The Mists of Doom cma-1

by Andrew J Offutt

  “Forgall mac Aed!” he called, the man whose shield and helmet’s plume were bright with Leinster’s blue.

  Cormac did not understand. He shouted “World without Picts!” and grinning, the two men charged.

  Peradventure the gods ordain such things, as some have said; perhaps Dubheitte was overexcited and careless; perhaps his master was, in his inexperience and his pride-and assumption that two mounted Gaels were more than match for four Picts, two of whom were wounded. And perhaps a spear-cast was particularly good, or merely lucky. Whatever the cause, a hurled stave went low and buried its flinty head in Dubheitte’s chest.

  The horse screamed. Cormac was hurled to the sand as the big black animal fell. Even if he were not dead, he was surely in shock, and thrashed strangely.

  His master’s impact was painful and jarring, through mailcoat and padded underjack; worse was the slamming of his right elbow onto hard sand. His fingers sprang open. His sword made little cling-ting sounds as it struck the sand and skittered.

  The spear-thrower was on him and he could but scramble, grunting when a stone ax banged off his shoulder. The mail held. Cormac meanwhile flailed head with his left arm. His buckler’s edge caught the Pict in the leg, just beside the knee. He fell. Cormac daggered the dusky warrior before he could so much as turn over.

  The youth felt hardly heroic; in four charges he had lost spear and horse and slain only two of the enemy. Better had he dismounted! Now a glance told him that the Leinsterman had somehow missed his intended foe and plunged on past. Well down the beach, he was turning the blaze-faced chestnut. The Pict Cormac had struck with edge of blade and haft of spear was sitting up. Though his back was crimson and one leg was obviously broken, he was awaiting the Leinsterman’s return, weapons ready.

  The fifth Pict was now rushing Cormac mac Art.

  The youth retrieved his sword. He braced himself, knees bent, left side to the running savage, shield presented, sword out to the side, ready. Dark Pictish eyes glared into grey ones, over the shield’s rim. The sword-steel eyes were just as malevolent, for all their youthfulness.

  The Pict was no such fool as to continue rushing a man so prepared; he slowed and got his own shield up and between them. This savage had faced Cormac’s kind aforenow, and learned caution-while gaining a steel-headed ax. His knotted arm swung the Celtic weapon as though it were a stick, looping, looping, watching…

  Down the beach, the other Gael bellowed a wild cry. Cormac saw his own opponent’s eyes flicker; the Pict knew he must die. He loosed a terrible swing of his ax. Cormac took the desperation blow on his shield. As he began a rising swordcut, he remembered what he’d seen the Leinsterman do. The Pictish shield whipped up and Cormac essayed the nasty tactic.

  Aborting the sword-stroke, he took vengeance for the Gael whose ax the Pict wielded. Cormac crotch-kicked the squat, heavily-muscled man.

  Then the off-balanced Cormac fell down.

  The Pict’s war-howl rose into a scream of pain and became a choking gurgle. Blazing black eyes bulged. His knees bent. His shield lowered as he obeyed the ancient, inarguable urge to clutch his wounded parts. He dropped to his knees.

  That way the swishing, almost-circular stroke of the Leinsterman’s sword took off only a little more than half the squat savage’s head, rather than the entire skull at the neck. The Pict was just as dead. Cormac meanwhile was hurling himself aside; his ally’s big horse was a great dark-brown mass as it plunged past, and the pound of his hooves was as thunder in the youth’s ears.

  “HA!” the Leinsterman shouted back. “Robbed ye!”

  Cormac gave the man’s back a dirty look as he got to his feet. He hurried to where lay the Pict with the broken foot; he’d not have the Leinsterman claim this one too. The courageous savage stuck up his spear; Cormac cut off its head and, on the backstroke, the Pict’s. He whirled to run the doubly wounded last foeman-and watched the Leinsterman come loping up and urge his willing mount into a very thorough job of trampling the dusky form until it was scarlet.

  The gazes of two pair of Gael-grey eyes met.

  “Ho, ha, easy there, Taraniseach, easy! Ho there, my greedy friend! Seven Picts attacked me and it’s yourself slew three of them!”

  Cormac blinked and squatted, thrusting his sword into the sand to cleanse the blade of Pictish blood. “Huh! Calling that one your own, are ye? As well call that horse mine!”

