When the blaze had died to embers, the women of Kham-El-Ard descended from the huts upon the heights and scooped up the ashes into bucket-shaped urns. They lugged them to the banks of Abona and tipped them into the swell, while chanting words to sooth any spirits angered by being cremated so far from their own ancestral land.
Fynavir came down from the long house to oversee the women’s death-rites for the strangers. A thick fox pelt hung round her shoulders but she was shivering nonetheless; she looked suddenly aged and frail, her whiteness no longer of virgin snow but scored bone. Blue shadows underscored her eyes and her lips were pale, bitten. An’kelet accompanied her, steadying her with his hand as she navigated the uneven ground in her thin moccasins. The Ar-moran prince stared into the distance, his face like a slab of carved marble, still unable to meet Ardhu’s eyes. Despite being the Gal’havad’s trainer in arms, he had not been asked to attend the youth’s manhood rites, and he knew Ardhu was angry with him for not joining the quest to the East. Angrier than he had ever been.
He knew too, that he deserved Ardhu’s wrath… and more.
“Lady, greet your son, the Prince Gal’havad.” Ardhu gestured to the youth at his shoulder. “He is now a Man of the Tribe.”
Fynavir glanced up at her husband, her smile sickly. “And so he is, and now the son that was my joy is gone from me and wedded to the tribe. Just see that he is not gone forever, my husband! If he returns not to Kham-El-Ard unharmed from your hateful questing, I swear by the spirits I will curse you.”
The gathered people gasped; they knew of Fynavir’s heritage, of how her mother Red Mevva, was said to be a goddess, and her strange daughter the same, born of the white chalk, the bones of the earth. A curse from her lips would surely be of terrible potency.
Ardhu’s eyes blackened with wrath… but it was Gal’havad who spoke, stepping between them, his arms outstretched: “Put this ill will to rest! I will not be fought over, and though I honour you both I will not be torn in two. If you cannot agree to have peace between you, I will hasten away, alone, to the Isle of Afallan or beyond. I shall not be punished for whatever anger lies between you, nor shall I be the cause of dissension in Kham-El-Ard.”
Ardhu’s face suddenly lightened and he hugged the slender youth. “Not only a Man this day, but a Wise man as well. My son, you are truly born of two worlds—the world of the warrior and the world of the priest. May this gift serve you well.”
Fynavir flushed, she realised her outburst had gone too far. Tears filled her eyes. “His ‘gift’ may serve him well...or be his doom. May the gods protect him! I leave you now, to go upon your way… but I expect to see my boy returned, unharmed, within the next three months of the Moon.”
She turned, her long white braid swinging, and marched back toward the hall of Kham-El-Ard, with An’kelet striding swiftly at her side, her protector, her rock against all storms.
Ardhu glanced at Gal’havad who was watching his mother’s departure with a solemn, sad face. “Do not let her words disturb you. Affrighted are the hearts of some women, and never forget that your mother birthed you in much pain and that the spirits nearly took you and her to the Deadlands that day and she fought them and won both her life and yours.”
“I will not forget her pain and sacrifice,” said Gal’havad. “But I must speak truthfully—I am glad to be free upon the road and see the world beyond Kham-El-Ard with my esteemed father and his noble warriors. But before I go… may I say goodbye to my friend, cousin Mordraed? As he is not yet accepted into your warband, he was not permitted to attend my manhood trials, but I would wish him farewell before we travel East.”
Ardhu frowned; a shiver of fear ran down his spine. He knew Gal’havad spent much time with Mordraed, and although keeping them apart would be problematic and bring difficult questions from both Gal’havad and others, he wished the two youths were not so close. Morigau was far away, living in a hovel in the lake valley under her younger sister Mhor-gan’s watchful eye, and he had barred her from entering Kham-El-Ard unbidden, but she was still the boy’s mother and her stamp was impressed upon his personality. He did not dare trust him.
“No,” he said firmly. “If he is not here now, you are not to run after him like some hound yapping at its master’s heels. You are a prince and a boy no longer. He is of royal blood, too, but he is below you, as the earth is below the Everlasting Sky. His house is discredited and ruined. Do you understand, Gal’havad?”
