One of the crows flapped down to the trellis where the bean vines twined, head cocked as if to ask what Velantos was waiting for. Would a lunge reach Galid before he could draw that sword?
“Let me go!” snapped Anderle, and Galid reached for her with his other hand.
Help me, holy gods! Velantos started to rise.
“Paion!” squawked the crow.
Velantos opened his lips to shout, but what came from his lips was “Paion! Paion!” More words followed as he fell back to his knees again, but though they sounded like babble to the others, he recognized the hymn to Apollon that he had heard at the temple in Korinthos each day, its words already ancient when the Children of Erakles were exiled from their southern home. He barely understood them, but as his lips moved, meaning blossomed within.
“Paean, Lord of Light! Wind and fire and the lifting of darkness! Paean, light that banishes all shadow, light in which no evil can endure! Paean, Apollon, strong to save!” The heart-shaped leaves of the young bean plants fluttered to a sudden blast of wind. The clouds parted and suddenly the garden was filled with light as the crows swirled upward in a cacaphony of black wings.
“Now see what you have done!” Anderle sprang to her feet as Galid, looking dazed, released her hair. “And he was doing so well!” Shaking her head, she hurried toward Velantos, muttering something that sounded like a spell. “My poor boy, be calm—he will not hurt me—all is well . . .”
Velantos looked up at her, seeing for once beyond the womanly body that had dazzled him to the brave spirit within. “Potnia . . .” he whispered, the fire in his soul leaping to touch hers, and saw in her eyes a spark of laughter.
Galid grunted. “Is the idiot your lover? I wish you joy of him. But this I promise you—when I have dealt with your bull calf I will return, and no power will keep you from me, neither man nor god!” He lurched to his feet. As he strode off down the passageway, cloud dimmed the light once more.
“Will it not?” Anderle hissed. Her grip tightened on Velantos’ shoulder. “Could you not tell that a god was here just now?”
Velantos blinked, trying to understand what had just occurred. Like an echo he heard within his soul the Voice that had spoken in his temple dream. “Indeed. . . did I not say you would find me in the north as well? Be strong. Your work here is not yet done . . .”
NINETEEN
The gray geese were gathering on the Lake, gleaning the last of the summer food. For weeks the skies had echoed with the cries of migrating fowl. The geese would be the last to go. There were still leaves on some of the trees, but Anderle did not need the birds to tell her that autumn was passing. The wind that blew across the water was cold. When the boat reached the village, Badger was waiting to help her up the ladder. Shivering, she followed him into his hut and set her cold hands gratefully around the clay beaker of hot herb tea.
“We are in health here, as you in Avalon,” said the headman, facing her across the fire.
“I thank the gods for it,” said Anderle. “It is the men in the marshes I fear for. I dare not bring them back to Avalon, and they cannot spend winter in the wilds.”
“True. Damp is worse when it’s cold. Many islets will be underwater soon.” Badger added another brand to the hearth fire. His hair was all brindle now. One could scarcely distinguish the white streaks that had given him his name. “You cannot send them to the tribes?”
“In a settlement they could not be hidden. In the mountains there are other peoples like yours, descended from those who were here before the tribes. Can you contact them?”
“Ah . . .” The headman sat back, frowning. “It is so. They know places Galid’s spies would not come, but the men of the tribes have not been kind to them. They will not welcome Mikantor’s band.”
“Is there no way to persuade them?” asked Anderle. “Mikantor cares for more than the Ai-Zir. Given the chance, he will do what he can to bring peace to all the land.”
Badger leaned forward again to poke at the fire. “There is one way—” he said at last. “Very old ritual. Long ago we who now live on the edges used it to test our chieftains. If he can do it—if he survives it—all those of the old blood will follow him.”
