A Gathering of Ravens

by Scott Oden

  “You know the way to Carraig Dubh, do you?”

  Étaín paused. “If you could point me in the right direction…”

  “North toward Dubhlinn, then into the hills. Do you have food?” Maeve stood and went to her pantry. By feel, she put a loaf of hard bread into a linen sack, along with a cloth-wrapped cheese, a crockery jar of wine, two onions, a sausage, and a slab of smoked mutton. She came to the table and pressed the sack into Étaín’s hands despite her protestations. “You have to eat, child, and Blind Maeve’s got plenty.”

  “Thank you, again.” Étaín stowed the food and caught the satchel up by its strap. Its fetishes and finger bones clacked together. The leather itself smelled like Grimnir—the animal reek of sweat mixed with smoke and old blood. “North, you say?”

  Maeve chuckled. “Nay, I’ve a better idea: Conán can show you the way.” She gave forth a low whistle; in answer, the giant wolfhound trotted in from outside the cottage. He sat in front of her, tongue lolling. His head was even with Étaín’s shoulder. Maeve put out her hand; Conán gave it a nuzzle, licked it. “Aye, you great hairy heathen! Show her the way to Carraig Dubh. Do as Blind Maeve says, now. You understand?”

  Conán tilted his head. He looked quizzically between the two women, and then growled. Étaín started to speak but Maeve cut her off, her voice sharp. “Nay, you great lump! Maeve will be fine. Show her the way to Carraig Dubh, now, and none of your sass! You make sure you keep her safe, you hear me? And don’t you lose her on the road!”

  Conán hung his head a moment before lumbering to his feet, turning, and trotting back out the cottage door. Maeve patted Étaín’s arm. “You best hurry, child,” she said. “That old heathen will get you there, but he’s going to be antsy about getting back. Use my name if you meet anyone on the road, you hear me? Blind Maeve has a reputation in these parts, and won’t nary a Leinster lad or a whiskered Gall dare to lay a finger on you if they know you’re one of mine. Go on, now.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Étaín said, clasping the older woman’s hand. Maeve smiled.

  “When all is said and done, child, come back here and tell Blind Maeve everything. It’s a rare thing for me to curse the loss of my sight, but this day I curse it heartily. Oh, to see what you’re about to see…”

  Conán loosed a thunderous bark, impatient to be away.

  “I promise you,” Étaín said. And then, with a last fleeting kiss to the old woman’s cheek, she was gone.

  12

  Grimnir, as mud-slimed and filthy as one of the bog skrælingar that once haunted the fens of Skaane, scrabbled up a crumbling scarp, passed through a tangle of gnarled yew trees, and staggered to the summit of Carraig Dubh—with its single standing stone rising from the windswept precipice. Framed by the setting sun, he saw nothing else: no cursed whiteskins, no kaunar—and no sign they’d been there, either.

  “I am here!” he bellowed, his voice small against the red-streaked sky. “Where are they, you lying sack of piss?”

  They come, Gífr said.

  Yes, Grimnir agreed. They were coming. He could hear them: the spectral clash of arms echoing from the valleys to the west; the roaring war cry of Bálegyr as he drove his people back to the wolf ships, laden with plunder; the screams of west-elves as they died under the blades of the kaunar—and who died as fools, thinking they could stand between the dark tide of reavers and their ships.

  Grimnir slowly circled the standing stone, its weathered surface black with age; he imagined he could see the faint outlines of a man in its carved form. He came to the edge of the precipice and peered over. It was a murderous drop of a thousand feet and more to the stony talus; from there, the land sloped away through leaf and bole to a cultivated plain where he spied a walled town, perching like a vulture over the mouth of a river, its waters—and the water of the bay beyond—burnished to a coppery sheen by the westering sun.

  “What town is that?” he said, the idea something was amiss tugging at the edges of his consciousness.

  There is no town, little fool, Gífr replied.

  No, Grimnir agreed. There was no town on the plain below.

  He turned as Gífr stepped from the lee of the stone, a silhouette darker than the gathering gloom around him. Eyes blazed, green like those of a cat. “Ymir’s blood, you miserable wretch! Will you stand out in the open for all to see? Get under cover, fool, ere you betray our position!”

  Cursing, Grimnir scurried over and crouched at the base of the stone. He sat on his haunches, spear across his knees, and glanced up at Gífr. “How soon?”