The red-haired youth bowed his head. “I do, father,” he whispered but there was a rebellious gleam in his eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
JOURNEY TO THE EAST
The company set off at daybreak, turning their horses’ heads toward the great Ridgeway track that crossed Prydn, a route of traders and merchants and warriors for a thousand years or more. Pelahan had been given a spare pony; he sat hunched upon it like a black crow, an incongruous figure amidst the bright, decorous figures of the King’s chosen men. Excited as a young puppy, Gal’havad kept spurring his mount on to faster pace and rushing on beyond the others, only to be called back to safety by Ardhu or Bohrs.
The band ascended the Ridgeway track near the Sanctuary, the thatched cult-house that guarded the main entrance to Suilven, Temple of the Eye, known by the tin-traders of old as The Crossroads of the World. Lines of standing stones snaked away from its lintelled doorway toward distant Suilven, where chalk banks towered over ditches that dropped down sixty feet toward the realm of the Underworld, creating a raised central platform that held three stone circles made of natural sarsen hauled from the nearby Downs. Gal’havad said wistfully that he would like to see these stone rings, so different from the familiar circle of Khor Ghor, and he stared with longing at a trickle of smoke coming from a fire in the heart of the Sanctuary, but Ardhu shook his head and frowned. “No, we have no time… you will go when there is peace in the land. All men will eventually see Suilven.”
The Stone Lord turned his horse upon the Ridgeway and touched his heels to its flanks, driving the beast down the rutted chalk road, past tumuli swamped with trees and lonely pilgrims and merchants heading to and from the Great Temple, who stared and gawked to see a gold-clad lord before them, carrying his weapons of might and war. He knew Gal’havad would need to visit Suilven sometime, but he shuddered at the very thought of taking his son to that place with its dark woman-magic and for him, dark memories... It was there, on the Harvest Feast of Bron Trogran, that he had been seduced by his half-sister, the bitter and venomous Morigau—and begot Mordraed upon her…
The Ridgeway wound East, toward the rising Sun and the accursed lands the travellers sought. It meandered through a flat, fertile valley, then rose gradually onto a high escarpment covered in deep yellow grass that tossed in the wind like a maiden’s hair. They stopped to give the animals a rest, staring down at the smoky hills beyond, before faring on with speed, passing along the summit of a line of gentle hills that undulated like a snake, almost resembling a spirit-path, but made by the hands of gods rather than men.
As the day died the sky grew blood red, clouds burning in a great conflagration, and the travellers came to a flat plateau, with only a few bare dead trees upon it, limned against the crimson glow of the sky. A hundred yards to the right of the well-worn track, a long barrow crouched like a waiting beast, its portal stones up thrust like a row of teeth. “Here we shall stop for the night,” said Ardhu. “The Ancestors will protect us.”
They rode over to the mound, long fallen out of use, the entrance to the small cist-chamber blocked by rubble as if someone had striven to either keep the dead spirits inside or to keep grave-robbers out—perhaps both. A façade of large flat-faced sarsens glowered into the gloom, the ones on either end of the façade taller and more pointed than the rest, giving it the appearances of fangs in an upended jaw. The body of the mound tailed back behind the heavy capstone of the penultimate chamber, its edges full of sharp, half-buried stones that had made their reappearance from the ground as the cairn shifted
in partial collapse, heavy with the weight of untold years.
“What is this place called?” Gal’havad tethered his horse to a bush that grew alongside the slumping mound. He stared hard at the blocked entrance, as if willing the packing to fall away and the spirits of the place to rise and greet him.
“The Hill of the Old People is one of its names.” Ardhu swung down from his horse. “It is one of the oldest of its kind, or so tales tell. The song-singers recite stories of how once there was an earlier wooden house of the dead below this stone house that lies before us. How chiefs battled over land and cattle at a camp nearby, and men, women and children were killed by arrow fire, with no mercy given. The survivors brought their bones here, when the birds on the high platforms had pecked their flesh and released their spirits, and a wooden death-hut, a new home to replace their ruined ones, was raised over them, and bowls and baskets placed beside them to be used in their next life. They lay here long, undisturbed… And then…” He wandered up to the sarsen façade, tracing the lichenous face with his fingers. “The Men of Metal came to Prydn after their long wanderings from the West, and a Smith, one of the first of his kind in all Prydn, set up his forge here, in the shadow of the great House of the Dead.”
