The druid wanted to face his opponents within the protective circle his blade had carved in the frost-rimed grass.
Duro raised his eyebrows and whistled softly as he approached for both Dalriadan warriors were already dead. The druid had dispatched them in an astonishing display of martial prowess and now they lay on the grass, lifeblood emptying out of their bodies to mingle with that of the sacrificed pigeon.
Bellicus wasn’t even out of breath. He was a shocking sight to behold though, his eyes wide with battle fury, face spattered with their enemies’ blood.
“We should be on our way,” he growled as Duro strode up to stand before him. “The ritual is complete.”
Without another word, they hurried back to the horses, pleased to see them still tethered to the ground by the pegs attached to their reins. Bellicus placed the dead pigeon inside his pack to be butchered and cooked later, then they mounted.
Cai padded along at their backs like a shadow as they rode past the site of the druid’s ritual and Duro looked from the corpses of the Dalriadans to the man who had dispatched them. The sheer power that emanated from Bellicus astonished Duro, who had never met anyone quite like him in all his forty-odd years of life. The druid was truly a frightening individual and Duro had never been happier to be fighting on the same side, for the thought of facing the shaven-headed giant in battle was deeply unsettling.
They kicked their horses into a canter and a chill swept over Duro as he looked back to make sure Loarn mac Eirc’s men weren’t in sight. They weren’t, but a freezing fog was already beginning to settle over the land around them.
* * *
“What are you mumbling about?”
Bellicus was in a fine mood as they rode through the mist, heading, hopefully, southwards. He knew they must be very close to their destination, where they would find passage on a ship one way or another. Cai’s limp was still in evidence, but it hadn’t grown worse and the dog appeared content enough, loping along at the horses’ rear or side as the fancy took him. Yet, on his left, the druid could hear Duro’s low voice as he muttered away to himself.
“I was just saying,” the centurion replied, pulling his thick cloak – now damp and heavy from the moisture conjured by Bellicus’s ritual – up around his neck. “You might have made a warmer fog. It’s bloody freezing.”
Bellicus shook his head in mock disbelief. “Fear not, my cold friend,” he said. “Soon enough we’ll be on board a fast boat, a brazier warming us and roasting the meat of our pigeon.”
Duro grinned at the thought and replied in a serious voice. “I’ll be glad to get dry and warm – I’m sick of sleeping in that tent, cuddling Cai for warmth. What do you think we’ll find when we get back to Dun Breatann? Will Coroticus have forgiven you by now?”
Bellicus waggled a hand, the way a pair of scales moved from side to side, weighing the chances of things being back to normal in Alt Clota. “Who can say? Hopefully he’ll just be glad to have two warriors back with him in time for spring, and the coming hostilities with the Picts and Saxons and Lug knows who else. Ah…” He fell silent, and cocked his head, listening.
The thick fog muffled any sounds but, as the riders strained their ears, the unmistakeable high-pitched barking of hunting dogs came to them.
“Shit. They’re right behind us.” Duro said angrily, and Bellicus nodded, urging his horse to a faster pace.
“The know the terrain better than us, even with the fog. We must be almost on top of Ard Drisaig by now though, keep your eyes open.”
“We won’t have time to negotiate with the sailors, Bel,” the centurion warned. “You can hear how close Loarn is, assuming those are his dogs – and it’s hard to imagine who else they might belong to.”
Bellicus frowned, knowing his friend was right. Had the gods brought down their magical fog, giving the fugitives hope, only to allow the pursuing king to claim their heads after all? He refused to believe the gods had forsaken him, not after the powerful blood sacrifices of two Dalriadan men.
“What are you thinking now?” Duro demanded, tearing his eyes away from the mist-shrouded ground they were cantering blindly into and seeing a familiar, not entirely welcome, expression on the druid’s face. “I don’t like it when you get that look in your eyes.”
Bellicus simply laughed and pressed his knees into his horse’s flanks so it would reach the settlement faster.
