by Gavin Smith
‘Yes, go ashore, die in the swamp and we can sail away before the black ships find us,’ Hanno said.
‘Hanno of Carthage,’ Britha said, ‘I don’t think your god lives here. You leave us, and the corpses of those I slew will climb onto your deck as you sleep and slay you and your men. Do you understand me?’
Hanno looked furious. Kush looked close to swinging his axe. It didn’t matter what either of them believed. Britha wasn’t sure if she had the power to make good her threat, but enough of the crew believed her that they wouldn’t let Hanno abandon them.
‘Enough threats,’ Kush told her. ‘I mean it.’
Fachtna opened his mouth to say something but Britha cut him off.
‘You were well paid, trader; all we ask is that you honour it.’
‘I should have asked for more,’ Hanno muttered, eyeing the torcs around Fachtna’s neck and his left arm. ‘You make this quick. If you have not returned by tomorrow morning then we will leave you because the evil spirits that burn the night with their demon fire will have taken you. This is known by the people who live in this evil place.’
Britha nodded.
‘And we will flee the black ships if we sight them,’ the normally quiet Germelqart said.
Fachtna opened his mouth. ‘Agreed,’ Britha said before the warrior uttered something insulting. ‘You cannot fight them.’
‘I only hope you can outrun them,’ Fachtna said. ‘But I doubt it.’
Trial and error left them soaked and covered with thick foul-smelling mud, but eventually they managed to find a trail over what passed for dry ground. Or at least ground that didn’t want to pull them down into sucking mud.
‘So we just walk into the swamp and hope we find someone?’ Fachtna demanded angrily.
He’s like most warriors, Britha thought. He liked being covered in blood, glory or fine things, but not mud.
‘They know we are here,’ Britha said. She could feel the eyes on her. The birds, the insects, reptiles and amphibians moving through the water or over the mud, the constant movement of the undergrowth; it was easy to imagine the whole place as a living being.
‘She’s right,’ Teardrop said. ‘I can hear the mindsong here. But it is distant, far away somehow.’ This got Fachtna’s attention, Britha’s too, but she chose not to show it, hoping that Teardrop would reveal more of his magics if she showed less interest.
‘Why don’t they show themselves?!’ Fachtna cried to the skies. Nearby gulls took to the air, showing their displeasure in raucous squawking. Britha watched them and then moved off the trail and into the rushes. Almost immediately she was standing in water, though the spirits in the mud hadn’t started dragging her down yet. Using the butt of her spear for support, she made her way to where the gulls had been.
Fachtna sighed, looked down in disgust at the mud coating his boots, greaves and trews, but followed her. Teardrop remained on the path, looking out over the rushes blowing in the gentle breeze. Perhaps he was listening for the mindsong, Fachtna thought, but more likely he just didn’t want to get further covered in mud. Cursing, Fachtna pushed through the rushes until he found Britha leaning against an earthen bank, standing in a red pool of bodies.
‘They died in battle,’ he said. The pictures that swords and spears drew on flesh were plain enough to see.
Britha nodded.
‘Someone brought them here?’ There were some twenty bodies but this was not a place to fight a pitched battle.
‘I think they are being given back to the land,’ she said. ‘Perhaps left in sacrifice because they could not protect their people.’
‘But they died well.’
Britha looked up at the warrior, surprised to hear the emotion in his voice. Is this what you fear, Goidel? No tomb, no one to remember your deeds.
‘Their ways are not your own,’ Britha said simply. ‘What I want to know is why the gulls will eat their flesh and bury them in the sky but the insects stay away.’
That got Fachtna’s attention. He jumped into the pool and waded towards the bodies. They were a small pale people, though death and immersion would always make a body pale. There were traces of paint on their bodies but no tattoos. Whatever weapons and armour they might have owned had been stripped from them.
Fachtna cut into the flesh of one of the bodies.
‘That is an ill thing,’ Britha said angrily.
‘It is an augury,’ Fachtna said, distracted.