  The man came to him on his prancing, headshaking mount. First glancing around to be sure there were no more foes, he flung his sword so that it drove into the sand. It stood quivering. Then he doffed his helmet, to shake out a shortish mop of hair as straight and black as Cormac’s. Cormac saw that the fellow was good-looking, if button-nosed, and that he was surely in his twenties, though his hair was early departing his forehead. His eyes were like old stone, without the hint of blue.

  “Aye; your mount I greatly regret, my friend.” He looked at the downed beast; Dubheitte had snapped a foreleg in his fall. “But he be not dead…”

  “Yes he is.”

  Cormac spoke very quietly. Steeling himself against his own misery at the loss of the fine horse, he used his sword to end Dubheitte’s misery.

  The yourthful Gael looked up at the older. “I do hope ye be wealthy, with many fine horses.”

  “No such luck,” the man said. “I gave ye my name, weapon-man, and neglected to add that it’s Coichtaigheacht I am, in the king’s forces of Leinster. Ye be no Leinsterman, with that accent; what brought ye to this realm, to aid those so stupid as to be caught afoot by the enemy?”.

  “I am Partha son of Othna of Ulster,” Cormac told him, using the name by which he had called himself these two weeks since he’d departed Glondarth. “A weapon-man in search of service, for it’s my father’s third son I am, and my elder brother took even my girl to himself. Nor heard I your name, Captain; I was distracted at the time.”

  The man who’d called himself Chief of fifty chuckled. “Forgall mac Aed, Partha mac Othna. And travel no farther. There’s need in Leinster of sword-arms such as yours,’ aye, and your courage. It’s hard-pressed times these are, friend Partha, with the Boruma nigh upon us and rumours too of Pictish restlessness.” He glanced about at the corpses. “Spies, possibly.”

  “Mayhap… and mayhap then we should not have done death on them all.”

  “We’ll be telling none we could have taken a prisoner or two, eh? An ye be looking for weaponish employment, Partha mac Othna, my lord King Ulad has need of ye.”

  “Truth, I ate the last of my provisions earlier today… and am now without a horse, as well.”

  Forgall regarded the unfortunate steed. “A fine animal; again, sorrow’s on me that he died because of myself. A fine animal…”

  Forgall seemed a bit too thoughtful, on the border of suspicion. Cormac tried to seem both nervous and prideful, all at once: “My elder brother’s,” he said.

  Forgall laughed and clapped a calloused hand to a mailed shoulder. “Good for yourself, Partha, for I am a second son myself, and my brother heir to but little! However long ye bestrode yon animal, I’d say ye had better service of him than your brother of a fickle maid-oh, I intend no offense, Partha; the words slipped out.”

  “None taken. She’s what ye said, and more. Be there aught of food in that bulgy pack I see behind your saddle, Fifty-chief?”

  In truth Cormac had not quite worked out his story, and had already added an unplanned embellishment with the allegation that Dubheitte had belonged to a nonexistent older brother. He preferred that there be no further discussion of his past until he’d had time to fabricate it. Besides, he was hungry.

  Three fellows in the forest had caught him asleep but two nights agone. Two had held him moveless with pocked arrows whilst the third packed up the young pilgrim’s belongings. They’d have taken Dubheitte too, had not the animal thrown one of their, number. Taking advantage of that distraction, Cormac had snatched up shield and spear. He caught an arrow in the shield, another, hastily loosed in
the darkness, missed. His spear but grazed a man gone suddenly nerveless and running for his own mount. Another arrow made Cormac dodge so that he fell. The three men escaped into the darkness of a forest they doubtless knew. Dubheitte they left; those gems and bits of gold that were all Cormac’s wealth in coin-less Eirrin they took.

  Armed and armoured, Cormac had ridden all that night lest those three thieving archers regain courage and return to slay him from well out of his reach.

  Though his careful queries had brought nothing that could be construed as a trail to his father’s killer, he remained undaunted. Mac Art was determined to give his life to the quest of those behind his father’s slaying, and had made solemn resolve to that effect. Now he’d been on his way to Baile Atha Cliath, the Town of the Ford of the Hurdles. There he hoped to find some means of earning bread and meat. He had already resigned himself to sleeping on an empty belly this night, when he had heard and entered into Forgall’s imbroglio.

