by Headlee, Kim
“If my tongue is so feeble, Ogryvan”—Arthur matched the Ogre’s grin—“then perhaps your daughter can help me strengthen it.”
He bent to kiss Gyan. The hoots, shouts, and claps intensified as she yielded to his touch. His conscience scolded him for indulging in such an emotional public display. Cheerfully, he ignored it.
“Children, please!” Although Arthur couldn’t see Ogryvan’s face, the warm affection rang clear. “Save it for after the Nemeton.”
“He’s right, Artyr,” Gyan murmured. “We must join the procession.”
He obeyed without surrendering her hand. Priests had begun to herd folk outside, where more priests awaited to direct them this way or that. As Arthur moved with the crowd, he tried to decipher the priests’ actions, but even after he crossed the threshold and everything should have started making sense, it didn’t.
In Brytonic, he voiced his question to Gyan.
“As each man and woman has a rightful place in life,” she replied, also reverting to Brytonic, “so it is reflected in the Àmbholc procession. Farmers are ranked by the bounty of the year’s harvest, herdsmen by the increase of their stock. Warriors by their success in battle. Craftsmen by their skills, and so on. The clan rulers—Father, Per, me, and you, my consort—share the third highest place.”
She frowned, her gaze fleeing into the distance, and Arthur wondered what sorrow had invaded her mind.
“The third highest place,” she continued, “behind the couples to be wed this night.” Her emerald eyes focused sharply upon him. “Caledonians value the shared trust of a man and a woman.”
He nodded, praying for a way to demonstrate his trust in her.
That the priests occupied the procession’s head, Gyan didn’t have to voice. Arthur paused to survey the column before taking his place. While this was no trained unit, neither was it an unruly mob. Even the children waited in reverent silence. The column contained uneven ranks, as few as one and as many as four abreast. Family groupings, Arthur presumed. The shoveled path dictated the column’s width.
He and Peredur took the outer positions of their rank, with Gyan and Ogryvan in the middle. Three couples stood ahead of them, preceded by two ranks of four priests.
As a foreign sister-by-marriage, with no function in Caledonian society, Morghe had been excluded from this event. He doubted that she would have participated even if she’d been invited. But he found it odd that Gyan’s frequent shadow was missing.
“No outsider may enter the Nemeton,” Gyan whispered in response to his query.
Ogryvan had made it abundantly clear that marriage to Argyll’s àrd-banoigin nullified Arthur’s “outsider” status. What, then, of the non-Argyll spouses of other clan members? Was this why some ranks had only one person? Or were only the rulers permitted to marry outside the clan?
Before he could ask anything else, the line moved. Years of military training took over, and he remained silent. The procession snaked past the feast hall and armory, between the long buildings of living quarters and several beehive-shaped structures, across the market square, and on toward an open wooden pavilion near the fortress’s wall. While he’d had no need to visit this area of the settlement, he recognized the structure as the temple of their gods. Under its high, peaked roof stood a huge, shallow, bronze dish supported by four clawed feet. Smoke billowed, and flames hissed and spat sparks. A stack of torch butts flanked the dish.
As they neared the temple, one of the priests, his face veiled by the shadows cast by his hood, broke rank to stand near the torches. To a silent rhythm, he stooped, snatched a dead torch, thrust it into the flaming dish, and offered it to the next person in line. Everyone received a torch.
Everyone except Arthur.
“You shall not defile the Sacred Flame,” the priest snarled in a harsh whisper. “The Old Ones do not welcome heretics.” He aimed the barb at Gyan, and Arthur didn’t need the warning prickle to recognize the priest’s identity.
“I suggest you treat the exalted heir-begetter with a wee bit more respect, Vergul.” Her voice thrummed low and deadly.
They locked gazes. The chill in Arthur’s gut predicted this wouldn’t be the last time Gyan would engage Vergul in a battle of wills.
“Please forgive my zeal, Chieftainess, Exalted Heir-Begetter. I was merely defending my faith.” Arthur noticed Vergul’s subtle emphasis on the word “my.” The priest dipped his head, lit a torch, and thrust it at Gyan. “The Old Ones punish those who defile the Sacred Flame.”
