Ukko gripped his own stomach, feeling the lingering pain of the soldier's death bite within his own muscles.
Behind them the Knucker growled, the sound reverberating deep in the drake's throat, as more and more ethereal warriors gathered substance around it.
Surrounded on all sides by the dead reliving their great sacrifice, Myrrdin Emrys threw back his head, calling on the ancient pain of the place. His body convulsed beneath the ecstasy of the invocation. Spasms of pure physical delight tore through his slight frame, his wooden eyes burning. The wind rose and the sky darkened, the elements responding to his demand as over and over he shrieked the Crone's many names, demanding her presence here amongst the dead she had already claimed, calling upon the ties of the blood their sacrifice had forged.
And out of the storm she came, walking among the dead. She carried the third fragment of the Cauldron.
She reached out with her free hand, touching the spirits. As her fingers lingered on the memories of their flesh and the agonies of battle, they shimmered, losing substance, and failed, fading into the aether. She whispered hushed words as she moved between them, her face bereft of its customary hardness as she released the dead from the torments of remembering one at a time.
The Morrigan stood before the druid, tears in her dark eyes as she lashed out, slapping him across the face. "I will not forget this, druid. Neither will I forgive it. Mark my words, Myrrdin. This is my land. I have walked it for thousands of years. I love it in a way you can never hope to comprehend. I am made of the dirt, the hopes of the people flow through my veins. It is all that I am, just as I am all that remains of it. I love this land. I love my children just as I love my sisters and my sisters love this land and her people, druid. Their pain hurts my sisters and I deeply. You crossed a line here, with this. So many innocent souls forced into reliving the agony and folly of mankind when they should be at peace. Your arrogance is too much but I will see you humbled. And one day your soul will be mine, in my darkest aspect. Never forget that."
"Your threats do not frighten me any longer, old woman," said Myrrdin.
"They should, old man. They should," she chittered, the dislike implicit in her tone. "Believe me when I say they are not idle. I have torments in mind that will become legendary amongst the dead, that is my promise to you, Lord of the Trees."
"I have no doubt, witch, but I have nothing to lose now except my life, and this life is not such a good place to be."
"For one who thinks he knows so much your ignorance is staggering, druid. This life is the only place to be. Look around you, look at the shades you forced to rise, and tell me you cannot feel their hunger to be back here, in this place where once they loved and lived and died?"
"I feel nothing," said Myrrdin.
"Then you are as good as dead already, and not worthy of my concern." She turned to Sláine, something approaching affection in her face as she smiled and offered up the third piece of the Cauldron to him. Her smile was a physically repugnant thing. His skin crawled. "This is what you want. Return my son to me, warrior."
Sláine took the relic from her, marvelling at the hideous intricacy of the lumpen face embossed in the metal bezel. In places it looked as though the features had melted. There was no nose and part of the creature's left cheek had been eaten away. Huge fangs formed the handle, the distended teeth chipped and broken. This was, he knew, no mere rendition of the face of Avagddu, son of the Goddess, it was the poor demented child, locked in the black iron. He touched the beast's melted face, wondering for a moment if it could feel his fingers.
"This is what it was all for?" Sláine said, without looking up from Avagddu's ravaged visage. "This was why my mother died? Why Wide Mouth died? This was why Finvarra died and all the rest? For this monstrosity?"
The Crone's mask slipped, the affection torn from her face. In its place burned hatred unlike anything Sláine had ever seen, hatred borne of millennia. "Do not goad me, warrior. I did not kill those you loved, nor those you loathed. You did that, you with your stone axe and your damned temper. I did not make you, as much as you would like to excuse your actions, and leave the blame at my feet. You own your actions, champion. Those fields of blood are yours. Those broken bodies are yours. Those tattered lives are yours. You would return to your people, to atone for some guilt that no doubt burns within you, I would have my son back, our interests cross for this moment and this moment alone. I did not curse your life, Sláine. You did that all by yourself. I did not make you fall for my pretty sister like a love-sick simpleton. I did not goad you into hurling that gae bolga at Cullen of the Wide Mouth. I did not force you to run with the Red Branch and leave Macha in the care of a drunk. And I most certainly was not the one who rutted with Grufbad's promised maiden. That was your cock you buried in her, your pasty white arse you bared, not mine. You knew what would happen when you were caught, and still you did it, and not once, but again and again, addicted to the danger, wanting to be caught because you were angry at some outrageous sense of betrayal you wanted to believe the old man had done to you, so you cuckolded him. Your exile was your own doing, just as now your return is your own doing. By rights he should have executed you, but the old man had pity. Excuses are easy to find, but a man must own his life, all aspects of it."
