The Swordswoman

by Malcolm Archibald

  'Melcorka!' she yelled and poised herself for the next challenge.

  After witnessing the death of his companions, the axeman was more cautious. He shifted his axe from hand to hand, circling Melcorka, looking for an opening or a weakness before committing himself to battle.

  She waited for him, unsmiling, feeling the power and battle skill thrill though her.

  At last the axeman advanced, feinting low toward her legs before stepping back and delivering an overarm swing that would have cloven her skull and travelled right down her body had she not parried with the edge of Defender. Her blade sliced through the wooden handle of the axe so the Norseman was left with twelve inches of useless ash. Melcorka recovered, feinted to his eyes and sliced with a wicked under-and-up cut that emasculated him and continued upward to gut him cleanly. The Norseman fell in agonised silence, and stared as his intestines coiled around him in pink-and-grey horror.

  'Cenel Bearnas!' Melcorka shouted.

  It took that long for the remainder of the Norse war band to reach her. She heard the whirr of the thrown spear, inclined her head so it passed harmlessly by, and laughed at the attempt. Two arrows were next; their flights like the screaming of demented wind, but Melcorka flicked one from the air and ignored the second.

  'Cenel Bearnas!'

  'Odin!' The reply came from a score of throats. 'Odin and death!'

  'A quick death for you!' Melcorka yelled as the Norse formed a semi circle around her, with the flames and smoke from the burning village rising behind them, flickering orange against the purple-bruised clouds of the sky.

  They came at a rush, ten young men with chain mail dulled by the salt-spray of their ocean passage and smears of blood on their faces from their massacre of the villagers, with iron pot-helmets on their heads and iron studded sandals on their feet. They unleashed a volley of spears then drew long straight swords and charged; ten angry Norsemen against one untried woman. But Melcorka had Defender and the power of the sword dictated her fight. As they approached she shifted her weight to her left foot so they had to alter their attack, crossing one another in their eagerness to kill. Melcorka waited until they were so bunched together that they blocked each other's sword arms, then she stepped forward with controlled swings of Defender that took the legs from three men and left them screaming on their stumps. The next man hesitated for a second that cost him his life as Melcorka thrust Defender straight through his throat.

  'Leave some for me.' A nearly toothless grin shone through Oengus' grey beard. He drew the two handed sword from its scabbard on his back and slashed diagonally downward, cutting a Norseman nearly in half.

  Melcorka nodded her appreciation as the remaining Norse turned to run. She bounded after them, caught and killed the slowest and then threw Defender at another.

  'No!' Oengus held out a restraining hand. He was too late. The sword spun, blade over hilt, once, twice, three times before it lodged in the spine of the running man.

  Melcorka watched the Norseman fall. She did not see the spear that a young warrior threw until it thrummed past, with the shaft catching her a glancing blow on the side of the head. She yelled at the pain and dropped, clutching at her wound.

  Hearing her scream and witnessing her fall, half a dozen Norsemen ran forward, roaring their war cry: 'Thor! Thor! Thor!'

  Melcorka could not get back to her feet. Dazed, she saw Oengus take six steps forward and stand, sword poised, to meet them. 'Oengus, be careful!' Her voice was slurred, her vision blurred as she watched events unfold.

  Oengus was like a rock, a chunk of granite around which the tide of Norsemen surged and broke. Melcorka forced herself to her feet as Oengus felled the first man with a short stab to the groin, ducked the swing of an axe, slashed the Achilles tendon of a third and cracked the top of his helmet onto the nose of the next. Melcorka took a step forward and stopped in sudden panic. She was no warrior! She was an island girl; she had never seen a sword until only a few days ago and had certainly never killed a man before today.

  Oengus laughed as he crossed swords with a lithe red-haired man, gasped as his opponent nicked his neck, and roared in triumph as he thrust his blade into the man's chest.

  Melcorka took a step backward, shocked at the raw blood and shattered bodies of the battlefield. This was much worse than anything she had ever imagined, worse than her worst visions of hell.

  'Come on you Northmen hounds!' Oengus shouted, as two warriors attacked him together, one on either side. He parried the man on his right, swung left just an instant too late to stop the young man's blade licking in at the level of his kidneys. His roar of pain raised the hairs on Melcorka's neck.

