Caledonii: Birth of a Nation. (Part Two; The Druid's Plan.)

by Hall, Ian

  “No one will notice how old you are.”

  “If you say so!”

  “I do.”

  Subject closed again.

  He noticed Sewell eating his apple and did the same, washing it down with some of the water. Later, he gnawed at the bread and cheese as he rode. Although he had told himself that he was going to be observant, he found himself dozing off a few times; a combination of the late afternoon sun and the motion of the horse.

  They rode steadily into the evening, and it was well after the sun had set that Sewell called Calach to a halt. They had come to a sparse clearing in a small wooded area. Sewell dismounted, handing his reins to Calach.

  “Tend to the horses, tie them well. Leave the saddles on.”

  “Aye, Sewell.”

  “Then light a fire. Nothing too big, just enough to warm us.”

  The dhruid started off into the woods, warning him not to follow.

  “What about the light o’ the fire? Won’t that alert any o’ the Venicones around here?” Calach asked after the retreating figure.

  “There is no one in the immediate area.” Sewell walked away, and vanished from sight into the trees.

  Finlass was right. If you watched the dhruids, you could deduce much from what they didn’t say.

  Calach tied the horses firmly to a low branch. As he set them fodder, he took in details of the wood, it was becoming cold now and could feel the dampness closing in. He listened to the evening noises; the rustle of the smaller animals. He felt outward with his ‘hunter’s eye’, sensed a mouse very close, then something larger, perhaps a squirrel. He tried to feel farther, but the trees stopped him. They always did.

  He busied himself with the making of the fire, the preparation of the shredded ball of fabric, the thin, dry twigs, the larger branches.

  He mumbled, keeping his voice low. “Lugh, grant me the power of fire to heat the night.”

  He took a worn stone from his saddlebags and crouched to the materials on the ground. Sharply he brought his dirk blade down on the stone, striking it narrowly. The sparks of dirk and stone soon lit the ball of dry fabric. He carefully picked up the fabric, cupping it in his hands, blowing swiftly, sending his breath deep into the embers. Soon smoke billowed from his handful, then suddenly it burst into flame. Within moments Calach felt safe to add place the burning bundle on the ground and add the larger twigs. The fire took hold, although some of the damp wood was smoking badly.

  He unrolled both sleeping blankets, and his tasks finished, sat down to eat. He opened the remainder of food his mother had given him. He recognized pork, biscuit and cheese, but it had been hastily packed and in the crushed pack had all congealed together. The apple had kept his need for food at bay all day, but when he opened the pack, his hunger returned with a vengeance. He ate heartily in silence, staring into the surrounding darkness, then finished the meal off with a mouthful or two of water from the goatskin flask. He waited around the fire, tending the embers for some time, then when Sewell did not return, he settled down facing the fire, falling immediately into a deep sleep.

  “Come to me!” the old dhruid croaked. “Come to me, Calach of the clan Caledon.

  The dhruid’s body lifted into the air and floated over to where Calach lay.

  “Yes! You are the one!” he wheezed, his speech slurred. The old man began to draw symbols in the air with his fingers. The air burned red, the symbols floating. When he had finished, he made a great flourish with his hands and the symbols advanced to Calach. He could not move. As the fiery characters reached his body, they burned through his tunic onto his skin, where they rested, singing his flesh. But there was no pain, just the smell.

  The overpowering smell of his chest burning under the branding of the symbols.

  Suddenly there was a loud rush of air, which swept his hair back from his face, followed by a pouring of water from a bucket, held by unseen hands. The water extinguished the brands quickly, the smoke drifting lazily from his tunic.

  When Calach looked down at his chest, there was no sign on his tunic at all.

  “You marked me!” he said, suddenly finding his voice.

  The dhruid laughed, his mouth turning into a grimace. “I had no need to mark you Calach. You were marked long before this!”

  He awoke abruptly with Sewell shaking his shoulder. “We must make all speed.” Sewell said sharply. “Kheltine has not much time.”

  As Calach moved, he realized that his body was stiff and cramped, his limbs and back sore from the long ride the day before. He stretched and yawned, peering through the early morning mist. The fire was a mass of grey ash and dying embers. His fingers traced the area where Kheltine had branded him, and found nothing.

  Dawn’s not even broke yet! It’s practically dark.

  “What do you mean, Kheltine hasn’t much time?” said Calach, sleepily, his mind not quite up to the speed with which Sewell was working.

  “The arch-dhruid is dying. He has not much time left in our world. We must hurry.” Sewell snapped.

  “How do you know about Kheltine?” He packed his belongings onto his horse.

  “A dhruid does not need to be told when another is dying.” Sewell’s voice was as expressionless as it had ever been.

  “You mean that you just know?”

  Sewell had his back to Calach as the question was asked, but Calach saw the dhruid’s shoulders sag. An answer was not going to be forthcoming. Another fact regarding the dhruids was placed firmly in Calach’s memory.

  “Now let us ride as far as we can today.” said Sewell, mounting his horse, “We must make the coast by nightfall.”

  “We’re going to the sea? But how........”

  We’re going to the sea! I’ve never seen the sea before!

