Melcorka Of Alba

by Malcolm Archibald

  Melcorka did as Bradan asked and gasped in shock. An image of her was striding up the beach, legs thrusting vigorously, face set in determination and with one hand hovering above the hilt of her sword. 'I have a cure for hostility,' she said, tapping the sword hilt. 'I have a cure for hostility.' The image of Melcorka repeated its words and actions. 'I have a cure for hostility. I have a cure for hostility.'

  'You are a woman who lives by violence and delights to kill,' the man repeated.

  'I was provoked,' Melcorka said.

  'You may have felt provoked,' the man with no name said and waved the image away. 'You may be taking offence where none is intended.' When he lifted his hand, the image of Melcorka returned.

  'As well for him.' The image of Melcorka lifted Defender above her head. 'You there! Magician! We came in peace, and you have played with us. Greet us fairly or, by my sword, I will part your head from your body.'

  The man with no name dropped his hand again, and the image disappeared. 'Would you be so bold without your sword, I wonder? Nobody caused you offence. I merely wanted to see you before you came close.'

  'You did not reply to us.' Melcorka found she was defending her stance.

  'You chose to come to my home,' the man with no name replied. 'You landed on my island and approached my house uninvited and unannounced.' The expression on his face did not alter. 'You depended on the skill that lies within your sword to look after you if you were unwelcome.'

  'How do you know about the skill that lies within my sword?' Melcorka asked.

  The man reached forward and put his forefinger on the hilt of Defender. 'Derwen made this sword,' he said. 'It came from long ago, long back, and Derwen made it for Caractacus, who was betrayed by a woman. It was the blade of Calgacus, the swordsman. It was the sword of Arthur, who faced the Saxon and now it is the sword of Melcorka.'

  'Who are you?' Melcorka asked. The nameless man had repeated, nearly word for word, what Ceridwen had told her when first she gained Defender.

  The man continued. 'It was a sword well made in Derwen's forge. It was made with rich red ore, with Derwen tramping on bellows of ox-hide to blow the charcoal hot as hell ever is. The ore sank down, down through the charcoal to the lowest depth of the furnace, to form a shapeless mass the weight of a well-grown child.'

  Melcorka listened, remembering the day when she had chosen Defender, or the sword had picked her.

  The man with no name continued. 'It was normal for the apprentices to take the metal to the anvil, but Derwen carried the metal for this one himself, and chose the best of the best to reheat and form into a bar. He had the bar blessed by the Druids of his time, and by the holy man who came from the East, a young fugitive from Judea who fled the wrath of the Romans. Derwen cut his choice of steel into short lengths, laid them end on end in water blessed by the holy one and the chief Druid of Caractacus, and drew them long and long, before welding them together with the skill that only Derwen had. These operations working together equalised the temper of the steel, making it hard throughout, and sufficiently pliable to bend in half and spring together. Derwen tested and retested the blade, then hardened and sharpened it with his own touch and his own magic. In the end, in the final forging, Derwen sprinkled his own white powder of the dust of diamonds and rubies into the red-hot steel, to keep it free of rust and protect the edge.'

  'You know it,' Melcorka said.

  'The sword told me most of it,' the man with no name said. 'And some came from within you.'

  The shimmering beside the man was more definite now, a black-and-white mass that settled on the sand. Melcorka frowned, trying to clear the confusion from her mind. She should know what that shimmer was; she had seen it before, more than once. She delved into her memories and found only a labyrinth of uneasiness.

  'That sword is worthy of heroes.' The man interrupted her thoughts.

  'It is,' Melcorka said.

  'Now you must prove yourself worthy to bear it.' The strange man lifted his hand again, and a circular hole appeared in the sand at his side. As Melcorka and Bradan looked, the hole deepened until they saw water at the bottom. 'Defender will rest here for eternity,' the man said. 'Or until a hero comes along who deserves her.'

  Melcorka shook her head. 'No man and no woman can take Defender from me.'

  'Perhaps not.' The man fixed his eyes on Melcorka. 'Throw her into that hole.'

  'I will not.' Yet even as Melcorka spoke, she unbuckled Defender and held the sword, together with her scabbard and belt, high in the air above the hole.

