The Celtic Mirror

by Louis Phillippi

  Morgan began the pursuit almost without thought. The enemy could not be allowed to escape to spread the alarm. He reached the stairs in three strides and touched off two shots in rapid succession, turning the stairwell into a hell of fragmented marble. He hesitated to draw a deep breath then lunged to the center of the bottom step, fully exposing his body to return fire from above. But the only thing to come from above was a body, which slid to Morgan’s beat, headfirst and on its back, and Morgan saw that his stairwell fuselage had not brought the Mercian down.

  Projecting from the soldier’s throat just below the adam’s apple was a tuft of bloody feather and ten millimeters of wooden shaft. The authoritative end of a hunting arrow had snapped off and lay several treads up from the Mercian’s boots.

  The arrow was Amerind, he knew, but he also knew the enemy to be treacherous and deceptive. He motioned to his companions to keep clear of the stairwell and he began to ascend cautiously, mentally accounting for each round left in his pistol’s magazine. One wall of the stairwell was gouged where the explosive bullets had harmlessly impacted, and the Mercian’s blood was a smeared track on the treads like the passage of a huge slug. He shuddered despite his experience with spilled blood and avoided stepping on the red meridian. He felt no remorse for the Mercians he and his companions had killed in the first hours of Celtic rebirth, for the enemy had shown itself to be without conscience or compassion. Allied with evil, the Mercians deserved none of the respect he had been able to give to some of his old enemies, men and women who had fought for a cause, however questionable from his viewpoint.

  However, Morgan was no war-lover and no death-worshiper despite his obvious skills in dealing with both. He was a soldier. Again.

  He took the next step. It was unnaturally quiet about him and he wished he had the incarnate spirit with him at that moment; he did not know enough of the rules for the Celtic jungle of stone and magic.

  He then took a second noiseless step. A scrape from above halted him and he flattened against the wall. The sound had echoed from both walls, and he was not certain from which direction the sound had originated. He extended his pistol and waited. He knew he was fast enough, thanks to Aiofe’s curious reverse vampirism, but would he be lucky enough?

  “Hold your fire down there!” shouted a voice reminiscent of the Caerwent marketplace, an unlikely accent for a Mercian.

  Uncertain, Morgan backed down the stairs and positioned himself so that he could cover the entire entrance with a minimum of exposure.

  “Show yourselves,” he commanded, “but hold your weapons over your heads.” He turned to Cunneda. “I think we’ve run into a group of your guerrillas, but it’s just possibly a Mercian trick. Do you have any way of identifying them as yours?”

  The prince smiled smugly and prodded the dead soldier with the toe of his boot. “I would think,” he said “that they just identified themselves well enough. Don’t you think so?”

  Morgan bit off an inappropriate reply and colored. It would do no good to educate the Celt into the behaviors of fanatics at that moment. Cunneda would never know the operational rules of the jungle war that had molded Morgan’s caution. He tightened his grip on his pistol as a shadow blocked light from the street above.

  A man in civilian dress appeared. He carried an M-16 at the ready, muzzle pointed harmlessly at the ceiling. Morgan knew he had to be one of Cunneda’s men. A Mercian would not know which end to point. He relaxed slightly but was determined to play the game through to the end, unwilling to concede the Caerwent aristocrat any points, however small.

  “Come on down, slowly,” he ordered.

  The man obeyed, keeping his movements deliberate. Morgan could see his face only as a featureless balloon against the glare of the morning light that drenched the stairwell. The newcomer, however, could apparently discern those below him.

  “My Lord Cunneda,” he said in the broad accents of the working class; “Caerwent Cockney” Greenfeld had named it. “I am Wapasha MacCumail, sub leader of the old town Unialls.” The voice was confident, not that of a decoy.

  Cunneda grinned in triumph, making certain that Morgan saw. “MacCumail is the butcher who keeps his shop on the Street of Merchants not far from the Clan Hall. You ate well of the meats he supplied to the House Cunneda.” He deftly shifted into the consummate politician with his next breath. “Welcome MacCumail!”