“Was he not afraid?” Gal’havad joined his father beneath the glowering stones. “Surely he would know that to build a smithy here was disrespectful to the Old One’s spirits!”
“He may have been afraid… at first,” replied Ardhu, “for they were not his Ancestors buried in the mound and they may not have been happy. They may have pinched him in his sleep, and brought cold winds to chill him and blow out his fires. But they brought him no real harm. Maybe they too were intrigued by his magic… the magic of smelting copper! And when men in local villages saw the fire-metal he wrought, bright as Bhel’s eye, rings and axes and daggers—the villagers warmed to him and thought of him as a wizard as powerful as the village shaman. They brought him offerings here up at the Hill of the Old People, and said the gods had smiled on him, that he breathed Bhel’s fiery breath into his works. Eventually they persuaded him to come down to their village and join them there as their own smith—they gave him a fine girl for a wife, a big hut, and many furs and weapons. But in order that he never leave them and take his magic elsewhere… they broke his left knee with a stone axe. They lamed him and he never wandered further.”
Hwalchmai, who had joined his cousin and nephew, grinned and shook his head. “A fine story, kinsman. You would have made a fine Teller of Tales, Ardhu, had you not been destined to be King!”
Gal’havad glanced toward the dark passage between the flanking stones. He took a copper bangle from his wrist and placed it on the ground. “An offering to the Smith and to the Old Ones,” he said, “for letting us stay unharmed in this place.”
Ardhu patted the lad on the shoulder and began kindling a fire near the entrance of the tomb. The wind was rising, screeching through the spindly branches of the trees, making it difficult for the flame to catch. Shadows danced, flickering over the stony faces of the temple-tomb’s façade. In the distance a fox yipped, its voice high and eerie. The moon was a pallid crescent soaring through the swaying tangle of boughs, casting a strange bluish light over the ancient structure.
At length the fire caught and held, warming the chilled group of travellers. Ardhu laid a joint of dried beef on the mound’s capstone as an offering of his own and then gestured for Bohrs to share out food to the group. The companions ate in silence, except for Pelahan, who took his slab of meat and retreated to the farthest stone, where he gnawed on the joint like some kind of monstrous rat.
“Gods, he is an ill-favoured wight,” murmured Hwalchmai, watching him out of the corner of his eye. “I wish he had not come on this quest with us. He is not a fit companion for kings… or any living man! He looks half a corpse!”
Ardhu grunted. “He is a guide… he may be of use yet. And if not, we will be rid of him soon enough. I have no desire to tarry on the road any longer than necessary.”
Finishing his meal, Gal’havad got up and stretched his legs. He was intrigued by the strange man Pelahan, sitting with his back towards the others in his maggoty cloak. He approached him slowly, stopping a few feet away in case he was not welcome.
The hooded head swivelled round. “What do you stare at, King’s son?”
“You are welcome at our fire,” Gal’havad said bravely. “You need not sit outside.”
Pelahan pushed back his hood; Gal’havad blinked at the site of his scarred face, the disease that ate at his very skull. “Do you not fear me, boy? Your companions do, I wager, even if they claim not to. Even your noble father, for in me he sees everything that he fears, the ruin of all he has achieved.”
“I am not afraid,” said Gal’havad. “You are a man, if a man afflicted. You are not dead… I have spoken to the real dead, out in the fields of Khor Ghor.”
“You are a strange boy, different than the others.” Pelahan’s eyes were glittering specks against the livid mask of his face. “Maybe in you, a youth pure and innocent… and good… there is yet a chance. Even should your father fail, there may be one to take his place, one who can treat not only with men but with the spirits that surround us.”
“My father will not fail!” said Gal’havad, his voice suddenly sharp. He turned from Pelahan, no longer wishing to speak with him.
Abruptly Pelahan leapt from his perch and grabbed the boy’s arm. Gal’havad reached instinctively for a weapon, but Pelahan hissed like a striking serpent: “It is not me you need to fear, boy! Can you not hear the noise, feel the earth tremble? Horses are coming up the hill at speed!”
