FOURTEEN
"Sun King, eh? And there was me thinking they were going to boil you alive, gut you like a fish and stick your head on a spike. If I'd known they were going to fall at your feet and worship you I'd have insisted we came up here years ago."
"What do you want, dwarf?" Sláine sighed wearily. Already the events of the ritual had become a distant blur, buried beneath the fug of the tribal intoxicants and their heady narcotic rush. His brain throbbed. He lay on the bed he had once shared with Niamh, wondering where in the world she was now; and how he could bring her home to Murias, if she would even come. It felt like a betrayal, thinking of his earthly yearnings, but he knew somehow that it wasn't, that a man could love both spiritually and physically.
"We need to talk."
"Do we have to? Really?"
"It's important."
And so Sláine listened as Ukko confessed everything from his wanderings; what he overheard from outside the latrine pits; Megrim's killing of the old king; and his flight from the disquieting blind Balor with his twin blades so sharp they seemed to cut through both sun and shadow alike.
"But I just want to say it isn't as though I deliberately went looking for trouble, like you said I was quite happily keeping myself to myself, and then I saw the woman. It wasn't like I went looking for a traitor, oh no, not Ukko. You can rely on old Ukko to keep his head down, keep out of trouble."
"What are you blathering on about, dwarf?"
"It's her, Sláine, I saw her."
"Who?"
"Her. I don't know who but I know her, if that makes sense?"
"None whatsoever." But it did, because Sláine had recognised her without knowing who she was. He had looked into her face, seeing beneath the glamour of her skin, and known who she was without knowing her name. And then he realised the truth of her deception: "A glamour," he said, shaking his head slowly. "A simple lie cast upon her flesh by some hedge wizard. How can the man have been so blind?"
"Lust, love, need?" A voice came from behind them. It was a voice from the past, risen up like a welcome ghost. Sláine turned in his seat to see the grinning face of Fionn as his friend came into the old king's roundhouse. Tall Iesin stood in the doorway behind him. His friend had changed. Time on the road had worn the softness from his muscles and the innocent wonder from his face. The man he had grown into was handsome where the boy had been pretty like his mother. "We are happy to blind ourselves to the truth, my friend, especially when it suits our needs. Kilian Ragall lived in the shadows of so many great men, but never emerged from them, even when crowned Sun King. He was always second, behind Grudnew and Gorian and Calum and so many others. He was never his own man and always their shadow. Come on, for truth, tell me who would have ever imagined the child Sláine draped in the cloak of beams, wedded to the earth herself? Not I."
"Well met, Sláine," Tall Iesin bowed low. The storyteller had not aged a day since the last time Sláine had seen him almost a decade ago. It was uncanny. "There is wisdom in my apprentice's words, I feel. To be second always can be worse in many ways than being last. Few can bear to be so close to greatness yet never achieve it."
And here, with memories of childhood all around him, Sláine could not argue with either man. The grave of Cullen of the Wide Mouth was too close to home for that.
He rose from the bed and gripped Fionn in a fierce embrace. "I have missed you, my friend. The day seven became six still aches in my memory."
"And mine," Fionn agreed. "But for now at least we are home so let us enjoy that small miracle, shall we?"
"Leave us, Ukko. We will talk more about the traitor, but for now I would live in the past a while longer. Ask around for Dian, Núada, Cormac and Niall. People will remember our bonds, send them to join us. Tonight is for old friends to drink and reminisce."
"Fine well, whatever, Megrim's going off into the forests to contact His Weirdness. I shall try to keep out of mischief."
But he didn't try particularly hard.
Ukko left the long house with a scowl on his face. He sniffed the air as though able to scent the woman, Megrim, on it - and then he recalled Balor's blind eyes and sniffed his own fragrant armpits. If a hunter was going to be smelling anyone on the air it was him. He had tried to tell Sláine that the woman was a traitor, but the big dumb ox wouldn't listen. That was so typical of the man, wrapped up in his own sense of immortality. A knife in the gut had seen to Kilian Ragall, ending his life then and there, no glory, no ceremony. He wasn't welcomed back into the earth womb of his Goddess. His guts spilling out around his fists, his blood, his limbs convulsing even as he tried to crawl for help, unable to talk for the blinding agony of death, and from that agony the druid had foretold the next seven years of the Sessair. The dead man's blood fated Sláine to be their king. Well, Sláine's blood could just as easily fate some other fool stupid enough to be standing close-by as he died out.
