Dark Age

by James Wilde

  ‘Wait! It’s only me!’ The boy Morirex cowered in front of her.

  ‘Never do that again, you little—’

  ‘Amarina,’ Catia cautioned. She ran forward and knelt before the Mouse, resting her hands on his shoulders. ‘Are the others alive?’

  Morirex nodded. ‘They sent me ahead to scout for you. Aelius and Apullius were organizing the search for everyone else.’

  Catia hugged him. ‘Take us to them. Make haste now.’

  In the dawning light they hurried through the trees. Morirex was following a trail of some kind, Amarina thought. The little ditch-rat was learning his scouting skills well from the Grim Wolves. Eventually the boy padded around the edge of a bog and leapt over the lip of a hollow. At the foot, the others waited.

  Catia pushed past her and skidded down the slope. ‘Where’s Lucanus? Where’s Weylyn?’ She eased her way through the war-band. ‘Aelius?’

  As if in answer, her brother rose up on the other side of the hollow with Apullius. He ran down and hugged his sister. ‘Thank the gods you’re still alive.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Catia breathed.

  Aelius sucked in a draught of air and steeled himself. ‘Lucanus and Weylyn … and Myrrdin … are nowhere to be found.’

  Choking back her feelings, Catia pushed her chin up. ‘You found no remains?’

  Aelius shook his head.

  ‘Then they could still be alive.’

  ‘The Grim Wolves haven’t given up the search. They’ll return to us with any news before noon.’ He beckoned Apullius to join them. ‘Tell them what you saw, lad.’

  ‘I was scouting the edge of the stone circle, as Aelius commanded,’ the boy responded. ‘Only a few barbarians remained, searching the bodies of the fallen for anything they could loot. After a while, they drifted away in the direction of the horn blasts.’ Amarina saw Apullius’ eyes widen as a troubling memory returned. ‘I felt eyes upon my back. When I looked, I saw someone standing at the treeline … white … white in the shadows.’ He swallowed. ‘One of the Attacotti. He started to come towards me. I ran.’

  Apullius bowed his head. Aelius laid his good hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘There’s no shame in that. Any man would have done the same.’

  ‘If the Attacotti have taken Lucanus and my son, we have to begin our search for them now,’ Catia declared.

  She looked around at the men there and saw that many eyes were cast down.

  ‘Lucanus would have given his life for you.’ Her voice was wintry.

  ‘The Attacotti are the best scouts. They don’t leave a trail worth following,’ someone muttered.

  Vindex pushed his way forward, his granite face softening a little. ‘You’re right: we’re afraid. Those barbarian bastards, aye, we’ll fight any number of them. But the Attacotti—’

  ‘You’ll do as I command.’ Aelius stepped in front of the bigger man, craning his neck up. His eyes were coals.

  ‘Heed his words.’ Amarina levelled an icy gaze at the reluctant war-band. ‘Catia is right. You owe Lucanus everything. Is this how you thank him?’ She moved to stand beside the brother and sister.

  After a moment, Vindex nodded his agreement. The other men followed.

  ‘We ask nothing of you that we are not prepared to do ourselves,’ Catia said. ‘We three will lead the way into any battle. If there is no trail, we’ll keep searching until we find my husband and son. And if they are dead, we won’t rest until every one of the Attacotti joins them.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Attacotti

  BIRDSONG. THE WARMTH of the spring sun. Lucanus’ eyelids fluttered open to a vision of budding leaves and patches of blue sky. Tenderly, he brushed the side of his head where the missile had struck him, then levered himself up on his elbows.

  He was in a camp in a clearing in the woods. Around thirty of the Attacotti were wandering around. His stomach knotted, but that was the least of his worries.

  Weylyn lay on the ground, not far from a fire where a pot bubbled. One of the Attacotti squatted nearby, scraping a whetstone along the edge of a curved knife.

  ‘Leave him,’ Lucanus croaked, ‘or I’ll kill you.’

  The white-crusted warrior didn’t look up. Instead, hands grabbed Lucanus, wrenched his arms back and bound his wrists behind him. He thrashed in rage and despair, then released an inchoate howl.

