Berserker (Omnibus)

by Holdstock, Robert

  Arrows sang through the air and he shifted his heavy shield of wood and leather to guard his head and body against them, but this made riding difficult and it was some while before he reached safety.

  Resting, surveying the ranks of bowmen on the distant ridges, they assessed their wounds, and discussed what needed to be done about them.

  ‘Who said it would be easy?’ said Conan, closing the flaps of flesh on his torso which swords had peeled back.

  Fergus was staring at Niall, dark eyes angry, face solemn. He seemed to be arguing within himself, and finally Niall said, ‘Where’s Donal?’

  He knew the answer, of course. The memories of what he did when berserk were always there, dreamlike, unreal, but accurately remembered.

  ‘He forgot that in battle you are nobody’s friend, all men’s foe.’ The bitterness in Fergus’ voice sent a chill down Niall’s spine. Would he expect revenge?

  Conan said, ‘Donal knew as well as both of us, Fergus. He should not have gone that close.’

  ‘Perhaps … perhaps …’

  At last the fixed gaze was withdrawn from Niall. The angry warrior turned away, rode off towards a mist-shrouded copse.

  Here, in the cool of a glade, they gathered the herbs and stones that cleaned and sealed their many gashes. The arrow was withdrawn from Niall’s side, and he cleaned it and kept it, because the tanged and barbed head was cast from bronze, and such arrows were rare in the province that had been his home.

  The following day they rose refreshed and without pain; the mist was slowly lifting, scattering before the warming rays of the sun, still invisible to them. They rode out of the glade and on to the dull, featureless lands beyond. Soon they reached hills and this was pleasing. They were drawing near to the land known as Meath, and to the winding Boann river where their destinies and quests were taking them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Four days later, when the pale, winter sun was high, they came within sight of the great mound at Cnocba and the wooden walled settlement that stood on the top of it. Trees and steeply sloped ridges hid them from the eyes of the warrior bands that moved between the forts of the province. Word of their encounter with the army further west had not yet reached the king who currently reigned here.

  They refreshed themselves in a clear tributary of the Boann and waded across this water in their haste to get to the hilly ground beyond. This would lead them to the several fords across the Boann on the southern side of the mound itself. They passed through a land rich with the signs of war: the carts and chariots discarded by dying men, the stones and standing weapons of the fallen, and occasionally heads, staring blindly, many quite decayed and corrupted, watching from their standing stones as the fiana rode past, a queit band of men, tense at the thought of the fight to come.

  Soon they saw a dwelling, a crude affair of thatch and wickerwork, surrounded by dressed stones.

  ‘I know the man who lives here,’ said Fergus. ‘A Druid. He is very old, and not at all partial to my father and his rule. He was sympathetic to my mother, and I believe to me. I think we can trust him.’

  He rode forward to the dwelling and climbed down from his horse; he made a proud sight, tanned and nude, his sword hanging from his left shoulder, touching the dark hair above his manhood. The muscles of his legs stood out tense and ridged; he was nervous of the meeting, for a single cry from the Druid could bring the forces of any nearby troop down upon them more quickly than the hawk takes a sparrow from its southwards flight.

  ‘Olchobor!’ called Fergus, and a moment later the old man appeared, dressed in white, the robe laced through with black thread. A heavy stone pendant, shaped like a boar, hung around his neck. The locks of his white hair were tied with ribbons of some herb that Niall did not recognise.

  ‘Fergus!’ said the Druid loudly, then looked quickly around. ‘Has my council to you given you no more wisdom than to come to Meath at the time of the great raid?’

  ‘We have a quest,’ said Fergus. ‘We have already fought off one army, posted to the west.’

  ‘The Fir Thulach,’ said Olchobor. ‘Not an efficient lot, but useful to Lugaid for their muscle power. But Lugaid’s other sons, your half brothers Bresal and Blathmac, are back from Wales, back from a small skirmish in the north. They are angry, Fergus. There is a young warrior there, called Arthur, who has stopped them in their quest to regain the lost colonies of a century ago. And he is only fourteen! With his foster father Ambrosius he fights both the Erismen who invade his land, and the men called Saxons who sweep across from the east. Your brothers have been humiliated and will now take this out in the great raid to the west. But what a pleasure to them it would be to find you within a slingshot of their camp.’