Sláine met her hate-filled eyes, unflinching. "You have a clever way of twisting words to suit your need, Morrigan. There is no doubt about that. If I must own my actions, I think it is only fair you own yours. It is no coincidence that our 'wants' have crossed. You have fashioned it thus, laying plans that have taken years to come to be."
"Aren't you the clever one, boy? So what if I have served my own purpose? What does it matter to you if my son is returned in the process of you getting what you want? You cannot pretend to me that your actions are anything but self-serving, warrior. I have known you and your kind for eternity. Your home was my home long before you were a mote in time's eye, and it will be mine again long after you are dust. I want my son freed; wouldn't any mother want the same? Wouldn't Macha want that for you if the roles were reversed? So save me your self-righteous indignation. Give me my son back and then I will give you the world in return. That is my offer. Take it, champion."
He wanted to say so much, to defend himself, thrust Feg's book in her face until she understood what was at stake, but he forced his anger down, feeling it seethe within his blood. He dropped his sack, opening the drawstring, and put the third fragment inside. When he looked up his face was set, hard.
"Good," the Morrigan said. "There is a cave nearby, where Wayland the Smith shelters. He has the final fragment of the Cauldron, but go lightly, warrior. He is of another time, born of Sidhe blood, last of his kind. He harbours woes of his own that have festered long. In their time, he served as first smith to the Titans, the most skilful of their craftsmen. But he was also a murderous one, tempering his finest blades with the blood of heroes and fashioning gifts for kings from their bones."
"A friendly sort, then," Ukko said, appearing from behind Sláine. "Don't tell me, he's just misunderstood, right? What I want to know is why these ancient relics are never guarded by sweet little old ladies who want to smother you with gummy kisses and bake you a nice cake because they are happy to see you? They're always the fiercest most miserable cusses who want to rip you limb from limb soon as look at you. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of fighting monsters and being heroic. It's dull. I want to bury my face in a big buxom pair of tits and not come up for air for a week."
Ignoring the dwarf, the Morrigan continued: "I do not for a heartbeat believe he will surrender the shard lightly, but I will have my son returned to me, Sláine."
Through the fading whispers of the ghosts and the raucous caws of the crows came another sound, slow, rich and rhythmic. Sláine was drawn to the furthest edge of Magh Tuiredh by the ringing of hammer on anvil, though without knowing the great smith was there he would never have discerned the sound amid the chaos of memories and hungry birds.
Slái
ne was weary, footsore and voraciously hungry. He walked through the path of stones observing the patterns the birds flew in above him and the omens the thick dark cloud promised. You cannot save Tir-Nan-Og one soul at a time, champion. The words haunted him still, though in truth he had never heard them spoken. The Morrigan had reached out a feathered hand, her touch lingering on his cheek, and in his mind, a parting gift, the words came unbidden. It was witchery, of that there was no doubt. The Crone had reached into his mind and left the thought like damnation for him to dwell on.