  “Soon. Let our people pass, then take those stinking whiteskins in the flank as they hurry after.”

  “Alone?” Grimnir frowned. “I am but one—”

  Gífr chuckled and spat. “Aye, you can count, you little shit-bird. Are you not his son?”

  “One against…”

  “It does not matter,” Gífr said.

  No, Grimnir agreed. It did not matter. He would roll up the flank of those wretched west-elves; he would spatter their pale blood over this miserable rock, as the Sly One was his witness. He would break them.

  “Let them come,” he said, lips peeling back in a snarl of hate. “Let them come and stand aside, you old git! I’d hate to put you down by accident!”

  “Look out for yourself, little rat!”

  And Grimnir would. Knuckles cracking, he tightened his grip on his spear. Oh, he would …

  13

  Long shadows streaked the sides of Carraig Dubh; as the sun dipped into the west, shrouding in gloom the forest a thousand feet beneath that mighty precipice, Bran of the Uí Garrchon gave no thought to making a camp for the night. He had seen something earlier in the day, a figure that had loped past him in the valley below—something with blood-hued eyes and yellowed fangs, its dusky hide etched with the stigmata of the heathen. Despite that, he knew it was no Dane, nor was it a Norseman or a Swede or a Gael. These he knew; these Bran of the Uí Garrchon had crossed spears with and lived to tell it. No, whatever it was had given him enough of a fright to send him scurrying off in the other direction. Now, hours later, Bran cursed his own moment of weakness, so unlike a kern of the Uí Garrchon; he cursed the now-cold trail, which he worried at like an old hound with a bone in the deepening twilight. Mostly, though, he cursed the pair of blundering fools who carped at his back.

  Like himself, both were Leinstermen, outsiders, sons of the Fortuatha who dwelled in the hills around Arnkell’s Lag. They were father and son, the pair: Ruadh Mór of the Ua Feghaile, and crop-eared Dunlaing, who had once been a thrall of Thorwald Raven, chief of the Gall of Veisafjorðr. And like Bran, they had had their fill of Maelmorda’s rebellion against the white-haired and kindly old king, Mac Cennétig. They meant to cross the mountainous heart of Cualu and join the high king’s army.

  Nor would they come empty-handed. Though they had no war gear apart from axe, sword, and spear, they nevertheless led a string of three ponies, each laden with joints of smoked venison, sacks of barley, winter vegetables, and early cabbages nicked from under the king of Dubhlinn’s nose.

  “You spied one of the feckin’ Gall, I tell you,” Ruadh Mór said after Bran had stopped once more, this time to examine a few strands of hair snagged on a low branch. “Some black-haired son o’ a Danish whore, out looking for the likes of us, I’ll warrant!” Ruadh Mór leaned on his spear. He was a swag-bellied man in a tunic of patchwork brocades, whose long weather-beaten face bore the scars of a childhood pox. “Bleedin’ Christ, man! You’re chasing shadows! Let’s kindle a fire and have a bite o’ sup ere it gets too dark to see.”

  “Aye,” Dunlaing agreed.

  But Bran merely grunted. He was a hard knot, bald and sporting a fierce silver beard—a manikin of fire-blackened oak carved and twisted by the hand of God; he wore trousers of supple doeskin and a broad woven belt beneath a cloak of faded green linen, which he wrapped about his torso like a tunic. “Weren’t no Gall,” he said. “Nor a Gael, neither.�
�� He held the strands of hair under his nostrils and snuffled at them. Even among the Uí Garrchon, a folk noted for their ability to track a lizard across a rock, Bran was a huntsman of uncommon skill. “This ain’t the hair of no man I ever saw. More like wolf fur, like as not. An’ I can smell something else … leather, an’ sweat. Aye, the thing I saw ran on two legs, but it weren’t no man. Glared at me with the Devil’s own eyes!” Bran straightened and pointed up and away, through a hole torn in the forest canopy by a fallen oak. “Recognize it?”

  Dunlaing spoke up. Ruadh Mór’s crop-eared son sported the tattered finery of a Norse lord—no doubt looted from the same corpse that gave him the longsword he wore at his hip. “Aye, Carraig Dubh. Means we’re still too feckin’ close to Dubhlinn, is all!”

  “An’ that’s where it’s headed,” Bran said. “Ain’t nothing up yonder for God-fearin’ folk, so you got to be wonderin’ what deviltry is afoot.”