He stalked off, looking up at the moon, a warrior's heart hanging with so much promise in the sky.
Just like he knew who she was but not who she was, he knew where she was going but not where. Drawing his rag-cloak furtively about his shoulders and his leather skull cap down to cover most of his protruding ears, the dwarf turned his back on the dubious comfort of the village lights and crept along the waterline of the river, the rush of the whitecaps in his ears. Sláine had filled his head with stories of Murias, so much so he felt almost comfortable with the geography of the place, seeing it now. The cold waters of the River Dôn with its whirling rapids and further from the source, its enormous waterfall, the thunderous crash, the foaming mist and the rainbows in the summer sky, all of them were things Sláine had waxed lyrical about as he meandered down memory lane. Beyond lay the plains of Airghialla, the great cairn itself, and in the other direction the shelter of the forest.
Ukko scanned the lie of the land, but saw no sign of the hooded Megrim, or her friend Balor. No tell-tale thickening of shadows or furtive moments of clumsy stealth. They were out there, though, of that the wily old dwarf was in no doubt.
He could smell the bitter and acrid tangs of the weave-and-dye houses, the heady yeast of the ale room, the reek of burning straw and tar from the torches shoved into the ground to light the way between houses and worn-out tracks, and hear the distant clang and bustle of the market coming down for the night. The men of the Sessair were out in numbers, the festivities wild as they celebrated the coming of the new king. At some point Sláine would emerge from the long house to walk among them, pressing the flesh, kissing wives and locking arms with the warriors. The celebrations would run deep into the night, making it perfect for Megrim's purposes. Who would miss the wife of the shamed king on a night like this? Indeed, they would almost certainly expect the widow to hide herself away with her grief so her absence was something they would expect.
Unlike so many of the Celtic settlements there was no defending wall, no ditch or ramparts, making it easy for Ukko to sneak along the curve of the riverbank and out of reach of the torchlight. It was arrogance on the Sessair's behalf, of course. If a city needed a wall to keep it safe it deserved to fall, so said Sláine. Sometimes the barbarian's reasoning beggared understanding.
The dwarf tried to recall any stories Sláine had told of sacred groves hidden in the trees, but all he could think of was his tale of endurance in the nemeton, which was not the kind of place Megrim would seek out to perform her ritual. No, it needed to be somewhere remote, and while dedicated to Danu still serve as a receptacle for communion with Carnun. For a moment he considered Lug's Spike but it was too exposed, too remote. Nothing Sláine had ever spoken of struck the dwarf as suitable.
A part of him just wanted to turn around and go back into the settlement; some big-titted beauty would help him forget all about the sinister Megrim. Indeed the whole world could disappear to the els in a handcart - if his head was buried in a fulsome breast suckling away at a pair of ripe nipples he would neither notice nor care. And for a moment it was tempting, but for once
the dwarf turned his back on temptation and went in search of trouble.
There was nothing for it, with one backward glance at the straw torches still burning brightly in the heart of Murias, promising so much on a night of festivities and drunken revelry, Ukko scurried off into the darker heart of the forest.
No more than one hundred nervous paces in, and the nameless wood was unnervingly like Dardun, the skeletal limbs of the trees denuded, moss clinging to the bark, eating away into it like the same sour canker that had undone the home of Myrrdin. He listened; there were no sounds, none of the usual nocturnal hints of life he expected from a wood, not the flit and leathery flutter of bat wings or the scratching of badgers rustling through the deadfall. All around the wood not a single creature stirred.
Ukko slumped down against a rotting tree trunk, his back to the moonlit side of the tree's bole, and closed his eyes.
And heard voices; as out of place in the silence of the forest as a maiden in a brothel.
Ukko scrambled to his feet, muttering about curiosity killing the rat, and moved closer, struggling to make out words where there were none. As he neared, the quality of the voices shifted; one separating from the other, taking on a deep, rich resonance while the other grew softer, more obviously feminine, two people deep in conversation. They drew him like a fly to dung, an ant to honey. He crept closer, edging through the undergrowth, ever-mindful of the deadfall and the mulch of fallen leaves, placing each foot with care until he could see her through the trees.
