by Lisa Cach
“I’d rather spoon Bone all night for warmth than have a fire here.”
“You’d make the dog suffer for your fears?”
“He likes spooning.”
Which was, oddly, the truth. For a massive beast of a dog with a ferocious bite, Bone did have a strong love of snuggling. “I admit the place feels a little . . . haunted,” I said.
“A little?”
“But that makes it even less likely that a local is going to stumble upon us in the dark, don’t you think? They’re probably as nervous around these stones as we are. And I’m cold, Terix. I want a fire more than I can say.” I let my teeth chatter loudly for effect.
“It’s rotten of you to play on my soft heart like that.”
My chattering got louder, and I shook my arms in exaggerated shivers.
He threw up his hands. “Have it your way! But when the ancient ghosts of sacrificed Celts appear, I’m going to tell them it’s your fault we slept on their graves.”
I waved my hands in the air and made gibberish noises.
“What are you doing?”
“Casting a spell to protect you from evil spirits.”
He scowled. “I’d be happier if I thought you really could.”
I would, too.
Together, we tended to the donkeys and then built a fire using the twigs and wood we’d collected during the day and strapped to our pack animal. It was a small fire, built behind the altar stone, and as we huddled by it, gnawing our bits of dried fish, I felt far from comforted by the meager flames. They did little to burn through the mist yet cast flickering shadows onto the tall stones surrounding us, making them look as if they breathed. I felt as if the stones were leaning over us, listening, waiting for us to fall asleep and let down our guard.
We put our trust in Bone to wake us should anyone approach and settled down to sleep. I faced the fire, with Terix holding me from behind, the shared body warmth a necessity.
“You’re not too scared to raise a mast,” I muttered, feeling his arousal against my backside.
“It’s possessed by an evil spirit.”
“Ah. So nothing new.” We’d slept like this many nights, and I gave no more meaning to his erection than that he was a young man with a female pressed against him. He couldn’t help it any more than he could help his morning wood, and in a strange way, I was comforted by that tree branch trying to lodge itself between my buttocks. It was a reminder that we were alive and of the trust and affection between us.
I reached forward and shoved a stick deeper into the flames, then tried to let my eyelids feel the weight of exhaustion. My lids lowered but did not close, held open by the ghostly moonlight and mist, the looming, breathing stones, and our slim protection against them, a flickering fire that would die as soon as we slept. I dreaded the thought of sleeping through the night without a fire, our bodies lying helpless in this otherworld of mist and haunted stones. Fire, the symbol of the sun, felt like our only shield against this darkness.
Terix snored into my hair. His erection softened.
He would laugh in the morning when he heard that I was the one who stayed awake all night, fretting about spirits.
I hovered on the edge of sleep for I knew not how long, occasionally stirring from my doze to feed sticks into the flames. At some point, though, sleep caught me, and then I woke with a start to find the fire out. I had the sense that some noise had disturbed me, and I listened hard, my ears straining past Terix’s snoring and the shift and sigh of a donkey.
Far off, a horn sounded.
I tensed.
Again, the horn, as of hunters, and with it now the baying of hounds.
My heart thundered, my body going weak and cold with fear, while my mind struggled to clear away the mud of sleep. No one would hunt at night, in the fog. Was I dreaming?
The baying grew louder, and with it now I heard the thudding of hooves against turf.
I shrugged out from under Terix’s arm and scrambled to my feet, then around the altar to what seemed the main opening to the stone circle. My eyes wide as if they could see through the moonlit mist, I peered out from behind a stone toward the sounds, still not believing.
Hunters. At night. Who? Why?
I slapped my face and felt the sting in my cheek. Awake.
Behind me, Bone growled, then woofed in warning. Terix’s snoring stopped with a snort.
The horn sounded again, and out of the mist came a white hound, loping toward me.
“Terix!” I screamed, turning around and stumbling to him. My legs felt as if they’d turned to water; it was every nightmare of being unable to move as death approached.
He was on his feet and reaching for his sword. “What is it?”
“A hunt!”
“What?”
Bone rushed past us and engaged the white hound. Snarls and the horrible quick barking of two dogs fighting nearly drowned out the hooves and horn and with them now the rumble of male laughter.
“Run!” Terix said, and grabbed my hand.
We dashed through the stones and down the ditch, leaving the donkeys and all our belongings behind. “Are they real?” I gasped as we pulled ourselves up the other side. “How can they be real?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” He jerked my arm, forcing me to keep up with his longer strides.
“But who can they— Oh Juno, protect us!” I said, as I realized.
“What?”
“The Wild Hunt.”
“Jupiter’s balls!”
Audofleda, Clovis’s sister, had told us about the Wild Hunt, when Woden and his spectral warriors rode to the hunt with their hounds. To hear them was to be warned of war and catastrophe; to see them was to be swept up and pulled into the underworld. They galloped in the air just above the ground, following roads that either were there or once had been.
We were both flagging, our burst of energy spent. “If there’s a road to the stones, we’re surely far from it now,” I said.
Terix nodded, and we dropped to the ground, hoping to hide ourselves against it.
