Dark Age

by James Wilde

  Hecate spun on her heel and walked away, her glare daring the wood-priests to stop her.

  Lucanus stared at Corvus twitching on the grass. Justice, yes. Yet he still felt as if he was frozen in the coldest winter. All of it, the lies, the games, the jostling for power, the lives ruined, the lives lost, all for this moment. All of it, meaning nothing.

  He stiffened at the whisper of a footstep, too quiet for anyone who was not a Grim Wolf to hear. When he glanced round, the Picts who had accompanied Corvus lay in growing pools. Shadows moved in the dark beyond the light from the torches.

  From out of the night they stepped, drenched in blood like terrible revenants from the grave. Catia, showing a cold face. Amarina, emerald eyes flickering with fire. Bellicus, crimson dripping from his beard. Solinus and Comitinus, swords still glistening. Then Mato, Aelius, Apullius, Morirex and the rest of his war-band, their graven features revealing men who had looked deep into the face of death and survived. Myrrdin walked behind them.

  Lucanus looked from one to the other and felt the light come back into his heart.

  Aelius stepped forward. He eyed the fallen Corvus and the rows of wood-priests. ‘What would you have us do?’

  Lucanus stared into his loyal general’s eyes, but he was only seeing into his own heart. The wood-priests had reforged him. He was no longer the innocent who had run with his pack in the Wilds. He had died in a cold Caledonian lake and been reborn. He had died once more, in his head, in Goibniu’s Smithy, and the wood-priests had taken his corpse and blown life into it, and in that moment had set him on a new road. And this night he had died one more time.

  Lucanus the Wolf was gone. Now …

  He was Cernunnos, who stands in the forest and howls. He was the Morrigan, the Phantom Queen of war and death. He was Set. He was Judas. He was Ahriman, the destroyer.

  Lucanus eyed the council of wood-priests, those cold, uncaring manipulators who had twisted all their lives, and he nodded. His voice echoed like pebbles falling on a frozen lake.

  ‘Kill them all.’

  As Myrrdin cried out in horror, Catia turned her back on the coming slaughter and thrust her way through the surge of blood-drenched men to where her mother crouched on the bier. Gaia’s mouth hung open, one hand flapping near it. Her eyes were fixed, no doubt still seeing in her mind that moment when her beloved son was cut down.

  ‘I should kill you now, you and the child,’ Catia said, clutching Weylyn to her breast. The wood-priests’ screams tore through the night, almost drowning her words.

  Gaia quivered. ‘Don’t hurt me. I have done nothing—’

  ‘Still your tongue. No good can come from letting a rival live, Amarina was right. These games will go on until all hands are soaked in blood, whether it be in our sons’ time, or their children’s time, or beyond. It will never end. But though I come from your blood, Mother, I am not you. The past will not shape me. I choose a better road.’ She looked to the tall man with the twisted neck and said, ‘Take her away from here. If I see her again, or her spawn, I will kill them both.’

  Catia turned back to the massacre. Amarina was standing over what looked like a bloody bundle of rags. Next to it was a spattered Phrygian cap. She leaned down and wiped her wet blade on the dwarf’s remains and said with a shrug, ‘Did you expect any less?’

  The screams swirled up into the night. In the confusion of the massacre, Corvus crawled away. The agony was driving spikes into his head, and he felt himself growing weaker by the moment.

  He would not let himself die there.

  Thrusting his raw wrist into the flames of a torch, he howled as his flesh seared. Once his vision had cleared, he saw that the blackened stump would bleed no more. That gave him a chance.

  The pain would not claim him, nor the blood loss. He had not come so far, beaten down so many obstacles, to give up easily. He thought of Ruga, his brother, dying at his feet with only one hand, and he sniggered. How the gods loved their games. How they must be laughing.

  Through a haze of moonlight and shadows, he staggered away from the stone circles. The moorland fell away from him, a bleak expanse of scrub and rock and hollows filled with night. As he descended, the tumult at his back faded and there was only the erratic pad of his feet and the whine of the wind across the high ground.

