Amhar cast down his eyes and sighed. Ever since Mordraed and his brothers had arrived at Kham-El-Ard he had felt restive and unsettled for the first time. He had begun to desire to be like others of his age, and take his place amongst the tribe, his father bestowing him with his first dagger and axe. He was a king’s son, yet as a child he had fewer rights than the lowest of Ardhu’s men. If he died on the morrow he would not even have his own barrow; he would be cremated by Abona and his burnt bones placed into an urn, which would then be inserted into the side of one of the kingly mounds that dotted Moy Mor, Great Plain.
Mordraed forced a smile; his eyes were like hard darts, belying the smile, but the other youth did not notice. “Look… I see that you are sorrowful. I would not have that so, cousin…” He leaned over, whispering in his ear: “If I promise to give you a lesson in arms, will you do something for me in return?”
Amhar nodded. “What do you wish? If it is within my power, I will give it to you.”
“Take me to Khor Ghor, the great temple that lies so near to Kham-El-Ard and yet seems so far from us, like a place within a dream. Four months have I dwelt in the Lord Ardhu’s camp, and never seen one of its famous stones! I have heard so much of its grandeur, I want to see it and worship my Ancestors, but I am deemed unworthy by uncle…”
“It is not that…” Amhar interrupted. He looked unhappy, troubled. “No one goes to Khor Ghor, unless the day is right. At the feast days the Merlin and the priests of Deroweth make offering there, and when the Moon goes dark and when the Moon falls still. At high summer when the cuckoo calls and at midwinter when Bhel Sunface dies on the great Altar then not only do the priests go to the Stones, but ordinary men too—to marvel and to worship. But at all other times only the warrior-priests who guard the sanctuary and the ghosts of the Ancestors dwell within its mighty arches.”
“But you have been there, have you not?” Mordraed pried. He had heard rumours of the boy’s reputation for dwelling half within the realm of Otherness, of how he ran over the Great Plain without fear of the Unseelie, even to the great pale stripe of the Spirit-Path with its slumped chalk banks and crumbling barrow terminal marking the lands of Life and Death.
Amhar shuffled his feet uneasily. “Yes… but…”
“Then surely you can show me, cousin.” Mordraed’s strong hand fell on Amhar’s arm. “We will be quick in what we do and not linger, and if any trouble comes of it, I promise that I, as a Man of the Tribe, shall take the blame, not you.”
Mordraed stepped out of the river, shaking water from his hair, and wiped himself dry with a handful of leaves before donning his dark woollen tunic. He felt in his belt for his dagger as, with the young prince at his side, they followed the banks of the winding river toward the sacred stone circle on the Great Plain.
*****
They came to Khor Ghor by the paths that crossed the great Barrowdown of the Kings, near the burial places of the earliest rulers of the Great Trilithon and the West, priest-kings and Tin-Lords of a bygone time when even the mossy and weather-lashed stones were fresh and new. On Feast-days and solstices the Sacred Avenue was used, running up from the Old Henge by Abona to the enormous mounds of the Seven Kings and away through the valley toward the monument, but Amhar had counselled against using such an obvious route, despite the fact its parallel banks offered protection from the malignant supernatural forces that might wander through those Deadlands. It would be too open to the eyes of the warrior-priests who prowled the area, bows in hand, watching for any who dared to break the sanctity of the monument.
Mordraed did not mind walking without the protective banks. Other things he feared more than dead men, or so he thought—the dishonour of never regaining his promised birthright as a chief over men, and earning Morigau’s displeasure, of having her behind him like a whip, striking him with her tongue and maybe even with weapons if he did not fulfil her desires. He grimaced as he thought of her. After Ardhu had first accepted him and his brothers into Kham-El-Ard, he had fully expected that Morigau would be sent into exile, with a death-ban on her. But Ardhu Pendraec was too clever to allow that. He wanted to keep her in his sights. However, he would not allow her to reside in Kham-El-Ard walls, so he had ordered her instead to live in the valley, near the House of the Ladies of the Lake, where his other sister, Mhor-gan of the Korrig-han, and the priestess Nin-Aeifa could watch over her activities.
