The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  ‘There is the woman,’ someone muttered, but Rhiann hardly heard them. The sudden flood of sunshine blinded her, and she could see nothing of the men besides a crowd of feet that stood some way back. Squinting, she looked down at Didius in her arms and saw only then the great rent under his heart, laying open his tunic and the thick flesh underneath. Blood oozed between her fingers; blood that should have spurted, but now seeped only slowly, for Didius had lost so much already. Her heart clenched when she saw the score of slashes that ran across his arms, legs and face. How long had they been sporting with him?

  ‘Lady.’ Didius’s hand reached up, catching in her hair, and she bent over so the unbound part swung forward, shielding him. ‘Lady … they have … gone? I … cannot hear them. They have gone.’

  Rhiann stared down into Didius’s black eyes, her throat closing as she recognized the familiar glaze creeping over them. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, drawing him closer, ‘they have gone.’

  His breath stirred the fine hairs on her forehead. ‘Then I did it …‘

  A muttering began somewhere above Rhiann’s head, and the feet on the edge of her vision shifted restlessly. Yet Didius was beyond that now, beyond all sight and sound except that of her own voice.

  ‘Yes, cariad,’ she murmured, bending her head closer to shut out the other men. Her tears fell on to Didius’s upturned face; one, and then another. ‘Our bards will sing of you for ever, I swear.’

  Didius smiled through the blood that bubbled on his lips, then did not move again.

  Rhiann gazed down at his slack mouth, unable to absorb the truth of the stillness and glassy eyes, barely noticing the men around her drawing back, their ranks parting like a receding wave.

  Yet the silence that fell then penetrated even her shock, and some force drew up her head. Among the rabble of black-haired men surrounding him, he was somehow blacker, though the darkness of his face was nothing to the void in his eyes.

  Maelchon, king of the Orcades, had come to claim his prize.

  CHAPTER 39

  The Orcadian king said nothing at first, as those eyes seared their way from Rhiann’s splayed legs, laid bare by her rucked-up skirt, to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. Then he glanced at his men. ‘Did I not say,’ he growled, ‘that all of the young sluts should be spared for my inspection? So the red crests heed me – but not my own men?’

  The man named Kinoth gulped. ‘Lord,’ he whined, ‘we only saw her clearly just now, once the man was drawn out.’

  ‘You would do well to thank your gods for that,’ Maelchon hissed. Then he barked so abruptly that all the men jumped. ‘Join the others at the broch now, all of you, and raid what you will on the way!’

  ‘I can stay as your guard, lord,’ Kinoth ventured, sheathing his bloody sword.

  Maelchon twisted only his head on its thick, corded neck. Did I not say all of you?’ he roared. ‘Now!’

  Men who had jeered at poor Didius with contempt now scrambled away, like children before their enraged father. Only then, as their retreating backs faded from view, did fear for herself at last begin to penetrate Rhiann’s shock. Her eyes darted to the side, where the lip of the path fell away to the mire. Without further thought, she slipped out from under Didius and flung herself as far as she could, hoping to tumble down the slope below. But something clamped on her ankle, bringing her down with such an impact that she nearly lost consciousness again.

  ‘You’ve slipped my net before, but no more.’ Maelchon yanked her leg towards him, her knees scraping painfully over the stones. Before she could even curse him, he grasped her scrabbling arms and swung her over his shoulder as easily as if she were a sack of grain.

  Then all went dark and cold, and Rhiann realized with dizzy horror that they were climbing the inside stairs of the tower. ‘No,’ she moaned, her face pressed against Maelchon’s cloak, which stank of fish and seal-oil. ‘Eremon.’

  It was the wrong thing to say. Maelchon stiffened, then climbed faster, emerging on to the upper floor only to fling her sprawling along the mossy planks. ‘Eremon,’ he mocked, his chest heaving. ‘That tit-fed, mewling puppy! He won’t get his paws on you again – never again!’

  Rage seared its way past the pain in Rhiann’s head. ‘It is his sword that will send you to the Goddess, and you will find no comfort there, I swear!’

  ‘Goddess!’ Maelchon squatted next to her; a wave of rotten fish-breath slapped her in the face. ‘You’re nothing more than a whore, torturing me with the promise of your wet hole and the white legs that surround it.’