  He’d be happy indeed to share the Leinsterish captain’s provisions.

  Forgall however, had not been stopping here for the night. He’d but reined in and dismounted to relieve himself. That urge had nearly resulted in his death. He and Cormac solemnly vowed to devise a bag to hang on the forefront of one’s saddle, that one need not dismount to make water.

  Noting that Forgall glanced at a sky gone slate with only a puddle of molten red-gold to mark the sun’s passage, Cormac assured him he could wait a while longer for viands. Forgall was on his way up the coast from the capital, he said, to collect men from a little fort just south of Atha Cliath. This troop must then go back down to Carman with him, to train and receive their instructions for the Boruma. Captain of fifty or coichtaigheacht, Forgall said, he was in need of five more… four, with Cormac joining his company.

  Carman-on-the-Slaigne, Cormac remembered, was on Leinster’s very northern border, at the estuary of the Slaigne-indeed, Carman’s nearest neighbour was no town, but the isle of Beg-Eri. Munster’s capital of Cashnel was but sixty or so miles west of Carman, and Tara less than a hundred miles to the north. Leinster-Laigen-formed a nearly perfect triangle, perched on one point. Munster and Meath bordered it, and, along the entire eastern coast, the Sea of Eirrin. Atha Cliath was only a bit south of Tara; the fortress Forgall was bound for, then, lay only five or so miles up the coast.

  Neither man was interested in anything belonging to the Cruithne, and Cormac’s pack, on his dead horse, was empty. They did gather the weapons of metal the Picts had carried, taken from slain Erainn, men of Eirrin. On a shared whim, with grins, each man took from a dusky corpse a little leather-strung Pictish amulet, black.

  Twice Cormac said he would walk; thrice Forgall bade him ride. Taraniseach-Thunderhorse-he said, would carry another fourteen stone without noticing. Though tall, the rangy youth from Connacht weighed hardly so much-and Thunderhorse indeed made no objection to carrying them both. Cormac rode behind Forgall, whose pack was before him, on the base of Thunderhorse’s darkmaned neck. Afoot Forgall was but a couple of inches shorter than his saviour; mounted, Cormac was easily able to see over the other man’s head.

  “It’s a youthful terror with a sword ye be, Partha. That bit of mustache looks as though it’s just coming in.” Forgall spoke without turning.

  “My height came on me early, but my face-hair is running several years late.”

  Cormac/Partha was not about to reveal his extreme youth. Others might make him their butt, and for all he knew Leinster allowed none of his few years on its weaponish rolls.

  Forgall but grunted without pursuing the matter. They rode in silence for a time, whilst night closed down over the sea and Eirrin’s eastern coast. Cormac bethought himself of the lies he’d told, of those he must tell. He wondered how long such a life must continue, with him wearing even his very name under a cloak of darkness. Had he realized that it would be a matter of years, his dismay would have been far greater.

  He did not give thought to those he’d slain this day. They were Picts, only Picts, the enemies of all men. And he was a weapon-man, a warrior. Soon he’d be a professional, accepting the board and pay of Ulad Ceannselaigh, King over Leinster. A tiny smile drew at the left corner of his mouth, only a little and certainly not disarranging his unlined face. A professional! He squared his shoulders proudly and rode with hands on thighs, rather than hold to Forgall or aught else.

  “Ah,” Forgall said of a sudden, and Cormac jerked. “It’s twice I’m after making mention of the Boruma… do you of Ulster know of what I speak, Partha?”

  “Aye. None in Eirrin but knows of Leinster’s Burden, Captain.”

  It had occurred to Cormac that it might not be his place, his new place, to call a commander of weapon-men by name, and so he called him Fiftychief. He’d have to be mindful of such niceties now; he was no longer son of a rath commander, and no longer in Connacht. He was only Partha, son of Othna; third son of a minor noble of northward Ulahd, or Ulster.

  “Ah,” Forgall said again. “And what do men say of Leinster’s Burden, in Ulster?”

  “That there be no justice in it,” Cormac said, and he answered truthfully; so men said in Connacht, at any rate. “Whether there was when it was imposed none of us can say, across these three centuries-”

  “Nigh four” the Leinsterman snapped.

