Warriors of Camlann

by N. M. Browne

  Ursula licked dry lips. She did not know what function was served by Rhonwen’s apparel. Maybe the Aenglisc believed the objects had ritual power but there was power here, for sure. Rhonwen’s chanting had released it. Ursula felt like she was imprisoned in glass, she felt as if some vital nerve connection in her body had been severed, like she had lost the use of a limb. Smelling it, tasting it, needing it so badly maddened her. It made it hard for her to concentrate.

  ‘This is our Heahrune, that is what you would call “Priestess”. You must walk alone to stand by her. It is sacred ground fit only for the Heahrune and for the sacrifice.’ The man who spoke, stumbled a little over his Latin but conveyed his meaning well enough. He and the others stood aside to let the three prisoners – Ursula, Bryn and Larcius – walk towards Rhonwen. Bryn looked scared, and Larcius resigned. Rhonwen saw Larcius and ceased chanting.

  ‘Ah, Ambrosius’s boy.’ Her still beguiling voice was lazily insulting. ‘It is a pity we couldn’t make a common cause. We could have achieved much together.’

  Larcius managed a smooth smile. ‘I came to you in good faith, Priestess. I do not think much of your hospitality. It is indeed a pity that I could not have found something to do with such a beautiful woman as yourself, that would not have shamed my noble father’s house. I have never much liked the idea of death rather than dishonour but …’ He shrugged, somehow emulating Rhonwen’s air of careless indolence. It was quite impressive for a man about to be murdered and only slightly marred by the beads of sweat that glistened on his forehead.

  Ursula tore her eyes away from Larcius to focus on her surroundings. The village was no further than a field away, a field in which sturdy ponies grazed. She caught Bryn’s eye. He’d spotted them too. Bryn was good with horses, had been raised with them. He appraised them through narrowed eyes and gave the briefest of nods.

  Rhonwen’s musical voice was continuing, in Latin: ‘These people trust me to prophesy their future and their fortunes in the war that is coming. Soon the warriors of this tribe will return and these men would know their chances. Will it be feasting and ale over the hearth fires or libations over the grave goods of the buried dead? We shall see.’ She smiled serenely.

  ‘I’m sure Bryn knows how the druids once read the future in the death throes of their chosen sacrifice. Agony can be so very instructive.’ She repeated her remarks in Bryn’s own tongue. He paled still further and looked sick. ‘I have learned much since I have been among these people. Their faith in the goddess Nerthus is strong – she has ever been a demanding woman, the goddess, and here she likes her feast of suffering.’

  Ursula found herself wondering what had happened to Rhonwen, since last they had met, to make her so openly sadistic. She had not been like that before.

  Rhonwen continued. ‘I will make my foretelling from the direction you fall when the men send their spears to impale you, the position of your limbs as your fingers implore me for mercy, and after.’ She smiled again, a careless smile. ‘I will study your entrails as you writhe and see our victory in your agonies.’

  Ursula believed her. Rhonwen would do that. Rhonwen too was a stranger here – her clear, uninflected Latin gave her away. She had to perform this ritual to keep her position with the Aenglisc; it was what they expected of their Heahrune. Rhonwen would not meet her eyes and Ursula felt the first intimations of uncontrollable, visceral fear. There would be no mercy here. Until that moment Ursula had thought that love of Macsen might temper Rhonwen’s fury with one of his oath-bound warriors. She knew now that it would not, could not. But Ursula was not ready to suffer the fate Rhonwen had planned for her, and only her own wits would save her. She thought rapidly, desperately. She turned her attention to Rhonwen’s hands. When she raised them in invocation Ursula was ready. She had her knife out in an instant and screamed, ‘Go! Go!’ in both Bryn’s language and in Latin as she sprang forward to grab Rhonwen. Ursula stood behind the priestess pulling her head back by her shining hair. Ursula laid her hard knife against Rhonwen’s soft throat. Instantly, with reflexes that were a credit to his tough Combrogi training, Bryn rushed to Larcius’s side and helped him towards the ponies on the other side of the copse. The armed men raised their spears but dared not tread on sacred ground. One man let his spear fly, but it fell short and landed close to Rhonwen’s feet. Ursula grasped Rhonwen tighter and shot the men a warning look. No one else made the attempt. Whatever Rhonwen had told them about treading on hallowed ground had clearly frightened them more than the fear of her displeasure, as no one made any move to perform the obvious manoeuvre of sneaking round the back of the trees and attacking Ursula from behind. Ursula’s knees were shaking, but she kept her hand steady. She was taking a huge gamble. She did not know what she was up against. She was acutely aware of how she towered over the tiny priestess and how useless her physical advantage would be if Rhonwen had improved her mastery of magic.

