The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  ‘He’s right, kinsman,’ said the man who had manned the oar in front of him, turning to face him and stretching, a comradely smile colouring his strong features. ‘I’m Orin, of Clan Carragaigh.’ He extended a hand. Harlin took it hesitantly, feeling the thick callouses on the palm from years of pulling an oar.

  ‘Harlin, of Clan Faolán.’

  ‘I know your name,’ Orin laughed, ‘we all do after that fight, isn’t that right, lads?’ The other oarsmen grunted in agreement, stretching aching limbs, some producing pipes or strips of dried meat and fish to chew on, and skins of honey wine, all in good spirits.

  They were good company on the voyage, Harlin found. The crew talked of fighting, of the good old days before they lost the island and sung songs of their old legends and sagas, some of which Harlin knew, others he had forgotten, and most of which he had never heard before. But after three days at sea with them, their mood suddenly dampened.

  It was at first light that third day that the clansman who was aloft the mast called down to Giomach of land off the port bow. Muttering spread through the men at the oars and the ship lost speed, slowing their heaves to look across the roiling waters. Harlin was stood at the prow, looking off over the waters himself.

  There it was. After twelve years of roaming and fighting, it waited across the waves for him. A silhouette against the grey horizon that spoke of rolling heights and sheer drops of blunt stone. Luah Fáil. Hathad Camoraigh. Whatever it was to be called now, the island crouched beyond the last stretches of the Muil Márda in an ever-shifting nest of steel-grey waves. It seemed almost ready to pounce upon them when they came within reach.

  The very air about the place seemed dark, greyed, like a dull wash across an artist’s canvas. The sun hung pale and white in the sky, struggling against grey-black clouds that creeped and clotted about it like strangling tendrils. The light that crept through seemed unable to touch the land itself, refused, limp and useless, or perhaps absorbed and consumed. It lurked off the port bow, stalking them from its own shadows, veiled by muted mists and crowned by a dark miasmatic halo.

  Harlin saw some of the crew mutter oaths. It was strange to hear men uttering prayers to their gods to protect them from the very land those gods had once sprung from long ago.

  ‘The island watches us,’ he heard one of the crew mutter, a small chorus of agreement sounding from those nearby.

  ‘Islands watch nothing,’ said Harlin, laughing and turning away to sit at the prow.

  ‘That one does,’ said the crewmember, shuddering.

  ‘I will not set foot on those shores,’ another said, shaking his head as he looked away from the sight.

  ‘Nor will I,’ came another complaint, further down the ship.

  ‘A horrid place, Harlin,’ said Giomach, his free hand touching an amulet around his neck, a crude iron depiction of Cu Náith’s sword and shield many clansmen wore. ‘It’s not too late for us to turn back, son. You don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Turn back?’ Harlin said, ‘I would not turn from this path even if the gods took my legs from me, Giomach. I would crawl along a path of knives if need be, till I reached that island.’

  The crew muttered amongst themselves of his course of action in disparaging tones. They could question his choices all they wanted. They were bound by honour and oath to take him to Bráodhaír, and whatever they felt, or feared, mattered not – they could muse upon it on their way home whilst he began his search.

  ‘Barraig’s Cliffs,’ Giomach said, as the ship began to move again, skirting a flat, black screen of land that rose from the sea like a curtain wall. ‘Winged beasts nest there now instead of gulls, eaters of men. I will be glad when they lie out of sight. Even more so when this entire place is far behind us.’ Harlin felt his eyes lingering on him uncomfortably, judgingly. ‘You will regret coming to this land, Harlin.’

  He didn’t bother to answer him.

  They followed the coastline northward for another half a day. The sea stayed calm, and while Harlin was relieved that his stomach was not churned as much as it had been, the rest of the crew took it as something of a bad omen. ‘Hathad Camoraigh draws us toward it,’ they whispered amongst themselves, ‘it invites us closer. Don’t look at it.’ Harlin laughed at them, and thought them foolish. Though even he quietly felt that the way the coast loomed so darkly against its dull, dead-looking skyline was quite unsettling. He did not remember the land being as grim-looking as it was now.