‘And who are you to augur on the bones of people not yours, who have been left to rest in their own way?’ she demanded.
‘These wounds, they make channels in the flesh, like the roots of the tree,’ he told her.
‘These are Bress’s weapons. We know this.’
Fachtna took some of the flesh into his mouth and tasted it.
‘What are you doing?!’
Fachtna spat the flesh out. ‘These are kin of yours,’ he told her.
‘These are not kin of mine, fool!’
‘And yet in part your blood is the same as theirs.’
‘Then they were corrupted by the demons and left here when they turned on their own people.’
‘They died fighting Bress’s band, and I mean the blood you share with Cliodna and the Muileartach.’
Britha considered this. ‘The insects know that their blood is unnatural.’ Fachtna said nothing. ‘I thought the power you had was in your arms and legs and the weapons you bear.’
‘Don’t forget my cock.’
‘You are a fool and I do not believe you,’ Britha said in exasperation.
‘Then I will have Teardrop tell you.’
Fachtna waded across the pool. He had reached the bank and was about to step up when he stopped.
‘Why did you kill them?’ he asked, not quite turning to look at her directly.
Britha spent some time deciding whether to dignify his question with an answer. ‘Because they didn’t care about themselves so I ate their spirits,’ she finally said.
He nodded. ‘Have you ever done the like before?’
‘I’ve never met people like that before, and who are you to question me?’
‘Would you have done the same in the past?’
Britha said nothing. The silence seemed to go on and on before Fachtna stepped out of the pool and started back towards where they had left Teardrop. Britha watched the warrior’s back until the tall breeze-blown rushes swallowed him. What she didn’t tell him was that she had not felt even a trace of remorse for what she had done. In fact, it had left her feeling stronger. She tried to ignore the sense of how far away she was from home and what she had been. She looked at the corpses and wondered if they had known Cliodna.
Fachtna made his way along a tiny game trail. He could see Teardrop just ahead of him. He was facing towards where the smoke was coming from. Fachtna held the bloody knife in one hand; the other held the strap of his shield, which was slung over his shoulder.
He stopped. Despite the blood, he pushed his dirk back into its scabbard. He was half convinced that his mind was playing tricks with him. Then, assuming a low stance, he swung the shield into his hand, the feel of the leather over wood familiar where he gripped it. His sword whispered from the scabbard. He soothed its song with a thought. It was hungry. It had been drawn and not used too often recently.
They were good. He did not understand how he had not known they were there – his senses being expanded far beyond the normal – but they moved with the direction of the wind in the rushes and they moved quickly. They were like wild animals.
He listened. Keeping still. Britha’s footsteps on the trail behind him seemed thunderous. He had not paid close enough attention to Teardrop. He had not read his body like the weapons masters in the younglings’ camp had taught him. The tension in Teardrop’s stance told Fachtna that they had him.
Behind him he heard Britha stop. She had seen Fachtna’s sword and shield at the ready. Fachtna heard her change her position, presumably readying her spear. Now have
the good sense to be quiet, Fachtna thought. Then he heard the mindsong.
Britha had her back to Fachtna. She was still, her spear ready. She was not sure what was her awareness of someone or something in the gently swaying reeds around her and what was her mind playing tricks. All she heard was the wind and the water from the nearby river. She glanced over towards it. She could just about make out the Will of Dagon. There would be no help from that quarter. Quite the opposite: they would be pleased to see them gone.
She became aware of the music. It sounded simple, ancient and beautiful. It was a song without words. It was open, baring all. She started when she realised that she could understand it on a level much deeper than mere words, though she was not hearing it. She was listening to it some other way. She heard it inside her head, felt it through her body; her blood responded to it.
They came out of the reeds on all sides. They wore armour made of panels of boiled leather sewn onto skin to make it easier for them to move. Their spears were odd, made of wood, the ends carved into blades and then fire-hardened. Their shields were small and round, leather over wood, all painted with the same design. What could be seen of their skin was covered in mud. Over the top of the dried mud the same symbol was repeated. They wore full head coverings, not unlike the dog masks worn by the Cirig, except these were unmistakably in the shape of a serpent’s head. The serpent was the symbol painted over the mud and present on their shields.
