Song of the Centurion

by Steven A McKay

  “And I’d agree with you,” Bellicus replied with a glint in his eye and a grin the centurion knew all too well now. “I did do most of the work back there, but, well, you’re older than me. You need to rest more than I do.”

  Duro nodded and managed a smile but, again, it was a measure of how drained he was that he didn’t offer a retort. He simply found a space on the grass beside Cai, placed his pack beneath his head as a makeshift pillow, and was snoring within moments.

  As their exertions wore off, so did the heat that had filled their tired bodies, and Bellicus pulled his own blanket from his pack and covered the two sleeping travellers with it. It was far too risky to light a fire, so he had to hope their combined warmth would be enough to not only keep them alive, but to afford them a sleep deep enough to regenerate them.

  As he sat on the grass, his head suddenly dropped and he jumped, mortified to have almost fallen asleep. There were few worse crimes a warrior could commit than slumbering while he was supposed to be watching for danger and he got to his feet, despite his body’s protestations, and walked slowly, silently, away from the camp. He didn’t go far, just a few paces, so he could wander and keep warm without the sound of his feet crunching in the frost-rimed leaves disturbing Duro and Cai.

  What would the next day bring? he wondered. It was likely the villagers they’d stolen the horses from would give up and return home. Without dogs to help them track, and given how hard the ground was, it would be very difficult for farmers to follow them. Besides, they would be wary of another fight, given how easily Bellicus and Duro had dispatched their fellows.

  So, the most probable scenario was that word would reach Loarn of their flight, and the direction it had taken, and the Dalriadan king, who did have hunting dogs in his retinue, would come after them as quickly as possible. Would the druid and his companions be able to reach the docks at Ard Drisaig before them? What if Loarn had guessed their intentions already, and sent messengers ahead to all the nearby ports, warning them not to grant passage to any strangers?

  He shook his head and stared up at the cloudy sky, searching for some hint of stars or moon but seeing nothing. There was no point worrying about fate – it was inexorable, and tomorrow would bring what it would, as it always did. Whatever that might be, he would be ready, Melltgwyn in hand, to face it.

  * * *

  Bellicus groaned and pulled his blanket up over his head, but Duro was used to such a reaction when trying to wake someone after much too short a rest period.

  “Wake up, soldier!” the centurion barked, and Bellicus found himself jerking upright, wide-eyed.

  “I’ve still got it,” Duro smiled, turning away to continue preparing his horse to travel.

  “It can’t be time to go already,” the druid muttered, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Feels like I only just put my head down.”

  “Sorry, lad,” Duro said, handing him a skin of water. “That’s as long as we can afford. Sun’s coming up and we’ve been lucky no-one’s found us yet.”

  Cursing the Dalriadans, Bellicus got to his feet, rolling his head and shoulders, stretching his great arms above his head and yawning as if he might draw in all the air in the world. The pair were soon ready to move though, and Cai too, once he’d wolfed down a chunk of salted meat and some bread. The men would eat their own meagre breakfast on horseback.

  The sun came up as they rode, casting a bright light across the land but little warmth, and the breath steamed from the travellers’ mouths as they made their way steadily south. Every so often one of them would glance backwards, eyeing the horizon for signs of pursuit, but, by mid-morning, they’d still seen no-one. They skirted any dwellings they came across, which were few and far between out here, but they didn’t want anyone to report their movements once Loarn mac Eirc or the pursuing villagers finally reached this point.

  “They will, you know,” Duro said after yet another look back. “Find us I mean. They’ll be on proper horses, not these farm beasts. No offence, lad.” He patted his mount’s neck, but it resolutely ignored him and continued to plod steadily onwards.

  Bellicus nodded glumly. “At least we’ve had a rest and some food,” he said. “And it’s done Cai a power of good. He’s not limping anymore – must have just been tired muscles, and he had double the sleep we did.”

  “Aye, we’re in better shape if it comes to a battle,” Duro conceded. “But still not enough to fight off a king’s warband.”

