The Beauty of Destruction

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘But we spend twenty long winters and short summers learning the knowledge and wisdom we need for such surety.’

  Bladud turned to look at her. ‘And you are so sure that I am wrong?’ Britha opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again. ‘Why? Because of what we have always been told? All that means is that the knowledge is old.’

  ‘There is a Brenin Uchel in a time of threat,’ she said. ‘All would follow you in this, even Guidgen—’

  ‘Who is rhi of his people in all but name. He is little different to me in this.’

  ‘He acknowledges that you are the best person to deal with the current threat, but he does not wish for his people to live under the heel of another tribe, and what is the point when you rule from so far away anyway? You would not know what he does.’

  ‘And if the threat never leaves?’ Bladud asked quietly. The wind tried to take his words and she had to strain to hear them. ‘Far to the south and the east there are kingdoms many times the size of the entire land of Ynys Prydain. They became this size because demon kings conquered the lands of other tribes.’

  ‘And you would become such a man?’ she asked.

  ‘How are we to fight them if … when they come here?’ He turned to look at her. Britha couldn’t be sure but she thought she saw tears in his eyes. ‘The spawn of Andraste, did you see what they did to my beautiful island? The desolation they left behind them?’ Britha could only nod. ‘We must be united. Find someone better and I will step aside.’ He leant in close to her, his face hardening. Britha had to resist the urge to step back. ‘So don’t pick at me, breed division among my warband, and pretend I am the enemy of the people of this land when you can just as easily work with us.’ His voice was like cold forged iron. He turned and stalked away from her back towards the hut. Suddenly she was less sure of her opposition to him. One thing she did know. There had been no falseness in what he had said to her.

  Bress followed the trail of blood through the cave system. He was travelling south away from the so-called Witch King’s warband. Crom Dhubh did not fear the Pretani, but in this case he had decided his slave should take the path of least resistance. Bress, however, was starting to wonder if his master had underestimated the local tribes. They had proved resourceful, hardy, and had mastered what ‘magic’ they could find and used it well. They had done so at great loss to themselves. They had not quite frustrated Crom Dhubh’s plans but they had caused his master to adapt them more than once now. That said, Bress was confused as to what the Dark Man’s plans now actually were.

  The cavern system was a ghost world he saw only in muted greens, whites and greys. There was little life down here. Nothing to distract him. He was left only with his thoughts as he climbed a rock face and pulled himself into an almost cylindrical passage lined with stalactites and stalagmites. The passage sloped upwards, and a stream ran through it. He reached down for a handful of the crystal clear liquid. Drinking it he could taste the minerals in the water.

  The trickle of water had been the only thing he could hear down here. He had been moving as quietly as he could. Any sound he made had seemed invasive somehow. As a result he was very aware of a sudden skittering noise. It echoed down the passage and out over the larger cavern he had just climbed out of. It was unmistakably the sound of metal on stone.

  Quickly Bress drew the dagger from the sheath at his hip and used it to make a nick in his skin. The cut didn’t bleed. Instead it released the tiny ‘demons’ from his blood into the cave. He quickly sheathed the dagger and drew the hand-and-a-half sword slung across his back.

  The wards that the blood demons drew in the air caught something. Other wards, not unlike themselves. Bress moved silently behind a cluster of stalagmites and watched. Whatever it was, it sounded small. His blood wards sought answers, but the other ‘magics’ in the air resisted. Some of his wards were consumed.

  He frowned as he heard a crunching noise like stone being eaten. If it was feeding then it would be growing. Bress glanced behind him at the cavern. This might just be something old and forgotten, wandering through the bowels of the earth, or it might be something specifically looking for him, Crom Dhubh, or ‘people’ like them. If that was the case then confrontation would be inevitable, and he certainly wouldn’t discover anything by avoiding it.

  He stalked forwards quietly, but the wards of the stone-eating thing snagged him. It was like walking into a cobweb. He could see it now. A metallic parasite melded with the stone. It was sinking into it as it consumed more. It had sounded small the first time he had heard it, now it was the size of a cow. At his approach it pushed itself out of the stone and scuttled around to face him. Two metallic pincers snapped open and closed, and a dripping sting arched over the thing’s back. Bress found himself facing a massive brass scorpion.

