The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders

by Peter

  The Cauldron of Camulos by William Meikle

  DAWN ROSE OVER Camulodunum as the battle came to its close.

  The field in front of the town gate had been reduced to a bloody morass full of dead and dying. A lone man was left facing five men. Long braids, thick with blood, swung in time with the strokes of a large double-headed axe as he kept his attackers at a far-enough distance that they could not use their swords. He knew that it was only a matter of time before they brought in a spear, and when that happened, his advantage would be gone, and the tiredness he felt in every bone and muscle would surely then tell.

  But for now, he fought, and they died. Two more fell.

  Hentra split the skull of another attacker, though it took the last of his strength to do so. Suddenly the tiredness washed over him like a wave. His axe became too heavy to hold and fell unnoticed in the mud. Hentra dropped to his knees in a patch of ground strewn with the dead of his enemy, and waited for the blow that would send him to join his brothers in the shining fields of Neorxnawang.

  The blow never came. More tribesmen of the Trinovantes arrived on the field, newly emboldened now that Hentra had finally fallen. They surrounded him, subduing him with the weight and press of their bodies. He did not have to strength to resist as they trussed him like a pig and carried him bodily through the streets of the city. They threw him into a damp hole in the ground and he lay there unable to move as they took turns pishing on him.

  It was not supposed to end like this. My Wyrd has failed me.

  The raid had begun well enough. Aelfer, their leader, had taken no chances. Before taking the fleet out of safe haven he had called for Hentra and the sight from the Wyrd.

  And Hentra had seen a victory. He had seen Saxons at peace, farming and raising children all over the lands vacated by the Romans. With the Sight in his mind, he had no hesitation in joining the Aelfer on the boats. Even a stormy voyage over rough seas had done little to dull their enthusiasm, and by the time they marched over the fens and onto the road leading to the city, their spirits were high and thoughts of plunder foremost in their minds.

  They had not expected the Trinovantes to be there already. The Wyrd had not shown Hentra that. Neither had it shown him the battle that lasted nearly two days and ended with his ignominious defeat in this dank hole in the ground.

  He was the last Saxon remaining, bereft of both companionship of his brothers and the surety of his Sight.

  He lay in the hole and wept for what he had wrought on his people.

  THEY GAVE HIM plenty of time to dwell on his pity. He lay in the hole for three days. On the second day it rained, but that was not as bad as it could have been as it kept them away from taunting him, and allowed the smell of piss to be washed away.

  He was finally taken to a large stone hall that had once been a Roman temple. Broken statuary lay all around and the trappings of ritual had been replaced by steaming cauldrons and long trestles filled with meat and fruit. A feast was underway, and by the look of the throng gathered there, it had been going on for quite some time. Most of the people were drunk, or most of the way there. Couples rutted like dogs on the floor and the place stank of stale ale and cooking meat, overlaid with the tang of piss and shit.

  He readied himself for the indignities that would surely come, and was surprised to be led to a trestle. They untied one of his hands and motioned towards a pile of food and a flagon of ale. Hentra needed no second telling. He set to it with gusto.

  The ham was undercooked and too bloody, but he ripped into it anyway, sending it down with plenty of bread and ale until his belly was tight as a drum. Finally he sat back and belched.

  A small red-haired boy sat nearby staring at him with wide-eyed curiosity.

  “What is the matter lad?” Hentra asked. “Have you never seen a real man eat?

  The boy turned on his heels and ran as if chased by a bear.

  An old woman sat down at Hentra’s side and helped herself to some of his ale.

  “He did not understand you,” she said. “To him, you do indeed sound like a bear.”

  Hentra was momentarily nonplussed to hear his thoughts echo back at him, and in his own tongue, but one look at the woman told him he should not be surprised. This one also had more than a touch of the Wyrd about her.

