‘They are warning me about something else,’ Urtha insisted. ‘Why else be in my dreams?’
‘I believe strongly in dreams,’ the huntress agreed, adding pointedly as she rubbed sleep from her eyes, ‘but I also believe that dreams break in unexpected ways. They don’t always signal the truth. Don’t anticipate trouble before you’ve reached the Hill.’
Urtha looked around him at the dark wood, then smiled at Ullanna. ‘You’re right. But may Quick Forest Father clear our track to that Hill, as you call it, and bring me there safely.’
And with that brief, concerned invocation, he hunkered down into his cloak, to stare silently at the fire until that last hour before dawn, when the first preparations for the next day’s journey would be made.
* * *
This is what it has come to. A king who exiled himself from his own land and is creeping back to his home as a beaten dog crawls back to the stink-pit behind its master’s house. How did it come to this? I couldn’t have made it any worse! No one has that much talent.
Oh, Aylamunda! Why did you listen to my dreams? Why didn’t you take a quern and knock some corn-sense into the chaff inside my head? I miss you so much. I will find where you lie and kiss you to the Beautiful Island. I promise you.
Forgive me for loving Ullanna. She saved my life. She will never be you. Cathabach would have me pinned down with hazel pegs in a shallow pool and drowned for loving her, but I know you would understand. Take the next step after a blow, strike back, worry about the shaking legs when there is no further threat. You were my battle cry. You always will be.
Why did I go in search of the shield of Diadara? What mad spring hare drove me to such springtime madness? Such quests are the quests of fools. I should not have left the stronghold on the whim of a druid’s henbane-scented ecstasy. I might have more easily found Dagda’s Cup, that great iron cauldron of rebirth, simmering with the souls of the chosen, ready to be plucked from the stew and returned to life. Sometimes I think I can smell the flavourings! Nightshade and rosehip, a son, a daughter, earth and stone …
* * *
‘Urtha? Are you dreaming?’
Ullanna had reached out to rest a hand on his arm. She looked concerned. ‘You’ve been murmuring and sighing.’
‘I was thinking of what I’ve wasted. The time, the lives. Look what I’ve come to: a king with a retinue of two critical men, one of them half druid; two capricious Otherworldly twins, the god-sons of Llew, not a god to take lightly, one chariot, four horses, one tent, cushions that apparently have an insufficiency of goose-down, and several stinking blankets.’ He turned to look at the woman and smiled as he saw her brow, raised and ready to object to her omission from the list. ‘Thank the healing hand of Nodons for you.’
‘At last,’ she joked. ‘I was about to give you a reason to invoke the hand of the healer. It’s not so bad. We’re not far from home…’ She sat up suddenly, shaking her head. ‘That sounds so strange, and yet so right. I begin to think of your country as my home. And I’ve hardly been there. Well, home is where you cross your spears against the door, as we say in Scythia.’
* * *
The wolf prowled, the warlord’s mastiffs howled, but the quick, grey interloper kept at his distance, and the king kept his dogs on the leash of his commanding voice. Maglerd and Gelard were old dogs, named for even older gods, and they knew enough to trust their master.
But they hated the lupine stink that occasionally carried on the air.
Soon it had gone, however, and the foedor made its way past the totem stones and grotesque wooden carvings of horses, slung from oak boughs, that marked the entrance, through this forest, to the land of the Coritani. Here loud-laughing, heavy drinking Vortingoros had once been High King, with fifteen chieftains paying him tribute. He had owned five bulls and a hundred horses; he made claim to a tenth part of a thousand cattle. The pig forage in his forest was so hearty that he could claim a fifth part of each sow slaughtered and that portion would feed the four hundred in his fort in a single feast.
Or so he liked to claim.
But Vortingoros, like his knights, had disappeared with the Desertion of the land, that blighting shadow. Only effigies in polished oak and elm had been left, crouching figures, fully armed, littering the valleys and the woodlands, each carved to resemble the man who had been drawn away by whatever gathering had culled the men of the Coritani.