The moonlight smothered her nakedness as the woman slipped out of her hooded cloak and pulled her shift up over her head. Her body was lithe, muscular, almost boyish for its flatness, but definitely feminine around the swell of hips and thighs. He could not see Balor, but the blind warrior was almost certainly the second voice he had heard. Ukko craned forwards, trying to see past more of the trees, but his eyes were drawn back again and again to her nakedness as she began dancing in the moonlight, her voice rising in shrill ululations as she beseeched the moon and the dirt and the wood, calling forth Carnun, Lord of the Beasts. He lost sight of her through the trees as her dance propelled her to the far side of the grove. Ukko shuffled forwards, barely stifling a sharp intake of breath at sight of the moon-bathed silhouette of a crumbling ruin as it was gradually revealed by the forest.
It wasn't the presence of the temple, for temple it most assuredly was, that unnerved the dwarf; it was the repellent masonry, the hammer and chisels of so long ago crafting the likeness of the Wyrm God Crom-Cruach in the stone where he had expected the Earth Serpent, and alone on a crumbling section of wall, the antlered visage of the Horned God himself, Carnun. The sight of the emaciated deity engraved in stones so close to Murias sent a thrill of fear coursing through Ukko.
And then he saw the blind warrior, Balor, stripped also, hard, joined in the same dance; in the centre of his chest where his heart ought to have been was a huge poisoned eye, its lids thick with pus and fester. This demon was not Balor the Blind but Balor of the One Eye. And where the gaze of that one eye fell the deadfall withered, its decay accelerated by Balor's vile sight, corruption spreading out through the defiled glade like a contagion.
Megrim's dance took on a wild, primal quality, her limbs flailing in and out of the shadows, her voice shrieking, all coherence of word and movement banished as she opened the conduit between the Lord Weird and this unholy place. The total abandonment of the flesh was intensely erotic; despite the thrill of fear coursing through his veins, Ukko found himself aroused, responding to the primal nature of her dance, his eyes drawn again and again to the thinness of her waist and the moonlight's ladder of shadows tracing the curvature of her spine to the thickness of her rump and the darkness between as she twisted and turned, giving herself utterly to the invocation.
Ukko fell to his knees, pressing his chest and chin close to the dead leaves, desperate to make himself invisible as the engraving of Carnun began to move, detaching itself from the stonework of the defiled temple.
"My Mebd, sweet sweet Mebd," the voice of Feg came from the stone, naming the naked woman, and though she wore the face of another, Ukko knew her, knew her eyes. The Bride of Crom, Mebd, the grateful sow Sláine had rescued from the inferno of the wickerman. "You called, daughter of the Babd? Are our schemes bountiful? I hunger for word of the Sun King's demise and the ruin of these damnable people."
The woman, Megrim, Mebd, fell to her knees, devotion writ bright across her moonlit face as she pulled at her hair, crawling forwards to kneel at the feet of the stone effigy come to life like some great colossus.
"Kilian Ragall is dead," she said, unable to look the statue in its mad eyes, "but our schemes are in ruins, my Lord Weird."
"I hear your words but they make no sense to my ears, the king is dead and yet our schemes have failed? How can this be so? The sour encroaches, their bellies are thin, their courage moreso. This place is ripe for plundering, no? Their fabled warriors have proved cowards, certainly no match for the viciousness of the skull swords, so how could you have failed me, daughter of the Babd? Tell me, Mebd, how could you have failed Him? How could you have disappointed your betrothed? How could you have failed Crom-Cruach, Mebd? Tell me, for I should know before I reach into you and tear your withered heart from your breast. Tell me!" the Lord Weird demanded, vitriol and insanity pouring out of his translocated mouth.
"It was Sláine," she whispered, barely daring to voice the name. "He emerged from the long house even as the enchantment drew the fool's blood to my feet, assuring my ascendancy. Ragall crawled on his belly, his own blade in his gut, but before their precious druid could proclaim the blood magic fate and secure me as queen, that wretched moron rushed to Ragall's side, his pity breaking my draw on the blood. We were undone by our own cleverness, my lord. The superstitious fools saw the blood twist towards Sláine and proclaimed him immediately their saviour."
