When Death Birds Fly cma-3

by Andrew J Offutt

  “Not by the hanging of bishops!” Howel said. “Were it so simple, Cormac, the spread of this faith had been stopped long agone, by the rulers of Rome’s Empire. The gods know their power was greater than mine, and yet they failed.”

  Morfydd gripped his hand and shoulder. “Listen to Cormac mac Art, my dear lord! You can do something, if you cannot do everything! Well may you save yourself from seeing the ruling power slip into the Church’s hands within your lifetime, our people tortured and slain for worshiping the old gods!”

  “True is that,” Cormac agreed. “Is knowing on ye what the Christians dare claim? Ye must have heard it time and again from the Bishop of Vannes! They say their god is the only god, all others being false demons who deceive men. They say that Arawn-Cernunnos, the Horned God, as the Romans called him when they found him worshiped in Gaul-is the greatest and worst, and make him one with their own arch-demon. I forget me what name they give him.”

  “Satan,” Morfydd supplied.

  “It’s only fools they are,” Howel said impatiently. “The Antlered God was worshiped in Gaul and Britain ere Christianity was ever heard of, or Rome either.”

  “As we well know! The Christians do not, or care what is true-the ignorant, rigid-minded clods! They’re after believing whatever their bishops tell them!”

  “Enough!” Howel was beginning to grow angry. “I know my own demesne, Cormac, and by the gods I still rule it! You will see. Come to the ring of standing stones in the Forest of Broceliande upon the Night. It is very near now. See what multitudes of folk attend the old rites, long though the journey is. Then tell me the Church and its bishops are a threat!”

  Well, Cormac thought wearily, I tried. Mayhap Morfydd can make him see sense, when they are abed,together. He loves her. Knows he not the Church calls her a witch, and would joyfully burn her alive?

  “We spoke of the Horned One,” Howel said. “You will be knowing I personify him in the rites, and take his spirit upon me. Mayhap then I will know what these skyward portents mean. I cannot promise to recall it fully when I am a mortal prince again, but an I do I’ll share the knowledge with you, Cormac.”

  “Cormac… why should you not take part in the rites yourself?” Morfydd suggested. “You too are a descendant of kings.”

  “I?” Cormac was half startled, half drawn to the notion. “What should I do?”

  “Be Winter, in the combat of Winter and Summer.” Morfydd looked at him, appraising his height; his hard, rangy form leanly muscular as a wolf’s; the black hair and dark, sinister face. “You more than look the part!”

  “I should,” Cormac said broodingly. “It’s at Midwinter I was born… all save the most hardy babes entering the world on that night are keened for ere spring.”

  “Who could be better?”

  “Hmm. Who’s to personate Summer?”

  “Garin the shore-watcher. He’s known to you.”

  Cormac nodded, thinking of the golden-haired, outgoing warrior. Aye, Garin was well chosen for his part in the ritual conflict. Twice yearly it was fought, at Midsummer and Midwinter, and held strong meaning for folk whose lives were regulated by the changing seasons. In the depths of the bleak season, the symbolic defeat of Winter by Summer gave hope for the future, when it seemed the dark and cold might swallow all the world forever. At the height of Summer, the outcome was reversed, as a boding reminder that time was burning and that after this night, the Sun’s power must commence to wane. It lent a certain spur to industry at the harvest.

  “A good man,” Cormac said, speaking of Garin. “Well then, I’ll be matching meself with him at the standing stones.”

  “An it’s Winter you’re to be,” Morfydd said smiling, “it were best you not wear that talisman you have about your neck! Surely it partakes of the power of Behl, the Blessed Sun.”

  “I’ve been told so, Cormac answered, noncommittally. He balanced the Egyptian sigil on his hand, frowning at it. The mage Zarabdas’s words rang in his ears.

  …and sorcerers stand across your path, and wraiths of darkness fly from the shadows. Whether you or they will triumph, I cannot know. In this only can I advise you helpfully; keep ever on your person the golden sigil you once showed me. It will aid you.

  Words!

  Had the serpent of gold aided him to see the Basque ships as they really were, in that southern sea-fight? Cormac doubted it. He put small faith in sigils and talismans. Besides, he was among friends here, and surely it was true that would not be fitting for him to wear a symbol of Behl the life-giving Sun for his chosen part in the Midsummer ceremony. He’d give it to Garin then, just afore they entered the ring of standing stones in the forest north of Vannes. Any dark power would be hard tested to touch him at a place of such holiness!

