by David Gemmel
They took part in their first Games together in the five-mile run, Gaelen beating Agwaine by forty paces, the boys arriving home in ninth and tenth place.
Cambil had been furious. “He is faster, Father,” said Agwaine, toweling the sweat from his face. “There is nothing more to it.”
“You must work harder: drive yourself. You must not let him beat you ever again.”
Agwaine was stricken, and for the first time he saw his father in a fresh light. “I will work harder,” he said.
Layne and Gwalchmai delighted the younger clansmen by competing to the finals of their events, Layne in the spear tourney and Gwalchmai in the bow. Layne took third prize, beating the Loda champion into fourth place; Gwalchmai finished last of the eight finalists, but was satisfied, for by next year he would have added height and strength to his frame and believed he could win. For Lennox the Games were a sad affair, for his injured arm robbed him of the chance to lift the Whorl Stone.
Summer drifted into a mild autumn and on into a vicious winter.
Caswallon and Gaelen spent their time forking hay to the cattle and journeying high into the mountains to rescue sheep trapped in snowdrifts. It was a desperately hard time for all the clans, yet Gaelen absorbed the knowledge Caswallon imparted readily.
In winter, Caswallon told him as they sheltered from a fierce blizzard high on the eastern range, it is vital not to sweat. For sweat turns to ice beneath the clothing and a man can freeze to death in minutes. All movement should be slow and sure, and all camps prepared hours before dusk.
That afternoon, trapped by a fierce snow squall, Caswallon had led them to a wooded ridge. Here he had pulled four saplings together, tying them with thongs. Then he carefully threaded branches between them and built a fire in the center. As the snow continued it piled against the branches, creating a round shelter with thick white walls. The fire within heated the walls to solid ice and the two men were snug and safe.
“Make the storm work for you,” said Caswallon, stripping off his sheepskin jerkin and allowing the fire’s heat to reach his skin. “Take off your outer clothes, Gaelen.”
“I’ll freeze,” answered the young man, rubbing his cold hands together.
“Clothes keep heat in, but similarly they can keep heat out. Remove your coat.”
Gaelen did as he was told, grinning sheepishly as the heat in the shelter struck him.
Later Gaelen found himself staring into the glowing coals, his mind wandering. He rubbed his eyes and scratched at the jagged scar above.
“What are you thinking?” Caswallon asked.
“I was thinking of the Queen.”
“What about her?”
“About her coming again.”
“She is dead, Gaelen. Dead and buried.”
“I know. But she seemed so sure. I wonder who she was.”
“A queen-and I would guess a great one,” said Caswallon. Silence settled around them, until Caswallon suddenly grinned. “What’s this I hear about you and Deva?”
At the mention of Agwaine’s sister Gaelen began to blush.
“Aha!” said Caswallon, sitting up. “There is more to this business than rumor.”
“There’s nothing,” protested Gaelen. “Really, there’s nothing. I’ve hardly even spoken to her. And when I do, my tongue gets caught in my teeth and I seem to have three feet.”
“That bad?”
“It’s not anything. I just…” Glancing up, he saw Caswallon raise his right eyebrow, his face mock-serious. Gaelen began to giggle. “You swine. You’re mocking me.”
“Not at all. I’ve never been one to mock young love,” said Caswallon.
“I’m not in love. And if I was, there would be no point. Cambil cannot stand me.”
“Do not let that worry you, Gaelen. Cambil is afraid of many things, but if young Deva wants you he will agree. But then it’s a little early to think of marriage. Another year.”
“I know that. And I was not talking about marriage… or love. A man can like a girl, you know.”
“Very true,” admitted Caswallon. “I liked Maeg the first moment I saw her.”
“It is not the same thing at all.”
“You’ll make a fine couple.”
“Will you stop this? I’m going to sleep,” said Gaelen, curling his blanket around him. After a few moments he opened his eyes to see Caswallon was still sitting by the fire looking down at him.
