“I would be sad if you did not,” Kereval said, smiling. The chief was white-haired now, and stooped, but he had lived long enough to see his bargain fulfilled and so he was happy.
Scathel intervened, “But we do not go back until the gold and the other treasures are returned.”
“My brother knows that,” Saban said and just then a warning shout made him turn round to see that six horsemen had appeared among the grave mounds to the south. All carried spears and had short Outfolk bows across their shoulders and all six were warriors who, long before, had marched to Ratharryn to help Lengar snatch the chieftainship. Their leader was Vakkal whose face had the gray ashen scars of Sarmennyn, but whose arms now boasted the blue scars of Ratharryn. He was a tall man with a harsh face and a short black beard that had a badger’s streak of white. He wore a leather tunic that was armoured with bronze strips, had a bronze sword at his waist and fox tails woven into his long plaited hair. He dismounted when he came to Kereval, then dropped to his knees in submission. “Lengar sends his greetings,” Vakkal told the chief.
“He follows you?” Kereval asked.
“He will come tomorrow,” Vakkal said, then stood aside as his five Outfolk warriors came to greet their chief. Saban saw how the folk of Ratharryn made way for the men, how they scuttled apart as if it was suddenly bad luck to be close to a spearman. Vakkal was gazing at Aurenna who, made uncomfortable by his stare, went to stand beside Saban. “I don’t know you,” Vakkal challenged Saban.
“We met once,” Saban said, “when you first came to Ratharryn.”
Vakkal smiled, though no pleasure showed in his eyes. “You are Saban,” he said, “Jegar’s killer.”
“And my friend!” Kereval said loudly.
“We are all friends,” Vakkal said, still looking at Saban.
“Does Lengar bring us the gold?” Scathel demanded.
“He does,” Vakkal said, at last looking away from Saban. “He brings the gold, and until he comes he asks only that you and your men be his honored guests.” He turned and gestured toward Ratharryn. “He says you are welcome to his home and that a feast will be made for you.”
“And we are to receive the gold?” Kereval asked eagerly.
“All of it,” Vakkal promised with a sincere smile, “all of it.”
Kereval fell to his knees in gratitude. He had sent a temple and kept faith with his god and the treasures would now be returned to his tribe. “Tomorrow,” he said happily, “tomorrow we shall take our gold and we can go home.”
Home, Saban thought, home. Tomorrow. It would all be over and he could go home.
Chapter 14
Ratharryn had grown. There were more than twice as many huts as when Saban had left, indeed there were so many that they now filled more than half the space inside the encircling wall, while a whole new settlement had been built beyond the embankment on the higher ground close to the wooden temple of Slaol. Yet the most startling change was that Lahanna’s temple had been replaced by a great round thatched building. “It used to be the temple,” Galeth told Saban, “only now it is Lengar’s hall.”
“His hall?” Saban was shocked. It seemed a terrible thing to transform a temple into a hall.
“Derrewyn worships Lahanna in Cathallo,” Galeth explained, “so Lengar decided to insult the goddess. He pulled down most of the poles, roofed it, and he now feasts here.” Galeth had led Saban through the soaring hut’s doorway into a cavernous interior much higher and larger than Kereval’s great building at Sarmennyn. A dozen of the Old Temple posts were left, only they now supported a high thatched roof that soared toward a hole at the peak where smoke could escape, though that vent was barely visible because the roof beams were hung with a multitude of spears and smoke – darkened skulls. “The spears and heads of his enemies,” Galeth told Saban in a hushed voice. “I do not like this place.”
Saban hated it and Lahanna, he thought, would surely want revenge for the desecration of her shrine. The hall was so large that all Kereval’s men, well over a hundred of them, could sleep on its rush-and bracken-strewn floor, and all ate there that night, feasting on pork, trout, pike, bread, sorrel, mushrooms, pears and blackberries. Saban and Aurenna ate in Galeth’s hut where they listened to tales of Lengar’s chieftainship. They heard stories of endless raids, of the slaughter of strangers, the enrichment of the warriors and the enslavement of countless folk from neighboring tribes, yet through it all, Galeth said, Cathallo had resisted. “All who hate Ratharryn,” he said, “befriend Cathallo.” So Cathallo and Ratharryn still fought, though it was Ratharryn who raided the deepest. No boy could now become a man in Ratharryn until he had brought back a head to add to the skulls in Lengar’s great hut. “It is not enough to survive the forest these days,” Galeth said, “a boy must also show his bravery in battle, and if he is thought a coward then he must spend a whole year dressed as a woman. He must squat to piss and fetch water with the slaves. Even their own mothers despise them!” He shook his head and made a keening noise.
