The Iron Grail

by Robert Holdstock

  She was quite canny about the pike and its stickleback prey. But then again: were the Celts the small fish? Or did the stickleback reflect the intruders from Ghostland, tentatively making a footing in our world?

  I was sad for her about the loss of Atanta. There was no omen here, just a powerful friendship, now separated by a generation, imposed on Atanta on her return from the Otherworld. I could not find the words to tell Munda that her friend had both gone for ever, and yet was here for the rest of her life. As she grew older in a more natural way, Munda would find her own way to accept that reality.

  ‘How about you, Merlin?’ she asked suddenly, brightly. ‘What omens have you noticed?’

  I glanced back towards the valley, letting my face darken. ‘I saw a man, out of breath, leaping twenty times over a shield, backwards and forwards, then struggling to throw five spears in the time it takes to cry “Catch these!” and being mocked each time he failed. It was a dreadful omen.’

  Munda seemed alarmed. ‘What does the omen mean?’

  ‘It means your brother is learning to be a king,’ I replied, ‘and he has empowered a red-haired harridan to bring all fighting men and women up to scratch.’

  I was thinking that tomorrow would be a hard, hard day. The breathless man in my joke was me.

  ‘That’s not an omen,’ Munda laughed, meeting my discomfitted look with one of instant understanding and amusement. ‘That’s necessity.’

  ‘You’re right, of course. And by the way, you’re to train for the day too. Necessity knows no age.’

  ‘Nor should it. But young limbs have more spring to them.’

  She suddenly broke into a run, then somersaulted three times over fallen branches of trees, bounced high off grey rocks and stood on her hands, head tilted up, watching me. From this ungainly position she spoke to me in the manner of her father.

  ‘To be able to do this is useful. But to see clearly is the most useful thing of all. And your eyes do more than see, Merlin. So if Kymon asks too much of you when it comes to the feats, just refer him to me!’

  ‘Why, thank you. I’ll be sure to do that.’

  And you, if your Foresight develops, will do it too.

  She came down from the handstand, glanced quickly to where the woman had been standing, watching her, then turned and led us back to the valley.

  * * *

  Two mornings later, in the dark time before dawn, we were roused from sleep by the sharp note of a bull’s horn, sustained and eerie. It was joined by a second, then a third. The valley erupted into startled life, and torches flared. The horns continued to sound. Birds swirled, alarmed, in the darkness. The encampment moved in force to the deepest part of the stream.

  There were no sore heads, now; the ritual feast that usually preceded war had been forgone, though perhaps as much because of shortage of supplies as any notion of common sense. The various parties to this small foedor that would take Taurovinda again had made their own spirit preparations for the day ahead, each clan to their own hidden lord, each man and woman to the memory of their own ancestors. The final training in the necessary feats was complete—I had learned two of them, and was sore and bruised, though I could at least leap over a chariot, now, and catch a spear in mid-flight!

  Now they all lined up on the two sides of the stream, forty-two in all, thirty of them men and youths, and twelve women of dour and dark demean, all leaning on their tall, oval shields, some of which were newly made and undecorated. I stood among them, holding on to a hazel staff that had been cut for me by the Speaker for the Past as a gift. We sang and chanted until the first rays of the sun peeked over the woodland to the east.

  With that welcome glimmer of light, Cimmenos stepped towards the stream, lowered his shield on to the ground and washed its surface, brushing the icy water over the inlaid silver stag. He did this three times, then scooped a fourth handful of water and brushed it over his sword arm. Then Munremur washed his shield. The bronze image of the wolf sparkled for a moment, its eyes seeming to come alive. One by one, in silence, the foedori washed their shields and made their final, personal invocations for life either here or in the Land of the Shadows of Heroes after, and when this careful ritual had been completed they filed away, to armour themselves for the raid.

  There was not one among them who was not aware that, should they die, they would at once go to a land whose spirits, their own ancestors, were now their enemies.