  “Garin may wear it, during our ‘battle’,” he said.

  13

  Shadow from Hell

  Expectancy wafted sweet over Howel’s land. Every farmstead and tiny village felt it. From the town of Vannes it was shut out in a measure, held at bay by the stone walls, the stone streets, and the stone houses, and by the disapproval of the Church. Yet as Midsummer Eve approached, many folk went out through the gates even of Vannes, to travel north. They went alone, and in pairs and in family groups. The roads Rome had built were yet in sufficiently good repair to make the going easy. Two such intersected in the ancient, sacred forest of Broceliande, where a number of Druid groves had survived the axes of Caesar’s men because secrecy and magic had kept them hidden.

  Then came Prince Howel himself, from his island estate in the Little Sea. His indigo-sailed galley rowed into the harbour of Vannes with the prince, his lady and a bright entourage aboard-conspicuous among which were a massive redbeard from the northern lands and a grim, dark warrior in dark mail.

  “I mislike cities,” Howel said, sniffing the air. Rank it was with the taint of rubbish and sewage in too-great amounts. “They stink, and hem a man in. We’ll be parting for Broceliande on the morrow, but this night I must pay a courtesy call on Bishop Paternus.” He smiled with heretical sarcasm. “Would you and Wulfhere like to bear us company, Cormac?”

  The Gael’s thin lips curled in answering mockery. “Not I, thank ye. I’ll not be speaking for Wulfhere. He might enjoy it. What say ye, old sea-dragon? Here’s a golden chance to have mended those mildewed places in your soul.”

  Wulfhere snorted. “Thanks for naught, hatchet face! The last time I spoke with one o’ these cross-worshiping bishops was in Britain. Some swindling smith had taken me for a gull, so I showed him his mistake by hauling him into church by the scruff of his dirty neck, and a haltered heifer with my other hand. I cannot say which bawled louder! I forced the local bishop to marry them there before the altar. It might have been a good joke, but the Christian marriage ceremony proved so tame it fell flat, and I burned the church to ease my disappointment.” Wulfhere shrugged: “I cannot say if this Paternus has heard of it, although he may have done. ‘Tis sure that if he’s heard any sort of description, he’ll know me by it… there be not two men like me anywhere…”

  “Agreed, and the gods be thanked!”

  “Thus I’ll bide here.”

  Morfydd smiled. “You are splendidly tactful, Captain. I’d as soon do likewise, but among other things, I’ll not have this robe-wearing fellow think I fear to confront him.”

  So Howel and Morfydd, with a few trusty personal servants, spent the night in the house of Bishop Paternus. The rest of their entourage readied horses and provisions under the orders of Garin. All preparations were well made by the time the rulers of Bro Erech returned the next morning.

  Their party was strongly armed against robbers or possible raiding bands of Franks; they met with none. Wulfhere showed some disappointment. His muscles would grow flabby, he complained, from lack of exercise. Yet a certain awe was apparent even in him, as they followed the Roman road deeper and ever deeper into the Forest of Broceliande and he began to have some notion of its vast extent. Nor was the giant easily awed
. Hailing from the land of the Danes as he did, Wulfhere Skull-splitter was familiar with country covered by great tracts of impenetrable forest. But Broceliande had a timeless, brooding presence like unto naught Wulfhere had come upon elsewhere.

  They left the road, leading the horses in file by winding paths. Men swore while they lugged chests and bundles in the tail of the party. A rearguard, burdened by weapons and mail only, followed them. Cormac and Wulfhere marched with those men, through a world composed entirely of trees. The sky hung low.

  The paths led gradually upward. At last they came to a low hill with shelters and cooking places newly refurnished around its foot-and atop it, like a crown, reared a circle of regularly spaced standing stones.

  Prince Howel had disappeared. None made comment, or asked questions. They knew that his part in the Midsummer rites was to personate the Antlered God, and no mortalman could take so mighty a spirit upon himself without going apart from other men to prepare. Was one of the mysteries, and it was not for the speaking of.

