Age of Iron

by Angus Watson

  “No. You won’t. You’ll watch as he rips your limbs off, then, if you’re lucky, you’ll pass out before he eats your face.” Farrell smiled.

  “It’s true!” Channa sobbed, burying his face in his fat white hands.

  The Wounder who’d taken Dug’s bag handed Ulpius’ mirror to Farrell, who stared at his own reflection for a few long seconds.

  “Well, well. This is lovely! Roman, if I’m not mistaken. Not British, anyway – far too well made! Tell me you were carrying if for Lowa, old man? It’s too depressing to think you use this to look at your own decaying face.”

  “So you’re Zadar’s puppy now?” said Lowa.

  Farrell looked up from the mirror. “No, I’m his top dog. You’re the puppy. At least you were. Now you’re more like his piglet, ready to be spitted and roasted alive. Worse, probably. That Zadar! Makes the Monster look like a fairy godmother.” Farrell strode off down the hill chuckling, leaving his men stripping the hut.

  Channa was still sitting on the hearth stone, crying. Dug was on the bed. Lowa went to sit next to him.

  “I’ve been in worse scrapes,” he said. “We’ll be all right.”

  Lowa took his hands and looked into his brown eyes. He was a good man. That wasn’t going to help him much against the Monster though.

  She had an idea what it might be. A couple of years before, Felix had brought back an animal from a voyage to Rome. A homunculus, he’d called it. It was like a hairy, twisted, impossibly strong child. It was meant as an amusement for Zadar, but it had gone mad and killed a couple of girls from the harem before Carden Nancarrow had knocked it out.

  Nobody had seen the homunculus after that. Some had wondered where it had gone. It looked like Lowa had found out.

  Chapter 12

  “I cannot believe those fools in the last village were terrified of the sky falling on their heads. And that tower they’d built to hold it up? Wow.” It was early evening. Ragnall and Drustan were sitting on a log next to the remnants of some previous travellers’ campfire on the edge of pastureland between the track and a river.

  Drustan coughed several times with a fierce, wet rattle. He’d been coughing like that all day. Ragnall didn’t like the sound of it. The druid swallowed phlegm, then spoke slowly and quietly: “They are not fools. They are humans. Humans like the idea of a preventable doom. It makes them feel important. Usually the gods fulfil that need. People say that the gods will crush us if we don’t live our lives in a certain way. It gives them purpose. However, those villagers have persuaded themselves that there are no gods, so they’ve invented a replacement – the idea that the sky is falling down, and that they can prevent it by building towers and so on. That has become their purpose.”

  “Do the gods exist?”

  Drustan gave Ragnall a look that made him feel uncomfortable. “I have been meaning to talk to you about this.” He coughed again. “I do not know if there are gods in the forms that we believe in on this island – Bel, Danu, Toutatis. The Romans have gods; the Greeks have gods; the Iberians, the Helvetians, they all have gods, and they are all different. Some believe that there is one all-powerful god. What is more likely – that we are right and everybody else is wrong about creation, existence and supernatural forces, or that different people create different gods?”

  “So religion is … senseless? Madness?”

  “No. It can be dangerous, almost laughably so when people attack others who have slightly different versions of the same stories, but humans will always find excuses to fight and kill. Religion is not as important in that process as the atheist philosophers like to claim.” Drustan shuddered as he coughed. He sounded like a dying bear gargling honey.

  “You don’t sound well.”

  “I’m not. This is the longest I have spent riding and sleeping outside for a long while. The rain did not help. I have developed a sickness. But I shall be fine by morning, I am sure.”

  Ragnall nodded. The old man coughed a little more and seemed to recover.

  “Where were we?”

  “You were telling me that pretty much everyone I’ve ever met is wrong and you’re right, and that there are no mysterious forces in the world.”

  “No no no. No mysterious forces? Oh, quite the opposite. Do you really think that something as complex as you – with your loves, quirks and proclivities – came from nothing? No, that really is an arrogant notion. Of course there are gods or there is a god – we just don’t know his, her, their, its … form. But we don’t need to know. Whatever name or names we use, some of us can draw on the power of the gods.” Drustan paused and looked at Ragnall. “I’m one of those people. I think you are too.”