  As the man’s stepped closer, Morgan recognized him. He had seen him before, but only briefly. The face was unmistakably jolly and round; one that could make children laugh, but it was set solidly on massive shoulders without benefit of a neck. He met the black-clad soldiers as if they had been ordinary customers in his shop and the carnage was bovine instead of human.

  “Might I, my Lord?” The butcher inquired differentially, jerking his head upward, “My arms is getting weary.”

  Morgan doubted if the weight-lifter arms would ever really tire of holding the light rifle in the air.

  “Certainly,” Morgan answered, amused. “And call your troops down.”

  The guerrilla sub-leader grinned at Morgan as if he had been overpaid for a roast and bounded up the stairs with enormous energy.

  “Ian,” Cunneda said, laughing. “We are in luck. I know this man. He’d walk through fire to kill Mercians.”

  “We’ll need more like him before this day ends,” Connach grunted.

  A cry came from above. “Lord Cunneda! Hold your fire!” MacCumail appeared unready to have his new career ended by any trigger-happy noblemen.

  Morgan remained silent, instead letting Cunneda shout assurances to the butcher. Seconds later, the butcher appeared at the landing, accompanied by a ragtag band of thirteen: nine men and four women. The youngest, the group’s lone archer appeared to be no more than twelve or thirteen years old to Morgan. The boy stared in awe at the evidence of his good marksmanship.

  It was Morgan’s turn to be surprised. He knew two of the guerrillas. They hurried across the platform to greet him, then Connach.

  “Axtgirtle!” Morgan called, pleased. He grasped the farmer’s callused hands and turned his smile on the woman by Axtgirtle’s side. “Woman,” he began awkwardly, not knowing how to proceed, remembering all too well the moments of sheer terror he and the other guerrillas had caused those good people.

  “My name is Cairenn, Lord,” she said with confident grace. “I once told the Lord Connach that Heinz and I had made our decision to choose a side.” She lifted the weapon she carried… an ugly-looking grenade launcher. “This is our choice.” she spoke to him as an equal, all deference gone.

  Morgan decided then that she was beautiful after all. “How did you get involved with MacCumail and his group?”

  She gave a twisted smile. “As soon as the Vik bastards outside the city allowed us to hire a pair of horses to move the wagon, Heinz and I made straight for my cousin, Wapasha’s shop. I knew he had no love for the Mercians. He taught us how to gut Viking swine,” she said, adding horror by underscoring the statement with a sweet grin.

  Morgan was greatly impressed, both by the Axtgirtles’ willingness to take action and by MacCumail’s apparent dedication.

  Axtgirtle, standing beside his wife, had said nothing while she spoke. Perhaps his feelings for Morgan and Connach ran much deeper and were bitterer than hers. Morgan was relieved, therefore, when the fair-haired landsman slapped his rifle stock and winked at the Californian.

  “I’ve given Cernunos some bones to chew upon with this as well.”

  “You will have the opportunity to fill his cauldron to the lip, fellow warrior,” Morgan stated in all seriousness, using terms that he knew would please the frustrated expatriate. “Tell me,” he said, asking both. “What is happening above?” He was anxious to leave the underground trap as soon as possible.

  It was the butcher who answered for the Axtgirtles.

  “From what I hear, Lord, a Vik column came in from Badon and run into the Warriors what had taken the High Chief’s palace from Thorkell. The
re was a lot of panic when the fightin’ broke out because it was Mercians that was dyin’ for once. All this time, no one has heard word from this Lord Connach from Reged, so Cadoc takes command. He has bonfires lit all over the city to signal the field commanders.”

  “Did they begin?” The two Celtic noblemen had joined Morgan. Connach’s face reflected the concern he must have felt, deserting his command, disobeying orders from the Council.

  The butcher gave a clown smile, creasing his face with obvious pleasure. “They couldn’t be stopped. The need to take vengeance and heads was in the heart of every man and woman. People from all over are killin’ Mercians, and not just the trained ones like us. There’s blond corpses aplenty, Lord.” He giggled.

