Blade of Fortriu

by Juliet Marillier

  “You’re lying. You helped them escape. We found your cunning little tunnel and your clever concealment. You helped the Gael get away; you helped him steal my wife. He wants her for himself, I saw it in his eyes from the first. He’s probably out there having her right now, and Drustan’s standing by waiting for the leftovers. When I find the bard I intend to take him apart. Limb by limb, slowly. Out with it, Deord! Tell me where they are and I’ll let you die like a fighting man and not like a rat in a hole.”

  The man called Deord looked at the other, eyes untroubled. The branch he held ceased to sweep before him; he lowered its outer end slowly to the forest floor. “Whatever I do between this moment and the moment of my death,” he said as blood from the arrow wound spread a slow stain across the sleeve of his shirt, “I won’t betray a trust. Don’t think you can prevail by threatening me, Alpin. I’ve seen your tactics too many times. Your brother’s gone. He’s free. As for the others, they are none of my concern.” As the leader drew a long knife from his belt and took a step forward, Deord added, “I’ve often thought the quality of a man can be judged by how well he dies. I intend to make my end a measure of what I am, as a man.”

  “A man does not scream and whimper and plead for release,” Alpin said. “Believe me, before I’m finished with you, you’ll be doing all three and soiling yourself to boot.”

  Deord did not reply but, as Alpin drew closer, he turned in a sudden whirl of movement, his right leg coming high behind him in a powerful kick that sent one man sprawling at full length on the ground, while a punishing blow from the undamaged right arm caught another in the chest, winding him. Alpin, who had stepped back out of reach, clicked his fingers. Arrows whirred and thumped, and Deord, rising from his turn, received them in shoulder and thigh, each quivering shaft lodged deep. He staggered, then steadied. A knife appeared in each hand.

  “Tell me the truth!” Alpin snarled. “Tell me now or pay the price! Where have you taken my wife?”

  Deord gave no sign of having heard him. His stance, legs apart, knees slightly bent in readiness for whatever move was required, was that of a seasoned fighter; the barbs that he carried in his body seemed no more than a minor inconvenience. His eyes remained calm. Around him the semicircle of hunters drew tighter, but there was a certain margin beyond which none of them would advance, not even their leader, Alpin. To Broichan, watching with the eyes of a practiced seer, it seemed the hand of the Flamekeeper himself stretched out over this lone fighter, imbuing him with a kind of purity that stripped away all trace of fear and made him an instrument of deadly force. What man, so outnumbered, could face his enemy with such fearless equanimity, save one favored by the god himself? The Flamekeeper honored courageous deeds; he loved the fire that burned in the hearts of his dauntless sons. Perhaps he had marked this one for a place at his right hand. The scene in Broichan’s mind could not be destined to end in triumph for this fighter, not against such odds. The druid found that he was holding his breath, willing into being what could not happen. He made himself relax and pace his breathing once more, for if he lost control thus, he risked losing the vision entirely. It had been sent for a purpose. He must watch to the end, the bloody, inevitable end, and then hope he could make some sense of it.

  Alpin called back those who held the dogs straining on their ropes; he ordered those who bore spears to move up. The archers set new arrows to their strings, one, two, three, and four. Deord stood poised, fresh blood staining his clothing at shoulder, arm, and thigh.

  “Last chance,” Alpin called over the anticipatory voices of the hounds. “Give me what I need and I’ll give you the end a fighting man wants. Just tell me which direction, which track. They’ve found a bolthole somewhere, no doubt; the lady’s hardly up to running far in this terrain. Say it, and your death need not be protracted and painful. It need not be a thing of shame. North? East? Which way did they go?”

  “Bring on your dogs,” said Deord. “Bring on your spears. I’m ready for them.”

  Broichan found himself praying the end would be quick. It mattered little that the visions precipitated by the scrying mirror could show matters past, present, or future, or merely a symbolic representation of some inner truth. The immediacy of this was compelling. He sat immobile, willing the gods to deliver this warrior a swift and merciful ending.

