There was no more Appletown; there could hardly be said to be apple trees, for soldiers could not pause to attempt to quench flames so hot they ate at living trees.
Now, in this silence-heavy, fog-enshrouded glen of Osraige, Cormac felt the pale white mist all about and it seemed he felt the silence as well. The fog was palpable; the silence seemed so. Surely it was unnatural. When he tilted up his helmed head he did not even have to squint at the sky. Was late in the morning-for those who rose with the sun or before, it was. The Eye of Behl should have burned off this damned creeping fog that was ever the bane of wet Eirrin with its high coasts and low damp inlands.
And surely there should be some sounds, he thought; this was as though their hearing had been stoppered against the world, as if the fog were chill, wet woollen pressed over their ears.
Knowing that Forgall was but three paces to his left, Cormac turned that way, to say so.
And the fog seemed to be lifted, straight up as though by a great invisible hand, from knee-to chest-level. It flowed in the manner of a swift mountain stream, in the manner of wind-chased clouds shredding into pale streaming tatters. At that instant the awful shriek arose, from only a few paces directly ahead. A short, burly, dark, figure erupted from the fog-hugged earth as if ejected by the springy grass. It was a human form, if Picts were indeed human. And it sprang to attack.
That swiftly the squat dusky men of Pictdom were all about and rushing to kill.
Attack cries sliced the air and ululated like wolf-howls. The enemy had been lying await, sprawled flat and cloaked by the tall grass and misty fog-or foggy shaman-sent mist.
The first to spring up screaming was soon silent; he leaped directly at Cormac and was allowed to impale himself with ghastly neatness on a spearhead that was swung to meet him on pure defensive reflex. The spear went all the way through the leaping demon; with a grunt, Cormac released it and drew his sword.
And then that murky glen was plunged into howling battle of volcanic ferocity. The fog lifted to shoulder-level, so that Cruithne could see and Leinstermen had to bend or squat to bring their eyes under the cloying greyness. No Gael doubted sorcery now; the fog had lingered long enough for them to be well into the meadow and surrounded-and then risen to give vision to the waylayers when they had need to see.
The world became very loud and time rushed as it does only for lovers and those encompassed by battle.
Bracing their feet on marshy earth with grass nearly to their knees, men who had thought themselves tired hewed and fended, slashed and stabbed. Mindlessly malevolent, Picts came at them with spear and stone-headed ax-and swords and axes too of good Celtic steel and manufacture. Baneful blows they struck in that attack of appalling suddenness and ferocity. Mail and flesh were rent open in woundy gaps. Donn, Lord of the Dead, rose up happily and spread his arms to welcome the souls sent rushing from ruined bodies.
A man staggered backward past Cormac with a spear-haft seeming to grow from his chest like a ghastly stalk, and Cormac did not recognize Fithil the Strong, nor did he recognize Bress Lamfhada who with a scythe-like swipe slew the slayer. Feet stomped grassy loam now sprinkled with blood, whilst blades of flinty stone and of steel slashed in sparkling blurs and whirls of silver and showers of crimson.
A spearhead struck to clash ringingly on the rim of Cormac’s shield so that bright sparks flew and danced and he lashed back with a slash that clove the attacker’s buckler and tore it from a brown arm in which a bone snapped. Past him leaped a Pict like a maddened wolf, a primal, totally savage blood-lust blazing in his terrible eyes. The aboriginal cried out hideously when the sword of Forgall Aed’s son sank hilt-deep in his neck. Down he sank, whiles Cormac tore into red ruin a dusky face behind a sundered shield.
The constant clash and grate of steel was a din that smote the ears and gave threat to eardrums. Amid that awful clamor of steel and flint, wood and iron rose the battle-shrieks of Picts, and curses, and the wretched cries, moans, and blood-wet gurgles of the wounded and dying.
The dark warriors ravened into the foe they hated. They were heedless of steel, heedless of death. They were also far more vulnerable with the Gaels’ carapaces of rippling steel links or coats of shining, hardened leather, and the warriors of Pictdom died in their mania. Steel-hacked corpses strewed the sod, and blood created muddy patches.
