‘One more!’ Bladud shouted. He threw his second casting spear and saw it bite into a shield. ‘Draw swords!’ he cried. The Lochlannach shifted slightly as they marched through the snow, preparing to deal with warriors wielding swords. The Lochlannach had been listening to Bladud’s orders and were taken by surprise by the third volley of hastily thrown casting spears. More than one went down with a spearhead spreading its hungry iron roots through their head. The gwyllion had loosed simultaneously, their arrows raining down on helmets. The false order was an old Brigante trick. He wished he hadn’t had to teach it to the other tribes. Lochlannach dropped, but they closed lines and continued marching towards the shield wall. The Witch King’s warriors hurriedly drew swords, and the occasional axe or iron-shod club. The Lochlannach were so close now. It was the moment before shield walls met. Normally he would be frightened, but now he wanted this. Truly, he was a son of Codicius, the Red God, on this day. He decided on the one he was going to kill first. The Lochlannach were less than a few strides away now.
‘Hold!’ Bladud cried. Almost as one the shield wall stepped forwards. Another false order, an old tactic designed to break an enemy’s advance. Swords fell. Most bit into wood. Some bit into flesh. Some of the Lochlannach fell. Bladud’s shield hit the shield of the demon-slave he had decided to kill. The man was strong, and Bladud was pushed back in the snow. There was an excited scream in his head as chainmail exploded and his longsword found warm flesh to bury itself into. He would have to name the blade so he could have power over it.
‘For Nerthach! Redden the snow!’ he screamed, thoughts of his dead friend enraging him further. The front line was being pushed back. The spear-carriers in the rows behind them had not stepped forwards when the front line had. Now they did. Spears were shoved past Bladud’s head, between him and the warriors pressing in on either side of him. One of the Lochlannach in front of him was hit in the temple, his head shoved back. The spearhead warped, growing into the Lochlannach’s skull and the enemy warrior slumped, his body held up by the press of men. Bladud was aware of excited cries coming from behind him. He could smell the piss and shit as men and women lost control of bowel and bladder.
He saw the point of a spear getting larger in his vision. His sword was held above him so he could fight in the press. He brought the blade down, forcing the spearhead to hit his shield, scraping across it.
‘And step!’ Bladud cried. The shield wall tried to push, to throw the Lochlannach back to give them room. The Lochlannach didn’t budge. That wasn’t good. The Lochlannach stepped. The Witch King’s own line went back. The problem was that they could only retreat as far as those in the shield wall at the mouth of the cave could advance. The Lochlannach stepped and pushed them back again.
Crom Dhubh sighed.
‘And the thing is, I probably would have let them live had they been content to leave me in peace. They bring this upon themselves and then complain about the cruelties of dark gods.’
Bress was of the opinion that perhaps his master was getting a little carried away.
‘Do you want me there?’ Bress asked. Perhaps see her one more time? He hated how pathetic the thought sounded. Crom Dhubh frowned.
‘You? No, you die soon. I need you here. Send the giants.’
‘All of them?’ Bress asked.
Getting the horses not to panic, to stay quiet, had been the difficult part. They had led them into darkness, through the twisting path deep under the hills that she and Selbach had finally managed to find. It had been Azmodeus who had suggested the answer. Alchemy. Which as far as Tangwen could tell was something like a cross between metalworking and herb working. Germelqart had used the chalice to make what he called an elixir that they had fed to the horses. The Pecht had been worried that the horses would be too docile, but the Carthaginian had ensured them that it would just make them obedient. Still, it was too much sorcery around the Cait warriors’ valuable horseflesh for their tastes. Eurneid had certainly worked hard to instil a fear of magic in them.
Lowering the chariots down the crevice, by comparison, had been time consuming but much simpler. Selbach and Tangwen had observed Oeth for a long time to determine if the cave with the crevice in the roof was ever patrolled. It seemed that it wasn’t. Crom Dhubh had too much confidence in his magical wards.