* * *
Loarn mac Eirc’s captain, Aedan, riding hard at his king’s side, pointed into the fog on the left as they passed the ruined trunk of a once-proud oak tree. “Look there, my lord! It’s the tree the lightning shattered last autumn.”
The king nodded, and drew his sword, wincing at the wound on his hand that the assassin sent from Dun Breatann had inflicted on him mere hours before. “Then we’re almost at Ard Drisaig,” he said. “I was right about their destination – they’re heading for the docks to try and get away on a ship.” Then he raised his voice so the rest of the men riding with him could hear. “Ready your weapons, lads! The dogs still have their scent so we know we’re on the right track, and there’s no way the sailors will cast off in this fog. That means the Damnonii arseholes are somewhere up ahead. Be ready – they’re no fools, and I don’t want to lose any more of my people to them this day.”
“Close formation,” Aedan commanded, bringing his galloping horse to a walk, the rest of their party following his lead. “Stay in sight of the warriors to each side of you so the druid and his mate can’t pick us off in the fog without being seen. Although…” He looked up to the sky and, for the first time in hours, noticed the wan yellow light of the sun, attempting weakly to penetrate the mist.
“The fog is lifting,” Loarn mac Eirc said, finishing his captain’s sentence with a grim smile. “Perfect timing. There’ll be nowhere for them to hide soon enough.”
The Dalriadan warband stared ahead, searching for any sign of their quarry. They had been well briefed before they started the hunt so they knew they faced two dangerous men and a wardog that would kill them just as surely as any blade, but these were the best warriors in Loarn’s service. When the fighting started there could only be one possible outcome – even a druid could not fend off the spears of a dozen of Dalriada’s finest sons.
“Coroticus must be insane, right enough,” Loarn said to Aedan as they reached the outskirts of the fishing settlement. “Sending just two men and a dog to kill me.” He shook his head in amazement. “The disappearance of his daughter last year truly addled the man’s brains. I’d love to be there when I send the heads of these three back to Dun Breatann in a sack and he opens it up. It’ll send him right over the edge.”
Aedan laughed. “Aye, I expect so, lord. That’ll only make it even easier for us to take his fortress when we return with Drest and Cunneda.”
The fog had lifted enough now to reveal the first few buildings in the settlement of Ard Drisaig, but there was no-one in sight, unsurprisingly – anyone with any sense would be indoors with their family, a cheery fire blazing in the hearth.
“Come on, lads,” Loarn said, urging his mount to a faster pace. “We’re here.”
Ard Drisaig wasn’t the biggest village in Dalriada, but it was an important port, serving trading vessels bringing things from places like Gaul and Rome. That meant the place was quite heavily populated as men were needed to work the docks, but also to guard the warehouses where the goods were stored before being transferred to their next destination, be that abroad, or to the markets of Britain.
The dogs were straining at their leashes and Aedan ordered their handlers to halt, while the rest of the riders moved past. These hounds were perfect for tracking prey, but they’d not be much use in a fight against two men and a wardog which, from King Loarn’s description, was something of a monster.
“We should dismount. Can’t really fight from horseback when your opponent is hiding behind, or in, a building.”
The Dalriadan warriors followed their ruler’s lead and quickly teth
ered their horses to covered staging posts outside a stable, handily placed for visitors such as them.
“No sign of the fugitives’ mounts,” Aedan noted, but he knew that meant little. The druid would not be coming back for his stolen horses, so he probably just set them free when they’d reached the settlement, allowing them to run off into the fog-shrouded fields nearby. Loarn’s men would recover the animals soon enough, now that the sky was clearing, but the priority was to find the Alt Clotan spies. “You think they’ll hide if they’ve heard us on their tail?” Aedan asked the king, who shook his head emphatically.