Gaelen grinned. “She’s very tall-for a girl, I mean.”
“She certainly is,” agreed Caswallon, “and pretty.”
“Yes. Do you really think we’d make a good couple?”
“No doubt of it.”
“Why is it that whenever I talk to her the words all tumble out as if they’ve been poured from a sack?”
“Witchcraft,” said Caswallon.
“A pox on you,” snorted Gaelen. “I’m definitely going to sleep.”
The winter passed like a painful memory. Losses had been high among the sheep and calves, but spring was warm and dry, promising good harvests in summer.
Cambil accepted an invitation from Asbidag, leader of the Northern Aenir, to visit Ateris, now called Aesgard. Cambil took with him twenty clansmen. He was treated royally and responded by inviting Asbidag and twenty of his followers to the Summer Games.
Caswallon’s fury stunned Maeg, who had never seem him lose control. His face had turned chalk-white, his hands sweeping across the pine tabletop and smashing pottery to shards.
“The fool!” he hissed. “How could he do such a thing?”
“You think the danger is that great from twenty men?” Maeg asked softly, ignoring the ruined jugs and goblets.
Caswallon said nothing. Taking his cloak and staff, he left the house and set off in a loping run toward the hills and the cave of Oracle.
Taliesen sealed shut the door to his private chambers and opened a small, hidden recess in the wall. Reaching in he touched a sensor and light bathed the small room, radiating from panels set in the four walls. With another touch he activated the viewer. The oak veneer of his crudely carved desktop slid back and revealed a dark screen, which rose into a vertical position. Taliesen moved to the rear wall. Scores of paper sheets were pinned to the paneling here, each covered in lines and scrawled with symbols. To the unskilled eye the drawings would appear to be of winter trees, with hundreds of tiny, leafless branches. Taliesen stared at them, remembering the perilous journeys through the Gateways that each represented. Here and there, on every sheet a branch would end with a single stroke drawn through it. By each was a hastily drawn star. Taliesen counted them. Forty-eight. On the desktop, beside the dark screen, was a newly drawn tree that showed no stars. Taliesen pinned it to the wall.
This was the tree of the Hawk Eternal.
The tree where Sigarni regained her sword that was stolen. Where she did not die in some last despairing battle, but survived to reach the Farlain and save the children. Taliesen gazed at the drawing. “Simple to see,” he said, “but where are you? Which of the Time Lines will bring me to you?”
Seating himself before the screen, he opened the right-hand desk drawer and removed a round earring with a spring clip. It was in the shape of a star. Clipping it to his ear, he closed his eyes. The screen flickered, then brightened. Taliesen took a deep, calming breath and opened his eyes.
“Be careful,” he warned himself. “Do not seek to see too much. Concentrate on the minutiae.” The screen darkened, and with a soft curse Taliesen reached up and touched the star upon his ear, pressing it firmly. The screen leaped to life, and the old druid stared hard at the scene that appeared there.
For more than an hour he watched, occasionally scribbling short notes to aid his memory. Then he removed the earring, touched a button below the desktop, and stood. The screen folded down; the oak veneer covered it once more.
Taliesen studied the notes, adding a line here and there. Rising, he moved to the wall, pinning the notes alongside the tree of the Hawk Eternal. He
shook his head. “Somewhere there is a rogue element,” he said, “and it has not yet shown its face. What, where, and when?” A thought struck him and his mouth tightened. “Or perhaps I should be asking: Who?” he mused.
“Pah! Do not be so foolish,” he told himself. “There is no one. You are the Master of the Gates, and the rogue element is a figment of your paranoia. If there was someone you would have found him by now. Or seen greater evidence to point toward him. You are an old fool! The secret lies with the Hawk Eternal-and you will teach him.”
His eyes were drawn to the stars scrawled on the sheets. Focusing on each, he dragged the painful memories from the depths of his mind. The most galling of them was the last. Having defeated Earl Jastey, Sigarni contracted a fever and died in the night. By Heaven, that was hard to take. Taliesen had all but given up then.