  “Your many questions delay us further. At least ask them as we ride!” snapped Sewell, spurring his horse into a gallop.

  Although Calach had been to the ‘Great Divide’ and had looked eastward toward the distant expanse of blue, he had never actually been to the sea. At the village of Pettar, the river was tidal, and the smell of the salt in the water was sometimes evident, but that was the closest Calach had been to the sea proper.

  It took Calach a while to catch up with the dhruid, who was obviously intent on making better progress than the day before. They rode through woodland, then up onto moors. They skirted lochs and villages alike, keeping themselves away from all possible habitation, until around mid-morning Calach could see the familiar figure of a dhruid and two saddled horses up ahead.

  Again Sewell forced the pace with new horses, quickly leaving the dhruid and the two tired mounts well behind.

  “We ride directly south now.” Sewell shouted over his shoulder. Calach kicked his mare until it drew level.

  “How long till we get there?”

  I can’t take many more days of this pace, my backside’s killing me already.

  “It would be five or six days if we were going by land.” said Sewell. “But we have no time to waste. We ride straight across Venicone territory and cross the narrow sea directly to the Votadin capital.”

  Calach swallowed hard, the puzzlement turning to panic and fear.

  By Lugh! But even that curse isn’t correct, Lugh’s god of the earth, not the sea!

  “We’re going by boat?” he shouted. “Over the sea?”

  Sewell smiled as he looked over at the ashen-faced warrior.

  “What’s wrong Calach?” he said. “What’s wrong with a wee boat trip?”

  “Nothing, Sewell.” He did not consider that he had been convincing.

  Calach had been on small coracles, fishing and netting in the lochs near Lochery, but he knew that they were talking about a different scale of water. This journey to Kheltine was filled with wonder from start to finish. He thought back to the boring days at Lochery, when he would have given anything for a break in the boredom of ordinary day to day clan life. Now that the adventure was happening to him, a small part of him wanted to be back at
the broch, having dinner with his family.

  “The boat will be waiting for us before sundown.”

  “Sundown, today. Right?”

  “Correct!”

  The next Venicone dhruid in charge of the change of horses again talked only to Sewell, never giving Calach a second glance. Whilst exchanging the mounts, he assured Sewell that the horses were the very best the clan had to offer, and as they adjusted the horses’ tack, the Venicone dhruid draped cloth bags on both horses, describing the food inside to Sewell in such detail that Calach could not wait to stop for the meal.

  With a shout of farewell, Sewell again led the way south, immediately forcing their fresh mounts to a good pace, quickly leaving the settlement far behind. They rode all day, eating from the bags as they went, crossing moors and woodland at an unbelievable rate. As they travelled, they sometimes passed within hailing distance of farmers in their fields, but the two grey figures were paid scant attention.

  By late afternoon Calach was exhausted, almost sleeping in his saddle. He looked at the erect pose of the dhruid and wondered at his ability to go without sleep.

  “If we can keep up this pace, we will definitely make the sea by nightfall!” Sewell shouted over his shoulder. “And we will keep this pace going!”

  By this time, Calach was so tired that he could only grunt an answer.

  The combination of the absence of anything on the horizon and the salty smell in his nostrils led Calach to an early anticipation of the sea, but it always seemed to be just over the next rise, or the next. When it came, however, he could not help himself stopping his horse to get a fuller, less distracted view. The deep evening blue of the eastern sky was reflected by an even deeper hue in the water itself, and he looked over the wide river estuary at the one or two islands which rose from the watery depths. He eventually noticed that Sewell had kept on going and spurred his horse to quickly recover the lost ground.

  “It’s beautiful.” he said when he had caught up at last, his fatigue temporarily forgotten. He was paying more attention to the view than to his riding, trusting his horse to find its own way down the grassy slope towards the beaches below. “I’ve never seen anything so blue in my life!”

  “It certainly is tonight, Calach.” Sewell urged his horse to cover the last piece of ground. “The Gods have certainly laid on a fine evening for your first sea voyage.”

  “Are we going across that? It seems a wide place to cross.” Calach said with a great deal of uncertainty.

  Sewell reigned his horse to a halt, Calach did likewise.

  “Do you see the large rock, near the other side; the one that looks to have snow on top of it?” Sewell pointed at the distant rocky formation.

  “Aye; is that where we’re going?”

  “Close. The Votadin call it the “Silver Boar”, because from the sea it looks like the back of a great boar rising from the water. The rock looks like it is covered in snow from here, but it is actually bird droppings which are responsible for the colour. The birds which live there mean the Votadin have an inexhaustible supply of either the birds or their eggs virtually all the year round.” Sewell started to ride down towards the sea again, Calach’s horse followed on without being asked to.

  “The Votadin capital is inland from the rock.” continued the dhruid, “We will be there at first light tomorrow. Let us hope that we are not too late.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The room was dark and crowded with dhruids.

  “Come over to me Calach.” Kheltine’s weak, croaking voice filled his head, though his lips never moved.

