“Are not we all?” grumbled Bohrs, from behind Ardhu.
Rhagnell ignored him. “And T’orc is injured…”
“What?” interrupted Ardhu, his eyes widening. “I had no knowledge of that!”
“Nor could you,” said Rhagnell, “for it was I who wounded him with an arrow. Just a scratch, but enough to leave a trail of blood that should prove easy work for your tracker!”
Ardhu turned again to Hwalchmai. “It seems you have chosen well in a wife—artfulness as well as beauty! Let us go now, and put an end to these long days of wandering in the wilds, chasing what has oft-times seemed like mist and smoke!”
*****
As Rhagnell had predicted, it did not take long to pick up the trail of T’orc. Little clots of gore clung to grass and tufts of heather; carrion birds swooped down and pecked at them, cawing, eager for the feast. They flapped back up into the air, wings beating madly as Ardhu’s men cantered past.
The trail went over a hillock and into a wooded coomb where stunted oaks clumped together like sentinels, forming a gnarly barricade. A black mountain rose to the sky above the coomb, its peak scalped bald by wind and the slate skittering down its sides. A cairn rose on the crest, jagged with stones like pointed swords.
“What is this mountain called?” Ardhu asked, feeling ill at ease. “Do any among you know?”
Drust Mightyfist made a sound. “I hail from this area. It is called Mineth Beddun—the mountain of graves.”
The company could see no sign of Rhyttah or the boar on mountainside or in valley, but suddenly An’kelet nodded and pointed with his spear-butt to a thin trickle of smoke that wafted up between the trees tucked in the back of the vale.
“Someone has pitched camp in there…and they are being none too careful.”
The warband entered the forest cautiously, picking their way over moss-furred roots. Anwas was foremost, searching for blood spots on the forest-floor, or other signs of animal or human passage.
Suddenly Ardhu’s mount Lamrai began to tremble. Her nostrils flared and she danced fearfully on her hooves, tossing her head and fighting against Ardhu’s control. She wheeled around, trying to head back out of the shadowy grove.
“What is it?” Ardhu stroked her neck in an attempt to calm her. “Do not fail me now, my noble one…”
At the moment, a terrible crackling noise filled the forest. It was an awful sound that resembled a thousand breaking bones. It grew louder, and the earth began to tremble. Slender birch trees swayed and danced, and then suddenly split asunder, fragments of bark flying hither and thither like spears.
A terrible, high-pitched squealing filled the grove, and suddenly Anwas the Winged was flung up into the air. He screamed in agony as he hurtled into the branches of a tree and hung from a fork by his cloak, with blood pouring from a gouge in his side.
T’orc the Chief Boar stood below him, pawing and snorting, his great jaws working and gnashing. Redness dripped from his tusks.
Ardhu stared at the ravening animal, his adversary. Surely the beast was more than just some maltreated creature, goaded to madness by his malign sister; Morigau must have summoned some evil spirit to enter its skull. It was grotesque—fat and bulbous, its skin the colour of an old corpse and massed with fly-bites and scabs, its head ugly and squat with a great wide snout dripping snot and froth. The eyes under leathery folds gleamed red and tufts of coarse, upstanding bristles as sharp as knives sprang out all over its spine and brow. Twisted tusks dripped with Anwas’ blood.
As if sensing Ardhu’s repulsed gaze, T’orc slowly turned away from Anwas to face the young king mounted on the trembling Lamrai. One foreleg pawed the ground, puffs of noxious mist surrounded flaring nostrils as the beast breathed heavily in the cold air.
“Look out!” An’kelet was the first to move. “He is going to charge!” The Ar-moran prince spurred his mare forward, aiming with his great long spear. He alone of the company had such a reaching weapon; for although the spear was popular upon the continent, the choice weapons for warriors of Prydn were still dagger, axe and bow.
With a cry, he launched the spear, seeking to smite a deathblow before T’orc could move. Unfortunately the horses of the warband, terrified and fighting against their riders’ control, bashed into the flanks of his frightened mount and caused his thrust to go wide. Balugaisa with its many tines scraped along T’orc’s flank and stuck shallowly into his hindquarters.
An’kelet leaned forward over his horse’s neck, one-handed and grim-faced, trying to drive home the spear, to get the deadly barbs locked within the stinking, cadaverous flesh of the beast.