“They will know we’re coming for them, and what their fate will be when we catch them,” Loarn said as he strode into the village, head moving from left to right as he searched for signs of their quarry. “So they’ll head directly to the docks and try to find a sailor who’ll take them home immediately.” He eyed the rapidly clearing fog and waved his men forward into a run. “Come on, hurry. The docks are just ahead, we have them now!”
The sounds of their mail jangling, and booted feet thumping on the path, brought men and women out of the workshops and warehouses that lined the road leading to the docks, curious faces watching them pass – another strange event to follow the freak fog that had provided them with a welcome break for a while that morning.
Their approach also drew out the captains and crew of the vessels that were docked there at that time. There weren’t many – the numerous fishing boats simply pulled their catches out on the nearby beach, as they’d done since time immemorial, so the docks were populated that day by only three medium-sized boats and a larger ship, all of which were used for trading.
“You!” Loarn mac Eirc shouted to the most important looking man on the first boat they came to, beckoning him forward. “Have any vessels sailed in the past hour or two? No? You’re sure? Oh, in the name of Christ…” The king moved on, irritated by the boat captain’s uncertainty, and roared to the next in line.
By the time he and Aedan had questioned the men in charge of all four vessels, learning that no-one had asked them for passage that day, and no other ship had, as far as they knew, left the port, Loarn was furious.
“The bastards didn’t just disappear into the air along with the fog,” he growled, gazing up at the now clear sky before turning to Aedan. “Search the holds of each of these vessels,” he commanded. “Look in every crate or barrel you find – the druid is around somewhere, or the dogs wouldn’t have led us here.”
Such a thorough search took quite a while but, by the end of it, there was still no sign of their quarry. The Dalriadan warriors were beginning to murmur amongst themselves, irritated by Loarn mac Eirc’s impatient, angry commands, and fearful of the Damnonii druid’s powers. They had all seen the bloodied corpses of the warriors left behind in the magic circle drawn in the frost and it frightened them more than they could admit, since they were all supposed to be Christians. In reality, of course, the Dalriadan soldiers were as superstitious as any man, and they knew the followers of the old ways had strange and terrifying abilities. Perhaps the druid had somehow flown away, carried back to Alt Clota by some weird power they couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
King Loarn walked to the end of the pier and gazed out across the loch’s waters, sparkling in the sun that had finally burned away the last of the mist, and shook his injured fist at the horizon.
“I’ll find you, Bellicus of Dun Breatann!” he roared, voice seeming to carry for miles around, fuelled by his impotent rage. “I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you, you filthy heathen scum. May God strike me dead if I don’t!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It had been easy, even in the fog, to find a boat big enough to take all three of them. The beach was littered with coracles, from one-man currachs to larger vessels that could take a much bigger crew.
Neither Bellicus nor Duro knew much about boats – sailing wasn’t part of either a druid’s or a centurion’s training – so they simply chose something that looked in good repair, had oars stowed inside, and wouldn’t sink under their weight. It had a sail, but, since Cai knew as much as the men about how to work the thing, they weren’t very confident about its use, and had simply taken turns with the single pair of oars to get as far from land as possible before the fog burned away.
“I hope you have some idea of where we’re going,” Duro said, staring out into the middle distance, dry land still on the left but only rippling water ahead of them. “Mithras knows where we might end up.”
The druid hauled on the oars, sending the boat sliding forward in a continuous smooth motion, staring back towards the port they’d just come from but, although the fog was lifting, they’d covered enough distance that Ard Drisaig wasn’t visible even to his sharp eyes.
“I’m sure the land curves around to the left about here,” he said. “But following it will just bring us back into Dalriadan lands and take us north again – the wrong direction altogether.” He pulled on the oars and glanced up at the mast, wondering how hard it could be to use. “We need to keep moving south until the land disappears. When we see it again on the east, we should be able to head for it and leave the boat. We’re ahead of Loarn mac Eirc, and he doesn’t know where we’ve gone so we should be safe enough to find passage on a ship to Alt Clota somewhere. It’s either that or walk all the way, and, if I remember correctly, the land about here is dotted with lochs and hills. There’s no Roman roads to make passage easier.” He dragged the oars backwards again with a low grunt. “But a ship, with a captain who knows his business, will have us home in no time.”
