He couldn't bear it.
He wandered in circles, hearing his mother's laughter around every corner, hearing her words spoken yesterday, last week, last year, coming back to him as clearly as if she was there talking to him. He followed the sound of her voice. He saw people looking at him, saw the pity in their faces, saw the grief they shared, and couldn't bear it. His feet took him out of Murias. He didn't know where he was going until he was almost there.
He went to the hilltop where Danu had led him, where she had kissed him, where he had seen the smoke she had brought him there to see.
He didn't know what he hoped to find there but he felt drawn to the place. When he realised where he was going he started running. He plunged through the long grasses and the whipping and scratching brambles and shrubs, forcing himself through the thickening undergrowth, his eyes always on the hilltop.
A bird flew low, black wings ruffling the leaves of the first tree, halfway up the hill: a crow.
He ran beneath its perch.
Twenty feet further he was forced to catch his breath and push himself from tree trunk to tree trunk.
He saw more of the beady-eyed black birds lining the high branches, watching his passage with curiosity.
Grunting, Sláine ran on, pushing through a tangle of choking weeds and emerged, staggering, into the clearing on the crest of the hill's top where Danu had ripped his world apart.
The maiden wasn't there, not that he had truly expected her to be.
The Gods did not dance to the desires of their children.
Sláine turned in a slow circle, looking down over Murias in the distance. His home looked small, broken.
A crow cawed as if in agreement.
Another black bird answered it.
Sláine turned to see the boughs of the ringing trees weighed down with hundreds of crows, their oily black wings giving them nightmarish leaves.
They stared down at him, their yellow eyes judging him and finding him unworthy.
"Why?" he asked, spinning around faster. "Why did you bring me here?"
He was answered by a flurry of feathers as the crows took wing, swooping and swirling around the hilltop, black wings battering at him as if trying to drive him back, over the edge. Sláine covered his face with his hands as the beating intensified. The caws were raucous, dizzying. He staggered beneath the battery and then there was nothing, not a wing beat, not a sound as the birds found fresh perches.
Then there was laughter.
He lowered his hands to see an ugly crow-faced hag laughing in his face. She cackled at his pain; mocked him.
"Why?" she goaded, her voice a thick rasping caw, spreading her arms to the sound of ruffling feathers, stretching her oil-black fingers. "Why? Why? Why is there ever a why, my beautiful boy? Why me? Why you? Why her? Why them? Why like this? Why now? Why here? Why is there ever a why more important than this? This is your why, my sweet Sláine Mac Roth: death makes us stronger."
Her yellow eyes blazed with a hatred that encompassed all living things. The black feathers of her brow rose as her beak clacked. She threw back her head and gave voice to a mighty caw that caused the crows in the boughs to take wing once again, scattering them to the four winds.
"You are tempered by tragedy, not broken by it. All of your kind is. You are tiny frail things, like chicks fresh from the egg, and only the bitterness of life makes you stronger. A life of pain makes a hard man. It is the fire that toughens you for the life you will lead."
"What life? What do you plan for me, crone?"
"Everything, my pretty little boy, everything, and whether you understand it or not is not important. You are stronger now. That is my doing. The last of your childhood is gone. That is my doing. In death you become the man I need you to be. That is my doing. In death you become my axe, my beautiful sharp axe to cut the sickness out of my body before it festers. That is my doing."
"And if I refuse?" Sláine asked stupidly and stubbornly, jutting his chin out. "What if I ignore you?"
"You cannot, just as you could not save your mother when I told you it was too late. I speak the simplest of truths: you love me, Sláine Mac Roth. Your heart was mine from the moment you laid eyes on my fairer self. Otherwise why follow her recklessly into the dark last night? Surely not because you thought she needed saving? You wanted to show her your devotion, didn't you?" The crone snickered harshly, her voice breaking into a cruel caw caw caw. "Now you see the ugliness that lies beneath her skirts, it isn't all daisies and daffodils. She is no innocent little girl and you would do well to remember that. Even knowing that, even seeing this, is not enough to quash your love for the maiden with the pretty little flowers in her hair, is it? You are a man, and like all men, when it comes to it, no matter how we temper you, you are weak against the inviting fragrance of sex. Pitiful really, the way you need to rut like animals but my sister selves ever did have a sense of humour."
She loosed another primal caw that echoed all across the hilltop before she disappeared in an explosion of wings.
It was as if she had never been there.
Sláine sat a lonely vigil through the night, waiting.
The maiden never came, although he dreamed - while he thought himself awake - of her, the smell of honeysuckle and heather and the melody of her laughter that broke and scattered like black winged birds into the hideous unending caaaaaawwwwwww of a huge crow.
He awoke with a start.
It was dawn.
He stumbled and staggered back down the hill, fighting his way through the scrub and brush. The brambles bit and stung. He constantly caught himself looking over his shoulder, trying to spy crows high in the branches overhead. Sunlight broke through the filter of leaves, casting a scatter of gold discs across the dirt like the fabled coins scattered at the end of the rainbow.