The boar released a deafening bellow and whirled in a circle, biting at the shaft sticking from its flank. Not expecting such a sudden, powerful move, An’kelet was jerked violently forward, over his steed’s withers and onto the ground. Immediately, the warband closed ranks to protect him from the crazed animal that squealed and shrieked and stamped in pain.
Ardhu drew Caladvolc and pressed forward. At that moment he spied the shapes of men within the trees, with bows drawn. “Look out—they are firing on us!” he cried, and he flung up Wyngurthachar just as a score of arrows whirred between the trees. Several struck harmlessly against the Face of Evening and bounced aside; but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Per-Adur wince in pain and grab his shoulder. A black-feathered shaft stuck out of his flesh.
The attackers were surging forward, their voices raised in a horrible, ululating battle cry. They broke through the trees and flung themselves with abandon at Ardhu’s warband, striking the horses’ knees with great heavy stone war-hammers that crippled them instantly. Within minutes, many of Ardhu’s men were on the ground, beside horses screaming and bucking in pain, while the great boar T’orc, crazed with its own injuries, stabbed at both beasts and men with its sword-sharp tusks.
Ardhu leaped from his saddle and slapped Lamrai’s flank, sending her careering out of the wood, away from the battle scene. Here, in the green shadows, where roots reared like serpents and the air smelt of ancient death, was not a place where a mounted man could gain the advantage.
Caladvolc in one hand, shield upraised, he ploughed into the heaving mass of fighters, forcing his way through. A north-man screamed, pierced through the throat by Ardhu’s blade, and fell away; T’orc’s huge body crashed down on the flailing figure, and silenced his screams forever. Blood bubbled up in the churning mud, spattering Ardhu’s shield and golden breastplate.
Art had now spotted Rhyttah, who was fighting hand to hand with Hwalchmai. He let his gaze fall over the huge figure, surely a giant’s spawn by his great height, with a bald shining head tattooed with a black crescent Moon. Rhyttah grinned like a mad man, his teeth as uneven as flagstones, as he parried Hwalchmai’s blows, and tried to get beneath his guard.
“Rhyttah Baddaden, Chief Giant!” shouted Ardhu. “You have claimed the beards of mighty kings to weave your cloak. Now at last I have hunted you down like the beast you are, and will have yours!”
Rhyttah brought his arm down with blinding force, shattering Hwalchmai’s wrist in one violent motion and sending his dagger flying. Rhagnell grabbed her lover from behind and dragged him to safety, staggering in pain…but Rhyttah was no longer interested in him.
Instead the huge man lurched toward Ardhu, his shoulders bunched, his war-axe swinging menacingly. “So, I meet the boy-king of the West,” he sneered. “I have heard all about you from your sister Morigau. All about you. She had many interesting tales to tell as we rolled together in King Loth’s own bed!”
“I’m sure she did,” retorted Ardhu. “But nothing truthful ever came from my sister’s lips; her words are the hisses of snakes, filled with venom. She has used you. And now you will die.”
“It is not I who will die!” shouted Rhyttah and he lunged at Ardhu, his axe upraised.
Ardhu stepped back, and slashed at the big man’s brawny arm. The tip of Caladvolc dug into his bicep, drawing bright red blood. Rhyttah’s axe-blow went wid
e, and Ardhu closed in so that they were almost torso to torso, fighting hand to hand. Art kept Rhyttah’s arm pushed up, over his head, with the blood running down, unable to use his axe. The big man, more than a head taller than the slight youth, was fumbling at his belt for another weapon, a long knife that he carried in a leather sheath, while Ardhu sought to block him and draw his own dagger.
“Look out! Ardhu, beware!” An’kelet’s voice came from behind the fighting warriors, full of fear and urgency.
Alarmed, Ardhu half-turned... and saw T’orc bearing down on him. The animal was squealing in high-pitched tones which sounded almost like human screams; its eyes rolled in its fearsome skull and drool sprayed from champing mandibles. Its back bristled with at least a dozen arrows, none of which had come even close to killing it. An’kelet’s great spear was still embedded in its hindquarter, its haft smacking into trees and men as the animal charged.
Ardhu whirled around, letting Rhyttah’s arm drop, and tried to leap away to safety, but T’orc thudded against his legs, throwing him across the forest as if he were as insubstantial as a feather. He struck the bole of a tree and slid to the ground, the breath driven from his lungs. The impact tore Caladvolc from his grip and it went spinning through the air, landing with a clatter a few feet away.