  “I ain’t got to be wondering no such thing,” Dunlaing replied.

  Ruadh Mór moved over to stand next to Bran. He, too, made a show of crouching, of surveying the ground; he brushed aside a patch of leaf mold and scraped a fingernail through the rich black loam, still damp from the storm night before last. “You might be right, Bran-me-lad. Aye, you might be right. Look here. Can you smell it?” He sniffed at the black earth, held his hand up so Bran might follow suit. The older man inhaled, but shook his head. “You don’t smell that? Why, smells like horse shit to me.”

  Ruadh winked at his son. They held their sniggers as long as they could, and then broke out into raucous laughter.

  “Idiots, the both of you! I know what I saw!”

  “You saw one o’ them Dubhlinn Norse in a wolf-fur cloak, you daft bastard! Bleedin’ Christ! What, you think it was some faoladh? One of those feckin’ heathens from up by Osraige? Aye, cursed by Saint Pádraic, himself, to take the form of a wolf-man for seven years? You start thinking like that, we might start thinking you’re not right in the head!” Ruadh Mór shouldered past the older man, tsking under his breath. “It’ll be dark, soon, lad. Might as well bed down in yonder clearing, tonight. You fetch some wood. I’ll see to the ponies.”

  “An’ him?” Dunlaing nodded at Bran. A shrug was Ruadh Mór’s only reply.

  Working in unison, father and son soon had their ponies unloaded, hobbled, and fed, a fire kindled, and an iron pot of venison and cabbage bubbling over the coals. Wrapped in his cloak, Dunlaing drew his sword and tended to its edge with a stone and a flask of oil.

  Bran, however, did not move. He stood in the same place, staring up at the heights of Carraig Dubh through eyes grown to slits from suspicion. The ponies fidgeted. Last year’s leaves and undergrowth crunched beneath their hooves; a breeze rustled the canopy above. In the distance, he could hear the mocking call of a raven. Overhead, the flame-colored evening sky gave way to the silver sheen of night.

  Concern for the older man etched Ruadh Mór’s brow. He came up, a bowl of stew steaming in the cool evening air. “Just having a bit o’ fun, Bran,” Ruadh Mór said, quietly. “Don’t take it to heart. Me and the lad, we’re tired, is all. We could all do with a bit o’ rest. This Gall o’ yours—”

  “You think me daft, Ruadh Mór? Softheaded, aye?” Bran glanced sidelong at his distant kinsman. “Listen. What do you hear?”

  “Nothin’,” Ruadh Mór replied after a moment.

  “An’ that’s the problem. I’m thinkin’ whatever I saw has circled about and gotten in behind us.”

  “Bollocks!”

  “Bollocks, is it?” Bran clapped a hard-knuckled hand to Ruadh Mór’s shoulder. “You might be right. Might be nothin’. Might be naught but some shit-handed Dane who got his dander up when your boy, there, went an’ stole his cabbages. But if it is some bit of deviltry whistled up from the belly o’ Hell by the feckin’ Witch of Dubhlinn, then your fire and your bit o’ sup is going to draw the bastards right to us.”

  And Ruadh Mór, who was a better poet than he was a soldier—and no great shakes at either—turned pale as curdled milk. “Bleedin’ Christ!” He turned to where his son sat by the fire, rasping stone on steel. “Put it out, boy! Put that fire out!”

  “Not feckin’ likely,” Dunlaing said. He looked up, scowling. “What’s gotten into you, Da?”

  “I said put that damned fire out!” Ruadh Mór hissed.

  “Wait,” Bran said. His silver beard jutted defiantly as he glanced over his shoulder, peering hard into the thick underbrush. His hand dropped to the iron-strapped haft of a bearded axe sheathed at his waist. “Too late, lads.”

  Ruadh Mór followed Bran’s gaze. There, amid the thickets of hazel and ivy, fern and honeysuckle, he saw the gleam of eyes …

  14

  From her hiding place well back from the uneven circle of firelight, Étaín watched the three Irishmen and wondered what gave her away. How did that sly, silver-bearded old man know someone was out in the darkness? The trio had made their camp near the forest path—the same sort of little-used game trail that Maeve’s wolfhound, Conán, had sped along for most of the day, trusting that she’d follow. And follow she did, as best she could. Their road took them over hillocks crowned with ancient stones and into leaf-girt hollows that had not known the tread of a human foot since the days of the Cruithne. The hound was a matchless guide—smarter than most men she’d known and silent save for his expressive growls. Conán had brought her through the Cualann Mountains and to the foot of Carraig Dubh in half the time. And only now did her path cross that of another living soul.