* * *
Two days later Urtha led the small band between the towering effigies of boar, bull and crane, on their stork-thin legs, that rose above the winding road where it entered his own forested realm from the east. The river was close by. Sun-wheels, fashioned from willow and hazel, blocked the narrow paths. The chariot creaked and rattled over the rough ground, avoiding the obstacles, the two Cymbrii, carrying Nodons’ wheels, riding in front of it. The hounds sniffed and growled, aware that ahead of them, pulling back as they advanced, the scrawny wolf was still an insistent observer of their progress.
A day after that the whole character of the river changed. It felt heavier, more silent, its edges crowded and brooding with low hanging trees. The dogs were almost uncontrollable in their excitement. They tugged at the leash, nosing the undergrowth as if for the first time in ages they were in the presence of familiar scents.
The Cymbrii cantered through the woodland, following the maze of paths that led westwards. And eventually Conan came back, eyes bright, long hair filled with leaf matter.
‘There’s a plain ahead of us,’ he said with a teasing grin. ‘A hill rises on the other side of it, with some sort of structure on its top. A bit ramshackle, like an animal shelter. Does that mean anything at all to you?’
‘I think it might,’ Urtha replied.
Then Gwyrion returned from scouting, almost falling from his horse as he reined in, eyes wild, smile broad. ‘Ahead, by the river, is a place with tomb-mounds and tall stones, and secret groves, and a wolf crouching on top of the highest of the mounds, watching in this direction … does any of that mean anything at all to you?’
‘I think it does,’ Urtha said. ‘Lend me that horse, will you?’
Gwyrion dismounted happily. Urtha rode, bent low below the branches, until he came to the first of the groves. He reached out to touch the nearest of the tall grey stones that rose from their nests of briar; pressed on, through the clearings close to the rushing flow of Nantosuelta, until he saw the crouching wolf, black-cloaked and dark-haired, eyes glittering as it watched the king’s approach.
The wolf slowly stood, casting off the cloak.
‘You took your time,’ I called to Urtha. ‘I hope you’ve brought some good wine from the south.’
‘Merlin! I knew it was you. When did you start watching us?’
‘In that sea-fog. I’d been beginning to give up on you.’
‘Well, here I am. Home again.’
I ran down the slope of the tomb. Urtha dismounted and we met and embraced, relief making us laugh, lost for words.
‘Time to get things back to normal,’ he said quietly, then frowned as he saw the look on my face.
‘That will not be as easy as it sounds,’ I said to him, but he stopped me there, perhaps not willing to hear the worst until he had celebrated the best: the return.
CHAPTER TEN
Dark of the Moon
Urtha would not hear of riding on, past his own fortress, to the hidden valley of the exiles where Ambaros and the others had taken refuge. He stood at the edge of the woods, staring through the line of idols that marked this Ghostland territorial claim, out across the thicketed plain. He shouted insults at the enemy, very much in the manner of his own son a few days in the past, and called on Segomonas, the Mighty Victor, and Rigonemetis, King of the Sacred Groves, to turn the favours of the Crow and the Raven to his advantage, and away from those who now possessed the stronghold.
As his anger grew into rage, he swung his heavy body on to his new horse, my welcome gift to him, and entreated me to follow him, and the two
of us rode through the long grass towards the closed gates. No one from the fortress came out to challenge us, though we were certainly watched. When we came to the scatter of corpses he rode solemnly around each sprawling, twisted body. He didn’t know them all, and their faces were impossible to recognise now that the birds had feasted, but he spoke to each one, and reassured the fallen men that they would soon find ‘an earthen cloak’ with due ritual, song, and proper remembrance.
But not just yet, he apologised.
I asked him why he needed to leave these sad dead in the grass where they had fallen, but his answer was a grim smile and a curious look, as if to say: you, above all, should understand.
‘Those woods and groves are our home now; that is where we’ll camp, among our memories. The dead won’t mind.’
I hesitated to point out to the newly returned king that some of the dead amid whose tombs we would find shelter were probably among the enemy army. The time to explain would come when it was ready.
