‘It’s been too long.’
He opened his eyes as Síle stretched beside him. She arched her back like a cat and turned onto her front, sweat beading across her modest bosom. She laid a hand on his chest, fingers tracing the white scars that ran their crazed patterns over his body. Sword scar. Spear scar. Arrow, fang, and tusk. Her eyes came alive as she toyed with them, casting off the meodhglin’s foggy dew. She had a queer fascination with violence, for one so aloof and serene. A dark streak through her gilded soul, the impurity that writhes in the heart of a diamond. Náith could think of nothing more bewitching.
Their eyes met, and Síle graced him with one of those elusive smiles of hers, moving her hands from him to fidget with something at the end of her bed. Náith turned with her, sliding a hand up the back of one long, sinuous leg, eyes following the curves of her flesh to the slopes of her shoulders. Something dangled from between Síle’s fingers, turning upon a coarse, handwoven thread.
Náith’s lust bled away in a heartbeat. ‘What’s that, true-heart?’
Síle’s head cocked as she admired it. ‘A gift.’
Náith’s mouth tightened, rage boiling through the meodhglin in his gut as he looked at the thing. He’d seen it before, or things like it. It was a little bundle of sticks, small bones and stones glittering with tiny crystals, threaded upon some kind of hair plucked from a forest beast. They formed one of the runes those cringing scroll-scribblers were always fiddling about with. He sat up, turned away and slugged a mouthful of meodhglin, before the urge to snatch it off her and crush it overcame him.
‘Who gave you that thing?’ he snapped, thumping the bottle down beside the bed. He felt her stare fall between his shoulders.
‘Luw did.’
‘I knew it.’
Náith stood, his roar shaking the walls of Síle’s home, sending her trinkets, ornaments, and charms tumbling and scattering. He turned to her, shoulders heaving, teeth clenched hard enough to grind granite to dust. Síle stared back coolly, unmoved, that spear-polishing goat-fucker’s gift still spinning idly from her slender fingers.
‘Why ask, if you already knew?’
‘I wanted to hear you speak the bastard’s name,’ snarled Náith, an accusing finger raised. It fell away quickly, his anger failing to stir a reaction. ‘Why him?’
Síle regarded him for a long, horrid moment. He could see himself in her eyes, his dejection suddenly so childish as it was reflected back at him twofold. He looked away, ashamed, once again disarmed by her serenity.
‘He was there, Náith,’ she said, rising.
‘Is that all it takes to make you stray from me, woman? Just to be there?’
‘Apparently,’ Síle muttered, picking up a dress from the rushes beside her bed that danced with the colours of spring. She pulled it over her head and met the fire of his stare with the frost of her own. He stepped back from the bed, its intensity… unnerving. His anger died then, beneath her withering regard, a wretched, foolish misery slinking into its place. She seemed to sense it. Smell it, maybe, like a hound stalking the reek of its quarry’s fear. ‘That,’ Síle sniped, ‘and Luw is everything you are not.’
Rage came surging back. ‘What is he, then?’ Náith barked. ‘A weakling? A coward?’ He slammed a fist against his chest, its slap shaking Síle’s home. ‘I am Náith! There is no greater warrior than me on this isle! There is no greater warrior in this world! I am the one who slew the demon of Carraig Tulthó! Who threw back the Fomonán at the gates of Sá Tailteann! These hands of mine choked the great King Gomradh as Aodhamar’s Champion!’
Síle watched him expressionlessly, twirling a black lock of hair about her finger. Náith stepped toward her, fist clenched over his raging heart. ‘Now,’ he hissed, ‘I am the one who will bring ruin on that bastard Luw.’
‘Sit,’ Síle bade.
Something came over Náith, drained his anger away like a bucket full of holes. He found himself sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her wall and the mess his hollering had made of the bits and pieces upon its shelves. He blinked thickly, uncertain what had happened, and felt her arms slip around him.
‘You think so much of the strength of your arm,’ Síle whispered, ‘of who and how you’ve killed. You never think that a woman might want someone who listens to what she says, who appreciates the art she weaves and the simple things she holds dear.’
Such things were for women, for prancing fanny-boys who wrote poetry and enjoyed the taste of another man’s cock. But Náith forced the lie, regardless. ‘I appreciate those things, my heart.’
