Stone Lord: The Legend of King Arthur (The Era Of Stonehenge)

by J. P. Reedman

Ardhu took another step forward, into the long reeds that grew in the shallows. They clacked together, noisy as the teeth in a dried old skull. Where was Mhor-gan? He did not like these games; all his sisters played too much with such flummery and drama, while he liked things straightforward and plain.

  He scowled, wishing he were back in the hall. Suddenly a whistling noise filled his ears, a high whine like that made by some particularly malevolent insect. He paused for a second, frowning, before recognising the sound for what it was…and with a cry he dived into the reeds, throwing his arm over his head for protection.

  An arrow! It had just skimmed past the tip of his ear…he could feel the flesh stinging in its aftermath. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the shaft sticking in a tree behind him, still vibrating from impact.

  Drawing Carnwennan with a sullen flash, he began to creep slowly through the reeds. Mist suddenly rose up, curling from the water, obscuring trees, shrubs and landmarks. The waters rippled, and out of this mist came Mhor-gan in a narrow boat made of skins, poled by a tall man who seemed a creature of the wild, with a cloak made of hawk feathers fluttering around him, and a hawk-mask covering his face. Mhor-gan carried a bow, an arrow to the string.

  “Mhor-gan!” Ardhu shouted in vexation, leaping from the rushes. “What kind of folly is this, shooting at me? You could have killed me!”

  “I could have killed you, brother.” She looked at him and her eyes were strange, feral, and he knew at that moment she was more than his sister—she was one of Nin-Aiefa’s priestesses, possessed of the spirits. “But I would never have done so. Take it as this—a warning. My dart may not seek your heart, but the knife will forever be ready to strike you.”

  “So I am in danger, then? Is that why you have come?”

  “Follow me to the cave and we will talk.” The boat ground into the shallows and Mhor-gan stepped elegantly from it, her deerskin-clad feet scarcely seeming to touch water or mud. Her hair hung loose, dark as the shadows, but tinted red in the flame of the torch her companion kindled.

  She led Art through the woods at the foot of a hill to a cave that stretched away into the hillside. It was not entirely a natural construction; great sarsens slabs lined the sides and had been hoisted up as capstones. The rocks were stained with lichens and painted with faded signs.

  She went in and knelt by a small hearth, throwing dried mosses and other fodder on it. Deftly using a strike-a-light, she kindled a flame and fire rushed up with a great whoosh, turning the cavern roof black almost instantly.

  Ardhu stared around in amazement. The walls were painted with many pictures—scenes of setting Suns and rising Moons, and men at the hunt, and women at the dance, and men and women in the oldest dance at all… And at the very back of the cave, almost worn away, were vague outlines of tusked and toothed beasts Ardhu could not name, from the Time-Before-Time of the Hunting-Men.

  Mhor-gan sat down cross-legged and Ardhu followed suit. The Hawk-headed Man stayed standing, perhaps guarding.

  “Ardhu…” Morgan’s voice was a whisper. “News comes from the north. Our sister Morigau…” She paused, eyes shadowed by her eyelashes, swaying slightly as if she might fall.

  “Yes?” Ardhu’s voice came out a hoarse croak. What did he wish—that Morigau were dead? It happened often, even among the young—a sudden flux, an unexpected wound, and the barrow gaped …

  Morgan’s head shook. “She has given birth to a son on the Isle of Pigs. She has called him Mordraed.”

  Ardhu went cold, then hot, then cold again. His heart thumped so loudly he was sure Mhor-gan and her man must hear it. “And Loth of Ynys Yrch, he is pleased to have a healthy son?”

  Mhor-gan raised her head, a bitter little smile playing on her lips. “He is pleased, or so it is reported. Even though some malicious gossips count their fingers and say that the brat was born too soon to be his. But you will know more about that than I, Ardhu Pendraec.”

  Ardhu was silent, and then said slowly, “Perhaps you know more than you should. Who told you? Merlin?”

  “How I know doesn’t matter,” said Mhor-gan. “All I know is that Morigau will use this child against us as a warrior uses his sword. It is said he was born with a caul over his head and is marked. It is rumoured she has fed him blood with her milk to whet his appetite for war. I have looked into the waters of the cauldron and seen running blood, and Mordraed's face and the walls of Kham-El-Ard burning.”