  With Gorgodumnos lost, Cimmenos was now the leader of the raiding party, by virtue of his experience; he had fought twenty-four combats, stolen three hundred and eleven head of cattle, and shouted down seven champions without blood being drawn. He did not ask for the position of leader, but it was apparent that the High Women, the Thoughtful Woman Rianata in particular, had discussed the various merits of all the foedori and come to the only decision possible.

  Cimmenos was a wise enough man to know that Kymon needed to be at his right hand; he was pragmatic enough to know that a skilful warrior should be at his left, and he chose Caithach, the weapons trainer. In Greek Land, or in Illyria, such a decision would have been met with a vociferous challenge. To the great credit of these forlorn and abandoned Celts, they accepted Cimmenos’s decision without demur. Just as well; she was equal to any three of them.

  The shields had been washed; later, the battle-harness was displayed, then stacked into two carts. The war band moved slowly out of the valley, a two-day journey ahead of them to reach the evergroves and the Thunder Hill.

  * * *

  We were in the old land, and the places we passed were remembered in the language of the ancestors. We marched from the valley defiles through the Pass of the Forest Brothers, south of the Hill of the Beckoning Woman, where the High Women went twice in their lives to have their mind’s eyes opened. We followed a shallow river to the narrow Plain of Moon-shifting, where hares and hounds took human form once every nineteen years. And then through the valley known as the Rattle of the Chariot, where two champions had fought for eleven years without outcome, and died, still charging their ash-and-wicker-framed cars at each other. When we came to Nantosuelta, and had made a blood-offering to the river, we turned east again, and came to the evergroves at dusk.

  Here we spread out, rested the animals, rested ourselves, drank and bathed in the cool river. Then, during the night, the chariots were assembled, dressed and disguised with evergreen leaves and lashing yew-withies. Charioteers were selected, and it fell to me to be one of them. My training in the feat of chariot jumping had persuaded Cimmenos that I could master both the pair of horses and the sharp turns required of the profession.

  I was relieved when Drendas, a fine spearman, asked to ride in my car. He knew that he would be in the hands of an amateur. But all I had to do was get him to the point of any combat, drop him, retire and wait for his signal to gallop in and pick him up. An important function, he assured me. And please, he asked with a grin, could I be sure not to run along the pole when the chariot was in full charge!

  I gave him my assurance.

  I suspect the truth is nearer to the fact that they did not want me fighting, both for my lack of weapons skill and my potential value in other directions.

  After the allocation of chariots and positions, we prepared for battle.

  Cimmenos was the first to armour. He had taken the wolf-crest from his iron helmet and replaced it with the crest of heron feathers that was so typical of this part of Hyperborea.

  He had buckled on his heavy bull’s-hide war harness over the patterned linen shirt that would stop it rubbing through to his bones; four layers thick, this covered shoulder and chest, back and kidneys. It could be slashed twenty times with the ice-forged iron of the Northlanders before it would part completely.

  He had attached a bright bronze girdle to protect his midriff, a gullet shield of thin iron round his neck, and a soft, doe-skin kirtle over his blue-and-red-striped trousers. Grey goat-leather boots and pitch-blackened horse-bone greaves completed the armour. He f
lung his cloak around his shoulders and paraded in the Confident Manner as he yelled the exhortation to us either to win back the fort, or to make good conversation with our fathers and mothers in the Otherworld afterwards.

  He was bright and strong. Dawn-light gleamed on red hair and red moustache, and reflected off the five recurved points of his kaibulg, the heavy bowel-hooking stabbing spear.

  All totem crests had been removed from battle-helms and attached to standards: the tusked boars, the stags, the wolves, the falcons and hawks, the leaping salmon, the foxes, otters, owls and wish-hounds. There were more standards, it seemed to me, than men to carry them. All helmets were now crested with real or bronze feathers, a decoration that signified the readiness of the wearers to fly to their ancestors if they suffered one of the seven mortal blows.

  Kymon emerged in his child’s harness, the equal of Cimmenos’s but in softer leather, and with thin, cloth-backed iron shields at his waist and heart.