“Father!” Gal’havad raced back over to the fire as the warriors leaped up, daggers drawn, and stood back to back, facing the night and whatever hid in its depths.
“Horses? It cannot be horses!” snarled Per-Adur. “We are still the only tribe to ride the beasts for war… aren’t we?”
“Apparently not,” muttered Hwalchmai. “Look!”
Over the brow of the hill a party of riders appeared, waving brands as they galloped towards the barrow. They were dark-visaged, burly men, with long braids and long beards, and lattice tattooing over their eyes and on their muscled arms. The horses they rode were inferior to those of Ardhu’s warband, short-legged and shaggy, with ugly raw-boned heads and crazed rolling eyes, but they moved at great speed, their heavy hooves churning up turf and mud and spraying it into the air.
Shouting and roaring, the men—ten of them—galloped up and over the far end of the barrow. The red light of the torches cast surreal flickering shadows over their features, making them look even more ferocious. One who seemed to be a leader flung back his shaggy head and howled like a wolf, as he drove his mount along the high ridge of the barrow. As he reined to a halt on the capstone he flung his torch down and drew a massive war-hammer with a haft dipped in pitch. Its head was crude, primitive, made of some rough crimson stone, and must have been nigh on a foot in length from end to end. He brandished it crazily, drunkenly, while his men whooped and cheered.
Ardhu raised Caladvolc; the guttering torchlight glimmered on the honed edge of its blade. “You! Lay down your arms. Know you not who you harry? I am Ardhu Pendraec, the Terrible Head, Lord of the Khor Ghor and the West, and with me are members of my warband, famed throughout Prydn and beyond!”
The big man with the hammer sneered. “I know who you are! We’ve been following you since you left Suilven!”
Ardhu’s face whitened in rage. “And you dare to attack me, the overlord of these territories? You fool!”
“I never swore any oath to you, King of the West,” the man sneered. “An old man, put in your high place years ago by the flummery of a wizard! Acclaimed king only because you stole a blade from an Ancestor’s barrow! I, Khaw, challenge you for right of lordship… and for that pretty sword and gold lozenge you wear!”
Ardhu’s eyes glistened, dark and deadly. “I brought peace to this land before you wer
e spawned in whatever pit you come from. Do not break the Pendraec’s peace or you will not live to see another dawn.”
“Peace!” Khaw hawked upon the ground. “You have reduced us all to cowering women! Well, no more… it is the time for brave warriors to take what is able to be taken!”
He slammed his heels into his horse’s flanks and the beast plunged forward, eyes wild. Ardhu raised Caladvolc and leapt towards his adversary, seeking to drive his blade into the horse’s breast. Khaw, however, was too quick, and wrenched the beast’s head away, forcing it to spin around in a circle. Caladvolc whistled harmlessly through the cold night air.
“You’re not so quick any more, old man!” mocked Khaw. “Come, men, take down these braggarts from afar, these followers of womanish ways. It is no longer the time of the Farmer… it is a return to the age of the Warrior!”
Khaw’s men surged towards the small party. Their eyes were alight with bloodlust and excitement. Bohrs loosed a bellow, loud as the call of a wild boar, and launched himself at the attackers, swinging his fine bronze axe. He struck the lead pony’s knee, smashing it; screaming in pain, the animal went down on the mound, its legs thrashing and flailing, churning the ground to mud. Its weight struck against one of the stones supporting the capstone, and an awful groaning noise filled the air, stone shrieking against stone, grinding like the teeth of angry Ancestors. The support stone shifted, wrenched out of its bed, and suddenly part of the chamber collapsed with a roar. A gaping crater, a maw into the Unworld, opened in the side of the barrow and the pony and its rider tumbled in, both screaming in terror. The other riders yanked on their reins and tried to retreat as the top of the mound sagged, threatening to cave in completely. Khaw’s face purpled with rage and he waved his war-hammer again. “To me, you fools!” he yelled. “Don’t let this chance be ruined!”
Moon Lord: The Fall of King Arthur - The Ruin of Stonehenge Page 8
