The Giants' Dance

by Robert Carter

Gwydion ignored him. ‘What is the nature of the stone?’

  Will shook his head. ‘A big one. I feel its attack on my spirits. It feels cunning, as if it’s undermining me in a way that I can’t even grasp.’

  ‘I detect no great change in you.’

  Will cocked an eyebrow at that. He turned in the direction of the flow, looked into the blank wall for a while, trying to gauge what lay beyond. Then he opened his mind cautiously, and all his sinews stretched taut, like a man listening hard.

  ‘That smell,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s worse than a cesspit. What is it?’

  He tried to compose himself again, but his concentration was disturbed by a big, fat bluebottle that buzzed down the passageway. Then he heard a sound that sent a shiver down his spine. It was long and high and indescribably sad. It seemed to come from a long way off.

  They looked at one another, and Will said, ‘What was that?’

  Gwydion shook his head, listening, but the sound was not repeated.

  Just then two men came through the yard, carrying something large, but running because of the rain. They did not notice the visitors and went into a doorway on the far side. What they carried seemed to be a gilded war saddle of red leather, but it was enormous. Its arches were high front and back and its girth straps so long that they trailed for three paces along the ground. As they passed, the carthorse tossed her head and stamped uneasily.

  When Will turned back again he saw Gwydion had stepped to the end of the passage, and was silently motioning him to follow. One passage led to another, and then another, and instead of turning left he turned right and came out into a larger, darker courtyard, which had tall gates on one side. In the centre of the yard stood a large cage made of elaborate ironwork. The bars were all as thick as Will’s wrists. This was definitely the source of the bad smell. Despite the rain the stink was more noisome than that of a boar’s sty. It seemed that some gigantic animal had been caged here, but that was impossible because the only way in or out of the courtyard was through the narrow passage through which they had arrived.

  ‘Pssst!’ The wizard beckoned him. ‘We must go before we are discovered!’

  ‘But look at this,’ he said, intrigued by the cage.

  ‘Come! This is no time for distractions.’

  With a muttered incantation and a final flick of his hand, Gwydion caused the rain to slacken and then to cease. They went back the way they had come, then made a show of preparing to leave in case anyone was watching them.

  This time, Gwydion followed after Will, who opened his mind and tuned himself to the stone as much as he dared, letting his talent steer his feet ever closer to it. They tracked along the side of the Great Hall in a tightening arc, until Will’s shoulder brushed against the building and they stopped.

  The door they had first come to opened again, and the bald man came out. ‘The rain’s stopped. You must go now,’ he said. Then, looking at Will, ‘Is he drunk? In the middle of the day?’

  ‘It may be that he is unwell!’

  ‘Unwell? Then why did you not say so before bringing him through our gates?’

  Gwydion rasped, crooking a finger at the man suddenly, ‘Do you think the disease is contagious? Uncharitable knave!’

  ‘Charity has no meaning when it is forced upon folk!’

  ‘I shall tell the Elders at Cirne that your cheese stinks and your bread is hard!’

  ‘Aye! You tell them that! The fewer of your sort we get here the better!’

  The man watched after them until they were gone from sight. Once out of Clifton Grange they followed the path up the hill as if they were taking the Crowle road, but as soon as they were out of sight of the manor they doubled back and headed into the woods above the village of Aston Oddingley. On the way Gwydion questioned Will about the stone.

  ‘Did you scry it?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s bad news – it’s under the floor of the Great Hall.’

  ‘Then it is to the Great Hall that we must go tonight.’

  They shed their false appearances then ate a supper of field bounty while they waited for night to fall.

  ‘A shepherd’s sky,’ Gwydion said, looking up at a faery land above. There were crimson mountains and lakes of fire and golden valleys all sculpted in cloud. That world reigned for a moment then faded, and soon all was grey. It was a perfect sky for Will to contemplate as he kept vigil over his thoughts, armouring himself for the coming fight.

  They returned to the manor no more than an hour after sundown, this time without disguise.

