When the barbarians met the Petriana cavalry, the Romans would certainly have the edge in any battle, Valeria guessed. But the chase after victory, when the Celts fled, would be like trying to catch the wind.
Their way to the hunt was cross-country and rambling, seemingly as aimless as an exploring dog. Arden chose this ridge for its fine view and that hollow for its sweet spring, his course a total antithesis to the practical straightness of a Roman road. The air warmed as the sun rose higher, each breath rich with the scent of heather, and there was a brilliance in the low light of the north that seemed to pick out every hue of blossom and every sparkle in rock. The air made you drunk. Valeria felt strangely alive with these people. Their enthusiasms made her heart beat faster.
"I'm surprised the clan can spare so many to go on a mere hunt, she said somewhat breathlessly to Brisa as they cantered along. "How does the work get done?"
"This is the work, Roman. This Erebus has been terrorizing our livestock and rooting our fields. His kill will feed the clan for three days."
"But so many?"
"It may take this many to slay the boar. He's a huge one, according to Mael."
"So it's dangerous?" She'd heard of boar hunts, of course, but had never known anyone who'd been on one. In Rome all the wild animals she'd seen had been in the arena, where they were swiftly slain for the amusement of the mob.
"That's what makes it fun."
"You can stay to the rear," Asa called back. "The women of the Attacotti will show Rome how it's done." The Celt's antipathy toward Valeria had grown since the Roman had ridden back to Tiranen with Arden.
Bitch, Valeria thought. "I didn't say I was afraid, Asa."
"You will be. And Arden will be too busy, Roman, to look after you this time."
They rode down the slope of a cirque into a narrow defile and then into another forested valley, reining up at the edge of the wood. Mael jumped down and unwrapped a bloody fleece, taken from a sheep that the boar had killed, and gave their quarry's scent to the dogs. "Hunt!" The pack set off in frenzied tumult, baying to the wind, and Arden gave a great cry and led the hunters in pursuit.
So fast and disorienting was the chase through the trees that it was like tumbling down a hill. Valeria's mare kept pace with the others, hooves pounding, but it ran outside her own control, branches flashing wickedly past, the Roman clinging desperately just to keep to her saddle. The men yipped, the Celtic women added a high, wavering warble, eerie and foreboding, and the blur of the chase was like being caught up in an unstoppable wave.
Surely the boar would hear them and flee.
Yet the barbarians hollered as if the animal was waiting for them.
She glanced in wonder at the people riding with her, their faces flushed, their eyes bright, their mouths open, their hair rippling in the wind, and realized they'd become the boar in their own minds. Their thoughts echoed the beast's thoughts, imagining it rousing itself sleepily out of the mud, grunting in perplexity at the approaching thunder, shaking its fat, bristled head at the baying of the dogs, pawing the earth with its sharp hooves, and then trotting tentatively up and down the tunnels of its thicket, wondering who dared disturb its bloated slumber. And somehow the boar heard the human thoughts as the Celts heard his, both taking the measure of the other. Valeria suddenly knew, as certainly as the Celts did, that the animal wouldn't try to escape.
That it was seeking them as they sought it.
They slowed as the ground dipped and the trees became denser. The hounds were bunched at a thicket, howling in confusion, and the party halted so weapons could be readied. Brisa strung her bow and notched an arrow. Asa unsheathed one of her javelins, balancing it lightly in her slim fist. Arden rested the butt of his lance on the ground as if to anchor his horse, his hand near the weapon's head.
Hool leaped down with his stout spear. "It was my cow that was gutted a fortnight ago. Give me first call, Caratacus."
"Don't you want your horse?"
"Horses panic. I trust my own feet, where I can meet the pig eye to eye."