  A pair of sandalled feet walked towards him and he looked up at Myrrdin. ‘Tell them … take me. Not Weylyn.’

  The wood-priest squatted beside him, steadying himself on his staff. ‘Don’t anger them,’ he murmured. ‘We’re fortunate that we’re still alive.’

  ‘I don’t care about myself. Only Weylyn—’

  ‘You have no power here. They won’t listen to you, or to me.’

  Lucanus screwed his eyes shut, fighting that rising desperation. He heard Myrrdin slump beside him, and Weylyn begin to cry.

  ‘I’ve seen nothing like them before. Some say their home is in the west, or in the far north. No one knows for sure. Their tongue is unlike any other I’ve heard. In our schools, we’re taught what little we’ve learned about them down the years. They have their own gods, their own rites. They don’t trade with others, and, until now, have kept to themselves. What they truly want … who can tell?’

  Opening his eyes, Lucanus forced himself to look away from his vulnerable child, only for his skin to crawl.

  Bodies slumped on spikes around the perimeter of the camp: soldiers, armour splattered with blood; forest folk; even some that were clearly Picts, the Attacotti’s so-called allies. Some bore the unmistakable marks of the knives of these Eaters of the Dead. All of them hung like deer for the feast.

  Sickened, he imagined his own remains there, and Myrrdin’s, and his son’s. Such thoughts would drive him mad, he realized. Myrrdin seemed to sense his torment, for he said in a calm voice, ‘Watch them.’

  Lucanus turned his attention back to the Attacotti. As they wandered about the camp, they seemed lost to a dream. Their thin frames drifted around the fire, eyes focused on an inner horizon. They were lithe, fluid, almost gentle in their movements. If he had not seen their ferocity on the battlefield, or their relentlessness in the hunt, he would not have thought them capable of violence, let alone feasting on their victims.

  Every now and then they would stop and close their eyes, push back their heads, and stretch out their arms as if praising the sun.

  ‘They look as if they’re worshipping at a temple,’ he said.

  ‘This world is their temple. The sun and the sky, the trees and the streams and the rocks. I’ve heard your friend Mato say the same.’

  ‘The Attacotti are not like the Grim Wolves.’ Yet Lucanus found himself gripped by these strange people. In a way, he understood them. Never was he more at peace than when he was alone in the Wilds. ‘You said once that the Attacotti believe that the body of a man is nothing but clay. That the essence … the soul … is all.’

  ‘That is also one of the secret teachings of the wood-priests. The soul is eternal. When a man dies, it moves on, and is reborn.’

  The sun hung at its highest point. Together, the Attacotti lowered themselves to the ground and sat cross-legged. One of them bowed his head and made a strange keening sound. The noise was picked up by another, but lower, and by another, higher, until all of them were joined in the music. Lucanus blinked, surprised. The myriad seemingly discordant voices came together as one, in a song that lilted and soared, almost beautiful in its subtlety. He thought of a hawk soaring above a sun-drenched moor, a waterfall cascading down to a lonely pool.

  When he glanced over at Myrrdin, he saw that the wood-priest had turned his face to the sun, his own eyes closed. ‘My father’s hand, letting go,’ he murmured. ‘A kiss on my cheek from my mother.’ A tear trickled and Lucanus looked away, uncomfortable. ‘We were taught many things at our school,’ the druid continued. ‘The turn of the stars, the language of birds, the magic that hides in plant and tree. But there is one less
on that gives shape to who I am: that all under the heavens are joined, as one. That the weave of everything is only visible across the span of the years. A man’s life matters little. My life matters not at all. Only the part we play in shaping days yet to come. We sacrifice, and our souls move on, and through that we keep the light burning in the darkest of nights.’

  Lucanus sank into his words, into the song of the Attacotti. He could feel the ground shifting under his feet. He was changing, though he was not sure what he was becoming.

  The song ended without warning. The Attacotti returned to their business as if nothing had happened.

  Whick-whick-whick. The thrum of the knife being sharpened, and Weylyn, who had been silent during the singing, bawling out his hunger once more.

  Lucanus jerked back into the moment, and his despair rose again.