  Rhiann turned her face away from the vile words, her hands pushing her back on the slimy floor. Yet Maelchon hunched forward and took her face with one hand, twisting it to look up at him. The sun pouring over the broken stones flashed on his jet ring, blinding her. ‘I’ve waited five years to see this face below me, crying out for me, and you won’t turn it from me again! You will never scorn me again, you white bitch!’ And suddenly his wet tongue was plunging crudely into her mouth like a squirming eel.

  Rhiann raked her nails down his cheeks, and he caught both struggling hands in his own before flinging her away. She gagged, spitting saliva down her chin with deliberate, fierce disgust.

  In answer Maelchon grunted, and drawing back, carefully struck her across the jaw with the back of his hand, so she skittered over the floor. She came to rest against the wall, but it was some time before her vision cleared of the sparks, which at first stabbed her with a wild agony. She tasted blood, and then the pain began to fade into a heavy haze that threatened to descend and sweep all away.

  I don’t want to live, she’d said to Didius. Rhiann tried to shake off the haze and make herself remember who waited for her. Eremon will never rest if you harm me.’ Painfully, she hauled herself into a sitting position against the wall, fingers pressed to her bloody lip. ‘You’ll be hunted through Alba.’

  Maelchon snorted with amusement as he loomed over her, his hands on his thighs. ‘And what care I for that? Or did you not notice I have allies of my own? Soon your prince will be in no position to hunt me down, but skewered by a Roman spear, along with Calgacus and all the southerners who dared to scorn me!’ His fingers rolled and clenched the cloth of his trousers.

  Rhiann squinted up at him through the cramping pain in her temples. ‘You … you raid the Sacred Isle because you feel … scorned ?’ The last word came out as a disbelieving whisper.

  Maelchon smiled, something awakening in his eyes that was not rage, and not hate, but something far worse: a twisted, obsessive lust. ‘Oh no,’ he murmured, drawing his sword with a sibilant hiss. ‘This was all for you; to take you as I’ve wanted to all these years. Didn’t you know?’

  Me. I brought it to them. Me.

  The lurch of sickness darkened Rhiann’s vision then, and bore her down to the damp wood floor, sourness flooding her tongue. As if from afar, she felt the nudge of a toe that tipped her onto her back, and then the cold blade at her throat, deftly slicing through her dress, laying her skin bare to the chill breeze off the sea.

  Dimly, she sensed Maelchon kneeling over her, and felt a tugging at her waist. Her eyes drifted to one side to see her waist-pouch flung there, the herb-knife she had used only that morning falling free, tangled in stems and flowers. And all the time Maelchon’s rasping breath echoed around and through her, and she was back under the men who attacked her on the beach – the harsh pants the same, the stink of fish, the same, the black, coarse beard, the same, the thumbs digging into her flesh, all the same …

  Yet Maelchon wanted more from her than those men had. His hand shook as he struck her again. ‘Look at me, you goddess whore!’ he hissed furiously. ‘You will want me with those cateyes! You will use that tongue on me the way you use it on him!’ He wrenched Rhiann’s jaw around, and she saw the sweat standing out on his brow, the spittle running down his beard as he worked himself into a frenzy. Something nudged between her legs, but it was soft and flaccid against her flesh. ‘Witch!’ Maelchon’s
weight fell across her, extinguishing her breath, and then his hand was fumbling, trying to rouse himself. ‘Witch, you’ve cursed me!’ he sobbed hoarsely, his shoulders shuddering.

  Yet Rhiann had clawed her soul far away from this ugliness and terror now, far away from Didius’s unseeing eyes and the sword slicing Nerida in two. I don’t want any of it. I don’t want to feel any of it. Instead, her eyes came to rest once more on her waist-pouch, lying at the end of her outflung arm. The leaves spilling from it were gathered only that morning, the green juice on the blade was fresh that morning …

  Maelchon felt how limp she had gone, and grasped her by the arms, hauling her up. ‘Fight me, you bitch! Fight me!’

  Rhiann’s head lolled sideways, and he let her go with another curse, working harder at himself with his hand, hissing, Five years since they denied me your body. Why does blood not cleanse me? Their blood, yours, why? Why?’ He groaned. ‘Is it because revenge could never be as sweet as what lies inside you? Is that it, whore, is that what I need ?’