  Ardhu shuddered. “I will kill Morigau…I will kill her and the child.”

  “No, you cannot.” Her fingers gripped his arm. “A kinslaying would bring all of Loth’s forces down upon us, and many others would join his cause. Even if you proved victorious in battle, a taint would lie upon you, and Morigau’s plot to topple your rule would be accomplished.”

  “What would you have me do, then, Ana? You are a holy woman—guide me!”

  “Always take care. Trust not even those you love the most.”Her eyes became shadowy again, her jaw tense. “Harden your heart and steel yourself. Think of war, and do not spend too much time in the pleasures of the hall. This is not the time of a gentle earth—it is an Age of Stone! And so your heart must be. Never let your guard down, Ardhu.”

  She glanced over at the Hawk-man, standing still as a monolith, gaze directed toward the cave’s mouth. “Come, cousin,” she said softly. “It is time to introduce you.”

  The feathered figure turned towards Ardhu and lifted the beaked mask from his head. Art saw a face not much older than his own, framed by dark hair, with the look of Mhor-gan and his other kin from Belerion. “Who is this?” he asked. “And why have you brought him to me?”

  “This is our cousin, Hwalchmai, Hawk of the Plain, son of our mother’s sister. Since the day you ascended the throne, he begged me to send him to you. But I would not till the famed Skatha the Shadowy, who dwells on the northern isle that bears her name, trained him in the warrior arts. Nor would I send him hence until taught by the priestesses in the ways of the spirit. For we have seen that there is a great quest ahead of Hwalchmai, one that will be sung for a thousand years and more. Right now, he is but a young sapling, with roots still seeking purchase, but he will fight and take the crown of old holly…or perish in doing so. But that is long away. For now, he will be one of your chief men in the warband, the most courteous of your warriors; and if An’kelet of Ar-morah stands on your right, Hwalchmai shall guard the left with an arm as strong as the oak-tree.”

  Ardhu frowned. “Ka’hai, Ech-tor and Bohrs train new men, and we choose the best amongst them. They would not be pleased to see a newcomer march into the hall and take a place without trial.”

  “Then a trial there will be, “said Mhor-gan. “Now, before your eyes, will Hwalchmai show his skills. The greater testing will come later, as was prophesied.”

  The slender woman nodded to Hwalchmai, and he bowed to her and to Ardhu. He then began the warrior’s dance, the chant of the hunt. Taking his bow, he fired several shots in succession over the lake, and to Ardhu’s surprise, he brought down game with every shot—a roe-deer springing through the foliage, a bird that soared between the trees, a fox slinking through the waving ferns. Running over to the fallen beasts, he slashed them across the throat with his honed dagger and caught their warm blood in a handled beaker, drinking in their power and essence with their life-juices. Finishing, he gutted and skinned them, preparing the meat for the hall of his king and taking the skins for his own use.

  “As fleet as the deer, am I,” he said, wrapping the skin around him, “and as wily as the fox.” He tied the fox’s red tail into his hair. “But I am also as loyal as the dog that lies by the fire and guards the homestead.”

  Ardhu smiled, and placed his hand on his shoulder. “I do not doubt it. And now, my hound, you will bark for me, and guard my fort and all who dwell in it.”

  Mhor-gan’s lips curved faintly upward as the cousins began to talk in a less formal manner, discussing warcraft and horses and feasting. It was good to see the pleasure i
n Ardhu’s face. She feared he would not look so if he knew that, at that very moment, Morigau, his one-time lover and his bane, was meeting with the Merlin somewhere out on the Great Plain.

  *****

  Merlin huffed along the track in the twilight, the butt of his staff thudding against the firm earth. His bones ached; he noticed it now whenever he had to move with swiftness, a burning pain that gnarled his joints, especially in knees and back. He gazed down at his thin hand, clutching the staff; his knuckles were knotted and deformed, already an old man’s hands, though, mercifully, not enfeebled as yet.

