by N. M. Browne
She sniffed it. It smelled like water. She rinsed her mouth with it, then drank deeply. It was water. It helped a little.
‘What did you do to me?’
‘You drank of the Cup of Belonging – it is a rite for strangers, outlanders. It went wrong, or, at least, it did not go as expected. Perhaps it was Kai. He does not know. Once or twice there have been outlanders, others like you, who raved. That’s why you were bound. We could not risk that here. This is not friendly territory. Can you understand me?’
‘Of course I can understand you! I am not an idiot. What was in that drink?’ The sickness had not increased her respect for armed men. Her own recklessness alarmed her.
‘Can you ride?’ asked Macsen, ignoring her question.
‘I told you I can’t ride.’
‘No, I mean are you fit enough to get on your pony? This is not a safe place to stop. I promise Rhonwen or someone will explain all, when we make camp. You are an enigma, stranger Boar Skull. I have drunk the Cup of Belonging many times in my life. It is the way we gain … information from those outside the tribe. Never have I gained so little from one of the circle or had such a headache for my efforts.’
Kai, ‘Red-head’ and another man, Prys, ‘The Strong-handed’, helped her back to the horse.
‘I can manage. There’s no need to push me, you great brutes,’ she snarled at them. She felt weak and shaky. Her head still hurt. Someone had put her anorak on her, but the zip and buttons had not been fastened. She was cold. Had that honey drink been some kind of drug they had used to interrogate her? What had Macsen expected to learn from drinking with her? The familiar, small, hard kernel of fear in the pit of her stomach grew a little. She did not know how far she was from home. Her mother would be frantic with worry and nothing made any sense.
‘You’ve learned the tongue of the Combrogi well, comrade Boar Skull,’ Kai murmured in an undertone.
‘We’ll make a priestess out of you yet, Kai,’ whispered Prys. Kai cuffed him roughly on the forearm. The two of them seemed to treat her with a certain wary respect. Why did they call her ‘Boar Skull’? What did they mean by the tongue of the Combrogi?
It was then that Ursula realised. No one had spoken a word of English since she had woken up. Since drinking the Cup of Belonging she found herself mysteriously able to speak and understand another language. It was so unlikely, it was almost easier to believe she was still unconscious or hallucinating some bizarre fantasy. The jarring motion of the pony beneath her, the cold and her continuing nausea were all too uncomfortable to be anything less than real. She fastened her coat with awkward hands and concentrated on staying on the pony. It bore neither saddle nor stirrups and it was a very long way from the ground.
Chapter Four
Dan concentrated hard to make sense of the words. It gave him something besides his fear to worry about. He was good at Latin but was unused to dealing with the spoken variety. The two men seemed to be looking for some people. Dan did not recognise the word they used to describe them. He got the feeling that he was listening to an altogether cruder version of Latin than he was used to. He desperately wanted to look up, to see who these people were, but he was afraid to give away his position. In spite of everything, he was intrigued. Who would be speaking in Latin? Why would anybody do that? The voices got closer. The voices stopped. Dan could sense their owners’ presence not two paces away. He dare not look up. What if they had a gun? It was possible that these men had nothing to do with the appalling sight outside the hut, but his own fear and the dog’s evident terror made for a persuasive counter argument. Dan was sure the men must have seen him. One of the men gave a short peal of laughter, mocking. This was it. Dan opened his eyes. He couldn’t see anything but the tangled branches in front of him. He heard a rasping noise; he didn’t know what it was. The dog responded at once. Growling deep in its throat it launched himself at the man, with a force that must surely have knocked him over. Dan raised his head and scrambled to his feet. In front of him was blood and confusion. He could see only the dog’s head moving from side to side; something caught between its powerful jaws. A man in some kind of kilt was charging towards the dog with a long knife. Dan made no conscious calculations. The dog had not killed him when he could have done. It had warned him of danger. In his heart he had made the dog his ally. Somehow, more by an act of will than skill, Dan managed to lunge forward and thrust his heavy, borrowed blade between the dog’s exposed flank and the long knife. There was a clang of metal as the two blades clashed and Dan felt the reverberation quiver up to the hilt of the sword. Standing up, Dan had a better idea of what was going on. The dog had one of the men on the ground. The object between its teeth was the man’s neck. The dog was a killer! Dan had no chance to change his mind about defending the animal. He had committed himself. The man before him was serious. He clearly knew how to use a knife though he used it, unexpectedly, as a short sword for stabbing. For some extraordinary reason, he also carried a long body shield, shaped like the things riot police use.