  'Oengus.' she covered her mouth with her hands as the Norse swords rose and fell. Oengus, the granite rock of a few moments previously, was now an old man, a plaything to these active young warriors. They killed him slowly, chopping him to pieces as he collapsed, and laughing as his blood flowed. 'Oh God no!'

  'Cenel Bearnas!' The slogan rose high in the air, 'Cenel Bearnas!'

  They came in a wedge formation with Bearnas leading and the rest following, men and women that Melcorka had known all her life as peaceful farmers now wielding swords and axes with as much aplomb as the most doughty of champions. They crashed into the Norse, hacked them down in seconds, then split into pairs and hunted through the clachan for any who survived.

  'Mother,' Melcorka could not prevent herself from shaking. Tears scored her face and dripped from her chin. 'Oengus … I got him killed.'

  Bearnas stood over Oengus body. 'He chose the warrior's path and died a warrior,' she said quietly. 'It was his time; you had nothing to do with it.'

  'If I hadn't…'

  Bearnas put two fingers across her lips. 'You don't know what might or what might not have happened, Melcorka.' She stepped back. 'Did you lose Defender?'

  'I threw it at a Norseman,' Melcorka explained.

  'You know now that it is Defender that has the skill and the power, not you. You are the conduit. Without you, Defender is only a sword, without Defender, you are only an island girl. Until you become more skilful, it needs the fusion of both to make a warrior. Next time you fight, never let Defender go.'

  'I'll never fight again,' Melcorka shook her head, still in tears, staring at the scene of horror and the butchered corpse of Oengus. 'Never.'

  'Here,' retrieving Defender from the body of its last victim, Bearnas threw it to Melcorka. 'Clean that and keep it safe.'

  Baetan sheathed his sword, 'we were lucky,' he said. 'That was just a raiding party, some Norse village going a –Viking.'

  As soon as she held Defender, Melcorka felt her courage return. 'What do you mean, Baetan?'

  'The fleet we saw held the Norse army, real trained warriors, not ten-to-one murderers like these creatures were.' Baetan spat on the nearest Norse body. 'That thing would be scared to stand in the shadow of a real Northman.' The look he gave Melcorka could have frozen a volcano. 'Did you really think you had bested Norse warriors in fair fight? You have a lot to learn yet, Melcorka, before you can face a Norse shield wall.'

  Chapter Four

  With interwoven bracken shielding the dull glow of a peat fire flame, the crew of Wave Dancer settled for the night. Melcorka pushed Defender to the side of her cut-heather bed and pondered over the day's events. She had killed men and had seen men and women slaughtered. She had felt the power of Defender and experienced her weakness the second the sword left her hand. She felt responsible for the death of Oengus.

  'It was no fault of yours,' Bearnas lay beside her. She rolled closer and spoke quietly. 'You are confused. You don't know who you are or how you feel.'

  Melcorka nodded. 'One minute I was a warrior with no fear, and the next I was only me, a girl from Dachaigh who had never seen the mainland yet alone fought the Northmen face to face.'

  'You are both,' Bearnas said, 'and you are neither. Your life experience is on the island. That life made you fit and healthy, able to face all the weather the wind
and sea can carry, able to climb sheer rock faces for birds eggs and swim against even the strongest wave or tide. In body you are as fit as you need to be.'

  'I did not realise that,' Melcorka said.

  'Realise it now. You have lived outdoors all your life in all weathers; you have never had a single day's sickness and it is unlikely that you ever will.' Bearnas patted her arm. 'You are the perfect raw material for a warrior; all you lack is the skill and the desire.'

  Melcorka looked away. 'When I held Defender I had enough skill for ten warriors.'

  Bearnas shook her head. 'No Melcorka; when you held Defender, she had enough skill for ten warriors. That sword retains the skills of the warrior for whom it was designed and who have wielded her. As you grow in knowledge, Defender will pass her skills to you until eventually you are an expert warrior, but you have to learn.'

  'How do I learn?'

  'The three P's' Bearnas smiled as she spoke. 'Practise, practise and practise.'