Anderle’s skin prickled with apprehension, but the destiny to which Mikantor had been born was one of danger. It would be foolish to think she could protect him now. “Tell me—”
“You are priests of the Light on the holy isle, and this is a rite of blood, a mystery from the times when our people did not herd or plant, but lived from the breast of Earth our Mother. I tell you this because you are also of the old blood, and because Woodpecker was our fosterling.” His voice grew softer and she leaned toward him across the fire. “The red deer is holy animal. The stag dies so that we live. But sometimes the Mother wants blood for blood, and the hunter is the offering. When we take life we know we owe our lives.”
Anderle nodded. That blood debt was one reason they so rarely ate meat on Avalon. “But it is different for a king?” she asked then.
Badger nodded. “Hunters kill from a distance, with spear and bow, but the king must be brave to fight as the beasts do, face to face. The Virgin Huntress calls him, calls the Horned Lord into him, sends him to run with the deer.” His voice was a whisper now. “He catches the King Stag, uses his tooth of flint to shed his blood—or the Stag’s horns find his heart. Either way Earth is fed.”
“And if the hunter lives?”
“He is given to the priestess who carries the power of the Mistress of the Beasts,” the headman replied. “She gives virgin blood. He makes her the Mother. She makes him King. They renew the land.”
He straightened, perspiration beading his brow. Had he ever seen this rite done? Clearly he believed in its power. And if Badger, whose people lived so close to Avalon that they had absorbed many of their ways, believed, then those others, the dark secret people of the hills, would surely believe as well.
“Do you have a suitable priestess?” she asked then. “If not, there is a maiden at Avalon who can carry the power.”
She did not think Tirilan would refuse this opportunity. And when she had known the ecstasy of the Great Rite, Goddess joined with God, she would forget her childish fantasies.
MIKANTOR’S SKIN TWITCHED AS Badger drew the woad-soaked leather swab across his skin, leaving a broad streak of blue. It was mixed with other herbs, and had an odd, acrid scent. Whatever the deer smelled, it would not be man. After three days of preparation, Mikantor was no longer certain if he was still a man.
The flame of the torch flapped as the dawn wind blew more strongly, alternately dazzling and dark. The Lake Folk had brought him to a natural clearing in the hills to the north of the marshes, though he had had no chance to look around. He had been kept in a hut for the past three days. The part of his mind that still stood apart put his sense of dissociation down to the effects of a vegetarian diet and isolation. But his deep mind was increasingly ascendent, increasingly sensitive to the scent of forest mold beneath his feet and the sound the bare branches of the oak tree made as they rubbed together in the wind. He wore only a belt that held a flint knife, but he did not feel cold. They said that sometimes the hunter lost his life in this ritual. He wondered if the hunter ever lost his humanity.
“But why do they have to paint him blue?” asked Pelicar, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had been the most protective, but also the most understanding. In his country, he said, there were special rites of test and consecration when a war leader was chosen by the queen. Though not, Mikantor gathered, quite like this one.
“I suppose because they don’t have a dye that will turn him green,” Ganath replied. “I believe that to the deer it is much the same.”
“Well, I hope the priestess likes blue, because that stuff stains!”
“Maybe she will be blue as well,” laughed Tegues, who could be depended on to join any conversation about women. “Blue titties and blue buttocks and blue—”
“Hold your tongue
!” snarled Romen, for the old blood ran strong in the folk of Belerion. “This is a sacred thing. By rights we should not be here at all.”
“Do you think we would give our lord into the power of the magic people unguarded?” retorted Pelicar.
Mikantor’s lips quirked in mingled exasperation and pride. He supposed their attitude was a tribute to the bond that the past few months had created among the members of his band, but it would not do to insult their allies.
From somewhere beyond the thicket came the throb of drums and a murmur of many voices. The elder folk were awake as well, gathering to see him triumph or die. Either way, the blood of a king would feed the soil. His heart raced even as he twitched in apprehension, the man in him responding, the beast wanting to flee.
“My lord, how is it with you?” Ganath’s voice was low.
Mikantor’s head jerked around, seeing his friend with doubled vision—a thickset, brown-haired young man in a threadbare woolen tunic, and a sturdy brown bear. Now that he was looking, he could see the animal shapes that followed all of them.