  Will said, ‘It seems likely the manor was built over the stone without the owners ever knowing of it.’

  ‘I do not believe the present Baron Clifton or his late father ever tried to use the stone for their own ends. Indeed, I should think they knew nothing of it. Even so, their bloodline has been soured – they have harboured a thing under their floorboards that would eventually drive each Clifton insane. Thus is harm propagated down the generations.’

  For all Clifton Grange’s seeming strength, the gates had been left unbarred. Even the doors were unlocked. There was no need to secure the house – none of the local folk would have willingly approached it after dark. Before night settled those who lived on the estate went home to their cottages, and the few servants who dwelt overnight at the manor took to their rooms in the outworks. Gwydion said he thought their doors would be shut tight. He doubted anyone would come out, no matter what noises they heard coming from the main house.

  Once inside the Great Hall, Gwydion lit a dim blue magelight that glowed like King Elmond’s Fire around the great candle holders that hung on chains from the hammerbeams above. The hall was a generous size and of the usual plan, with a huge empty fireplace facing high, narrow windows, and a gallery at one end. The walls were hung with tapestries and faded needlework that dated from a time when the baron’s mother and her companions had spent their eyesight on such consolations.

  Will felt the attacks of the battlestone falling against his mind. They seemed as distantly violent as the waves that broke against the Cliffs of Mor. He had prepared himself well. He helped Gwydion push back the heavy furniture, then he scried the floor with particular care. He found a hatchet in the firewood basket and began to lever up the polished boards where the long table had been. The oaken boards groaned loudly against the iron nails that held them, but soon they had pulled up enough to show a patch of dry earth beneath.

  Dusty webs and the husks of spiders clung to the wood, echoes of summers long past. This floor had not been disturbed in centuries, nor the ground beneath it.

  They began to dig. Gwydion hacked at the hard-packed dust with his knife of star-iron, pausing from time to time to cast holding spells into the hole, or to apply binding magic to seal the bubbling seepages of harm that came up. Will took a small fire-grate shovel and dug, scraping out first dry dirt with his bare hands and then heaping up moister earth beside the hole. There were bits of sharp bone and charcoal in the soil and his fingers were numb by the time he began to notice a flat, hard surface appearing under them.

  When he told Gwydion that he thought he had found the stone, the wizard muttered, ‘Feh fris!’ in the true tongue, and produced a glow of magelight in his hands, before bending down to look closer. Will saw clearly the marks of the ogham as he began to scrape away again with his fingernails.

  ‘This one seems to be very quiet,’ Gwydion said, troubled.

  ‘Yes,’ Will said, ‘I wonder about that. Maybe it’s just deeply asleep, but maybe…’

  ‘What?’

  He swallowed drily. ‘I don’t know. Just be careful.’

  Soon the edges of the uppermost face of the stone were uncovered. It was revealed as a block about the same size and shape as a child’s coffin. Its sides were graven with marks, mostly lines, some square to the edge others slanting. As he saw them Will’s heart began to beat faster. He wondered again why he had felt no further attacks upon his spirit from the stone, neither feelings of sickness no
r shadows playing upon his mind. It was clear that this stone was powerful, yet it seemed willing to give up its secrets without a struggle.

  ‘Have a care, Gwydion,’ he whispered as he dug deeper. The wizard looked over the half-revealed marks with searching eyes. Ogham were carved along each of the four edges. Will called to mind the lessons he had received in ‘tree writing’ from Wortmaster Gort. It was called tree writing because each of the ogham letters was named after one of the thirty-three ancient kinds of tree. The very speaking of such words was a powerful magic in itself.

  Will cleared more dirt from around the top of the stone, then worked his fingers under its head. He tried to lift it, but either it was too heavy or not enough soil had been broken away from its sides. He worked on steadily, knowing that the ogham were incised on each of the stone’s edges and that to read them properly they must up end it. The inscriptions were set to trap the unwary, each open to two different interpretations; one read face by face, but the more important reading spiralled sunwise and upward round the stone.