Mordraed had seen her sometimes, on the hillside, dark-hooded, sometimes feathered like the scald-crow, watching him with her hot, deep eyes. He knew what she wanted, knew what she expected him to do. And he would do it… by the Ancestors he would take what was his! And yet… he glanced at the red-haired youth beside him, guileless, his face innocent, almost like an idiot’s, though Mordraed was well aware Amhar was no idiot. He was like Mordraed’s youngest brothers, still deemed a child by the reckoning of the people. It was dishonourable to slay a child, and warriors might not follow a ruler they thought dishonourable…
He made a frustrated noise and gripped the hilt of his dagger till its pommel bit into his palm. Amhar glanced over at him. “Are you all right, cousin Mordraed? We do not have to continue if you have changed your mind.”
“I have not changed my mind.” Mordraed stared away into the red-gold light of late afternoon, unable to look his kinsman in the face, fearful that Amhar might read the truth in his own eyes.
Mother will be proud of me… he thought, fingering his blade. Why he should care? He did not know but he did… and he cared for Mordraed, and the status of the bloodline he shared with many kings, as much as he cared for Morigau’s wishes.
Up ahead he saw the great cluster of barrows on the South-Western side of the Stones strung out along the skyline. Mist was curling up from the cup of the valley as the Sun slipped down towards His rest and a chill crept into the air. The sky was streaked with fire and birds of prey soared shrieking overhead, seeking for mice and other prey amidst the clustered tumuli, their white chalk summits glowing golden as the long-buried grave-goods interred within.
Despite himself, his heart began to thud. He glanced sideways at Amhar, but the boy seemed totally devoid of fear; indeed, he seemed almost enraptured by the sight of the stones. He strode on ahead unaware of Mordraed’s slowing footfall, his long slender legs parting the waving grasses. His gaze was firmly fixed ahead. “The priests, they go to meet the night guards up by the King barrows,” he said. “We should have time… just a little time.”
The two youths passed the last royal mound with its overgrown ditch and berm, and soon came upon the bank that ringed Khor Ghor, Tomb of Hopes, Throne of Kings… and Ardhu Pendraec’s round circle where he gathered his men in the presence of the Ancestors to hold counsel for the good of Prydn. Across the white barricade of the ditch—not high enough to hold out beasts or men but instead holding in the powerful entities of air and sky and grave-mound—the grey Stones of Khor Ghor glimmered in the dusk, magic sentinels that coloured with the dwindling light, now greenish, now rose-pink, now warm gold, the hues of the Sun, or nature, of Time itself. Crows chattered and squabbled, soaring in and out of the trilithons, those great mouths that yawned into the gloom like the mouths of long barrows… inhaling the cold mist of the Plain, exhaling ghosts into the growing dusk.
Mordraed paused, sudden waves of cold fear passing over him. What he had meant to do here suddenly seemed too great a thing. No matter what Morigau expected, no matter what he desired for himself…
“Come on, cousin…” Amhar was beckoning him forward. “If you are still up for it! We haven’t much time!”
The slight challenge in the boy’s voice hardened Mordraed’s resolve. “I will see this place,” he said tightly and he stepped across the ditch and ran toward the heart of the sanctuary, Amhar at his heels.
Inside the Stones night was gathering. Mordraed stood in the centre of the circle, staring up, awed despite his efforts to feel nothing but contempt for this structure used by his father and his mentor, the Merlin, that ax
e-face old man whose voice was as harsh as the caws of the crows overhead. The five trilithons of the great crescent, each one representing a Cantrev of the West, huddled in on him, looming like unhappy giants; he felt suddenly smothered, realising for the first time how small and cramped it was inside Khor Ghor, despite the enormous size of the sarsen stones. The smaller bluestones crowded in even closer, eight times a man’s set of ten fingers, looking like an army of people in the eerie twilight, frowning watchers, Ancestors of old sleeping in stone—for now.
“Can you feel them, cousin?” Amhar’s voice was a respectful whisper. “The Old Ones? They are all around us. This circle is the beginning and ending of all things…”
Breath hissed through Mordraed’s teeth. He wanted an ending here above all. His hand clutched his dagger hilt, slimy with cold sweat. He half pulled it from its deerskin sheath, careful to make no sound; but it was as if something, someone pulled on his arm, forcing his fingers to slide away… The Old Ones know what my mother wants me to do here! he thought wildly. They try to stop me!
