“In hopes that the savages would be too busy with the scalers to sling and hurl rocks and spears on those charging up this slope…
“Too distracted, Forgall. And consider. They have shown us what comes of a charge. They did not even sling all those stones that killed and wounded and concussed so many; it’s hurled down many were, Forgall! The advantage is all the Picts’. Suppose we planned, and prepared, and made a general charge, all at once. Shields and helms and armour. Suppose it’s a thousand men charging up that slope all at once. How many would be falling ere they reached the top?”
Forgall’s face was grim. “Hundreds.”
“And if the Picts were passing busy with a group of twoscore or so maniacs who had climbed up behind them?”
“Those twoscore would surely die. But few of those who charge the slope would…”
“Is this not the way generals think?”
“Aye, and kings. It’s ‘units’ men are, Partha. ‘We shall lose three hundred units an we do such-and-so; we shall lose but two hundred units an we do so-and-such… whiles if we be asking for twoscore volunteers for death almost certain, we shall cut our losses to less than a hundred units…’” Forgall shuddered under a rush of horripilation. “Aye. It is the way generals think, and kings, Partha. It is why I can be neither.
“Suppose we take a bow, and-”
“We?”
“-and tinder, and an arrow or two wrapped in linen-soaked in oil. As soon as the summit is gained and we be in readiness, we’d be loosing flaming arrows, to arc high. That would signal the entire force here to charge up the slope, while we attack from the other direction. All the scalers need not die, Forgall.”
“It’s too late the chargers would be,” Forgall said very quietly-with thought on him, not fear. “Those who scale the riverside cliff would surely die. We could not whirl and jump to escape axes and spears; in mail and from that height, we’d drown.”
“We?” The two men looked at each other. Forgall said naught. Cormac said, “Some would survive. I cannot imagine dying, though some would go down, aye. But it’s volunteers ye’d be asking for, Forgall, from all-”
“Volunteers!” Forgall whipped his head about to stare at the youth he respected as much for his mind as for his prowess. “No volunteers! It’s our men will do it, or none, by Lugh’s beard! Tara-baiter Coichte becomes Pict-slayer!”
“Munster-slayer,” Cormac said quietly.
And so Partha mac Othna and his captain Forgall mac Aed met with not one, but three generals. Those wise and brave men agreed that the plan was insane, and…
“And worthy of those descendants of Mil, who came here to settle in a land not their own, de Dannann or no-our ancestors!”
Ferdiad the Bear looked at the youth who spoke with such heated fervor. “It’s a wild wolf ye be, son of Othna of Ulster!”
“With the guile of a fox,” Conan Conda said.
“A lunatic,” the little general from little Osraige said. “No sane man would attempt such a feat; no sane general would sanction it.”
Four men stared at him. And so it was decided, because one sneered.
Guided through the Munsterish squads by General Ferdiad’s own aide wearing the general’s own ring, two-and-fifty men stared upward at the pile of rock that bulked against the sky. The backside of Silver Mountain-Death mountain. The cliff was sheer. Trees and vegetation mitigated that fact by rising up it rather thickly for a score and more feet. After that a scrubby tree or scraggly bush thrust out only sparsely. And beyond that-
“And above that,” Forgall muttered, “the hard part.”
“Best we wait a while, until the moon comes to shine on this… wall,” Bress said, and he was right. They waited.
After a time the moon, riding high in a sky nigh cloudless, was but minutes from bathing the cliff-face in its cold light. Forgall nodded, and the fifty men moved forward, and up through the crooked trees and tenacious bushes. Three went on from there, trailing the rope that bound them together-and that was in turn secured to thicker ropes. Cormac was not among them; these men were experienced climbers. The others huddled and waited.
They made their pact, and the vow. It had been repeated fifty-two times: an a man should fall, he would not cry out. Whether to New God or Old, each prayed that he might have strength to keep such a vow, and thus not betray his companions. But each knew that he would not fall from that tower of nature bulking so darkly against the stars.
The climbers reached the top. The heavier ropes were drawn up, slithering up past the others like serpents. Then they were still. And then they were tugged up, and released: the scalers had made fast the climbing ropes for their fellows.
