Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  Women and children scrambled from the huts now, fleeing away from the lake, toward the forest's shadowed depths.

  His mother managed to make her voice heard above the frenzy. "Save the children!" she shrieked. "Quickly! Into the woods!"

  Mahon had her by the shoulders, and Aidan ran to them. He grabbed Aidan's arm and pulled him close. Mahon's face was riven with strain. "Find my daughter," he said to Deirdre. "Care for our children. Pray for me." He clung to them both for a fierce, brief hug, and then was gone.

  Aidan twisted and turned in his mother's grasp, trying to join his father, to fight, to die if necessary. He was old enough. He was!

  But the straw roofs and wooden walls of the village were aflame, and there was another part of him that wouldn't let him tear free from his mother's side, something so completely overcome with terror that he could barely think.

  Around him, men who had taught him to walk, to fish and to dance, fought and died in the dirt, their precious blood flowing in the mist-throttled moonlight.

  "Nessa!" Deirdre called, voice cracking in the early-morning frost. "To me, girl!"

  Deirdre called out again and again as she fled toward the rear of the village, toward the wooden bridge linking the crannog to forest and field.

  With a despairing cry, Nessa crawled from beneath a hut and ran to them. As she did, another of those sharp, strange cracking sounds rang out, and Molloy the net mender fell, humping along the ground like a crushed river eel.

  The night was chaos and red ruin. The men and childless women were fighting, while mothers and.grandmothers attempted to flee.

  "Ma!" Nessa cried.

  "Come," Deirdre said, voice both soothing and firm. Framed by the wild light, her crimson hair wreathed her head in flame. "Quickly now . . ."

  They were at the bridge now. On its far side lay the fields, and a hope of safety. But they were no more than halfway across when six net-wielding beast-men emerged from the shadows. Another boar, a stag, and one with an eagles beak. Women and children were ensnared as they ran for the imagined safety of the forest.

  Deirdre screamed and tried to turn back, but the masked men entangled the three of them. They fell into the dirt, the bestial eyes and mouths of their captors leering down at them. The captors' scent was a nauseating meld of rancid animal fat and caked sweat, thick enough to choke.

  The net's rough strands bound Aidan's arms and legs tight enough to cut his skin. Aidan struggled until he was bested by fatigue and a gnawing, crippling fear beyond anything ever experienced in his young life.

  His mother and sister strained against the tangled strands. "Mahon!" Deirdre screamed.

  Nessa wormed a thin arm through the net, trying to claw her way free. "Help, Da!"

  Suddenly, as if in answer to their prayer, Mahon O'Dere appeared. His shirt was red-streaked and torn, and he held a bloody axe aloft like a firebrand. His mighty arms were strained crimson, his eyes were wild. He seemed not completely the man Aidan called father; this enveloping night of horror seemed to have ripped away a facade to reveal something more primal than mere humanity. Aidan felt a strange and unaccustomed twining of fear, pride, and excitation.

  One of the beast-men turned and charged just in time for Mahon's axe to cleave a diagonal chunk from his skull. A second raised his fire-stick. Mahon's arm whipped up and down. The axe flew from his hand end-over-end, blurred through the air, and struck the sidhe's chest with a satisfying wet, hollow sound. Blood flowed, and the monster sank to his knees with an oddly human groan.

  Then, thrillingly, Mahon pulled the golden knife from his belt, turning just in time to twist away from a descending sword, answering with a vicious upward stroke. The misery he wrought with the invaders' own weapon made Aidan's heart pound and sing in the same glorious instant.

  "Yes! Father!"

  Mahon's eyes met his for one golden moment. The boy was proud, hopeful. In that instant, it seemed that Aidan was on the verge of some terrific, overarching understanding of all the world's myriad things. Then another of those sharp, odd, cracking sounds rang out, and Mahon staggered. He froze in midmotion; his lips parted and crimson dribbled down over his beard. It seemed almost comical, as if he had brayed laughter with a mouthful of half-chewed berries. Then, still in that terrible slowness, he crumpled to the earth.