  He cursed, his breath a white fog before his lips. He had no wish to come out here on the summons of the she-hag, Morigau. But better he came, level-headed, than Ardhu, who was still callow enough to lose control in the demon-woman’s presence, whether by killing her or falling for her dubious charms as he had at Suilven. He would like to ring her neck himself, no matter how pretty it seemed, but he dared not, for the same reasons he couldn’t allow Art to kill her—she was Loth’s woman, and he’d use her demise as the perfect excuse to come rampaging down from the north, bringing the wild tribes of the isles and forests with him. Even if Ardhu’s warband rode out to meet him, taking in additional warriors from the Land of the Mother Mountain and the Brig-ahn who dwelt on the high moors, this would then leave the entire West and south open to attack or infiltration from the mainland coasts. Rumours had come that the pirates were sheltering in coves along the rocky shores of Ar-morah, just biding their time until they thought they could sail unchecked into Albu once again...

  Up ahead, the slope of a bank rose up into the twilight, half-grassed, half-chalk—the Great Spirit path, built by the earliest Ancestors to separate the lands of the living from the places of the spirits. In the distance, he could see the sanctuary of the Stones, the massive sarsens violet-tinted in the dusk, slumberous giants that brooded over the Great Plain.

  Watch over me, O Ancestors, he thought moodily, as he traversed the bank of the Spirit Path to the place he had arranged to meet Morigau, in this liminal area far from stones or settlement, the only fitting place to deal with this viper who had sprung from the same nest as Ardhu but sought to impale him with her poison fangs.

  The rustle of a cloak made him glance around, and he spotted her, hovering like some malign imp atop the bank. Her hair was free like a young girl’s, blowing in a black, tangled cloud about her. She had painted her lips and cheeks with berry-juice and her dark eyes, dominating her face, were smudged with ash that made them appear huge and dark, almost black. She looked at him and an expression of disappointment and then anger passed over her visage; she had obviously expected Ardhu to be there.

  “No, he’s not coming,” said Merlin tartly. “He has no wish to see your face again after your foul deceit. It is me you will deal with, Morigau of Ynys Yrch.”

  She smiled sweetly. “So be it, Merlin. Maybe that is for the best. After all, we are cut from the same mould, you and me. We are …equals.”

  Merlin’s brows lifted until they vanished under his unkempt grey-streaked fringe. “Indeed? Interesting that you should think so!”

  “Ah…” She descended from the crest of the bank, coming to stand beside him. She was short, like her mother, and similar in feature, with the same haughty arrogance and barely veiled sensuality that had attracted U’thyr to Y’gerna. “Don’t you know? I too commune with the old ones. I too know the secrets of plants that harm and heal. I too study the movements of Sun and Moon. I have become priestess on the distant isles where I am also Queen. So we are indeed equals, cut from the same cloth. I do grant to you, though, as my elder, that there is much you could teach me.”

  Merlin said nothing. Morigau moved round in front of him, staring up into his face. “Merlin, Merlin, don’t look at me that way! We don’t have to be enemies…”

  “No? After the evil you have wrought?”

  Morigau pouted. “I blame you and your wiles for much of that, Merlin. But, be that as it may…I have changed since I lay with Ardhu at Suilven. My life is different now.”

  “Different? In what way?”

  Her lips twisted into a mocking smile. “Can’t you guess, Merlin? I am the mother of a fine, healthy son—heir of Ardhu Pendraec and recipient of all that I can teach him. Unclaimed he may be by his father, but one day he will wrest away all Ardhu has won.”

  “And you dare to speak to me of a peace between us!” snarled Merlin in anger.

  “No, listen, listen!” She raised her hand. “I do not mean to anger you. I only speak truth, from one who has the Sight, even as you do. Ardhu is weak, plagued by the follies of his fathers; my son is strong, made of stern stuff in the north. Ardhu has married a woman they say is a goddess, but no news comes of a child of his loins; the goddess-of-earth does not favour them. I have looked into the fire and seen betrayal and death; even among his so-called friends…Can you tell me that you have not seen this too?”

  “And what would your course be, Morigau?” Merlin’s eyes were hard as sarsen.

  “This….”In a practised movement, she tore open the toggles at the top of her robe, and let it fall in a heap to her ankles. Naked, she stood in the dying daylight, brazenly unashamed. She cupped her swollen breasts, holding them up like offerings. “For us to join, as man and woman. For us, two of a kind, to meld our power and knowledge and take on the leadership of Prydn until my son, under our tutelage, could become ruler. If you said yes to me, I swear you would not regret it.”