With shields on backs, nine-and-forty men ascended the cliff. None fell. Each was pulled over onto the mesa and sidewise to where a clump of great stones rose up from the mainly flat surface. They lay gasping as silently as they could. Now began the longer wait. They had brought no bow, no arrows. The dark Picts had advantage at night; the attackers would wait until dawn. That light would signal those at the foot of the other side of this narrow mesa, too, and they’d rush upward in silence.
They waited, two-and-fifty men lying flat, in the darkness. They could hear the Picts. Time dragged by on feet set in muck and honey. Never had a night been so long. Two Cruithne approached, muttering; mailed men prepared, their helmets off against a flash in the moonlight. The two Picts relieved themselves, not the length of a man’s body from Forgall mac Aed.
The Picts returned to their fellows. Naturally they’d be keeping a close watch on the eastern slope, against a night attack. The Leinstermen waited, in the moon’s ghostly radiance. Time shuffled past with the gait of a tortoise heavy with eggs. The Leinstermen waited.
The blackness of the sky was mitigated. The stars dimmed. Slowly, so horribly slowly, black became indigo. It faded to a deep grey. Some stars disappeared against a sky less dark. The Leinstermen waited, and their stomachs writhed as the time drew nearer. Death seemed to grin down at them, from the paling face of the moon. The sky’s grey grew less deep, as though an artist mixed more and more white with his black-gradually, oh so gradually.
Hands clutched helmets. Bare heads turned to stare at the pearly hue lighting the eastern horizon. Doubts rose; the mesa’s expanse cut off their view of the eastern world’s edge; would the others begin their charge too soon? Should they leap up and move now? The sky went pearly. The horizon grew pink. And then gold fingers rayed upward from below the edge of the world. Every man knew, then: had they possessed a cock, it would have crowed. Brilliant yellow-gold washed up from the far horizon. The sky overhead went pinkly nacreous, like a shell lined with palest pink.
Forgall slid his helmet to him, ducked his head to the ground, helmed himself. He gestured. The gesture was passed. Helmets were pressed on. Two-and-fifty arms slid through shield-straps. Fists closed on the grips within those bucklers.
Forgall rose up to his knees and reached across his armoured midsection to lay hand on hilt.
“Now.”
“Now.”
“NOW!”
The word burst as a shout from half a hundred throats. It was drawn, out to form a battle-cry as two-and-fifty men bounded up and drew their swords, all in one motion. Before them the enemy, too, came alive.
The mesa, broad enough to accommodate perhaps seven hundred men, was occupied by three hundred Picts, and now they found themselves not alone. The attackers appeared by surprise, and charged; they must not be too close to the cliff’s edge. In that first attack, the latest of centuries upon centuries of yelling Celtic onslaught, thirty Picts went down in blood. After that, the battle began.
The dark men defended themselves and struck back, spreading out so as to flank and encompass the force that was armoured as they were not-but was only a sixth their number.
Yelling, hacking Leinstermen could but hope their fellows were ascending the long eastward slope of the mountain, as swiftly as they could pull and hurl themselves up amo
ng the rocks and rocky irregularities. The Leinstermen had no place to go. They could but hack and slash, fend and parry. They could but endeavor to remain a curved wall, for the enemy was so sizable as to be able to surround every man. They could but fight and fight, either to be aided by hundreds of others who’d come onto the mesa behind the Cruithne-or to die heroes of Eirrin. For fifty could neither best three hundred, nor retreat.
And then they were forty.
And then thirty, and Cormac knew that beside him Forgall had gone down, but Cormac could not even think about it, for Forgall’s fall left him surrounded the way that he must slash his way out to have allies on either side of him again. He did, and still the Picts pressed, and no Gaels had come onto the mesa behind them. Even so, with his fellows Cormac had no time for despairing thoughts. Every man would rather have turned and fled over the cliff’s edge; every man knew that way was no succor, no escape, but only a death more ignominious; here was death with honour.
Cormac struck so violently that he crippled two attackers at a blow. In that powerful half-whirl he saw Bress go down, and Cormac was not glad. His captain; the second-and Champion of Leinster! And how many stood yet? As many as a score?