  She had been a beauty in her day – he could see that in the sparkle in her eyes and the bow of her lips. But that day had been some years ago, and the Wyrd had taken its toll. Her eyes were haunted. He knew the look well – it came from having seen too much of what fate decreed would come to pass. She, like him, had seen, and been unable to do anything about it. That knowledge takes a heavy toll from a person.

  She nodded when she saw him looking at her.

  “Yes,” she said. “We know one another. And that is why you are still alive. I do not have the strength myself. I need another of the Wyrd.”

  He sank a long gulp of ale and kept quiet.

  Now is perhaps not the time to mention that the Wyrd seems to have deserted me.

  His mind was full of questions, but he wasn’t given time to ask. A herald at the main table called for silence and a grey-haired man that Hentra guessed must be the leader of the tribe started to speak. He did not understand a word of it, and contended himself with getting more ale inside him.

  After the man’s speech an old bent man took over and started to intone. Hentra recognised the form – it was a saga, one of the tales of old. But again he understood none of it – until the woman put a hand on his arm.

  Words filled his mind

  ONE MORNING CAMULOS went into the forest with his dogs, intent on a hunt. The dogs led him to a small copse but as soon as he set the dogs to flush out what may lie there they withdrew swiftly, trembling and fearful, and came back towards Camulos with their tails between their legs.

  But Camulos felt no such fear – he drew towards the copse. Suddenly a shining white boar arose out of the ground. The dogs rushed towards it, all fear forgotten. The boar stood its ground against the dogs without retreating until, when Camulos drew near, it withdrew once again, and ran.

  For three days Camulos and his dogs followed the boar, through forest and over moor and fen, none of them taking any rest, until at last the white beast led them to a high caer. The boar was making for it swiftly. The dogs ran ahead, outpacing Camulos in their lust for the hunt, and followed the boar into the caer.

  There was something about the caer that gave Camulos pause, for the hunt had taken him to unfamiliar lands, yet he had never heard tell of anyone living here.

  “I will not give up my dogs,” he said, and followed his beasts.

  When he got to the caer, he could see neither the boar, nor the dogs, nor any dwelling inside the caer. There was only an empty courtyard, and in the middle of the courtyard a cauldron with marble stonework around it. Four heavy chains anchored the cauldron to the marble slab – with the chains also reaching up into the air, and he could not see the end of them.

  The hunt had brought on him a great thirst and he came up to where the cauldron was, and laid hold of it. As soon as he did so, his left hand stuck to it, and his feet became rooted to the slab on which he was standing. The power of speech was taken from him so he could not utter a single word.

  He hacked at the marble slab that was even now starting to ooze and flow around his ankles. The sword sank into the stone that hardened around the blade so that when he tried to draw the weapon back he found it held fast.

  He withdrew his hand from the sword and placed it on the cauldron, intent on dragging the pot from its place. The ground shook and trembled such that people all across the land left their houses and stared in fear at the skies, fearing the end of days. But Camulos, for all his strength, was stuck firm even as the marble flowed around his nethers and loins, even as it gripped at his chest, even as it filled his mouth.

  And thus he stood, unable to move from the spot, unable to call for aid.

  Soon all that could be seen was the cauld
ron, and the hilt of the great sword standing proud from the rugged stone.

  And thereupon, as soon as it was night, there came was a peal of thunder, and a fall of mist and with that the caer disappeared, taking the cauldron, and Camulos with it.

  They were never again seen by men, but the spot has forever after been named in his honor, Caer Camulos.

  Our home.

  THE OLD WOMAN let go of Hentra’s arm as the crowd cheered and set to drinking and fucking with renewed gusto.

  “This place is sacred to us,” the old woman said. “It has been since long before the Romans came and stole our name. It was a place of strength and power – the place of a god, of Camulos. Our mothers and their mothers before them knew it.

  “And now I have seen that power arisen anew. But I am too old for what is required.”

  Hentra felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hoped it was only the ale.

  “Nothing happens without a reason,” the old woman said. “You have been sent to us at our time of need. We cannot naysay the will of Fate. Come. Let me show you why you have been brought here.”