  After more scraping, Will tried to lift it again. He strained arms and legs to breaking before the dead weight would shift. It trembled horribly under his fingers, as if it resented being lifted from its slumbers. He released it, and as it fell back a sudden, intense fear overcame him and he jumped out of the hole. Gwydion was there immediately, standing over the stone, muttering and moving his arms, sending waves of hazy blue light into the pit to lull it.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘I lost my courage for a moment.’

  He got down again and tried to lift the stone for a third time. He raised it half up and put his shoulder under it, but no sooner had he set it upright than a fearful howl froze his blood. It rose on the still air and split the silence of the night, a long, high scream, that echoed and died, a sound as cold as a dagger blade in moonlight, distant and plaintive as the call of the hag who portends war.

  The wizard paid it no heed. He had already begun to dance, to weave the necessary web about the stone, to mute and dull the rancorous emanations. Will watched the magic glowing and spinning in the air for a moment, then he turned and was horrified to see the door of the Great Hall swinging open. The nape of his neck prickled. His heart hammered. His eyes bored into the darkness. He could not believe what he was seeing, because there stood an old man in a nightshirt. In the pale magelight he seemed to Will to be no more than a ghostly apparition for he said nothing, just looked straight ahead.

  Will turned to the wizard, but Gwydion was still dancing out the binding spell upon the stone, and could not pause. Not knowing what else to do, he leapt towards the door and tried to carry the old man out. But as soon as he was touched he sprang to life and fell down and began to shout out in bewilderment.

  Will knew he had made a big mistake. He had foolishly tried to awaken a sleepwalker.

  The man’s yells were loud and pitiful. Will hoisted the struggling figure across his shoulder, wanting only to get him out of the Great Hall as quickly and quietly as he could. He put a hand over the old man’s mouth, but his finger was quickly bitten.

  ‘Agh! Serpent!’

  Moans echoed through Clifton Grange until it sounded as if murder was being done.

  Before Will could get his burden as far as the yard he heard feet running and doors banging and the noise of the whole household arming itself.

  ‘Thieves! Outlaws!’ the old man cried.

  Will put down his wriggling burden in the middle of the yard and ran back the way he had come. He burst into the Great Hall.

  ‘Gwydion!’ he shouted. ‘Gwydion, they’re coming! We must get out of here!’

  The wizard danced out the final flourish of the binding spell, then he pointed his staff. ‘We cannot leave the stone here. And we must not move it until it is at least doublebound.’

  ‘Move it? Are you mad? Before you can say “knife” the whole place will be swarming with servants!’

  ‘The stone must leave with us, or not at all.’.

  Will stared back. ‘Then we’ll have to fight them for it!’

  He leapt up onto the great table and tore down one of the tapestries, pulling out the ashwood pole from which it had hung. It was a good length and seemed strong enough for his purposes.

  ‘Thieves!’ he heard the old man cry. ‘Thieves in the Great Hall!’

  Armed servants were now gathering in the yard. Will could see a dozen or more of them clattering through the shadows, waving halberds and other pole-arms. He knew he must make time for Gwydion to apply the last of the binding spells. He looked for a way to bar the doors, but there was none. He thought of blocking them with furniture, but there was no time and nothing but a smooth, polished floor to brace against. Two or three men would easily be able to push their way in no matter what he piled up in front of the doors.

  There was only one answer. He stepped out into the narrow passage down which the attack must come. His confidence rose as he made two practice lunges with his makeshift quarterstaff. The wood felt good in his hands. Fortune favoured him – here, just outside the doors, there was room to wield his weapon, whereas his opponents would have to approach through a narrower stone arch and fight where there was no room to swing.

  He heard voices nearby. Three figures appeared in black outline. They were armed. Will gripped and re-balanced his staff and edged out to face the danger. The first man he surprised. He ran at him and turned him aside easily with an overarm blow to the jaw. The second man collided with and slipped under the first as he fell back, and the third tripped over and sprawled on top of them both.

  ‘Back!’ shouted a terrified voice. ‘There’s a whole pack of them! They’re like mad dogs! Run!’