Mael was shouting at the dogs, urging them into the thicket. The animals hesitated a moment, milling like an uncertain mob, and then finally the lead hound charged in, giving the rest enough courage to follow. They were bred to hunt! The pack's frantic barking echoed as they raced down the labyrinth of tunnels, fading with distance and then falling to strange silence for a moment. Then Valeria heard a snort and low grunt, drowned out immediately by renewed furious barking. The dogs had found the boar! There was a yelp, the sound cut short as if a sword had sliced it off, and then a pounding as something huge and heavy ran through the thicket, dogs howling in pursuit. The top of the brambles quaked as the quarry moved, the disturbance coming in a long, rolling wave. Hool tensed, peering down a dark tunnel, and then with unworldly speed something huge and black exploded from the tangle.
It was Erebus! Valeria gasped, and her mare sidestepped in alarm. The monster was far bigger than she'd expected, its shoulder almost waist-high and its upright tusks as long as a man's hand. It seemed all head and shoulder and long shaggy tail, like something hurled from a catapult. There was a curdling human cry of revenge as Hool moved to block it, but the boar was quicker, and wily. Swerving from Hool's lunge and then cutting back faster than her eye could follow, the beast turned under the warrior's spear and plowed into Hool's legs as powerfully as a rolling log. The Celt was butted up and over, flipping a neat somersault, and when he came down his legs were bloody and the boar was careening past Arden's horse, the chieftain cursing as he threw his lance too late. Brisa shot an arrow that also missed, and she swore like a decurion when it whickered uselessly into the brush. Then the animal was gone.
"This way!" The riders were in motion now, pounding after the boar, the surviving dogs pouring out to add to the furious chase. Their quarry was far ahead, saplings rocking from its passage, and then all of them disappeared into the trees.
Valeria, shaken by the animal's ferocious speed, didn't follow. She struggled to get her shuddering mare under control and finally trotted Boudicca over to the stunned Hool, worried that the man was seriously hurt. There was a red gash on one thigh, and the other leg was bent peculiarly, as if broken. He was grimacing.
"Are you all right?" she asked unnecessarily.
"Angry as a wolverine and foolish as a goat," he gasped. "By Taranis and Esus, I don't think I've ever seen one that big. Or that fast."
"It's a wonder you're still alive." She jumped down from her horse and used her dagger to cut a strip of cloth from her tunic. "I've got to get that bound before you bleed to death." He winced as she bandaged the wound. "And we must splint that leg. You're lucky you aren't dead, Hool."
"If I were, I'd have already seen the worst the underworld could frighten me with. I've never faced an uglier snout, not even on Luca's homely daughters."
"His eyes were like coals. His tusks like knives." She glanced around for something to splint him with. "Maybe we can use the shaft of your spear to set your leg."
The weapon had fallen to the ground, and she picked it up. Valeria was surprised at how heavy and yet how balanced a spear was. She'd never hoisted one before. She could still feel the warmth and sweat from Hool's hands on the shaft's grip. The head was blue iron, filed and sharp. "It's too long, though."
"Don't break my spear!"
"Maybe we could strap it along your body."
"Wait for Arden and Mael. They'll know what to do."
"How long before they come back?"
"When the boar's dead." He lay back on the leaves of the forest floor, resting.
They waited in companionable silence, grateful for each other's company in the green dimness of the forest. They could still hear the others, but the sound was distant and faint. Perhaps the boar had slipped away. Valeria hoped they'd give up soon and come help their companion.
They didn't. Time drifted.
Finally something cracked in the bushes. Were the hunters finally returning? She loo
ked up, following the sound to the brambles, and saw a dark shape watching, panting heavily. One of the injured dogs? No, it seemed too big…
Her breath caught, her heart stalled.
It was the boar.
Hool saw it too and sat painfully upright. "Get on your horse," he ordered.
She took a step backward. What was the boar doing here? Somehow it had circled through the forest well ahead of its pursuers, come back to its home thicket, and then followed the scent of human blood…
"Go get help, as quickly as you can!"
The animal was very near, as big as a bear, its snout hideous, its back a hedge of upright, quivering bristles, a drool of blood and saliva dripping from its tusks. She could smell its rankness as it eyed them.
She still had the spear. Should she give it to the man?
The boar pawed, snorting.
"Hurry!" Hool shouted.
