Bard I (6 page)

Their ponies were of little help here. Often the Jutes had to dismount and lead them, hacking a way through the brush with their heavy, single-edged knives. Felimid heard the hounds baying as they plunged through the snow on his almost two-days-old scent. Behind the dogs, closer to Felimid, sounded the crackling and crashing of icy thickets. Then he came upon the straggler.

The man had hung his horse’s reins on a bush. He was pissing in clouds of steam, his back to the bard. Felimid felt an insane urge to creep upon him. drop a hand on his shoulder and shout in his ear. How he’d jump!

A more sober notion was to cut his throat; more sober, but just as mad. Although it would reduce the number of his enemies by one, it would infallibly betray him to the other ten. At present they didn’t know he had doubled back and was now behind them.

No. The harp Golden Singer was the weapon to use here. Her voice could bring laughter. sorrow or sleep upon men as Felimid chose. If he followed them until they stopped for a meal, and then played them the sleep strain, he could deprive them of their weapons and leave them to survive or perish, as they pleased.

Even if they Jived, they would have to turn back to the Isle of Thanet. Whatever befell, they would be no threat any longer to himself and Regan; and all done as neatly. without bloodshed, as a bard of Erin could wish.

It had entered the bard’s mind to do that very thing in Oisc’s burg itself, the night he and Regan escaped. With Golden Singer in his hands again, and his blood leaping with irresponsible joy, the temptation had been hard to resist. However, to harp enchanted sleep upon a burg of four hundred souls would be to waken magics better left undisturbed. And as each use of magic took its toll from the wielder, magic was not a weapon handled idly. But now Jutes had come into the forest, which was more Felimid’s realm than theirs, a realm where magic thrived, and they numbered one less than a dozen. But he must choose his time with care . . .

The hounds in the lead set up a sudden frenzied clamour. Felimid heard the raised voice of King Oisc himself. What? The bard had not reckoned that one would lead the hunt in person! He must be enraged indeed – or maybe he’d anticipated good sport!

‘By Wotan, I think we have them!’ Oisc shouted. Felimid smiled to himself. it was not a pleasant smile. The straggler finished at last. With no inkling that the man he hunted might have lobbed a snowball at the back of his neck and hit him. he went noisily to join his lord.

Felimid drew cautiously near. The Jutes gathered in a close throng about Oisc. Quietly, the bard climbed a tree. From his perch, he beheld the crag he and Regan had climbed the day before. Twice nine men’s height it towered, outlined overwhelmingly against the winter sky. He hadn’t thought it quite so close.

He peered downward, through the glittering branches. Oisc’s Jutes were gathered below the mouth of the cave, making noise enough to awaken the dead, let alone the living. King and king’s men had ranged themselves in a half-circle behind their belling hounds. Sword, spear and axe gleamed frostily in ready hands. Kisumola was there. Felimid espied him suddenly, well back from the rest. sitting on his pony with all the grace of a grain sack.

With a shout of anticipation, King Oisc himself beat aside his hounds to lead a rush up the rocky incline. Four of his hearth-companions followed. They plunged into the cave.

Felimid counted slowly to nine. A thunderous roar echoed from the cave-mouth. Yells of consternation followed the appalling sound. Jutes hurtled forth as if impelled. Two flung themselves from the broad rock ledge into the brush below; the others, including the king, fled down the path much, much faster than they had ascended.

A second mighty roar with a strange double resonance echoed after them. The beast that had made the sounds now shambled out on the ledge. It reared up, three yards high. The Jutes bellowed in shock.

Felimid nearly fell out of his tree. Unlike the king. he’d been expecting to sec a bear. but no such monster as this. Immense in shaggy height and breadth, it lumbered down the crag. Two fearsome heads snarled and slavered on its shoulders.

Two . . .

Kisumola gave one appalled, high shriek and tumbled from his horse. The bear was a sacred beast to his people. When hunger drove them to hunt it, as often happened in the far north of the world, they did so with solemn ritual and prayer. When they feasted on the bear’s body, they took care not to break one bone of its skeleton, which they placed intact in a cairn. Then they besought its spirit to bear them no ill-will and do them no harm, but instead to speak well of them to the gods. To the wizard. that shaggy embodiment of rage must have seemed like an angry god itself.