  'Melcorka!' Some unseen source held Bradan back, foiling his attempt to grab at the sword. He struggled desperately, fighting to move. He could only watch as Melcorka tossed Defender into the air. The sword poised there for a second, with the sun catching the bronze bands that encircled the embossed leather of the scabbard, and then it fell into the hole beside the man with no name. Bradan saw Defender plunge down and down and down until it slid silently and without a splash into the dark water.

  The black-and-white shimmer reappeared between Bradan and Melcorka. Formless and shapeless, it wavered, as if uncertain which of them it wished to touch, and then vanished into nothingness.

  'Melcorka,' Bradan said again. He could do nothing, as the man with no name, together with the copse of palm trees, dissolved before him. One second, Bradan was watching Defender sink into the water and the next, he was lying on the deck of Catriona with his back pressed onto the wood and the mast slowly spiralling beneath the vacuum of the sky.

  'What happened?' Melcorka was at the tiller, staring around her.

  'You threw away Defender,' Bradan said. 'You threw Defender into the hole that the magician created.' He looked around. They were a couple of miles off an unknown green coast with a distinctive, double-peaked hill directly to starboard.

  'I know.' Melcorka gave a strangely vacant smile. 'Can we get it back now, please?'

  'We have more immediate problems,' Bradan said. 'Look there.'

  A mile to port, a dozen two-masted vessels with sails set were spread out in line, abreast. They were closing fast, with the distinctive beat of drums urging them on.

  Chapter Four

  Melcorka looked dazed. 'My sword,' she said. 'I've lost Defender.' She felt at her shoulder. 'I threw it away.'

  'You did,' Bradan agreed.

  'I must get her back.' Melcorka stared over the side of Catriona, desperate to find the white island with its mysterious occupant.

  'We have other things to worry about,' Bradan said. 'Get on the tiller, Mel, and I'll hoist the sails. These vessels may not be friendly. They may be the Thiruzha pirates that Chola shipmaster warned us of.'

  The fleet was spread out, with the vessels extending from the coast to the horizon. Drumbeats throbbed across the intervening water, ominous, dangerous, as the drummers marked the time for the oarsmen who propelled the vessels toward Catriona with frightening speed.

  'That looks and sounds bad,' Bradan said. 'No peaceful merchantmen would use a formation like that, or have drums to keep them at the same pace.'

  'We'd best sail away then.' Melcorka's eyes cleared for a moment. 'We can come back later and get Defender.'

  'They're travelling faster than we are,' Bradan said, 'but I'm damned if I'll sit tamely by and allow them to catch us. Come on, Mel!'

  'My sword!' Melcorka looked dazed again. 'I can't leave Defender!'

  'We'll come back for Defender.' Bradan shoved her hard onto a rowing bench. 'Come on, Mel, row like the demons of hell are after us, and they might well be. Run, and live to fight another day!'

  By now, the dreadful booming of the drums was echoing around Catriona as the strange fleet closed. Bradan could make out men on the cross-trees of the masts, with others standing in the bow of each approaching ship, watching them. The sun glittered on metal, either sword-blades or the points of spears, he could not be sure.

  'Row!' Bradan checked the sail. It was drawing as full as it could, gliding Catriona over the long rollers
. He hauled on the slim oars and watched as Melcorka pulled feebly. 'Come on, Mel, at least try!'

  'Defender,' Melcorka said. 'I want my sword back.'

  The first arrow fell well short; the second was twenty yards to port, landed on a shallow trajectory and skiffed across the surface of the water. The third arrow whizzed past, to fall in the water with barely a splash. A fourth followed, and then a fifth, missing the hull of Catriona by only a handspan.

  'I don't think they're friendly,' Bradan said.

  Melcorka smiled at him, wordless.

  Facing astern, Bradan could see the strange fleet clearly. Each vessel was five times the length of Catriona; ocean-going craft with two masts and a score or more of warriors to augment the oarsmen. A forest of spears protruded from behind the wooden bulwarks and rows of round, white objects bounced along the hull. Only when the vessels closed to thirty yards or so did Bradan make out what the white objects were.

  'Row, Mel,' he whispered urgently. 'Can you see what they have along the hull?'

  'My sword.' Melcorka shook her head, still dazed. 'I've lost Defender.'