Dan tried to use the weight of his own sword to stave off the attack. He did it desperately and in panic. The other man had the upper hand and looked about to use it, ruthlessly. Then the man spoke. Terror must have improved Dan’s Latin because he had a pretty good idea of what the man said. It was something along the lines of ‘I’ll finish you off too, you young barbarian, you can join the red-haired trash.’ The man with the long knife, fighting Dan, was the girl’s murderer.
Something happened to Dan then. Terror deserted him, as did all thought. He found his place of quiet and it was full of blood. The huge blade in his hand weighed nothing; it was the extension of his arm. His arm was an extension of his will and his will was inflamed with a lust for vengeance. Time ceased. His opponent’s movements slowed. The man thrust forward eagerly with his knife, his shield arm moved briefly as he shifted his balance and before he had time to raise his guard, Bright Killer was through the gap. Dan attacked in a frenzy of violence and kept on attacking long after the need had gone. His opponent, the girl’s murderer, was not killed so much as butchered. Dan was so far from himself that he knew no mercy, only terrible, focused fury.
It was many hours later that Dan came to himself. He had no memory of what had elapsed. It was a blank space, a skeleton too frightening to face, hidden in a locked cupboard in a secret part of his mind. The dog was licking his face. Both he and the dog were caked in blood. Something horrible had taken place in the bushes, not long ago. There were at least two bodies, so horribly savaged that they must have been killed by animals. Dan felt that both he and the dog were lucky not to have been involved.
He patted the matted hair of the dog’s head. The dog nuzzled him in return. Dan was deeply grateful that the dog seemed now to be friendly. Dan would call him ‘Braveheart’, after the film. He was surely fierce enough to keep Dan safe.
Dan felt no sympathy for these dead bodies, nor did his callousness seem strange to him. He was vaguely conscious of a need to wash, and a need to stretch his cramped muscles. The great sword was still in his hand. He was gripping it as if his life depended on it. He did not pause to wonder why he and it were so sticky with gore. He did not want to think about it. He forced himself to let it go. The imprint of the hilt remained in his palm. His arm ached a little as if he’d used new muscles. He stretched and walked over towards the mangled remains in the bushes. He wiped the sword on a red woollen cloak that lay some way from one of the corpses. Wrapping the sword carefully in its folds, he hefted it over his shoulder like an axe. He had lost the makeshift harness when he fell, hours before. He whistled to attract Braveheart’s attention and, without a backward glance, moved on.
It was getting dark. The dog moved ahead of him, a dark shadow in an increasingly darkened wood. He could have done with his jacket. He couldn’t for a moment recall where he’d left it and then he remembered the girl. That horror seemed days away now. His mind slid hastily away from the memory of it. He concentrated on the presen
t. He was cold. His damp clothes were drying stiffly and gave him little warmth. If he could find a stream he could follow it to the town and maybe drink from it and wash in it as well. He was still worried about Lizzie and Ursula. He had been lost for hours and was still no nearer getting home. He walked on and toyed with the idea of running to get warm, but the ground was uneven and pitted with unseen obstacles. Bright Killer was a comforting weight over his right shoulder. From time to time he swapped it to his left shoulder, but he no longer found its weight burdensome.
At length he heard running water and followed the sound to a small stream. Braveheart drank eagerly and Dan followed suit. He washed his face and hands, but the water was too shallow and it was too cold to do much about his blood-stained clothes. His earlier concern about fingerprints seemed a lifetime away.
Braveheart sniffed the air and then stiffened his ears flat against his skull. He could smell something. A moment later Dan thought he could hear a distant unidentifiable noise. The events of the afternoon had changed him. He took cover and unwrapped Bright Killer, now dulled and smeared by his too hasty attempt to clean it up.
He had hoped for a car or maybe a truck, but there were no headlights and no engine noise. Something was coming he was sure. He could hear a rumble like faraway thunder. For the first time he gave serious attention to how he could explain his disreputable, bloody condition and, of course, the presence of an antique sword. He gripped it tighter. It was not wise to hold it but he was not prepared to hide it away until he was sure there was no danger. He stood closer to Braveheart, who was bristling with concentration, every muscle held taut, ready for action. There must have been seven mounted men, some kind of chariot and five or six other riderless horses bearing packs. They moved quietly for such a large band and carried no lights. What was going on round here? How many chariots and horses were there in Sussex? Why couldn’t he run into somebody normal? A nice reassuring farmer in a Land-Rover would be good. He just wanted to go home. Braveheart was tense but not growling. He made his decision. He hastily rewrapped the sword, lifted it onto his shoulder and jogged forward into open view. Braveheart matched his pace, running with him into clear view of the lead horseman.