  She moved closer while the older man stood frozen like a statue. She wound herself around him, sinuous as a serpent and as deadly, writhing her slim hips against his, nipping at his neck with her sharp white teeth. “I have heard you live an austere life, Merlin,” she panted in his ear. “Surely you do not want to live your entire life alone, without the pleasures of flesh. Surely you would prefer this…” she let her hand slide between his thighs, “to congress with naught but ghosts and spirits. Or perhaps you prefer to tup the dead,” she finished cruelly.

  Her last jibe goaded him to anger. For a moment, he had nearly succumbed to her, to the warmth of her willing body, to the sensations he had denied himself since he had left Nin-Aeifa at Afallan. But staring down into her carnal, cruel eyes, he realised that no pleasure would ever really be found in her embrace—only devouring death. Strength and resolve returned to him, and that ember of traitorous desire that threatened to ruin him died like a flame under cold water.

  With a cry, he grabbed her shoulders and flung her backward into the ditch. Drawing his knife, he fell upon her before she had the chance to rise, and pressed its blade to her throat. “I could take you and then kill you,” he grunted, his free hand wandering roughly over her body, a motion meant to humiliate rather than excite, “and none would know your fate, for the animals and hungry spirits would chew your corpse to rags in the night. But, you faithless whore, you have nothing I want or need, nor ever shall. I can see now what evil magic you wrought on Ardhu, but it has no power over me!”

  He rolled away from her and Morigau, spitting fury, sprang up and dragged on her gown. “You will pay for this outrage!” she spat. “Doubly. I offered you a chance…it will not be offered again. Enjoy your feasting and merrymaking with my brother in your great hall of Kham-El-Ard; it will soon be at an end. The land will be in turmoil again, and by my hand.”

  “Loth would not dare to step on these shores again,” said Merlin.

  “I do not speak of the armies of my clumsy husband. That useless fool is too busy cursing Ardhu’s name to gather men to him so that he can break the constraints my brother has laid on him. It is I who have reaped the whirlwind that is about to descend—I, alone. Though who will put blame on me, a priestess and a queen in the remotest part of Prydn?”

  Merlin snarled between clenched teeth. “I knew I should have thrown you into the sea when you were but a puling brat! An evil spirit dwells within you, gnawing your innards!”

  “You helped put it there!” she retorted.
“But I have grown used to it now. And I have put the fire in my head to much use during my lonely hours on Ynys Yrch. When not rutting with Loth—he is like one of the pigs that roam those blasted isles, slobbering and gross, interested in only his beaker and bed—I have been raising a fine little boar bred from the most vicious sow I could find—a sow black as She-Who-Guards. I have whipped him and tormented him, and watched with joy as he became more vicious every day. I gave him potions to craze him, and fed him on the flesh of men—strangers who came unbidden to the isles, shipwrecked men from the north, unwanted brats…”

  “You sicken me…” Merlin’s voice was a groan.

  Morigau went on animatedly, almost merrily. “He is eager to run loose now, my dear little boar. T’orc is his name, and along with his handler, Rhyttah, a man most loyal to my cause…” She smirked and Merlin guessed exactly what she meant by ‘loyal.’ “He will lay waste to the lands of Prydn. Ardhu will have never faced such a creature before, and Rhyttah himself is not like the effete men of the south with their perfumed hair and oiled flesh; his very cloak is woven of the beards of slain enemies. Soon Ardhu will join their numbers…not that the soft-faced whelp has much beard to add to Rhyttah’s cloak!”

  Merlin flung his dagger at Morigau, tormented beyond endurance by her mocking words. The throw was not accurate, but the point tore her dress and nicked her arm, drawing beads of bright blood. “You dare strike me!” she gasped, clutching the wound. “Just wait, Merlin, one day that blow will come back on you! I await that day with much longing! Now farewell!”

  She sprang away into the darkness, running fleet-footed as a deer into a nearby stand of trees. Above the Moon was rising, crooked, the wane Moon, the death Moon.

  Merlin stared after his adversary, Ardhu’s bane, and felt sickness knot his belly.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “She was here on the plain!” Ardhu swept an agitated hand through his hair as he paced the Great Hall. “Why did you not tell me, Merlin? You devised this with Ana, didn’t you? Sending me off with her to keep me out of the way while you treated with Morigau.”