Urtha was saddened to learn of Ambaros’s dreadful wound. He sent the two Cymbrii to fetch him—they had attached Nodons’ wheels to a newly furbished chariot they had found in the evergroves, left there after Kymon’s failed assault—and the twins rose to the challenge with vigour, whipping the ponies so that they raced along the edge of the Plain of MaegCatha and were past Taurovinda before the Shadow Knights could emerge and confront them.
We now began the task of erecting a short palisade wall along the edge of the wood, with a single gate to the plain. This was a token, a signal to the occupants of the fortress that we were digging in for the duration. In due course, with more help, we would extend the wall and make more comfortable lodgings; but for the moment we pitched our single tent, open to the river, and dedicated it to Taranis, the Thunderer.
At the end of the first day, as dusk closed over the land and torches began to flare on the stepped walls of the fortress, Urtha led his two uthiin on horse out on to the plain and to the line of warning statues. They used ropes to haul the rough-hewn carvings down. Two at a time, ten were dragged about the plain at the gallop, cutting through the thistle and thorn, sweeping down the long grass before being returned to the evergroves and butchered.
The gates to Taurovinda remained closed against this defiance.
It was Urtha’s intention to make a pyre of them, to set a fire to the memory of Aylamunda. Scarred and silent, the wooden idols were nothing more than firewood, now.
Towards the end of the second day, sudden flights of birds to the west had us running for our weapons. A small band was approaching, cautiously and nervously. In the dusk, it was hard to make out their banners, but the sudden thunder of a golden-wheeled chariot, and a boy’s cry of delight, announced that the arrivals were Kymon and Munda, with the rest of the community from the camp of the exiles.
The children were in the chariot, with Conan, grinning and stripped to the waist, at the reins. He turned the ponies and swept through the gate in the rough wall, then through the trees. The horses snorted and sweated.
Kymon jumped down, wearing his short cloak and dagger. Munda in a swirling dress, her hair braided, rushed to where her father stood and jumped into his arms. She was taller than he remembered and the big man heaved and groaned as he kissed the top of her head.
‘When did you spring so high?’ he said to her. ‘And look at your brother!’
Kymon approached, his eyes glowing, but his demeanour tight with shame. Urtha put his arm round the boy’s shoulder.
‘I made a terrible mistake,’ Kymon said grimly.
‘Yes you did,’ his father agreed. Then he tugged the boy’s hair and grinned fiercely. ‘To be added to the world of mistakes we’ve all made in our lives, giving fighting fodder to the Good God’s cauldron! But we’ll learn from it, as we always do. Lord of Oak! I can’t believe how tall you’ve both grown. Your mother is pushing you to completion; she’s impatient to see the cycle renewed.’
‘What cycle?’ Kymon asked innocently, and Urtha laughed. I noticed that Munda was amused too. I wondered if the High Women had also sensed the Light of Foresight emerging in the girl, and had begun their gentle instruction accordingly.
The tents and enclosures were quickly erected. A flight of swans, beating east along the course of the river, had Ullanna jumping in her skins, ready for the hunt, but Urtha stifled her enthusiasm. Munda had been eyeing the raunchy Scythian with some curiosity and a little disdain. Now Urtha introduced her to his children.
This happened down at the edge of the river, in the belly of one of its more serpentine curves. It was not my business to interfere or pry in this private moment, but I watched from a distance, half expecting Kymon to remonstrate with his father, as Cathabach had done whilst they had waited for the fog to clear.
It was the girl who seemed troubled, however. She seemed to be shaking. After her initial exuberance, she appeared to have lost all jollity and could not meet her father’s eyes.
The smells of cooking and the appalling sound of singing from the retinue had come to invade the peace of this sacred place. If raiders surprised us now, we would be easy prey.
Ullanna left the family group, noticed me and came quickly over. She glanced at the fires and the festival and asked me why I was keeping so aloof.
‘Watching you,’ I answered truthfully. ‘Like everyone, I need to take the returns one step at a time.’
