The Age of Scorpio

by Gavin Smith

  ‘A seduction? You would pay for mere power with your body?’

  ‘It’s my body. I use it how it pleases me. There’s little payment involved it if pleases both of us,’ Britha said fiercely. Sex was an intrinsic part of her rites as well as a pleasure. There were many different reasons for having sex.

  Teardrop turned away from her and looked out past the rocks at the darkness. The squirming in his head made the darkness come alive for him. This place was so strange and distant.

  ‘I have a family, and a wife I miss so much,’ he said.

  Britha nodded. She could hear the sadness behind his words. She could also hear the honesty, and it sounded raw to her.

  He turned to look at her. ‘And I think your heart – no, not your heart, maybe somewhere lower – wants another.’

  Britha blinked at him. She was trying to think what she had said or done to give herself away. Was she under the control of magic? Had Bress done something to her and Teardrop could sense it?

  ‘We weren’t talking of hearts . . .’ she started.

  ‘We were talking of desire. Love Bress or help your people. Trying to do both is folly.’

  ‘I don’t lo— I have to have that power.’

  Teardrop rubbed his eyes. He could feel it moving in his head. At times the pain was close to unbearable. Just after he had joined with it he had screamed and screamed, trying to claw it out with his fingernails. Now he just felt so tired.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. The price is too much. It would consume you. What you think of as you would cease to be.’

  ‘So who did you use to be?’ she asked.

  Teardrop looked back at her, anger in his expression. You told her too much, old man, he thought. You gave her enough to hurt you. There was no triumph in her eyes.

  The figure exploded out of the water, crossing the narrow strip of shore on all fours to where they stood. Pale skin in the moonlight as the figure leaped at Britha. Caught completely by surprise, she was carried to the ground, the figure on top of her. Britha was appalled to feel fingers under her robe, on her sex. A mouth on hers, a kiss that tasted of the sea, familiar except for needle-like teeth and the taste of blood and meat.

  Teardrop was moving towards them, staff in his hand.

  Britha fumbled for the iron-bladed knife in her rope belt. She grabbed her attacker by its long dark hair, yanked it back, and brought her head up and its head down at the same time. Britha’s attacker’s nose crashed into her forehead. There was a satisfying crunch and Britha felt something warm on her head. She stabbed at the figure with the blade but it had rolled away.

  Teardrop reached them and raised his staff. Britha was also aware of the sound of someone sprinting towards them along the shore. The attacker leaped high into the air, legs curled tight under its body. Long, thin but powerful pale fingers ending in black claws grabbed the staff in mid-air. Both legs straightened into a double kick that caught Teardrop in the face and chest. He went flying, hitting the ground hard enough to wind him.

  The figure landed on the ground just as Fachtna charged, his gently singing silver-bladed sword held high. The figure rolled towards Fachtna with incredible speed, closing the gap, grabbing the surprised warrior and then rolling back, using his momentum to throw him. Fachtna hit the ground face first.

  Britha was on her feet, slashing with the knife at her attacker. The figure was bent low, hair covering its face, naked, obviously female. She hissed, backing away from the iron blade. Blood pouring from his face, Fachtna was back on his feet, angry, sword in hand and looking to hurt someone.

  Teardrop, more cautiously, was trying to flank their attacker. His jaw hadn’t just been broken, it had been powdered and was hanging loose from his face. He’d heard and felt ribs crack and found himself short of breath. He felt bones grinding together in his chest as they healed rapidly. It hurt. A lot.

  The attacker flicked her hair back and Britha saw Cliodna, almost. Britha stepped back, shocked by the changes wrought in her lover’s flesh. Her features were drawn back, angular, predatory. Lips opened to reveal rows of needle-like teeth. The gills on her neck sucked down air. Her body was leaner, there was something about it that made Britha think of a sword or a spear, with spikes of bone sticking out of newly formed fins on her forearms and lower legs, a spur of bone sticking out of each heel. She looked like a weapon now.

  Teardrop also took a step back. In a language she was sure she shouldn’t understand, Britha heard him beg a many-faced god for protection. Even Fachtna, as his damaged features rearranged themselves back to their original positions, looked unsure.