It charged. Valeria sprang for her horse, the mount already starting to bolt in terror. The mare screamed. Or was that her scream? She glimpsed bunched fury, and then the boar ran over the wounded Celt like a careening chariot, the two tumbling as Hool roared in pain. The pig butted at the man with its snout, the tusks cutting at him again and again as he was rolled along the ground. Hool howled with frustration and helpless rage, beating at the animal with his arms as it shook him like a doll. She had to do something!
Valeria was in the saddle now, sawing at the reins with one hand and the spear in her other. Her mare was dancing frantically. Finally she managed to drag Boudicca's head around and kicked as hard as she could, driving her mount toward the boar before the horse knew what it was doing. That got her close enough to lean and jab with the spear, hard, at the creature's skinny hindquarter.
The boar jerked as if stung, and turned. Now the mare was sidestepping, eyes rolling in fear and head too high to choose intelligent direction.
The boar charged again, this time at Valeria.
She yanked up her leg to avoid the slicing tusk, and the beast struck the mare's side with concussive force. It was as if an ocean wave had picked the horse up with her astride, shoving them sideways against a tree, Boudicca screaming for sure now as the mare was eviscerated. Valeria jabbed desperately at the monster's enormous shoulder, but the hide and cartilage was so tough, it was like stabbing chain mail. The three of them crashed together against an oak, and the tree quivered from the impact. The boar was frantic to get at her, but the butt end of Hool's spear had been accidentally driven into the oak by its furious charge, the animal's shoulder against its point. The ashwood shaft bowed as if to shatter, yet just before it must do so, the boar's furious energy pierced the spearhead through its plate of shoulder cartilage, and it sliced deep. The wild pig squealed in surprise, a new scream that mingled with the screams of woman and horse, and then all three crashed over, Valeria caught in the saddle and slamming hard onto the ground over the body of both horse and boar.
She waited for its head to come round and gore her.
Instead, the pig grunted, sighed, and shuddered. Finally it was still.
She laid her cheek on the damp earth, her vision blurred, her mind stunned. Then she heard shouts, a baying of hounds, and suddenly she was surrounded by a circle of barking and snarling dogs, nipping at the dead boar even as Arden and Mael strode angrily through them, shouting commands and pulling the pack off. The chieftain probed the monster with his lance, but it was already dead, Hool's spear jutting from its heart. The tiny forest arena was spattered with gore, and the woman was sprawled awkwardly as if dead.
"Good Dagda, have you killed my lady?" Arden lifted her face from the mud, his own stricken with fear. Her eyes were closed, a tendril of hair in her mouth.
"I'm caught," she mumbled dully.
"Help me get her clear of this horse!"
Strong arms lifted the bulk of the animal to work her legs free. She winced from a dazzling kind of pain. Boudicca was wheezing in agony, her guts spilling over the pig. Luca took his own spear and thrust it into the horse to put the mare out of her misery.
"Hool's still alive!" Brisa called. The man was groaning.
"The trickster circled to finish him off," Mael marveled, piecing together the fight. "If your Roman girl hadn't been here, it would have gored him and then trotted on its way, to terrorize us again."
Arden sat on the ground, cradling her in his arms. She felt faint and floating against the comfort of his body, astonished she was still alive.
"She killed the biggest boar I've ever seen," the chieftain murmured. "She saved poor Hool."
Asa was looking at the Roman woman in wonder and envy. "How could that puny thing get the spear through the animal's shoulder?"
Mael pointed to the trunk of the tree. "She braced her weapon, and the boar did the rest. It's as brave an act of hunting as I've seen in all my life."
There was no courage at all, Valeria wanted to say, but she was so stunned by the horror that she couldn't speak. The boar looked like some shaggy black mountain beside her, its snout tipped with two bright beads of blood.
"The Roman got him off me," Hool gasped in pain. Then he fainted.
Arden looked at the others. "No one knows the thinking of the gods," he said. "No one knows why things happen the way they do. But I say that this woman came into our lives for a reason, and part of that reason we've seen here today. This will be a song that will be sung for generations."