  As the day drew on Giomach steered the ship closer to land, after seemingly suffering some kind of internal struggle beforehand. The closing of the distance did little to dissipate the shadows hanging over the land. Instead, it seemed to make a fierce silence drape itself over their sluggish tub of a boat, the sounds of the oars biting the water shrill, brittle and unwelcome.

  They rounded a section of headland that jutted sharply up from the water like a spearhead, its barren stone running into mist-veiled woodland at its peak. As they passed it Harlin saw, as they drew closer, a sight he had not seen in many, many years.

  Bráodhaír.

  Or rather, what had once been Bráodhaír.

  He felt his mouth fall open, though he had not known what he had expected to see. Maybe something more closely resembling the home he remembered instead of the desolation that he approached. ‘Here we are,’ said Giomach, breathing deeply. ‘Are you sure of this, wolf? We can take you back, there is no shame in avoiding this place.’

  Harlin was silent for a moment, his eyes finding only ruined buildings and collapsed piers – a town reclaimed by some twisted nature alien to him and dark and unwelcoming in its visage. What had happened here?

  He shook his head. ‘I told you, Giomach – there is nothing that can sway me. I must do this, there is no other way.’

  Giomach sighed loudly. ‘Madness,’ he barked, leaning on the steering oar to bring the Sea-Ram further about, avoiding the bones of an old longship protruding dangerously from the water.

  They drew oar between two collapsed and rotting piers, the ship thumping against the shore as it was beached. Harlin lurched forward, almost stumbling, not from the motion of the ship’s hull meeting land, but from the image that passed before his mind’s eye – of fat, hollow ships, anchored and moored and swallowing lines of grey-faced clansmen, of cruel steel hands, gripping and shoving. It ricocheted through his mind like a wild arrow in a second, the sensation just as piercing, and was gone.

  ‘Are you alright, wolf?’ Giomach approached Harlin, stretching his oar-arm, his face concerned.

  ‘Fine,’ said Harlin, knuckling his eyes to shove the memories back down where they belonged. ‘The sea is no friend of mine.’ He smiled faintly at Giomach, noticing the crew watching him along the ship – tired, scared faces that seemed drained of blood, turning ash-grey as the island’s shadows encroached upon them.

  ‘We part ways here, then, kinsman,’ Giomach said, brow furrowed. Harlin had the feeling he was about to ask him to turn back again for a moment, but clearly he thought better of it. Harlin nodded in answer, knowing words to be meaningless here. He gathered his things from where they were stored, slinging his shield over his back, and lugging them to the prow of the ship, throwing them down onto a dry patch of the dull shoreline.

  Giomach clasped his forearm then and said, ‘May Cu Náith grant you the strength of his arm and the speed of his feet, Harlin.’

  ‘And the size of his prick when you return to us, friend.’ Orin approached them, clasping Harlin’s forearm in turn with a good-natured smile. ‘You will need it when the girls find out you were the first to conquer the cursed island.’

  Harlin favoured them both with a forced smile. ‘My thanks, kinsmen,’ he said, ‘for everything. You do not know the service you have done for me today, but it is a great one, and I will remember it when I return to Tásúil.’

  ‘Make sure you do return, Harlin,’ said Orin, ‘so we can share ale and sing songs around the fire together, of your journey and your battles
against devils and beasts.’

  The rest of the crew came in turn to bid him farewell and good luck on his journey. He saw the look in all their eyes though – fear, and something else – like they were saying goodbye, a final parting, like one would give a condemned man as he walked his last miles. In silence, he swung himself over the side of the ship, landing with a grainy thud in the sand next to his gear.

  Harlin set off into what remained of Bráodhaír a moment later, looking back as the Sea-Ram’s crew pushed her off from the shore. She slid out of the decaying harbour like a lumbering ghost, and he watched for a while as she turned sluggishly about and made back towards the sea, swallowed by a grey mist that descended from the heights to his right like a cloying silver fist. The sounds of the crew singing came from somewhere in that pale mass after sometime, broken, from afar, strangled. He shuddered despite himself.

