by Glen L. Hall
Here the wall was built along ridges that rose high above the land. On the first stood the gateway to the spectacular central belt of the wall. As Drust came breathless to the top, the storm threw itself at him, trying to stop him going a step further. He was high up, looking down on sky and landscape entwined in a black embrace. To his right, the earth fell away into darkness. Ahead, the vestiges of a turret long fallen rose to meet him, jagged and broken.
Passing through its crumbling remains proved difficult, as the wind howled around him. He knew that one false step could prove his last. Then he was laughing, shaking his head at the absurdity of such a thought. The danger wasn’t here, it was coming up behind him. Falling into the blackness below could be his salvation.
He passed into the madly swaying trees of Sewingshields Wood almost without noticing. Inside the wood, the storm seemed eerily distant, even though he could feel the wind moving through the thick foliage. He stood there for a moment, almost dazed.
‘What have we here, lost in the dark wood?’
It was a voice that made Drust’s blood turn to ice, a chilling inhuman voice of sharp knives. This was different from the Shadow in Oxford, different from the feathered men who had attacked the bookshop – this was a presence he hadn’t felt before.
‘I am not lost – I seek the Morrigan.’ He hoped his words carried authority.
‘There are only the lost here.’
Drust was trying to find the direction the voice was coming from.
‘Who are you? Show yourself.’
An inky haze moved only feet from him. Drust instantly went for his long knives, readying himself.
‘I am the servant of the mistress. A comfort to her.’
A face that was nothing more than a shade of black appeared, looking at him out of the darkness. It was as horrifying as it was surreal. And yet he knew that something far more threatening was gaining on him every minute he was delayed.
‘Why do you seek the mistress?’
‘I have news for her.’
How Drust found the courage to speak out he would never know.
‘I am Drust Hood…’
‘The mistress knows your name. She knows who you are. Knows of the magic that runs through you.’
‘Then will she hear me?’
Drust turned away. He could not look at the empty dark face for long.
‘You are fortunate that she knows you. Go quickly – you are hunted.’
‘Hunted by what?’ Although he already knew the answer.
‘I am not here to play games. Go. The mistress does not want you here.’
They were the words Drust had feared.
‘I have a message I must deliver to her.’
‘She asks that you leave. You cannot stay here.’
‘Go to your mistress,’ Drust said fiercely, ‘and tell her that a Shadow has passed through the Fall. But also tell her there is hope, for the Druidae are not gone. The old alliance can be renewed.’
Above the wood it seemed the storm lessened as the shade lowered its head.
‘What trickery is this?’
‘None. Soon I will no longer have the breath to deliver my message. If your mistress does not stand with me then her kind will be one step closer to the precipice.’
The shade was still, as if listening.
‘She is beyond the Knag Burn Gate.’
And then he was alone.
* * * * * *
He didn’t wait a second longer, but was soon out of the wood and back in the deafening storm, high up on the crags with only the night for company. He was now exposed and watching his footing, for the drop to his left was sheer and the path narrow. The remnants of the wall stopped moving west and took a sharp turn south at this point, and although he couldn’t see them, the waters of the Broomlee Lough were directly ahead.
In daylight the views offered across the lakes and ridges were the most stunning anywhere on the wall. But now it was night and he had at last reached the place where he would face the Shadow. He hoped the Faerie would be waiting for him.
He had always found this place menacing and it was even more so in the bleak night with the storm raging above him. And he knew that it was aware of him.
The wall sat on the very top of the crags and to the west lay the largest of the Roman forts. They had been built nearly two thousand years ago to protect the south from the barbarians in the north. So the story went. The Forest Reivers spoke of a war between two forces whose potency had opened the Otherland, and a bloody battle that had been fought across the borderland. The wall had been built to keep the barbarians from the south, but little did anyone know that it wasn’t the wall alone that had kept them back.
Drust bent into the wind and followed the wall along the crags. The going was treacherous, but he at last came to the Knag Burn Gate.
As he passed through the gap in the wall, he knew that something was wrong. He was different from the others – his power was raw and pure and he didn’t need ancient words or delicate staffs to speak with the flow. Now he felt electricity coursing down through his arms and into his hands, a delicate haze danced across his fingertips and he watched a colour he had never seen before shimmer and weave its way through his mind’s eye.
There was just the faintest crackle in the atmosphere around him and the hair on the back of his neck rose up. The storm seemed to have unexpectedly abated, as if he was stepping out of the squall and into shelter. Yet he was still high up, looking down through the long darkness into the Vercovicium.
He had shut everything from his mind, but now he felt a trembling in his hands and realised he was blind to the Otherland. The Shadow could have been silently stalking him only feet away and he would never have known until it was too late.
There was also something unusual about the night, a greyness that had crept over the fort. He stood still, his senses straining in the gathering dusk, then sank to his knees, closing his eyes and scouring the high walls and hidden places. There it was again – somewhere in the castle there was an impenetrable barrier, and behind it something was waiting…
In the back of his mind he could feel butterflies of doubt take flight. The colours continued to flash and flicker and the new one deepened, suggesting that what waited was neither living nor dead.