  After a while, the warrior laid the whetstone aside. Lucanus tried to push himself to his feet, but another of the Attacotti knocked him back down. Only when the warrior walked past Weylyn to one of the soldiers’ bodies hanging in the larder did he sag back with temporary relief. Others gathered, kneeling and bowing their heads. What seemed to be a murmured prayer rolled out in their strange, lilting tongue.

  ‘They honour the dead,’ Myrrdin said. ‘Their feast is not simply to fill their bellies, if at all. They choose only the worthy. And they believe they take on their fallen foe’s powers by consuming his flesh.’

  Sickened, Lucanus looked away when the knives were raised.

  ‘They will come for us next,’ he said. ‘Fresh meat.’

  ‘Then let us hope our meat will choke them.’

  Once their feast was done, the Attacotti grabbed sticks of charcoal stacked near the fire and smudged the black around their eyes and along their cheekbones. Their skull-like faces grew starker.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Preparing.’

  ‘For what?’

  Before he received an answer, the warrior who had been sharpening his knife plucked Weylyn from the ground.

  Lucanus jolted, crying out.

  The warrior stared once with those black, unblinking eyes, and then he bounded away from the camp into the trees. Weylyn’s squalling trailed behind.

  Lucanus jumped up. Hands grabbed him, but instead of throwing him back down their owner freed his bonds and thrust him forward with a blow between the shoulder blades. He ran.

  As branches tore at his face, he thought, They want to hunt. For the sport.

  He raced on, following his son’s cry, until finally he crashed out of the trees. Half blinded by the glare of the spring sun, he squinted down a long slope and across a lush landscape of grassland and fields, dotted with copses.

  His son’s wailing rang out nearby. Searching, he almost stumbled over Weylyn in a nest of flattened grass, with Lucanus’ sword and sheath lying beside him. The Wolf snatched up Caledfwlch and whirled, but the Attacotti warrior was nowhere to be seen.

  Myrrdin lurched up behind him.

  ‘What is this game?’ Lucanus snarled. He picked Weylyn up and crooked him in his left arm, never once taking his eyes off the treeline. When Myrrdin didn’t reply, he shook his head, baffled. ‘Tell me – what does this mean?’

  The wood-priest frowned, then the ghost of a smile flickered on his lips. Whatever notion had crossed his mind, Lucanus could see he was not prepared to reveal it.

  ‘Be thankful,’ the druid said. ‘We are free, and we live. That’s all that counts.’

  The tramp of feet echoed through the still afternoon. Lucanus peered down the slope to where a column of men was marching along a track. His men. His heart swelled when he saw Catia, Aelius and Amarina at the front, Bellicus, Mato and the rest behind them. A voice in his head whispered that this was too much of a coincidence, but he pushed aside all thought of the Attacotti and threw himself down the slope towards what he hoped were better times.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The Conversation

  THE STAR SHOT across the velvet sky. Corvus watched its passage through the high branches.

  ‘A portent, Pavo. The heavens are observing us.’ He looked at his friend, who was leaning against a lightning-shattered oak cleaning his nails with his knife.

  Pavo cocked an eyebrow. ‘And why do the gods care about the ways of men? Especially a filthy soldier like you.’

  ‘I’d wager they like their sport as much as anyone, and what entertainment we will have here. A performance for the ages. Blood and thunder. Witches and curses and treachery, and a great victory plucked from the jaws of defeat.’

  ‘When you put it like that, it sounds much better than a battlefield reeking of shit and piss, and a throat slit in a darkened room.’

  ‘It’s all in the telling, Pavo. All in the telling.’

  The fire danced away in the dark. Corvus weaved his way through the woods until he reached the edge of the camp. Severus was pacing around the perimeter, wringing his hands. No doubt he was regretting ever leaving the comforts of Rome. No going back now.

  The Hanged Man turned his head at its odd, twisted angle, and flames flickered in his eyes. ‘You spend too much time on your own.’

  Not on my own, Corvus thought with a furtive glance at Pavo. ‘That’s the only way I can hear my thoughts.’

  Severus grunted. ‘This is not how I imagined it would be when you told me how you alone could save the worship of Mithras from the guile of the Christians.’

  Corvus fluttered a hand. ‘Let’s look on the bright side for now, Father. You’re no longer a captive of barbarians threatening to hang you from the nearest oak. Again.’