For several months he had made no attempt to scan the Lines, in order to find a new Sigarni. The quest felt hopeless. Yet as he gazed down on the valleys of the Farlain, and at the butchery taking place in the Lowlands, he knew he had to struggle on.
Intending to make more notes now, Taliesen returned to his desk. Weariness swamped him as he sat, and he laid his head on his arms. Sleep took him instantly.
What had once been the gleaming marble hall of the Ateris Council was now strewn with straw and misty with the smoke from the blazing log fire set in a crudely built hearth by the western wall. A massive pine table was set across the hall, around which sat the new Aenir nobility. At their feet, rolling in the straw and scratching at fleas, were the war hounds of Asbidag-seven sleek, black, fierce-eyed dogs, trained in the hunt.
Asbidag himself sat at the center of the table facing the double doors of bronze-studded oak. Around him were his seven sons, their wives, and a score of war councillors. Beside the huge Aenir lord sat a woman dressed in black. Slim she was, and the gown of velvet seemed more of a pelt than a garment. Her jet-black hair hung to her pale shoulders and gleamed as if oiled; her eyes were slanted and, against the somber garb, seemed to glitter like blue jewels, bright and gold; her mouth was full-lipped and wide, and only the mocking half smile robbed it of beauty.
Asbidag casually laid his hand on her thigh, watching her closely, a gap-toothed grin showing above his bloodred beard.
“Are you anxious for the entertainment to begin?” he asked her.
“When it pleases you, my lord,” she said, her voice husky and deep.
Asbidag heaved himself to his feet. “Bring in the prisoner,” he bellowed.
“By Vatan, I’ve waited a long time for this,” whispered Ongist, swinging around on his stool to face the door.
Drada said nothing. He had never cared much for torture, though it would have been sheer stupidity to mention it. The way of the Grey God was the way of the Aenir, and no one questioned either.
Drada’s eyes flickered to his other brothers as they waited for the prisoner to be dragged forth. Tostig, large and cruel, a man well known for his bestial appetites. Ongist, the second youngest, a clever lad with the morals of a timber wolf. Aeslang, Barsa, and Jostig, sons of Asbidag’s long-time mistress Swangild. They remained in favor despite Asbidag’s murder of their mother-in fact they seemed unmoved by the tragedy-but then Swangild had been a ruthless woman as devoid of emotion as the black-garbed bitch who had replaced her. Lastly there was Orsa the Baresark, dim-witted and dull, but in battle a terrible opponent who screeched with laughter as he slew.
The sons of Asbidag…
The great doors swung open, admitting two warriors who half dragged, half carried a shambling ruin of a man. His clothes were in rags, his body covered in weeping sores and fresh switch scars that oozed blood. His hands were misshapen and swollen, the fingers broken and useless, but even so, his wrists were tied together. The guards released the man and he sank to the floor, groaning as his weight fell on his injured hands.
Drada stole a glance at his father’s mistress. Morgase was watching the crippled man closely. Her eyes shone, her white cheeks were flushed, and her tongue darted out over her stained red lips. He shuddered and returned his gaze to the man who had commanded the Lowland army. He had met him once at court; a strong, proud warrior who had risen through the ranks to command the northern legions. Now he lay weeping like a babe at the feet of his conquerors.
“Now that is how an enemy should look,” said Asbidag. Dutiful laughter rose around him as he left the table to stand over the prisoner. “I have good news for you, Martellus,” he said, turning the man over with his foot. “I’m going to kill you at last.”
The man’s swollen eyes fought to focus and his mouth sagged open, showing the remains of his teeth, black and broken.
“Are you not going to thank me, man?”
Just for that one moment Drada saw a glint of anger in the man’s eyes. For a fleeting second manhood returned to the ruined warrior. Then it passed and tears re-formed.
“How should we kill him, Morgase?” asked Asbidag, swinging his body to face the table.
“Let the dogs have him,” she whispered.
