Stonehenge

by Bernard Cornwell

  “You think you will have peace?” Saban asked.

  “I think, brother, that Slaol will give us victory,” Camaban said, “and I think you will build me a temple and that your first job will be to pull out these stones.” He gestured at the pillars that had been brought across the sea to be sunk in Ratharryn’s turf. “They looked so splendid in Sarmennyn,” Camaban went on, frowning. “Do you remember? And you could feel the presence of Slaol. Brooding. Always there! Trapped in stone. Not here, though. Dead, that’s what they are here, dead!” He pushed at a stone, trying to topple it, but it was too well sunk in the ground. “They’ll all have to come out, all of them! How many men will you need to haul out the stones?”

  “Thirty?” Saban guessed. “Forty?”

  “You’ll need more than that,” Camaban said confidently. “And you’re going to need men and oxen to drag the new stones from Cathallo.” He fell silent, staring at the unfinished circles of stone. “I wish I did not have to fight,” he finally said, then turned to his brother. “Have you ever seen a battle between whole tribes?”

  “No.”

  “You should. Before it begins every man is a hero, but as soon as the arrows begin to fly half of them find they’ve got sprained ankles or upset bellies,” He smiled. “I think you will prove a hero, Saban.”

  “I thought I was to be a builder?”

  “A warrior first, a builder after,” Camaban said. “I would not go to battle without you, brother.”

  It had been a long time since Saban saw warriors ready themselves for battle, but next dawn he watched as men stripped themselves naked and daubed their bodies with a paste made from water and woad, then dipped their spear blades and arrowheads in a viscous mix of feces and herb juice. When the sun was at its height the spearmen danced about Mai and Arryn’s temple and a captive from Cathallo, who had been kept under guard ever since the last skirmish between the tribes, was dragged to the temple and slaughtered. Camaban was curious about that rite which Gundur told him had begun with Cathallo killing their captives before battle and so Lengar had ordered it done at Ratharryn as revenge. Haragg protested at the killing, but Gundur assured him it was no sacrifice and so the high priest held the skull pole as Gundur, naked and smeared blue, and with his hair blowing wild, took a bronze knife and slowly slit the man from crotch to breastbone. Ratharryn’s spearmen then dipped their right hands in the blood of the victim whose long dying scream had been a message to the gods that the tribe was going to battle.

  Saban did not dip his hand, nor did he dance about the temple poles as the drummers beat out a quick rhythm on their goatskin hoops. Instead he squatted beside Aurenna, who had watched the captive’s death unmoved. “You will win the battle,” she said. “I saw the victory in a dream.”

  “You have a lot of dreams these days,” he said sourly.

  “Because I am here,” Aurenna said, “where Slaol wants me to be.”

  “I wish we were going home with Lewydd,” Saban said. He had helped Lewydd drag the burned and shrunken bodies of Kereval and his men from the ashes of the hall. The corpses were to be buried high on the grassy slope above Slaol’s old temple and Lewydd would then take the gold back to Sarmennyn.

  “This is now my home,” Aurenna said. She watched the warriors crouch one by one over the eviscerated corpse. “All this was meant to be,” she said happily. “We did not know what Slaol intended when we came from Sarmennyn. We thought we were just bringing stones! But instead he wants us here to make his glory.”

  “So the last years were all wasted?” Saban asked bitterly. He had given the best years of his life to moving the stones from Sarmennyn, only to have them rejected as soon as the task was done.

  Aurenna shook her head. “The years were not wasted,” she said calmly. “They were given to Slaol, as proof that we could do great things for him, but now we must do more. Scathel’s temple was a place for killing, a temple like the Sea Temple, and our new shrine must be a temple of life.”

  Saban shuddered. “Derrewyn once prophesied that our temple would steam with blood. She said the sun bride would die there. She said you would die there.”

  Aurenna laughed softly. “Saban! Saban! Derrewyn is an enemy. She would hardly speak well of what we do. And there will be no blood. Haragg hates sacrifice! He detests it!” She touched his arm. “Trust us,” she urged him. “Slaol is inside us! I can feel him like a child in my belly.”