“Why are they here, in Britannia?” Terix whispered.
“Maybe we’re in Saxon territory. The Saxons are from Germania, aren’t they, like the Franks?”
At the stone circle, shouts went up, the voices carrying in odd echoes through the mist. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but guessed they’d discovered our camp and donkeys. I still couldn’t believe this was happening, couldn’t believe it was real. It felt real, but . . . But I didn’t believe in gods.
Maybe the kraken had been real, too.
I whimpered. If such things truly existed, then we were nothing against them. I felt the darkness expanding around me, concealing worlds of gods, demons, and the dead.
Something was coming toward us, panting in great, gasping breaths. I clutched Terix’s shoulder, and we sprang to our feet and ran. We were no challenge to it, though; the heaving breaths drew closer, until I could feel the hot, wet breath on my legs.
It gave a soft woof.
“Bone!” I put my hand out and felt the wet slobber of his tongue.
The hunting horn was sounding again. The hounds bayed. The hooves thundered. Men gave the eager cry of the chase.
A white hound came out of the mist and lunged at Terix, and he went down. I screamed. Bone leapt onto the hound, knocking it away from Terix. I leaned down to help him up, but his eyes were on something behind me. “Run, Nimia!”
I turned to look and saw an immense form moving through the mist. A mounted warrior—or something worse. Its shape was wrong.
“Get up, get up!” I urged, pulling at Terix’s arm.
“I can’t. Run, Nimia!”
I ran, hoping to draw the thing away from Terix. I ran with every fiber of strength I possessed, and yet it was only a moment before I se
nsed the hooves behind me, heard the laughter, and felt an arm scoop me up and throw me belly-down across a horse’s withers. I struggled, preferring the slashing hooves of the horse to whatever held me, and the thing gripped the back of my gown and jerked me upright, turning me so I sat across its thighs. I clung to its chain-mailed chest to keep my balance.
And looked up.
A hideous visage of misshapen silver gleamed down at me, with immense hollows for eyes. From its broad skull sprouted enormous antlers. I gaped at the monster that held me, frozen in terror and disbelief. I remembered the white stag in my vision. Was it Woden?
He turned the horse back toward the stone circle, and I heard Terix holler and voices laugh. I struggled anew, desperate to get away and get back to Terix, but he clamped his massive arm around me, pinning me to him.
I was going with him, to the underworld.
I smelled sweat.
Male sweat.
I smelled horse and leather. The oil on the mail. The sour stench of the unwashable padding under it.
This was no god; this was a man.
Relief flooded through me and then as quickly was washed away by a fresh surge of fear.
This was a man bent on nothing good.
We rode back to the stone circle and through the stones to the altar, upon which he dropped me. I found my feet and stayed in place as the other riders came in from the fog, filling the space around the altar. Two rode in carrying Terix by the armpits and dropped him beside me. I crouched down and threw my arms around him.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’ll live,” he said.
But would we? The mounted, armed men surrounding us were dressed for a ritual I did not understand, and we were on an altar. Only one thing happened on altars.
Sacrifice.
We had to do something to distract them, something to change their minds. What? Something unexpected. Surprising.
“The baker and the senator’s daughter,” I said to Terix, my hands on either side of his face. “Can you do it?”
“Now?”
“Better than what they might have in mind.”
He struggled to his feet, controlling a gasp of pain, and started to sing a raunchy song in Latin about a baker kneading his dough. He threw in broad gestures at his groin that a man of any language could understand; it wasn’t bread he was kneading.
The milling and shouting of the warriors slowed and quieted. Masked heads cocked to the side, watching.
It was my turn. I sashayed around the top of the altar stone, singing for all I was worth. I was the senator’s daughter, who had overeaten bread and so was forbidden from having it. The bawdy act was one we’d done in Sygarius’s household, for the entertainment of his male guests. It was a silly piece, simple enough in its sexual humor for even the drunkest of dullards to enjoy.
The warriors were watching intently now; I could feel their attention. They pressed in closer, to see better in the thin moonlight.
The senator’s daughter got her serving of bread from the baker’s groin, eating it up and licking her lips. Some of the men laughed.
I pretended to get my serving of bread in other orifices, and then with my arms showed how big my belly grew. Out dropped a baby, which I showed to the unhappy baker and then rocked in my arms.
The baker looked upon the senator’s daughter in disgust and, heaving a sigh, went back to kneading his dough and singing his original lament.
The warriors hooted in laughter.
Terix and I grasped hands and bowed, and while I was staring down, a horse came close. I dared to raise my eyes and saw the antlered warrior before us.
He grasped his metal helmet in both hands and raised it off his head; the man next to him took it. His face was in shadow, indiscernible, but I felt him staring at us.
“Who are you?” he asked in heavily accented Latin.
“Entertainers,” I said, straightening up. “Nimia and Terix, of Gaul.”
“Romans?”
We both shook our heads, hard. I hoped that was the right response and that he was no friend to Romans. Britannia had been free of them for so long I doubted anyone wanted them back. I wanted to ask who he was but didn’t dare to interrogate him.
“How come you to be here?”