  ‘Teeth and claws, and you won’t look so pretty, sword-slave,’ Cliodna spat at Fachtna. The warrior was ready to attack but his normal arrogance was absent.

  ‘Is this a festival of rapine?’ Britha demanded, furious at the attempted violation and appalled at what had become of her lover.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to—’ Fachtna started.

  ‘Quiet,’ Teardrop told him.

  ‘You spread your legs for him.’ Cliodna jerked her head at Fachtna. ‘And him!’ She jerked her head at Teardrop.

  ‘I didn’t!’ Britha protested.

  ‘Not for want of trying!’

  Fachtna spared a moment to glance at Teardrop. Teardrop was aware of it, rather than saw it. That was a future conversation he wasn’t looking forward to.

  ‘You left me!’ Britha practically screamed, furious at herself for the tears that came unwanted to her eyes. Fachtna, while readying himself to attack Cliodna, was also listening hard to what was being said.

  Realisation spread across his face like a sunrise. ‘Oh really?’ he said.

  ‘Be quiet, Fachtna,’ Teardrop said.

  ‘And what of Bress?’ Cliodna hissed, her face a mask of malice. Britha felt like she’d been slapped. Both Fachtna and Teardrop turned to look at her. She could feel the judgement in their glares without having to look at them. ‘Just can’t keep your legs closed for the Otherworld, can you?’

  ‘It would seem that—’ Fachtna started.

  ‘Fachtna!’ Teardrop shouted.

  But that was it for Britha. The words were little more than magics woven to wound. She could see the intent. Anger overcame hurt.

  ‘What, you spurn me so you can follow me and then throw my actions back in my face? Do what you please. Look what you’ve done to yourself! You are nothing in my eyes.’ Cliodna was not the only one who could weave those magics.

  ‘You swived Bress?’ Fachtna demanded.

  ‘No. Now be quiet, boy,’ Britha answered in the voice she used on arrogant warriors. Fachtna’s conditioning to obey whatever passed for the dryw where he came from silenced him.

  Cliodna was suddenly in front of Britha. She tried not to flinch, tried to meet her eyes. The black pools that she had once found deep and beautiful now seemed alien and hard.

  ‘Then why can I smell his stench in here?’ she asked, pointing at Britha’s head. ‘And hear him here?’ She pointed at Britha’s heart.

  Britha had no answer for herself, let alone her former lover. Tears were trickling down her cheek now. She flinched as Cliodna moistened her fingertip on the tears. There was something obscene about Cliodna’s long tongue as it protruded between her teeth to lick at the tears, seeming to savour them.

  ‘You’re a pure-blood servant of the Muileartach, aren’t you?’ Teardrop asked quietly. There was fear in his voice.

  ‘Not so pure now, witch-boy. Tell me, does it hurt, slowly being eaten from the inside?’

  Teardrop swallowed hard but said nothing. Fachtna was resisting the urge to look at his friend.

  Cliodna turned to stare at Britha. ‘The Dark Man comes. Water and earth mean nothing. All women must feel the boots of the sky gods on their necks. It has been this way since Marduk struck down Tiamat. Run and hide while you can. I am only a weapon from this time on, nothing more.’

  Cliodna turned, practically running on all fours, and leaped into
the water, her sleek form making a minimal splash as she disappeared into its blackness.

  ‘She seemed nice,’ Fachtna said. Teardrop silenced him with a glare and looked at Britha. She turned away from him to wipe her tears. With one eye on the water, Fachtna moved across to her.

  ‘Look, I know—’ he started as he went to put an arm around her.

  The iron-bladed knife was in her hand before he could finish. She opened his face from temple to cheek. Fachtna cried out and staggered back, holding the gash closed as he reached for his sword. Teardrop started towards them. Britha licked his blood off the blade, smearing her mouth red. The singing sword was half out of its scabbard when Teardrop reached Fachtna and grabbed his arm. He looked him in the eye, shaking his head. Fachtna was trying to control his breathing as the wound healed before Britha’s eyes.