  Munda had armoured similarly, though she would not fight. This was a symbolic gesture only. Her small shield was inlaid in ochre with an image of Braega, the guardian of river crossings. Braega was also the warning spirit who whispered in a girl’s ear during the time she was becoming a woman, though quite what she warned about was a question I had never asked; and she was also the earth spirit to whom these Celts turned at times of transition or decision.

  Whether Munda’s choice of shield-guard was conscious or instinctive, it was certainly apt.

  Now Kymon went to the edge of Nantosuelta, with Speaker for Kings and Rianata, the Thoughtful Woman. He cried out his blood dirge with all the force of a grown man. Herons rose startled from the rushes. Birds flocked and wheeled above the drooping trees on the farther bank.

  ‘Dawn chariots racing from the river ford

  Sun on helmet

  Sun on spear

  Sun on sword

  Men scatter before the racing chariots

  Blood on the plain

  Blood on the rich tunics of the dead men

  Blood on the sword

  Heads cut, proud life, proud men hang from the belts of proud warriors

  Life goes to Earth

  Life goes to strength

  Life goes to the sword

  Red on the plain, blood on the green breast of Earth

  Blood on the high walls of the fort

  Heads hanging from the high walls

  The men of the stabbing game are here, strong as iron, keen as wind, bright as sun, swift as birth, sharp as claw!’

  The sun was high when we emerged in a line from the grove-wood’s edge, facing the tall-grassed Plain of MaegCatha, and the dark, rising slopes of Taurovinda.

  It was clear at once that the Shadows of Heroes had been here in greater force since our last tentative visit. The woodland edge was marked with the tall wooden effigies of men, grotesquely crude, legs braced apart, arms in various positions, each hand holding a blade or a club or a shield. All these blank-faced idols were turned towards the groves. They were saying: this far and no further.

  Black and yellow pennants blew in the strong breeze from the high ramparts, signifying the abundant presence of the Dead and Unborn occupying the fortress.

  And yet: once again, the main gates were open.

  Without hesitation, Kymon in the lead chariot—his charioteer was the bombastic Iala, known proudly as ‘the savager’—sped through the long grass, which was whipped by the flailing withies attached to the car’s sides. He cut a furrow through the field and positioned himself beyond slingshot range of that open main gate. We had formed into three small squads; Kymon’s eight foedori followed him and spread out in an arc. I took my chariot and squad to the north, Cethern drove his to the south. Our foedori trampled down the pasture, clearing a battle area. Nadcrantail, from Eriu, and Larene of the Parisii, used lengths of chain, slung between them as they galloped, to uproot the thorn and oak thicket that was springing up as the plain was reclaimed by the Scatterer of Forests, Iernos.

  We made a loud din, with voices and clashing weapons, and waited there in the cool day, watching the clouds carefully to make sure we would not be blinded by the sun should the sky clear suddenly. Cimmenos, on heavy horse with a retinue of six men, waited with calm aggression before the gate, challenging the Dead to come and fight.

  Kymon’s chariot wheeled up to mine. He had been racing the horses along a length of land on the plain, facing the eastern ramparts, a restless, angry action. The boy had made himself look fierce and let his long hair flow. ‘I hate this waiting! Give us eyes to see them, Merlin. If you can’t do that, tell us what you see.’

  I see it bleached; I see it bone …

  I shivered slightly at the memory of Munda’s words. The hill was silent, but that open gate was like the entrance to a trap. I sensed the snare, but when I summoned the hawk and flew into the sky, I saw only the empty road, the deserted enclosure, the ruined houses.

  The hawk wheeled. I didn’t want to lose my senses for too long, but in the last moment of its shadowy existence it saw—I saw—the rippling in the grass behind us.

  I shouted to Kymon and his spearman Iala, ‘To the rear!’ and wheeled the small car round to face the ambush, thirty tall men in rusting chain-link mail and tarnished helmets running at full speed through the waist-high grasses. I had seen armour like this in many lands, simple, old, heavy. These were Dead—once-great heroes, reduced to butchers. Their swords were simple, long and bright, and used with grim efficiency. They launched a sudden volley of light spears, which caught the whole rank of us off-guard. I saw several of our number thrown backwards. Kymon had urged his chariot forward, gripping the reins with one hand and stabbing furiously with his long spear with the other.