Every boy knew that there were three aspects to the Goddess: mother, maiden and crone. There was little doubt that the crow-faced crone he had met was the Morrigan, Danu's third aspect. That's what she had meant by goading him about her sister selves. Mother, maiden and crone were all reflections of the same sacred female. The Morrigan and her harbinger birds brought death. She was the darkness.
He stumbled on.
She was right. Even now, having seen her, having tasted her foetid breath on his tongue, he still knew he would follow the maiden blindly to whatever fate she intended for him.
He burst free of the trees and tripped, falling and rolling down the hill, tumbling as he fell. He came to rest on his back, winded from the beating the hillside had given him. Sláine stared at the sky, watching a single crow wheel overhead.
"Death makes us stronger," he told himself, knowing the truth of it.
He lay there making shapes out of the clouds. It was a childish thing to do, but it felt right to him. He reached out a hand into the grass, tangling stems between his fingers as if gripping another hand. "I see a huge wyrm, see, there." he pointed up at a curious cloud formation. "What about you? What do you see?"
No one answered him.
He made a decision as he lay there, cloud watching. He would go home. He would sit with his father, share his grief, and make peace. He needed to. They both did. His mother would have hated them fighting like this, her two boys. He would make this right between them.
Resolved, he let go of the grass, held his hand to his nose and breathed deeply of its fragrance. Its tang brought him back to himself. He rolled over onto his elbow and pushed himself up.
It took him the best part of an hour to wander slowly back into Murias.
The town had changed.
He felt it.
He wondered if others did, or if it had only changed for him?
He was conscious of people watching him every step of the way. He could feel their pity. A few called his name, but he ignored them.
He was going home.
He never made it that far.
Roth Bellyshaker came rolling drunk out of Rioch's inn. He lurched from right to left, weav
ing a path as slurred as his singing as he tried to stay on his feet.
It was the singing that burned Sláine. The old man was tying his tongue around some miserable half-arsed shanty, barely getting half the words out. Sláine clenched his fist without consciously realising that was what he was doing. He took two steps towards the old man, brought his hand up and hit him hard, hammering his fist into the side of Bellyshaker's head.
The drunk staggered back three steps, stumbled sideways another, and shook his head. "Wha-?"
Sláine surged forwards, delivering a clubbing left to his jaw, three fierce jabs into the centre of his face, rupturing his nose and splitting his eye, and a thundering uppercut that lifted his father off his feet. "How dare you! How dare you be drunk! She's not two days dead and you're pissed out of your skull! I could kill you! I could kill you!" he delivered a punishing kick to Bellyshaker's side, lifting him six inches out of the dirt, and another doubling him up so that he drew his legs up to his chin trying to protect himself. A third curled him into a ball. "That bloody drink! She died because of you, you drunken bastard! She died because of you! And you are singing like you haven't got a care in the whole goddess forsaken world! You make me sick!" he felt the rage beginning to warp his flesh, the roar of the earth's need to strike, the need to punish his father, to avenge his mother on the drunk's body.
"Her favourite... her favourite..."
"Shut up you piece of-"
"Song... her favourite song."
Before it could rise, before it could fully rule his flesh, Sláine mastered the black anger and fell to his knees, tears staining his cheeks as he stared at the mess he had made of his father's face. He clenched his fists as he sobbed.
A lone crow settled on the eaves of Rioch's inn, watching as Núada came out into the street and knelt beside his friend.
"Come inside," Núada said.
Sláine shook his head, choking on the sobs that forced their way out. "I... I... could have killed him. I saw him and I lost it. I..."
"Shhhh."
"No... I have to... I couldn't stop myself, Núada. I saw what I was doing but I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to kill him... I came here to make peace and the moment I saw him... I wanted to kill him." he shook his head. How could he explain the red rage that had taken hold? How could he explain the way the anger drove him out of his own head - or rather turned him into a spectator within his own head? He couldn't. He held up his bloody fists in explanation. "I did this but it wasn't me. It wasn't..."
He pushed Núada away and stood, lurching as drunkenly as Bellyshaker ever had. He saw, for the first time in his life, fear in his friend's eyes and he knew that he had put it there.
The druids called a meeting of the survivors: a council of war.
They gathered on the green outside the nemeton, a full three hundred people. The talk was uncomfortable. They muttered darkly about the Goddess having left them. Some claimed that the druids were impotent against this new evil of the masked warriors. A few even questioned the Red Branch's role in their betrayal, having left them - offered them - like some sacrifice. It was nonsense and most knew it but the words stung just the same. Doubt was like that; it wormed its way inside and festered.
Dian supported old Cathbad as he moved awkwardly out of the nemeton. The druid appeared to have aged twenty years in the days he had locked himself away with the dead skull-swords, such was the strain on his body and soul. He raised a hand for silence, hushing the murmuring voices. Gorian was there, with the Red Branch standing side by side with the king's bodyguard and the druids before the citizens of Murias.
Cathbad lowered his gaze, gathering himself, and then looked up. He looked at each and every face in the crowd, faces he knew so well.
"Friends," he said, his voice shaky with disuse. "An enemy unlike any we have faced walks amongst us. An enemy-"
"How do you know?" someone called, interrupting him.