They took turns rowing and put in at a small settlement just as the sun was beginning to set. The druid was fairly confident the Dalriadan king, or his messengers, could not have reached this place before them since, even if Loarn guessed where they were, the journey by land was at least a hundred miles longer than by boat.
There were a few fishing boats on the beach, one or two of them very similar to the vessel they’d stolen, so they knew someone here must have the sailing skills to take them home. Their arrival caused a stir, for the place saw very few visitors, and none as interesting as the giant druid and his two hard-looking companions.
“How are ye, strangers?” said the first, smiling local as they left behind their stolen boat and walked up the beach towards the village. A crowd of about thirty or forty men, women and children, probably the entire population of the place, had turned out to greet them and, although some carried crude weapons, they seemed friendly enough. “What brings ye here? Ye don’t look like fishermen.”
The spokesman grinned, eyeing the druid’s eagle-topped staff knowingly, and Bellicus couldn’t help liking the fellow who was broad of shoulder and clearly no fool.
“No,” he admitted. “We’re not fishermen. We were attacked,” he gestured vaguely back towards the water, as if he had no idea where they’d come from, “and took this boat to get away from the men that tried to rob us.”
Duro nodded and all eyes turned to him. “My friend is a druid. We were travelling in the lands over yonder,” he mimicked Bellicus’s gesture, waving a hand to the west, “gathering myths and legends from the people.”
“Apparently the folk there aren’t as welcoming as you,” Bellicus finished, striding forward to grasp the still-smiling headman’s wrist. “We thank you for your hospitality.” His grin was mirrored on the villager’s face who shook his head in consternation.
“They’re a bunch of arseholes over there,” he said, to murmurs of agreement from his people. “Think they’re above the rest of us because they’re closer to King Loarn’s fortress. Well, you’ll spend the night with us here in Auchalic, and we’ll show you proper Dalriadan hospitality.”
“Hey, some of us still call ourselves Britons, Galchobhar!” someone piped up among the gathered villagers, but the comment was met only with smiles and shakes of the head and the three visitors followed their hosts towards the centre of the settlement. Bellicus merely raised his shou
lders in a slight shrug at Duro’s questioning glance, planning to find out what the cryptic comment meant for himself once a few ales had loosened the folks’ tongues later on.
Their destination proved to be a roundhouse, rather larger than the rest of the buildings here although it wasn’t even as big as the hall of Nectovelius back in Dun Buic. It might be used as a hall, but it was far from ‘great’. Still, as they went inside Bellicus glanced around, eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom, pleased to see the structure was in good repair and built with good, thick timber. Only the headman, and a couple of middle-aged women came into the building with them, the rest of the villagers going back about their own business, promising to return when the sun went down and their day’s work was finished.
“Light the fire, Luigsech,” the headman said to one of the women who had already been moving in that direction of her own accord. He grinned at the two travellers. “Now, lads – take a seat close to the hearth. We’ll soon have this place cosy.” He turned serious then, almost apologetic as he asked, “Ye don’t have any food of yer own we can use do ye? I know it’s not very hospitable to ask a guest to feed himself but…”
The druid raised a hand and shook his head to assuage the headman’s embarrassment. “It’s fine,” he said, lifting his pack from the rush-strewn floor and reaching in to find the headless pigeon. “Food is scarce at this time of year and we’ll be glad to share what we have with you in return for a roof over our heads and a warm fire. Here.” He tossed the bird to the headman who took it gladly. “There’ll be enough there for the three of us to share, if we add some bread and oats, eh?”
Galchobhar looked down at Cai with a slightly disappointed look and Bellicus laughed. “I meant you could share it, man, not the dog. I’ve got other food for him.”
Song of the Centurion Page 25