  Before Calach had a chance to think of a response, his feet were propelling his body over the room to the bed where the old man lay. He stopped at the side of the pile of furs which all but buried the dying arch-dhruid, and knelt down near his head. He felt foolish, not knowing protocol, not knowing what to say. He also felt ill, not having eaten since the evening before, when they had boarded the small boat to sail them over. That meal had joined the others as he had been sick violently over the side. He was further unsettled by the fact that although they had been travelling on horseback some of the night and all morning to get to the high dhruid, the earth beneath his feet still seemed to be rising and falling like the waves he had grown to hate.

  “Come closer....” Kheltine coughed harshly for a few moments, then slipped his arm out from under the pile of furs. “Come closer, Calach, so that I may touch you.” He gestured with his fingers and Calach leaned over, close enough to smell the overpowering odor of stale sweat and death which swept from the old dhruid in waves.

  He slid one hand round to the back of Calach’s neck and grabbed hold of a handful of hair in a solid grip. Then, slowly snaked out his other hand till the heel of his palm rested firmly on Calach’s forehead. The young man found that he couldn’t move, not even to raise his hands. He was caught in a grip of such strength that should never have been possible from a frail old man.

  Calach’s fear increased when his peripheral vision began to reduce inwards till he could see only Kheltine’s eyes; and he felt those eyes burn through his own and onwards into his head.

  From a distance but rapidly becoming closer, he discerned a scream of fantastic volume until it deafened him. At first he thought that it was his own voice roaring, but the look on Kheltine’s face gave away the sound’s creator. Kheltine’s scream then diminished until there was absolute silence. Calach waited in the false tranquility with the certain knowledge that Kheltine would soon speak. When he did, the old dhruid’s voice sounded calm and deliberate inside his head, moderating Calach’s immediate impulse to break from the dhruid’s grasp.

  “Be still Calach, and listen to me. I have no time to waste; I go to meet my Gods soon.” As the words took shape within Calach’s mind, he was very conscious that the dhruid never moved his lips. He felt the sweat run in rivulets down his back as he knelt, trembling.

  “Yes! You are the one. You are the one from my dreams. I saw you at the gather, and I was unsure.”

  It was almost as if Calach could feel the dhruid’s mind, speeding like icy tendrils through his brain. The feeling made him slightly nauseous, but as he could not move a muscle, the sensation soon dissipated.

  “Listen to me.”

  “I am an old man; older than you can imagine. I am the high dhruid in the Norlands. But I am more than this. I am a seer. In my long life I have had many visions; waking dreams, prophesies; call them what you will. I have the unenviable gift of seeing glimpses of the truth, of knowing for certain what the future will bring for some. In all my years these visions have never lied. With uncanny accuracy these dreams have all come true, whether I attempted to stop them or not, and many were so horrible that you must believe me that I tried.

  These dreams gave me the power over all the other Norlands dhruids. You see, Calach, these visions were both my lifeblood and my downfall. The visions were my power. Without them I would have been an ordinary dhruid. These dreams gave me power over people and dhruids alike. I had dreams of bad harvest, visions of death and murder; portents of births and marriages which enabled me to outguess everyone.

  This gave me absolute power.”

  “But these visions were not just from this land; I had visions from many lands. Those involved peoples I have never seen, nor could imagine; images of wars and famines and death and destruction. So although the dreams were my power in the Norlands, they were also a torment. A torment so strong, they have destroyed me from within.”

  Listening to the story, Calach found himself relaxing, although the dhruid’s grip remained tight. Gradually he began to wonder why he was being told this. Against the dhruid’s will, Calach found his own attention wandering; he found himself pondering if the rest of the room could also hear the dhruid. Abruptly Kheltine tugged on his hair, bringing his concentration back to the dhruid’s words.

  “Listen to me!”

  “As I grew older, these visions decreased in frequency until at last, a few summers ago, they
stopped altogether. Although the reason for my grasp of power had ceased, I was unassailable in my position. It no longer mattered. I was high dhruid. You must believe me when I tell you that I did not miss those dreams at all. I liked the uncertainty of life. I enjoyed my old age without the weight of everyone’s problems on my shoulders. I became a simple old man, and for the first time in my life I found that I was at peace with myself.”

  Although the dhruid’s facial muscles did not move, Calach thought that he could feel Kheltine smile. Peace radiated from the old man’s hands.

  “Listen to me!”

  “Then the dreams started again. One vision in particular shook me to my core; a vision which repeated itself again and again until I had to take action. It was not a distracted, disjointed view like before, but clear and precise. In part of this vision all the clan chiefs met. I took it as an instruction and set out to put the vision into effect.”

  “The imminent invasion of the Norlands by the Romans gave me the excuse to bring all clan chiefs together; it was time for the ‘great gaither’; the first time in the history of our land that all clan leaders have met. In my dream, I was not allowed to see the outcome of the gather, so when the clans broke up with no formal declaration of unification, I was confused. I returned home here to die. For die I must; I have seen the vision of my own death and it will be here and now.”

  “The very day I returned to my home here on the hill of Tra’pan, the dreams came to me more often. They came to me day and night, whether I was awake or not. Since that day they have not stopped. They have come back with a crushing vengeance. They have weakened me to the stage that I know that I am drawing my last few breaths speaking to you. In effect they have killed me, and I know it.”