Gyan snatched the torch from Vergul’s hand and stepped off the platform.
The exchange had forged a gap in the procession. Gyan strode to catch the others without waiting for her father and brother to reform the rank.
“What can I do, Gyan?” Arthur whispered, in Brytonic. The set of her jaw and shoulders betrayed that inner battle again, and he wanted so much to help her fight it.
The gap closed, and Ogryvan and Peredur joined them.
Glancing at Arthur, she shook her head. If only he could find a way to help her bear her burden. If she trusted him enough.
These thoughts kept nagging him as the procession moved through the gates of Arbroch and out across the meadows, silent but for the crunch of booted feet on packed snow, an occasional muffled cough or sneeze, and the constant snap of wind-whipped flames. Neither brisk nor sluggish, the pace gave Gyan no difficulty.
That changed with the trail’s slope. Arthur reached for her hand. Her smile conveyed gratitude, and she seemed to draw strength from his touch. As the trail steepened, her breath started escaping in ragged gasps, and her head and shoulders bowed.
Ogryvan also had been watching her, his distress plainly etched across his face. Arthur signaled for his attention, stepped closer to her, and extended his arm toward Ogryvan across her back.
This time, arm gripped arm not to compete but to help.
With a sigh, she leaned against their support and allowed them to assist her up the path.
At last, the stone sentinels loomed into view. With nods of thanks to Ogryvan and Arthur, she pushed away to walk the final steps unaided. Arthur smiled at her determination.
As the priests took positions inside the Nemeton, the rest of the procession coiled around the outermost ring of stones. The High Priest raised his oak staff, and the betrothed couples stepped forward. Like spokes on a wheel, the men fanned out, their brides facing them across the circle. At the High Priest’s command, they approached the brush-smothered altar, one pair at a time, to feed the altar fire with their torches in the Caledonian gesture of marital unity.
It reminded Arthur of the rite he and Gyan had performed during their wedding mass, using candles instead of torches. Though Merlin had never spoken of it, Arthur wondered whether that pagan deviation from the established order of worship had raised a few eyebrows among Merlin’s clerical peers.
He rebuked himself for engaging in speculation.
The last war Arthur ever wanted to fight was a “holy” one.
His mind snapped to the present when the crowd cheered the kissing couples. Then the High Priest called all couples married last Àmbholc who sought annulment to come forward. No one did. Another round of cheers burst forth.
The couples lined up to kneel before the High Priest. Ogryvan strode into place behind them, followed by Gyan and Arthur and Peredur. A hush settled over the clearing as the rest of Clan Argyll prepared for the ritual’s final stage.
THE NIGHT before, Gyan had prepared Arthur for this moment. When their turn came, she didn’t kneel but bowed her head in the customary manner for a gravid woman to receive the High Priest’s prophecy about her unborn child.
Arthur also remained standing. She understood his choice; the priests of the One God wouldn’t have tolerated any other behavior from him. The attention of Clan Argyll’s High Priest stayed focused upon Gyan, which was fortunate for Arthur but stymied her silent prayer to the One God for forgiveness of her involvement in this rite. She could not risk revea
ling such thoughts to the one person on earth possessing the power to strip her of her rank and conduct her execution.
The old man entrusted his staff to an attendant. With one hand resting on her head and the other on her belly, his words crackled softly, like dead leaves. “Chieftainess Gyanhumara, your son will be a great warrior.” Certain he was finished, she lifted her head.
The High Priest drew a rasping breath. In the torchlight, his eyes blazed like Lord Annaomh incarnate, a look she would never forget. She gasped and fought not to retreat. “And you shall possess his soul.”
Numbness enveloped her.
Not from cold, although the wind had picked up. Not from fatigue, although her body would gladly embrace her bed this night. Not from hunger, thirst, or any other physical discomfort.
She would have welcomed any of those things—and a mortal wound—over the shock of the High Priest’s words.