They had lowered the chariots by laying a smoothed-down tree trunk across the crevice. Then some of the burlier warriors had lowered the chariots using ropes curled round the trunk. They’d had warriors at the bottom of the crevice with another rope pulled taut to stop the chariots from bouncing off the rock. The chariots had also been wrapped in wool, furs, and hides to minimise the noise when they inevitably did bounce off walls of the crevice. It had been a bad mix of boring, tricky, and tense work, all carried out in near-pitch darkness, but in the end they had lowered the ten chariots into the cavern and hidden them far from the mouth. They’d had one or two worrying moments, but the biggest problem had been remembering that they still had to remain as quiet and careful lowering the tenth chariot as they had the first.
It was fortunate that the Pecht bred small, sturdy mountain garrons that were capable of handling the terrain of Annwn. Selbach and Tangwen had led the forty garrons through the Underworld, as they were the only ones who could see in the dark. It was left to Tangwen, however, to properly yoke the now-silent four-garron teams to the chariots. Selbach had disappeared. She was worried he might have been been captured. She knew the timid scout was braver than he thought he was, but Crom Dhubh made slaves of men with his magics. Tangwen was sure that they were discovered. Germelqart had assured her otherwise, and urged her to go on with the plan. He would not explain why he thought this was the case, however, and she’d had no time to press him.
The warriors and chariot drivers had gone down the morning of the planned attack on the cave mouth. The only illumination in the cavern had been the faint glow coming from Oeth reflecting off the white ice of the frozen lake, and the even fainter light from the pale sunlight that made it down the crevice above them. The Pecht, the lynx-headdress-wearing Iceni scouts, and some of the gwyllion had to be guided to the chariots. Most of the chariot crews were smeared with the ashes of the campfires to blacken their faces and the shinier parts of their armour. None of them wore any decoration. Tangwen could not believe their courage. She could see in the ghost world, as could Britha, who had helped where she could, but the rest of them were effectively blind. All of them looked empty-eyed in the grey and green ghost light, as though they were already dead, already spirits.
Tangwen had not been entirely happy about Britha’s insistence on accompanying them. Not just because she was pregnant, but because it meant one less warrior with their meagre warband. Tangwen had offered to find what Britha needed, this rod, and bring it to the ban draoi, bring her Crom Dhubh’s head, Bress’s head, but it had not been enough for Britha. She had to be there. Tangwen was starting to think her hastily worded oath to help the Pecht dryw retrieve her daughter from the Otherworld had been a mistake.
Once they had finally managed to get in place they had waited and waited, and still none of them had made a sound. Tangwen had almost cried out, however, when the first huge arm had reached into the cave. The bottom of the crevice was a hole in the roof of the larger cavern; the giant’s hand grabbed the rock lip and pulled itself in on its back, across ice and rock, blocking out the faint glow from Oeth. Gnarled, clawed hands reached for purchase as it dragged itself up the crevice and out of the cavern towards the surface. Tangwen was ready, longspear in hand. She heard movement from the other warriors. A whimper. The sound of piss splashing on stone. The smell of shit filling trews. The first giant showed no sign of being aware of their presence. Nor did the second. Nor the third. Tangwen had only seen the three on the ice. She waited. Then she moved forwards carefully and looked up the crevice. She could see the huge shapes clambering upwards to destroy Bladud’s warband, dust and rock falling to the cavern floor in their wake. Tangwen watch
ed until the last one had disappeared, then she crept back and organised everyone into place. The glow reflecting off the frozen lake provided them all with just enough light to see their way out of the cavern.
