by Angus Watson
Lowa could see a little smile playing on Keelin’s lips as she looked at Mylor. Next to the fire, where all could see, stood a wooden-fenced pen of pigs. Barton’s king was inside, chained to a wooden upright. The former ruler didn’t seem to mind. He was sucking his thumb and stroking a big hairy boar. The boar was enjoying the attention and grunting encouragingly. It looked like it was thinking about mounting Mylor. That would please the spectators.
She saw Keelin stop smiling as the druid Felix oozed up to her. He’d clearly finished the sacrifices quickly, or maybe he was saving some for later. He stood too close to Keelin, took both her hands and looked up at her like a half-bald puppy. If Felix noticed her cringe, he didn’t show it. He barked out a joke and laughed roaringly as she looked over his head for a rescuer. Lowa was not going to help.
The party was in the lower section of the hillfort, where buildings were sparse and livestock should have been corralled in times of danger. Long tables had been piled with Barton’s food reserves. Near the fire the revellers’ cheeks were bronzely aglow with health and happiness. Further away, soft starlight painted people gentle silver in the moonless night. It was vastly more pleasant than Zadar’s usual hellishly smoky hall-based shindigs. On summer evenings like these it was impossible to remember the winter.
But still Lowa couldn’t shake her unease. What the Mother was it? Booze and food hadn’t helped much. She thought about going back to her hut, but she couldn’t face the inevitable door-hanging, arty dickheads, whose role was to drunkenly and belligerently demand where you were going and why, take personal offence that you could think of leaving, then splatter you with spittle as they demanded that you stay. She didn’t want to talk her way past them just yet, and she couldn’t kill them. Even in Maidun’s army wanton murder was frowned upon. Unless it was Zadar’s idea.
She turned her attention to the band. Five men in brightly patterned outfits were playing brass instruments on a platform extending from the rampart at the side of the enclosure. The blaring of bronze instruments died in a long, ugly blast, and the men sang unaccompanied in a rumbling bass,
There was a mad king called Mylor
Who took Zadar on in a war.
As they were routed,
Mylor’s people all shouted,
What a stupid old king to die for.
“The weakest section of the army, I’ve always thought.”
Lowa jumped. For such a huge man it was uncanny how Carden always managed to creep up on her.
Carden Nancarrow, Zadar’s champion. As a teenager ten years before, he’d beaten Barton’s five best with ease. At the celebrations two nights before, and several times before that, he and Lowa had ended up together.
She smiled. “My horse farts a better tune.”
Carden leaned his head back and laughed like a god. His thickly muscled chest heaved as he guffawed, then he shook his long dark locks as the laugh became a chuckle. Lowa’s reply hadn’t been that funny. He was clearly after a shag again. Maybe that was what she needed? She felt a quiver in her groin. Yes, Carden was exactly what she needed.
“Lowa, you do know that women aren’t meant to be witty?” His dark eyes sparkled with mischief underneath the strangely protruding brow that stopped him from being typically handsome, and a spasm shot across his cheek. Even his face was muscular.
“And men are. Topsy-turvy situation we have here.” She raised an eyebrow.
Carden chuckled but less enthusiastically. He wasn’t a massive fan of having his own qualities brought into question, which didn’t, thought Lowa, make him particularly unusual.
“How was your battle?” he asked. “You and your girls opened up very quickly in the face of such stiff opposition.”
She ignored the innuendo. “You’re right to mock, Carden. Six archers attacking a few thousand soldiers is nothing to be impressed by.”
“The Fifty started the rout.”
“Yes. You came in nicely behind my archers.”
“Perhaps you’ll show me exactly how that manoeuvre works later on?”
This time, she smiled.
“Yes, that’s why it’s such a shame—” He stopped mid-sentence and shook his head sadly. The band’s song ended and trumpets blared a high-pitched fanfare. Lowa turned, expecting to see Zadar borne towards them on his golden shield. Instead, she flinched as Carden grabbed her from behind. Strong fingers dug painfully into her arms.
“What the Mother…?”