  It was not to be. The odds were impossible; the man must know it. Nonetheless, he made of his last battle a thing of beauty, a poem of control and grace, his body moving faultlessly to his command in block and thrust and turn, in the calculated deployment of damaged limb and whole one to best advantage. It was like a great shout of courage; a celebration of what it was to be a man. It made Broichan’s heart stand still.

  In the end, of course, Deord could not prevail against so many. Failing to wear him down by their assaults with sword, spear, and knife, and seeing both dogs and men strewn in a torn and bloody circle around the furious, almost magical figure of the lone warrior, Alpin’s men took to arrows again, spiking their quarry so full of shafts that at last he began to slow, to stagger, weakened by the loss of blood. No missile had taken him in the heart, or in the eye; none on its own had delivered a death blow. Deord wore leather beneath his shirt, and he was expert at fluid dodging and ducking, even trapped as he was.

  It was a long time; too long. Broichan observed the paling of the fighter’s face; Deord was gray-white now, his body running with sweat, and his hands could barely grip his weapons. He saw the three wounds become seven, ten, twelve; he watched the blood run until the fellow’s clothing was all over scarlet. He saw Deord, at last, drop to one knee, wheezing; he saw the look in the warrior’s eyes, calm, eerily calm, and recognized in that sublime control something of the skill he himself had striven to achieve back in the first years of his druidic training. Such discipline. Such a marvel. The god must soon summon this favorite son to his side; must reward such perfect self-possession with highest honor in the place beyond death. It was as if the man would be burned away by the flame of his own impossible courage.

  At the end, Broichan could hardly bear to look, for the vision was both beautiful and harrowing beyond belief. Deord was down. He was spent, but he lived; the light of a fierce will shone in the tranquil eyes. Any of them could have taken him then but, oddly, the hunters stood back, apparently each hesitant to be responsible for the final, fatal blow. It was their leader, the chieftain named Alpin, who approached the fallen man after a period in which Broichan sensed an uneasy silence broken only by the faint, uneven rasp of Deord’s breathing. Then, overhead, birds began a conversation, an exchange of chirrups and whistles, and beside the fallen man Alpin took out a small, narrow-bladed knife.

  “I said you would beg before the end.” His tone was cold. “The end is not yet come. What part of your flesh is yet untouched? I need a memento: a trifle to take home with me, just in case anyone else in my household decides disobedience is in order. Goban, Mordec, get him upright. Come on, he can’t hurt you now, he’s done for. Erdig, Lutrin, see to our dead; put them on the horses and prepare for departure.” Two burly men-at-arms seized Deord on either side and heaved him to his feet. He made a valiant effort to shake them off, but they held firm, their hands and arms soon slick and dark with the wounded man’s blood.

  “No answers, then.” Alpin spoke quietly, his eyes on Deord’s. “You’re not just a traitor, you’re a fool. Some of my brother’s malady must have rubbed off on you. Well, no matter. I’ve lost my appetite for this. I’ll just make a little cut here”—his hands were at Deord’s groin, and Broichan winced—“and here, and take myself a small trophy, and we’ll be on our way. Thanks to you, a dangerous madman is at liberty in these woods. Thanks to you, a spy has slipped through my fingers. Thanks to you, I’ll be spending my wedding night alone. But tomorrow,” he raised his gruesome prize before Deord’s blanched face, “tomorrow I’ll hunt them down. Tomorrow the Gael will swing before my fortress gates. Tomorrow I’ll get a son on the wife who betrayed me with my own
brother. And tomorrow, when I find that killer Drustan, I’ll punish him as I should have done seven years ago: with death.”

  Deord had endured the mutilation without a sound: His features were those of a skull, shadow and bone. Broichan heard his hoarse whisper. “You’ll never find him. He will outpace you, outfly you, outwit you. My only regret is that he did not seize his chance sooner.”

  “Wretch!” Alpin’s fist came up, striking the other a jarring blow on the jaw. Deord’s head snapped sideways. “What must I do before your arrogant tongue begs for a merciful end? What?” He delivered a matching blow to the other side; blood trickled down Deord’s chin, red on white.

  “Merciful?” the warrior breathed, eyes steady on Alpin’s. “You don’t know … meaning of … mercy. As alien to you as … love … duty … courage …”

  Alpin’s knee came up, catching the captive between the legs, where blood already flowed from his crude surgery. Deord could not hold back a sudden, anguished exhalation of breath.