When he had first entered the fort there had been empty battlements, crumbling edifices and deserted halls, a forgotten and crumbling past imprinted on the dust that fluttered through the outer keep. Now, as he started to make his way through the vestiges of a complex web of interconnected corridors, the walls were solid and firm and the air clear. Only now did he understand the potency of the creature that he had come to meet.
The corridor came to an abrupt end and he was surprised to find a door leading back out into the night. He found himself in an imposing garden. Then a pile of ancient stones moved and he found himself reaching for his long knives and unsheathing them in one fluid movement.
‘Why do you come here?’
Where the stones had stood, now there stood a woman. She was tall, dressed in a simple brown robe and her hair was blood red. Her skin was pale, almost colourless, and he could not easily put an age to her, for her face was flawless, though her eyes were deep wells of wisdom.
‘I seek the Morrigan.’ His voice sounded tired and grey compared to the lightness and colour of the woman’s.
‘My father heard your call, but I am no longer involved in the affairs of men. I cannot help you.’
She looked at him and Drust could not tell whether it was a look of pity or indifference. He had to convince her.
‘There is an enemy following me now that cannot be stopped without your help. My brother wishes to recreate the old alliance, like our father before him.’
‘The old alliance has crumbled into the sea. The Faerie are waning, the Forest Reivers are few
and the Marcher Lords are hiding in their crumbling castles. The Underland is on the move and great in number. Their hate runs deep and the Grim-Witch seeks her revenge. The Fall is dying and the Ruin has sent its Shadow into the Mid-land – what hope do you have?’
‘It is for these reasons that we need the counsel of the Morrigan.’
‘There is no life beyond this life for me. You know that. Yet you would have me sacrifice it for your own ends. You must go – I cannot help.’
Drust stood for a moment unable to move. Without her, he was doomed.
‘You can’t leave me.’
He sounded desperate – and he was. He didn’t want to face the Shadow alone.
‘Go.’
He couldn’t tell whether she knew she had sentenced him to death. Suddenly he was angry.
‘Is that all you have to say? Does it mean so little to you that our forefathers fought with you? They came to your aid and drove back an enemy that was never theirs! It was released into the Otherland through the wars of your people, don’t forget. Mortal men sacrificed their lives for you then. And all you can say now is “Go”? Call yourself your father’s daughter? He wouldn’t turn his back.’
The woman’s face didn’t change, though the grey light permeating the fort seemed to flicker.
When she spoke again, she repeated, ‘I cannot help you. Your knowledge of the flow can only delay the Shadow. You have called down your own end. It will be swift. Be grateful for that.’
Drust was boiling with frustration. Every moment lost trying to convince the Faerie brought the Shadow closer.
‘Oscar and Culluhin have been seen in the Mid-land,’ he said desperately. ‘We have hope if we stand together. You must stand with me.’
‘No, that cannot be true. Culluhin was trapped with the Druids – and there is no way back from the Darkhart!’
* * * * * *
The tempest erupted around him. He was back in the thick of the storm, the wind and the rain howling around him. He staggered back under its onslaught and managed to find the wall. Atop the now wailing ridges there was anger caught up in the gale. He felt hopeless fear burn through him, a wave of despair grasping at his throat.
A second later, the night had taken on the shape of giant wave rising up, ready to engulf him. He drew his long knives and called to the flow as the Shadow took shape on the wall.
He would not wait for the wave to break or the darkness to sweep him from the ridge into the endless night. He leaped down the stone steps, showering the black menace with shards of burning light.
He ran with fear and anger colliding in his mind. Behind him he could feel the Shadow, desperate to rend his heart, growing closer with every second. Why had the Morrigan abandoned him?
There was no time to seek answers. As he reached the small wooden bridge that spanned the ridges near the concealed waters of the Crag Lough, he turned. He would run no more. He would not die with his back to his enemy. He would make his brother proud.
The storm sent its feral winds across the bridge and a wildness raged through the ridges that seemed unnatural. He thought he heard the wind calling to him as it swirled and pounded him, but he stood resolute before the black mist, the sea of roiling despair and hopelessness that had no place in the world of the living. Then the raging tempest stilled and there came a sound that could have once been a voice, rasping, grinding out long-forgotten words. He recognized just one word, a word that was being repeated over and over again: ‘Druidae.’
He finally understood. The voice was calling him out in a language that he could only just remember. It wanted him to know that he was defeated and that his death would lay his kind to rest for eternity. The fall of the Druids would be complete.
Through his fear there was a strange satisfaction that he had fooled the enemy and given his brother the chance to reach the Dead Water. He wished he could meet his brother again, have a last day to walk in the sunshine, with the wind at their backs, a day to tell him the truth, a day without fear.
