Falcon Warrior (The Swordswoman Book 3)

by Malcolm Archibald

  'We're pushing them back!' Eric shouted, gutting a Dhegian with his sword.

  'Destroy them,' Frakkok shouted from the stern. 'Don't let any get away to warn their friends.'

  Her men obliged. Now that they had recovered from the initial shock they were responding like true Norse warriors, hacking and slicing with sword and axe, using their shield-bosses to crash into the Dhegians and the wooden shields to counter the swinging clubs and lunging spears.

  For one moment the contest seemed evenly poised, and then Frakkok lifted a bow and fired an arrow that killed the leader of the Dhegian patrol. The rest wavered for a crucial second that Melcorka exploited.

  'Alba!' She yelled, and stepped forward, killing.

  The Dhegians broke. One second they were a disciplined fighting force; the next they were a panicking, leaderless mob frantic to escape the iron swords of the Norse.

  Running along the half-submerged boom, the Dhegians fled to land, with the Norse following them. Erik was in the lead, his sword slicing at the rearmost of the Dhegians. One fell into the river and then the others were on land, running to the security of the small fortification. But the Norse blood was up; a wooden palisade was no barricade to their fury and they followed the Dhegians up the steep slope, baying their war cries.

  'Thor and Odin!'

  'Odin owns you all!'

  There was a brief flurry at the palisade when the Dhegians turned to fight, and then the Norse swarmed over the top of them, swords and axes busy. Within a few moments, there were only dead Dhegians and a slow flow of blood from the palisade down toward the river. Arne ripped down the flag and wrapped it around him as the Norse celebrated with loud cheers and a raising of swords and spears.

  'Thor and Odin! Thor and Odin!'

  Melcorka cleaned the blood from Defender and watched the Norse. 'Now you are heroes,' she said, 'fit to take your place in the halls of Valhalla.'

  Erik caught the sarcasm in her tone. 'We defeated a Dhegian war party,' he said. 'We have reason to celebrate.'

  'We wiped out a border guard and a body of warriors,' Melcorka agreed. 'We do not know how many more warriors are ahead, or how large is the army of the empire upon whom we have just declared war.' She sheathed Defender and looked around. 'Yet here we are, thousands of miles from home, in a river that flows into their territory, with twenty- five Norsemen, one Pictish matriarch, and two Albans.'

  'They outnumbered us and we slaughtered them,' Arne boasted.

  'These were border guards. Do you know any country that puts their best warriors on the border? No,' Melcorka answered her own question. 'They put their old and sick on the outposts; those who have fallen out of favour; those who are not wanted.' She nodded downstream, where the mighty river flowed on through the never-ending landscape. 'Out there, somewhere, are the true warriors of Dhegia, perhaps thousands of them, and we are alone.'

  'How do you know there are thousands?' Arne mocked. 'You know as little about them as we do!'

  Melcorka held his gaze until he dropped his eyes. 'I know,' she said as the images returned. She could see the vast city, the great mounds and the bare-chested warriors with the falcon head-dresses and carved stone maces.

  'Let's free the passage to this empire,' Bradan said. 'If we are sure we're going there.'

  A series of stout ropes attached the boom to both banks of the river. Erik lifted his sword and chopped through the ropes at the nearest bank, the boom parted and they had free passage downstream.

  Both vessels hoisted their sails, and for the first time since they entered Vinland, Melcorka saw Erik post watchmen on Sea Serpent.

  'Melcorka!' Erik called across. 'We must speak. '

  'Then do so,' Melcorka replied.

  The land on either side was unchanged; mixed grassland or dense forest with no sign of human habitation and only an occasional animal.

  'We will moor mid-river tonight. I don't trust these Dhegians not to attack us.'

  Melcorka glanced at Bradan, who nodded. 'That makes sense,' she said.

  'We'd better take watches,' Bradan suggested.

  'You take the first,' Melcorka looked downstream; she could sense the presence of the great city; she was nearly home.