  ‘Speak and I’ll kill you!’ Ursula kept her voice low and vengeful.

  It took Rhonwen an instant to recover from her shock, then bright flames leapt round them as Rhonwen summoned fire from the air. Tongues of fire roared and licked at Ursula’s feet; she could feel the heat of it singeing the leather of her Combrogi-made shoes. She could smell the burning leather and yet, though she no longer commanded the magic, she could instinctively recognise it and know its nature – and this time all Rhonwen had done was to create a complex illusion. Ursula understood exactly how she had done it. Rhonwen’s skill at weaving an illusion had improved but it remained an illusion nonetheless.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Rhonwen,’ Ursula snarled, pulling Rhonwen’s head back, and nicking the skin of her neck with the knife so that a small ruby of blood appeared on Rhonwen’s white throat. Envy of Rhonwen’s magic made Ursula more brutal than she had intended.

  ‘It will take more than illusion to frighten me!’

  It was a challenge and Ursula knew it, but every moment she could distract the Aenglisc from the escape of Bryn and Larcius increased their chances of survival. Rhonwen raised her hand. There was a sulphurous smell and black smoke swirled around Rhonwen’s ankles, dark shapes blossomed from the fire: horned demons with the torsos of men and the hind legs of goats; goblins with huge misshapen faces, hairy as apes. Each of the apparitions was armed with a shining spear. They closed on Ursula menacingly hissing, grunting and brandishing their spears. Their eyes burned with malevolence, the goblins drooled and slavered and stank like the dead. The stench almost made Ursula gag. The Aenglisc stumbled back further from the glade in horror and fear. To Ursula the figures lacked solidity. She knew how they were made. Could Rhonwen only manage illusion or was there more? Rhonwen had made real fire once, in Macsen’s land, and bore the scars on her face to prove it – could she still? It was that power she feared, the magic that changed things, not this ghoulish, insubstantial, spectacle.

  ‘Do you think I’m afraid of your puppets of air, Rhonwen – have you still not mastered real magic?’

  Ursula had mastered real magic, in Macsen’s land, and now it was lost to her. The bitter taste of loss was nastier by far than the acrid smoke and putrid odours of Rhonwen’s conjuring.

  Ursula had known she could not kill Rhonwen in cold blood. She lacked Rhonwen’s ruthlessness. She was surer of it as she felt her warm flesh under her knife; saw Rhonwen’s blood well from the tiny puncture mark she’d made with her stolen knife. Rhonwen was brave. She was Combrogi and she did not flinch. How was Ursula to break this stand-off? She was hampered by her ignorance of the Aenglisc language. She dragged Rhonwen closer to the assembled men, closer to Dan’s sword, stuck so strangely in the ground. The apparitions followed them of course and the men shrank back from the black smoke and the grotesque gathering of fiends. Ursula wasn’t even sure that the men could still see her. For all she knew they might believe that she was being slaughtered by Rhonwen’s demonic allies.

  ‘Hey, you!’ she called towards the man who had spoken in rude Latin. She mad
e her voice as strident as possible and hoped that Rhonwen’s magic would not distort it.

  ‘Tell the men I will kill the Heahrune if anyone approaches my friends or me! I am a Heahrune too and her magic can’t hurt me. Now, pass me the sword and get me a horse and I will leave you in peace.’

  The man looked fearful, the more so as Ursula was clearly unafraid of the unnatural creatures that threatened her. He said something to his companions – she could only hope it was a fair translation. She squinted past the ugliest of the goblins to see one man, who did not appear to be armed, back away. She trusted that he had gone to get her a horse.