  “Beg!” Alpin shouted. “Grovel, you wretch! You are flesh and blood like the rest of us!” Another blow, this time with a boot. Deord bit back a cry. “Scream!” Alpin commanded. “Go on, let it out! Does this hurt? And this? And this?”

  With every fiber of his being, Broichan willed the gods’ intervention; with every scrap of breath he urged Bone Mother to step forward, to fold the warrior in her dark cloak of sweet oblivion and draw his spirit away. The druid prayed for the Flamekeeper to call, It is time. Bring my son home to me.

  The blows continued to fall, but there was no further sound from Deord, and after a little, Alpin seemed to tire of this pastime and drew back, his clothing spattered with blood. One of the other men spoke, perhaps asking if he should administer the final, the most merciful blow. But Alpin was mounting his horse; around him, those of his warriors who had survived this uneven combat had already loaded the bodies of their fallen comrades across their saddles and were ready for a somber departure.

  The two men who had been propping Deord upright let him go. He collapsed to the ground where he lay curled up on his side, a still heap of bloody rags. Broichan let out his breath; the gods, at last, had seen fit to take pity. At a word from their leader, the horsemen touched heels to their mounts and were gone through the forest. The sun was low over the crowns of dark pine and silver-barked birch; birds sang high, fluting songs as they flew in to rest in the branches.

  Broichan knew the vision was close to its natural end. He could feel it in his fingers and toes, in his back and neck, in the gradual return of his body to the clay form of everyday. He could not hold this much longer. As the images began to blur and darken in his mind, he saw movement where he had thought life extinct. The fallen man’s hand, reaching out, clawed into the dark litter of the forest floor. Deord’s eyes stared, half-blinded by pain, up beyond the canopy of green to the open sky. He rolled, struggling across the ground until he could prop himself, half-sitting, against a knot of roots that formed a low arch. He sprawled there like a discarded doll. His blood oozed and seeped and flowed from myriad wounds. The earth received it silently. The birds continued their song, an anthem to life, to beauty, to freedom, and Deord, dying, listened with eyes bright with pain, yet steady and calm. As the vision clouded and vanished, it came to Broichan that the warrior was waiting, but for what, he did not know. Maybe even this bravest of souls did not want to die alone.

  14

  THE POPPY DRAFT had hit Ana hard. As the day wore on she drifted over and over into uneasy slumber, her head awkwardly pillowed on the damp pack, to wake each time with a start, eyes full of confusion. At each new dawning of consciousness she seemed less willing to talk. Faolan watched over her as growing tension gnawed at his belly. Deord had not returned. Faolan did not want the death of a Breakstone survivor on his conscience; it had more than enough to carry already. The urge to go off searching was stronger with every passing moment as, outside their hiding place, the sun moved westward and somewhere a brave man put his life on the line for the sake of a pair of virtual strangers. Never mind that for Faolan to go after him was the last thing Deord would want. Faolan knew that if he did not act he would regret it to the end of his days.

  “If you want to go, just go,” Ana said with uncharacteristic crossness after he had gone outside and come back in for the twentieth time. She was lying prone, forearm up to shield her eyes, as if even the filtered light in the cavern hurt them.

  “I can’t,” he said flatly. “Go back to sleep. You’ll need all your strength in the morning.”

  There was a short silence.

  “I’m being a nuisance, aren’t I?” Her tone had changed. “I’m holding you back.”

  Faolan could not bring himself to contradict her, although their current predicament was hardly her fault.

  “Just go, Faolan, for pity’s sake. You’re making me feel even worse.”

  “My job is keeping you safe. Of course I can’t go.” He was wound tight as a harp string, every part of him on edge; his imagination was full of blood and death. Deord wasn’t coming back. He knew it. He wasn’t coming back unless someone went out searching and found him quickly, before Alpin made an end of him. Faolan tried to be still, to focus his attention on keeping Ana comfortable. Before long he got up again, compelled to check outside just one more time.