  They had come down out of the high mountain passes, though they’d had to pay more than one toll to the Deceangli warriors who guarded them. They had descended onto a flatter coastal area that supported a number of farms.

  The journey had proved to be hard on those who had not drunk from the chalice, or of Britha’s blood. One of the gwyllion had lost two toes, and both the Brigante showed the black-skinned signs of the frost kiss. Bladud and Moren, both badly fatigued, had enough winter sense to keep themselves warm. This was no time of year to be travelling.

  Britha had heard Bladud and Moren talking. Ynys Dywyll was off the coast. The western sea and the isle of the Goidels lay beyond it, but all she could see was thick, frozen mist. She had almost ridden into the water.

  Moren had produced a horn from inside the thick layers of fur and skin he wore over his robes, and blew it. It seemed like the freezing mist swallowed the horn’s sonorous note. He waited several moments and then blew the horn again. Eventually they saw a long dugout log boat appear out of the mist. The boat was being paddled across the glass-like surface of the water by a fur- and hide-clad figure.

  ‘You will stay here,’ Moren told the Brigante and gwyll guards that had accompanied Bladud and Guidgen. The Brigante started to protest. The two gwyllion looked to Guidgen, who nodded. Moren gave them directions to a local longhall where they would receive hospitality.

  ‘Why does Madawg go with us?’ Guidgen asked.

  ‘He has seen Crom Dhubh,’ Bladud told them. Britha heard something in the Witch King’s voice. Is he nervous? she wondered.

  ‘As did we,’ Guidgen started.

  ‘But he did not attempt to deny the Red Chalice to the people,’ Moren pointed out. Guidgen was glaring at him. Britha wanted to wipe the smug expression off Madawg’s face. Guidgen opened his mouth to retort but Britha put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Come, all will be settled,’ Britha told him and they climbed into the boat. Moren blew a different note on the horn and another horn answered them. The boatman – or woman, it was difficult to tell under the hood – paddled back into the mist.

  Bress backed away from the brass scorpion quickly. He could not parry the snapping pincers; at best they would trap his sword, at worst snap it, so all he could do was avoid them. While he was concentrating on the pincers, the sting was swaying backwards and forwards as the scorpion tried to find an opening. He stepped backwards, and pincers snapped shut where his leg had been a moment before. The sting darted forwards. He ducked out of the way, batted at it with his sword, but it was fast. He had to throw himself to one side. He had run out of room. The scorpion scuttled around to face him. He backed up, though he instinctively knew he was running out of passage. Behind him was the thirty-foot drop into the previous cavern. It was ridiculous. This thing, this construct, was probably the most dangerous thing he had faced since arriving in this realm, with the exception of Fachtna during his riasterthae frenzy.

  Bress was tottering on the edge of the drop. The brass scorpion continued forwards. Bress bent his knees and somersaulted backwards off the ledge and into the darkness. He was quite surprised when the scorpion pounced after him. The sting was powering towards his
face. Bress risked a swipe at it mid-air, severing the tail just behind the sting. There was an odd metallic cry.

  They landed. Bress tried to scramble backwards. One of the pincers closed around his leg. Armour hardened, skin and flesh hardened. The powerful mechanism sheared through them, stopping only at immortal bone. Bress fell back, bringing the sword down with a clumsy blow, the impossibly sharp blade biting into the creature’s armoured carapace. He cried out, and shuddered, almost dropping his sword, as the smaller, sharper part of the scorpion’s other pincer speared him in the side, and then the pincer closed, tearing a chunk out of his flesh. The scorpion darted forwards, pincer closing around his head.

  This would be a poor way to die, he thought. He smeared his hand into the wound in his side and wiped it into the crack in the creature’s carapace, willing his blood to do his bidding. He felt the pincer close around his face.

  Deep in the mist, the water was still. They may as well have been nowhere. This felt more how Britha had imagined the crossing between worlds to be, before she had actually done it. The boatman, or woman, followed the sound of the horn. Fire flared, a faint glow in the mist and the boat changed direction slightly. Britha glanced at Moren. She wasn’t sure if it was a signal fire or just an attempt to instil awe in their guests.