T’orc was on him almost instantly. The ground shuddered beneath his hooves; foul breath blasted over Ardhu, hot and rank with carrion-scent. Death was in the creature’s eyes, and pain and madness. With an enraged bellow he thrust forward with his tusks, catching the inside of Ardhu’s leg and tearing a long gash. Blood spurted out, soaking both Ardhu and the boar’s bristling pelt.
“Ardhu, use the razor—the hag’s razor!” Through a darkening mist he could hear An’kelet yelling, saw him leap over a fallen tree trunk and come running towards him with his long, foreign blade in hand.
Fighting waves of pain and nausea, Ardhu grasped T’orc’s head in an arm-lock and jabbed violently at the piggy eyes, attempting to blind or distract his adversary. His free hand scrabbled wildly at his belt, seeking the sacrificial razor he had taken from Ahn-is’s cave, but his fingers were slick with blood, and the honed weapon slid between his fingers onto the grass.
In the distance he could hear Rhyttah laughing, his voice booming out like thunderclaps: “Ha ha HA!”
A bolt of anger ripped through him at the sound of that mocking mirth; surely the gods would not allow him to die in such a way, mauled by some monster of his sister’s making and jeered at by one of her twisted lovers. With a harsh cry, he punched T’orc straight on the nose with all the strength he had left. The boar squealed shrilly and backed up for an instant, before lunging forward again, slobbering and champing with renewed fury.
It was all the time Ardhu needed. Grabbing the hag’s razor from the grass, he swung at the boar and slashed at its face. The razor’s blade bit deep in the horny hide and blood spurted. T’orc bellowed again, but this time there was a note of fear in its cry. It began backing away from Ardhu, shaking its massive head in a spray of blood and mucus.
The hunter had become the hunted.
Adrenaline shot through Ardhu’s body, blotting out the agony of his gashed leg. In a half crouch, he stalked T’orc as the boar retreated from him. He was like a beast himself at that moment, covered in both his own blood and the beast’s, his face chalk-white and his lips drawn back in a feral snarl. “It is time for your spirit to pass, ugly one,” he rasped. “Time to put an end to your terror.”
The boar stopped abruptly, lungs pumping like bellows, its hindquarters trembling. It looked as though it might drop…but unexpectedly its eyes ignited, and uttering hideous grunts, it made one last assault on its enemy.
It did not get far. An’kelet rushed round to its right flank and grasped the still- swinging haft of his spear. With an effort, he managed to yank it free of the tough, leathery skin, and then plunged its barbed head in deeper, seeking the monster’s vitals.
T’orc leapt in the air as Balugaisa dug deep. Ardhu was not its concern now; only the pain and the blood and the mindless terror as its tormented life neared its end. Ardhu staggered forward and threw himself on the beast’s back, bringing the razor across T’orc’s exposed throat and slashing wide the great vein of life. A huge jet of blood shot out, drenching the glade with stinking hot gore. The great beast slumped, with the young King still astride its twitching body.
“T’orc the Chief Boar is dead!” he cried, and he chopped the tuft of hard bristles from between the monster’s ears and held it up as a trophy.
Across the clearing, Rhyttah cursed and turned to flee into the deeper parts of the forest. The men of Ardhu’s warband immediately surrounded him with weapons drawn. They circled him like wolves, eager for vengeance for their own fallen, for their wounded king.
“Your followers are dead,” said Ka’hai. “And now your demon-boar is dead too.”
“I would shoot out his remaining eye!” cried Rhagnell fiercely, aiming at Rhyttah’s face with her bow. “In returning for breaking Hwalchmai’s wrist.”
Hwalchmai cradled his wounded arm against his chest, face grim. “No, don’t touch him, Rhagnell, Ka’hai, any of you. Ardhu is the slayer of the Boar…it is for him to decide the fate of this murderer, this slayer of innocent women and children!”
Ardhu clambered off the body of T’orc and limped towards his men. Blood was still running down his thigh; it was an evil wound, rough and jagged-edged, but at least it had missed the artery —he would not bleed to death. Face white, he approached Rhyttah and stood before him, the gore-smeared razor in his hand.