  She waved her hand and his bonds fell away.

  She has far more of the Wyrd in her than I. I must be careful here.

  Two tribesmen at the nearest table stood, daggers drawn, alarmed at the prospect of the Saxon’s freedom. The old woman waved them down.

  “The big man will be no trouble,” she said. “Not tonight at least.”

  Hentra realised she was right. His interest had been taken by the tale, and now he was anxious to see whatever she wanted to show him.

  For has it not often been said, the Wyrd knows no tribes, no kinsman, no master. The Wyrd is as it always was and always will be.

  He had that thought at the forefront of his mind as she led him deep into the temple.

  EVERYTHING THAT HAD been Roman was tumbled and broken. Huge marble statues lay smashed and defiled on the floors, and an intricate mosaic floor had been partially dug up and the rest smeared with blood and shit. Drunken tribesmen lay slumped in alcoves previously reserved for votive offerings, and there were more couples rutting in dark corners.

  Soon the sounds of the feast were left behind as the old woman led him to the central chamber of the temple. A huge statue lay broken on the floor, some fifteen feet in length. It had once depicted a warrior, clad Roman style and brandishing a sword. Someone had attacked the facial features with a hammer, and all trace of what it might have represented had been obliterated.

  “This is not what I brought you to see,” the old woman said. “Come.”

  At the far side of the chamber a large rock had been pulled aside to reveal a set of steps led down into the ground. The air was drier here, a thick, musty odour. And the steps were old – far older than the Roman occupation of this land.

  His Wyrd chose that moment to return. Suddenly he had no more desire to see what was at the bottom of this passageway. He had left a flagon of ale back at the feast, and was more than eager to get back to it. He stopped, and would indeed have started to retreat if the old woman had not put her hand on his arm once more.

  “The only way you will leave this city alive is if you come with me,” she said. “Without my protection they will fall on you in their scores. You will be dead. And you will never know the glory that might have been.”

  She headed down the stairs, and his shame at a woman going where he would not led him to follow.

  The light grew dimmer, and he was afeared that they might soon be in darkness when he saw a reddish glow beneath them. She led him into a rough-hewn chamber lit by torches in sconces high on the walls.

  The chamber seemed empty – but his Wyrd told him otherwise. There was power here. He could almost feel it sing in his head. He raised his hand and felt his fingertips tingle.

  “You feel it?” she whispered. “It is him, I am sure of it.”

  “Camulos?”

  She did not reply. She took the Saxon’s left hand in hers and started to chant in a high singsong language that Hentra had never before heard. The spell that lay in front of them started to become visible, a spider’s web of black strands woven tightly around a core to make a seemingly impenetrable ball some ten feet across.

  The old woman stopped chanting and urged Hentra forward.

  “Quickly. Reach inside. We have little time.”

  He reached into the lattice with his right hand and immediately met resistance. His hand tingled, as if he’d been sleeping on it all night.

  “Can you feel it?” she said. “Can you feel the sword?”

  It was only then that he realised why he’d been brought here. She wanted him to draw a weapon from the spell – a weapon that would then be used to strengthen the tribe – his enemy. He started to withdraw his hand.

  At the same second his fingers brushed against something. But this was no sword hilt. This was rough hair, almost bristly, like a long-unwashed beard. He felt hot breath on his palm.

  “Fetch it out then lad,” the old woman shouted. “Fetch it out now.”

  Hentra smiled, took a tight grip of a handful of bristly hair, and pulled.

  The fabric of the holding spell ripped with the sound of tearing cloth. Hentra was knocked roughly aside as something huge and fast came through from the other side. He smelled acrid sweat and felt the heat of a warm beast. All he saw as he was thrust roughly against the chamber wall was a flash of greyish-white.

  His head hit the rock hard and he stumbled, almost falling and momentarily blinded. The old woman screamed – but not for long. The noise cut off into a gurgling choking sound he recognised all too well.