  Hecate flashed him a smile as she swayed around the fire, rocking his son to sleep in her arms.

  ‘How is he?’ he asked.

  ‘Growing fast. He has a hunger, like his father.’ Her lips flickered, a hint of flirtation. ‘And he sleeps well. But he needs a name, my love.’

  ‘Names are difficult things. The right one, or the wrong one, can shape the course of a life, in time.’

  Hecate nodded. ‘Names are like spells.’

  ‘Or curses.’

  Gaia was swathed in a blanket, still lying on the bier and refusing to walk. She pursed her lips in sullen disapproval at her surroundings. Hecate leaned down to hand back the baby.

  ‘Take that thing away from me,’ she snapped.

  Corvus glanced down at her. ‘Maternal as ever, Mother.’

  ‘When will we be done with this endless traipsing through this cold, wet land?’

  ‘Soon you’ll be surrounded by all the riches you ever dreamed of.’

  Gaia reached out a slender hand. ‘My beautiful boy,’ she breathed. ‘I would do anything for you.’

  Corvus brushed her fingertips and moved away. He had trodden a long hard road since the death of his father, but a family like this was a reward in itself.

  Pavo was waiting by the well-worn track. A nod was all the communication that was needed and together they strode through the trees to where Bucco squatted with his dripping knife.

  ‘You’ve more than earned your place here, little man,’ Corvus said as he stepped into the clearing.

  Bucco jumped to his feet and bowed, sweeping out an arm. ‘I lack much in stature, yes.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘But my worth lies in my wits.’

  ‘You’ve almost made me forget your past treacheries.’ Corvus’ smile turned to a blade and Bucco’s face fell.

  The wood-priest hung between two ash trees, his arms pulled back by the ropes, his head sagging on to his chest. His grey-streaked hair revealed the years over which he had amassed his wisdom. A good find, certainly. The northern tribes seemed to value these gizzard-sifters and prophecy-spouters, even though they played one off against the other.

  ‘Apologies, I don’t recall your name.’ Corvus shrugged. ‘If I were to be honest, I don’t really care. Still, we’re civilized men and we shouldn’t let such things stand between us.’

  The druid lifted his head. Corvus wa
tched those rheumy eyes staring at him from under heavy brows and he nodded, pleased.

  ‘Good, good. I have a question … I have many questions, of course … but now I’m worried about my poor son. I can’t keep calling it it. There are family traditions, but really, this is a fresh start, isn’t it? Something that looks to days yet to come, not times past, would be fitting. What do you say?’

  The wood-priest worked his dry mouth, trying to find the words. After a moment, he said, ‘You must choose a name laden with power.’

  ‘Power, yes. I like that.’

  ‘Call the child Arthur.’

  ‘Why that?’ Corvus smiled. He knew the answer well enough, but it was always good to hear it.

  ‘Arthur … the bear. The protector. The brave, the strong, the leader. This …’ He coughed and spat a bloody mouthful. ‘This will mean something to those who hear it. The Bear-King is coming. The Bear-King … is here.’

  Corvus closed his eyes and weighed the name. Yes, he liked it. ‘Arthur,’ he said, testing it on his tongue.

  Pavo was pacing around the clearing, listening to their chat. Corvus looked past him to the fires flickering on the edge of the wood, where his army waited. Picts, all of them, the fiercest warriors in all of Britannia, so he’d been told. Once they were enemies of the empire. Now they were mercenaries, easily bought by the promise of gold and booty. And, of course, the promise of vengeance. Once they’d heard how Lucanus had slaughtered their king Arrist, who had brought them so much glory, they were easily persuaded.

  ‘Now,’ Corvus said, sitting cross-legged in front of the druid, ‘let us have a conversation.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Whispers

  THE GREEN LAND fell away into the misty west. Lucanus and Catia stood on the ridge, hand in hand, framed against the vast sky, Weylyn resting in the crook of his mother’s arm.

  Mato stared at that sight and felt a bloom of hope.

  Bellicus, Solinus and Comitinus were scouting ahead, but so far they’d found no sign of the horde. Everyone they encountered said the barbarians had set off for the north, no doubt returning to their cold home.