  Their blood … revenge … The meaning of the words sliced through Rhiann’s numbness, and every nerve-ending suddenly jerked awake as fire swept her muscles. Yet she kept herself perfectly still, for her helpless state was the only power she had left. Her dry lips moved, and toneless words emerged. ‘You sent the men to kill my family. Before.’

  The frenzied rubbing stopped, but she could not see Maelchon’s face until he leaned in close to her. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘And does this anger you? Do you hate me for it?’ Rhiann steeled herself as that thick tongue slid along her throat. ‘Does it make you want to hurt me?’

  Rhiann swallowed convulsively. ‘Did you know, king, that your men found their way between my thighs long before you? On that day, as it happens.’ It nearly killed her to speak the words, but she sensed Maelchon freeze and draw back.

  ‘Did they indeed? You were foolish to come and join that fight then, for it was a gift for your family alone. For refusing me your hand, aye, but more for the slap in my face!’

  Rhiann squeezed her eyes shut, desperate not to cry.

  ‘As this fight’, Maelchon whispered, a finger tracing her cheek, ‘was for you alone, because your stinking druid said the gods favoured me, because they wanted me here! Because you were here.’ A rough hand closed over one of her bare breasts. ‘A great many have laid here, no doubt, one after the other. But I will be the last, vixen. I will be the last.’

  A strangled gasp of desperate rage escaped Rhiann’s throat, and her eyes flickered open despite themselves. Gelert and him. For this, they killed Nerida and Setana.

  Her head was still turned away from him; she saw only her own white fingers, outstretched, and the knife-blade, dark with plant sap. And when Maelchon suddenly wrenched her thighs wider, and she felt a prodding hardness there, the feeling, stink and sound of him coalesced into a ball of white-hot fury Rhiann could no longer contain. It forced its way up from her very guts, burning as it exploded free, and her fingers closed over the knife and she thrust it blindly in the direction of Maelchon’s face, buried somewhere over her left shoulder. The blade sliced into her own fingers yet the tip sank home, for an unearthly scream split her eardrums as Maelchon rolled off her.

  Borne up by rage, Rhiann stumbled to her feet. Her legs shook violently as Maelchon writhed on his back, hands over his eyes, his trousers around his ankles. Yet when he wrenched himself to his knees, his face was awash with so much blood Rhiann could not see how she’d injured him. She leapt back from his clawing fingers. I should kill him. I must kill him! Yet Maelchon’s sword was trapped under his knees, and she could not risk going within range of those bloody, grasping hands.

  Slowly, Rhiann backed towards the stairs, her feet slipping on the mossy timbers, the shreds of her dress falling and tangling around her knees. Maelchon scrabbled forwards on all fours, screaming curses at her, and she kicked the scraps of linen free of her ankles and threw his stinking, discarded cloak around her bare shoulders. Then she stumbled down the staircase, nearly tripping over Didius’s body before plunging down the slope to the mire, insensible of where she was going.

  The upright movement brought a renewed surge of agony and, with the shock fuelling it, Rhiann had no room left for sense. Her dizzy steps wove brokenly one way and then the other. She was aware only of the choking smoke and the eerie silence. Vague shapes loomed out of the murk, forcing her to avoid them: the corner of a wall; an abandoned cart; an empty, discarded keg. Terrible shudders overcame her, and she wrapped the reeking folds of Maelchon’s cloak closer around her clammy, bare skin, warding away the waves of grief that reached through her shock.

  Not now. Now, she must keep moving. Anywhere but back. Anywhere.

  More smouldering houses surrounded her, the roofs falling in with great gushes of cinders and smoke. But no sounds came, no moans for help, nothing human at all, which was why the sudden hoarse shout behind her was so brutal to her ears. She glanced back over her shoulder, and through the rents in the smoke glimpsed the dark figures of men, running along the shore of the mire towards her from the direction of the burning broch.

  Rhiann’s dizziness and pain were pierced by a shaft of sheer terror then, and she found the strength to run, darting away like a maddened hare. Her feet bounded down sandy paths and over firm turf, dodging the crumbling huts, until finally the ground fell away to the dark rocks that lined the loch shore. Only one incoherent thought came to her – to fling herself beneath the waters and there escape it all.