  “What are you getting at?” the druid asked, hearing something beneath the surface of his friend’s words.

  Duro looked up at the sky and gestured vaguely. “Well, can’t you magic up a bit of fog or a thunderstorm or something?”

  “Perhaps,” Bellicus said, peering at the land before them from beneath a hand shading the sunlight. “But the time it would take to prepare – to find a sacrifice, and to enter the magical trance – would give our pursuers time to catch up. If the ritual worked, it might not matter, because Loarn would be close enough to catch us anyway, fog or no.”

  Duro looked at him and his face was deadly serious for once. “They’re going to catch us anyway, Bel. Unless something happens to divert them, or to hide our movements from them. The moment they appear on the horizon,” he couldn’t help turning for another look, “they’ll have us. We can’t win a race against experienced riders, not on these docile cart horses.”

  Bellicus looked down at Cai and fancied he could see the dog beginning to limp again. Perhaps it was his imagination, but it once again hammered home just how vulnerable they were out there in the Dalriadan countryside. “You think it’s worth taking the chance?” he asked. “What if the magic fails? We’ll have given the bastards time to catch us up, for no return.”

  “I do. Look around us – there’s precious little variation in the topography here, and the winter’s killed off most of the foliage we might have used as cover on our way. We came on this mission knowing it was unlikely to be successful, and so it’s proved. But we always thought there was a chance we could pull it off because,” another glance over the shoulder, “we have certain talents.”

  “Aye?” Bellicus smiled wryly. “What’s yours?”

  “I can bake a great loaf,” Duro retorted. “And I don’t attract attention the way you do, walking about the countryside like a giant turd.”

  The druid laughed. “That’s true,” he admitted. “You do bake a nice loaf.”

  “And you can, so you say, commune with the gods,” Duro went on, serious again. “Which I believe to be true. Look,” he reined in his mount and they stared at one another, all humour gone now as they faced up to the reality of the threat facing them. “You should do this. Seek aid from Cernunnos, or Lug, or Belenus the Sun God, or…whoever.”

  “What about you?” Bellicus asked.

  Duro’s smile returned and he dismounted. “I’ll have a word with Mithras, but I’ve never thought he listened much to me.”

  “All right,” the druid agreed, peering inside his robe for the pouches of ingredients he stored there. “I’ll do it. But get back in your saddle – we need to find running water. I always have more success when I perform a ritual next to a burn or a river.”

  On they rode until they came to a stream. It was narrow and, in the summer, would be almost invisible, but now, it burbled pleasantly across the stones of its bed and Bellicus knew it would be ideal for his purpose.

  “Right,” he said, tethering his horse to the ground a short distance away, fearing what he was about to do would frighten the beast. “I’ll get things sorted. You go and find me something to sacrifice.”

  Duro’s face fell – clearly he’d been hoping to sit and rest while the druid conducted his business with the gods. “Sacrifice? Like what? I haven’t noticed any bulls or sheep roaming about the place, Bel.”

  “A pigeon will do. Or a squirrel. Anything. Even a field mouse if that’s what you manage to snare. Whatever it is should still be alive though. You can’t just shoot something with yo
ur bow.”

  Duro went off, muttering to himself, but this had been his idea, and this was his part to play in it. Bellicus watched him go, confident in his friend’s hunting ability, then he led his own horse to graze next to Duro’s, and bade Cai stand guard beside them.

  Moving back to the stream he sat down cross-legged on his pack and slowed his breathing, calming his whirling thoughts, gazing out at the land they’d just travelled from as he waited for Duro’s return.

  It was quite a long time before the centurion reappeared, but when he did he was smiling, and carried something within his blanket, the thick wool no doubt protecting Duro from the captured animal’s teeth and claws.

  Bellicus could tell it was no field mouse his friend had snared, and, pleased, he pulled out the mugwort leaves from his pockets and began to chew slowly. The bitter taste flooded his mouth and he rinsed it away, a little, with a drink from his ale-skin.

  “What have you brought me?”

  Duro arched an eyebrow at the druid’s speech, which was already slower than normal, but he held out the struggling bundle almost reverently.