  It was a world of grim neutrality Harlin had entered. The day was late, the sun hung low, but was pale still and unbruised by the coming of the night. All seemed grey and drab, yet as he stared about at the ruination of his hometown he remembered each building, each street, as if it all still stood as it had before, as if they were still vivid, raucous and bustling with life.

  He passed the old smithy where his father would stop to talk with friends of battles and bloodshed and bring his tools to be repaired. He remembered how he had stood listening to the talk with awe as a boy. The housing was collapsed, the skeleton of the forge dark and overgrown by miserable climbing plants and ragged weeds so spindly and sickly looking he would have sworn they could not be alive had they not born ill-looking blooms. Nearby was the clearing where once traders would have hawked their wares to the townsfolk, now just a stretch of prickly grass remained that waved gently, shimmering silver-grey.

  He could see them as he passed by, his mother and sisters on summer mornings – laughing, giggling, screeching and squealing together how women are wont to as a group, buying bread, vegetables, cloth and other fabrics – everything that had bored him senseless as a child, but in that moment was so precious and forlorn to him that he hastened on lest tears came to his eyes.

  Bráodhaír stood in sheer desolation everywhere he looked, everywhere he turned. He remembered the Marchers had burnt the town to the ground in the raid, and it had clearly stood empty since then, judging from the state of it. The nature that had reclaimed the town, though… it was so unnatural. It was not of Luah Fáil nor Caermark, not even Parathet to the distant east.

  Twisted trees stood tall and morose, rising from the bowels of gutted homes, branches reaching up and out with black leaves splayed like fingers, as though they tried to fight back the faint sun above, to shield themselves from it. Their boughs rustled gutturally in the gentle wind, protesting against the movement. And all was limned with grey, ashen, as though the land and all upon it grieved for something. Gone were the fields of redflower, heather and lavender, the white shieldflowers that crowned hilltops and sombre blue dewthorn that nestled in their shade, the twisted, woven stems of skyberry, knapweed and spearthistle. All gone. In their place was only sick and drab foliage, malformed and disquieting.

  The air about the dead town was heavy as he moved on, thick with the smell of decaying vegetation and rotting wood, yet still and quiet to the point he felt flagrant and intrusive as hot iron when quenched. He found his mind played tricks in this foul place, shadows seemed to move suspiciously in the corner of his eye, the creeks and groans of trees and rustling of undergrowth made him spin, hand upon sword, dropping his pack, eyes darting for whoever stalked him.

  They spoke true of this place, he thought, watching the sun dim further behind leaf and cloud. A chill took him and made him shiver. He shook himself and walked on through the town, heading out towards the hills that lay to the south – blackened humps against the sky. His family’s home had been there, atop a gentle rise not too far away. An urge to see it again had taken him, though he did not expect to find much there that was different from the rest of Bráodhaír.

  It was not a long walk, or it shouldn’t have been, but every step he took brought back memories, raised ghosts and shades of days now gone and buried, naught but dust and ether. Harlin found himself chased by the past itself, hounded by image and ruminant shadow, of people, of death and fire. He dared not look at the ground, lest he find the bones of those he had known slumbering amidst the long grass.

  He crested the rise of the land as the sky faded to a filthy yellow tone, a befouled sunset. It was still there, or some of it was, at least. His home. An old roundhouse, hollowed by fire, sunken by weather, neglect and time. It rose from a bordering thicket of ghostly sedge and stinging nettles – charred, crumbling timbers and rotted thatch, the doorframe empty, its former occupant lying hingeless before it and sprouting a patch of black-leaved nettles.

  Harlin could see the house as it had been. His mother and sisters washing clothes outside, laughing amongst themselves, watching his father drill him harshly with sword and shield under the afternoon sun until his arms were numb and shoulders burning with their weight.