  'They're skulls – human skulls!' Bradan hauled at the oars again, trying to increase the speed of Catriona although he already knew it was hopeless. 'Mel! Try, please try!'

  As Bradan spoke, each ship of the unknown fleet hoisted long, swallow-tail flags from their mizzen mast and stern. Each flag showed the head of a snarling yellow animal against a blue background.

  When Melcorka said, 'That's quite pretty,' Bradan knew that her mind had snapped. A grown-up child had taken the place of his Melcorka.

  'Stay with me, Mel, and we'll try to get you back.' Bradan stopped rowing. He might need his energy for whatever ordeal lay ahead.

  The strange fleet surrounded them and closed the net, with brown-skinned, bare-chested men standing in each ship, pointing arrows or spears at Melcorka and Bradan. When a tall man shouted an order, two arrows sliced through the air, to thrum into the rowing bench at Bradan's side.

  'That's it now,' Bradan said. 'We can fight and die, or just surrender, and I don't fancy being the prisoner of this lot.' Lifting his staff, Bradan stood over Melcorka. 'Come and take us then, if you can!' He feinted right and left as a horde of men swept over the side of the boat. 'Get off my ship!' Something hit him on the side of the head, and he slumped down. Something else hit him, and he lost consciousness.

  'I've lost my sword.' Melcorka smiled up at the man who crashed the butt of a spear on her head.

  * * *

  Bradan woke with his head pounding and his wrists and ankles tightly tied. He opened his eyes, smelled smoke and heard cries, screams and rough laughter.

  'Mel?' Bradan looked around. Melcorka lay beside him, tied up as he was and unconscious, while strange, brown-faced men crowded Catriona. Struggling to sit up, Bradan peered over the gunwale. Catriona was in the middle of the pirate fleet, a few yards off a shore of yellow sand and tall palm trees. More pirate ships were hauled up on a steeply shelving beach. Flames and smoke rose from a sizeable village of thatched-roofed houses, where armed men chased terrified people, dragged women away and plunged spears and swords into any men who tried to fight back.

  Bradan groaned as memories of Norse raids and Hebridean Caterans flooded into his mind. History was repeating itself, except now Melcorka did not have her sword, they had no allies, and they were thousands of miles from home. Screwing up his eyes against the pain in his head and the pounding sun above, Bradan watched, with his heart sinking within him.

  What manner of trouble have we landed in this time?

  The pirates were not indiscriminate. They only killed the old and weak, the very young or those who showed resistance. The rest, they herded up and shoved towards the fleet.

  'What's happening?' Melcorka opened her eyes and smiled. 'Have we found Defender yet?'

  'It's a slave raid,' Bradan told her. 'This is a slavers' fleet.'

  'Oh.' Melcorka shook her head as if to clear it. 'Are we collecting slaves?'

  'No, Melcorka,' Bradan said. 'We are the slaves.'

  'Oh.' Melcorka shook her head again. 'If I had Defender, I would not be a slave.'

  'I know,' Bradan said softly. 'I know that, Mel.'

  Bradan watched as the slavers drove their captives onto the ships, tied them hand and foot and left them lying on the deck. The slavers were laughing, enjoying their work as they decapitated the dead and lifted the still-dripping heads. Some of the men dragged away the more comely of the women, while others laughed and jeered at the screams of the victims.

  The sun slid behind a range of hills to the west, colouring the sky ochre and purple in a beauty that seemed obscene beside such a scene of horror. The pirates bundled the slaves onto the boats and followed, blood-smeared, smoke-stained and laughing. Only then did Bradan realise that the oarsmen had not left their places. They were chained to the oars.

  'Galley-slaves,' Bradan said, feeling sick. He had heard that the life of a galley-slave was short and brutal. He had no desire for a period of intense toil under the lash of some sadistic overseer, to die at the oar and be pitched overboard as food for the sharks. If he died, what would happen to Melcorka? Ordinarily, Bradan would have no fear for Melcorka's ability to cope with whatever the world threw at her, but now that something had broken in her mind, she was vulnerable to any man, or woman.

  I will survive, Mel, Bradan promised. I will survive whatever these pirate slavers do to me and do my best to get you back to yourself. Somehow.