She watched as men and women near Cordelia, Maura, Seanna and Realin grabbed swords from hiding places under tables and behind screens. A sword lashed out and Seanna went down. The others saw it wasn’t a joke and formed a circle around their fallen comrade, brandishing nothing more than wine horns.
“Carden, what the fuck!?” Carden didn’t answer. She struggled ineffectively. The partygoers were advancing on the archer girls with grim-faced, united purpose.
“Carden! What the fuck is going on?! Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed. No response.
The attackers closed in and swords came down. A severed hand flew high, spraying an arc of blood. One of the Fifty – a man with a large head called Aydun who Lowa had never liked much – stumbled back, blood spurting from his neck. Cordelia Bullbrow hacked her way out of the circle. Somehow she’d got hold of a sword.
Lowa shouted and struggled, but Carden’s grip was iron and her legs were clamped between his knees. She slammed her head back, but it thumped harmlessly on his chest.
“Give it up, Lowa,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry. We have orders.”
Cordelia turned back on the circle hacking at her friends. Lowa felt hope surge. The big woman sliced a man two-handed across the back. He went down, limbs flapping. Another came at her with an upward sword thrust. Cordelia parried and slashed her blade across his face.
Weylin Nancarrow, Carden’s younger brother, son of Lowa’s friend and weaponsmith Elann Nancarrow, strode up behind Cordelia. He swung his sword and slashed the backs of her knees open. Lowa’s strongest horse archer, the last hope for all of them, collapsed like a sack of mud. Weylin raised his sword matter-of-factly, swung it down, and chopped her head off.
Lowa tried to wrench herself free again and failed. She was still holding her venison bone, a potential weapon, but her arms were pinned. She looked for Aithne, but all she could see was Atlas walking away from where he’d been talking to her, wiping his war axe on his sleeve.
Carden shifted one arm to grab Lowa’s hair. Atlas walked towards her.
“Atlas!” she shouted imploringly.
He shook his head with a sad smile, like a child rejecting a fat friend when picking teams for a running game.
“Atlas, what are you doing? Why…?”
Atlas raised the axe. Carden twisted his hand in her hair to expose her neck.
Atlas pulled his axe back. Was this really happening? It must be a dream, she thought.
A shape rose behind Atlas. It was Aithne. She grabbed his dreadlocked hair and swung a fist into his ear. Atlas stumbled, the axe fell and Carden had to step away to avoid it. His knees loosened their grip. Lowa wrenched a leg free and stamped on his foot. Bones crunched under her iron heel. Carden fell back, clutching at her dress. She spun and smashed her right elbow into his temple. He went down. She grabbed a stool and flailed it at Atlas, who’d broken free of Aithne. He ducked. She rammed her venison haunch up, into the soft flesh under his jaw, and on. He dropped to his knees. She twisted the bone then let go. Atlas clutched his face with both hands and fell with a bubbling scream.
Aithne was kneeling behind him. She looked up at Lowa, brown eyes full of pleading and terror. She tried to say something, but blood spilled from her slit throat like water from a kicked bucket and she pitched forward.
Lowa whipped a dagger from Atlas’s belt. A slingstone whistled past. Armed men and women were coming at her from all directions – apart from where Keelin Orton stood blinking in shock. There was her only way out. Lowa ran at her and whacked t
he stool backhanded into her chin. The girl crumpled. Lowa leaped over her onto a table. She sprinted along it, stamping through plates and drinking horns, kicking clay amphoras in all directions. People clutched at her legs, but she was too strong and too fast.
She jumped from the table, grasped the edge of the minstrels’ platform with both hands and swung herself up. The musicians shrieked and fled, leaving Lowa among their instruments. She grabbed the nearest, a horn with an end twisted and hammered into a horse’s head. The entire throng was coming at her, swords and daggers raised. She knew them all. Many, she thought, had been friends. They were all in it. They’d all known it was going to happen, and they’d all been happy with that. They all enjoyed Zadar’s safe and lucrative patronage and they did what he said.
“What are you doing?!” she shouted at them.