‘Fachtna, I think I’ve made a mistake,’ Teardrop said quietly, but his voice carried.
Britha saw Fachtna move imperceptibly. He was getting ready to attack. He, like her and Teardrop, was surrounded. It looked like death to her. She heard him spit out an unfamiliar word through gritted teeth: ‘Naga.’
‘Fachtna, wait,’ Teardrop said, his voice carrying over the breeze, through the rushes.
‘Better to die,’ Fachtna said.
‘It may not be as we think. Bress raided them,’ Teardrop said. The warriors surrounding them said nothing.
‘Look at them. This is typical. They have set themselves up a god.’
‘Our god sees through our eyes and you are from elsewhere,’ one of the warriors in the snake masks said.
‘Isn’t everyone?’ Fachtna responded.
Britha could hear the warrior talking to Fachtna. The warriors around her were absolutely still, not even responding to any movements she made. Calm, yet she could feel their anger. She wondered how many people they had lost when the black curraghs came.
‘I don’t even want to know your name,’ Fachtna said, an insult. It was not the ritual insult of a challenge but disgust at what the warrior was, letting the man know that he was beneath him.
The man said nothing; he just watched Fachtna.
‘Fachtna, I need you to wait,’ Teardrop said.
‘It serves us nothing,’ Fachtna said. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
Britha wasn’t sure what was going on but she had never heard of Naga and so was sure that this tribe was no enemy of hers. They may become such, but there’s time for that later, she thought.
‘How will you face Bress if you are dead?’ Britha asked.
‘Better to die fighting than to come into their power. There is nothing left of you when they are finished anyway. It makes slavery under Bress look desirable.’
This chilled Britha, but the warrior was given to exaggeration, as all warriors and most men were.
‘But this does not look like that,’ Teardrop said. ‘There are magics here but they are weak.’ Britha could only just hear Teardrop, spread out as they were.
‘Why aren’t they attacking?’ Britha wondered out loud.
‘Because their god is watching us,’ Fachtna growled.
‘And wants you to know that the poison we coat our blades with is made from his blood. Our spears will pierce armour and flesh and rupture bowels. You will smell the filth of your own death.’ It was the same warrior who had spoken before.
‘Enough!’ Teardrop cried. His stance relaxed but his staff stayed at the ready. The warriors shifted slightly, keeping their spears levelled at them. ‘Either fight or take me to your god,’ Teardrop demanded. Fachtna looked less than pleased.
The village was a series of roundhouses not too dissimilar to those of Britha’s own people, although smaller. They were set on a number of low islands of hard-packed dirt that rose out of the surrounding marsh. They called themselves the Pobl Neidr, the People of the Snake, and were part of the much larger Catuvellauni, whose name meant Leaders of Battle. They had burned their own village, taken what supplies they could and fled into the marshes before Bress’s raiders. They had tried to fight them using cunning and their greater knowledge of the land, or so Tangwen, the warrior who had been doing all the talking, told them. Tangwen was a woman but apparently found it useful to impersonate a man in order to get other warriors to take her seriously. This didn’t make any sense at all to Britha, who also found it odd that they showed no reaction to Teardrop’s swollen and deformed head
Fachtna was clearly not happy. He treated the snake-masked warriors with contempt and was obviously itching for a fight despite near-constant warnings from Teardrop. Leaving the village, they were taken deep into the marshes by hidden trails and sunken causeways. The People of the Snake moved with an easy grace through the marsh, but more than once Fachtna, Britha or Teardrop missed their footing and ended up soaked or covered in mud.
‘We are going to find this thing and kill it, root out the centre of the corruption, yes?’ Fachtna demanded.
‘We are going to see what it is. Things are not as they should be here.’
Beyond realising that the Naga were a hated enemy of Fachtna, Britha could not make out what was happening.