  ‘We shall pass through quickly,’ said Fergus. ‘Once we have killed Grania and her warrior women, we shall be gone, beyond even Blathmac’s slingshot.’

  The Druid nodded thoughtfully. ‘The women are living Badbs if there ever were such. Even the warriors of Lugaid’s house are in dread of them, but whether of their tongues, or their wombs, or their swords is difficult to say. Not one of those women has not slept with every noble on the hill at Tara, and not a one was satisfied. You find the kingdom in a strange state of unease. Warriors who doubt their sexual prowess make easy prey for the thrown javelins of enemies. This is all that holds them up, or so the signs tell me.’

  ‘If we kill the women will their pangs be finished?’

  Olchobor twisted a lock of hair about his left index finger, thought hard. ‘I would have to consult the viscera of nothing less than a raven, but yes, I think that would probably work. You could then make your escape behind the moving troops.’

  ‘What is today good for, Olchobor?’ asked Fergus.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Druid, and smiled. ‘I thought you would ask me that. Let me fetch my knife. You, Fergus, run and snare a rabbit, a grey rabbit with brown tufts on its ears.’

  Fergus vanished into the woodland and returned moments later with a grey rabbit, scrutinising the ears to ensure that the tufts were brown. Olchobor slit the squirming animal’s belly and shook the glistening viscera out, then cast the frantic corpse to the ground where the animal rewarded the onlookers with a minute of kicking and threshing before it was still, its guts spread haphazardly about the grass.

  Olchobor bent down and traced the pattern of the tubes.

  ‘He who raises a sword against a woman today,’ he read, ‘shall know love as well as death.

  ‘He who understands the secret of a stone shall hear the stone speak before night. Hmm, that’s interesting. I hope it means something.

  ‘He who sires a child by a dark-haired woman shall see that child killed in its first year. That’s very nasty.’ He poked about among the guts. ‘He who puts aside his sword on this day shall die of the wasting disease before the coming Lugnasid. I always get that one.’ He withdrew his fingers from the green mess and stood up. ‘That’s all I can learn. There is enough there to give you hope for your quest.’

  ‘Thank you, Druid,’ said Fergus. He turned to Niall. ‘Did you hear that? The stone will speak to you before the day is out.’ He slapped his flanks, excited and smiling. ‘By the Thunder God, I feel this is going to be an enjoyable day.’

  ‘Take care,’ said Olchobor, and made the complex hand passes at each warrior which linked their spirits to the flowing spirit of the Earth god, Lug, until sunset.

  For as long as the oral tradition stretched back into time the three giant mounds, that lay in this tight curve of the Boann river, had always existed there. When the first warlords had built their forts on Tara, and to the north at Emain, even then the mounds had been old, a relic of the days of glory of the gods, the people of the goddess Danu who had occupied these lands for a thousand years and who had built these magnificent tombs to contain the sleeping bodies of their princes and princesses.

  The largest mound was settled on its top, although it was still much revered, and the settlement was defended by a wooden palisad
e. This was Cnocba. Unlike the smallest mound, the central and most southern of the three, this had no open entrance to the strangely carved passageways within, which had been found only when storage pits had been dug. Such open passages existed in the other two mounds, where there were also fortified townships on the flattened tops.

  Cnocba, however, the most elusive and magical of the three mounds, was also the most difficult to attack when it was properly defended. Now, with just the mercenary female warriors living inside the deserted town, it should be easy.

  The fiana, Niall feeling excited and nostalgic for some unknown reason, led their horses through the tight woodland on the opposite side of the river to the hill that rose steep and green towards the southernmost mound, a great castle of the dead, still half covered with gleaming white rock that gave it the appearance of a beacon.