  There is much rage in him, Britha thought. She found it less than frightening. ‘I have tasted you and found you wanting, boy. Touch me again and I will curse you and your line. After I’ve gelded you.’ She turned and walked away from them.

  ‘You don’t have any power!’ Fachtna screamed at her.

  ‘Fachtna, that’s enough,’ Teardrop told the furious warrior.

  ‘Your power’s a lie! You hear me? Nothing more than a jest!’

  Teardrop wrenched the warrior around with surprising strength. He said nothing but the look he gave Fachtna shamed the other man into silence.

  She had wanted to hear the sound of wind in the branches of the trees; the sound of the water lapping against the shore just reminded her of Cliodna. Instead she got the moaning sound that the god-slaves made as they appealed to their deity.

  She had to lock it away, all of it. Her feelings were too close to the surface, too ready to burst out. Revealing them weakened her in Teardrop and Fachtna’s eyes, and if she meant to use them against Bress, to help her people, then she could not allow that.

  Cliodna was gone from her. Driven mad by her apparent mother, the Muileartach. Britha had to accept that she was not the same person and be prepared to fight her. Bress was pretty, and sad, and not like other warlords and warriors, but that was all. His reasons for doing what he did, his enslavement, sounded like weakness to Britha, and she could not hesitate when the time came to kill him.

  The only person she could have any interest in was Teardrop, and that was only in terms of ritually taking his power.

  These thoughts rampaged angrily through her mind until she used some of the techniques she had been taught in the groves to quieten her head. Britha slipped into a restless unquiet sleep to the sound of people offering themselves to an unnamed god.

  She had nestled into a small cleft of earth between some stones. The moon, high and full overhead, shone a path of light across the otherwise dark water. What clouds there were, were little more than wisps. In her sleep she was aware of the light changing. Her eyes flickered to see the silhouette of a tall dark man standing over her, reaching towards her.

  Then she woke up. Teardrop stood over her, leaning on his staff. The silhouette of his oddly shaped head was picked out by the light of the moon.

  ‘I mislike people watching me sleep, and I mislike the kind of man who would do so.’

  ‘Your sleep looked troubled,’ he said, his face in shadow. Britha sat up, moving errant hair away from her face.

  ‘Any reason it shouldn’t be? What is it?’

  ‘Bress?’

  ‘I am going to kill him,’ she said, and she meant it. Teardrop could read this from her but he could also see the song of her heart and the song of her mind conflicting in her face. However, he was prepared to take her at her word.

  ‘What did she mean when she asked you how it felt to be eaten?’ Britha demanded, still angry at how she had been woken. It had obviously been meant to put her on the back foot, to intimidate her. An answer was a long time coming.

  ‘Power consumes you eventually,’ he said, his voice flat, his face still in shadow, making him difficult to read, but she could tell there was more to it than that.

  ‘That depends on the—’

  ‘Always.’

  There were cries from the fort. Britha caught the look on Teardrop’s face as he turned. He looked troubled. Britha got to her feet, rearranging her robe. Through the break in the cliffs she could see a ship approaching, its prow crashing through the rough white water between the rocks.

  Britha grabbed her spear and headed towards the shore. The god-slaves had picked up their pitch. They seemed to feel that the ship was an answer to their prayers.

  Even in the darkness and with the distance, Britha found herself able to make out the details of the ship clearly. The vessel was huge and made from planks of wood that looked to have been both painted and varnished. It looked like a southern trading vessel. She knew that the crew would have skin darkened by the hot suns of the south.

  She had only seen their like once before, though she had heard stories from others of the Pecht who had dealt with the strange traders from the hot lands far across the seas. She found herself awed by the strange craft. It made the wood and skin boats of her people look so rudimentary and primitive.

  The oars had been raised to prevent them from being splintered by the rocks on either side of the narrow entrance. The ship moved only by its gaily coloured sail, though even without the oars it was a close fit for the large vessel.