  Blinded by smoke and tears, at first she didn’t understand what was falling all around her. Then she cried out and froze, her fist crushed to her mouth, as an arrow shrieked over her head. She braced herself for the impact, unable to take in what her eyes and ears were showing her – more whizzing arrows, yet none striking her.

  It was only then that Rhiann realized the arrows were not being shot at her, but over her shoulder at Maelchon’s men. Then a familiar face swam in her blurred vision, scampering over the patches of slippery weed to reach her, as the rest of his men raced past.

  ‘Lady!’ Nectan cried. ‘I am here; I am coming!’

  But Rhiann’s legs went out from under her, and she sank on to her back on the hard rocks, her hands clinging to the streamers of cold, wet weed. And the sun was still shining, shining down on her.

  CHAPTER 40

  It was still too early in the season to venture into the central spine of Alba’s mountains, but Eremon’s lingering glow of triumph did much to ward away the icy chill of the snow-crust caught in the high passes.

  He and Calgacus, Lorn and Conaire were this night sharing an unguarded fire with the other tribal commanders, crowded close beneath a rock overhang on the sheltered side of a ridge. A dead rowan at the edge of the path had been pulled over and set alight, and the line of flaming branches at the mouth of the shallow cave made it almost cosy, with the damp ground piled high with saddle hides and furs.

  After weeks of enforced silence near the Roman frontier, guarding every noise, the relief of feeling safe in this high eyrie more than made up for the freezing winds. That relief, along with a newly struck keg of ale, accounted for the volume of the jests, growing louder and bolder by the moment. Only Calgacus was silent, sharpening his meat-dagger with a stone, his long back against the sloping wall of the cave. Glancing over at him, Eremon poured another ale and stretched himself on the hides at the Caledonii king’s feet, one hand behind his head. After a while he ventured, ‘A problem shared is a lighter burden, my lord,’ and held out the cup.

  Calgacus smiled and took it, resting his dagger on his knee. ‘I am turning over the idea, prince, that I should move my people up into the hills until this is resolved one way or another.’

  ‘Abandon your dun?’ Slowly, Eremon wiped his chin dry of spilled ale.

  Calgacus sipped and shrugged unhappily. ‘We know Agricola has a war fleet, and he is well established on the Tay – I just saw that for myself. There are too many of them too close to me.�
� Eremon was silent with sympathy, yet Calgacus seemed to read it as disapproval. ‘Not that we have not struck a great blow, prince,’ he hastened to add, handing over the cup. ‘But my heart beats with a great foreboding, and I haven’t forgotten King Maelchon, either.’

  At mention of that name, Eremon’s fingers slid lower over the smooth bronze cup, tight with anger. ‘Make no mistake, I too am uneasy that your dun is caught between the Orcadian king and the Romans. Do you think we should launch an attack on him ourselves?’ Eremon held his breath for the answer, for his warrior self yearned desperately to confront Maelchon, even as his leader self knew it was presently out of the question.

  Calgacus shook his head. ‘The men required for such an attack would drain our resources here, and we will need all the warriors we have marshalled when the Romans seek their revenge.’

  ‘As they will.’

  ‘So we hope.’

  A burst of good-natured arguing rang out from behind them. Lorn was making some loud, fiery point, stabbing the air with one finger, as Garnat, the Taexali king, protested with equal vigour. Conaire hid a smile as he poked at the stew boiling in a skin strung between sticks over the fire.

  ‘We are hoping’, Calgacus murmured to Eremon, with a glance at them, ‘that Agricola will be drawn into the hills, even though that was his mistake last year, and he will know it. I confess I fret at wondering if he will take the bait again.’

  ‘He’ll have to,’ Eremon replied grimly, balancing the cup on his chest. ‘If we keep attacking, he cannot just sit there. He will have to come after us, and if we don’t meet him in battle he can only follow where we lead: into the mountains. Or better yet, see that this total conquest of his is unattainable, and leave Alba alone.’ Even as he said it, Eremon’s sinking heart told him he did not believe this would ever happen.

  ‘But prince,’ Calgacus pursed his lips, staring over Eremon’s shoulder into the burning branches, ‘this leads me back to my original thought. If Agricola has no army to attack, he will look further afield for targets to destroy. Targets like duns.’