  Melcorka lay on her side, smiling and singing a small, childish song. Bradan wanted to hold her close, to protect her from all the evil in the world. He also wanted to weep. No, he told himself. I cannot do that. I must keep strong for Melcorka's sake.

  Night fell with the usual swiftness of tropical latitudes, and a sky of brilliant stars gleamed above the fleet. The pirate ships left the village and sailed north, with the drums still beating and the oarsmen giving a hoarse gasp with each haul on the oars. Bradan lay awake, listening to Melcorka's steady breathing as she slept and desperately trying to wrestle free from his bonds.

  A guard stood over him, bent down and tested the rope around his wrists and ankles, grunted and stepped to Melcorka. He looked at Melcorka's body and slid a hand over her left breast.

  'If you touch her, I swear by every God you know that I will kill you,' Bradan said.

  Not understanding, the guard barely spared Bradan a glance. He moved his hand to Melcorka's right breast until Bradan wriggled closer and kicked out with his bound feet. He caught the man at the back of the knees and knocked him to the deck. The guard bounced back in a second, drew a wavy-bladed knife and stepped toward Bradan, until another slaver intervened, laughed and pushed him away. Uncaring, the oarsmen rowed on through the night.

  * * *

  They were approaching land again. Bradan had been watching the increasing number of birds around the fleet and could smell vegetation and a faint hint of spices. Wriggling backwards and propping himself against the mast, Bradan looked over Catriona's bow, to see the distant serration of mountains. As the steady beat of drums encouraged the fleet forward, the land became more visible and the details more apparent. The fleet was approaching what looked like a large harbour, part-shielded by a long, rocky island. Flags and banners showed that snarling yellow beast, prominent on its blue background, a warning to all to keep clear.

  The slavers were talking as they approached the sheltered harbour. A stocky, broad-shouldered man sat at Catriona's tiller, giving sharp orders that saw a man furl her sail as the ship kept formation with the rest of the fleet. Whatever these pirates were, Bradan thought, they were good seamen. They had mastered Catriona's unfamiliar sails and oars within minutes.

  'Where are we?' Bradan asked.

  Nobody replied.

  He tried again in Latin, with the same result. Catriona pushed on until they were level with the island. Only then did Bradan see that it was fortified, with stone walls rising from the rock and face
s peering from the embrasures. Spear points glittered in the sun and archers waved as the ships sailed in, one by one and line astern. Four large machines stood on platforms a few paces behind the walls; Bradan recognised three of them as catapults that would hurl huge boulders at any threatening ships, and the fourth was a winch with a heavy chain. The slavers had their base well-defended then, for he presumed the chain was a boom to stretch across one of the entrances of the harbour, denying entry to any enemy.

  They eased past the island, with the crew cheering as the garrison of the fort welcomed them. On an order from one of the ships ahead, each vessel broke out their flags, the now-familiar snarling yellow beast on a blue background. The man at Catriona's tiller drank from a human skull, belched, shouted something and drank again.

  'We have come into the hands of barbarians,' Bradan muttered. 'Oh, Melcorka, I wish you were yourself again.'

  Beyond the island, the harbour broadened out into a large bay with a horseshoe-shaped beach beneath a walled city. The same snarling yellow beast flag flew from the battlements and bastions of the walls, from a massive red-walled fortress that dominated the town and from the ornate tower of what appeared to be a palace. Bradan stared at the scale and size of the city, for it was more extensive and more complex than anything he had seen before. Multiple towers and round turrets nailed the tall wall to the ground, offering a formidable barrier to any attacker.

  'Where is this place?' he asked. 'Is this Thiruzha? Or are we in the Chola Empire?'

  'Hello, Bradan,' Melcorka said. 'Where are we?'

  'I don't know yet.' Bradan tried to wriggle back to back to loosen Melcorka's bonds. A guard grabbed his hair and hauled him away, kicking him with a hard foot.

  'Where are we?' Bradan asked.

  Nobody replied. The pirates were too busy cheering and yelling in response to the crowds that flooded from the city.

  'This is the pirates' lair.'Bradan answered Melcorka's question. 'The den of the yellow beast. It is either Thiruzha, or the Chola Empire that the ship-master told me about? If it's Chola, it is nothing like he described it.'