Oisc’s hounds met the monster with bared teeth. Oisc and his men did the same. Felimid, watching, relaxed in the crotch of his high tree-limb and dangled a leg. This was justice, if such a thing existed.

You roused him, King Oisc! Now deal with him!

A dog darted forward, to clench its fangs in the monster bear’s right paw. The rest ripped at its flanks. A Jutish warrior dashed in with spear lifted, to drive through the creature’s kidney. It entered a shaggy hip instead as the bear wheeled, ponderous but swift, swinging the dog on its paw through the frosty air. One set of grisly jaws closed on the dog’s spine, biting it in half. The bear shook off the fragment that still clung, and dealt the spearman a cuff that hurled him yards with a crushed head. Two more blows left and right destroyed two more of the hounds.

The Jutes surrounded the monster, slashing and thrusting. One aimed a decapitating stroke at the nearer head: he missed, and gashed open a hairy shoulder. Someone else cleft a murderous paw to the wrist. The monster bellowed in agony and rage, surged forward, caught the Jute in a savage clasp, rent him hideously with talons and teeth, then dropped the mangled corpse into the snow. At once it seized another Jute and served him the same way.

The hunters and their hounds drew back. One darted in from the rear to set hamstringing jaws in a mighty hind leg. The bear promptly sat on the hound, squashing him flat, a sight so comical that Felimid hooted with laughter. The monster knew something of tactics!

Now its enemies closed about it again. It whirled in a small circle, as though chasing the tail it did not have, striking with paws like maces as it turned. With ridiculous ease it stove chests, ripped bellies and shattered limbs. Felimid howled encouragement.

‘Hahahahaha! Take them, my beauty, my mighty one;

that’s it! Tear them. break them, spill their guts in the snow! Teach them to meddle where they aren’t wanted!’ King Oisc ducked a blow that would have torn the head from his body. His axe swung, splitting the bear from crotch to breastbone. The creature screamed from both scarlet throats; its entrails burst out like a nest of escaping snakes.

The King leaped back at once. A hurtling paw barely grazed him, and still it was enough to topple him senseless at the bear’s feet. Those of Oisc’s companions who were left attacked like berserks in his defence. One dragged Oisc from under the monster’s bloody, froth-dripping jaws while the rest guarded his retreat. Then they too backed away.

The bear tried to follow, stumbling in the coils of its intestines. It could not. Spilling gore, it collapsed among its victims.

The few survivors conferred about their lord. He seemed to live. They carried him almost directly beneath Felimid’s branchy perch. He reckoned they would not be back.

A space below the crag was trampled, flattened, black and red with blood. Remains of men and hounds lay scattered about. At the centre of this devastation sprawled the bear’s monstrous bulk, all crimson and brown. He’d done Felimid’s work for him, although more bloodily than the bard would have managed it.

Descending from his tree, he searched among the dead sea-wolves. They carried little in the way of supplies. These had been bundled on the ponies’ backs, and at sight of the roaring monster all the ponies had fled even faster than Kisumola the wizard. However, the bard’s nasty task did bring him a little oatmeal and bacon. Far better than that, several hunting spears lay abandoned on the snow. Felimid picked one up, to try it for balance and weight.

From behind him there sounded a blood-freezing growl. He jumped a foot in the air, turning about as he sprang, and came down facing the opposite way. The bear was not dead.

It came up, lurching, on three legs. The fourth, with its maimed paw, was held clear of the ground. The two terrible heads lifted high. Hate glared from both pairs of red eyes. The beast lumbered toward Felimid, spilt guts dragging beneath it, dead on its feet but refusing to die. The bard’s scalp tightened over his skull. He felt the hair on it lift. This was the thing that had left four survivors of all King Oisc’s band!

Terror produces nothing worth the having. Felimid stood his ground and threw the good broad-headed spear. It entered one foaming red mouth, severed the spine and came out below the base of the skull. Hot jaws snapped shut on the shaft, biting it through.

The bear was upon Felimid then, reaching with bloody forelegs to hold him fast. The bard hurled himself sideways. He felt the wind of one great paw and – aah! pain pain pain!—the claws of the other. It ripped the fur belt and tunic from his back. Furrows were torn slanting from shoulder to rib cage, above the shoulder-blade. Blood burst forth.

Felimid dragged Kincaid from his sheath. The great bear was failing, near to death. It had fallen to three feet again, and was turning with grim effort to face its last foe. Light of the worshipped Sun! What did it take to kill the thing?