  Morgan listened without comment, taking heart. He was certain that the cherubic ghoul chuckled to himself while he carved up the carcasses brought into his little shop. The butcher was long since inured to the side of blood and entrails. He was the perfect freedom fighter.

  “There seems to be a pretty stiff resistance at the airfield, Lords. There must be a better quality Mercian soldier there than elsewhere. That’s where we was headed when we seen this Vik bastard crawling from his hole.”

  Morgan glanced at the dead soldier on the stairwell. Blue-green flies as large as olives had already claimed his eyes, which moved with a repulsive new life. Morgan looked away.

  “What do you know about the naval base?” He asked, surprised that no one else had done so before.

  “That’s where we just come from, Lord. There’s no fightin’ out there yet. That was supposed to be this Lord Connach’s job, I hear. But there’s plenty of activity goin’ on I can tell you. Whole harbor was lit up long before the fightin’ begun. They’ve got two aircraft out there with cables danglin’ down to this boat they has tied to the quay. They....”

  “Kerry!” Connach snapped. “Looks like they are going to try to fly the boat out of here, probably to Waicuri. Do you think they could pull it off?”

  Morgan made some swift calculations in his head. “Yeah,” he said after a pause. “They sure as hell could, if they stripped the gondolas of all non-essentials and had good weather on their side.”

  “With Odinn’s Breath, they’ll have good weather,” Cunneda said bitterly. He put a hand on each of the butcher’s massive shoulders. “We need your help to keep the Viks from having that boat. Are you and your followers loyal to me?”

  “Aye, Lord.”

  “Then place yourself under the Lord Connach’s orders,” he removed one hand and indicated the Verulamium nobleman.

  “This be the Lord Connach?”

  “Yes. Follow him and win glory and trophies for the Unialls and freedom for our people,” Cunneda urged, sincerity coloring his speech for the first time since Morgan had known him.

  MacCumail stroked his rifle. Morgan swore that if it had been a cat it would have purred. The butcher’s single eyebrow rose in a furry curve and his face registered consternation. “This is for a fact the Lord Connach?” He blushed like a girl.

  “Will you do it, MacCumail?” Connach asked the man. Under any other circumstances, Morgan bet he would never have addressed a commoner with such an emotion-laden voice.

  “Aye, Lord,” MacCumail answered, having recovered his composure more rapidly than Connach. “The Unaills will gladly join with you.”

  Morgan managed a wan smile as a general murmur of approval ran its course at the sub-leader’s simple announcement. Morgan was not so warmed. He knew that even though twenty-four was a better number than six, the mission was still suicidal, even with the cast-off weapons of his own world. Still, he had never expected any military mission to be easy. This one would not be. They had lost both the elements of darkness and of surprise. There was only audacity left.

  “MacCumail,” Morgan called, interrupting the celebration. “Take us to the main entrance of the naval base.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Things were better than Morgan had feared, and yet much worse. Behind him, the uprising was growing, the noise of battle was a thunderstorm that shook the city, and it was evident that the Mercians and their allies had begun to lose their grip on Caerwent’s citizens and its territory. A smoke pall hung over the city, joining the constant air pollution that vomited from the high stacks of slave factories, factories that only yesterday produced export luxury items for the dandies and their consorts from Londstaadt. Heavy basso profundo explosions from Mercian ballistas threw up new columns of smoke like a dirty wall, all but obscuring the embattled city from his view.

  For Morgan, the battle for Caerwent belonged to others. His personal war had come to this. It was more immediate, more compact, his wall smaller, but infinitely more solid.

  He rolled his shoulders. The sun was slow-cooking him inside his black night-fighter’s rig, turning him into a pot roast. His eyes stung from perspiration that ran in rivulets from his scalp. He ran a dirty sleeve over his face and refocused his attention on the perimeter wall below. He did not like what he saw there.

  Properly emplaced explosives would easily turn any portion of the massive wall into a rock pile, but he knew that by taking that obvious and noisy course of action, the enemy garrison would converge on the entry spot like rabid wolves. Their mission would fail before it could properly begin.

  Even though he rejected the idea of the explosives almost as soon as it had come into his mind, Cunneda had apparently embraced it. Morgan could hear him in excited conversation with Connach.