“Poison my dogs? No. Another way.”
“Hang him in a cage outside the city walls until he rots,” shouted Tostig.
“Impale him,” said Ongist.
Drada shifted in his seat, forcing his mind from the spectacle. For more than a year one task had filled his waking hours: planning the defeat of the clans.
The problems were many. The clans had the advantage of terrain, but on the other hand, they lacked any form of military discipline and their villages were widely spaced and built without walls. Each clan mistrusted the others and that was an advantage for the Aenir. They could pick them off one by one.
But it would be a massive operation, needing colossal planning.
Drada had worked for months to be allowed to enter the Farlain with a small company of men. Always his requests had been politely refused. Now, at last, Cambil had agreed they should be guests at the Games. It was a gift from the Grey God.
All the clans gathered in one place, a chance to meet every chieftain and Hunt Lord. An opportunity for the Aenir to scout valleys, passes, and future battlegrounds.
Drada was hauled back to the present, even as the hapless prisoner was dragged from the hall. Asbidag’s shadow fell across him. “Well, Drada, what do you think?”
“Of what, Father?”
“Of my decision with Martellus?”
“Very fitting.”
“How would you know that?” snapped Asbidag. “You were not listening.”
“True, Father, but then you have planned his death for so long that I knew you would have something special for him.”
“But it doesn’t interest you?”
“It does, sire, but I was thinking about that problem you set me today, and I have a plan that may please you.”
“We will talk later,” said Asbidag, returning to his place beside Morgase.
“They’re going to skin him,” whispered Ongist to Drada.
“Thank you.”
“Why must you take such risks?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about something else.”
“It is good you are a thinker, brother. For you know Father cannot stand you.”
“I know-but then I think he likes none of us.”
Ongist laughed aloud. “You could be right,” he whispered, “but he raised us to be like him, and we are. If I thought I’d get away with it I’d gut the bloated old toad. But you and my other dear brothers would turn on me. Wouldn’t you?”
“Of course. We are a family built on hatred.”
“And yet we thrive,” said Ongist, pouring mead into his cup and raising it to toast his brother.
“Indeed, we do, brother.”
“This plan of yours, it concerns the clans?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you suggest invasion. Boredom sits ill with me.”
“Wait and see, Ongist.”
“We’ve waited a year already. How much longer?”
“Not long. Have patience.”
The following afternoon Drada made his way to the ruins of the Garden of the Senses, a half acre of blooms, trees, and shrubs that had once been a place of meditation for the Ateris intellectuals. Many of the winding paths had disappeared now, along with a hundred or so delicate flowers choked by weeds and man’s indifference.
And yet, so far, the roses thrived. Of all things Drada had yet encountered on this cruel world, the rose alone found a place in his feelings. He could sit and gaze at them for hours, their beauty calming his mind and allowing him to focus on his problems and plans.
As he had on so many such afternoons, Drada pushed his way through the trailing undergrowth to a rock-pool fringed with wooden benches. Unclipping the brooch that fastened his red cloak, he chose the west-facing bench and sat in the sunshine.
Unwilling to incur Asbidag’s displeasure, he had spent the morning watching the flaying of Martellus. The scene had been an unpleasant distraction to the young Aenir warrior; he had seen men flayed before, indeed had witnessed more barbarous acts. And they bored him. But then most of what life had to offer ultimately left Drada bored. It seemed to the young warrior that the journey from birth screech to death rattle was no more than a meaningless series of transient pleasures and pain, culminating at last in the frustration of missed moments and lost opportunities.
He thought of his father and grinned wolfishly. Asbidag, the destroyer of nations, the bringer of blood. The most brutish warrior of a generation of warriors. He had nothing to offer the world, save ceaseless agony and destruction. He had no genuine thoughts of empire, for it was alien to him to consider building anything of worth. He lived to fight and kill, dreaming only of the day when at last he would be summoned to the hall of the Grey God to recite the litany of his conquests.