‘Of course you do,’ Síle humoured him. She lowered her mouth to his ear, the brush of her lips putting goosepimples on his flesh. ‘I am not here just for the draining of your prick, Náith.’
Náith spun, outraged. ‘I would never –’
A lip to his fingers silenced him. ‘And you forget, fire of my soul, that I belong to no man. I do what I will, with who I will. We’re much alike in that, my flame.’ She kissed his burning cheek. ‘Don’t take me for a witless maid.’
‘Why do you hurt me like this, my dear-heart?’ He reached for her hand which sat beside his thigh. It slipped away. He bit down on the rejection, stared through the window at his side with stinging eyes. Movement drew his gaze to the top of the window. Another of Luw’s gifts dangled upon its thread, spinning softly in the breeze, a delicate construct of stones, twigs and bones, formed into a scribbler’s rune.
‘I will shove the little cunt’s antlers up his arse for this,’ Náith muttered.
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Síle muttered, ‘you’re a fool for being so angry. And besides…’ Her lips crept close to his ear again, their touch so utterly intoxicating that Náith felt himself stir. ‘The King of Elk has come down from the mountains for the first time in an age. And Luw has gone to claim his mantle.’
Náith ground his teeth, stared out the window past the twirling little object. Birds were circling the flowers of Síle’s lustrous garden, snapping at the glittering insects that buzzed and whizzed from bloom to bloom. The trees of the Southern Forest swayed on the distant horizon, burning emerald beneath the summer sky.
He swore she smiled, just a little, into the muscle of his back.
Chapter 3
The King of Elk
Luw crept through the shadow of a proud bannach tree, carefully pushing aside low-hanging limbs laden with hard-shelled nuts. Bann stopped to take a piss against it and continued on quickly, keeping low as they stalked the elk’s trail. It was late in its roaming cycle, but there was still time to take its crown before it left the forest and returned to the southern crags of its home.
Today would finally, finally be the day.
The smell of the beast was thick on the air again. It was close by, its wandering trail veering toward the Glade of Blathnaid, not far from the heart of the forest. May this hunt be swift, Luw prayed, kissing spear and bow for luck. Sunlight was prickling ahead, swelling with every step. Bann slinked low through the undergrowth nearby, silent as drifting shadow.
A screech shook the trees as they neared the Glade, a sheet of leaves tumbling down to grace Luw’s shoulders. Bann paused, a low growl just on the edge of hearing. Luw hissed through sharp teeth, silenced him, and crept toward the Glade’s edge in a low stance.
There it was. Standing amid the proud shieldflowers and bowing bluestar, the green tinge of its scarred hide more obvious in the sunlight-drenched glade. Its majesty stole Luw’s breath again. It raised its head to the sky, moss-draped antlers black against the sun, and loosed another screech. The sound filled Luw with a rotten sorrow as he planted his spear and nocked an arrow. The beast called for a mate who would never come, a mate dead near a hundred years.
You still haven’t given up on her, eh, old boy, he thought, checking the wind as it called again. Poor old fool. You’ll be with her soon, my friend. He drew, taking aim for its stretched throat.
Crack! A branch broke beneath an ignorant tread. The elk�
�s head whipped toward the sound, snorting in rage. At the Glade’s edge, an enormous shape burst from the decaying corpse of a tree, roaring a war cry as it landed before the elk.
It was fucking Náith.
‘No!’ Luw cast his bow aside. Ripping his spear from the ground, he burst into the Glade with Bann, the hound baying at the hulking idiot planted between them and the King of Elk. ‘Náith! Stop! Stop, you fat idiot!’
The elk snorted, its glare fixed on the mud-streaked warrior, the challenge accepted. It threw back its head and roared its primal umbrage, the forest bending and creaking beneath its wrath, its fanged maw sparking in the sun.
‘Come, you bastard!’ Náith roared back, slapping his meaty chest. ‘I’ve a hunger for venison!’
The elk dipped its massive head, black crown offered as it hoofed the ground, kicking up a whirling cloud of torn shieldflowers.
‘Náith! Stop! Please!’
The warrior paid Luw no heed. The elk snorted, charged, its clawed hooves tearing the Glade asunder, shaking the earth as if the Sisters themselves crumbled. Luw threw himself to the side, crashing into Bann and rolling with the wolfgazer out of the beast’s path. He landed in time to see Náith step aside from the elk’s charge, its goring antlers gouging a ravine through the earth. Náith’s ugly sword came free of its scabbard as the beast tore past him, its flaring blade sweeping high in one clean, vicious stroke.