  Night brought a display of spectacular beauty, an orange sky that stretched from horizon to horizon and reflected in rippling splendour across the wide river. Lying on her back, Melcorka stared upward, thinking that it was a long time since she had last seen such a sky, so similar yet so different from the lighter, more austere skies of Scotland's Hebrides. As so often before, she shook her head: that was a strange thought as she had never been here before. The lap of the river was reassuringly familiar as she closed her eyes, listening to the deep breathing of Bradan and knowing that Erik and his Norsemen were so close on Sea Serpent. Yet it was neither Bradan nor Erik who stood at her side and whispered in her ear.

  'Not long now; we'll be together again soon Eyota. Not long now.'

  Chapter Fourteen

  Melcorka woke to something sharp pricking her under the chin. She brushed it away. 'Don't bother me now, Bradan.'

  It returned, sharper and more insistent than before. Something banged into her ribs; hard.

  'What?' Opening her eyes, Melcorka stared around her. Catriona was filled with copper-coloured, bare-chested men with their faces painted half-red and half white. Melcorka struggled up, reaching for Defender, only for one man to stand on her wrist and another to tap her ungently on the head with his stone club.

  The pain was acute. Melcorka cringed, clasping both hands to her head. 'Bradan?'

  He was lying on the bottom of Catriona with a gaggle of Dhegians around him. 'Melcorka!' Bradan shouted and rose, throwing off one of the Dhegians. The man staggered back. 'Fight them, Mel!'

  The second of the Dhegians lifted his club and crashed it against Bradan's head. He swore and put both hands to his head and another Dhegian lifted a flint- bladed knife and slashed it across his chest.

  'Mel…' Bradan said the one word as the blood flowed from his new wound, and then he crumpled to his knees. He stared at Melcorka with the light fading from his eyes. Another Dhegian slammed a mace hard against his head and Bradan fell face first into the bottom of Catriona.

  The Dhegians lifted his body and threw it overboard. The fast current whisked him away.

  'No!' Melcorka yelled as three men took hold of her. 'Bradan!' She saw his body turn end over end and then sink beneath the surface.

  'Bradan!'

  Screaming, Melcorka thrust a sharp nail into the eye of one of her attackers, reeled as a hard fist crashed into the side of her head and kicked out wildly. She struggled, feeling her strength fade as the muscular warriors pressed down on her. One wrapped a cord around her ankles, tight, stopping the flow of blood as the others held her secure. They were quiet, professional, men who knew exactly what they were doing and who had probably done this sort of thing before. She tried to kick, tried to punch but against three strong men she was powerless. Within minutes she lay supine, tied tightly and with a rag stuffed into her mouth. The men stared at her; one traced the tattoo that decorated the left side of her face. He pointed to it and said something to his companions. They laughed and all traced the design as if they found it highly amusing. One slapped her across the head and laughed again.

  'Bradan' Melcorka tried to shout, but the gag stopped any words from escaping. Helpless, she could only glare her hatred and anger and sick despair as the Dhegians crowded round, touching her face, running hard hands over her body, squeezing and prodding at her. She did not care; they could do whatever they liked, it did not matter. All that mattered was that Bradan was dead. That quiet, determined, intelligent man was gone and her world, all the world, was the poorer for his loss.

  Bradan was dead, killed by these painted savages in this land far from home. Her Bradan. The words ran through her mind, again and again, depriving her of any will to fight. Sick, hopeless, she stopped struggling and looked up through eyes blank with despair.


  The Dhegians lifted Melcorka as if she was a dead sheep, slipped her over a long pole by her bonds and stepped clear of Catriona. Dazed, she saw that a whole fleet of canoes surrounded Catriona and Sea Serpent, with the Norse ship similarly filled with Dhegians.

  Thrown into the bottom of a canoe, Melcorka could see nothing but the birch bark interior of the hull as the Dhegians paddled ashore. Two hefty warriors lifted her again, with the pole placed on their shoulders as they carried her into the interior. She swung painfully; suspended by her hands and feet, Melcorka soon felt the strain as the cords bit into her ankles and wrists. She moaned, twisting, hoping for relief but her physical pain was nothing compared to the mental and emotional agony at Bradan's death.

  Night eased into day and the Dhegians did not stop walking. They moved in single file at a steady pace, not quite a trot but faster than a walk. The constant motion made Melcorka feel sick and her view was restricted to the back, loin-cloth and muscular legs of the man in front, a small arc of sky and the tall trees and grassland on either side of the path.