No time to think; Cormac was engaged by two Picts who worked well together. He beat them away, destroyed a shield, back-stepped, let one err by advancing. Cormac showed him what Forgall had said was a Romish use of the sword: he stop-thrust the man. Even as he saw the Pict shiver, huge-eyed, the youth heard the charging Gaels of the main army falling on the Pictish rear. That brought a wave of relief, of gladness, but even so it was too late.
As he freed his sword from the muscular belly of the dying Pict, Cormac saw the man’s fellow bringing down a steel ax, and knew he could neither shield nor dodge. He tried, letting himself fall, wrenching his arm for his sword was not quite free. He felt a great blow to his head, heard a terrible boom and a roaring thrumming, and saw an explosion of bright lights before his face.
He knew he was hit, knew the Pict wielded a steel ax taken from a dead Celt, knew too that it had bit through his helm and then into his very skull. And as even the bright lights vanished from before his eyes, Cormac mac Art knew that he was surely dying-dead.
Chapter Fifteen:
Scars
“Partha.”
Strange word. A name? Aye, a name. I died then; it’s back in a new body I am and without a glimpse of Donn or I-Breasil. Back as someone called Partha…
Partha! No, no, that’s the name I’m after using these months since Connacht-why seems it years? Then… then… I am not dead?
“How is that possible?”
“Partha! Ah ye speak-what?”
“How-how is it possible I be not dead? Why is it so dark-uh!”
He opened his eyes and saw that it was not dark at all. Light seemed to sear eyeballs long covered. Something tight around his forehead seemed to press down his lids. He blinked, again and again. A face looked down at his; someone stood over him. A man. Oh, it was that minstrel. What was his-no, no come Par-come, Cormac, Cormac, find yourself, gain control, think!
“Partha?”
“Prince… Ceann.”
“Aye! Ho, ye be awake! Hold ye still, now; it’s long and long ye’ve been abed, and ye’ll not be wanting to disturb your bandages, Partha. At least ye know me! We feared for your life… then, when we at last felt ye’d live, days and days later, we feared ye’d come awake with no memory on ye. That I have seen happen, from such a slice as ye took to your skull.”
“It is… hard.”
Ceann smiled. As Cormac started to lift a hand to his head, the other youth grasped his wrist. Amazingly strong he was, for a king’s minstrelly son, Cormac thought; he holds me with ease!
“Wh-where-”
“Carman. It’s Carman this is. My father’s own leech has been treating yourself, and the others, and both druid and priest have been here daily.”
“The… others?”
“Aye. Hold still, Partha, else we must tie ye down again. Your head is swollen still, healing under a great swath of bandage. Ye’ve no need to be feeling of it. It’s many a day ye’ve lain here thus, and many a change of bandage ye’re after having.”
Cormac relaxed his arms, repeated; “The others?”
Ceann mac Ulaid’s face went very serious. “There be but eight of ye left of those who made the climb. Twoscore and four are dead, heroes in Leinster and Munster and Osraige and aye, up in Meath and Connacht once the story’s spread in verse and song. But-but, Partha… only thirty others were slain! The deaths of twoscore and four, and the wounds on you and seven others… these saved surely hundreds of lives and limbs, Partha! As for the Picts… thrice a hundred and twoscore and twelve died on that mesa! And a few others; some jumped over the cliff and none took trouble to search for them.”
For the third time, while his sluggish brain worked to assimilate what Ceann had said, Cormac asked, “The others?”
“I… I cannot give ye their names, Partha.”
“Forgall?”
“Dead, Partha. A hero of Leinster-of Eirrin.”
Cormac closed his eyes and bit his teeth together. That exerted pressure on his cloven, tight-swathed head and pain leaped like jagged lightning. He hardly noticed. Other pain was there, too. Forgall. First my father… and then Midhir and now Forgall. It continues. Those I respect, and love… die.
He was not yet ready to remind himself that was stupid, but another form of in-turning, of wallowing in grief and worsening it with self-pity and -blame. That realization would come. Now, he opened his eyes to look up into the solicitous face of him who was third in line of succession to Leinster’s throne.
“Cas… mac Con?”