  “But-surely there be no justice in it now.”

  “None. And all for a woman!-Two.”

  They fell silent again, with the horse named for the ancient thunder-god plodding stolidly through deep twilight. Cormac considered the Boruma, or Boru Tribute, and what he knew of it. He must know such things now; he was of Leinster. He might well soon be fighting because of the Cattle Tribute, Leinster’s Burden… fighting Meathmen, the men of the High-king.

  After awhile he said, “I am not of Leinster, Forgall. Tell me of the Boruma, and how it came about when Tuathal and Eochaid lived.”

  And Forgall did, as they rode through the cool night.

  King Tuathal the Desired of the first century-as the Christians measured time-was sore beset by troubles. There was the usurper, Carbri CinnCait and his son, and his successor who returned from Pict-land, Feredach. Two daughters had Tuathal, though surely he wanted naught but strapping sons. His daughter Dairine he wed to Leinster’s King Eochaid, the way that there was a union of the High-king and Leinster.

  “She was a whore, by the blood of the gods!” Forgall said.

  That part of the story was new to Cormac. Well, he thought, Leinstermen needed a good reason for what Eochaid did-and mayhap she had been as Forgall said.

  “Yet she was the wife of a king and the daughter of the High-king, and Eochaid would not have her slain. Instead, he took her by night to a tower, and there locked her up, and let it out that she had died in her sleep of a fever. And after a time King Eochaid went a-mourning up to Tara.”

  All men understood death and the swiftness of its descent on even the most unsuspectingly healthy of mortals. Tuathal understood, Forgall told Cormac, and sympathized with his royal brother-in-law. Indeed, he solaced the southern king by giving him his other daughter, Fithil.

  “Strange,” Cormac/Partha said, “that she was not wed to another, by then.”

  “She was a harridan,” Forgall said. And he told of how Eochaid, who was a king and knew the benefits of alliance, brought the “harridan” Fithil home to Leinster. And time passed, and one day Fithil discovered her sister, and her still living.

  Cormac could understand the horror, the shame and humiliation, the cries of crime most horrible; both were daughters of the High-king, and both alive, and both wed to the same man!

  “They died of broken hearts,” Forgall said.

  “Just… so? Of broken hearts.”

  “Aye,” Forgall said with a most positive air, and Cormac was not minded to question the man. He did wonder how they told the story up on Tara hill…

  Somehow Tuathal learned of the crime and the deaths of his daughters: treachery, Forgall said, foul
treachery apprised the High-king. Then did the High-king gather together his men and auxiliaries and the members of his clanna and march on Leinster in sore anger and desire for revenge. Indeed Tuathal’s army ravaged the land all the way the capital-where Eochaid humbly submitted. (Rather, Forgall said, than see another Leinsterman slain, for Eochaid wept daily for his murdered countrymen. Cormac said naught, and Forgall could not see his face. Well-it was Forgall’s story.)

  Tuathal then levied a crushing annual tribute: The Boruma, or cow-tribute. Nor had Eochaid power to resist, with Tuathal’s army sprawled round about and, as Forgall had it, numerous mothers and children of Leinster as hostages.

  Five thousand cows annually, High-king Tuathal demanded of Leinster, and five thousand swine, and five thousand cloaks of good workmanship, and five thousand vessels of good brass, well-wrought, and the final crushing blow: five thousand ounces of silver from the mines of little Leinster.

  The fine was to be paid annually, and no period of years was stipulated. Centuries later, the High-king on Tara Hill annually continued to require that awful drain of Leinster. Most often the Boruma had to be gathered by force, with the men of the High-king carrying the bloody sword down into Leinster. Those daughters of Tuathal’s and the crime of Eochaid had given cause to more of Eirrin’s blood-drenched history than aught else. Often the struggle was confined not just to Meath and Leinster, for others entered in because of empathy and alliances, even greed or unmentioned political hopes.

  Whether Tuathal’s daughters had been good and sweet or hideous and whoresome, whether Eochaid had been a monster or a man overly timid at telling the High-king of his elder daughter’s liaisons-none of this now mattered. It was King Tuathal who had left the entire Emerald Isle this blood-soaked legacy. And now collection-time was again approaching.