  The Caerwent prince was viewing the enemy stronghold through binoculars. That son of a bitch has never stopped needling Connach for enlisting Shadow World assistance, Morgan thought with bitter irony, but he has fallen hopelessly in love with our goodies.

  Even without Shadow World optics, Morgan could easily discern the bulbous shape of a Mercian airship hovering over the waterfront area. Directly below the ungainly craft, stabbing skyward as if intent upon slashing the vulnerable gasbag, was the spike of a mast, a PacSail mast. The sloop bobbed comfortably enough on the harbor waters as if the enemy’s dock was simply another marina slip.

  Morgan seriously wondered if it could be done at all. The odds had never been skewed in their favor, but with the Kettelmann factor introduced into the game, they had slimmed even further. Surviving the attack was a moot point. There was much more at stake than the survival of a small guerrilla band. What mattered most was the need to remove the Mirror from Mercian control or to destroy it. Kettelmann understood that, or had guessed it by now.

  Morgan rolled to his right. “Pass me the glasses, Ian,” he grunted.

  Connach unslung the waterproof seven by fifties from around his neck and handed them over without a word, apparently as lost in thought as Morgan.

  Morgan hoped Connach was not thinking about Cunneda’s insane frontal attack plan as he swept the base methodically. He had no difficulty locating the second tethered airship, and then he discovered a large open area, filled with stacked, wooden drums. Some of the drums were darkly stained around the seams, as if a viscous liquid had been slowly oozing from them.

  “What are those drums,” he asked Cunneda, pointing.

  The Clan Chief focused his own binoculars. “Fuel for Vik shipping,” he answered, barely civil.

  Morgan did not value civility much just then, only the answers that might help them accomplish the impossible task at hand.

  “No offense, Lord Cunneda,” he said as politely as he could manage, “but isn’t that pretty crude, even for the Viks?”

  The prince appeared unoffended at Morgan’s direct address to him, but he did not look at him as he answered. “My spies tell me that those drums are used only for on-board reserves. Most of the fuel for patrols is stored in large tanks below decks. That is supplied to the boats by the elevated storage tank that lies seaward of the loading dock.” He gestured with a free hand. “You can see it easily, without using this Shadow World magic.”

  Morgan perversely focused his binoculars on the
massive tank, acknowledging that Cunneda had been correct. The tank was so large in the binocular’s vision field that he was only able to see details and not the whole. Still, those details were most interesting. The tank was manufactured of huge wooden staves, bound into order and tightness by a series of riveted iron hoops. Like its smaller counterparts, a dark staining of the joints told Morgan of a slow leakage of the tank’s contents.

  He followed the dark stain down the braced wooden legs until the stain met the water. The rainbow tincture and glassy water further betrayed the leak. He filed that information away with the other facts he was learning about the Mercian base. He continued his systematic sweep, quadrant by quadrant, coming to a stop at the main gate. A squad of crossbow-carrying sailors did not only guard it, but as he watched, a crew of straining men forced a large wheeled crossbow into position. A metal pot of a black semi-liquid material was set beside it.

  Morgan whistled, impressed. The big weapon was capable of heaving flaming, three-meter long bolts a full kilometer. Who needed gunpowder?

  His careful examination of the base had yielded him many facts but no viable plan. He was about to concede Cunneda his high-casualty rush when a loud clattering and movement captured his attention.

  A smoke belching, drab-colored vehicle approached the gate from the direction of the city, carrying two soldiers. Morgan guessed them to be officers from their uniforms. He watched as the vehicle rolled to a stop. Morgan then rolled onto his back and handed the binoculars back to Connach.

  “I know how we can do it.” The prince did not fail him. He watched as Cunneda reacted with all the detachment of a Communist at a John Birch convention. His face underwent a rapid succession of changes from astonishment to indignation. The little ball that whirled inside his head finally settled into the cup marked “anger” and remained there. His face became suffused with blood, and the whites of his eyes grew red. He twisted his position and thrust his face forward until he was nearly touching Morgan’s common nose with his own noble one.