"Do you know this? Is it some form of ancient wisdom you discovered?" another heckled.
"Silence!" Gorian barked, levelling a warning finger at the speaker. "I am sorry, Cathbad. These are trying times. Forgive the fools this one interruption. There won't be another, I assure you. Please go on. I for one would know the enemy I face."
Cathbad nodded, shaken by the challenge to his authority. That they mocked him, even now, cut deep, but his words would end their mocking. He took no delight in the knowledge. "My thanks, warlord. As I was saying, we face an enemy far greater in strength and cunning than any we have faced down before. I have used my arts to divine what may be learned from the dead, although I fear it will prove precious little over the coming fight. They are warriors known where they come from as Drunes." He waited a moment, letting his words settle. "They serve the enemy of the Goddess." He knew he had them then. "They give devotion to Carnun, the Horned God himself." A ripple of superstitious fear ran through the watchers as they gasped at the mention of the Horned God. "They are his soldiers."
"Can you be sure?" It was Grudnew, the king - an interruption even Gorian would allow. Cathbad turned to face the king.
"Yes, sire. I have communed with the Goddess and she has shown me their lands, and many of their heathen ways. Their lands were much like ours, once, lush, with plentiful game. They supported livestock and yielded rich harvests but now the soil is sour, crops wither and choke and livestock sickens and dies with barely enough meat on its bones to feed a few mouths. The people, like the land and their livestock, suffer. Villages are dying out, starved by the infertile land, and refugees flock to towns incapable of feeding them."
"A grim picture, druid. What ails the land? Is it these Drunes who somehow make it barren," Grudnew asked. "Or some other?"
"Their masters, the Slough priests, draw the vitality out of the land to feed their purpose, and that of their master, Carnun. What that purpose is, the dead would not reveal, sire. His grip on them is fierce, even in the afterlife."
"You think they seek to turn our lands sour like their own?"
"I fear that they are being forced further and further north in search of fertile earth, my lord. Whether the aim is simply to sour the soil or to leach the essence out of it for some secret task, I know not. I fear not the purpose so much as I do the result. I see fields of dead bones planted like spring crops. I see fat-bellied crows picking over the remains of friend and foe. I see a blood red sky." Cathbad lapsed into silence.
"You have given us much to think about, druid," the king said, "much indeed. What of their grim mien?"
"A mask, my lord, although for what purpose I am not sure. Made of hair, it covered the face of otherwise normal men, making monsters of them."
Grudnew nodded.
"You have done well, druid. There is more to fear in the unknown than there ever is in an enemy named. You have my thanks."
"Did the dead truly speak to you, master?" Dian asked, as they retreated into the quiet sanctity of the nemeton.
"No boy, I have long known of the Drune lords and their vile masters. I just never thought to see their taint spread this far."
"Then why the charade? Surely you could have identified the dead in the field?" Dian was shocked by the idea that the old druid would so willingly stage a performance, making something mystical out of what was a very mundane truth.
"A lesson, my young learner. What is more valuable, the easy truth laid bare or the more difficult truth, hard earned?"
Dian thought about it for a moment. "Their value is the same, they are both the truth."
Cathbad smiled at that. "You're a quick thinker, laddie. I like that. If I were to simply tell you something, how long do you think you would remember it?"
"For as long as possible."
"That is saying nothing. Whereas, if you learned something for yourself, how long then do you think you would remember it? It's like walking, if I tell you to do it, I can describe it as controlled falling over and that won't help you walk, but that is exactly what it is. If you stand and take a step and fal
l and get back up again and take two more steps you will learn. Agreed? On the other hand, which is more powerful, knowledge handed from father to son, a legacy, or knowledge gifted from the divine?"
"More difficult," Dian conceded. "The divine must surely be the ultimate truth."
"Indeed, so, outside when I said the Goddess had spoken to me?"
"You were claiming the ultimate truth."
"I was indeed." Cathbad nodded.
"Yet Danu did not speak to you?" Dian asked, clearly horrified by the lie.
"She seldom does, but that does not make the wisdom we hold here in the nemeton any less precious does it? If she spoke to our brothers in years past, they are still her words, are they not?"
"They are," Dian said, seeing where Cathbad was leading the conversation.
"So the knowledge handed down can also be the ultimate truth, you see? That is why we gather it and hold it dear, boy. That is why you must study and learn. The Slough priests, the Drunes, the Sourlands are all real. I have known this since I was your age. That is our true power, lad, we know the truth. The rest is performance. That is the only magic of it."
They walked a while in silence, Dian thinking on the old druid's lesson, beginning to understand.
"When did the Goddess speak to you?" he asked later.
"Once, when I was young."
"What did she say?"
"That is a story for a different day."
Ten
Heaven's Gate or Hell's Teeth
Sláine was furious. He wanted nothing more than to break something, and right at that moment that something was the man standing in front of him telling him he was being left behind, again. The fact that it was his king only made it worse. He felt his rage rising. His lip curled into a sneer.
"Listen to me, boy," Grudnew said, gripping him by the shoulders to shake some sense into him. Sláine shook the man's hands off and raised his fist to strike.
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