Bowing, she accepted the torch, rekindled from the Sacred Flame. As if of their own accord, her feet carried her from the Most Sacred Ground and the Nemeton, a few paces behind her father and the newly married couples. She sensed Arthur beside her as a presence only; he didn’t seem real. The trees, the snow, the wind, the stinking bundle of tarred twigs burning in her fist, nothing seemed real. Nothing except the words echoing in her mind.
“What did he mean, Gyan?”
Arthur’s question startled her, and she sought to devise an answer to soften the truth. Yet a lie would serve no purpose.
Though the ranks of the procession had spread out on the trail and no one walked within earshot, she took no chances. Arthur had whispered his question in Caledonaiche, but she answered in Breatanaiche. “Caledonians who worship the Old Ones believe in the idea of an immortal soul just as those who worship the One God do. They also believe there’s a way to prevent the soul from leaving the body at the moment of death.”
“Almighty God.” He squeezed her hand. “The heads in the feast hall.”
She nodded slowly, marveling that the broken, frosty ground passing beneath her feet felt as insubstantial as everything else.
“My son, destined to become a great warrior, will someday become my enemy. And I—I will—” She couldn’t finish.
“Gyan, you cannot believe this.”
Though they were no louder than the rest, the urgency in his words compelled her to meet his gaze. There she found no rebuke, as she’d feared, only deepest concern.
“I—” Belief in the One God freed her from the shackles of pagan prophecies. Or so she’d thought, but apparently a lifetime of Caledonach traditions couldn’t be cast off so easily. “Artyr, I—I don’t know.”
“Could there be another meaning?”
She shook her head.
“A possibility for error, then? Or could this be a chance to guard against what might happen and prevent it?”
Another day, she’d have answered yes to at least one of his questions. Now, she couldn’t be sure about anything.
Chapter 17
BRIGHT AS DAY, the moon lit the ice-crusted rocks and brush where Prince Badulf and his band hid in shivering misery. The valley stretched below in an endless swath of white, broken only by the stone huts, byres, sheds, and pens of the Brædan village. The stillness, the snow and ice, the cold, the full moon—alone, any of these factors would challenge the hardiest war-band. Together, they added up to one conclusion.
He’d chosen an evil night for a raid.
These factors could be overcome by courage, skill, self-discipline, and luck. The first three, Badulf’s men owned in abundance. He hoped luck wouldn’t prove to be in short supply.
For the past fortnight, a host of omens had fueled Badulf’s foreboding: a rope coiled like a striking snake, a raven-shaped puddle of spilled ale, a cloud piercing the heart of the moon like a spear, the sky blackened by an enormous flock of crows, a pack of starving dogs devouring each other in bloody desperation.
Badulf pulled his cloak tighter about him, a thin shield against the cold.
Nothing could shield him from his dread.
For his men’s sake, he buried his feelings behind a brave mask. None of them had seen the omens, as if the gods had penned their message for him alone.
His death he could face. The possibility of leading his friends to theirs made his gut writhe, as if he’d downed a vat of poison.
He glanced skyward and spat a curse; the moon seemed determined to stay above the ridge. Instead of cutting across the meadows under cover of darkness, his band would have to hug the tree line, a much longer distance, to be sure, but much safer.
Badulf signaled his men, and they began the tedious process of moving from tree to rock to bush. Sometimes running, sometimes crawling, sometimes slithering, always trying to keep something between themselves and the village. At least it kept them warmer.
The famine that had sprouted from the stubble of the ruined harvest had begun to gnaw at the bellies of even the thriftiest Eingels. The success of Badulf’s mission—indeed, the success of all Colgrim’s war-bands—was crucial.
DWRAS MAP Gwyn chafed his arms beneath the wolfskin wrap and stomped his feet, but nothing could dispel this blasted cold.
Life in the Pendragon’s service bore no resemblance to what he had expected.
He’d expected action. At the very least, he’d hoped to be trained by the other warriors to one day send the accursed Angli raiders to their gods.