Primal terror flooded him, despite his earlier confidence that no spirit would bring him fear. He fought the panic but it grew worse; shivers coursed down his body and his teeth chattered. The thought of the unseen and undead from the Not-World all around him, oozing up from the ground, from the pits in the bank, from the ditch, from the very Stones themselves chilled him, revolted him... How he hated this place, its stillness, its silence, the awful weight of years that seemed to deaden the very air within the inner sanctum. If ever he should become the king his mother dreamed of, he would slight this frowning, almost accusing monument… by the Moon Mother he would throw these Stones down and build anew, and drive these skulking, hated Ancestors away!
“Mordraed, are you all right?” He was shaken back to reality by Amhar. The lad was standing near him, his hair a dull dim red like the faded sunset. Hair the hue of old blood.
Mordraed shook his head to clear it, to sweep away images of dead faces, of eyeholes black with reproach. He had a duty; he must do what he knew to be right… for Morigau, and for his own future. “Cousin, this temple amazes me. Before we leave, come closer and show me the features that I must gaze upon and worship. I know little of what is here, being but a rude man of the North.”
Amhar approached, trusting. He was mere inches away from Mordraed. He gestured up at the immense trilithons, naming each in turn. “That is Throne of Kings… where the true chief must swear to the Land upon the Sacred Sword-in-the-Stone. That is the Arch of the Eastern Sky, and that the House of the North Wind… and the one in the far West is dedicated to the Guardian, who protects our dead Ancestors. The tallest, Mordraed, is the Door into Winter, Portal-of-Ghosts, where Lord Bhel gives himself up above the Altar.”
“What a noble sacrifice he makes each year…” Mordraed’s voice was a low, dry hiss, vaguely tremulous. And so too will you… but only once… He put what he hoped was a brotherly arm around Amhar’s shoulders, suddenly drawing him close against him. So close and tight he could not break free.
Amhar looked surprised and slightly confused.
Mordraed’s knife, unseen in the gloom, slipped out of its sheath…
At that moment the blaring of a horn was borne into the ancient circle, carried on the rising breeze. Its sound bounced around the megalithic rings, dull and ominous and eerie. “That horn!” Amhar cried “Do you hear it?” He jerked free of Mordraed’s slackening grip and ran to the edge of the Stones.
Mordraed stood panting in the centre of the place he hated, his plan in tatters and the enormity of what he had nearly done, what he had failed to do, washing over him like a dark, sucking tide.
A second later the fateful horn blared again, louder this time and clearer. Amhar turned to Mordraed, his face guileless; obviously he did not realise how close to the Ancestors he had come. “Did you hear the horn, Mordraed? We must go with haste! That is a summons to all men of Kham-El-Ard. Something of great import has happened at my father’s dun!”
Without another glance at his kinsman, he dashed out into the twilight, leaping over the ditch and away across the mist-bound rises and burial mounds. Mordraed stood alone for a moment inside the Stones, still shocked by the turn of events. The pillars of the ring seemed even darker now, almost angry; he imagined glowering faces, spiteful eyes, in their sides. This place meant him ill; he sensed it with every fibre of his being. Slamming his dagger home into its sheath, he ran like the wind after the cousin he had nearly killed, and the rising breeze snickered mockingly in the gaunt dark archways behind him.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CART OF THE DEAD
The cart stood within the central enclosure at Kham-El-Ard, a hefty wooden wain with great round disc-wheels of solid oak. A dispirited pair of oxen was bound to it, their flanks grey and mud-splattered and ribs thrusting through shrivelled skin.
They looked half-dead, flies gathering round their slitted eyes, buzzing noisily as they feasted on oozing encrustations. But they did not look as foul as the man perched in the back, hunched and hooded, the gaunt shell of his body furled in a ragged skin that had patches gnawed out of it and sent out a reek of rotten flesh. Maggots fell from its folds, dripping down onto the burden borne by the strange cart… and that burden was most dreadful of all, worse than the staggering oxen or the emaciated carter.
The wain was filled with the dead… unbarrowed and unprepared for their journey into the Otherworld. Bundled together like piles of mouldering sticks, they sprawled on the bottom of the cart, legs tangled with arms, ribs mixed with fingerbones, skulls and pelvises rolling and rattling as the oxen stamped in their traces.