  In the stern of the ship Britha could see hugely muscled men and women in kilts made of bronze-tipped strips of leather, labouring at the huge lever of the ship’s rudder. The navigator looked like those who worked the rudder, but older, gone to seed, though still powerful. He wore a blaidth-like garment but shorter and with no trews, and his footwear was a complicated series of leather straps. His eyelids and the skin around them were painted black, his head shorn, his beard trimmed short. He shouted instructions at the rudder-men and -women. Again, Britha wondered at how she could make out so much from so far away.

  All of the crew looked so different to Britha’s tall, pale, hairy people. With skin colours in various dark hues and bizarre clothing and ornamentation, the crew of the ship looked very strange to the ban draoi’s eyes.

  ‘From your world?’ Britha asked suspiciously as she and Teardrop walked down to the shore. The ram prow of the ship splashed through the water of the harbour, the sinister-looking eyes painted on it disappearing in the white foam.

  Teardrop shook his head. ‘Carthaginians, at a guess.’

  A large, powerfully built man was holding on to the rail at the front of the ship. He wore a boiled leather jerkin over another blaidth-like piece of clothing. The light brown fur of some beast formed a small cloak. The man’s trews seemed overlarge to Britha. She could also make out the hilts of a sword and dirk on a belt. He had a necklace from the teeth of some mighty beast around his neck and wore a studded leather band on his head. His hair was neatly trimmed to the shoulder except for two long braids. His beard and hair were dyed and lacquered. Part of his face was white, limed, Britha assumed, like some of the southron tribes did. More black dye traced out a pattern across his face, all of it running due to the salt spray. To her eyes the ship’s master looked decadent, his face paint an extravagance that should only have been used for war or ceremony.

  The Goddodin in the fort above raced along the stone palisades, keeping pace with the ship. Britha saw braziers placed for fire arrows. She wondered if they had any of the oil left. Would it look like a water- fall of flame pouring down on the ship if they used it? she wondered. It was something she almost wanted to see.

  The man was shouting and laughing. He seemed to be by turns exhorting the sea, daring it to do its worst and crying out to a god named Dagon. Britha had no idea how she knew the language, she just did, it seemed.

  Next to the master was a wiry man with the darkest skin she had ever seen, a deep rich brown colour. He was nearly as tall as Bress. He was stripped to the waist, though also wearing very large trews and leaning on a long-hafted great axe, the heads of
which were two massive crescent-shaped bronze blades.

  With a final crash the ship made it through into the natural harbour. The white-clad god-slaves on the shore seemed ecstatic, and were crying their thanks to the Dark Man.

  The ship struck its sails. The oars came down to back row and slow the ship down. Stone anchors were slung overboard.

  Britha was angrily shoving the god-slaves out of her way. Fachtna was following her, watching the ship manoeuvre closer to the shore. The injuries Britha had given him were gone. The man in the leather jerkin and the face paint was shouting up to the fort in a broken version of the Goddodin’s language, which Britha was still able to understand, assuring them that he was here for trade as he had been before.

  ‘So you’ll ride your fish woman, you’ll ride Teardrop, you’ll even ride Bress, despite him killing half your people and enslaving the other half, before you’d ride me?’ Fachtna asked.

  ‘It’s my right, the right of every woman to take their pleasure where they want and with whom they want. And it’s not before, it’s instead of, and frankly I would ride the Cirig’s entire herd of beasties and the wolves in the wood before I got near you.’

  ‘I’ll have to warn them you’re coming,’ Fachtna told her. Britha turned to face him, her irritation with the Goidel warrior overcoming her fascination with the strange ship and its even stranger crew.

  ‘Decide what it’s going to take to get you to stop talking to me and decide now.’

  Fachtna’s retort was cut off by a ramp being dropped onto the shore from the ship. The master strode down it followed by the tall brown-skinned man, who seemed to be his bodyguard.

  The quality of the master’s clothing and his slight paunch marked him as wealthy. His bearing, however, was more that of a warrior than a merchant, but there was a definite intelligence behind his brown eyes.

  The emaciated old man, who had spoken to Britha before, approached the ship’s master. Britha again shoved him out of the way, sending him sprawling.