  'And I will teach you,' Baetan spoke from the opposite side of their camp fire. 'God knows that if you attack the Norse warriors as rashly as you attacked these pirates you will need all the skill you can get, however useful your sword may be.'

  Melcorka touched the hilt of Defender, enjoying the thrill that even that slight contact gave her. 'I want to learn,' she did not admit how scared she had been when she had been separated from the sword. 'I also want to know where we are and where we are headed.'

  Bearnas pushed her hand away from Defender. 'Don't drain the power, Melcorka. Save it for when you really need it. So you want a lesson in geography do you?'

  'Yes, Mother.'

  'You call me Bearnas now.'

  'Yes moth … Bearnas.'

  'Very well, come here.' With the fire providing sufficient light to see by, Bearnas picked up a stick and drew a rough map on a patch of exposed earth. 'You see the rough shape of Alba; it is like a double Vee laid sideways on top of itself with both sharp ends pointing to the east and a lot of ragged islands on the west.'

  Melcorka nodded. 'Yes, Bearnas.'

  'Very well then.' Bearnas jabbed her stick at the map, indicating the North West coast. 'We landed here and have travelled about fifteen miles inland. So we are about here now,' she jabbed downward again. 'And we have to get to the king, who we believe is at Dun Edin, here …' her stick moved across and south to a spot on the east coast of the map, 'about two hundred and fifty miles away.' She looked up, 'and to get there we have to cross Drum Albain – the spine of Alba, which is the name for the steepest and barest of the mountains in this land.'

  Melcorka nodded. 'We passed mountains today,' she said. 'I've never seen one before.'

  'I know you haven't,' Bearnas agreed. 'Now listen and learn. 'The land of Alba has been fought over for centuries. It had to fight off the iron legions of Rome, then the Germanic Saxons and Angles and then the Norse, and all the time we squabbled amongst ourselves.'

  'I have not seen any war,' Melcorka said.

  Bearnas ignored that remark. 'We were split into two halves, with the Gaels in the west and the Picts in the east. We had to unite into one country to face the enemies, and now we are all Albans, except for … 'She pointed to one area in the north east. 'That is Fidach. That is the last stronghold of the Picts. They swear allegiance to nobody except their own king and are in all things independent, and undoubtedly the fiercest warriors of all. They are scared of nobody, not the Albans, not the Norse, not gods or devils, man nor beast. Luckily we are not going that way.'

  Melcorka nodded. 'I will not go near Fidach,' she promised.

  'Good. Now tomorrow we head into the hills. There will be no Norse there, but there will be plenty of other dangers. Get some sleep; you will undoubtedly need it.'

  Chapter Five

  Observing the mountains from a distance and experiencing them at first hand were two different things. Melcorka bowed her shoulders and trudged onward and upward, ever upward. The deer track had started in the heather of the low country but now wound, narrow and steep, up a slope of sliding scree. Melcorka slipped, muttered a word her mother would not be pleased to hear, recovered and moved on, one of the short column of Cenel Bearnas.

  She looked ahead, past the bobbing heads of her companions to where the path vanished in the scree, and then looked beyond to a smooth blue granite mountain that stretched into clinging mist. She could not see the summit; she was only aware of the vast space all around and the echoing nothingness of the hills. Twice she heard something calling from the mist and warned the others.

  'It may be a deer,' Granny Rowan told her, 'or a wolf. The mist distorts sounds so what you think is unearthly is only a beast, altered.'

  'It could be the Norse,' Melcorka said.

  'No; there is nothing here for them. There is nobody to enslave, no monasteries to loot, no warriors on which to test their sword-edge.' Granny Rowan shook her head. 'No Melcorka; there are no Norse here.' She walked on a few paces before stopping and speaking over her shoulder, 'monsters perhaps but not Norsemen.' Her cackling laugh echoed for second and, altering to a hideous boom as the mist transformed the sound into something unearthly.

  'There is no such a thing as a monster,' Melcorka told herself, but now that Granny Rowan had imbedded the idea in her mind she saw creatures and shapes behind every rock and in every swirl and twist of mist. She heard the sound before she saw anything, and Defender was in her hand even as she shouted the warning. 'There's something coming out of the mist!'