  It wasn’t a very good jest, but Drustan was ill. Ragnall smiled. The old man looked back levelly.

  “Um…?” A small laugh burst from Ragnall’s nose.

  “I think that you’re one of the few who can draw on the power of the gods. A true druid.”

  “Yes, I’m a druid I passed the—”

  “No. There are thousands of druids who can slit open birds and make non-specific predictions that seem to come true. There are many who do good work as healers, philosophers and dispensers of justice. There are many more who pretend they can cure, and others who console and judge for their own benefit.”

  Drustan shifted uncomfortably on the log. Ragnall offered a steadying hand, but Drustan waved him away.

  “Here is a story. A man walks into a tavern. A druid begins talking to him at the bar, looks at the pattern in the dregs of his beer and tells the man that he has two days to live. The man stabs the druid for his impertinence. Two days later the man is executed for killing the druid.”

  “So the gods—”

  “So the gods nothing. That story, which may or may not be true, shows that calling on magic can make it seem like it exists. But beyond coincidence, beyond trickery, there is real magic. However, there are very few druids left that can use it, perhaps fewer than ten. I am one. I think that you are another.”

  Ragnall stared at Drustan open-mouthed, then laughed. He stopped when he saw Drustan wasn’t laughing along.

  Drustan pointed at the long-dead fire. It was blackened logs and sticks rather than just a pile of ash, clearly extinguished by rainfall or a bucket of water. “Split that into four piles please, with a good pace between each.”

  Ragnall did as he was bid then sat down.

  “Now watch.”

  Drustan looked at the pile of charred wood nearest him, closed his eyes, screwed up his face and bunched his fists. His face went red, then he began to shake and his face turned purple. Ragnall was about to say something to stop him – he did not look well – when he caught movement in the corner of his eye. A wisp of grey smoke was rising from the pile of embers nearest Drustan. There was a soft pop and small flames began to lick along the edge of a log.

  “By all the gods…”

  “Or by just one of them. I was drawing on Danu. Or at least I think I was.”

  “Is this anything to do with ley lines?”

  Drustan laugh-coughed. “No, no. Those are made-up nonsense.”

  “Not lines of power, making up a network of—”

  “There are places of power, I think, and you can draw lines between them, but that doesn’t make the lines powerful.”

  “Well…”

  “Two horses in a field. Is the space between them a horse line?”

  “No.”

  “No. Several horses. Does that give you a network of horse lines?”

  “No.”

  “No. Now watch this.”

  Drustan coughed, then reached into his bag and raised his arm, dangling an earthworm between thumb and forefinger. He brought his palms together, the worm in between them. He twisted his right hand, mashing the worm, and pointed at the pile of burned wood furthest from him.

  Woof! It burst into bright flame.

  Nearby, birds took off in a clamour of leaves and a fox screamed.

  Ragnall looked at the m
errily burning little fire, then at Drustan.

  “Are you all right?” Drustan looked terrible. His hair was pasted to his head with sweat, and his face shone orangely in the firelight.

  “Yes. Now. You try. See if you can will a pile to take light.”

  Ragnall stared at a pile of wood. Light! he thought at it, then felt stupid.

  “Concentrate!” coughed Drustan. “Call on Bel.”

  Ragnall screwed up his face, clenched his fists, tensed every muscle he could find and said, “Bel, please light the fire.”

  “Not out loud.”

  Ragnall pleaded in his mind for Bel to light the fire. Suddenly it felt as if something was pushing into his head through his ears. It wriggled through his brain, down his neck into his chest. He kept on at Bel to light the fire. He pointed his fingers at the charred wood. He felt the strange presence pass into his shoulders, along his arms, into his hands and out.

  He opened his eyes. The fire remained unlit. He knelt down next to it and blew. Nothing.