  Britha could make out a beach. There were figures on it. Behind those she could make out what looked to be a very broad, black wall. As they got closer to the beach she could see that the wall was in fact a dense tangle of trees made naked by the winter. Standing in front of the woods were a number of women in dark furs, bearing burning brands, their faces painted with dyes of black and red. More fires burned deeper in the forest. She could hear the rhythmic thud of the bhodran. She glanced over at Guidgen. He smiled and shrugged. Bladud, however, was starting to look very worried, his brow covered in sweat.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Britha asked. Bladud looked around at her.

  ‘I … this place is difficult for me,’ he told her.

  ‘Old age has not mellowed Nils’ temperament then?’ Guidgen asked, but not unkindly.

  Moren glanced around at the sound of the arch dryw’s name. Bladud just shook his head.

  Once they had landed, Moren led them through the thick tangle of wood. Many of the trees were oaks, though smaller than those on the mainland. Britha suspected that they had been shaped by the harsh winds blowing off the western sea. Egg-shaped menhirs were spotted throughout the forest. All of them had patches that were stained brown. There were people moving among the trees, most of them brown-robed, though there were a number of initiates in their white robes, and she had seen one other black-robed dryw. One brave woman had been tending to the carcass of a black pig on a cromlech, naked. Her hands pulling its entrails out, running them between her bloodied fingers.

  ‘I hope they will cook that later,’ Britha said. She had never agreed with sacrifice for the sake of it. It should serve some other purpose as well as that of trying to tell the future. Of course she’d had piss-all luck trying to tell the future anyway, other than guessing based on her knowledge of the circumstances at hand.

  Coins, pieces of metal, broken weapons, jewellery, polished copper mirrors, and many other items adorned the trees, obvious offerings to the southern gods.

  Another fire was lit in what looked like a large, roughly circular clearing. Moren led them towards it and brought them to a halt in front of the fire. On the other side of the flames Britha could see an old, frail man sitting on a litter made of wood and furs. He looked ill, and she suspected his legs were useless. His skin was covered with the spots that came with age and it was pale enough to display his veins. He had a long, wispy, tapering beard running down over an expansive gut. He was attended by three of the painted women, and two brown-robed dryw who looked as though they had been chosen because they had the strength to carry his litter.

  Moren walked around the fire to stand on the old man’s left side. Britha noticed the look of irritation the old man gave the ambitious young dryw.

  Britha had seen the trick with the fire before. By having them look through the flames it forged a connection between those they viewed and the power of fire. The shimmer in the air from the heat made people think there was something out of the ordinary happening. She had used this tactic herself in the past.

  ‘Again, Bladud? Do you never grow tired of punishment and hearing the word no? No, we will not put aside ancient laws that have stood us in good stead all this time just for you. No, we cannot make things as you would have them. No, we cannot remake Ynys Prydain in your image. No, you are not yet a god.’ The old man’s body might have been frail and crippled but his voice still sounded full of life. He was craning his neck, looking from side to side, trying to get a good view of the man he was castigating. The Witch King had his hood up, his head down. He looked like a scolded initiate. Britha assumed the old man was Nils, the arch dryw.

  ‘This is about the chalice,’ Moren said quietly.

  The old man glared at him. ‘That nonsense? Well, is it here?’

  ‘Has my old friend grown so close to death that he does not have the time to introduce himself?’ Guidgen asked. Britha was pleased to see him smiling again. The elderly dryw looked through the flames.

  ‘Show some respect!’ Moren snapped. Guidgen flashed the younger dryw another look of contempt.

  ‘He is!’ the old dryw snapped. ‘He is the first in many months to not have spoken to me as if I was a twig who would snap at the sound of a harsh word.’

  ‘Oh, this is foolish!’ Guidgen snapped and walked around the fire. Britha could see the old arch dryw’s face light up when he saw Guidgen. Moren didn’t look so pleased, however.