  The others spun around, with Bearnas taking instant charge. 'Over to that rock,' she pointed to a large wind-weathered lump of granite about thirty yards ahead. 'Get behind it!'

  Melcorka remained at the rear, sword in hand, waiting to greet whatever emerged until Baetan reached back with a massive hand and hauled her to the rock.

  'What are you doing?'

  'I'm going to fight it!' She brandished her sword, 'I'm not running from a monster, however fierce!'

  'You little fool!' He pushed her head down. 'Keep down and keep alive! This is not the sort of enemy you can fight!'

  'I can fight any monster!'

  Melcorka tried to stand. She saw the huge cloud of dust and small pebbles roaring down the slope from the mist, and then saw that the ground itself was shifting as the scree from above slid down upon them, gathering speed and momentum with every yard it travelled.

  'It's an avalanche!' Baetan yelled, 'everybody get down as far as you can and cling to something solid.'

  Melcorka looked up to see half the mountainside rushing toward her, with smaller stones bouncing and rolling on top of a mass of scree as the grey and black mass turned and growled down, picking up momentum with every yard it travelled. For a moment she stared, transfixed, and then dived down and tried to carve a hole for herself in the thin soil ground behind the rock.

  And then it was on them, with a growl like a hundred dragons, crashing onto the rock and dividing into two vicious streams on either side, until the pressure from above forced the scree to build up behind the rock and overflow across the top.

  The noise was horrifying, a constant roar in which the sound of any individual stone was lost in the overall ocean of moving rock. Melcorka felt a sharp pain on her back as a stone completed its journey across the shelter rock and landed on her. Others followed in ones and twos and then in a constant stream as the pressure from the rear pushed the most forward stones over the top of the rock.

  Melcorka glanced around. The Cenel Bearnas were all sheltering as best they could as a stream of shingle and scree and rolling boulders formed on either side of them. She looked behind, to see another large outcrop of rock only fifty yards in their rear. The avalanche had reached that outcrop and was partly stopped, with a build-up in the upward section.

  As a fist sized stone rattled across the shelter rock, Melcorka ducked down again, trying to make herself as small as possible. The scree build-up was getting deeper by the second, with the stones climbing toward them at an alarming speed.
They were in a small and diminishing island within a sea of moving scree.

  'Keep down,' Bearnas warned. 'The higher your foolish head sticks up the more chance there is of a stray rock taking it off.'

  Melcorka heard the scream before she realised what had happened. Fino had tried to find a less precarious position and a bouncing stone had hit her on the leg, smashing her knee cap. She fell sideways and the right hand stream of the avalanche carried her away. Melcorka could see her struggling in the mass, trying to escape as a million tons of rock cascaded around her, with stones , some as big as her head, crashing on her injured body. Her screams continued, then faded to a low whimper and were lost amidst the roar of the rolling stones.

  As if it had done its allotted task, the avalanche began to subside, altering from a roar to a grumble and then into silence.

  'We lost Fino,' Granny Rowan said quietly.

  'It was her time,' Bearnas looked over the remainder of her crew. 'Are there any other casualties?'

  Apart from a few cuts, scrapes and bruises there were none.

  'These stones did not roll on their own accord,' Baetan looked upward at the clearing mist. 'Somebody caused them to move.'

  'Or something,' Granny Rowan said. 'There are strange things in the mist.'

  'Listen,' Baetan put his hand to the hilt of his sword. 'Creatures of the mist don't whistle like that.'

  Melcorka heard it then, the low flute-like whistle on either side of them and from high above. She had been aware of the sounds in her sub-conscious and only now did she realise how prevalent it was.

  'The Gregorach,' Bearnas slithered out her sword, 'the Children of the Mist. Form a circle Cenel Bearnas. Don't unsheathe yet.'

  'Who?' Melcorka asked.

  'The Gregorach; the MacGregors, sons of Gregor, son of Alpin; a royal race cheated of their kingship and robbed of their lands,' Granny Rowan sounded worried. 'Since they became landless they have lived as wanderers and outcasts, roaming the wild areas of Alba; kings and lords employ them for clandestine killing. If any dirty work is to be done, any assassinations, any midnight reiving, then the MacGregors are your men.'