  Aidan watched in disbelief as his father gasped like a beached fish, great hands clasping and unclasping, grabbing at the air as if he might be able to claw life from it. Their eyes met again, and this time there were no great answers there, only questions that would never be satisfied.

  A giant strode into view, this one a man-bear. The beast looked down at the mortally wounded man, head tilted to one side. Thick hands rose to his own face, and peeled it away.

  The face beneath was ruddy and unremarkable, windburned and bland. He had small, bright blue eyes and unruly red hair that stirred but little in the early morning breeze.

  Aidan felt dizzy and sick. The bear-face was but a mask. Only a mask. The Northern demons were merely men, after all.

  Almost tenderly, the invader bent down. He lifted Aidan's father's head with his left hand, and plucked the golden knife from the ground with the other.

  As the Northman made the death stroke, Mahon's dazed eyes locked with his son's, blinked once, then rolled upward. And as darkness came to the father he loved, in the midst of his mother's and sister's pitiful screams, Aidan mercifully fell into a deeper, dreamless night.

  And was gone.

  Chapter Four

  The stench of burnt wood and flesh wafted with the uncaring breeze as women, children, and a few miserable, broken men were herded toward the ships, arms bound at their sides. One at a time the captives were shackled at the ankles with stout metal bands tight enough to numb limbs. Jarring hammer strokes locked them into place. Each bore a loop through which thumb-thick chain links were passed, connecting each miserable soul to another.

  Aidan looked into the faces of the captive men and saw shock, disbelief, horror, and bleak resignation. Riley, the tuath's massive blacksmith, was one such. Aidan understood why: the shambling, shamefaced Riley had preferred captivity to death. Aidan hated him. He should have died! Died as had Mahon O'Dere, fighting to be free, fighting for his family. Better a swift and endless sleep than this disgrace. Had not Aidan a sister and a mother to protect, he would have chosen the first good moment to jump overboard and drown himself.

  He would, yes.

  A brawny Northman locked the chains into place with thunderous hammer strokes. Nessa tried to kick him, and he casually backhanded her across the face so hard that at first Aidan thought her neck was snapped. She fell limply back, but the giant simply grabbed one of her ankles and dragged her forward. For Aiden, it was like watching events in a nightmare, submerging him in an ocean of rage so deep it blackened thought.

  Now it was his mother's turn. Never had he seen her like this, wild-eyed, and almost like a drunkard. Her eyes were rolled up exposing the whites, and she pulled against the pig-eyed Northman's brawny arms. "Mary! Oh please, Mother of God," she screamed over and over again in a voice not entirely her own. "Do not forsake us!" Her thrashing was without aim, without real thought, almost as if she were some kind of dangle-toy twisting in the wind. After the chain was hammered on she was shoved aside and Aidan hauled into position.

  He struggled without effect, and the Northman slapped him across the face. Stars exploded, the white sparks extinguished in an ocean of red, and then black. When he came to his senses, the first strokes had already fallen, linking him to the wall. His mouth felt swollen and nerveless. The boy's eyes narrowed as he ran his tongue around his mouth, tasting blood. He longed for a knife, a boat hook, a sword. Something to grasp in his hand as he leapt and died gloriously.

  Like his father.

  Pig-Eyes watched him, and something in the big man's face smiled, almost as if he approved of what he saw in Aidan. "Careful, boy," Pig-Eyes said, his voice guttural and unpracticed, as if he had never spo
ken a true language before.

  Deirdre twisted about, her face pale, momentarily lifted from her own madness by the threat to her children. "Aidan!" she screamed. "Nessa! Don't fight—"

  She was pushed brutally, but managed to reach back to take Aidan's hand. His sister's face, so like his own, was wide-eyed and slack. "Mother?" she asked.

  His mother struggled to mask her terror with calm. "It's all right," she said. "All right. We're together."

  With swift, ringing strokes the chains were hammered into place. They were walked up a plank and onto the dragon ship's deck, where they huddled on the deck in fear, guarded by armed, silent men.

  Aidan put his face down. He would not let these monsters see him cry.

  Like a great predator returning to its lair after a prodigious feeding, the dragon ships wallowed toward the river, swollen with their burden of living meat.

  Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't—

  Nessa gripped at his hand with hers, her small, sharp nails digging into his wrist. Her eyes were wide and almost unblinking, and she trembled like a trapped squirrel.

  The journey from the lake to the sea was dreadfully peaceful, a silent slide between riverbanks lined with moss-hung trees and corded vines. He had fished these waters, played on those rocks, swum and run and speared frogs amid these shadowed corridors. And with every passing moment, every renewed moan from those chained beside him, the realization grew that he might never see this river again. That the village of his birth was gone. That he was in the hands of creatures whose motivations he could not begin to comprehend. That for the first time his mother and sister really needed him, and he was powerless to aid them.

  The Northmen seemed to need no sleep or rest or food, remained on the alert at all times. They began to relax only after the sun began to dip toward the west and they began to smell salt in the air.

  The ocean.

  Its steady roar rose gradually, building to a churning rhythm. Despite his chains and sorrows Aidan's curiosity sharpened. The ocean! Ever he had hoped to see it. Never had he imagined his first sight would be in such a state.

  The raid boats slid out along the river current, bucked the waves and then turned toward the south, where he finally saw their destination: another, larger version of the dragon ships. This vessel was three times the size of the river raiders. They slid past its prow, and he looked up into the dragon's mouth, seeing none of the black stains that must have marked the flow of fire. This ship was for carrying cargo, not raiding or destroying.

  Under threat by axe and fire-stick their gang-chains were struck and replaced with leg irons and wrist irons. By twos, the miserable captives were dragged belowdecks into the ship's black maw. Those who resisted were clubbed and lowered into the hold. When it was Aidan's turn to descend he looked back at the coast, the white beaches he had never played upon, the dense green forest beyond. The sun was nearing the western horizon now. He wondered if he would ever see its golden rays again.

  Rows of horizontal wooden shelves were mounted on each side of the hold, with a narrow aisle running between. Without another word they were shoved onto the planks. Their chains were shackled to metal claws mounted in the thick wood at their feet. Someone's feet were in Aidan's hair, and his own rested almost upon some woman's shoulders.

  When the hatch banged shut the darkness was abysmal, and seemed to signal an end to all hope. A low moaning rose up from the captives, a funeral dirge for the living. A cry of lament for the dishonored, unburied dead.

  There was no light, but Aidan heard the clinks as the captives struggled with futile desperation to free their leg irons from the locking mechanisms. He heard the voices of the Boru boys, heard bold little Morgan's cry, was dragged toward despair by the steady weeping of his mother and sister. The last wail he recognized was his own, torn from deep in his chest as the darkness without and within joined arms to enshroud him.

  With much clanking and rumbling of the planks the great dragon ship weighed anchor. The fisherman in Aidan's bones told him that they were not headed out to deeper water but were traveling nonetheless.

  It took hours for the weeping to stop and the first coherent conversation to begin. "Where are we going?" Morgan asked. Then: "Did anyone see my father? My ma?"

  "Hush, child." said Deirdre. "They're gone."

  Silence, and then a soft keening sound.

  "They're going to eat us," said someone, the voice so thick with phlegm and misery that Aidan couldn't recognize it in the dark.

  Riley the blacksmith made a heavy grunting sound. "They'll not eat us," he muttered. "They'll sell us. Sell us all for slaves."

  There was murmuring, and more cries. Aidan knew of slaves, of course, although there were no bondsmen in O'Dere crannog. Slaves were captives of war, or those with heavy debts, or farmers who could not feed themselves through the winter and so exchanged freedom for food and shelter. Without fortune or honor, they worked like beasts and were lucky if a mere ten summers passed before they could buy themselves free. Was this to be their fate?

  "Slaves," someone else whispered in the darkness, and after that there was silence again.

  Days passed in which misery finally gave way to numbness and boredom. Twice a day they were passed slop buckets filled with water, and each captive sipped at a ladle while Pig-Eyes watched, axe in hand. Once a day they were fed a chowder of fish guts and some kind of meal. Aidan refused it for the first two days, wanting to die. On the third he wolfed it down, and then spewed it back up again. The fourth day he managed to keep it in his belly.