Expectations held no truck with reality.
Reality meant being posted with a handful of Arthur’s men to guard another Lothian village, one so deep in Brytoni territory that the Angli threat had to be slim at best. Reality meant enduring the endless pitying glances of the villagers, who knew he’d witnessed his family’s slaughter. Reality meant helping with their winter chores—chopping wood, tending livestock, mending tools—not from a sense of duty or kinship, but to combat mind-murdering boredom.
Reality meant knowing the Angli never would raid this God-forsaken village.
Occasionally, the guard captain deigned to show him a few tricks with sword or spear. Spear, mostly, as if he didn’t believe Dwras capable of mastering the art of swordsmanship. Usually, Dwras cleaned armor and weapons, fetching this and hauling that and doing whatever chores the soldiers deemed unworthy of their station.
Including nightwatch sentry duty. The others took their turns, true enough, but it seemed he stood at this post much more often.
A warning prickle froze his mental complaints.
The moon-bathed meadows gleamed serenely before him. Not even a stray leaf stirred. Abruptly, the night seemed eerily quiet. Something had invaded the valley. A wolf?
He studied the frost-bound birches and pines at the valley’s fringes. No movement there—wait. That tumble of boulders and broom far off to his left…somehow didn’t seem…right. Nothing he could describe, exactly, just a feeling that refused to abate.
The shadows shifted and stopped. After a handful of breaths, another shifting—a bit closer—then stillness again.
Raiders!
His fingers curled around his horn. If he blew it now, the soldiers and villagers would have time aplenty to respond. The thrice-cursed Angli whores’ sons wouldn’t set one bloody foot in this village!
But if he acted too soon, the raiders might flee, and he wanted nothing more than to take his spear and spit as many as he could. If the raiders escaped unseen, he’d be rebuked for sounding a “false” alarm. Imagining the taunts, he groaned softly. The soldiers would never let him live it down.
He chewed a gloved knuckle. Each silent moment brought his chance for revenge that much closer, but too great a delay might cost him his life and the entire village with him.
Inspiration hit. If he feigned sleep, the raiders might show themselves sooner. Not a sure wager, but a better plan than playing this damned guessing game.
Dwras map Gwyn felt astonishingly calm as he inched down the byre wall and let his head slump. With one eye closed, he kept the other half open
upon the valley. The spear slowly came to rest across his lap. His other hand, hidden in the wolfskin’s shaggy folds, clutched the horn. He gripped the spear and waited.
Without doubt, he’d never done anything as hard as pretending to be asleep while judging when the raiders had crept far enough from the forest. He feared his hammering heart would wake everyone by itself.
A few more steps…just a few…more…
AS BADULF and his men left cover to approach the village and its lone, dozing sentry, the man jumped up, bleating the alarm. The huts spewed shouting men and women brandishing scythes, axes, pitchforks, and staves. Surprisingly, many of the men wielded swords. The sentry raced toward them, howling to wake the dead, spear leveled.
Warriors!
But not Loth’s. These men fought with skill and discipline the likes of which Badulf had never seen. As the sentry neared, the moonlight bouncing off his cloak-pin revealed not the rearing Bear of Lothian, but a raging dragon. The omens, Badulf realized with bowel-loosening despair, had been true!
KILLING CAME to Dwras with incredible ease. The first foe tasted the spear point through the throat. That, for Talya! The second died with the spear sprouting from his belly. For Gwydion! As he yanked it free, he caught another warrior in the chin with the spear’s sharpened butt. He whirled to see the man staggering backward, arms flailing. Dwras gladly helped him enter the realm of the Angli gods.
He lost count after that, remaining oblivious to how the others were faring. Everything melded into a blur of snow churned with mud and blood in dawn’s ashen netherlight. Sometime during the skirmish, his spear shaft broke. He didn’t recall picking up a dead man’s sword, yet there it lay in his fist, and just as useful as his spear had been.
Passion for vengeance flourished within him. Each man he felled spawned the lust to kill two more. To his fierce joy, there seemed to be an endless supply.