  ‘Lady, Heahrune,’ the Latin speaker began respectfully, ‘I cannot take the sword as it is trapped in that boulder.’

  Dan’s sword was not a metre in front of her, trapped in nothing more than the soft loam of the earth, though it seemed that only Ursula and Rhonwen herself could see that truth.

  ‘Try!’ Ursula said shortly. The man looked at Rhonwen who appeared to blink her agreement. Ursula tightened her grip on her captive and tensed. The man pulled at the sword with all his strength but was unable to move it. Ursula could see his muscles straining as he pulled, but the sword would not shift. He signalled to his younger friend, who had the sturdy frame of a man well used to hard physical labour. He too strained convincingly without moving the sword hilt so much as a millimetre. Perhaps Rhonwen’s magic was more potent than it appeared. It looked like Ursula would have to get the sword herself. She was trying to work out how she might manage that manoeuvre without relinquishing her grip on Rhonwen when she heard the approaching rumble of horse’s hooves.

  ‘Ursula!’ It was Bryn’s voice. He sounded petrified.

  ‘I’m fine, Bryn. I have Rhonwen, but I need to get Dan’s sword.’

  She paused. She could not ask Bryn to walk through the circle of monsters that would seem both real and substantial to his eyes. Anyway, although he was not small for an eight-year-old he was too small to restrain Rhonwen. She made a decision – she would have to rely on Larcius. The illusion of menacing demons still grunting and waving their silver spears was just dense enough to block her view in Bryn’s direction.

  ‘Is Larcius with you, Bryn?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Larcius! I need you to hold on to Rhonwen while I get the sword. Walk through the circle of demons – they won’t hurt you!’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Larcius sounded scared.

  ‘I was a sorceress once – trust me.’

  ‘Lady, I fear you are a sorceress still – you have enchanted me!’ She could tell from his voice that he was dismounting and moments later, passing through demons, wielding his knife like a sword. The demons ignored him and, having no independent reality, they continued with their incomprehensible series of grunts and ineffectual spear waving.

  ‘See – it’s not real!’ Ursula added, encouragingly.

  Sweat poured down Larcius’s perfect face, leaving rivulets of clean skin through the grime, like a tear-stained child. He bowed to the two women and, keeping his knife extended, walked cautiously to Ursula.

  ‘Keep the blade at her throat – if she tries anything, kill her,’ Ursula said harshly, indicating Rhonwen with a dismissive jerk of her head. Larcius looked at Ursula, warily.

  She was fleetingly aware of how frightening she herself must look, then dismissed the thought. If she kept them alive, did it matter?

  Ursula deliberately walked through the demons and goblins in front of them. Realising the illusion was destroyed, Rhonwen allowed the apparition to dissolve. Ursula marched forward to the place where Dan’s sword protruded from the ground. She turned to face the Aenglisc and indicated that the Latin speaker should translate her words.

  ‘This is a Combrogi sword. It was borne by the bravest man I have ever known. It shall never rest in enemy hands. Men of your people killed that man and this sword will have its vengeance!’ Afterwards, she would have found it impossible to explain why she made such a speech, but it felt fitting. Her eyes blurred with tears as she lifted the sword easily from its sheath of earth and held it aloft in triumph. There was a gasp from the Aenglisc. Through the blurring effect of her tears, Ursula could make out the illusion that Rhonwen had created round the sword – a huge boulder surrounded by a cairn of smaller stones, a more fitting memorial to Dan than to his sword.

  One of the Aenglisc had returned with a horse complete with leather bridle and Roman saddle. Ursula saw the fear in his eyes as he handed her the reins. She kept her own face impassive as a rock. It was hard not to break down and weep. She had forgotten Dan’s sword had moulded itself to the very shape of his hand. She was almost overwhelmed by grief. She managed to mount the horse without assistance – there were no stirrups but she was used to that. She rode over to Rhonwen and Larcius. Rhonwen’s face was closed and grim. Larcius looked astonished.

  ‘Tie her up!’ she said to Larcius. ‘And gag her! I want no invocations following us.’

  She kept Bright Killer pointed at Rhonwen’s throat.