"She was lucky," Asa insisted. "Look at her. She's almost dead from fright."
"She's an arrow from the sacred," Brisa contradicted. "Look at Hool's legs, she tried to bandage them! This, after we captured her, when she could have slit his throat! This Roman has the spirit of a Celt, Arden Caratacus. The heart of a Morrigan."
"Our Morrigan, then, she shall be."
XXIX
Valeria woke to the sound of lapping water. She was inside, she sensed dimly, but the murmur of waves and play of sun still filtered through the woven wattle of an undaubed wall. Light ignited dust motes in the air. The roof was lost in shadow but smelled of damp thatch. She was lying on a straw mattress-she could hear it crinkle beneath her-and covered with thick wool blankets. She also ached so much that she could barely move. Half her body felt like it had been drummed with hammers. Her ankle throbbed, and cuts and scratches added a slighter but sharper discomfort.
Only the water was soothing.
She was thirsty, but it would hurt too much to turn her head and look for something to drink, so she concentrated on noises instead. A faint sough of wind. The cries of waterfowl. The splash of water as if she were on a boat, except her boat wasn't rocking. And the gentle breathing…
Of a man.
She forced herself to turn then, gasping at the pain. There was someone sitting in the dimness of what appeared to be a crude hut. Even in shadow his profile was unmistakable. Arden Caratacus had been watching her sleep.
"Morrigan has come back," he whispered.
She was confused by the name. "Where am I?"
"A safe place. A healing place."
She lay back. "I hurt so much."
"That's because the best bear the most pain."
"Oh."
Then she fell asleep again.
When she came awake a second time, her entire body felt like a vast, rotting bruise. It was dark, the hut still. She could hear Arden's soft breathing on the other side of the enclosure, asleep. Pale moonlight filtered through the wattle, weaving a silver tartan on the floor, and again there was that odd sound of wavelets rippling. Trying not to groan, she stiffly sat up and put her eye to the wall. There was water on the other side, a lake or bay. A corridor of white, reflected light led across it: the hall of the moon. Maybe they were on a boat, a boat gone aground. Maybe she wasn't alive after all.
Something touched her lightly. A hand.
"Here, something to drink," he whispered.
Then he left her alone again.
When Valeria awakened the next time, she was hungry. Sunlight again, a small wind
ow open to scrubbed blue sky. Arden was gone. She stood and staggered, momentarily dizzy, her bare feet on rough wood. She was wearing a woolen tunic that came to her calves.
A window revealed a small lake, its surface reaching under the floor where she stood. Reeds grew in nearby shadows, and bright birds, red and black, darted there. Shuffling to the other side of the little hut, she found a door and opened it. A wooden ramp led to a grassy shore, a curtain of alder riffling in the wind. Geese were feeding in the shallows. She was on a dock, suspended on pilings. The hut was like a little island, the water making a moat. A catwalk connected it to another hut on pilings, a short distance away.
She wondered, illogically, if she'd been abandoned. Then she saw Arden walking along the lakeshore, a pole over one shoulder and two fish hanging from the pole. He waved to her-as if this strange habitation were the most natural thing in the world-and in moments he was treading good-naturedly across the boards of the ramp to join her, his cheerful stride making the planks thump.
"You're up!" he greeted. "And sooner than we hoped. You've got the stamina of a Brigantia. The mettle of a Morrigan."
"I've got the bones of an old woman and the muscles of a baby," she replied softly. "I feel like raw meat. Where are we, Arden?"
"A crannog. My people like the protection of water, so we build small islands or platforms for refuge. You were too badly injured to take back to Tiranen, so we brought you here."
"How long have I been here?"
"Three days."
"Three days!"
"That boar gave you a beating. Have you looked at yourself?"
"No."
"Your entire side is purple."
Valeria nodded, beginning to remember now. "I thought he was going to kill me. Such a vicious-" She stopped. "And how did you see my side?"
"We had to get your bloody clothes off you."
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