  ‘I never thought to see you again. I thought you were too old to make the journey in this weather! What were you thinking?’ Nils said. Britha moved round the fire to join them as well.

  ‘It’s good to see you again,’ Guidgen said. They shook each other’s arms and then Guidgen knelt to hug the older man. Britha saw him glance down at the old dryw’s legs as they broke the embrace. She suspected Guidgen was hiding his shock at the arch dryw’s frail appearance.

  ‘Nils, this is Britha. She is ban draoi to her people, the Cirig. Who are …’ Guidgen trailed off.

  ‘No more,’ Britha said and nodded.

  ‘Taken by the black curraghs, were they?’ Nils asked. She nodded. ‘I hear stories that you are a betrayer, that you have lain with our enemies from the Otherworld.’

  ‘There is truth to them,’ Britha admitted.

  ‘But more truth yet?’ the arch dryw asked, looking her up and down, a shamelessly calculating expression on his face.

  She said nothing.

  ‘I mislike how you look. It is strange, and I have never known anything dressed in black that came from the north to mean anything other than ill.’

  Britha nodded, considering his words, then she leaned in closer to him. ‘Do you think you’ll snap like a twig if I break your back for discourtesy?’ she asked quietly. He stared back at her.

  ‘You dare—’ Moren started.

  ‘Obviously she does,’ Nils said, meeting Britha’s eyes, holding her look. ‘And shut up, Moren.’ Then he started laughing. ‘I wonder if I can still sport an erection!’

  ‘Well, I’ll never know,’ Britha said, straightening up.

  ‘She carries the child of a demon inside her,’ Moren told the arch dryw. ‘You will have to sit in judgement as to whether or not it should be cut out and given to Nodens.’

  ‘Oh, will I?’ Nils asked, craning his neck up at Moren. ‘I think you sometimes forget who the arch dryw is, but we make that clear now. I’m going to say no. I think the two-faced god has seen enough blood for the time being.’

  ‘And yet look what has befallen—’

  ‘Moren?’ Britha said. The young dryw turned to look at her. Britha felt the satisfying crunch of his nose breaking as her knuckles made contact. Moren landed hard on his arse in the snow.

&nb
sp; The other dryw from the island looked appalled. Nils clapped his hands together. ‘Splendid!’ he cried. Moren was rolling in the snow, trying to focus, speak, and use his limbs with little success. ‘Now perhaps we’ve suitably awed our guests, so we can get out of the cold, see if we can find something soft enough for me to eat, and offer our guests some proper hospitality.’

  Throughout it all Bladud remained on the other side of the fire, his hood up, and his head down. Madawg was standing close to the treeline, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Bress sucked on the teat that the scorpion had grown. It fed him a disgusting grey gruel that was helping him heal and regrow his damaged and missing flesh. His casting had worked. The demons in his blood had sought out the construct’s dumb animal mind and possessed it. Just before the possession had succeeded, a fire had burned through the brass scorpion’s mind, destroying any thoughts, memories, and instructions it had known. He still did not know where it came from, whom it had served, and whether or not it had been looking for him.

  He took his mouth away from the teat in disgust and moved around to sit against the wall, taking some of the food he had brought with him from his bag. His flesh had healed enough to function. His armour had mended itself as well, but was not quite as strong as it had been. The brass scorpion was smaller now. It had clearly used some of its form to repair itself and feed him. The teat was sinking back into the machine and its sting had regrown.

  Bress came to a decision. With a thought he ordered the construct to bleed off much of its form. It shrank. Soon it was the size of a cat. It climbed up Bress and secured itself to his armour at his shoulder.

  14

  Now

  Beth killed the first one with her great-grandfather’s bayonet. She had instinctively partitioned her mind. One part of her was calm, able to assimilate her newly uploaded skills, use them with her technologically transformed body. She was the good soldier, the calm, detached killer. The other part of her was screaming inside, panicking as she jammed the World War One weapon into a living man’s throat and felt hot, salty, red life course over her hand in time with the fading drumbeat of the man’s heart. Regardless of the partitioning she knew that this was her doing. All the uploaded skills and tech did was provide her with the ability. She was giving the orders. She was the killer.