Far more than to kill a man. Felimid’s sight was blurring; he reeled where he stood. Somehow he found the strength for a sudden leap and stroke which split the great bear’s second head to the eyes. Its three sound legs gave way. The two terrible heads sank low for the final time. It was dead in all truth now.

Felimid backed a few pace from it. He fell unsteadily to one knee. Doggedly he thrust Kincaid’s point into the snow, supporting himself by gripping the hilt with both hands. He would not die after all this! He had to stop his bleeding. He had to retain his senses. He would not faint of wounds now.

He would . . . not . . .

He did not. Somehow. he held to his consciousness.

He halted the bleeding by lying with his ripped back in the snow. Then he gathered the spears he wanted. and tucked under his arm the bag of food he had looted from men who no longer needed it. He carried the lot into the bear’s cave. Its tenant no longer needed it.

He returned to the carcass. He must be quick. Already the wolves were howling, and grey shapes gathered among the trees. He cut out the bear’s huge liver and carried it to the cave in a sack improvised from someone’s cloak.

As he reached the cave the second time, he had to crawl. He kindled a small fire with the rubbish in the monster’s den; the wolves were unlikely to brave it to attack him. Not when they had such a banquet spread for them at the base of the crag.

Of a certainty, he need fear Oisc no longer. If the King lived to return home, he’d go believing the two he had hunted were dead. He’d found Regan’s tracks, and Felimid’s, leading to this very cave, and found none emerging. He’d seen for himself what lived in the cave. He’d fought it. He must conclude the giant bear had slain them.

Felimid ate some of the bear’s raw bloody liver. He felt it giving him strength. His back hurt as though it had been branded, but at least he lived to feel it. He might have been lying beneath the bear’s huge bulk, suffering no pain at all.

He’d rest awhile, and eat again. When he felt able, he’d go to where Regan awaited him. She must be desperately worried that he’d come to harm. Well, and he was worried for her, but they would neither of them be the worse for that.

He shut his eyes.

THE FOREST OF ANDRED

S
OMEONE
WAS
WATCHING
HIM
.

The bard had suspected it for days; now he was certain. Some furtive presence, more sensed than seen or heard, had followed, lurked and spied for perhaps ten days. Who? Why? He very greatly wanted to know. His life and Regan’s might hang upon it.

Felimid mac Fal rubbed his long jaw, which Oat against his usual habits had been allowed to sprout a light reddish beard. The gesture showed that he was puzzled. Before him in the rain-soaked forest mould he saw the prints of bare feet, the size of a child eleven years old. Who would run barefoot in this place in winter? Some lost waif, wrong in the head? He’d scarcely be a dreadful or dangerous creature in himself, then. But he might be a spy for others who were.

‘Whichever, you’ve skulked after me this whole cursed unsuccessful day’s hunting, and I haven’t glimpsed you once– which establishes, and evidences, and confirms, that you’re cunning. You vanish into brush where a rabbit could scarce wriggle by. I’m fascinating, I know; but stranger, you are too interested for comfort.’

He retraced his steps thoughtfully through the drip­ ping woods. Rain had pelted all the previous night and most of that morning, turning to hail before it quit. Pale drops hung on every twig of the bare black trees. Leaf­ mould squelched and oozed about Felimid’s treading feet. His tattered cloak covered him with the scent and clinging embrace of wet wool, to his glum displeasure.

‘I’d rather have a brittle-cold winter than a sodden one,’ he thought. ‘The first kind at least can be pretty.’

For a while, in the solstice month, there had been snow and frost. Then had come bucketing sleety rain that turned the snow to slush, the earth to mire. It ceased only to give place to thin drizzle and mist for days at a time. Then it would return, hammering down. The hunting had been so bad that a man with less forest craft than Felimid would have starved. He’d survived, feeding himself and his companion, although they had both grown thinner.

The wilderness of oak, ash and thorn men called the Forest of Andred stretched all around him. He’d seen nothing else for three score days. This forest had existed as it now was before the Saxons had entered Britain . . . or Caesar’s legions had pressed ashore against Kentish resistance. . . or even the first iron-using Celts had set foot in the island. Long, long before. Those events covered a mere thousand years. Some individual trees had witnessed them all from seedlings. The forest itself was far older.