  ‘It fills me with anxiety,’ said Conan, crouching low in the undergrowth.

  ‘It is said to be the burial mound of the goddess Boann herself,’ said Fergus. ‘Her tomb is open, now, to the eyes of privileged men. It is right that it should fill you with fear.’

  ‘I have been there,’ said Niall, and as he spoke he wondered where the words came from.

  Conan glanced at him sharply. ‘You’ve never been out of Connacht before we met you!’

  ‘True,’ said Niall. ‘And yet I have been there … I remember a woman, beautiful she was … red hair, like flame … like flame …’

  In his mind burned an image of this woman, soft of thigh, and willing of sex, drawing him into her, loving him, lusting for him, her breath and the breath of his own body mingled in a single song of excitement …

  The memory was there, but not from this life, not from this short existence in the Eriu of the fifth century. What he remembered was from the life of the being called Swiftaxe, and it choked him to realise how close, how important, that unknown warrior was to him.

  He felt angry, scowled and snarled as he stared at the white-topped Brug na Boann.

  ‘Peace,’ said Fergus, restraining his tense body. Niall relaxed and stared at the older warrior’s placid face. ‘Whatever you remember, whatever you desire, all shall be given you afresh when we break through the palisade at Cnocba. There, beyond the fog.’

  ‘Good,’ said Niall, trembling as he followed Fergus’ glance towards the mounting mist. He knew his unbearded face was red and strained, and that he probably looked like the youth he was, desperate for manhood, afraid of the haunting ghosts of his past.

  They crept along the shore of the river, keeping to the shadow of the forest, moving to the water’s edge only when a tall stand of reed and tangled thorn bush gave them some protection. They were moving to a less open ford than the one that faced the white-topped Brug to the south, and this brought them nearer to the mound of Cnocba. At last they could see the hill again, rising up above the slopes of the river shore, the artificial structure on its top barely visible through the low cloud, but clearly crowned with a spiked and crude wall of dark and ivy covered wood.

  As it turned out they had no need to worry about fighting their way up the tomb’s slopes and through the wall. Their quarry came to them … unsuspecting.

  The thin veil of mist slipped down from the hill and mingled with the forested slopes behind them, hanging across the river so that it hid their destination from their feasting eyes. Their naked skins glistened with damp and winter cold, but only Niall, as yet still unused to the bare skin riding, suffered at all.

  ‘This is ideal,’ said Fergus. ‘If the fog thickens a little more we will have a superb element of surprise.’

  ‘Listen!’ cried Niall.

  As Fergus had been speaking, Niall’s attention had been taken by the sound of several riders. Pushing their own horses back into the undergrowth, the three fiana wormed forwards on their stomachs, through fern and reed and spiky grass, until they looked out over the bubbling waters of the river.

  The land rose steeply on the opposite bank and towards the beginning of the slope they could see six shapes, moving indistinctly through the fog. They could hear the snickering of horses, and the soft pad of hoof on turf; there was the distant chink of metal harness.

  Light gleamed from strange helmets, and glittered on unsheathed swords, hung in simple slings from the riders’ waists, the blades tilted outwards by one hand resting lightly on the hilt. This is how they rode, upright and proud, and as naked as the three watchers themselves.

  As the riders slid gently down the bank, their horses slipping and struggling on the slick grass, Niall felt his body surge with excitement as they were finally revealed as women.

  Fergus’s hand reached out to touch Niall’s lips and silence him; he realised he had been making strange sounds, of excitement, of anticipation …

  The women warriors watered their horses in the river, still seated stiffly upright, left hands resting lightly on the hilts of their long, curved bladed swords. Each wore a gleaming bronze face mask, a domed helmet that reached down to cover nose and cheeks, and around, in the form of ear flaps, to conceal their necks; slanted eye sockets had been carved through the metal of their helmets, and Niall felt moments of panic as over and over again the dark eyes of the women came to rest on the part of the opposite bank where the three men lay.