Tangwen passed the longspear to Calgacus and took her place in the lead chariot, notching an arrow on her bowstring. Each of the wicker and wood carts had a charioteer – Tangwen’s was the silent, tall, scarred blonde woman – and an archer. The idea had been Germelqart’s. He had told them of lands in the south where archers fought from chariots. This, however, left no room for the warriors themselves, so they rode on the yoke pole between the horses, crouched down so the charioteers could see. It was considered a warrior feat but it was mostly for champions to show off. In order for the horses to pull/carry three people, it had meant halving the number of chariots but doubling the horse teams for each chariot. Tangwen knelt down and wrapped one end of a braided leather thong around one of her thighs and the other around part of the chariot to help keep her in place.
The blonde charioteer turned to look at Tangwen in the faint light. Tangwen nodded. The charioteer snapped the reins. It was as if the four garron had suddenly awoken. Chariot wheels sparked off stone, and then they were onto the ice, and out of the cavern. Tangwen half expected them to be the only chariot, but she glanced behind her and saw the cavern filled with sparks flying from spike rimmed wheels and the garrons’ studded shoes, all of which had been forged and fitted by Twrch. By the time they reached the ice they were almost up to full gallop. She heard Calgacus laughing. Others, behind, were howling battle cries. For a moment as the bright white ice shot by underneath her she had a savage grin on her face. Then she turned to face forwards and saw the bone obscenity of the tower reaching up towards the jagged, tooth-like rocks that lined the roof of the huge cavern containing the frozen lake.
Bladud’s face was a grim rictus of exertion as he inched his sword arm forwards against the blank face of the Lochlannach in front of him. Then there was red on the demon-slave’s face. Bladud started to saw his blade up and down; something hot and wet splashed across his face. The scream of exultation seemed to come from somewhere distant, from someone else. The bloody-faced Lochlannach in front of him stopped pushing against his arm, Bladud moved it back, and used the somehow still-sharp blade of his sword to bash the man’s helmet in. The weapon, alive in his hand, bit through metal, into bone, and Bladud’s face was splashed again.
The Witch King managed to lift his foot up and stand on the spear that was trying to stab him in the leg. In front of him a Lochlannach went down and was dragged through the Brigante shield wall to be killed by spear-carriers. Everything stank of blood, sweat and the ordure of ruptured bowels. The Lochlannach and Bladud’s warband were jammed together, barely able to move. He’d seen opposing warriors pushed so close together that one had been able to chew the other’s nose off. Daggers were sneaking in under shields to do the most damage. Intestines splattered to the ground, but their dead owners remained upright in the press. There was no snow beneath them now, just a red, churned up, stinking slurry.
Normally he hated a shield wall. There was no skill involved, it was just which warband was stronger, or hated the most, or just had enough people to wrap around the edges of the other’s shield wall, but this? This he had been born to do. He put his shoulder into his shield, heaving, bringing the pommel of his sword down onto another one of the Lochlannach’s noses. They weren’t winning, but they weren’t losing either. The bloody haft of a spear was slid across his face from behind. The spear’s head found the face of a demon-slave warrior, deformed it with penetrating red iron, turned it crimson. The man to the right of him was dead, half his skull missing. Bladud was pretty sure that the corpse was still speaking to him, encouraging him to more acts of violence. Garim, on his left, was screaming and trying to push himself free enough to strike someone.
They felt the earth shake first. Then the warband was cast into shadow as the giants hove into view between the hills and strode towards them. The Witch King heard the cries of fear but didn’t understand them. Some of the warband tried to break from the press of men and women, but most of them were cut down by the Lochlannach.
This is no time for fear, Bladud thought. He relished the stink of the slaughter, the steam rising from all of them. He just needed the warband to hold together that little bit longer.
The giants reached down to scoop up warriors and spear-carriers alike and crush them in huge gnarled hands. Casting spears and arrows rose up from the masses between the shield walls. One of the giants raised his foot and stamped down, turning more men and women into a mangled red mess.
‘Break!’ Bladud screamed.
29
Now
Du Bois was somewhere else. The building had breathing walls with veins. It looked like something out of a nightmarish version of the 1950s. A vast, open area of row after row of desks organised into concentric pentagons.