“You,” he said in a voice deep and pitiless, “take off your cloak—the cloak wrought of the beards of slain chieftains. Now.”
Rhyttah ripped out the pin at the neck of his cloak and let the mantle fall. Bohrs snatched it up, and examined it, frowning at such an unwholesome oddity.
“Burn it,” Ardhu ordered. “Let those dead chiefs’ last remains go to join their spirits across the Great Plain.”
Bohrs took out his strike-a-light and kindled a flame, and soon the woodland was full of the scent of burning hair.
“There…the cloak that symbolised your pride and your cruelty is no more,” said Ardhu, still standing mere inches from his enemy. “Now…kneel. Kneel, I say!”
A mutinous gleam filled Rhyttah’s single eye, but Bal-ahn and Ka’hai prodded him with their blades, forcing him to his knees before Ardhu.
Ardhu grabbed the long greasy black braid that grew at the nape of Rhyttah’s neck and yanked his head backwards, exposing his throat. “I will shave you now, and shame you as you shamed and humiliated the unfortunate chieftains you slew.” Raising the Hag Ahn-is’s bronze razor, he roughly cut away the big man’s beard and moustache, while the warriors of the warband laughed and jeered.
“Your braid must go too,” he added, slashing through the coarse hair, then running the blade over the lice-caked scalp. “And the rest comes off too. A shaven head is the sign of a slave, and that is what you are, aren’t you? A slave to Morigau!”
“She will ruin you yet…” Words burst from Rhyttah’s bruised lips. “She has a weapon greater than any I could wield. She calls him…Mordraed!” He started to laugh harshly, almost maniacally. “Would your men like to know all about him, how he came to be?”
Ardhu went ashen. “Be silent, or your life will be forfeit this instant.”
“Is it not already? Would you spare me, even after all the crimes of which you accuse me? I do not deny I did those things…and enjoyed doing them!”
“I might have a use for you. You know Morigau’s…mind. I would not slay you purely for spite or for love of blood.”
“Oh, the noble Lord Ardhu,” sneered Rhyttah. “Spare me your mercy, boy. I will never help you or your precious, righteous cause. I spit on you and your mercy…” and he hawked at Ardhu, the spittle striking the centre of the young king’s golden breastplate and running down in a yellow gobbet.
Ardhu’s lips ti
ghtened. “So be it. No mercy shall be shown.” Lashing out with the Black Witch’s razor, he cut the Chief Giant’s throat in one fluid motion. The huge man made a gurgling noise and crashed to the ground, his spirit leaving his body in a red tide.
An’kelet approached Ardhu, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It is done and over. Come, friend, we must attend to your wound. You are still bleeding.”
Ardhu glanced down; he had almost forgotten his own pain, the ragged gouge marring his thigh. Looking at the oozing slash, a wave of light-headedness overcame him; his legs became as jelly and the world dipped and tilted alarmingly.
An’kelet’s arms reached out to catch him as he fell. Ka’hai rushed over to grab his legs and help carry him away from the gore-soaked clearing to a sweeter-hued part of the forest. They laid him on the mossy greensward, using a cloak as a headrest, and Betu’or, who had some training as a healer, cut away the lacings on Ardhu’s leather trews to examine the wound.
“It has missed the great life-river in his leg,” Betu’or said, with some relief. “The bleeding looks bad, but properly packed, it will stop. The biggest fear I have is that the wound may get flesh-rot. None who get flesh-rot live to see another year.”
Rhagnell stepped forward, reaching to a bag that hung at her waist. “I too had some training in healing, while I lived in the wilds. I have dried Midsummer’s plant— that is good to clean wounds, and comfrey also. Fresh would be better, but we must do with what is available. After, we can gather oak-sap from the trees and use that to staunch the blood flow and make a seal. How well the young King heals is then in the hands of the Great Spirits.”
Bohrs’ face creased up, red and frustrated between bristling tufts of his bushy beard and equally wild hair. “Gods, why did this happen, when the great victory of Mineth Beddan is upon him? What if he is maimed? By law, a man cannot rule if he has a physical blemish!”
Rhagnell shot the burly warrior a harsh look. “The quicker you and the men go out and get me some oak-sap, the less likely it is that Lord Ardhu will be blemished. Now go!”
Stone Lord: The Legend of King Arthur (The Era Of Stonehenge) Page 33