The beast stumbled, snorted, tried to pivot about for a second charge. Its head ripped off in a great vermillion wave, antlers stuck in the torn earth. Its body teetered, lurched, severed neck painting the Glade gore-red as it slumped onto its side, shaking the earth one final time.
Silence fell, torn, pale petals drifting down to cover the Glade with their sombre pall. Luw found himself on his knees, staring at the blood-speckled flowers before him. He couldn’t face it, his failure. All those years spent waiting for this moment. Planning. Longing and stalking. Gouged, torn apart in a careless heartbeat. He could already smell it, the stink of its body swiftly rotting as the Earthblood in its veins lay unclaimed and unused by its killer, leeching back into the earth, wasted. Bann whined, ears low as he tried to nuzzle away the misery from Luw’s neck.
Náith’s laughter blew the silence apart like a hammer through a leper’s bones, wrenching Luw’s wet gaze to where he stood beside his kill. The giant’s sharp eyes narrowed, his mouthful of broad teeth bared in a snarl-smile. ‘Remind me, spear-stroker,’ he chuckled, ‘how many years were you hunting this thing?’ He slapped a massive hand across the elk’s rump, wrinkling his flat nose as a strip of its rotting hide came away on his palm.
‘Fifty,’ Luw snarled, his hands knotting in bloodied Shieldflowers. Bann gave a low growl, started forward a pace. Náith chuckled again, laying his red blade upon his shoulder.
‘Wasted time, and what use is a thing that rots the moment it dies? I had a hunger on me ’til I smelled that reek!’
‘It was the King of Elk, you gormless idiot!’ Luw was on his feet, spear in hand. ‘Earthblood ran in its veins! Its hide would have made me an armour that would never be pierced! I was to craft a spear-blade from its bones that would have sundered mountains!’
Náith dug a thick finger in his ear, uninterested. ‘Armour is for cowards,’ he muttered, examining the result wedged in his nail. ‘I suppose that’s why you wanted it. Not that it did this creature any favours.’ He flicked it away and cut a quick loop with his stout iron blade. ‘Strange, you never managed to kill the thing, though, Hunter. I found it quite easy.’ He pointed to Luw with his sword, a nasty grin spreading across his face, black Nuankin eyes reduced to vicious slits. ‘Perhaps I should take those horns of yours, too, while I’m here – eh, spear-shiner? Looks to me like Náith is King of Hunters and Warriors, both.’
Bann inched forward, growling, his mane a bristling hedge of razors. Luw whistled, halted him, the wolfgazer’s fangs bared and dripping, claws scraping earth, his discipline barely holding. His own was threadbare as he hefted his spear. ‘You,’ he breathed, the spear’s blade swinging toward Náith, ‘are a witless butcher! A blight on this land, like the rest of your mindless kin! The earth would thank me if I rid it of your stench.’
‘Try your luck, spear-polisher,’ Náith said. He sunk low, side-on, a heavy-looking stance that left him deceptively light on his feet, sword poised for a crushing overhand blow. ‘I fancy my chances. Your antlers will look mighty fine above my hearth.’
Bann leapt between them, rattling out a growl as he paced toward the warrior. Náith gave the hound a sneer and booted the elk’s rotting head at it. ‘Bann!’ Luw leapt aside, the wolfgazer yelping as the sloughing skull slammed into him and sent him barrelling back into the forest, its antlers scything through trees.
Luw pivoted up from his knees as Náith lunged for him, spear spinning to knock aside the giant’s blade and crack him about the back of the skull. Luw fell back into stance, thrusting as Náith stumbled. The warrior turned and parried Luw’s thrust, the long braids in his hair cracking like whips. Luw growled, off-balance, and cried out as Náith seized the haft of his spear and wrenched him forward. A headbutt shattered the sunlight, bringing oblivion.
Awareness returned. Luw was strewn on his back, legs tangled beneath him, staring at the wavering fingers of the trees against the sapphire circle of sky. He coughed, choked on blood, tried to breathe through his nose and swallowed more of the stuff. A shadow fell over him. Twelve feet of muscle, meat and scar swallowed the sun’s uncaring disc.