  When the sun was at its apex they stopped. The warriors formed a circle and ate some sort of dried meat and porridge, talking in a language that Melcorka did not find hard to understand. She listened, picking out a word here and there. As far as she could tell, they were talking about the length they had to travel and what they would do to the prisoners. Melcorka heard the words slave and sacrifice mentioned; neither sounded inviting; neither mattered compared to the loss of Bradan. Yet through her agony, Melcorka's subconscious heard one word repeated again and again: Wamblee. The manner in which it was said made Melcorka think it was somebody's name, and the hushed tones suggested that Wamblee was important.

  It did not matter. Nothing mattered.

  The road led onto another and soon they were passing neatly tended fields of some high yellow crop that Melcorka knew was maize. There were few people working on the outside fields, but more as they moved on, closer to a large settlement. Soon they were among rows of small huts, all neatly thatched with grass. Men, women, and children came to watch them pass, clustering in small groups and pointing. By twisting her neck, Melcorka could see she was only one of a number of prisoners, all tied to poles and carried in a similar manner. She could not make out faces; she did not care who they were. She wanted Bradan.

  She tried to fight her despair Without Defender she was even more helpless than any of the others for she lacked the Norsemen's strength and fighting skill. She was only a young woman from the islands, completely at the mercy of these brawny men in their alien culture. That did not matter beside the death of Bradan. Nothing mattered besides that. Let them kill her; that did not matter either.

  The pain in her ankles and wrists was becoming intolerable. She heard herself moaning and fought the tears that were forcing through her closed eyes. This was not the way that heroes behaved, she told herself. She was Melcorka, the Swordswoman, Melcorka of the Cenel Bearnas, Melcorka of Alba. No, she shook her head. She was only Melcorka, the island girl, alone and lost amidst a sea of pain and strangers.

  The houses were closer now, and grander, some two stories high, and then they came to the first of the mounts, steep- sided earth pyramids surmounted by a stockade with a building inside. Without stopping, the Dhegians marched toward one of the mounds, spoke to one of the guards at the surrounding palisade and entered through a tall gate. Only a few moments later they were in a building that Melcorka found too dark to make out anything, and then her bearers dropped her in an unceremonial heap and left her.

  She was alone. She had nobody. Bradan was dead. Her mother was dead. All her family was dead. She looked around, hoping her captors had been foolish enough to leave Defender nearby. They had not. She was alone in a dark building somewhere in this unknown empire in this new, mysterious land.

  The darkness pressed down on her, dense and heavy, squeezing her into the ground, reminding her there was no hope. Without Defender she was nothing and with Bradan gone she had no potential rescuer. In Scotland and the seas round about, she could hope for an oystercatcher, her totem bird. Over here there was no such hope.

  'Mother.' For the first time in years, Melcorka asked her mother for help, muffling the word through her gag. Bearnas was long dead, killed by the Norseman Egil, but still, Melcorka said her name. 'Mother; don't neglect me in my time of need.'

  The high- pitched piping came to her, penetrating the dark, probing the miles from the Hebridean seas to this far-distant land. It was so nostalgic that Melcorka felt the sting of tears in her eyes and the warm dampness as they coursed down her cheeks. It was the call of an oystercatcher, the black-and-white bird of the shore that she had known all her life.

  'Well, now Melcorka' Bearnas glided into the chamber, shaking her head. 'This is a pretty mess you have got yourself into, isn't it?'

  It was the same sequence of words that she had used when Melcorka had done something silly when she was a little girl.

  'Yes, mother,' Melcorka said.

  'You know that I won't neglect you.' Bearnas looked exactly as she had before she was killed, tall, elegant and completely in control. 'All you need is patience.' She knelt beside Melcorka. 'If I had a physical body I would cut you free.'

  'Are you really here, Mother?'

  'No; I am dead,' Bearnas said. 'I am only here in spirit. You are calling on your memories of me.' Her smile was exactly as Melcorka remembered. 'Now you must ask questions of me and I will answer.'

  'Has Bradan really gone?'