  Corvus felt a rush of euphoria that he had escaped. He’d been beaten back before, but there was always another opportunity.

  And then, in the corner of his vision, he glimpsed movement and he realized he was not alone. Figures raced across the windswept grassland, keeping pace with him. When the moonlight caught them they glowed white, and he felt a wave of terror. His thoughts flew back to that flight through the night-time forest when he had first arrived in Britannia, that moment when he had truly tasted fear for the first time in his life.

  The Attacotti drew near, herding him. Blindly, he ran until he felt his foot catch a hidden rock and he spun head over heel down an incline into one of the hidden hollows. At the bottom, he splashed into an icy liquid, thicker than water. One of the treacherous bogs that covered the moorland. He had seen them in the daylight, vast pools invisible beneath a covering of moss, but able to claim a life in moments.

  Corvus flailed, but that only made him sink more quickly. Somehow he clawed a handhold in the grass at the edge of the bog, just enough to stop him instantly getting dragged down to the depths, but not enough to allow him to haul himself back out, even if he had the strength.

  Footsteps padded closer and he looked up into a death-mask of dried white clay and charcoal eye sockets. The Attacotti lined the edge of the bog.

  ‘Stay back,’ he gasped. ‘You shall not eat me.’

  Knives glinted in the moonlight, and the Attacotti bent down, leaning in, whisking those blades closer to his flesh.

  Corvus felt a rush of panic that almost took his wits away. Should he let go and drown? Should he hold fast and be consumed? Madness, madness. How had it come to this?

  But then the Attacotti froze as one. He watched them sniff the air above him. A change seemed to come over them and they stared at him with those sable eyes.

  ‘Why do you torment me?’ he cried. ‘Be done with it.’

  One by one, the knives slipped away and the Attacotti stepped back. They turned together and he watched them trek back up the slope and disappear into the night.

  For a moment he felt his thoughts fly wildly, and then realization struck. He laughed, long and loud, until it ended in a choking cough.

  The Attacotti, those monstrous Eaters of the Dead, thought he was beneath them, so worthless they wouldn’t sully themselves with his flesh. They didn’t even steal the gold crown on his head.

  He laughed again and then began to cry. His fingers burned and he felt them begin to loosen.

  ‘This is a fine mess, Pavo,’ he said, snuffling back the tears. ‘But there is always a way out for men like us. Tell me what to do, Pavo. You always have the answers.’

  Only the wind moaned back.

  ‘Pavo?’ he called. ‘Pavo? Where are you?’

  His friend was always there. He’d never been alone, ever since he was a boy.

  ‘Pavo?’

  But there was no reply.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The Haunted Land

  THE WIND WHINED across the high land and in it Mato thought he could hear the voices of the dead. He shivered, despite himself. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t give in to superstition in this place, but the desolate mood had wormed its way into him as much as the others.

  Ahead, the last ruddy light of the day painted the lonely roundhouse on the scrubland.

  ‘Is this wise?’ Comitinus stuttered. ‘There could be daemons inside … curses … spells …’

  ‘Stop whining,’ Solinus rumbled. But Mato could see his eyes were darting and he had already drawn his sword.

  ‘We go in as we planned,’ Aelius stated, unsheathing his own blade. He waved it towards the roundhouse. ‘If there are enemie
s inside, we have to confront them. Running away like cowards will only result in our end.’

  Nothing moved in the landscape. No voices echoed. Deserted, it seemed. Or a house of the dead, as many there feared. Aelius strode towards that isolated structure. When no one followed, he stopped and looked back with such a withering gaze that the men shuffled forward as one.

  Mato understood their fears. Since they’d left the scene of the slaughter of the druids, moving down from the high country, they’d crossed more moorland before fording the great Tamar, a wide river that almost cut this place off from the mainland.

  What lay beyond was a sliver of land reaching out into the great blue ocean, blasted by salt winds, with the crashing of the waves never far away. Of Rome’s influence, there was little sign. A few villas dotted the rugged landscape, mainly along the trade routes from the harbours to the south. The folk they came across, the Dumnonii, lived much as they had before Britannia became part of the empire. At first they watched from a distance, suspicious of any strangers, as most would be in such an untouched place. But then the children came with offerings of honey cakes, and his men traded stories of the great war which had passed these people by.