  When Hentra regained his footing he looked up. The chamber was empty, the spell having receded back to wherever it had previously been hidden. There was no sign of any Beast – just the writhing body of an old woman on the floor. Her belly was a mess of guts and gore, torn asunder in the time it had taken Hentra to stand.

  The gurgling sound was the crone drowning in her own blood.

  The gurgling was joined by screams echoing down into the chamber from high above.

  I can make my escape.

  He headed for the entrance that led back up to the temple but was stopped as a hand slippery with blood grabbed at his ankle.

  “What have you done?” she whispered through bubbles of blood.

  In truth, he did not know whether he had done anything. He smiled grimly down at the dying woman.

  “You brought me here. If anything has been done, it is of your own doing.”

  The grip on his ankle tightened.

  “The Beast will know its master,” she said. “Only the chosen may drink.”

  Before he could glean her meaning, the life went out of her eyes and the bloody hand fell away, limp and dead.

  More screams from above told him that many were being sent to join her.

  He headed for the steps, cautiously at first, then more assured. He met no resistance.

  THE MAIN TEMPLE looked as if a madman had run riot with red paint. A copulating couple, still locked together, lay against a wall in a pool of gore that steamed in the chill air. More blood ran from a man sitting at the base of a column, staring at the ruin of his leg as he sprayed the floor for six feet all around. The man looked up at Hentra, but he was too near death for the Saxon to offer any aid.

  Besides, aid was the furthest thing from the big man’s thoughts at that moment.

  Woden, send me a weapon, and a clear run at a door. That is all I ask.

  As he approached the hall where the feast had been taking place the screams grew ever louder. He thought he was prepared for anything, but the sight that met his eyes made him step back behind a pillar, unsure as to his next move.

  A white beast rampaged to and fro through the hall. At first he took it for one of the great snow-bears that sometimes ventured south from the northern lands. Then it raised its head and he saw the two long tusks on either side of the snout, and the fiery red eyes that seemed to burn i
n the head.

  A boar!

  But a boar unlike any he had ever previously seen. It stood four feet high at the shoulders, was nearly twelve feet from snout to tail, and was built like a stout barrel on legs. Its coat was off-white and made of thick tough bristles, smeared red along the length of both flanks. The tusks were two feet long and dripped with blood and gore.

  Bodies lay broken and strewn the length and breadth of the hall, which smelled even worse than it had previously. Many of the bodies showed the tell-tales signs of goring, and others had clearly simply been thrown aside to smash their bones against walls and trestles. The snuffling of the boar could be heard over groans of the injured as it rooted in spilled guts for the choicest parts.

  A group of men stood by the main door that led outside, blocking the boar’s escape. Each of them held a long spear, but none of them looked like they wanted to be there. The boar had not taken any notice of them yet, being content to snuffle among the dead, but sometime soon more carnage would ensue.

  Hentra did not intend to wait that long.

  He found a two-headed axe among the strewn debris. Just the weight of it in his hand made him feel more secure. Keeping his back to the wall, he started to sidle around the hall, making for the doorway.

  He nearly made it, but, while he was still twenty feet from his goal, his foot slipped in a gory nest of guts and blood and he had to put a hand out to steady himself. The axe head clanged against stone.

  The boar’s head came up. Beady red eyes stared at him. It snorted, steam rising from its gore-covered snout. With no other warning it lowered its head and attacked.

  Hentra had only a second to decide whether to stand or run. A mental picture of a tusk taking him up the backside settled the matter. He hefted the ace two-handed and made sure he had steady footing.

  The boar came at him hard and fast, and he had time for only one blow. He brought the axe down hard, cutting deep into the beast’s shoulder and bringing a bellow of pain. The huge head swung at him. A tusk scored a shallow gash across his belly then the sheer weight of the head threw him aside in a tangle of arms and legs. He landed on his back on a trestle, the wood breaking beneath him and sending him to the ground in a tumble of splintered beams and spilled ale.