls. There would be no further advance of the main party until Fokel joined them with his men. This band of exiled warriors dwelled in the mountains near Five Sisters. It was a grim and marginal area, and from what Bridei had heard, this war leader and his small group of dedicated followers had developed temperaments to match it. Bridei wondered if Fokel would be content with a token raid on the ancestral territory for which his own father had fought and died. He commented on this to Donal as they squatted by the stream, attempting to rinse the accumulated grime from their smallclothes.