“Yet Lengar is building the temple?” Aurenna asked, puzzled that a man who so loved war should make a temple that was supposed to bring a time of peace and happiness.
“It is a war temple!” Galeth said. “He claims Kenn and Slaol are one!”
“Kenn?” Aurenna asked.
“The god of war,” Saban explained.
“Slaol is Kenn, and Kenn is Slaol,” Galeth said, shaking his head. “But Lengar also says a great leader must have a great temple and he likes to boast that he has stolen a temple clean across the world.”
“Stolen?” Aurenna asked with a frown. “He is exchanging it for gold!”
“He is building it for his own glory,” Galeth said, “though there are rumors that the temple will never be finished.”
“What rumors?” Saban asked.
The old man rocked back and forth. The fire lit his gaunt face and threw his shadow on the underside of the roof’s thatch. “There have been omens,” he said quietly. “There are more outcasts than ever among the trees and they grow bold. Lengar led all his spearmen against them, but all they found were corpses hanging in trees. They say the outcasts are led by a dead chieftain and none of our spearmen dare confront them now, not unless a priest goes with them to make charms and spells.” Galeth’s wife Lidda, who was toothless and bent now, cried aloud and groped under her pelt to touch her groin. “Healthy children have died,” Galeth continued, “and lightning struck Arryn and Mai’s temple. One of its posts is all blackened and split!”
Lidda sighed. “Corpses were seen walking beyond the Sky Temple,” she moaned, “and they cast no shadows.”
“It isn’t a Sky Temple now,” Saban said bitterly. The airy lightness of the first stones had been stolen by Sarmennyn’s squat ring. It was not even a Temple of Shadows, but something belittled and inadequate.
“An ash was cut in the forests and it cried like a dying child!” Galeth said. “Though I did not hear it myself,” he added. “Axes are blunt before they are used.”
“The moon rose the color of blood,” Lidda carried on the lament, “and a badger killed a dog. A child was born with six fingers.”
“Some say” – Galeth lowered his voice and glanced warily at Aurenna – “that the Outfolk temple has brought ill fortune. And when Camaban came here in the spring he said the temple should be remade, that it was all wrong.”
“And Lengar disagreed?” Saban asked.
“Lengar says Camaban has gone mad,” Galeth said, “and that Slaol’s enemies are trying to prevent the temple’s completion. He called Camaban an enemy of Slaol! So Camaban went away.”
“And the priests?” Saban asked. “What do they say?”
“They say nothing. They fear Lengar. He killed one!”
“He killed a priest?” Saban asked, shocked.
“The priest tried to stop him turning Lahanna’s temple into a hut, so Lengar killed him.”
“And Neel?” Saban asked. “What did he do?”
; “Neel!” Galeth spat at the mention of the high priest’s name. “He’s nothing but a dog at Lengar’s heels.” Galeth turned to Aurenna. “You must go, lady, before Lengar returns.”
“Lengar will not touch me,” Aurenna said, using the language of Ratharryn that she had learned from Saban.
“We are here with warriors of Sarmennyn,” Saban explained, “and they will protect her.” He touched the nutshell beneath his tunic.
Galeth looked dubious at that assertion. “When my brother was chief,” he told Aurenna, “we were happy.”
“We were happy,” Lidda echoed.
“We lived in peace,” Galeth said, “or tried to. There was hunger, of course, there is always hunger, but my brother knew how to share food. But it has all changed, all changed.”