He stood holding the wooden rail, kindling a fire in his thoughts with words that flowed like music. In his mind’s eye a thousand will-o’-the-wisps flared across his vision, waiting for the Shadow to make its move. He felt his life flowing into the music, into the magic, and still he waited, facing the servant of an enemy that had been hunting his kind for two thousand years.
At last it came for him, at once ethereal and impenetrable, an unearthly Shadow bearing down on him, filling the bridge with its hatred.
He waited a split-second longer whilst a thousand thoughts and images flooded his mind, then let go of the rail, and with a single word, the flow lit up the whole of the raging night.
* * * * * *
The Faerie was standing on the far bank of the river when the light and boom made her turn. A mile back towards Steel Rigg, a thousand feet up the high slopes, a million fireflies were dancing in the night sky. Then came a crashing sound as parts of the bridge began falling.
She could not have saved him, not against the Shadow.
Her father had asked her to seek out the Marcher Lords and bring them from their secret halls.
From the ruins of the bridge came a long baleful howl, seething with rage.
She didn’t wait a second longer, for she knew the Shadow had found that its hunt had been in vain. The Druid-Fall had not ended with this man’s death, for he was not the last Druid.
THE DEAD WATER
They walked in the silence of their grief, Brennus beside Jarl, the weight of the last few days carried in the darkness beneath their eyes. The autumn sun was beginning to set and a light wind was blowing from the north through the hills of Northumberland. Animals were scurrying away in the twilight and now and then they would hear the almost silent wings of a bird of prey passing overhead.
They had first gone east along the Jedburgh road as far as Belsay, and then Drust had gone south. Now Brennus was taking the old Roman paths east into the wilds, hoping they would be less easily followed. They were walking alongside the coarse hedges and copses that were the remnants of an ancient Northumbrian forest, with the Tyne river to the south and the fells to the north.
The landscape was bathed in the orange hues of the setting sun and yet there was a cold darkness settling over Brennus that had little to do with the approaching night. The rumours had first started trickling out of the borders no more than twelve months before. Perhaps he should have acted more quickly, but he had thought Sam was out of harm’s way in Oxford. The old alliance had fragmented during his leadership along the same family faultlines that had splintered it down the generations. Things had come to a head in spring when Eagan Reign had supposedly attacked Morcant Pauperhaugh. Oscar’s mention of a traitor in their midst made sense.
They had been outmanoeuvred in every sense. It was clear that whilst they had grown weaker, the enemy had grown stronger and more cunning. Though he hadn’t said it openly, they had let Sam down, and this journey to the Dead Water was an act of desperation. The best they could do now was try and deflect the hunt from Sam to them. To Drust.
The pain of what he was about to lose made the ground beneath him swim for a second.
‘Everything all right?’ he heard Jarl say.
‘We should have stayed together. How could I let my brother face such evil alone? I feel ashamed.’
They came to a halt beside a crumbling stone wall, looking down a long field towards an open valley on the horizon. Behind them the landscape was falling into shadow.
‘I think you both know what is at stake and the consequences for everyone if we fail,’ said Jarl carefully. ‘The stakes are impossibly high. And Drust has the gift – who knows what he is capable of? Didn’t you say it was Drust who saved you all in Oxford?’
‘The Shadow wasn’t interested in either of us, though – its focus was Sam. It is beyond us, but I still feel its touch in my
heart. I’ve never known such cold hatred.’
‘Drust will find a way back, Brennus – you must trust in that.’
‘There is no way back for the dead. You know that.’
Jarl looked at his old friend and knew there was nothing he could say to comfort him.
They were silent for a moment, then Brennus spoke again.
‘The plan must remain as we agreed. The Forest Reivers should be on their way to Birling Wood by now. You must represent me at the King’s Seat and tell Braden that the weakness of men has prevailed and there is at least one traitor amongst us. I must go on to the Dead Water alone. I have been touched by the Shadow once; I fear it will come for me again before my journey is at an end.’
‘Then let me stand with you.’
‘No. You must meet Braden – you two are Sam’s only hope.’
‘Eagan is more than capable of looking after him.’
Brennus met Jarl’s eyes and nodded. ‘I know, Jarl – he has your way and that makes him a good man. But I want you to go to Braden.’
They reached High Green as twilight spread from east to west. Brennus would now follow the snaking body of the Tyne to Greystead, whilst Jarl would head northeast to the Cheviots and the King’s Seat.
They stood at the edge of a garden, looking down the long valleys out towards Kielder, and even in the gloom they could make out the giant hills of the borders.
‘There’s a storm coming down from the north,’ began Brennus. ‘We shouldn’t delay any longer.’ He paused. ‘I am troubled, Jarl. I still cannot understand what the Shadow really is. And there may even be more than one of them.’
Jarl felt a shudder go through him. ‘Is that possible?’
‘After this week, I’m not sure you can say anything is impossible. So go quickly to the King’s Seat. If the enemy comes upon you, let it see what secret is in you.’
They hugged before turning to their chosen paths. As they made their way down from the high lawns back into the wild vales, each wondered whether they would see the other again.