“We'd best find shelter for the night.” Bradan dragged his fingers down his face, removing a handful of flies. “God alone knows what sort of creatures infest this place in the dark. Everything seems hostile nowadays.”
“We'll get to some high ground,” Melcorka said, “or climb up a tree above the ground away from that sort of thing.” She pointed to a column of ants that marched past them. “Even Defender is no good against a million insects.” She saw the movement out of the corner of her eye and drew Defender before she finished speaking.
“Stand! I can see you!”
The man stood still. Covered in leaves and branches, he looked like a walking part of the forest.
“I am Melcorka nic Bearnas. Who are you?”
“Hello.” The forest-man removed a mask of moss from his face. “I thought I saw you climbing in the trees.”
“Who are you?” Melcorka pressed the point of Defender against the man's throat.
“I am Drost.” The man was of medium height, slender and with a pleasant, freckled face. He covered his mouth with his hands as he spoke, as if shy with strangers. “Are you lost?”
“No,” Bradan said. “We are just passing through.”
“Why?” Drost said.
“We're going northward.” Bradan said. “Where are you from?”
“I live here,” Drost said. “I can take you to my home. You can stay the night if you like.”
Melcorka glanced at Bradan, who nodded. “Take us there,” Melcorka said.
“This way,” Drost led them along tracks so narrow they were nearly impossible to see, until he came to a pleasant glade with a central oak tree. “Up there,” he pointed to a small wood-and-bark structure on the lower branches of the tree. “It's safe from the wild boars and snakes of the night. Watch.”
Taking a hooked stick from the base of the tree, Drost jumped up and hauled down what appeared to be a loose branch but was in fact the end of a simple knotted rope made from twisted grass.
“Follow me.” Jumping on to the rope, Drost hauled himself up to the treehouse with the agility of any squirrel. Melcorka followed, with Bradan a clumsy last.
The house was small and surprisingly comfortable, with a plank floor and wooden benches for sitting or sleeping. Even more surprising was the woman and three children who stared as Drost introduced his guests.
“We don't get many visitors,” the woman also had her hand to her mouth as she spoke. “I am Eithne.”
“I am Melcorka, and this is Bradan,” Melcorka said. “Are you sure we are not imposing?”
“Imposing?” Drost said. “No! You are welcome. Tell us of the outside world. What is happening outside the forest?”
“They must eat first,” Eithne said. “Where are your manners, Drost? All guests must eat first.”
“Yes,” Drost said eagerly. “They have to eat first. Everybody has to eat.”
“Thank you,” Bradan said as Eithne produced bowls of a green broth, with pieces of leaves floating on top.
Melcorka tasted it first. “It's delicious,” she said. “What is it?”
“Leaves and moss, with insects and grubs,” Eithne seemed proud of her culinary skills.
Used to eating whatever they could on their travels, neither Bradan nor Melcorka complained about the food. Nutrition was necessary to give them strength. “You all look very healthy on it,” Melcorka said.
“Oh, we get plenty of food,” Drost said.
“Plenty of food,” Eithne echoed as the children looked at each other and nodded without smiling. They stared at Melcorka through big eyes.
“Now you must rest,” Eithne said. “You look as if you've had a trying day.”
“You are very kind,” Bradan said. In Alba, it was habitual for people to show hospitality to travellers, with the most impoverished people often the most generous even if it meant they would go hungry themselves. All the same, with the present unsettled state of the country, he was surprised that these forest dwellers welcomed him into their home with such alacrity.
“Sleep now,” Eithne said. “We'll all sleep now.”
It was strangely comfortable in that small house high in the trees, with the sound of rustling branches all around. Bradan placed his staff on the floor at his feet, winked at the children and lay on the wooden bench. “I am glad you found us, Drost,” he said. “We were not looking forward to a night in the forest.”
Eithne laughed, covering her mouth shyly. “You are welcome,” she said. “We don't often get guests.”
“Take off your sword, Melcorka,” Drost said. “You won't need your sword at night. The boars don't climb trees.”