  Yet haunted it was. Everywhere they looked they saw standing stones, witch-charms swinging in the low branches, wells decorated with spring flowers, and every one of them experienced lurid dreams that left them troubled for much of the next day.

  As they marched to the edge of another moor, one of the younger men swore his dead father came to him in the night and told him they were all doomed. His words turned the thoughts of all the war-band towards darkness, despite Aelius’ acid condemnation of such superstition.

  But then another warrior claimed to have seen one of the Dumnonii change shape into a beast in the forest. From then on, the reports of terrifying sights came thick and fast. Aelius was convinced the men had been gripped by a kind of madness, seeing faces in the bark of oaks and the lengthening shadows at dusk. But when the scouts found signs of night-time visitors in the trees on the edge of the camp, they had to accept that they were not alone.

  And then Crax, a red-headed warrior barely into manhood, had gone missing. Two of his fellows said they’d seen one of those shape-changing beasts carry him off.

  Mato frowned. It had been all Aelius could do to stop the entire war-band fleeing back to the Tamar. He and Lucanus had argued around the fire in that hour before dawn that they were only facing men, wild men of the moors, and it was only their own fears that transformed them into daemons. They reached a truce, but it was an uneasy one.

  As dawn broke, the scouts swept back into camp with news that they had followed the trail. To here.

  ‘I’ll go in alone if I have to. I’m not going to leave Crax to his fate.’ Without looking back to see if anyone was following him, Aelius marched towards the roundhouse. Mato strode behind, and he sensed that the other men followed, no doubt shamed by Aelius’ words. Catia’s brother was now completely transformed from the man he had been in Vercovicium. His courage was unmatched. Lucanus’ decision to make him a general had been proved right a hundred times over.

  When he’d crossed half the distance to the roundhouse, the door swung open. They all froze. Mato fixed his gaze on that dark space, and after a moment a man lurched out. It was Crax. He looked around, dazed, his pupils wide and black.

  Mato raced behind Aelius up to the open doorway, and Crax furrowed his brow as he stared at him. Recognition slowly lit his eyes.

  ‘You’re unharmed?’ Mato asked.

  Crax nodded.

  Aelius edged to the door. At the threshold, he peered into the dark and then stepped inside. ‘Empty,’ his voice floated back.

  Mutterings of relief rippled through the men, and then they found their bravery and hurried after their commander. Mato shoved Crax inside ahead of them.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  Crax shook his head, baffled. ‘The … the last thing I remember is being in the camp.’

  ‘They’ve given him a potion of some kind,’ Solinus grunted. ‘Look at his eyes.’

  ‘But who?’ Comitinus asked.

  Mato looked around the roundhouse. The hearth-stones had been kicked around, and the strewn ashes were old. Nothing else lay on the mud floor, no bed, no straw, no pots. No one had lived there for a long time.

  ‘Ghosts,’ someone muttered at his back.

  ‘Is that blood?’ another said, pointing to a dark stain on the ground.

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ Aelius snapped. He grabbed Crax. ‘You must remember who took you.’

  ‘Look.’ Solinus was pointing into the shadows above.

  Mato followed the line of his arm. A witch-charm of twigs and feathers and bones swung in the breeze.

  As the men backed away from the door, Mato heard a woman’s voice say, ‘Make way.’

  He turned to see Amarina and her new friend Hecate step across the threshold. After the witch’s vengeance against her husband there had been no place for her but with them.

  Aelius narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Amarina scanned the roundhouse, and when she saw the witch-charm her lips curled into a mysterious smile.

  ‘What are you not telling us, Amarina?’ Mato asked.

  ‘Only that the dark days are behind us.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘So let’s have no more talk of ghosts and daemons, shape-changers and monsters. We still have a way to go until I can find some comforts in my life again.’