  Haragg was to accompany the war band. It was expected of the high priest, though Saban was surprised Haragg was so enthusiastic. “I have never liked killing,” the dour high priest confessed, “but war is different. If you had not offered them peace, Saban, I would be unhappy, but they have been given their chance and refused it, so now we must do Slaol’s duty.” Haragg was carrying the tribe’s skull pole that he took to Arryn and Mai’s temple where the warriors assembled. Camaban had donned one of Lengar’s old tunics with bronze strips sewn to its breast and at his side hung Lengar’s bronze sword. He had dipped his hand in the corpse’s blood, then smeared the blood on his tattooed face so that, with his black hair loose, he looked like a thing from a nightmare. He gestured for Haragg to lower the skull, then placed his bloody hand on the yellowed dome and shouted, “I swear on our ancestors’ souls that we shall destroy Cathallo!”

  Over two hundred warriors watched that solemn oath. Most were veterans of Lengar’s wars, a few were youngsters who had passed their ordeals but had not been tattooed as men for they had not yet killed in battle, while the wildest spearmen were the outlaws who had come from the forests with Camaban. “We march now and we shall reach Cathallo in tomorrow’s dawn,” Camaban cried, “and that is when we shall attack. And Slaol has spoken with me. He has always spoken with me. Even when I was a child he came to me, but now he speaks more clearly and he tells me we shall win a great victory! We shall conquer Cathallo! We shall kill many spearmen and take many prisoners. We shall end, for all time, the threat of Cathallo and your children will grow in a land at peace!”

  They cheered him and the tribe’s women added their shouts of approval, then the drummers beat on their skins and the war band followed Camaban north into the woods. They walked all afternoon and it was almost dark by the time they reached the marshes about Maden, but their path across the wet land was lit by a white high moon that glossed the streams and shone on the ghostly white skulls that Cathallo had planted at the edge of the wooded hills to deter Ratharryn’s spearmen. Camaban plucked a skull from its pole and threw it to the ground, then the rest of the war band followed him into the forest. Camaban’s outlaws, who were at home among the dark trees, went ahead as scouts, but found no enemy.

  It was slow going in the woods for the leaves obscured Lahanna’s light and the spearmen traveled cautiously. They stopped when they reached the highest ground and there waited through the chill night. Gundur and Vakkal were nervous, for Cathallo had never before allowed Ratharryn’s warriors to cross the marshes unchallenged: they were now deep in the enemy’s territory and they feared an ambush, but no arrows or spears came from the dark. In the past, Gundur said, Cathallo had forced Ratharryn’s warriors to fight their way into these hills where they were constantly ambushed by archers, but now the woods were empty, tempting every warrior to believe that Cathallo was ignorant of their coming. As dawn approached a mist sifted through the trees. Fox cubs scattered across a clearing as the advance resumed, and men took the presence of the cubs as a good omen for the beasts would surely never have left their dens if Cathallo’s warriors were lurking among the trees, but then, just as spirits were rising in hopes of an easy victory, a terrible roar made the men crouch and even Camaban’s striped face showed sudden fear. There was a trampling in the bushes, not quick like a deer’s movement, nor deliberate like a man’s, but something huge and ponderous that sounded out of the mist to make the whole war band shudder.

  The dreadful sound came closer. Saban had put an arrow on his bow’s string, though he doubted any flint head could damage some so
rcery from Cathallo, and then a monster appeared with a massive head crowned by spreading horns that twisted forward. Saban pulled the bowstring back, but did not release the arrow. It was no sorcery, nor a monster, but a bull aurochs twice the size of the largest ox Saban had ever seen: a creature of huge muscle, black hide, sharp horns and beady eyes. It stopped when it saw the men, swished its dung-encrusted tail, then pawed at the ground with a huge hoof before bellowing its challenge again. It raised its head and spittle streamed from a cavernous mouth. Its small eyes looked red in the misty light. For a heartbeat Saban thought the animal was going to charge the war band, then it swung away and pounded northward. “An omen!” Camaban said. “Follow it!”

  Saban had never seen Camaban so excited. His brother’s usual sardonic confidence had been replaced by a childish verve, born of a nervousness that made him boisterous and loud. In these same circumstances, Saban suspected, Lengar would have been silent, but the warriors still followed Camaban willingly enough. He might be dressed as a warrior, but the spearmen believed he was a sorcerer who could defeat Cathallo with spells rather than spears and the absence of any enemy in the woods had convinced them that his spells were working.