  The pilgrims of ancient Celtia ate their last meal before the rites were to be held. Then, with great thoroughness, they covered the cookfires with earth and stamped the embers to extinction. The like was being done with all fires, throughout the land. Not a coal or rush-light was left burning, nor would any be kindled anew until the prince’s fire was seen to blaze on this one hill. They were similar, the ceremonies of Midsummer here in Armorica, to the rites of Beltaine as they were held in Eirrin…

  Cormac drew his thoughts sharply away from that. He had promised himself he would cease to think of Eirrin.

  Night came down. The dark was warm, breathing and heavy, like some great live creature embracing the world in arms of black velvet. The stars hung all fuzzy and dim, aureoled in fog. Tendrils of sluggish mist coiled among the stones of the sarsen circle. Somewhere in the wood an owl hooted. No Celt he, some wag said.

  In the very center of the ring, a conical stack of logs and brushwood had been heaped. Now three men in their youth came in from the dark, and Morfydd blessed each one as he knelt, tracing a sign before his face. They set to work to make fire. Their labour was hard and long. Soon they were sweating in the warm night, while their hands ached from constantly spinning the large bow and drill.

  Gathered outside the stone circle, the people were no less tense. Would this be the year it failed? No fire, however skillfully the chosen ones worked? No renewal of life?

  The drill sang its persistent song. The firemakers felt pain become part of the bones of their hands. Sweat ran into their eyes and dropped from their lashes, and they strove while the waiting mass held its collective breath.

  Then, at last, came the grey twists of smoke… the glitter of sparks-and the first bright tiny flame! It leaped white in the punk and straw, then grew to feed on wood. The needfire at the center of the stone circle began to crackle.

  A wild, joyful cry arose from the crowd, cut short abruptly by awe. Enthroned before the fire, indifferent to its growing heat, was a tall figure, naked, oiled and shining, with the head and antlers of a royal stag. The antlers that won the doe in battle, that grew, and fell, and were yearly renewed in the way of all life. The antlers of Arawn, lord of death and desire and rebirth.

  They hailed him in ecstasy, whiles the needfire grew.

  Two by two, they slipped between the grey stones and began the Long Dance of Midsummer. It threaded in and out of the circle, moving ever in a sunwise direction. Out there in the dark, on the hillside below the stones, vats of liquor were ready, and the dancers scooped wooden cups full as they went. Moving in the interlocking spirals, they lit torches from the central fire and carried them outward again, until they resembled a swarm of bobbing fireflies.

  The dancing grew wilder. It wasn’t on account of the liquor, which in truth was scarcely needed. Fires began to shine fuzzily on other hills, through the light fog, signalled by the beacon of the prince’s blaze.

  Seemingly of its own accord, the Long Dance fulfilled its pattern, and ended.

  Two powerful figures rushed from opposite sides of the circle. With the high-burning needfire between them and the immobile, antlered form, they met to clash like fighting bucks. Rebounding, they began to circle each other.

  One wore leggings of grey wadmal, a black leather tunic and helmet. Pinned cape-fashion across his shoulders was a grey wolfskin. Its fierce jaws snarled beneath his own clean-shaven jaw. He’d a dark face, and grim. His slitted eyes shone in the firelight, cold as winter ice.

  The other was gold, as his antagonist was onyx. Yellow-haired and yellow-moustached, he was fair of skin deeply bronzed by the summer sun. Save for golden ornaments and sandals, his tough limbs were bare. He wore a warrior’s tunic of brown leather over a madder-dyed orange shirt. Upon his breast jolted the Egyptian sun-symbol of the golden winged serpent.

  Of course, he’d never have dreamed of wearing such a thing into a real fight, to irritate and distract him. Not bouncing free in this wise. He’d have worn it under his tunic, if at all.

  Each symbolic combatant carried a shield with a bull’s-hide cover, the dark man’s black, the other’s pied brown and white. Only their actual weapons differed in kind as well as hue.

  Cormac’s was a mace. Its handle was made from the heart of a century-old oak, seasoned well and hardened in fire. The grip had been wrapped in black leather and bound tightly with iron wire. The striking head was scarred, battered lead. Although a ceremonial weapon rather than a warfaring one, it could brain a man at a stroke, given a strong man to wield it. Cormac sensed its sorcerous power as he hefted the thing. It suited him. He liked the way it felt in his hand.