"Is that what I am trying to do?" he said aloud. Ukko looked at him strangely. No, he wasn't looking at him, he was looking beyond him. Sláine turned to see seven stone statues, three times his own height, gruesomely ugly in their craftsmanship, brutish gnarled faces overhung by a thick atavistic brow and vacant eye sockets chiselled deep into the stone. Fat cracked lips and tombstone teeth jutted out beneath bulbous noses. The sculptor had worked tangled hanks of hair into the granite, giving each trollish beast an uncomfortably lifelike mien. Sláine moved closer, marvelling at the sheer bulk of the statues and the workmanship of them. The wrist of the first stone troll was thicker than his neck. He moved down the line. Save one they were all turned to face the stones of Magh Tuiredh, merging with the pattern of the rune-carved standing stones. One had a drum at its feet, another had a pile of stones carved like bones. The exception faced due west, towards the steady clangour of the smith's hammer. Sláine moved around the statue. Its face was unlike the others; the troll had no nose. In its place there was a wickedly curved beak, like that of a crow. The statue had a bull-neck, deep crevices weathering into the stone, opening its throat. Malformed arms hung low, knuckles dragging on the grass.
He walked around it again, slowly.
"This is one pig-ugly effigy," Ukko said, staring up into the gaping black of the statue's enormous nostril. He reached out, resting a hand on the stature's pendulous gut, and nodded up at the sagging pectorals. "Kind of reminds me of you, your warpishness. Maybe it's a throwback? What do you think Myrrdin?"
"The Sisters of Magh Tuiredh are quite beautiful, I think," the druid said. "Each in her own way. Not that Sláine doesn't have his moments, of course."
"Sisters?" Ukko said, his face puckering up as though punched. "You mean to say this thing is female? You know what I said about burying my face in a big pair of tits? If these are them I take it back."
Myrrdin chuckled indulgently. "You, my lascivious little friend, frequently remind us how much you appreciate the fuller figure. The Sisters are renditions of the divine, raised of the earth just as she is, bountiful and generous in their endowments-"
"Fat," Ukko put in.
"-just as she is. It is fair to say that the sisters were primitive man's attempts to capture the essence of the Earth Mother, to give their faith flesh."
"Ooh, they gave it plenty of flesh all right."
Sláine stopped, realising that the last note of the smith's hammer had faded into silence. He craned his head, listening but slowly, sound by sound, the quiet was distilled. The smith did not take up his hammer again.
"He knows we are here," said Myrrdin. "No doubt the sisters told him."
"They're stone," Ukko said, rolling his eyes, "unlike the bloody great flock of birds circling around our heads. Now, if you'd care to wager: your talking stone against my squawking crows, I'd be more than happy to take your coin off you."
"And here I was thinking you slow-witted, friend Ukko."
"I didn't spend my life herding sheep or mincing around the woods whispering to trees like some people."
"Be that as it may, we shall have to find ourselves another wager on another day. For now, this is where our journey together ends, my friends," said Myrrdin, grasping Sláine's forearm. "The smith's forge lies beyond the crest of this hill, in the shadow of the Sister's beaked nose; it leads the way for the curious. My presence with the smith will only hinder you, and as there is much I must yet do, I think it best we make this our parting of the ways."
Sláine studied Myrrdin's face silently. There was something in the old man's expression that silenced any objection. He drew the druid into an embrace and slapped him on the back. "I will miss your company."
"You have the dwarf to keep you honest."
"As I said, I will miss you."
"The Morrigan did not lie; the smith will not surrender the final piece willingly, and if we are together perhaps not at all. He has reason to hate the Crone and her son, and my hands are far from bloodless in his tragedy. It would not do to provoke his anger, or remind him of her betrayal. The Goddess's speed to you," he turned to Ukko, "and to you, little man."
"Just as I was beginning to like you, you have to go and leave."
"You mean just as you were beginning to delight in the imagined riches my purse had to offer?"
"Like I said," Ukko grinned, "friendship's a funny thing but the best kind of friendship is one where you both get what you want out of it."
"I'm not certain what worries me more," the druid said to Sláine, "that he actually thinks this way, or that we have been together so long the way he thinks is actually beginning to make sense to me?"
"That's the enigma of me," said Ukko, bowing with a flourish.
"I think I might actually miss you, dwarf."
"How about you give me your coin so I have something to remember you by then? I'll take good care of it, I promise."