She did not realise that there was a large island in the marsh until she stepped from a sunken causeway and onto it. It just blended with the rest of the marsh. There, staying low beneath the height of the rushes, she saw the rest of the People of the Snake. They did not have the fearsome countenance of the mud-covered, painted and masked warriors. They were landsfolk, or more likely fisherfolk and those who hunted birds, judging by the wooden frames with hanging fish and fowl. They regarded the newcomers with apprehension and would not look directly at their own warriors. This Britha understood: the warriors had taken on aspects of the serpents that they looked like. Dangerous spirits would possess them when they wore the snake masks. They were no longer kin to these folks but fearsome animalistic warriors.
In the centre of the island was what initially looked to Britha like a stone-lined well, but as she got closer she realised that it was a series of wooden steps lodged between the rocks of a dry-stone shaft going down into the island itself. Fachtna was shaking his head.
‘What are you frightened of?’ Britha asked, goading him.
‘I am to keep Teardrop safe. Go down there yourself if you want.’
‘You are safe if you do not wish ill on us and our father,’ Tangwen said. She nodded to some of the folk nearby. They shrank from the serpent visage of her mask, and just for a moment Britha caught the look of discomfort on the other woman’s face through the mud. They were brought food, a stew made from fish and fowl in bread trenchers, and wooden mugs of something ale-like. As a child offered Fachtna his food, he slapped it out of her hands. The little girl looked shocked and then very angry.
‘I’ll not accept hospitality from the likes of you,’ Fachtna told Tangwen. Teardrop look pained. Britha watched Tangwen’s expression darken and saw the look of anger on the other warriors’ faces.
The blow landed so solidly because Fachtna had not been expecting Britha to hit him. His nose flattened itself against his face and squirted blood down over his mouth and bearded chin.
‘What was that for?’ the genuinely aggrieved Fachtna demanded.
‘I don’t care who these people are to you,’ Britha told him, using her left-handed voice, the sinister tone, the one designed to frighten and curse. ‘If you don’t want their hos
pitality, then refuse it. If you want to fight, then challenge them. What you do not do is behave with the manners of a diseased dog in my presence, because what you do affects Teardrop and myself as well. They do not fear our swords or spears so you should not fear their food and drink! Do you understand me, boy!’
Fachtna looked furious. Britha was sure that he would at least strike her, perhaps even draw his sword. She was prepared to use the spear. The warriors of the People of the Snake and the folk under their protection watched. Chagrin replaced anger on Fachtna’s face. Whatever he might have been, he did know how to behave with respect, and he knew that he was in the wrong, much to Britha’s relief.
Fachtna knelt by the little girl.
‘I am sorry,’ he told her in her own language. Like all other languages he could speak it, and like all others Britha found herself able to understand it. Fachtna picked the bread from the ground, found bits of meat, barley and vegetables and put them back into the trencher. Then he ate it all. He handed the girl the wooden cup. ‘If you would be prepared to get me another drink, I would drink it and with thanks. I would understand if you did not.’ The little girl stared at him fiercely. He met her look, but she fetched him another drink. Fachtna thanked her and then stood up.
‘I apologise. Please do not judge my companions on my behaviour. I will meet you over meat or metal as you prefer,’ he said to Tangwen, who nodded her acceptance. Finally he turned to Teardrop and Britha. ‘I apologise to you both.’
Teardrop shook his head, looking bemused. Britha nodded, accepting the apology though still angry. It was clear to her that the Naga, whoever they were, had done Fachtna a great wrong in the past. She had gratefully accepted her trencher and cup. It was good to taste normal food again, not the strange stuff they had given her on the Will of Dagon, which had done terrible things to her bowels.
‘We are safe now,’ she said as they accepted the protection of the law of hospitality by sharing food and drink with the People of the Snake. Perhaps Fachtna was right: perhaps these people were the lowest of the low, oath-breakers who would break the law of hospitality, but she knew that for her part she would not reject it.