  The three might have been foragers, if the provender stacked near their hobbled ponies was any indicator. But whose foragers were they? Étaín could not tell a man of Leinster from one of Munster; nor could she make sense of their speech, though some of the words sounded familiar to her ear. That they did not make straight for Dubhlinn gave credence to her notion that their allegiance might lie with King Brian. Or, perhaps they were simply bandits, human jackals content to exploit the bedlam caused by Leinster’s insurrection for their own gain. Whatever they were, Étaín reckoned they shared a common destination: Carraig Dubh.

  If I go around them, I risk having them at my back. She chewed her thumb in indecision. But if I let them go ahead of me, they likely ruin any chance I might have to come upon the vestálfar without being seen—and if they are skittish or easily alarmed, I might never find them, again.

  Of course, Grimnir would simply kill the lot of them. Murder them without even an ounce of regret and leave their bodies to rot in the forest. She could hear his voice even now, flint-hard and dripping scorn. Faugh! There can be no peace between the Wolf and its supper, he would say. And, to her dismay, Étaín could see his point. Even still, she could not countenance murder. She was no fell-handed kaunr, out for blood and glory, but a child of the White Christ … and like that, it dawned on her. These Irish foragers, whether they’re men of Munster or of Leinster … are they not my brothers in Christ?

  Close at hand, Conán gave a low growl. She could feel an undercurrent of impatience running beneath the wolfhound’s placid exterior; the hour grew late, and he was eager to return to his mistress.

  “Bide with me a bit longer,” Étaín whispered, reaching out to tangle her fingers in his brindled coat. Her brow creased as she considered her problem: she could not kill them, nor could she ignore the Irishmen. So, what to do? Incongruously, she thought of Glastonbury. The abbot had had a saying he was fond of in times like these, though that impious bastard employed it as a means of shirking hard labor: “Many backs make light the load.” No doubt, Étaín thought. The weight of confronting Grimnir’s vestálfar captors might lessen if shared among many … but how? The answer was plain: she would have to convert them, make allies from potential enemies. Convert them like I converted Red Njáll son of Hjálmarr.

  Étaín exhaled. She had no cross to kiss, so instead she muttered a prayer in Latin and worked Grimnir’s seax loose in its scabbard. And though the blade might not do he
r any good if things went awry, its proximity brought her a measure of comfort.

  “Don’t let them get me, you great hairy heathen,” Étaín said. She leaned in and hugged the giant wolfhound around the neck. Conán whined. “And if they do, don’t let them keep me.”

  Then, with three sharp exhalations that dredged up a reserve of courage she was certain wasn’t her own, Étaín called out to them. She did not waste her breath with West Saxon or Latin; rather, she let the example of Blind Maeve guide her and sang out in the tongue of the Danemark. “I mean you no harm, good sons of Ériu! I am but a poor child of Christ!” And from their sudden bristling manner Étaín knew all of them had understood. To their credit, the three men did not easily startle. They knew something was out there, and the sound of her voice—a human voice—seemed to give them a measure of relief.

  Still, they snarled at one another in Gaelic. Finally, the silver-bearded one silenced the others with a sharp gesture. He answered her in Danish: “Child of Christ, eh? Show yourself, an’ then we’ll know you mean us no harm.”

  “Swear by the bones of Saint Pádraic that you will not harm me, in return.”

  “You’ve my word,” the eldest said.

  “And yet, your companions yet hold their weapons ready.”

  Beard bristling, the old Irishman growled something in Gaelic over his shoulder even as he took his hand away from the haft of his axe. The second man, a pox-scarred fellow perhaps a handful of years his junior, reversed his spear and drove it blade-first into the earth. The third man, the youngest of the three, was a crop-eared Gael as tall and broad as any Dane; at first, he made no move to sheathe the sword he clutched in his scarred fist. Only after both the older men rounded on him did he grudgingly comply—though his hand never strayed far from the worn leather-and-wire-wrapped hilt. The eldest turned back to face her. “See? Aye, I give you my word! Now show yourself!”