  ‘Yaaaah!’ Will roared, and sent them scuttling back in a panic. As he stood foursquare in the passageway with his staff quartered across his chest, half a dozen faces peered into the darkness from the safety of the end of the passage.

  ‘Better give it up,’ a shaky voice said. ‘We got you surrounded!’

  ‘If you want us, come and get us!’ Will boomed. ‘Or maybe we’ll come out and get you!’

  He ran forward and whacked his pole at the nearest face. The wood thwacked against stone, and the other faces disappeared in a blink.

  ‘Fetch lanterns!’ another voice said. ‘They can’t get out ’cept through here. We’ll trap them. Take word to Aston. Call out their lads!’

  ‘Hold hard, my boys!’ the first voice said. ‘It’ll be light soon! And the master’s on his way home.’

  Will knew his opponents were scared. By the feel of it at least one of them was very scared. But he could not say how long he would be able to hold a dozen or more men at bay. It would take only one lucky move on their part to bring him down. Soon the dawn would come, and his opponents’ night fears would vanish. They would take heart once they discovered that he alone guarded the door.

  He crept back towards the Great Hall and hid himself in the shadows, wondering what Gwydion proposed to do. Surely he isn’t still imagining that the stone can be brought away, he thought. He was wrong about the manor being almost empty, and wrong about the servants being unwilling to come out. What a mess!

  He waited in silence for the next attack, not daring to move. There could be no easy escape now. What if Lord Clifton’s men bring archers? he thought suddenly. Or they might fetch dogs to flush me out! The best we can hope for is that Gwydion reads that inscription and gets us out of here before sunrise. Maybe he’s in there covering the thing up again. I hope so!

  As that thought flitted from his mind the hairs on the back of his neck gave a fresh warning. He knew he was no longer alone in the passageway. But before he could move there was a grunt and sparks leapt from the stone door pillar above his head. He pulled quickly back and felt the swish of a blade brush his cheek. Before he could lift his staff a kick to the side of his head sent him reeling from his corner. A great black shape loomed over him and he only just parried a tremendous slashing blow. The feint
saved his life, but grunts came from the shadows and Will knew that the fearsome weapon was being swung again at his head. He twisted away. The steel of a broadsword rang off the stonework, then bit into his staff.

  Will’s head burst with pain as he felt the blade being wrestled from where it had lodged in the wood. The ash pole was old and dry and had little spring to it, not like the fresh-cut green oak he was used to. He hung on to the splintered wood, but there had been insane strength behind the blade. He felt himself kicked further into the narrow passage, so he had no chance to shield himself against the next blow. Down it came, biting deeply into his right arm above the elbow, shattering the bone and sending his forearm out at an impossible angle.

  ‘Auuuugh!’

  He felt the air leave his chest. His hand was useless now. He cried out as he felt the blood gush onto his chest and soak his shirt. His cry was not one of pain, but dismay – dismay that this was how his life would end, squalidly, painfully defeated, and in a dark place like this.

  He knew that the next blow must dash his brains across the floor.

  ‘Come out, my pretty cowards!’ a thundering voice shouted. ‘Cast a light in here!’

  Will huddled on the floor, clutching his arm. He felt his eyes bulging from his head. Blood was spurting through his fingers. He saw now that his arm was almost severed. It dangled uselessly. His quarterstaff was hacked in two at his side and all the world was spinning and toppling into blackness. Oh, no! No! It can’t be! his mind was saying, trying to deny what his eyes told him. A great wave of roaring noise was rising in his ears. He stared drunkenly into the lantern light, saw the lordly robes of red and gold and the badge of the wyvern. Blood patterned the blade that danced before his eyes, was smeared on wall and floor. There were footprints of blood – his blood – all over the passageway. A froth of it still gouted from his arm, despite his squeezing fingers.

  ‘That’s why I am your lord and you are my servants!’ the great voice shouted, and Will felt the baron’s foot crunch down further on his neck before releasing. ‘Fetch him in here!’