  Her emerald cloak swirled behind her as she turned and stepped back out into the fading light. But Hecate continued to stare at the witch-charm, transfixed, and after a moment Mato watched a light rise in her features.

  In the camp, Lucanus hunched beside the fire. Catia nestled beside him, Weylyn asleep in her lap.

  ‘All is well,’ Mato said as he walked up.

  Lucanus nodded without looking up from the flames. Mato crouched beside his friend. He felt worried about the Wolf’s state of mind.

  ‘If you are still troubled by your decision to kill the druids—’

  ‘I’m not.’ Lucanus glanced at him, his eyes like steel. ‘There was no other choice, if we were to be safe.’

  ‘Still, that is a large burden for any man.’

  Catia fumbled a hand to give her husband’s thigh a squeeze. ‘It was the right thing. For Weylyn, for me, for all of us. And if there are any troubles, they’ll pass, as troubles always do.’

  Mato couldn’t argue with that, not with Catia, who had seen enough troubles in her short life.

  ‘Myrrdin will never forgive you,’ he said.

  ‘Myrrdin has no choice. If he wants to see the arrival of his King Who Will Not Die, he has to ally with us. If he chooses vengeance he’ll lose the thing the wood-priests have schemed for for year upon year.’

  Mato nodded, but he heard a wintry note in his friend’s voice that troubled him. They had all been changed, but Lucanus most of all.

  ‘I did what the Romans never could – broke the back of the druids,’ the Wolf continued. ‘There are some still out there, a scattered few. Those that can are hiding out among the Christians in their churches, so Myrrdin once said. In days to come, they may be an invisible hand interfering in our lives. But for now we are free.’ Lucanus’ face softened. ‘And you are free too, in another way. Free of obligation. You’ve fought long and hard, old friend. Go where you will. I’ll always value what you’ve done for me … for Catia.’

  ‘I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, you know that.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Yes. I serve you, the Pendragon. This story we’ve dreamed up will have a good ending. We’ll make sure of it.’

  Catia leaned forward and took his hand. ‘We couldn’t have asked for greater friendship.’

  ‘We’ll all be with you. Your circle. The Grim Wolves. Aelius.’

  ‘Aelius,’ Catia repeated. She looked into the dark with a dreamy expression. ‘So much suffering since the barbari
ans invaded, and yet I feel he has been saved. He walks a new road now.’

  At the mention of Aelius, Mato looked around and realised he’d not seen the general since they’d returned from the roundhouse. Leaving Lucanus and Catia to find some peace, he searched among the tents until Comitinus directed him to a path through the grass to a grove.

  As he neared the trees, he heard dim voices. Easing into the deep shadows, he glimpsed Myrrdin and Aelius facing each other in a pool of moonlight. Myrrdin rested his hands on the general’s shoulders. Aelius bowed his head, and the wood-priest leaned in to whisper something.

  Mato frowned. But before he could step forward to speak, the two men had melted away into the dark.

  The wolf prowled across the moorland in the dawn light. Mato watched it sweep through the waves of yellow-flowered gorse and the grass waving in the salty breeze, and as it drew near it rose up on two feet.

  Mato sighed, releasing the worry that had built inside him all night, and waved.

  The wolf waved back.

  Around him, cheers rang out from Lucanus, Bellicus, Solinus and Comitinus. They had been as fearful as he had, Mato knew. But the gods had smiled upon them all.

  Apullius bounded the last short distance to the group that had gathered at the agreed point. His grinning face was streaked with dried blood from the fresh wolf pelt that now hung from his head and down his back.

  Lucanus stepped forward and clapped his hands on the weary scout’s shoulders. ‘Brother. Grim Wolf. Welcome to the arcani.’

  ‘He was the oldest in the pack, but he still put up a good fight,’ Apullius said, showing the scratches on his forearm and a deeper tear along his temple. ‘At the end, when I looked in his eyes, I thought he knew that his time was done and he was ready for it.’

  Mato studied the dazed look in Apullius’ eyes. The experience was almost mystical, like communing with the gods; they all remembered that. Each one of them there was changed by it for ever.