  'Bradan is with me, Melcorka.'

  Melcorka looked away. She did not even wish her mother to see the depth of her despair. If Bradan was with Bearnas then he was dead and in Tir-nan-Og or whatever the equivalent was in this strange new world.

  'How can I get out of this?'

  'You have three weapons, Melcorka. You have Defender; you have your life experience and skills, and you have your brains. You must choose which one is best suited to which task and utilise it to the full.'

  'When will I see Bradan again?' Melcorka had not expected that question to come next. She was asking when she would die.

  'That depends on your will.' Bearnas said. 'How much do you want to see him as he is now?'

  'That is answering a question with a question.'

  'Only you know the answer,' Bearnas said.

  'Why do I feel as if I have been here before?'

  'Melcorka has not been here before,' Bearnas said. 'But one of you is returning.'

  'One of me? What do you mean? I am only one.'

  'Are you? When you hold Defender you inherit all the skill and courage and knowledge of her previous owners. Do you think that all those personalities simply vanish back into the sword the instant you return her? A small part of them remains in you, as a small part of you remains in Defender.'

  'Was Arthur here? Or Calgacus?'

  'You are not thinking straight, Melcorka. Defender was only an example; she is not the only magical thing you have touched recently.'

  'I have not touched anything magical,' Melcorka said.

  'Think, girl. Think.'

  Melcorka screwed up her face. What had she touched that gave her strength: nothing. But one thing had given her those strange visions. 'The head-band? Was it the head-band?'

  Bearnas smiled. 'You know the answer, Melcorka. Be yourself, and remember how I brought you up.'

  'Mother…' But Bearnas was gone. Melcorka was alone in that dark chamber with only her troubled thoughts for company. And the scratching of rats at the door.

  Lying on her back, she tried to rub her bonds against the ground, hoping to wear away the cords. It was a slim hope but better than lying in black despair. That scratching continued, growing louder.

  'There are too many rats in the world,' she told herself.

  'Eyota?'

  She had heard that name before. The voice was disembodied, seeming to come from nowhere. 'Eyota?'

  Somebody laid hard hands on her arm. She struggled,
trying to push them away. She refused to be taken to be executed or whatever the Dhegians had in mind. Her mother had given her hope.

  'It's all right; we are friends.' Although Melcorka had never spoken the language before, she now understood the meaning of the words. Somebody pressed close to her; the gag was gently eased from her mouth and a sharp blade sliced through her bonds.

  Vaguely through the dark, she saw bodies around her. Somebody helped her to her feet.

  'Keep quiet, Wamblee's men are all around.'

  Melcorka kept quiet. She remembered her captors using that same name. Wamblee; she would remember that.

  Taken to a corner of the room, hands guided her to a knotted rope and encouraged her to climb. There was a man above her and somebody beneath, a woman she thought, with small hands placing her feet on the knots and pushing at her buttocks.

  'Climb, Eyota; please climb.'

  'I am not Eyota,' Melcorka began but was quickly hushed to silence. The newcomers shoved and pulled her up the swaying rope to the roof of the building. Despite the urgency of her rescuers, she stopped for a moment to see where she was. A city stretched around her, visible under the moon and stars of an immense sky. She saw scores of the mounds topped with stockade buildings similar to the one in which she had been held, with a central mound larger than all the others, and then her rescuers were guiding her to another rope that hung on the outside of the building.

  'Don't dawdle, Eyota and keep quiet for Inyan's sake.'

  Melcorka did not question who or what Inyan was. She could see Dhegian warriors at the front entrance to the building and without Defender, she knew she could not fight them.

  'This way, Eyota.' The female took her hand and led her away, with five men forming around them as if in protection. 'Can you walk? It will be hard after being tied up.'

  'I can walk,' Melcorka said. The return of circulation after such a long period of constriction was painful but she revelled in the freedom of movement. She remembered a saying of her mother's: 'pain is temporary, failure is forever.' Stretching her legs, she matched her rescuers stride for stride as they jogged through the quiet streets of the largest city that Melcorka had ever seen in her life. She remembered Dunedin with its royal castle in which the King of Alba had lived; that was nothing compared to the size of this immense city.