  Garin’s spear was ancient and ceremonial as the mace. Yet it too was a functional, well-made weapon. Too short for throwing, it had been fashioned for stabbing and thrusting solely. To balance the broad-headed blade of gilded bronze, a solar orb of the same metal had been affixed to the butt. Thus could a man reverse it quickly in his hand to strike with either end.

  Garin was playing at that now, a series of showy juggler’s tricks and feints with spearhead and weighted butt alternately.

  Cormac mused grimly, It’s little this would gain him in real combat. Unless-

  It happened even as he thought of it, a sudden crosswise blow with Garin’s brindled shield. Swift as light-or, more aptly, as a fissure in winter’s ice-Cormac’s shield was interposed. The two rang like muffled drums.

  There followed harsh, bruising struggle, spear against mace, shield against shield, shield against spear, shield against mace. The leaping fire threw gold over them, and deep shadows. The warriors lost the sense of being themselves.

  In small remote crannies of their minds they remained men, fighting as men-but the major part of their souls was possessed by contending Powers, even as Howel’s. They were ancient as Celts, ancient as Cimmeria and Atlantis, as the world. Garin, the brightness of summer, knew he must drop and lose at last; not because it was arranged and so rehearsed, not even because Cormac mac Art was the better warrior, though he was. No. The thing was inevitable as Fate, as the turning seasons.

  Mace slammed on Garin’s shield with an impact that shook all his bones. He thrust with his spear. The point struck through black bullhide and slewed awry, scoring splinters from the wood beneath. Garin reversed the spear sharply and upon the instant, so that the bronze ball on the butt swung over to strike Cormac’s shoulder. Garin pulled the blow at the last instant, not to snap the bone. Cormac’s shield sagged low as it would not have done had they truly been seeking each the other’s life. Garin, excited, thrust into the gap so left in Cormac’s guard.

  His spear-point never reached its mark.

  Cormac unprecedently lunged with the mace. His arm and the handle formed one straight line, as if he held a sword. The steely strength of his wrist and fingers was taxed to the point of anguish to keep that leaden head from wavering. Yet he did.

  He too pulled his blow at the last instant. Instead of crushing Garin’s throat, th
e blow sent him to the ground choking helplessly for breath. The bronze spear dropped from his twitching fingers. On Garin’s breast, the golden sigil from Egypt jumped flashing with his attempts to breathe. He clenched his left hand spasmodically on the grips of his forgotten shield.

  From the people of Bro Erech rose the sound of a faint, drawn-out sigh. Winter stood grimly triumpliant above the champion of warm summer, a promise and a warning that winter would return. Yet it was bearable now, at this time of year. Were it to happen at the Midwinter feast it would be unbearable, a sign that the world would die into bleak darkness forever.

  Cormac sighed deeply with them, descending centuries to become himself again. The fire crackled and bellowed at his back.

  A wild yell burst from hundreds of throats.

  Something terrible came.

  Out of the sky it slid on black wings five men’s height in span. They beat fiercely, braking it above the stone circle. The monster dropped sharply. All saw huge flexing talons and fiery yellow eyes like embers from hell.

  The demon came down on Cormac as an eagle drops on a hare.

  Instinctively Cormac flung himself flat and rolled aside. Mace and shield he retained; they hampered him briefly, in getting to his feet, but he did so with creditable swiftness despite that. His sharp wits had already told him what he had glimpsed, and he wasted no time in inner complaint that it was impossible. It was there, and to be dealt with.

  The black wings thrashed like gale-blown sails; black sail.

  The naked man in the stag’s head mask had risen from his seat, quite humanly amazed. He crouched a little, his empty hands spread as if to grasp something. Garin, still choking for breath, had also gained his feet, somehow. He was a warrior. He had weapons in his hands. Here was a threat.

  Bro Erech’s people remembered the sight for decades, and talked of it to their children. The circle of ancient, firelit stones; the roaring central blaze, gold and vermilion and pure white, gouting sparks to the sky; the Antlered God, arms outspread, seen through the flames; the demoniacal black predator, flapping like a spurred fighting cock ready to leap and strike and rend; and the armed personifications of dark Winter and golden Summer, rushing upon it from different sides.