  “Pigeon.”

  Bellicus took this in, and then frowned at the blanket. “Why have you wrapped it up like that? I thought you’d snared a wildcat or something. Were you afraid the bird might peck you to death?”

  Duro reddened, as much from the mocking accusation as his own lack of knowledge of the druid’s magic. “I didn’t know if it was supposed to see…this…” He gestured towards the ground, but his voice trailed off. “I thought you’d be building an altar or something.”

  “No time. No need,” the druid replied dreamily. He held out his hands for the bundle and took it carefully, pulling down the material to reveal the grey head of a wood pigeon. It blinked at him. He unwrapped it from the blanket which he handed to Duro. “Go.”

  Duro dutifully wandered off to check on the dog and the horses.

  Bellicus held the bird, and they stared at one another, the only sounds the wind bending the branches of the nearby trees and the stream flowing towards what he hoped was the nearby loch and the port that would provide them with passage back to Dun Breatann.

  With his free hand he took out his sword and used the tip of the blade to mark a circle around himself, to hold in any magical power and keep out any malevolent forces. He sheathed the sword then lifted the ale-skin and took another long pull, stoppered it, and put it on the ground before reaching inside his robe again. This time he didn’t bring forth a herb, or leaf, or other magical ingredient – now he drew out a short, stone-bladed dagger and sat down once more.

  The pigeon watched him, but even the druid couldn’t tell what it might be thinking, the expressionless, blank face unreadable. The dagger did its job quickly and efficiently, and the bird did not suffer, Bellicus made sure of that. He held it tightly as, even though its head was detached, the body and wings thrashed within his grasp for a time until, at last, it stilled.

  The blood drained down, onto the hard grass, the crimson contrasting starkly with the white frost as it seeped in. The druid looked on, practically feeling the earth absorbing the bird’s lifeforce and drawing its power up, into himself, through his legs, into his torso and up, until it filled his whole body and being. Then he closed his eyes.

  For what seemed like an eternity he sat there motionless, thoughts temporarily stilled, before a spark, like a glowing ember thrown out by a campfire, seemed to grow in the darkness of his mind’s eye. Slowly, the light took on the familiar shape of a man – a tall, lean warrior of indeterminate age, wearing a golden torc with snarling dragons at either end.

  “Peredur,” he murmured in greeting, and the warrior in the otherworld smiled.

  “You again?”

  “Aye,” Bellicus agreed and, although he was already sitting on the grass of Dalriada, in his mind he lowered himself down and sat on a seat he couldn’t see. All he could see was Peredur, a man, or a being at least, who often ‘spoke’ to the druid when he entered a trance like this.

  “Made an arse of killing Loarn mac Eirc, didn’t you?”

  Bellicus smiled and nodded. “I did. Came so close too.”

  “Maybe you came closer than you think,” the lean warrior replied, sitting down himself on some other unseen chair or stool. “What can I do for you today, Bel?”

  “We need the weather to change, my friend,” Bellicus said, looking up at the sky, but here, in this place, only Peredur was visible in the darkness. “A heavy fog would conceal us from our pursuers. We can’t be too far away from the docks where we can take a ship back to Dun Breatann, but, travelling in the open, as we must, we’re too easy to spot.”

  “Loarn mac Eirc isn’t the only one hunting you,” Peredur replied, confirming the druid’s fears.

  “The villagers are still coming after us then.”

  “They are,” Peredur said. “And they did not come this far without a great, murderous anger burning within them.” The warrior stopped talking and furrowed his brow, head tilted as if listening for something.

  “What is it?” Bellicus asked, perplexed at this unusual reaction.

  Peredur looked at him and his face was grim, almost fearful as he replied.

  “They have come for you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Duro sat on a tree root next to Cai and the horses and watched as Bellicus dispatched the wood pigeon then appeared to fall asleep holding the dead bird in his blood-soaked hands.