Eithne laughed. “No, the boars don't climb trees.”
The light shafted green through the branches, gradually fading as night drew in. The bird calls of daytime died away, replaced by the melancholy whistles of hunting owls. Bradan closed his eyes, listened to the soft, regular breathing of his hosts, briefly wondered what he would find tomorrow and drifted to sleep. It was a long time since he had felt so relaxed.
Chapter Sixteen
“Bradan!” Melcorka spoke urgently. “Bradan!”
“What?” Bradan rolled over, nearly fell on the floor and saw the dim shape of Melcorka leaning over him.
“They've all gone,” Melcorka said. “Drost, Eithne and the children have all gone.”
“Just like the villagers.” Bradan forced himself awake. “Where?”
“How should I know?” Melcorka asked. “I heard movement, and they were gone.”
“Something must have taken them.” Bradan said. “It's time we were gone too, or we'll be next to vanish.”
Lifting Defender, Melcorka strapped it on her back. “No,” she said. “These people gave us hospitality. We'll try to find them; there must be some sort of trail to follow.”
Although the canopy of trees hid the sky, Bradan guessed it was the early hours of the morning. The rope was hanging down, swaying only slightly as he took hold of it.
“Bradan!” Melcorka called as he began the climb. “Look below!”
In the dim light, Bradan could make out only shapes. He estimated about a dozen people were assembled at the bottom of the rope, with one man climbing up as he climbed down. Moss-masks concealed the faces, leaving only the eyes to glare up at him.
“Get back, Bradan,” Melcorka hissed.
The man below Bradan swarmed up the rope far faster than Bradan could. Before Bradan returned to the plank-built platform, the man reached up, grabbed hold of Bradan's leg and pulled, with another man joining him seconds later.
“Get off!” Bradan kicked downward, felt contact and kicked again. The hands grasped his legs, pulling him away from the rope, trying to haul him to the growing crowd below.
“Bradan!” Taking Bradan's arms, Melcorka tried to drag him up, but she was too late. The arrival of a third man broke Bradan's grip, knocking him headlong to the ground, with the force of the landing stunning him. He lay still for a moment, staring at the circle of moss-masked faces that surrounded him.
They were silent and unidentifiable, merely glaring eyes in a mass of moss. “Who are you?” Bradan said. “What do you want?” When he tried to move, half a dozen men grabbed hold of him, and some removed their masks.
Drost and Eithne were at the forefront, with their children next and other faces he did not recognise. When Drost smiled, Bradan saw that his teeth were filed to points, as were those of Eithne and the children.
“What?” Bradan asked, still too dazed to understand what was happening.
The crowd swarmed, chattering, as they began to drag and carry him away.
“Bradan! I'm coming!” Swinging over the platform, Melcorka climbed down the rope ladder, jumping the final few yards.
As the effects of his fall wore off, Bradan struggled, kicking out at the men at his legs.
Eithne danced around, giving orders to the men. “Take him away. Knock him out. Capture the woman as well.”
“We'll eat
well today,” Drost said, with a high-pitched laugh that sent a cold chill down Bradan's spine as he understood the significance of the sharpened teeth.
“Cannibals!” Bradan yelled. “Melcorka! These are cannibals!”
Melcorka arrived like a cat amongst a tribe of mice. Drawing Defender, she sliced left and right, killing Drost and another man. “Let Bradan go!” The power of Defender surged through her, enabling her to duck the short spear that a man threw at her, thrust Defender's point into another spearman's belly and chop the arm off a third. “Bradan!”
As the cannibals dropped Bradan, he kicked out at Eithne, rolled on the ground and searched for something to use as a weapon.
More cannibals appeared, running into the clearing with spears, stout sticks and knives, to jump on Bradan and form a circle around Melcorka.
“To me, Bradan! Come to me!”
Three women grabbed hold of Bradan, clawing at him with long nails as he desperately lifted a fallen stick and swung at them. The stick snapped on contact, leaving him with only a fragment a little longer than his thumb.