Ceann shook his head. “We tried. He died in his sleep, five days agone. He never awoke, even when his leg had to be removed.”
“Cas.”
Then, “Five days! How long has it been, Ceann?”
“Thirteen days since-”
“Thirteen!”
Aye. Men have lain longer with such wounds. The leech calls it natural enough, a coma; the druid says your body needed so long to mend itself; the priest says that god and devil wrestled for your soul. It’s often restless ye’ve been.”
“Prince Ceann: it’s no priest of the Dead God I’ll be welcoming in here! Thirteen days!”
“Aye. A day and a night in a peasantish house, and two days in the waggon that brought ye here. Only two days agone did the leech say he’d live. On yester day ye called out ‘mentor’ and a name: Sualtim. Then did ye smile, smile even as ye slept and release a great relaxing breath, Partha. And it’s peaceful ye’ve been since. Sleeping, rather than unconscious from wounds.”
I called. He is all left me-and did he come? Has Sualtim Fodla helped me still again?
He asked about others. He knew mixed mental reactions at news that Bress lived, whole; further, he’d been up and about for a seven-day. The good men die, Cormac thought with some bitterness, and Bress lives! Then he remembered that he too lived, and set the concept aside for consideration at another time. The while, he discovered that he had taken wounds to his chest and left leg. No longer were they hurtful, and he vowed silently that on the morrow he’d rise from this bed, lest a wounded leg stiffen into a limp. Meanwhile Ceann made sure he remained supine.
Samaire demanded twice-daily reports of him, Ceann said, and he must hurry to her now with the good news she awaited. She’d have been here day and night, but Ceann had convinced her that her father would learn of it.
“And have death done on me.”
Ceann did not say him nay. “Ye know I’ve no liking for this… relationship between yourself and my sister.”
Cormac stared at the wall. “Aye. And ye be right.”
Ceann pursued, “You know naught can come of this, Partha mac Othna! It’s the daughter of a king she is!”
Cormac had to bite back the words that wanted to flood forth; his lineage. Then a man entered the room; was Eoghan mac Foil o
f Forgall’s Fifty. Though he and Cormac had been but acquaintances, they greeted each other now as the oldest of friends. Eoghan walked with a limp, but vowed he’d soon not. He told Cormac of the other survivors. Among them was Cond the Barber, and they chuckled-but then “Partha” frowned, for Eoghan advised him he had more need of hair restorer than clipper. A considerable swath of blood-caked black hair had been snipped from Cormac’s head, and the scull scraped in that area.
He complained of the tightness of his bandage.
“Have some ale then,” Eoghan said, smiling. “A lot of it-it comes from the king’s own vats, Partha! But suffer the bandage. It holds together the edge of the wound in your scalp; thus it’s less scar ye’ll be having, and no great patch bare of hair will show.”
“Oh, that’s important,” Cormac said-only half japing-and they laughed all three, and that brought such a blinding slash of pain that he fainted.
That, the leech told him next day-and then General Conan Conda himself!-was good; “Partha” needed more rest. To that the patient replied by demanding food and ale. He received only ale and a bowl of stew with bread sopping in it. He complained-and then, when he tried to chew, thought his head was coming off with pain. After a time of rest, he finished a bowl of hot stew, and drank considerable ale, and next day he stood despite the leech’s protests and Ceann’s. But for Ceann he’d have fallen. He made the prince support him in walking twenty steps, and then it was more stew, with much soaked bread. He swallowed it whole rather than chew, for all his bravery and determination. And he drank more ale, which dulled the throbbing pain. The prince was not all that strong, mac Art realized; it was that he was weakened from lying so long abed.
Others, less wounded and more recovered, came. Samaire came, for the princess could come to a hero’s bedside as well as could a prince. That was painful; they durst not touch each other and had to be only soldier and royal heiress. The general came again. And Ceann’s older brother-the eldest, King Ulad’s firstborn-Prince Liadh. And the royal poet. And another poet. And a bard, who asked questions for his lay of the Mountain of Death, where the fifty had saved all Eirrin. Hardly so, Cormac told him, but the man paid no mind; facts hardly troubled most historians, and certainly must not disrupt the creative process of bards and poets.
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