Still the attackers came, as if from the very ground itself. In their numbers and their ferocity, they took scarlet toll.
Lugaid the Fox, who had one day lent Cormac a tunic of Leinster-blue, smote a Pict like a thunderbolt, the way that he sundered chest and heart within, and a spear smote him the way that he was staggered but was saved by his mail, and he slashed maniacally to deal out death to that stocky attacker, and wounded still a third after a duel of minutes, and then even while the wood of a Pictish spear-haft splintered on his buckler and his feet skidded on on a carpet of blood-slick grass, a furiously driven spear sliced through his leather cuirass as though it had been linen, and on through the padded jack beneath, and tore into his belly an inch below the sternum. A reeking puke of scarlet gushed from Lugaid’s mouth and he fell to lie twitching. He’d have been a long time dying and in agony, but was surely not mercy that prompted his slayer to wrench forth the spear and drive it into the face of Lugaid the Fox. And Lugaid was still.
From behind, Cas mac Con took off that dark warrior’s head in a mighty stroke that began as a blurred arc of silver and ended in one of crimson.
While Cormac parried and feinted with the teeth-gritting savage before him, another stuck his shield with such force that its edge cut Cormac’s chin, and he’d have died of the first Pict sure had not another’s sword taken off the savage’s arm just below the shoulder; the Connachtish youth never knew who thus saved his life. Already he had saved one, by the unwarlike expedient of kicking a Pict directly in his buttocks; the melee had deepened and thickened now so that single combats were the exception rather than the rule.
Chin dripping red, Cormac staggered back-
And slipped and fell, his boot skidding off a bloody severed hand. He looked up at the leggings of a man who stepped across him to drive his sword deep into a dusky body, and Cormac was saved twice that day. He came up lunging, to drive his own blade so violently into the side of a grinning foe that he had to fight it free of clutching ribs.
“Blood of the gods,” Forgall spat out, “ye’ve saved my life again!”
“It’s twice my own’s been saved,” Cormac panted, “and I’ve no idea by whom-uh!”
He turned the ax-blow on his shield, twisted, turned the back swing, and girded steel into that Pict’s flank. “How many of these devils-uh!-are there?” That grunt was elicited by his having to twist-yank to free his blade.
“Too-damned-many!” someone muttered angrily from his left, and Cormac almost grinned.
He turned in time to see the speaker die, and the slayer was away then and Cormac had no notion who slew that Pict, or indeed whether instead he escaped. It was then the blood-mist came before Cormac’s eyes, and hung there, and he saw only enemies, targets for his ravening sword. He had experienced the berserker battle-lust just once afore, and did not know that it was on him.
There were less Pictish screams. Armour turned blows. Dusky skin did not.
It was horrible, and the fog drifting, rocking like waves asea, with the sun of late morning striving to burn it away to reveal a plain of red-splattered grass littered with corpses. Was Cas raced after a fleeing Pict, and in doing so was well separated from the others. He came upon a Pictish shaman who stood rigid, eyes closed, lips amove, both hands extended. In passing, Cas took off one of those hands-at the shoulder. Like a deer, Cas sped on for all his weariness, and overtook his prey. He hacked the Pict a red line from shoulders to buttocks, a wound two inches deep. The man sprawled forward. Cas took but two more running steps, and struck, and turned from a headless corpse.
He turned to see fighting men-mostly his companions. The fog was dissipating rapidl
y now, writhing like a great grey serpent with its deathwound on it. Rather thoughtfully, Cas returned to the shaman, who was also down and writhing, and Cas mac Con created another headless body. And the fog vanished so that the sun blazed on grass that rose green-and scarlet.
It was over by the time Cas reached the surprisingly close-crowded scene of the final battle.
Sixty Picts lay dead or twitching and writhing; those were soon made still. Ten sons of Eirrin lay dead, and another would surely die. Six more were sore wounded and a score bore some wounds beyond scratches. Every man was messy with blood and gore, not his, but thrown by slashing swords and axes.