  ‘I will not kill you, Rhonwen, though I could. I give you your life for Macsen’s sake but in all this’ – she slashed at Rhonwen’s belt with its assortment of fetishes – ‘I fear you bring him shame. Is this the way a Combrogi priestess and princess debases herself!’

  Like the previous speech the words came to her mouth unbidden. She did not know why she was saying them but Rhonwen flinched. Ursula knew enough about Rhonwen’s past to be able to hurt her. She picked up the crystal ball and boar’s tooth with her sword, an idea forming in her overheated brain. Maybe she could buy them more time. Taking the ball and tooth in her left hand she held them up for the Aenglisc to see.

  ‘I am a great and powerful Heahrune. If you untie this woman before sunset all her power will fly to me. If you pursue us she will die! With these things of hers I can kill her however far apart we are. Without her you are powerless against me. Do you understand?’

  Ursula’s translator looked grave and it seemed as if her guess about the importance of these objects was a good one. He trembled as he translated her words to the other Aenglisc. She hoped they could reach some kind of safety before sunset.

  Rhonwen lay on the ground beside the magical cairn of stones, trussed up like a chicken and gagged with a strip of fabric from her own robe. Ursula had a bad feeling that she would pay for this one day.

  ‘Come, Larcius, let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Bryn, well done! Let’s ride!’

  Trusting to the power of her words she turned her back on the armed Aenglisc spearmen and rode away. She hated to turn her back on an enemy but some instinct told her that it would give credence to her claims of power. It must have worked: no spear buried itself between her shoulder blades and they rode on unhindered. It took a long time for her breathing to return to normal and the palsied shaking of her hands to cease.

  Chapter Seven

  Bedewyr and Gawain rode on in silence. Bedewyr was too afraid to speak – he did not know what kind of man or monster rode with him – while Gawain struggled to obliterate the memories of the recent fight from his mind. His body ached as if he had received the blows he’d dealt. He did not want to think too much. He trusted that his memory would return, as he trusted that the youth Bedewyr would take him somewhere safe. It was by far the easiest recourse. He trusted as the giant dog trotting at his side trusted, and relaxed into the saddle.

  He did not recognise the land they travelled through. They saw no fellow travellers on the overgrown Roman road and the land on either side of them was untilled and abandoned; it was like riding at the end of the world. They stopped a couple of times to drink water from a nearby stream and Bedewyr shared with him some coarse unleavened bread and poorly dried meat. Gawain ate both with quiet gratitude.

  ‘Do you remember anything now?’ asked Bedewyr tentatively.

  Gawain shook his head. ‘If I may borrow your brother’s name a little longer, I would be grateful.’

  ‘Your
courage and skill in battle lends it honour,’ replied Bedewyr without conviction, though it was mostly true. His own brother would have been proud beyond description to have possessed even a quarter of this man’s skill with the sword – for himself he had never seen such savagery and Bedewyr feared it as much as he admired it.

  It was growing dark when Gawain became aware of a change in the appearance of the countryside. Even in the failing light it was obvious that they now rode through land that was farmed and cared for. He became uneasily aware of hidden eyes observing him. The road ahead was blocked by three mounted men riding abreast towards them. Gawain wished earnestly that he had not returned Bedewyr’s sword. The men were dressed as Ravens. All three wore helmets that covered their cheeks and shaded their faces; the helmets gleamed, bright with silver. They each carried flaming torches and their mail shirts glinted fire in their reflected light. Bedewyr relaxed perceptibly and Gawain was confused. Bedewyr was Combrogi; were these Ravens allies?

  Bedewyr rode ahead of him and eagerly greeted the mounted men in Latin so heavily accented it took Gawain a moment to recognise the language he knew as well as the Combrogi tongues. ‘Petronax went to track this man’s companions. Tell the Druid I have brought one of the men he sought.’

  Two of the mounted men turned the horses round and spurred them back the way they’d come, the third man listened as Bedewyr spoke in a low voice, with rapid frightened glances in Gawain’s direction. The war dog’s teeth were bared.

  Gawain spurred his horse forward, determined not to be excluded from a conversation that might bring him trouble. ‘I fear that I have not my true name to offer you but for now I am Gawain. You are?’