‘You were always a fucking weakling,’ Náith spat. His sword burned in the sunlight. ‘I remember when Geal Daithin fell, when Aodhamar called for warriors and I stood alone on the ramparts. You stayed in this leafy shithole, pulling yourself off and sniffing flowers, while I was cleaving heads and taking scars!’
Luw turned onto his side, spat blood on the flowers. ‘Aodhamar’s wars are not my concern.’ He grimaced at Náith, blood spilling down his chin. ‘My realm is the forest. I bow to no king of stone and iron.’
Náith huffed, stooped and grabbed Luw by an antler, dragging him onto his knees. ‘There’s no craven worse than the one who’s proud of his cowardice.’
His blade gleamed as he moved to ram it through Luw’s throat, its edge shining as if wreathed by fire.
Bann came crashing into Náith’s flank with a snarl, jaws clamping about his sword arm. The giant cried out, dropped Luw and rounded on the hound. Bann yelped, a ribbon of bloody drool following him as Náith’s punch sent him spinning across the Glade, landing in a heap against a rotted trunk.
Luw snatched up his spear, thrusting high as the giant turned. Náith saw the blow coming, knocked it aside with the flat of a hand and tried to step off. The warrior stumbled as Luw’s stab went wide, snarled, a hand pressed to his cheek. Blood welled between Náith’s fingers, a rope of dark hair landing at his feet. Náith stared at it in horror, at the iron warrior-ring gleaming at its end, the shorn braid coming loose at his temple. Fool took too much pride in that hair of his.
Luw swept back out of range, stance low, spear-blade moving ceaselessly as the fat idiot raised his sword to him. His face was pale, bleaching as he looked at his bloody palm. ‘I’m not done with you, spear-polisher.’ He charged. Luw sprang, putting his weight behind the spear.
Náith spun to the side, Luw’s spear nicking his stomach as he let fly with a back kick. The kick took Luw in the chest, sent him soaring backward across the glade and tore a weak scream from him as he slammed into a tree. He slid down it, limp as a cleaned fish.
The ground shook as Luw spluttered and fought for breath against the pain, the warrior’s roar swelling like storm winds. Luw’s hand fell upon something – found the smooth curve of his bow. He snatched it up and rolled to the side as the giant’s sword tore through the earth and split the tree in twain, the air billowing in the blade’s wake. Luw found his feet, plucked a shaft from the quiver at his side – nocked, drew as Náith rounded on him. The warrior paused, bloody
teeth bared and gouged face streaming, legs red from the cut on his stomach. He stared at the arrow, shoulders heaving, glistening.
‘Too much of a coward to try the spear again, Luw?’ he sneered. His blade hummed as he cut a quick loop in the air. ‘I butchered fifty men at Tul Girnán with three shafts in my back. Drop that craven’s plaything and fight me like you’ve got some fucking bollocks!’
Náith started forward a step, flinched back as the arrow thwacked into the tree behind him, a thin cut opening on his shoulder as he glanced at the shuddering shaft. Luw nocked and drew between heartbeats, arrow aimed for the warrior’s eye.
‘This one won’t miss,’ he uttered. ‘Leave now and never return, or I will feed the forest with your braggard’s soul.’
Náith cast his savage’s stare at the trees about him, shouldering his sword. He huffed, turned his chin up at Luw. ‘These woods have been fed enough for today. I doubt they want to gnaw the bones of a shrunken coward like you.’ He turned, making for the edge of the Glade, stopping to look back. ‘I am not done with you, Luw,’ he said. ‘Your horns will grace my hearth before they carry me to the flame, spear-shiner. I swear it on my father’s bones.’
He leapt into the trees, smashing through them like the Bull of Ogmodh through the gates of Maigh Cál, a trail of devastation left in his wake.
Luw sagged as the racket of Náith’s withdrawal faded, giving in to the pain. He crawled over the defiled Glade, hands slipping through blood and stinking rot. ‘Bann…’ He collapsed beside the wolfgazer, clutching at swelling ribs, his nose throbbing. Bann lay still against the shell of a dead tree, muzzle red with Náith’s blood and his black fur flecked with mouldering wood. Luw closed his eyes, tears screaming at their edges. He buried a hand in the old hound’s matted fur, clung its warmth and drew a breath.
A slobbery tongue lapped the back of Luw’s hand. Bann gave a whine and lay back down, huffing.
Horns of the Hunter: Tales of Luah Fáil Book 1 Page 2