Panting, sweating men stared about, and saw no Picts save the fallen. Weary or no, the victors’ hearts raced still. That was good; they could not yet rest. Still panting men must needs tend the wounds of others, and collect their dead ere they could make their “march” back to the balance of Conan the Wolfish’s force. They did, straggling on quivery legs, and soon they must move again, to the main army that was composed of the men of both Leinster and Osraige, the tiny kingdom that might have been gathered up and dropped into great Loch Corrib over in Connacht.
Weary men collapsed and slept where they sank. When they awoke it was to the chastisement of veterans, for now it would be harder to do that which they had not done afore: they must see to dented helms, and to the scraping away of blood, that splashed mail might not rust. Too they worked at nicks in their swords-and used feet and muscle to straighten bent blades. Some shields were sundered, or so hacked that they must be replaced. Thus the dead, who had no need of marless bucklers or better spears and axes, aided the living.
A battle was fought. A war remained.
Perhaps the leader of the large band extirpated by Forgall’s force had been that very important one. In that event Cuar mac Con, who had slain him, was a great though dead hero. So was Cas, son of another Con, who lived. And perhaps that leader and that shaman had been all-important. Or perhaps Pictish scouts and leaders had got together and realized that they had taken ghastly lossess on all fronts.
Whatever the reason, scouts soon reported to the Gaelic leaders that the Cruithne were in retreat. The northern and southern forces of Leinster, with men of Osraige, would follow them right across northernmost Munster, to join with the men of that southern kingdom; all shared a hope now of wiping out the flower and more of young Pictish manhood.
They must march on the morrow. Meanwhile they stoked themselves with meat and ale. Soon they sprawled, to gain all the sleep they could. A battle was won. A war remained.
Chapter Fourteen:
On the Mountain of Death
The broad Shannon was born in Connacht, up past Cruachan. It rushed southward, broadening into a mile-wide Loch Ree, emerged from its southern end to form the boundary between Connacht and Meath. On down through northern Munster River Shannon sliced the land, to gain its freedom at last in the Western Sea.
The Picts bad crossed the Shannon at lower Loch Derg, where the lake began to narrow back into the river; the lack of current there eased their crossing. Munstermen had made the crossing from Luimneach-Limerick-just over thirty miles from their capital of Cashel. From thence they had marched but a few miles northward along the Shannon’s boggy western bank, grown up with cotton grass and bog bean, alive with ravens and jays and moorfowl calling among towering birches and spear-straight rushes.
Within a day the Munstermen came upon the Pictish rear-guard.
The battle was fought there on the flood plain, in a flashing glitter of bright steel and flint that splintered armour and bone. Cruithne died and died; some fled toward Shannon and were hunted down amid the hummocks and rushy quagmires of that swampy western shore.
The Gaels owned the Pictish line of retreat; Luimneach controlled the Shannon below. The victorious Munstermen gazed across the river, and their commander announced that they would cross.
Three days later the Pictish rear guard on the eastern shore was annihilated by the same Munsterish force; the Gaels owned both shores. Now too they had the fleet of skinboats with which the invaders had crossed, here at the lower mouth of Loch Derg, where mighty Shannon purled along as slowly as poured honey.
Already Meathish patrols had been trebled along their southern border, just above Loch Derg. Munsterish couriers were dispatched to apprise the Meath’s garrison there of the newest development; their fellows loosed the boats and sent them floating down to be snared by the men of Luimneach.
All men respected and fearfully hated the savage less-than-men; soon Meathmen were ranked deep along every inch of their southern border. Where the border became that dividing Meath and Leinster two garrisons stood like stone sentinels only two hundred yards apart. From one fluttered the pennons of Tara and the High-king; the other displayed Leinster blue. Now those watchful men forgot their never-ending enmity and recent encounter over Boruma. Keeping a far closer watch for the mutual enemy, they exchanged gestures of good-will and humor.
The forces of Leinster and Osraige were driving the Pictish remnant before them, westward across northernmost Munster. Surely the savages would come hurrying to lower Loch Derg, for their boats.