Swearing, Bradan threw the stick at an advancing cannibal, lifted one of the short spears from a man Melcorka had killed and backed against a tree. “Come on, then! Come and fight for your breakfast!”
From the corner of his eye, Bradan saw the cannibals close in on Melcorka. Crouching low, she swung Defender in a complete circle, lopping off three legs and sending the survivors scurrying back in panic. Long-striding, she reached Bradan, killed another cannibal and took hold of the sleeve of his leine.
“Stay with me!” Melcorka yelled and looked up as the cannibals suddenly fled. She and Bradan were alone in the clearing except for the dead and the dying.
“I prefer taking my chances with the beasts of the forest to the cannibals,” Melcorka said.
“As do I.” Bradan was breathing heavily “I'll get my staff.”
The forest was silent as they left the glade, with no birds calling and only the biting insects bidding them a good evening. Now Melcorka knew what to look for, she saw other cannibal houses in the trees, and knew that predatory eyes were watching her. “There are more of these forest-people,” Melcorka said.
“We'll keep moving,” Bradan said. “However tired we are, we'll keep moving.”
Stumbling over fallen branches, hacking through a tangle of undergrowth, splashing in unseen streams and patches of bogland, they pushed on through the darkness until they came to another clearing, where Melcorka raised her hand to halt their progress.
A shift in the wind allowed the moonlight to slant between the upper branches, gleaming on something white.
“What's that?” Bradan asked. “Bones.” He answered his own question. “Human bones.”
Skilful hands had fastened thigh bones and ribs together to form a long passageway leading to the centre of the clearing.
“What devilry is this?” Melcorka asked.
Following the passage, they came to a pyramid of human skulls, adults and children piled neatly, with sightless eye-sockets and gaping jaws facing outward. Ten paces away were the blackened embers of a massive fire and the dark metal of three pots.
“Dear God in heaven,” Bradan said. “This must be where these devils roast their victims.”
“I can taste the evil,” Melcorka said. “Do you remember these settlements we passed before we came to the forest?”
“I remember,” Bradan said grimly, with his thumb firmly pressing the Celtic cross on top of his staff.
Melcorka unsheathed Defender and indicated the embers. “This is where the inhabitants ended up. The cannibals must have grabbed them and brought them here.”
“Aye,” Bradan said. “Let's keep moving. The further we get away from this hellish spot, the better I will like it. There is an evil on this land now, Melcorka.”
“Aye,” Melcorka took a firm grip on Defender, “and these cannibals have not gone, Bradan. They are all around us.”
The first spear hissed past to thud into the ground, followed by two more. The cannibals shouted at them from the upper branches around the clearing, gesticulating as they ran along the branches from tree to tree.
“They're like squirrels,” Bradan said.
“Dangerous squirrels.” Melcorka swung Defender to knock aside a well-aimed spear. She looked ahead. “The trees are closer together in front. That will slow us down and give the cannibals an advantage.”
Bradan dodged a volley of sticks. “If one of these missiles knocks you out, Mel, we are both dinner. I can't fight them alone.”
“We either push on or go back the way we came,” Melcorka said.
“Push on,” Bradan said. “Use Defender to clear a path.”
The hail of spears and sticks increased when Melcorka hacked her way into a thicker patch of forest, with the cannibals growing bolder by the yard. As biting insects clouded around them and the cannibals came ever closer, Melcorka and Bradan wondered if they had made the right decision.
“All right,” Bradan stopped to wipe the sweat from his forehead, coming away with a handful of black biting insects. “We can't go on like this. We must take the fight to them.”
“Well said, man of peace.” Melcorka deflected another crude spear. “They are very agile up their trees, and you are not.”
“I am very tired of hacking through plants while squirrels throw things at me.”
Melcorka's smile was very reassuring. “I like your plan, Bradan. Take that spear, guard my back and don't let any of these creatures get past you.”
Hoisting herself on to the lowest boughs of a tree, Melcorka helped Bradan up and moved towards the nearest cannibal. The man bared his teeth at her, jabbed with his spear and snarled, while trying to back away from Defender.