"Oh how I loathe that name." Slough Feg's mellifluous sigh soured the grove, withering Ukko's resolve to hear more. The sudden urge to flee gripped him. He fought it stubbornly, his fingers digging into the dirt. "Who will rid me of this meddlesome wretch? You were so sure his own would turn on him, so sure."
"I was wrong, Lord Weird," the woman admitted, gaze downcast.
"I do not accept weakness nor failure lightly, Mebd. There must be retribution, a levelling. You have failed me in this, I have no use for those who fail."
"It will not happen again, my lord," she promised.
"It will not," Feg agreed, "for you would have to be breathing for it to repeat."
"No, please, Lord Weird, have mercy!"
"There is no place in the world for mercy, Mebd, you of all my faithful should be aware of that truth."
The woman lifted her head defiantly, rising from her knees slowly. The strength of will it must have required to go against the Slough priest was phenomenal, but muster it she did, meeting his vile stone eyes squarely. "So be it, I submit to your will, Lord Feg."
"Better," the Lord Weird crooned, savouring the dankness of the word in his stone mouth. "Tell me, daughter of the Babd, do they suspect your presence?"
Mebd shook her head, "No, to them I am the weeping widow of a weak man."
"Better still. Here is what I would have you do;seduce the warrior, you have ample charms. Do not allow him to resist. When he is yours, slit his throat in the marital bed, leave nothing to chance this time. Twice widowed to two kings, the tribesmen will welcome you as their queen. They are so desperate to worship the feminine, ignoring the strength of the masculine. That blindness shall be their undoing."
"There is another face I could wear, Lord Weird, one that would surely guarantee his seduction."
"Is that so, daughter of the Babd?"
"The woman, Niamh, stole his heart when they were young. His lust for her led to his banishment by the old king. I know her skin well enough to shape the glamour, that fool Ragall was obsessed with her so-called beauty. It would be no great feat to wrap the Warped One
around my finger dressed in the guise of his childhood love."
"Then make it so, Mebd. I will brook no more disappointment. This land will fall, Mebd, for I am death's artist. I shall guide the living across the waters of oblivion, I shall stand in a field of corpses, staring down at eyes without life, plundered heads and sundered flesh. I shall revel in the death I have wrought, for I am tired, Mebd, so tired of this life. I would have release from twenty thousand years of torment at the bitch Goddess's whim, throwing her vengeance back in her face by destroying the one thing she truly loves - herself."
"It will be so, my Lord Weird, you have my word. Sláine Mac Roth will perish in my arms. It will be a slow and painful demise, one worthy of his perfidy."
Ukko had been so wrapped up in eavesdropping he had lost sight of Balor, allowing the warrior to work his way around behind him, skyclad, his vile eye wide open and blazing with hate. The sharp snap of a broken branch betrayed Balor's prowling. The blind warrior had worked his way through the trees and was already too close to Ukko's hiding place for comfort.
"Cowardice always was the better part of valour," Ukko mumbled, scrambling to his feet and taking off like a startled deer.
He had to warn Sláine.
The young king's life depended upon it - which meant, in turn, that his life depended upon it, and that was much more important to the ugly little dwarf.
Ukko didn't stop running until he was surrounded on all sides by drunks and burning straw beacons, the celebrations in full swing. Drunken hands mauled him, lifting him up, spinning him around in joyful dances frighteningly similar to Mebd's invocation, and equally uninhibited. On another night he would have enjoyed the stray hands, making a point of feeling his way through the women of Murias, but shame of shames, he only had eyes for Sláine.
He saw the king, deep in his cups, dancing a clumsy reel with a flaxen-haired matron, her face flushed and his ruddy. He saw the dwarf and grinned, obviously enjoying himself. Ukko wormed his way between the press of dancers, pushing between kicking legs and linked arms to Sláine's side. He tugged at Sláine's wrist urgently but the new king brushed him off. Having none of it, Ukko hit him, hard, in the side, then ducked beneath Sláine's swinging fist.
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