  “I felt—”

  “It will not come immediately. But try again. This time take this worm and kill it.” Drustan reached into his bag and produced another worm. “The death of a creature opens the magic path much wider. I do not know why. Nobody does as far as I am aware. But it does seem that the higher the animal, the wider the path. So kill a sparrow, and you can start a bigger fire or perhaps extinguish one, which, you might be surprised to hear, is harder. Kill a man and you can do more.” Drustan dangled the worm at him.

  “You’ve been collecting worms?”

  “Yes.”

  Ragnall took the worm. He squeezed it between his palms like Drustan had. He tensed, closed his eyes and called on Bel, willing the fire to light. He crushed the worm, still thinking about the fire lighting and begging for help. He felt nothing. He tensed more, crushed the worm more – perhaps he hadn’t killed it yet, he thought – and willed the fire to light. He felt nothing. He kept trying for twenty or so more heartbeats but still felt nothing. He sighed and opened his eyes.

  Three of the fires were burning now, including the one he’d been trying to light. He looked at Drustan.

  “I’ve never seen anyone get it so quickly,” said the old man wearily.

  “I didn’t feel anything.”

  “Obviously not. It lit very soon after you closed your eyes.” Drustan leaned forward, bringing his hands to his face.

  “It’s a trick. It must be. Are you all right?”

  “It’s no trick. And no, I’m not—” Drustan toppled back off the log.

  Ragnall leaped up and ran over. He gripped Drustan’s robe and shook him, but the old man was out cold.

  Chapter 13

  The Wounders finished stripping the hut of its twigs, mud and dung, leaving just the iron cage. They goaded Dug, Channa and Lowa with spears and chained them to the bars, then opened up the metal grille that had blocked the door and came in to remove the furniture. They swept out the rushes then used spades to scrape away the packed earth, revealing that the hut floor was also made of iron bars.

  Channa was glum with odd bouts of crying. Lowa was angry and beautiful.

  “So, the Monster,” Dug asked Lowa, “have you got any idea what it might be?”

  “It’s evil!” cried Channa. “It’ll rip us to pieces, then eat us.”

  “I suspect,” said Lowa, “that it’s something Felix brought back from Rome. Everyone said it was the cursed offspring of a mother and son, but Felix told me it was an animal from Africa. So it’s no more a monster than a bear is, but fighting bears isn’t a lot of fun. This creature is smaller, but it may be stronger, and ripping limbs off did seem to be its thing. It won’t be hard to beat if you have your hammer though. If you don’t—”

  “You ain’t going to be armed,” said a tall, laughing Wounder, “especially not once the Monster tears your arms off! You’ll be unarmed then! Get it? Unarmed!” The Wounders guffawed.

  “Jay, how can you do this to me?” Channa groaned.

  The tall man shrugged. “Nothing personal, mate. If I had my way, you’d be back doing whatever it is you do to those plants. Beyond me, I tell you, what it is you do. But we got a good thing going here, ain’t we? There’s only one person to blame here, mate. You.”

  “But who’s going to look after Kelly?”

  “You should have thought of that before.” Jay picked up Dug’s warhammer. “Nice piece of kit. I’ll have this.”

  “Who’s Kelly?” asked Dug.

  “My pig.”

  “Oh.”

  The Wounders left with their spoils and returned with six oxen. They attached thick ropes to the hut, the top of a heavy oak cross and the oxen’s yoke. The oxen heaved, the cross creaked upright and the end of the cage jerked into the air, showering earth. Underneath, the Wounders fitted an axle with thick wooden wheels and iron brakes. They repeated the whole process for the other end, turning the hut into an iron prison-cart. It was, Dug had to admit, quite clever.

  They trundled down through town, six oxen ahead and a Wounder manning each wheel brake. Villagers followed, looking more interested and even concerned than triumphant, Dug noticed. He couldn’t see any of the girls from the school anywhere. Could Spring have persuaded them to escape with her?

  The oxen pulled them across the bridge to the arena. It seemed that everyone from the village was following or lining their path. The strangely subdued mood persisted, however. Rather than the decaying foodstuff missiles and jeering that a man might expect on his way to execution, Dug felt a stubborn resentment from the populace. He saw some of the larger villagers jostling some Wounders with an “Oh sorry, mate!” here and a “Do excuse me!” there.