Next morning, under a cloudless sky and a warm sun, a hundred men slid the mother stone ashore and levered it onto a sledge that was harnessed to sixteen oxen. The beasts dragged the stone away from the river while Galeth took Saban and Aurenna to the Sky Temple and asked where the stone should be placed. It was Aurenna who decreed that it should stand on its own within the double ring and opposite the linteled gateway of the sun. That way, she said, the rising sun at midsummer would touch the mother stone as a symbol of the earth and sun united. There was no one else to make the decision so Galeth ordered a dozen men to make a hole where Aurenna had indicated.
Galeth watched as the turf was peeled back and the antler picks prised at the chalk beneath. “I can’t dig any more,” he told Saban. “My joints ache. I can’t even swing an axe now.”
“You’ve worked hard enough,” Saban said.
“If a man can’t work, a man shouldn’t eat, eh?” Galeth said, then turned to watch the oxen hauling the mother stone, which was so long that it overhung its sledge at both ends. Three of the smaller stones were following, their sledges being dragged by men. “All slaves,” Galeth told Saban. “Our spearmen raid constantly for slaves and food. We trade in slaves now and it makes Lengar rich.”
A horn sounded to the south. The noise was booming, but made tremulous by the warm autumn air. Saban looked inquiringly at Galeth, who nodded. “Your brother,” he said wearily.
Saban crossed the banks and ditch, going to Aurenna. He put an arm about her and placed his other hand on his son’s shoulder. The horn sounded again, and then there was a long silence. Saban watched the near crest that was broken by the humps of the graves. Farther off, blurred by the warm air, the distant horizon was dark with trees.
They waited, but still nothing showed on the crest. A wind lifted Aurenna’s long hair and rippled the grass, turning it pale and then dark again. Lallic was wriggling in her mother’s arms and Aurenna soothed the child. The men digging the hole for the mother stone had dropped their antler picks and were staring south. Even the oxen dragging the boulder were standing still, their heads low and their flanks bleeding from the goads. A hawk slid across the sacred path, its black shadow flicking sharp against the chalk banks.
“Is a bad man coming?” Leir asked his father.
Saban smiled. “It is your uncle,” he said, ruffling his son’s hair, “and you must treat him with respect.”
The ox horn sounded again, much louder and closer, and Leir, startled by the blast, jumped under Saban’s hand, though still nothing showed at the hill’s crest. Then the ox horn sounded a fourth time and a single man ran to the top of one of the grave mounds. He carried a long pole from which hung a standard of fox brushes and wolf tails. The standardbearer wore a cloak of an untrimmed wolf pelt and the wolf’s mask was perched on his head like a second face. He stood silhouetted against the sky and shook the standard and a heartbeat later the whole crest filled with men.
They had come in a long line, and if they meant to impress, they did. One moment the crest was empty, the next it was thronged with a battleline of spearmen, so many spearmen that Saban knew that he must be staring at the combined armies of Ratharryn and Drewenna. Their spears made a ragged hedge and their sudden shout frightened Lallic. It was a display of awesome power, only this army was not arrayed before an enemy, but in front of Lengar’s own home. Lengar must have known Cathallo would hear of this horde, and he wanted them to fear its power.
Lengar himself, tall and cloaked, spear in hand and with a sword at his belt, appeared at the center of his army. A dozen men, his war chiefs, surrounded him, while next to him, looking short and plump, was Kellan, chief of Drewenna and Lengar’s lackey. Lengar stood for an instant then beckoned his escorts forward.
“How are they all fed?” Aurenna wondered aloud.
“In summer it’s easy enough,” Saban said. “There are deer and pigs. More pigs than you can imagine. It is a fat country. In winter,” he went on, “you raid your neighbors.”
Lengar saw Saban and swerved toward him. The chief of Ratharryn was wearing his long leather tunic that was sewn with bronze strips, a woolen cloak hung from his shoulders and he carried a massive spear with a polished bronze blade. Strips of fox fur hung from the spear shaft and more were wound about his legs and arms. Eagle feathers had been woven into his hair that had been oiled so that it lay slicked back close to his skull reminding Saban of that far-off day when the stranger had died and Lengar had pursued him down to the settlement. The kill scars now stretched to cover the backs of Lengar’s hands and fingers, while the tattooed horns at his eyes gave his face a terrifying intensity. Saban felt Leir give an involuntary shudder and he patted the boy’s head reassuringly.