  The spray from the waterfall made it hard to get a clear view, but he did his best to scan hillsides, forest, lochan, searching for the least sign of anything unusual. There was only the green of the pines, the pale sheet of water, the bare, daunting peaks that rose to north and east. He judged from the sun’s position that the day was well advanced; if Alpin was still out hunting, he’d need to call it off soon to get his men home by dusk. There was enough time left for a rescue, but only just. And he couldn’t go. How could he leave Ana on her own?

  A sudden harsh sound above and behind him made Faolan start. His foot slipped on the rock ledge and he grasped at a clinging creeper, his heart thudding. Another craaa, and he saw the hooded crow perched on the slender branch of a tiny, stunted willow that had lodged its roots in an improbably small pocket of soil. The little tree’s slender leaves were silver with moisture. Above the hoodie, on a ledge, perched a larger bird, tawny gold-brown, its eye bright, its curved beak formidable. Its gaze was fixed on Faolan.

  “At last,” he muttered, relief surging through him for all his reservations. “Where in the name of all that’s holy have you been? Well, no matter. Ana’s there, in the cave … Gods, I’d better be right about you, and not be talking to some wild bird that’s decided to pay us a visit in passing. I need to get to Deord. You must guard her; keep her safe.”

  The hawk did not move. Its steady stare was disconcerting.

  “I haven’t told her,” Faolan added. “About you, I mean. Somehow she’ll need to be persuaded that this is acceptable; that birds are an adequate safeguard. That’s unless you plan to favor her with the truth.”

  No response, but when Faolan ducked his head and went back into the little cavern both hawk and hoodie flew in after him, coming to rest on either side, where the contours of the rock allowed precarious perches. The crossbill was already in Ana’s hands; even when sleeping she had held the creature cupped safely between her palms.

  “Ana,” Faolan said, squatting down beside her, “I’m going now. There are three birds here, see? You should be safe. I need to find Deord.”

  She looked perplexed. “Three … but …”

  “Crossbill, crow, hawk,” Faolan told her, watching as her eyes went to the largest of the birds and widened. “They all seem to be Drustan’s creatures. What wild bird’s going to come in here with us of its free will? That thing has a lethal beak and a good set of talons. He can defend you if need be.” He hoped it was true. “Stay in the cave and wait for me. I’ll be back before dark. Don’t go too near the edge.” He looked at her more closely. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly sorry.”

  “Go.”

  Her voice
was drowned by the falling water. He remembered Breaking Ford, where she must have believed she was all alone with the rushing river, alone in a world turned to madness.

  “Go, Faolan,” she said. “Find him while there’s still time.”

  IN THE EVENT, Faolan continued to follow the trail until far past the time when he needed to turn back to complete his journey by daylight. At last he found Deord in a small clearing, lying sprawled at the foot of a venerable oak. He seemed already dead. Blood had soaked his clothing and spilled to stain the earth in a wide circle around him. His limbs were slack against a tangle of roots. Moving closer, dropping to his knees beside the limp figure, Faolan heard the faint, rasping sound of Deord’s shallow breathing and saw, between the slits of his eyelids, the familiar stare of his calm eyes.

  “ … you … here?” Deord whispered. “Away … should … away.” Then, “No …” as Faolan made to move him to a better position, “ … no point …”

  Faolan cursed under his breath, running his eye expertly over what he could see of the fallen man’s wounds through the wreckage of his shredded clothing. Deord had taken many blows. An arrow, its shaft roughly broken off, was lodged deep in his arm; others lay snapped on the ground by his legs. There was evidence of a monumental struggle: bushes crushed, undergrowth trampled, the soil gouged out by the movement of booted feet and horses’ hooves. A spear lay in two pieces; a broken sword had been cast aside into the bushes. In the undergrowth Faolan spotted the inert forms of several hounds.

  He reached for the water flask he carried; put an arm around Deord’s shoulders and lifted him slightly. Deord’s skin was clammy; he smelled of blood and sweat. His breath caught in his throat as Faolan touched him.

  “Drink,” Faolan said, “just a sip. Good,” though nothing had gone down; Deord was beyond swallowing. “Now where’s your pack?” He found it, pulled out some kind of garment, spread it over Deord’s chest and shoulders.