“Head’s . . .fuzzy . . .” with an effort he formed the human words, though that did not quite describe the sensation, not exactly a headache, but a pressure within his skull. It had been increasing since the day before.
“It is expected,” muttered Badger, swabbing color down his arms. “It will pass.”
Mikantor hoped so. If he didn’t fall over as soon as he began to run, perhaps action would burn it away. He twitched again, turning his head uneasily, and subsided as he met Badger’s calm gaze. He told himself there was no reason to fear. He had been one of these people until he was seven years old. They would not intentionally do him harm.
Wild geese called above and he took an involuntary step forward. A mist had risen from the damp ground, clinging among the trees. But as his vision focused he saw their line unfurling across the paling sky.
“You want to follow them?” Badger laughed softly. “You have another race to run, my king. The stag waits for your challenge. Save your fire for him.”
The headman made way for an old woman who wore a wolf ’s pelt over her garment of deerhide. Her white hair was pulled through a circlet of bone, and a little wooden bowl filled with some dark liquid was in her hand. She reminded him of Anderle. The necklace of amber and jet that marked her as a priestess thumped her flat breast as she bent, dipped a finger into the black stuff, and drew a lightning track up the muscle of his calf. It sent a pulse of sensation through his leg and he pawed the ground. When she did his other leg, only Badger’s hand on his shoulder kept him still. Working swiftly, she daubed symbols on breast and arms and back, the sigils of all the clans. Fine tremors passed through every limb.
“When?” he whispered, fighting the ecstasy.
“Soon,” answered Badger, “very soon.”
The priestess straightened and stepped back, for the first time meeting his eyes. “Soon—” she echoed. “You run for all of us!”
His Companions fell in behind as Badger led him through the trees. He flinched again as he caught sight of the people waiting, but the headman’s grip as he led him into the circle was firm.
A group of women stood on the other side of a fire whose flames were growing pale with the approach of day. The tallest wore a mask made from the head of a doe. She was swathed in a deerskin cloak; a garland of berries nodded above her brow. From the way she stood he thought she must be young. His nostrils flared, seeking her scent, but he could catch only the reek of herbs and wood smoke.
He sensed someone behind him, began to turn, and shuddered at the sudden weight of antlers. That was what his head had been missing! He stilled to let them lace the leather helmet that held the horns firmly under his chin, then swung his head back and forth, learning how to shift his shoulders to balance the weight.
Badger was speaking—“Osprey has found the trail of the King Stag and his wives. When you sight them, run and bring him down—”
He scarcely heard. The priestess was approaching, a voice like music intoned a blessing. His gaze moved from her to the forest and back again, striving to pierce the mists that veiled the trees. Beyond the trees lay the Otherworld.
The priestess anointed him with the musk of a stag, and that last scent drove out awareness of the human identity. One of the old humans beckoned and the strong hand that had held him let go at last. Powerful muscles launched him into a harmony of motion. The forest was waiting. The King Stag was waiting, his rival, his destiny.
THE HORNED HUNTER RUNS, fleet footed, sure of step, touching earth only to spring forward once more. Supple and strong, he weaves among the trees, head lowered to keep from tangling his antler crown. Dim in the distance the other hunters bay like hounds. Only two of the elder folk keep pace with him now, and all run silently, but the deer they have startled into motion crash through the trees.
The trail opens before him. The growing sunlight blazes in drops of mist collected on bare branches, coating fallen leaves and sere grass. Everything glows with a radiance beyond that of the human world. He breathes light, is one with winged ones that flutter among the branches, with burrowers snuggling beneath the soil, with the beasts that go on all fours, pounding over the leaf-strewn ground. He runs with the deer.
He does not know how long he runs. The world is bright now, though a glimmer of mist still hangs in the air. And gradually the air grows golden, charged with expectation. His steps slow. Beyond a screen of beeches brown shapes are moving. A sudden roaring shatters the silence. The King Stag is there.