  So Farrell’s rule was not so popular, thought Dug, and he felt a surge of hope. Then he saw other villagers, uncoerced, climbing the wooden stairs on the outside of the arena, carrying wine amphoras, bags of food and cushions. They may not like their ruler, but everybody loves a violent spectacle, thought Dug, his short-lived fantasy of a pre-show revolution leaking away.

  Farrell swaggered up, flanked by Ula and Enid. The chief’s wife and daughter didn’t look overly festive either.

  “Take the woman out. Leave the two sacks of shit,” Farrell commanded.

  Jay, the tall Wounder to whom Channa had appealed, detached Lowa from the cage but left her hands chained behind her back. “Out you come, sweets,” he said.

  Lowa didn’t budge.

  “Or my spear comes in.” Jay waggled his spear.

  She stood, hunched, arms behind her back.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get us out of this,” said Dug, rattling his shackles. “The only problem is deciding which one of my many plans to use.”

  Lowa winked at him, then walked nimbly across the bars to the door.

  Jay reached in to help her. She crouched as if about to jump down, but instead exploded into a leap, her feet flying up over her head in a forward somersault. Jay tried to dodge, but iron heels crunched into his chest, his ribs splintered into his lungs and he fell back with a high-pitched, sucking gasp.

  Lowa thumped to the ground on her back, rocked onto her shoulders, brought her chain-bound wrists under her feet so her hands were in front of her, and sprang up.

  Three Wounders moved in, spear points first.

  “Don’t kill her!” shouted Farrell. “But do hurt her!”

  A narrow-waisted but heavy-arsed Wounder bounded forward, her spear aimed for Lowa’s midriff. Lowa jumped and whirled round like a dancer, kicking the spearhead with the inside of her right foot and slamming the outside of her left boot into the Wounder’s head with a sound like a mallet whacking a barrel. The Wounder fell.

  But so did Lowa. As she rolled over to stand, a Wounder cracked the flat of his spearhead hard into her skull. She collapsed and lay still as two other Wounder spears pricked into her midriff.

  Nearby, Jay struggled to suck in air and the other injured Wounder lay still, bright red blood pulsing through her short hair. F
arrell strode up and kicked Lowa in the stomach. Air oofed out of her.

  “Keep your spears on her,” said Farrell, “and fetch some leg irons.”

  Lowa didn’t resist as her legs were chained. It seemed like the blow from the spear had knocked all the aggression out of her. Farrell pulled her up and pushed her ahead of him to the arena. He said something to her at the bottom of the wooden stairs, then slung her over his shoulder and headed up, followed by Enid, Ula and more spectators.

  Dug pulled at his shackles again, but they weren’t going to give. He had nothing to do apart from watch Channa gibber, listen as the noise from the crowd inside the arena grew from a hubbub to cheers, and wish that he was armed and armoured.

  After a while three Wounders approached.

  “It’s your turn!” said the largest, smiling like a cruel boy fetching his brother for punishment.

  Dug sighed.

  Chapter 14

  “Right,” said Ragnall, once Drustan was fully awake, propped up and sipping a cup of water. He’d decided while Drustan was unconscious that he’d take charge of the situation rather than relying on his teacher to make all the decisions as usual. This new spirit of resolve was a direct result of the previous night’s “magic”. He was embarrassed that he’d gone to sleep believing that he’d lit a fire by squashing a worm. How could he have thought that? More and more, he was wondering if he was as clever as he’d always believed.

  He still couldn’t work out how Drustan had done it, though. Or why he’d done it.

  “Right,” he said again, pacing. “We’ll go back to that village where the sky’s falling. They’ll have a healing druid. He or she will cure you.”

  “No,” whispered Drustan. “I know a better place … Mearhold. It is further, but … I know what is wrong with me.”

  “What is it?” Ragnall squatted next to the old man. He had to wait for a reply as Drustan’s throat convulsed and he hoiked up goo from his lungs. He spat it weakly at the fire and missed. The gob of sputum was yellow, green and streaked with blood. Drustan looked at it and nodded weakly.