  I heard Kymon shouting, ‘Man against man! I will take the combat!’

  But single combat to decide this issue, now, was no more than a dream.

  Munremur was cut down as he charged on foot, then Iala, in Kymon’s chariot, was hurled from the car by a spear through his throat. The enemy host started to close on the boy, but Drendas leapt from my car, driving his shield and spear ahead of him as he went to Kymon’s defence. He was surrounded by the enemy and quickly felled and impaled, though I saw him crawl away through the grass, looking for safety. Kymon whipped the reins and turned the chariot, kicking gymnastically at a man who leapt into the car and tried to grab him. The man tumbled backwards; my own spear went into him as I turned my horses and went in pursuit of Urtha’s son.

  Kymon had gone into the long grass and turned, ready for the charge. His mouth frothed with fear and exhilaration. He had drawn his sword. The man called Larene, seeking to guard the king’s son, had leapt into the chariot, holding his fistful of thin javelins.

  Kymon hardly saw me, but when he caught my presence he shouted, ‘We can take them, Merlin.’

  ‘We cannot!’ I assured him. ‘The trap is baited; they are inside the hill as well, waiting for you. They will take you hostage.’

  ‘Hah!’ he screamed, not a laugh, an encouragement to his chariot horses. They bolted back to the fray. Larene performed the Feat of the Four Points, but it was a magnificent act that would end his life. I saw Kymon duck as a spray of blood coated him from eyes to waist, Larene losing his life along with his head as one of the enemy somersaulted across the chariot, cutting down in the same movement.

  I see it bleached. I see it bone.

  If Urtha should return alive, I would not have been able to look him in the eyes if bleached bone was what greeted him, his son’s among them. Kymon had forced his chariot through the hacking zone and was whipping the horses towards the Bull Gate.

  Almost at once, war-horses spilled from hiding behind the walls, flowing out on to the plain, their riders the same grey-cloaked knights who had previously pursued Kymon from his taunting stance before the high enclosure.

  I saw Cimmenos and Caithach ride quickly to his aid. I chased after the boy myself.

  But though a group of these horsemen encirc
led the raging youth, they kept at a distance; the rest of the knights formed a barrier between the general affray and the king’s son. Kymon charged and wheeled, striking with all his might, but the knights kept back, containing him.

  Their leader rode quickly up and down the line of men that separated the circle from the plain, his grey eyes fixed on me: he saw me clearly now. I was certain of it. I opened my ears a little and heard him whispering, ‘Go away from the hill. The boy belongs with us…’

  I recognised the voice. This was the man who had come into the fort in the rain—the man with Urtha’s look about him.

  By now my chariot was in full attack. A javelin struck its side, and an arrow pierced the neck of the slightly built horse who pulled on the left. If the animal was aware of its wound, it showed no sign of it. Kymon became aware of my approach. He shouted for me. Mailed men leapt at me. I used nothing but my arm to strike back at them.

  Caithach, Cethern, and four others of our foedor had withdrawn from the fight among the stunted trees, and lined up ready to support me. The tall man on his heavy horse galloped round to block my access to the whirling, screaming boy, a boy desperate to fight, one hand on the reins, the other wielding his sword.

  I thought briefly of summoning the wolf. I was no charioteer. A wolf could have leapt the ranks, grabbed Kymon and taken him to safety. I was prepared to do it, had even started to summon the charm that would enable me to run like a wolf, have the strength of that animal, and blind onlookers by seeming to appear in that form.

  Kymon saved me the effort. I saw him bounce high into the air, then somersault. He did this twice, then leapt over the wall of knights, again bounced this way and that and flung his small sword with wounding effect at one of the men who were now riding down on him. The blade quivered in the rider’s chest and he reared up, falling from the saddle. Bounding and leaping, Kymon flung himself into my shattered car. He grabbed my plain-faced shield, left the chariot for a moment, twirled where he stood, three times round, and sent the shield skimming across the flattened grass, striking the man who was familiar to me, knocking him from his war horse.