She brandished the trumpet. They faltered. A bronze trumpet was no match for an iron anything, but her reputation bought her a couple of breaths. She threw the trumpet at her attackers, spun round, gripped the top of the palisade and somersaulted over it.
Lowa tumbled down the wall and thudded hard into scree at the bottom of the ditch. She was winded, but it should have been much worse because there should have been spikes down there. She scrambled up the other side. Thank the Mother it was a single ditch. She was very near the top when—
“Stop or we’ll shoot!” She stopped. She didn’t need to turn to know that several slings were aimed at her back. Her red dress wouldn’t be much protection.
Fuck it, she thought, maybe they’ll miss. She dived over the top of the outer bank, slingstones fizzing past her heels. She tumbled and bounced down the steep grass scarp, not trying to stop. Every time her feet made contact with the rushing ground she sprang more into the fall. It was the quickest way down the six hundred or so paces of hillside. The slope evened out, one of the tumbles landed her on her feet, and she pelted away across the long grass at a full sprint. She hurdled a low fence. She dared a glance back. Shit. They were already pouring down the hill towards her. Some were carrying torches.
A path led into the woods. Lowa followed it, running full tilt into the evening warmth of the trees. She didn’t know the land. The woods were dark. She could trip or fall into a mire at any moment. Her only advantage over her pursuers was that she had nothing to lose. She saw a faint light ahead and ran for it, passing through a clearing and scattering a sounder of wild boar from their starlit grazing. Two boar ran ahead of her, groinking, then peeled off along tracks she couldn’t see. But her night vision was improving. She could make out the way very slightly now. She slowed from a sprint to a fast run.
The path split; Lowa chose left. She held her breath for a moment as she ran. There was no sound but the pounding of her own feet. The path split again. She chose left again. Wrong choice. That way ended in another small clearing, maybe ten paces across, surrounded by thick brambles. There was a dark regular shape in the centre – a forest altar. She could hide behind it. No, they’d find her. She spun and ran back towards the fork. Torches were bobbing towards her through the trees.
Reaching the fork, she wrenched the shawl with the badger-or-dog design from her waist and hurled it back up the left track before running up the right one, hoping it wasn’t a dead end as well.
It was.
She smelled the river before she saw it. The path ended at a low, short jetty. The river was way too broad to leap and she couldn’t swim. She listened. Something scurried nearby, an owl hooted, and, not nearly as far away as she would have liked, her pursuers called to each other.
“Here’s her shawl! It was round her waist earlier.” That was Dionysia Palus, formerly Deirdre Marsh. Trust her to notice what another woman was wearing. “It could be a decoy. Let’s split!”
She didn’t have long. The brambles were impenetrable in both directions along the bank. To her right, upstream, the river stretched into the distance. An eagle owl flew lazily along the centre of the channel. To her left the river ran around a wooded corner. The only route was back along the path towards Danu knew how many former friends intent on murdering her. She had a knife. They’d have slings and swords.
She dashed out onto the jetty. How hard could swimming be? She’d seen children do it and children were idiots.
She crouched to throw herself as far into the water as she could and spotted the coracle. The tiny circular leather and wood boat was tied under the end of the jetty. She lowered herself gingerly but quickly onto the bench that bisected it. The crazily small craft – surely meant for a child – rocked alarmingly and sank until it was two fingers’ breadth clear of the surface, but it didn’t capsize. She cut the flax painter with Atlas’s knife and pushed off downstream. There was a stout paddle under the bench. She rowed frantically. Calls came from the woods. More voices, getting closer. She heard thudding feet.
The boat moved out into the current but Lowa’s paddling was just spinning it around. The curve in the river that would take her out of sight was a long way off. She could hear their panting now. They’d be on the jetty any moment. They wouldn’t miss her on the starlit water. In a few seconds slingstones would smash her skull. She slowed her rowing to firmer, more purposeful strokes, one side then the other. That was the way. The strange little boat picked up speed.
It was too late. She heard feet thud onto wood. She crouched into a ball.
“A river.” She recognised the voice. It was Carden’s brother and Dionysia’s husband, Weylin Nancarrow, the man who’d killed Cordelia.