"I don't doubt it for a moment but I think we should bid our farewells before the ineluctable laws of stupidity and avarice collide, don't you?"
Ukko peered at him, not bothering to hide his confusion. "I have got no idea what you are talking about, druid."
"I believe that was the first law making itself known," Myrrdin said with a grin. "We'd best be quick with our farewells lest the second law take one of us unawares."
"Why do I get the feeling I'm the butt of what passes for mirth around here?" Ukko said.
Sláine and Ukko followed the thin shadow cast by the Sister's beak, scrambling across the ride of shallow mounds, while Myrrdin turned his back on the seven stone Sisters and trudged, bone-weary, back across the battlefield.
They left the Knucker feeding on a goat carcass it had found.
The declivity beyond the last hill was sharp, the bottom of the slope deceptively far below. The shadow was blunted by a ring of stones and charred wood: the remnants of a cooking fire.
There were low bushes and overhanging trees, ash and oak and rowan, hawthorn and sycamore, trees that once would have been at the heart of a great wood now enclosed the fire, giving it the air of seclusion. And while there was no beaten track the ragweed around the fire pit had obviously been tramped flat by huge lumbering feet, as had much of the grasses leading back into the side of the hill almost directly beneath their feet. Sláine assumed they stood above some sort of entrance, which meant that it wasn't a hill they were standing on. The secrets of the earth lay beneath the surface. A mine perhaps, where the smith gathered his ore to fashion miraculous things fit for the demi-gods who he used to serve? On either side of the mound thorns intertwined with briarwood and poison oak to form a natural wall.
There was no sign of the smith.
Sláine stumbled, reaching out for a handful of scree to stall his slide. His boots kicked up chips of stone as he scrambled for purchase, tripping over his own feet as he finally lost his footing and fell, tumbling to the base of the hill. Only it wasn't a hill, or a mine, Sláine realised, it was a burial mound. The entrance was cut deep into the hill, the stonework around the arch carved with the same craftsmanship and eye to detail as the Sisters had been, the lintel deeply scored with Ogham:
"Do not mourn, I am not here," Ukko said, reading the inscription.
The words were vaguely familiar. It took him a moment to place them: the song of mourning the harpist, Siothrún, had played for Caoilfhionn the Weatherwitch. Similar but not the same. Not exactly.
But too close to be coincidental.
There was a link between the harpist and the smith, Finvarra, the dead witch, the druid and the Crone. Myrrdin had said the smith was half-Sidhe; that the blood of the fey folk flowed in his veins. Caoilfhionn had come to him that first night out of Dardun and her words had led him across worlds on his journey home, binding him to the Crone and her quest for her lost child. The Wounded King was Sidhe, his home a palace of glass where death had no dominion. In the eyes of the world he was dead, and had been for centuries, and yet he lived.
"Only a fool would mourn the living," said Sláine, finally beginning to see something of the tangled web they had woven around him. The strands were beginning to work loose, revealing their secrets, and what secrets they were. The harpist's song couldn't have been for the witch, unless... unless... Caoilfhionn was bound to the fallen king, unable to join her love in death for he was not truly dead. The notion sent a thrill of excitement through Sláine. The harpist was not mourning the woman, he was mourning the king they were condemning to death.
That night, when Sláine had dreamed of the Weatherwitch and she had told him hope lay with the Skinless Man, the hope she spoke of was the damnation of her beloved Finvarra, nothing more, nothing less. He knew the dead woman now; Caoilfhionn, the queen of the fey, beloved of Finvarra in this world and the next. Her words set his feet on a journey, but one masked from even his own understanding. She fired his blood with thoughts of going home, manipulating him into the Morrigan's quest as much if not more than the Crone ever had, but this manoeuvring was nothing more than misdirection. Everything had been about Sláine breaking the geas on Ynys Afallach and in doing so ending the curse that kept two lovers apart and a world from mourning.
"What are you talking about?" Ukko said, picking himself up from where he had landed, sprawled in the trampled grass.
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