  But they said nothing, the only sound being the restless shuffling of the horses, the rushing water and the clinking of metal chain with which the beasts were protectively decorated. The mist grew thick.

  One warrior woman in particular caught Niall’s attention. She was perhaps the most experienced warrior for her body bore the white lines of a thousand war scars; but her breasts were voluptuously high and proud, slung full and orange-tipped between crossed leather thongs that held a brace of thin dirks on each of her flanks. Her legs were lean and strong, her skin tanned almost brown by sun and wind. Full lips, all that was visible of her face, were held in a solemn pout and Niall could almost taste their sweetness. The mask of this woman was scored and inscribed in such a way that a fiercesome face peered from the gleaming bronze, a scarred and withered hag’s face, that was frightening to regard.

  It was the war queen herself, Grania, who hid behind that hateful mask, and Niall sensed Fergus’ tenseness, and Conan’s excitement rising as the two of them saw the target of their revenge within slingshot.

  Birds rose, flapping and noisy, into the mist. Niall glanced up and saw the flight of dark birds, and in the same moment he grew aware that the warrior queen had seen him.

  All six women were staring at the place in the undergrowth where they lay. There was a frozen second when Niall and the others held their breaths, wondering if they were right to believe what they suspected … and perhaps there was a frozen moment among the women over the river as they wondered if there really were naked warriors watching them.

  Then panic, with the realisation that death was close at hand. Thighs squeezed tight on rearing horses as they might have often squeezed on a lover’s body. Grania twisted her horse around and rode it hard up the bank, her back bent forward and her spine standing out from the lean flesh of her body; her flanks tense and firm, spread invitingly across the saddle as she stretched her legs to get more power to her kicks.

  The other women drew their swords from the slings that held them and followed their queen, two of them turning, half way up the bank, and riding back towards the river where already Fergus and Niall were splashing across from one side to the other.

  Blades flashed and came down to cut at the two men, but Niall caught the sword on his own weapon, swung it aside and cut the warrior woman from her horse with a savage slash that found her heart through the quivering meat of her left breast. He hacked off her head with two swift strokes and waved the dripping trophy by its suddenly revealed tresses of flame red hair.

  Fergus fared less well in his combat and found himself struggling below the surface of the river with the screaming woman whose dirk found the meat of his arm before his sword found the ripe softness of her
belly and put an end to her.

  Conan was already half way up the bank and he had cut the front legs from a horse that waited there so that its rider was thrown forward. He had drawn his sword from crotch to throat along the woman’s tumbling body and dispatched her before she could strike at him.

  The other three, led by Grania, rounded and rode back through the mist, screaming their war-cry and waving their swords around their heads.

  They found themselves facing three naked and grinning men, one still holding the gory head of a woman, which at the last moment he cast aside as he began to scream …

  A scream that was cut short by the flat of Fergus’ blade striking him on the back of the head, and cutting short the sudden possession by the maniac spirit of the god Odin.

  The last that Niall knew for several hours was the screech of horse, the cry of women, and the chilling, hollow clash of metal blades.

  CHAPTER NINE

  When he came round it was dark, and the possessing spirit of the Bear lay sulking and quiet at the back of his mind. Niall rolled over on the rush and dirt flooring and found himself peering through the low doorway of a wattle house; beyond a short and grassy piece of ground he saw the crude palisade of Cnocba: from the inside!

  A fire burned in the low hearth, hollowed from the mound in the middle of the dwelling. In its dim glow he could make out the sweaty, hunched body of Conan. The warrior grinned at him, waved a meat-covered bone in greeting.

  ‘We didn’t know it would take you so long to come round,’ he said.

  Niall touched the back of his head; it hurt, but not badly. If the Bear had managed to possess him in time it probably would not have hurt at all, nor had any effect. As it was the blow had put him out for several hours. ‘Why was I hit? Not one of the women … it was you …’

  ‘It was Fergus,’ said Conan, tearing off a strip of meat. ‘There’s a lot of food, come and eat.’

  Niall crawled to the fire.