Lengar halted a few paces away. For a heartbeat or two he stared at Saban, then spoke derisively. “My little brother. I thought you would never dare come home.”
“Why should a man fear to come home?” Saban asked.
But Lengar was not listening to Saban. He was staring at Aurenna. She was still as tall and slender and straight-backed as on the day Saban had first met her, still a woman who could have drawn chieftains across the sea, and she met Lengar’s gaze calmly, while Lengar looked truly astonished as if he did not really believe his eyes. He kept staring at Aurenna, he stared from her head down to her feet, then back up again. “Is this Aurenna?” he asked.
“My wife, Aurenna,” Saban said, his arm still about her shoulders.
“Gundur told the truth,” Lengar said quietly.
“About what?” Saban asked.
Lengar still gazed at Aurenna. “About your woman, of course,” he answered brusquely. His war chiefs stood behind him like leashed hounds, all of them tall men with long spears, long cloaks, long plaited hair and long beards, and they too stared hungrily at the tall, fair-haired woman from Sarmennyn. Lengar at last forced himself to look away from Aurenna. “Your son?” he asked Saban, nodding toward Leir.
“He is called Leir, son of Saban, son of Hengall.”
“And that child is a daughter?” Lengar nodded at Lallic who was in Aurenna’s arms.
“She is called Lallic,” Saban said.
Lengar smiled derisively. “Only one son, Saban? I have seven!” He looked back at Aurenna. “I could give you many sons.”
“I am content with your brother’s son,” Aurenna said.
“My half-brother’s son,” Lengar said scornfully, “and if the boy dies your life would have been in vain. What use is a woman who whelps only one son? Would you keep a sow that littered only one piglet? And sons do die.” He still gazed at Aurenna, indeed he seemed incapable of looking anywhere else. He looked her up and down again, not bothering to hide his admiration. “Do you remember, Saban,” he asked, keeping his eyes on Aurenna, “how our father would always tell us to marry wide-rumped girls? Women are just like cattle, he used to say. The thin ones are not worth keeping. Yet you chose this woman. Perhaps you would have more sons if you followed Hengall’s advice?”
“I will take no other wife,” Saban said.
“You will do what you are told, brother,” Lengar said, “now that you are in Ratharryn.” He turned and pointed his spear to a new mound on the low crest. “That is Jeg
ar’s mound. You think I have forgotten him?”
“A man should remember his friends,” Saban said.
The spear was now pointing at Saban. “You owe Jegar’s family a death price. It will be many oxen, many pigs. I have promised them.”
“And you keep your promises?” Saban asked.
“You will keep this promise,” Lengar said, “or I will take something from you, brother, of great value.” He looked at Aurenna and forced a smile. “But we must not quarrel. This is a happy day! You have returned, you have brought the last stones and the temple will be completed!”
“And you will return the treasures to our tribe,” Aurenna said.
Lengar’s face twitched. He did not like being told what to do by a woman, but he nodded his assent. “I shall return the treasures,” he said curtly. “Is Kereval here?”
“He is in the settlement,” Saban said.
“Then we should not keep him waiting. Come!” Lengar held out his arm for Aurenna, but she refused to leave Saban’s side and Lengar pretended not to notice.
The spearmen streamed past Saban and Aurenna. “I think that we should go now,” Saban said. “Just walk away.”
Aurenna shook her head. “We are supposed to be here,” she said.
“Only because Camaban told us to come!” Saban protested. “And he’s gone! He’s fled! We should follow him.”
“Erek, Slaol, told us to be here. With or without Camaban, this is where I am supposed to be.” She turned to gaze at the stunted stones of the unfinished temple. “Slaol has been speaking to me ever more clearly in my dreams,” she said softly, “and he wants me here. That is why he spared my life, to bring me here.” Saban wanted to argue, but it was hopeless fighting against a god. He did not speak to any god in his dreams. Aurenna turned and frowned at the mass of spearmen walking toward the settlement. “Why does your brother need so many men?” she asked.