‘Hello! Excuse me, I’m trying to get to Hastings, please could you tell me if this is the way?’
Two things happened almost at once. He heard Ursula’s frightened voice cry out, ‘Dan!’ and a large man ran towards him with a naked sword, not unlike his own. This was madness. Ursula was in danger now. He would not let them treat her like the red-haired girl.
He did not have much time to get Bright Killer out of its confining blanket, but he was sure Braveheart would not let the armed man get too close. He was right. Braveheart growled a low menacing growl and was poised to tear out the man’s throat. From the corner of his eye he could see a second man, and a third approaching him from the other direction. He fumbled with the sword and worked it free.
A man was speaking – shouting, but Dan could not understand what he was saying. Why did nobody speak English? He felt hopelessly unprepared to stave off an attack from three grown men. He held the cumbersome sword awkwardly in trembling hands. Then he heard Ursula’s scream of horror. With that sound he lost himself in the terrible clarity of his quiet place of blood. He and Bright Killer were one.
Chapter Five
Ursula strained her eyes against the darkness. Dan! She thought she had heard Dan. Someone who could only be Dan was asking directions to Hastings in a polite English voice. Forgetting the oppressive silence in which they’d been travelling, she called out his name at the top of her voice. The sound was swallowed by the dark night.
Prince Macsen was taking no chances and had signalled his men Kai, Prys and Gwyn to surround Dan, their swords drawn, as if he was some kind of threat. The very idea struck her as ludicrous. What they might do to him terrified her. She screamed. She was so afraid they would hurt him. She heard someone shout then. There was a flash and clash of swords, vicious snarling and shouts of pain and anger.
‘Please God, don’t let him die!’ was all she could think to say. If Dan was here she could not be too far from home.
Macsen was angry. His voice was low but, even though she could not hear the words, the tone was clear. He signalled, and men started to dismount, guiding horses into the bushes to one side of them. She could not see Dan. Was he still alive? Dread flowed like ice through her veins. Someone led her horse into the woods. Men busied themselves all around her. It seems they were setting up camp. A fire was lit and in the flickering light she saw Dan. Thank God! He seemed dazed and was being led, his hands bound behind him, towards the fire. He was walking, so the blood that covered him might not have been his own. A huge dog, about the size of a small donkey, with bloodshot eyes stood roughly muzzled by rope at his side. Dan was alive! Her relief was shortlived. The look in his eyes was not quite sane. Prys, Kai and Gwyn followed behind Dan. All three men were bloodied and somewhat shamefaced.
Before she could move to talk to Dan, Prince Macsen was in front of her.
‘You know this man?’
‘Dan, yes he’s … another student. Is he hurt?’ Macsen’s language had no word for ‘classmate’.
‘He’s not hurt,’ said Macsen, ‘but he’s a cursed berserker, that’s what he is and it took three good men to bring him back alive. He came very close to ending his days in that wood. Why did you not say that two of you came through the Veil? Are there more?’
Macsen’s hard eyes searched hers challengingly. She found herself stepping back. She understood Macsen’s words but they spoke of something of which she had no experience. Was the Veil the yellow mist? Was a berserker someone who was mad? Dan had never seemed mad before, or at least, not more so than the rest of the boys in her year. She had no idea what the man was talking about.
‘Dan was behind me when I stepped through the mist. I don’t know if he followed me.’
‘Of course he followed you. He’s here, isn’t he?’ Macsen let his irritation show.
Ursula could keep her own level tone no longer. She was scared and miserable, worried about Dan, her mother and her own safety. She wanted to go home.
‘Don’t shout at me! I don’t know where here is. I don’t know what you are doing here with your ridiculous swords and horses and creeping around in the dark. This is abduction. It’s a … ’ she wanted to say criminal offence but could find no word that meant the same. ‘It’s an … offence against the tribe,’ she continued, resisting with difficulty an unhelpful desire to burst into tears. Macsen didn’t say anything for a moment.