  He closed his eyes and set foot inside the building.

  Inside smelled of damp, of rot and sourness. It had been charred long ago and left to fade away since, but even in the dim light Harlin still remembered the nights spent around its fire pit, his father reciting tales of ancient warriors, of his own exploits against rival clans. There were nights that his mother would play her bedhucu and his sisters would sing together, sat around her feet, while her fingers danced nimbly upon the strings, he and his father listening attentively, neither having any skill at music.

  He came across the bedhucu almost as soon as the memory struck him. It had been left propped against the far wall many years ago, forgotten in their flight from the Marchers. Time had destroyed it, and as Harlin lifted it from where it lay more of the hollow body fell and crumbled away in his hands, leaving just the fretted neck and loose strings dangling from it.

  His eyes stung. He lay it back down gently, the ghost of its music lingering in his ears.

  A sudden shriek made Harlin jump and draw steel, whirling round, ready to strike but finding nothing. He stood tense, expecting something to leap from the shadows. But there was nothing. He eased slightly, and jumped as it sounded again. It came from above. A piercing, tearing wail.

  Harlin looked up through a gap in the thatch to the yellowed sky outside. Something moved against the dim light. The shriek sounded again, closer, unnatural. His flesh prickled at its shrillness and some instinct made him want to cringe, shy away and hide with fear clawing at his guts, but the man in him made him stand firm and wait. He heard the beating of wings.

  A creature crossed the sky above his home, a black shape against the filthy sunset, ragged wings outstretched as it coursed through the air slowly, a maned head swinging back and forth, scanning the ground below.

  It hunts, he thought, moving into the shadows, making sure he could still see through the hole in the roof.

  More appeared, following the first. Smaller, weaker looking, to judge by their silhouettes at least, and seeming to lack the first’s mane. Some kind of pack, he assumed. Were they searching for him? Had they picked up the scent of meat, an intruder? The sounds of their screeching and crying along with the booming thunder of their wings turned the solemn dusk into a nightmarish symphony. They were like no creature Harlin had seen before.

  What had become of his home?

  Harlin dared not move lest the creatures caught sight of him, and waited until their feral calls and the sound of their vile wings had faded into the distance before he let himself relax. He had to wonder whether Ceatha had told him true of the downfall of the island. He had thought her a liar as he did in most things about her, but seeing what had become of Bráodhaír… perhaps there was more truth to what she had said than he had first thought. Giomach spoke of those flying things, he realised uncomfortably, beasts from Barraig’s Cliffs, eaters of men.

  He rested fo
r a while against a section of standing wall, beneath where some of the thatch still held. The air chilled after a while, the first bite of a bitter autumn, made all the more cruel by the piercing winds that still favoured the island. He drew his knees up to his chest and hugged himself, hoping to stave off the cold, and found it did little to help. He resisted the urge to light a fire for some time, fearing it would attract the flying things, but the cold began to feel like it was creeping into his bones, and he soon found himself gathering up kindling with shaking hands.

  There was little to be had around his home. Most was damp or rotted and on its way to becoming mulch that vegetation seemed to have a fondness for sprouting in. He managed to salvage some relatively dry wood from the old fire pit – half charred and ancient, home to wood-nibbling bugs that scurried and scattered in terror at his disturbance. Nestled near the wall furthest from the door, beneath the remaining thatch, a bed made of the sedge from outside and some dry, dead leaves from climbing plants and their woody tendrils took reluctantly to flame as he struck his flint to it.

  Harlin tended the tiny fire carefully, being more smoke than flame, and fed it almost tenderly until it could manage itself with the poor fuel he had for it. He huddled by it, its heat pitiful but welcome, and hugged himself again, resting his head on his knees, his cluttered mind adrift with upset and confusion. He listened to the sea sigh upon the shore, and the wind tug mournfully at the thatch. He considered donning his armour, still unsettled by the flying horrors, but a weariness settled into him so absolute that it was all he could do to rummage through his pack and find some hard bread to chew upon as an uneasy sleep took him.