  The centurion looked at the dog, wondering how the animal would react, but it was obviously used to its master’s unusual behaviour, for it never moved during the whole ritual. The horses, on the other hand, became a little skittish, feet stamping, nostrils flaring, and Duro wondered idly if they could smell the spilt blood. Did horses have sensitive noses, the way dogs did?

  Whatever the truth, Bellicus didn’t move a muscle despite the noises from their nervous mounts, so deeply was he lost in his trance. Duro stared at him, searching for a twitch of an eyelid, or a finger, or a sniff, or anything else to suggest the druid was still alive and not departed forever to some magical otherworld.

  Then Bellicus’s eyes snapped open and Duro felt a shiver run down his spine. Instinctively, the centurion got up, drawing his sword from its sheath although he feared no earthly blade could harm whatever the druid was seeing.

  He realised his mistake when the sound of a dry twig snapping came from behind him. He turned, as Cai also stood up, growling, hackles forming a ridge along his muscular back.

  “Shit.” Duro counted four enemies, but he suspected they were merely the vanguard of a larger force belonging to Loarn mac Eirc. The horses’ skittishness had masked the sound of their approach, and, since Cai and Duro had been so engrossed in watching the druid’s ritual, the Dalriadans had managed to get right up beside them before being discovered.

  The time for thinking was past though. The four warriors coming at them looked grim and determined, although the centurion’s experience told him they were, like the villagers they had fought the previous night, not well-versed in the ways of combat.

  “You two get that prick,” one of them said, his voice heavily accented but all-too clear to Duro, who spread his feet and prepared to defend himself from the sword and spear that were now aiming directly at him.

  The other two circled past him, heading for the druid. Before anyone could launch an attack, Bellicus drew his sword and raised it to the sky. His hands and face were now stained with blood, making him such a terrible sight that even the enraged Dalriadans blanched momentarily, before their pride encouraged them onwards again.

  “Taranis!” the druid called, staring at the clouds overhead. “You have your sacrifice. Now I offer you two more souls,” he lowered his sword and pointed it at the warriors coming for him, “may their blood please you!”

  Duro’s opponents were also watching the druid’s performance, looks of horror on their faces, and he took advantage of their hesitation. He pulled an arrow from his
belt and threw it, whipping his arm down so it flew point-first, straight at the closest Dalriadan. Without the power of a bow behind it, it was never going to do much damage, and indeed, it spun slightly in flight, so it merely bounced off the enemy soldier’s arm, which he threw up to protect his face.

  The distraction allowed Duro to charge forward though, covering the ground between them, and his sword slipped between the man’s ribs before he had a chance to parry.

  “Cai!” he shouted, turning to point towards the men striding towards Bellicus who still stood as if rooted to the spot. “Get them!”

  “You bastard!”

  Duro spun, raising his sword just in time to bat aside the spear heading for his guts. The sharp blade missed its target, but caught him in the side, with enough force to tear a hole in his mail shirt. He felt the tell-tale burning that often accompanied a wound and cursed his clumsiness.

  “You killed my brother,” the Dalriadan cried, swinging his spear over his head, slamming it into the ground where Duro had just been standing, as if he was an axeman chopping firewood. “And now we’re going to kill you and your damn dog!”

  Duro shook his head, surprised by the wild ferocity of the man’s attacks as the spear whistled past his face in an arc. The Dalriadan was no skilled warrior, but he was making up for it with sheer crazed savagery at that moment.

  Duro had faced many such warriors in the past however, and, the next time his opponent made a lunge, the centurion stepped inside the spear’s reach and chopped his sword down into the man’s hand. Blood spurted and at least one finger dropped onto the grass along with the spear as the warrior screamed in a mixture of rage and disbelief.

  The sound was cut short though, Duro spinning around the shocked Dalriadan and slamming the edge of his blade into the nape of the man’s neck. It wasn’t a clean enough blow to decapitate the warrior, but it was enough to kill him instantly and, without stopping, the centurion ran towards the stream.

  He slowed his pace to a walk though, when he saw what was happening. Bellicus needed no aid – not even from Cai, whose order to attack by Duro had been countermanded.