  The sun rose just after they reached the edge of the trees. The mist was white and damp, muffling the world. The men, who had been so confident in the night, were now assailed by nervousness. They had never pierced so deep into Cathallo’s territory and that achievement should have encouraged them, but the mist was frightening them for, once they passed beyond the trees, it seemed as though they walked through a white nothingness. At times the sun would show as a pale disc in the vapor, but then it would vanish again as the wet fog drifted thick again. Some men loosed arrows at shadows just beyond the eye’s reach, but no arrows came back and no wounded enemy cried aloud.

  “We should go back,” Gundur said.

  “Back?” Camaban asked. The blood on his face had dried to a cracking crust.

  Gundur gestured into the fog, suggesting that it was hopeless to continue, but just then a man at the left of the ragged war band came to an ancient grave mound, one that had been built as a long ridge instead of a round heap, and Camaban headed for it and gathered his spearmen in the tomb’s forecourt, which was cradled by a crescent of vast stones. “I know where we are,” Camaban told them. “Cathallo lies that way’ – he pointed into the mist – “and it is not far.”

  “Too far in this fog,” Gundur said, and the spearmen growled their agreement.

  “Then we shall let the fog thin a little,” Camaban said, “and harm the enemy while we wait.”

  He ordered a dozen men to heave aside two of the smaller stones from the crescent of great boulders and, when the slabs were gone, a dark tunnel lined with yet more stones was revealed. Camaban crawled into the tunnel, muttered a charm to protect his soul from the dead, and then began to hurl out bones and skulls. These were Cathallo’s ancestors, the spirits who would guard their descendants in any battle, and Camaban ordered the bones to be made into a pile at the foot of the tomb’s stone façade and then, one by one, the warriors climbed to the top of the ridge and pissed onto their enemies. The gesture restored their spirits so that they laughed and began to boast as they had the previous night.

  Saban was the last man to climb the mound. His bladder was empty and he feared the scorn of the war band, but then he looked north and saw another person climb out of the fog. The figure was a long way off and for a moment he felt terror, thinking it was a spirit who walked on the fog’s surface, then he understood it was someone who had just climbed the chalk-white Sacred Mound and was staring southward. The figure stared at Saban, who stared back. Was it Derrewyn? He thought it was her and he felt a sudden pang that she should be his enemy now. To his right, much farther off, the hills where the great stones lay emerged from the mist, but here there was just Derrewyn and Saban staring at each other across the silent white valley.

  “What is it?” Camaban called up to him.

  “Come here,” Saban said, and Camaban went round to the ridge’s flank and scrambled up its steep turf slope.

  The far figure dropped her cloak and began raising and lowering her arms. “Curses,” Camaban said, and he spat toward her.

  “Is it Derrewyn?” Saban asked.

  “Who else?” Camaban asked. Derrewyn was standing on Lahanna’s hill, summoning the goddess to hurt Cathallo’s enemies.

  Saban touched his groin. “So they know we’re coming?”

  “They brought the fog,” Camaban said, “hoping we would get lost in it. But we are not lost. I know the way from here.” He raised a fist to the distant figure, then dragged Saban down from the mound. “We follow a path north,” he said, “and the path goes through a wood, then crosses the stream before joining the sacred way.” And the sacred way would lead them into Cathallo’s shrine.

  The drenching of the bones had restored the war band’s spirits so they were now eager to follow Camaban north. He went fast, following a path that had been beaten into the grassland by countless feet. The path led gently downhill through a thick stand of oaks and, as the spearmen threaded the trees, a wind rustled the leaves and the same wind swirled the mist and thinned it so that Ratharryn’s leading warriors could see the sacred path across the small valley and there, waiting in a strong line by the gray boulders, was Cathallo’s army.

  Rallin, Cathallo’s chief, was waiting for them. He was ready. All Cathallo’s warriors were there, and not just Cathallo’s men, but also their allies, the spearmen from the tribes that hated Ratharryn because of Lengar’s raids. The enemy host filled the avenue and they gave a great shout as they saw Camaban’s men come from the oaks and then the mists thickened again and the two armies were hidden from each other.

  “They outnumber us,” Gundur said nervously.