“Well spotted, genius.” That was Deidre/Dionysia.
“She’s swum across or she’s hiding back in the woods,” said a voice she didn’t recognise.
“I’m surrounded by geniuses.” Deidre again.
“She can’t swim. She told me.” That was Weylin. They’d talked about swimming not long ago. Fenn’s teeth! Never admit your weaknesses.
“Wait a minute,” said Dionysia. “There would have been a boat here. Look, there’s a cut rope. What’s that!?”
“What?” said Weylin.
“There, downstream. It’s … I … I can’t see it now.”
“Couldn’t ever see it, more like. She’s hiding back in the woods.”
“Then why is the rope cut?”
Their voices were quieter. Lowa risked looking up. The jetty and her pursuers were out of sight. She sat up and quietly paddled on. In the darkness ahead she saw Aithne’s eyes pleading for help that she hadn’t given. She saw Cordelia chop her way out of the mêlée only to be hacked down herself. She wondered if it was Maura or Realin’s hand that she’d seen fly up into the air. A shudder of anger, sorrow and disbelief lurched though her. She dropped her oar and doubled over with grief.
No! She sat back up. Crying could come later. She would find out why Zadar had killed them, and tried to kill her, and she would have her revenge. First though she’d go back to Barton and get her bow and arrows. They wouldn’t expect that.
She paddled on. The silvered black water was still, save for the gentle splash of her paddle. The silent woods watched her pass.
Chapter 9
“Weylin, Dionysia! My favourite couple of the Fifty! Welcome!”
They were the only couple in the Fifty, so it was a stupid thing to say. Felix’s Roman accent made his cheeriness seem all the more false. Weylin did not like Romans, especially Roman druids as creepy and powerful as Felix.
King Zadar’s chief druid and second in command stood from his chair on the raised dais with a grin on his smooth face and his short arms raised in greeting. He wore his usual sleeveless blue leather jerkin and purple glass necklace. The necklace’s glass beads were each inlaid with a whorl of white, and it was said to be worth more than its weight in gold. Weylin wasn’t convinced. Glass was much easier to smash than gold, so how could it be worth more?
Zadar wasn’t there, which was a relief. Even though he didn’t like Felix, Weylin much preferred the idea of explaining Lowa’s escape to him. Felix might be a cruel and
unbending druid, uninterested in anyone’s welfare but the king’s and his own, and capable of conjuring up a formori that would bite your head off, but firstly he wasn’t Zadar, whose audiences had a much higher mortality rate, and secondly he was the height of a child and looked ridiculous. His light brown hair was thick but receding, his fringe a good ten fingers’ breadth from his eyebrows, like a furry hood pulled halfway back over an egg. He wore his sleeveless jerkin in an attempt to look like a Briton, but his haughty, unmistakably Roman face and flabby arms made him look like a bard dressed up for a role.
Weylin was in fact dressed very similarly, and his hair had receded almost as much even though he was still in his late teens, but this didn’t faze him. He shaved his remaining hair back to a straight line across his skull so it looked like his hairline was a choice. What remained hung down his back in a thick, matted, manly tangle. The arms sticking out of his jerkin were thick with muscle and already badly scarred, and he was a good two heads taller than Felix. Some said he had a big nose, but he knew it was a strong nose. The difference between him and Felix was that he looked good. And he was British.
Felix sat back down between Zadar’s two bodyguards. Why does such a powerful druid need bodyguards? wondered Weylin. To the Roman’s right, small wooden and iron shield in one massive hand and short curved wooden-handled blade in the other, was the giant German Tadman Dantadman. He looked like he’d taken a much smaller man’s head but kept his own face, so he was all chin, nose and deep-set eyes protruding from a comically small skull. A blond moustache the size of a small broom head and a tussle of blond hair tied into a topknot added to the effect. As always, he was wearing a heavy fur jacket. Unsurprisingly, given the heat, his pale face was shining with sweat. Weylin shook his head. Take your jacket off, you idiot! he thought.