  They relieved themselves where they lay. Aidan managed to hold his piss for a full day, but then awoke from slumber having slimed himself. The smell of urine and feces clouded the air like a foul wet blanket, and each breath was an insult to the memory of freedom.

  The chains rubbed against his ankles and wrists until they bled. Tiny insects swarmed out of the wooden floors and walls to nibble the chafed edges of his flesh. Up above, filtering down through the beams, he heard the roar of waves and wind, the harsh drumroll of rain. Despite his fear, or perhaps because of it, he felt terribly lethargic, and with the sound of raindrops pattering against the deck above, he fell asleep.

  Aidan awakened as the door above them opened; the light projecting down upon them was gray and squalled.

  Three armed Northmen descended, wet cloth wrapped around their faces to protect them from the stench. Despite that protection they choked and spit, glared at the captives as if the Irish had voluntarily chosen to live in such a manner. They selected several of the captives, including Aidan, Deirdre, and Nessa, and warned them with threatening gestures not to attempt escape. The metal stem was thrust into the hole beneath his leg irons as a Northman threatened Aidan's throat with a blade: there was no hope of action. Once they were freed, the Northman pulled him along and up the ladder. To his shame, Aidan hadn't the strength to resist.

  Deirdre and Nessa came up on deck behind him, trembling in a thin frigid rain, looking out across a gray sea toward a distant, rocky shore. Several of their captors splashed them with buckets of salt water. Aidan winced as it seared his sores, but was grateful that the stinging waters also cleansed.

  The deck lurched and swayed beneath their slippery feet, and as soon as Aidan steadied himself he began to wonder: Where were they? He could see the coastline, frighteningly distant, so far away he could barely make out individual trees. He recognized no rocks or hills. The wind didn't smell like any place he had been or known. This was beyond the edge of his world. .

  "Move. Quarter hour," Pig-Eyes said. "And then back down."

  He understood by this that they were to move, to exercise their limbs, so that the numbness of long immobility would not cost limbs or life itself.

  "Where are we going?" Nessa asked.

  "South," his mother answered, her wet hair hanging to her shoulders.

  Pig-Eyes was watching him with some interest. The rain plastered the man's mop of dark hair against his face. He seemed invulnerabl
e, inured to the weather. Aidan gambled, like rolling bones in a game of chance, and approached him, "Where are you taking us?" he asked.

  The man was cutting a piece of orange fruit with a knife. Aidan's belly leapt. In two days nothing had sloshed in his belly save the dreadful fish gruel. His gaze went back and forth between Pig-Eyes and the fruit. After a pause, the man cut a chunk of the fruit with his knife and threw it to Aidan. Aidan kept his eyes locked with the Northman's and handed the fruit to his sister. Nessa gnawed it to pieces in an instant.

  Pig-Eyes smiled, nodded approval, and tossed Aidan the rest of the fruit. He fell upon it ravenously. The meat was as orange as the skin, sour-sweet and full of juice. Never had he tasted its like. The peel was thick and chewy, not as good as the pulpy part, but a damned sight better than the gruel. He ate half, and gave the rest to his mother.

  All during this process, the Northman watched. When Aidan was finished, wiping the juice from his face, the man said: "Tarifa, Andalus."

  He'd never heard the words before. Nessa turned to Deirdre. "Mother?"

  Deirdre shook her head. "I don't know, Nessa. I don't know what an 'Andulus' is. But as long as we're together . . ."

  "How can we be together?" Nessa said in the frailest voice he had ever heard from her. "Father is dead."

  The Northman grunted and turned away, returning to his business.

  Deirdre wiped the rain out of her face. "He would want us to be strong." She hugged her daughter as best the chains would allow, and for a moment the old firmness had returned. "All of us." Nessa leaned her head against her mother's breast, seeking solace. Deirdre closed her eyes tightly, then opened them and fixed Aidan with her gaze. "You're the man now."

  Aidan gripped at the rail. He could vault it before anyone could stop him, knew that he could surrender to the welcoming waves, that he could be free of these monsters, free of his chains. But his mother and sister needed him, and heaven help him, he wanted to live. Even like this, he wanted to live.