It sounded as if Latin was a struggle to him, so I kept my answer simple. “We are lost.”
“Yes, lost.” He said something in his language to the men, and they laughed. “Where are you going?”
This was the dangerous question. To tell the truth or lie? We knew nothing of who this man was or who his enemies were, so we could not know what answer was best. From the snippets of speech we’d heard, though, I guessed that these were Britons; I’d heard Jax speak to Saxons and knew that their tongue was much like Frankish. I decided to take a risk and tell the truth.
“We are seeking a man I’ve never met but who may be kin,” I said. If Maerlin was Phanne like me, then surely we shared family ties. “His name is Maerlin.”
“Maerlin!”
A muttering went through the nearest warriors. One of them spat. My gut sank.
“Maerlin is kin to you?” the man asked.
“I don’t know but maybe. I have no other kin left. We”—I gestured to myself and Terix—“have no home but hope to find one with kin.”
“Are you sister and brother?”
Terix tightened his grip on my hand and spoke. “Husband and wife.”
I was glad of his answer; it might give me protection from the men if they thought I was spoken for. Also, daylight would show clearly enough that we were not related. I was small, with the straight black hair and oval face bequeathed by my ancestor, Attila the Hun. Terix had dark curls, pale skin with freckles, and a brawny build.
“You are fortunate,” the man said slowly, “that I found you before Maerlin. The man is a . . .” He struggled to find the words. “A man who makes evil. Who speaks to spirits. Much bad is known of him.”
A thrill of excitement went through me. They knew of him! Maerlin must be known here as a sorcerer, which would fit with his being of the Phanne. The description of him as evil—I assumed that was the talk of ignorance and superstition, nothing more.
“I am sorry to hear this,” I said. “Still, if he is kin, he may know of other family, family who might welcome us.”
“I, Mordred of Dumnonia, will welcome you. You will come to Tannet Fortress to sing and dance for us.”
“We would be honored to do so,” Terix said. “First, though, we must find Maerlin.”
Mordred made a sharp gesture with his hand. “No. You must feast and accept my . . . hospitality. I must apologize for . . .” He gestured at the stones, the hounds, the other warriors.
He sounded neither sorry nor willing to let us go on our way.
Terix tightened his grip on mine, sending a warning that I did not need. “Then we thank you, Mordred of Dumnonia. We are delighted to accept your very generous offer.”
Especially when the invitation came on the point of a sword.
M ordred and the bulk of his warriors rode ahead with the hounds, leaving us to come more slowly on our donkeys. Bone trotted alongside with a limp, his low-headed posture expressing shame that he’d allowed an entire pack of dogs to get the better of him. A warrior guided us, and another followed behind.
“What do you think?” I asked Terix softly in Frankish. The warriors might know some Latin, but I doubted they’d know the tongue of the Franks.
“I think we’ve fallen in with a lunatic. What were they doing, hunting in the middle of the night? If they were hunting. What man hunts with antlers on his head? They would get caught in branches as you rode.”
“It must be some ritual,” I said. “Maybe they have an antlered forest god they ask for help. But there’s something else, Terix.” I told him about the vis
ion I’d had of the stag and the bears.
“What does that mean? Juno’s cunny, Nimia, I wish your visions were clearer. If Mordred is the stag, then who’s the bear? Maerlin?”
I held my hands palms up. “We’ll find out. Eventually.”
“Do you think Mordred is lying about Maerlin being evil?”
“That’s the least of my worries.”
“Mine, too,” Terix muttered.
We fell silent, for there was nothing else to say. We didn’t know if we were captives or guests; we only knew that Mordred’s invitation to Tannet Fortress could not be refused.
We knew too little yet of him to guess what he might intend for us, but my first impression was not of a kindly man inclined to help from the goodness of his heart. I had no clear impression of his face from which to further judge his character, though I knew from his body that he was strong and agile.
Terix made a soft noise of pain, and I cast a worried look at his leg, haphazardly bound with a wad of cloth and his belt. That white hound had given him a nasty bite, and I feared it needed to be sewn.
Dawn was casting her pale light when, several miles later, we came to the base of the hill upon which Tannet Fortress sat and began to climb it. Looking upward, I saw a wooden palisade like a crown around the uneven brow of the hill, its base supported with stone foundations. Below the palisade were two levels of ditches, apparently meant to slow any attacker’s advance. We circled upward around the hill and came at last to the gate.
Here the earth had been scooped away so that we rode up a paved ramp with stone walls to either side of us and a wooden guard structure built above, connected to the palisade. Attackers would be forced through this chute, likely having stones and spears thrown on them from above.
We rose up the slope, and I saw the top of the hill spread out before us. There was green pasture, scattered small buildings, and even a copse of trees, their leaves golden and half-fallen. I had been expecting the tight containment of a Roman villa or the great hall of the Franks but found instead a rural village spread over many acres, complete with garden plots and wandering pigs and sheep.
We were led to a small round building, and we dismounted and waited beside our donkeys while one of the warriors ducked his head inside the door and spoke to someone. The warrior then showed us where to stable the donkeys among the other livestock behind the house, pointed to us and then to the house door, and left.