“Up you go!” Melcorka blocked the cannibal's escape, forcing him to climb higher up the tree until there was nothing above him except the starry sky.
“Not so tough now, are you?” Melcorka asked, balancing on a swaying branch as she stepped forward. “Come and fight me, then!” Instead of chasing the cannibal, Melcorka forced him further along the branch. When the cannibal perched on the edge, Melcorka hacked through the branch, sending him toppling to the ground. Balancing on adjacent trees, other cannibals set up a great yell, throwing more sticks and spears.
One spear embedded in the trunk of a tree near Bradan, so he pulled it out, turned it and threw it back, impaling a man in the leg. The cannibal screamed, grabbed the spear and tried to pluck it out.
About to jump on to the next tree, Melcorka paused as two of the cannibals leapt on to the injured man, cutting his throat as he tried to keep his balance. Others descended to the man who had fallen and stabbed him.
“What's happening?” Bradan asked.
“Food,” Melcorka said. “Like wolves turning on their own injured. That will keep them busy while we escape.”
Scurrying back down the tree, they headed away, chopping through the undergrowth. With only the plants and insects to contend with, the forest seemed almost friendly as they hacked their way northward. The long summer day gave them hours of daylight in which to make progress, but even when darkness eventually closed in, they moved on, determined to put as much distance as possible between them and the cannibals.
“Keep moving.” Drooping with exhaustion, itching from a hundred insect bites and stings, Bradan could only guess how Melcorka was faring.
“There.” Melcorka pointed ahead. “The forest is thinning. In a few moments, we will be outside.”
“Thank God,” Bradan said. “That was the worst nightmare we have endured.” When he looked over his shoulder, Bradan thought he saw a woman dressed in grey among the trees, but when he blinked, the woman was gone. He did not say anything to Melcorka as his thumb sought the security of the carved cross on his staff.
Chapter Seventeen
“You are a warrior again,” Bradan said as they emerged from the forest into the foothills of the Monadhliath, the Grey Mountains.
<
br /> “I am,” Melcorka agreed.
“You dealt with the cannibals without a qualm.” Bradan was quiet for a few moments. “I was scared, Melcorka. I don't think I've ever been as scared as I am now.”
“We have never seen such a collection of evil,” Melcorka said. “Everywhere we go, the country is upside down. Moss-men attacking us to grab Defender and Forest-dwellers turning into cannibals; evil has descended on the country, Bradan, and I think it's getting worse the further north we go.”
Bradan smiled. “Aye, the closer we get to the house built on bones, but as long as you're back to yourself, Mel, I am sure we'll be fine. You're a match for anybody.”
“I was not a match for Erik.”
“You will be next time,” Bradan said. “Now you know what you are fighting. I'll keep my eye on the grey man so he cannot interfere.”
The Monadhliath were clothed in heather, with patches of woodland and herds of deer. Glad to be in the open again, Melcorka and Bradan took every precaution they could, camping away from their fire when they slept, keeping one person on watch all night and avoiding habitations. They saw three packs of wolves and heard the growl of a bear, but managed to cross the hill range in two days and a night.
A thin rain dampened the ground when they approached the Great Glen, the diagonal series of lochs and rivers that cut Alba in two. Melcorka was singing softly, lifting her feet high as she negotiated knee-high heather.
“You sound happy,” Bradan said.
“I am myself again,” Melcorka told him. She touched the hilt of Defender. “I am ready to face Erik.”
Bradan smiled, not admitting his fear. He did not want to see Melcorka fight again. He did not wish to see her kill somebody else and still less did he want to see her lying, hurt and bleeding, on the ground.
“It will be all right, Bradan,” Melcorka said, shaking away her recurring vision. Once again, she saw herself lying on that sandy ground, with a tall man standing over her and Bradan walking away with another woman.
They walked on, hiding their fears behind false good humour, and stopped only when they crested a ridge that afforded a view to the north. Loch nan Beiste stretched in front of them, over 20 miles long, three miles wide and brooding between sullen dark hills.
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