The ‘people’ sitting at the desks looked identical, regardless of gender, and they wore identical suits and hats. Skin had grown over their eyes and they had fused with the faintly insectile furniture as they typed on their similarly insectile, retro, typewriter-like keyboards. The glass panes of their monitors showed strange, unknown letters and other symbols. The symbols he did understand made him feel uncomfortable. The ones he did not understand hurt his head and made him feel nauseous. The computers were connected to each other and the fused bodies in the walls, floor and ceiling by a network of vein-like, black, shiny cables. The computer operators seemed to be the mutated, human biological components in some kind of vast machine. There was clearly some malign aesthetic to it. Du Bois couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something huge pressing against the walls of this warehouse-like structure.
There was a figure sitting in the centre of the pentagonal arrangement of desks. Du Bois walked towards him. As he did he realised that he was unarmed. Every time he caught a glimpse of a screen his head hurt all the more and the urge to vomit became stronger. He could feel his neuralware shutting down parts of his mind to protect it. Blood was running out of his ear. There was more to this than was obvious on the surface. His internal systems were only letting him experience the data construct as three-dimensional to protect his mind, but at the very edge of his vision he was aware of the structure, the machine, curving away to impossible places he could not properly perceive. All that it left to experience was the unpleasant symbolism of his fragile mind trying to cope, it seemed.
There was definitely something huge pushing against the walls of the complex. Du Bois’s breath quickened. He wasn’t used to fear like this. The thing behind the wall, it wasn’t just the size of it … He looked away from the suggestion of strange limbs and appendages being pushed against semi-elastic walls.
‘I don’t know who you are,’ the figure in the centre of the pentagon said. Du Bois had almost reached him. He was struggling to focus on the man. He looked nominally human but it was as if there was something that he couldn’t see properly standing behind him. ‘I should know who you are.’
Du Bois recognised the man, had known him, or at least he recognised the physical form. The figure looked out of time. He had the fleshy but serious look of a 1950s patrician, a politician, a policeman, or someone who played the like on black and white TV. Pain and nausea were preventing du Bois from remembering the man’s name. He wore the skirt, blazer and bonnet of a respectable, upper middle class housewife. His make-up and nails were flawless.
‘I have files on everyone, why not you?’
The chair he was sitting on looked alive. It had nut-brown skin. One of the arms of the chair had a tattoo, as did its legs, they were of horizontal lines forming complex patterns. The chair’s face looked agonised, twisting as if it was trying to communicate.
‘What’s this? Some Kafkaesque comment on the fascism of government?’ du Bois managed. The man in drag was holding something, leaning on it. A staff or pole, but it kept flickering in and out of view, in
and out of existence. The top of the staff was a man’s screaming, severed head.
‘This is what you want, so this is what you get,’ the man in drag said quickly.
Du Bois pointed at him. ‘Do you know, I never liked you?’ He remembered that much. The man in drag’s face fell.
‘Fear was enough,’ he said. It clearly wasn’t. Du Bois felt absurdly sorry for him, even though he knew he should be repelled. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had met the living chair before.
‘There are still seeds. It hates life,’ the chair said in a language that du Bois knew but couldn’t place. South Pacific, he thought, through the pain.
‘What do you want?’ the man in drag asked. ‘I should know. I had files but I don’t now.’
Du Bois told him. The man was standing up, leaning on the pole that was sometimes there and sometimes not. He caught a glimpse of the thing behind the living chair. He did not like the angles of its physiognomy.
The man in drag walked among the rows of the suited, featureless figures fused with the furniture and their odd computers. He ran his hand, with its painted nails, across their smooth faces.
‘So beautiful,’ he said wistfully. The screaming head on the staff had turned painfully around to scream at du Bois. The man in drag stopped by one of the fused figures, and pointed at him or her. ‘They know,’ he said. Then he searched in his handbag and pulled out a blade-edged silver dessert spoon. ‘Do you want to use my spoon?’
The Beauty of Destruction Page 42