‘Munda reminds me of Niiv,’ the Scythian said, frowning slightly. ‘She neither likes me nor dislikes me. But she sees a shadow from me that disturbs her.’ Ullanna met my careful gaze. ‘She said: nothing is hidden. And as soon as she’d said those words, she drew away from me. What did she mean? Nothing is hidden?’
‘She has what the Hibernians call imbas forasnai. It means quite simply that she gets vivid glimpses of the future. The Light of Foresight. The talent is still raw in her, but she saw the killing field out there, on the plain, the bleaching bones left when her brother failed his first feat.’
‘Then what is it that is not hidden?’ the woman asked, crouching down before me. She was pale in the soft light of the moon, her marked face shadowed and concerned.
‘All women with this foresight use those words. It’s a tradition as ingrained as waking and sleeping. Nothing is hidden. Meaning: I can glimpse unborn days in my dreams! Munda has seen something about you that has made her uneasy.’
Ullanna pondered this, then asked, ‘What should I do? Persist with her? If she’s seen my death I’m not concerned. I’m not afraid to greet the eighth horse; I’m not afraid of riding the long-grass plain with my father and mother. If she has seen my death, should I ask her to tell me? I’d like her to be content with me, and not apprehensive.’
The ‘eighth horse’ was a fully harnessed horse without a rider. In Ullanna’s part of the world, the steed was led by the seven champions who came to collect the dead.
‘She’s lost a mother. You are not her mother. She must certainly be aware of the closeness between you and her father, though. She may be resentful. Why should it be more than that?’
‘It is more than that,’ Ullanna murmured. ‘She feels something else. I wish I knew what.’
And with a quick shrug of her shoulders, she stood and turned away.
* * *
Urtha posted two pickets at the edge of the wood, watching the dark fort, but the phantoms who occupied the hill would not come against us in this sacred ground, I was certain of that now.
After we’d eaten, Amalgaid the poet had declaimed a few verses in Urtha’s honour, then wittily and gently criticised the king’s son’s impetuous actions on the Plain of the Battle Crow before celebrating the valour of the men and women who had ridden under his banner. Now we huddled round the king to listen to his account of the journey to and from Makedonia. Kymon listened with the greatest interest, often glancing round at me quizzically and stating, ‘That’s not how Merlin told it.’
In our days in the camp of the exiles I had given a fairly honest accou
nt of what had happened.
Uncharacteristically, Urtha was underplaying his role in events. But as soon as he realised that Kymon was searching for some real meat and drink in the adventure, he summoned the spirit of the storyteller and the iron brightened, the horses broke into a sweat, and the air in the extended tent became crimson.
He spared no detail when it came to the combat between himself and his foster brother, Cunomaglos.
‘He had hidden among the great army, almost lost in the legions of men who were riding south, to the oracle at Delphi. But the hounds knew his stink. They followed him for days; I followed the hounds. Merlin was with me. One day Maglerd began to bark very loudly. A man turned in the saddle and looked at me. When a dog whimpers with fear, its face changes. When a man sees his death, his face becomes a fearful dog. The Dog Lord was a frightened skull, a man who saw not a brother coming towards him, but a determined flight of ravens. It cheered me to see it.
‘The warlord Brennos, who commanded this great host of men—a fine king, a fine leader—set the place for the combat at a narrow river, close to the sea. I was armed and advised by Cathabach here, Cunomaglos by the betraying Lexomodos. We exchanged the Three Unavoidable Embraces—you must always do that, Kymon…’
‘I know, father,’ the boy said. ‘For a past shared, for kind words shared, and for a future when we will ride side by side in Ghostland.’
‘Always. No matter what the grievance. You too, Munda, if you take up iron and shield against another for vengeance.’
‘I’ll remember,’ the girl whispered. ‘I doubt I’ll need iron, though. The horns of the moon will cut throats on my behalf.’
‘Will they, indeed?’ Urtha eyed her curiously for a moment, frowning, then continued: ‘First we fought with heavy stabbing spears and shields made of oak covered with calf skin, with studded bronze rims and animal-head bosses. After a morning’s striking at the bastard I was hungry, so I filled my belly with his raw flesh, then washed the blood from my mouth with fresh river water.’