  “They are as nervous as we are,” Camaban said, “but we have Slaol.”

  “They let us come this far because they would crush us here,” Gundur explained, “then follow our survivors back across the hills and slaughter us one by one.”

  “What they want,” Camaban agreed, “is a battle to end the war.”

  “They do,” Gundur said, “and they will win it. We should retreat!” He spoke fiercely and Vakkal nodded his agreement.

  “Slaol does not want us to retreat,” Camaban said. His eyes were bright with excitement. “All our enemies are gathered,” he said, “and Slaol wants us to destroy them.”

  “They are too many,” Gundur insisted.

  “There are never too many enemies to kill,” Camaban said. The spirit of Slaol was inside him and he was certain of victory, and so he shook his head at Gundur’s advice and drew his sword. “We shall fight,” he shouted, then his whole body shuddered as the god filled him with power. “We shall fight for Slaol,” he screamed, “and we shall win!”

  Chapter 16

  The mist shredded slowly, swirled by a fitful wind and reluctantly yielding to Slaol’s rising power. Two swans flew above the stream, their wing beats suddenly the loudest noise in a valley edged by two armies. The aurochs had long disappeared, gone, Saban assumed, into the deeper forests to the west, yet he clung to the belief that the beast’s appearance had been a good omen. Now every spearman in the opposing armies watched the swans, hoping they would turn toward their side, but the birds flew steadily on between the two forces to vanish in the eastern mists. “They have gone to the rising sun!” Camaban shouted. “It means Slaol is with us.”

  He could have been speaking to himself, for no one on Ratharryn’s side reacted to his shout. They were staring across the shallow valley to where the forces of Cathallo made a formidable line armed with spears, axes, bows, maces, clubs, adzes and swords. That battleline began near the small temple on the hill, followed the path of paired stones westward and then went on toward the Sacred Mound. On the low hills behind the battle line were groups of women and children who had come to watch their menfolk crush Ratharryn.

  “Four hundred men?” Mereth had
been counting and now spoke softly to Saban.

  “Not all men,” Saban said, “some are scarce boys.”

  “A boy can kill you with an arrow,” Mereth muttered. He was armed with one of his father’s precious bronze axes and looked formidable, for he had inherited Galeth’s height and broad chest, but Mereth was nervous, as was Saban. The men of both armies were nervous, all except the hardened warriors who dreamed of these moments. Those were the men about whom songs were sung, of whom tales were told in the long winter nights; they were the heroes of slaughter, fighters like Vakkal the Outlander who now strutted ahead of Camaban’s force to shout insults across the valley. He called the enemy worm dung, claimed their mothers were goitered goats, reviled them as children who wet their pelts at night and invited any two of them to come and fight him on the stream bank. Similar taunts and invitations were being shouted by Cathallo’s leading warriors. Hung with feathers and fox tails, their skins thick with kill marks, they strutted in bronze. Saban had once dreamed of being such a warrior, but he had become a maker instead of a destroyer and a man who felt caution, if not outright fear, at the sight of an enemy.

  “Spread out,” Gundur shouted at Ratharryn’s men. Gundur had not wanted to fight this morning, fearing that Cathallo and its allies were too numerous, but Camaban had taken him aside and Gundur’s confidence had been miraculously restored by whatever Camaban had told him, and he now tugged men into line. “Spread out!” he shouted. “Make a line! Don’t bunch like children! Spread out!”

  The war band reluctantly scattered along the edge of the oaks to make a line which, like the enemy’s line, was not continuous. Men stayed close to their kin or friends and there were wide gaps between the groups. The priests of both sides were out in front now, shaking bones and shrieking curses at the enemy. Haragg carried Ratharryn’s skull pole so that the ancestors could see what was being done in the thinning mist and Morthor, Cathallo’s blind high priest, carried a similar pole. He shook it so threateningly that Cathallo’s skull toppled clean off its staff, raising a cheer from Ratharryn’s men who reckoned the fall of the skull was an ominous sign for the enemy. Derrewyn was still on the Sacred Mound where, attended by a half-dozen spearmen, she was spitting more curses at Camaban. “I want the sorceress killed!” Camaban shouted at his army. “A gift of gold to the man who brings me the bitch’s head! I shall fill her skull with gold and give it all to the man who kills her!”