The lips of the Hunter open and his own cry echoes against the trees. “I come . . . I come. . . .”
The deer are gathered in a clearing. Some twenty does, still fat from the summer’s grazing, mill at the edge of the trees. In the center stands their master, neck ruff bristling, winter coat the color of oak bark. His body, longer than the hunter is tall, is heavy with muscle. The Stag huffs and lowers his crowned head, sharp hooves scoring lines in the fallen leaves.
The Horned Hunter steps forward, arms out, head a little bent. It is a wrestler’s stance, though he no longer remembers where he has used it before.
“I am the King . . .” roars the Stag. “Who comes to challenge Me?”
“I am the Son of a Hundred Kings!” comes the reply.
“I have seen you before . . .”
Into the mind of the Hunter comes an image of the clearing atop the isle of the Wild God. He remembers does in red-brown summer coats, and the Stag with his antlers in velvet, and a golden-haired child who danced with the sunbeams.
“I have grown . . .”
“Now, you are worthy of my horns!” The Stag huffs again, with a sound that is very like laughter.
“Are you the same one I saw?”
“We are always the same,” comes the reply. “Always in our prime, always the King.”
“Then I challenge you.”
The Hunter springs forward, dances aside as the antlers swing, darts in again. The Stag rears, striking out with sharp forehooves and driving the Hunter to one side. Back and forth they weave, attacking and defending in a deadly dance. An unexpected twitch of the antlered head lets a sharp tine score the thigh of the Hunter. Blood spots the fallen leaves.
Around once more, the Hunter leaps in, grapples, and is flung away. His blood continues to flow; he is growing a little dizzy now.
“Generation follows generation, and each time we fight, the weaker one must fall. The blood of the old king feeds the ground, and the young king gives his seed so that our Mother may bear anew.”
The Hunter’s time is running out. He crouches, breath sobbing in his breast, waiting as the Stag swerves back and forth, waiting. The crown of knives plunges toward him, at the last moment he swivels on his haunches, uncoiling as the antlers pass. Powerful hands grip the antlers at their base and force the great head down; he hooks a foot around a foreleg so the Stag cannot strike, and holds. For a long moment they strain, neither giving way, until at long
last the Hunter feels the force that opposes him falter.
In some other lifetime, someone had asked if he was willing to die for the land.
“Do you go consenting?” He asks the question now.
The Stag heaves, loses balance and goes down on one knee. “I am the Offering. . . .”
“As one day I myself shall be—” The Hunter’s grip tightens. Muscles flex and ripple as he wrenches sideways. Bone cracks. He holds as the mighty body of the Stag convulses, holds until the last twitchings have ceased, and the light fades from the dark eyes, and time begins once more.
“CUT HIS THROAT, MY king. His blood must feed the ground—”
He blinked, turning, and saw beside him a man with dark eyes and grizzled hair. Presently memory supplied the name, Badger. He realized that the flint knife was still hanging at his side, and drew the blade. The wooden hilt and bindings were new, but the stone was darkened by use and age. He wondered how many times that knife had tasted the blood of a king.
It was very silent. He pulled back the stag’s heavy head to stretch the throat and stabbed just beneath the angle of the jaw. Another wrench pulled the knife through skin and veins and the rubbery windpipe and feeding tube. The air filled with a hot metallic tang as blood flowed in a red tide. Senses still attuned to the Otherworld noted the shimmer of energy above it, dissipating gradually into the forest as the blood soaked into the ground, and from the forest itself, a grateful sigh. The golden light of late afternoon shafted through the trees. The mist had gone.
“Go in peace, my lord,” he whispered, “and leave your blessing on this land.”
Badger dipped a finger into the blood and drew a red line between Mikantor’s brows, more across his cheekbones and another upon his breast. When the flow of blood had almost ceased, the other men came forward, heaving the stag over onto its back and making a careful slit in the belly. He had seen the gralloching of a deer a hundred times before, but never had each movement held such solemnity.
Sword of Avalon: Avalon Page 31