There waited Munster; the Shannon was closed to the retreating invaders and their boats gone; troops from Luimneach and Cashel had marched up to prevent their turning southward. North waited the Meathmen and others from Leinster. The Picts were being driven into a trap. There was no escape, save through ranks of men armed and armoured and armed, too, with terrible determination.
Posting sentries thick as primroses in summer, General Ferdiad an-Airt of Munster settled in to wait. He knew the Picts were coming, and he knew from what direction, and that a Leinsterish army drove the savages like a herd of wild beasts. Hopefully they would be in panicky disarray, and would never know what hit them. If not-they would die anyhow.
Ferdiad the Bear had but to wait. Here would battle be joined. Here would the invaders, surrounded, be slain to a man-if such they might be called. (Indeed, as Ferdiad the Bear had slain none but Cruithne in the fifteen-year career he had begun at age seventeen, it was said of him that he was a general who’d never done death on a man. His sword had drunk only Pictish blood; animal blood.)
Here would’ be broken the back of Pictdom.
Unfortunately, Pictish scouts, ghosting like phantoms, discovered the absence of their boats and the waiting enemy. Those scouts raced back to apprise their leaders, who were fighting as they gave ground, not retreating pell-mell.
Then did dark, squatly powerful aborigines confer, and turn their black eyes on the blue-shimmering rise of the range just inland from Shannon’s bank: Slieve Argait, the Mountain of Silver, so called for its bulging with rich veins of that moon sacred metal.
And the Picts took to the hills. And Ferdiad of Munster cursed for hours.
The men of Forgall lay weary and panting, sore of muscle and from blows and wounds. To their backs lay their own land. Ahead, Loch Derg narrowed into the Shannon just before that river widened again to join the sea, below Luimneach. Between the Leinstermen and the river reared jagged Slieve Argait.
All of yesterday they had fought, without succeeding in the attempt to prevent the enemy from betaking themselves up that great hill. From the position they at last reached atop a high-flung mesa, the Picts had an excellent view of the slope by which approach must be made. At sunset the Gaels had wearily retreated.
On this day, each of two charges against that excellent Pictish location had resulted in a mass wounding and considerable slaughter of the men of three Gaelic realms. The leaders of the forces of Leinster and Munster and diminutive Osraige licked their wounds while cursing Picts and Meathmen alike: the latter were cannily waiting, up along their border.
The Picts’ position high atop the brooding pile of earth and stone was a marvelously defensible aerie. The mesa’s far side formed a cliff that plunged down into the Shannon. A deeply sliced crevasse protected them on their left or northern flank. To the south a
nd east, attackers must openly reveal themselves to scale the mountain slope-which was barely scalable, from the south.
The Picts, meanwhile, were comfortable on the broad mesa.
Keep them besieged and let the dark bastards starve, some counselled.
They’d not starve, others said; when they’ve eaten every egg and every bird and creeping creature, and stripped every scrubby tree and bush of bark and leaves, and still hungry-then will they come down from their aerie.
Fine, the counsellors of siege replied. Then we will fight them at our advantage.
But it was not the way of Eirrin, and some men pondered…
Was then one Partha mac Othna, an Ulsterman serving Leinster’s king, went quietly to his Fifty-leader. That man-Forgall mac Aed-Partha drew aside. He muttered a plan whereby Leinstermen might win the victory, and great glory-here on Munster’s soil.
Forgall gave listen. “Insane,” he said.
“Aye.”
Forgall turned to stare at the rugged slope men were calling the Mountain of Death. He remembered another insane plan of the youth’s: that of regaining the enforced tribute from Meath…
“Take a small group,” the captain murmured, reviewing Cormac’s suggestion. “March south a ways, gain the bank of the Shannon, and return northward to the base of the cliff beneath the Picts… the shore there must be no wider than a spear’s length, Partha. And… scale it? Insane. Surely… insane… to climb up there and fall on the Picts from behind-”
“Like Picts,” Cormac said.
“-like Picts. Such a force must be tiny. It would stand no chance of winning against the hundreds of Picts up there on Silvertip.”
“No. It would but turn them, distract their attention from this slope to their perch… whilst all others here, Leinster and Munster alike, charge up yon slope.” He gestured at the Mountain of Death.
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