‘The Cup of Belonging taught you little, Boar Skull. I have no time to fill in the gaps in your understanding or your courtesy. This has not happened before. The Goddess has a strange sense of humour. We ask for warriors and she sends us an ill-mannered whelp with a mind like a stone wall and a berserker, touched by the gods. It is my earnest wish that Rhonwen wakes soon or I will find myself setting hard hands on you to teach you some respect for a Prince of the Tribes. It is only honour of the Goddess that has stayed my hand so far, but I am not a patient man. Go to your brother but be wary, he is not free of the killing thirst. Ask him where he got his great hound from and his sword. I would know them anywhere. They belonged to a man of my people, Madoc ab Anwen. A man well known to me. If he has harmed one of my own, the Goddess will not protect him from my sword.’
Ursula felt Macsen’s anger and frustration like a physical force around him, though his face remained impassive and his tone measured. For a split second she thought she saw it physically manifested as a nimbus of orange flame, then she blinked and it was gone. Her headache had returned. Dull pain ground her thoughts to fragments. It disrupted all her attempts to make sense of what was happening.
Dismissed by Macsen with a wave of his hand, she staggered over to sit next to Dan by the fire. He was something she was sure of, a fixed point in a world growing ever stranger. But Dan himself had grown strange. As she knelt down beside him, th
e beast on his other side growled and eyed her with a look that threatened extreme violence. She was afraid of dogs.
‘Hi!’ she said in her friendliest voice. Unused as she was to being friendly it did not come out well. ‘Hello, Dan. Am I glad to see you!’ Dan turned to look at her. She was more scared by the look in his eyes than by Macsen’s anger. His eyes were blank now and expressionless. He looked at her without recognition. The Dan she thought she knew was not looking out from those lifeless eyes.
‘Leave him. He’ll come to. At least he’s not one of the raving kind.’
It was Kai. He spoke roughly, but Ursula felt that he was trying to help.
‘What do you mean? Do you know what’s wrong with him?’ Ursula found herself looking at the man who had drugged her, with appeal in her eyes. She did not like it. Kai winced and adjusted his position at the fire. His face was splattered by blood and he was ashen.
‘It’s not common even among the tribes, and the Goddess knows, we can be wild enough when the fancy takes us.’ He smiled, but it was a grim sight. Although he was not old, many of his teeth were broken and the puckered edge of an old scar twisted his mouth into a gargoyle’s grin. Kai by firelight was a frightening sight and yet Ursula was not afraid of him. She should have been. He had drugged her and attacked Dan, but something in her, something she couldn’t explain, trusted Kai. He did not mean her harm. Of course, like so much else, her trust made no sense.
‘But, by Lugh, he’s fast on his feet, your Dan. If he had more practice with that sword, none of us could have taken him and I’ve been a warrior these twenty years. There are tales I could tell that would make the hair on your chest grow curly as a ram’s horn. I knew a man, a bear sark, a “berserker”, once. The most terrifying warrior I ever met and he was on my side! To look at him was to smell death, to hear his battle-cry was to feel death’s cold breath on the back of your neck. That bear sark’s anger was like a slow-burning fire with damp wood, but when it caught, Lugh, he was like a forest fire, unstoppable – no thought in his head, just a mad, killing rage. He would kill his best friend soon as look at him, no idea what he was doing. He said it was like a red mist coming down and that was it! Great man in a battle as long as you could point him in the right direction, no fear at all. Felt no pain either … ’ Kai turned and looked into the fire. He was holding his left arm and Ursula could see that there was a gash across his upper arm and chest from which blood was pumping out. His face looked sombre in the firelight. Why should Ursula feel sympathy? She thought instead about what he’d said about Dan. It did not fit at all with the boy she’d seen at school. Dan was clever, quick on his feet, on the periphery of lots of groups: smoking with the smokers, working with the workers, playing football with the hardest and the sportiest. He seemed to have no need for anger. He fitted in everywhere. Ursula had never seen him look ill at ease, or lost for words. She could have fallen for him, just for that alone if she’d been a different kind of girl. She’d never even heard of him being in a fight. She just couldn’t imagine him mad with a killing rage. Yet he had survived an encounter with three armed men so something odd must have happened. There was a rustling behind her and as she turned to investigate, the pain from her head threatened to overwhelm her and her thoughts scattered. At that moment Rhonwen appeared at the fireside and Ursula felt her stomach knot. As in some part of herself she trusted Kai, in that same still instinctive part, she did not trust Rhonwen. She was her enemy. Ursula was sure of it.