Around the cart the women of Kham-El-Ard began to keen, throwing their shawls over their faces to hide their eyes from such a hideous sight, which might blight their wombs to barrenness or mark the unborn with abnormalities. The warriors of Ardhu cried out in anger, and blades were raised and axes hefted; starting a war-chant, they circled the ominous carter with his burden of the dead, all the while blowing on the great bronze-bound horns that would summon all men to Kham-El-Ard in time of strife.
Leaving the comforts of his Hall at the first blasts of the horn, Ardhu Pendraec hurried toward the gate of the dun, where he could see people milling and hear the lamentations of the fearful women. An’kelet strode at his side, clutching his great barbed spear, the Balugaisa. The extended spines that could easily rip a man’s guts from his body glinted wickedly in the light of the torches that had sprung into life all over the great fort on the crooked hill.
Ardhu felt uneasy. Years had passed without incident of note; he had fought off the odd sea-raider, trounced pugnacious chiefs who had challenged his authority, and had sat in judgement on disputes over stolen land, cattle and women, and meted out punishment for murder or blood-feud. Yet this one wraith-like man, in his unwholesome cart of death, filled him with more trepidation than a hundred bellowing, boasting warriors with sharpened axes, and he was not sure why.
Perhaps it was because he had dreamed so ill these many months, turning in restless sleep—dreamed of plague and famine, of Moons that ran red with blood and a Sun that failed. Of crops that stagnated in fields dry as dust, and rivers that shrank to leave foetid, muddy holes. He had even seen, in darkest nightmare, a circle like Khor Ghor, but not made of stones—it was wrought of human bones, a cage of ribs, a trap of death, with leg-bones for lintels, and skulls perched grinning above the entrance…
“Who are you and why do you come unbidden to Kham-El-Ard, bringing the naked dead with you?” he asked sternly, coming to a halt before the wretched cart. He had dressed in his old bearskin cloak, the preserved head moth-eaten and bare after many years of use, and he carried in his hand the sceptre Rhon-gom, so that this unwholesome stranger might know who it was he dealt with.
The creature in the cart moved forward jerkily, motions resembling a spider dangling on a thread. “I am called Pelahan, and I hail from the East, O High King of Prydn,” he rasped. “From
the realm of the Maimed King, An-fortas, I come to beg for aid, for our land is dying—men call it the Wasteland and do not cross its borders. Crops fail, beasts die, and men starve. An-fortas himself was once a mighty and just chief and our realm a fair and fertile garden, but he has taken a wound that has crippled him so that he can be no true king and so the land fails and all in it.”
Standing at Ardhu’s shoulder, An’kelet shifted uneasily. “My friend, I beg you not listen to this ill-starred one. As tragic as his plight might be, what have we to do with those far lands and the sickness that assails it? What help could we give? We are warriors, not magic men.”
Ardhu sighed and his fingers caressed the fossil head of Rhon-gom. “It is true… but men call me the King of all kings in Prydn. The protector. What would they call me if I refused to go? I have never baulked from settling disputes or putting down rebels when needed.”
“But this is different,” An’kelet insisted. “No one has ever come to Kham-El-Ard bearing such a grim burden, and looking half of the Otherworld… yet begging for our aid.”
The one called Pelahan cocked his head on one side and thrust back his voluminous hood, revealing a skull-like visage—his nose was gone, devoured by some flesh-eating disease, leaving only a jutting nub; and half his grey cheek had collapsed into his mouth, showing a row of bright white teeth through ragged flesh. The village women shied away, and their terrified wailing, which had dwindled when Ardhu appeared, started up in earnest. “If you do not come, the pestilence will spread,” said Pelahan. “From one Cantrev to the other. Have you not noticed changes already, Chief Ardhu? A longer winter, darker nights, summers where the rains fall and the sun seldom shines? Have you not had rivers break their banks and wash villages away, and crops and children that have not thrived? Have your cows not calved dead things and the sows eaten their own sickly farrow? Tell me true that you have not seen these things!”
Moon Lord: The Fall of King Arthur - The Ruin of Stonehenge Page 5
