Berserker (Omnibus) (56 page)

The hill bordering the water straits was steep, but not high, and he galloped in a winding path up the grassy slopes to the stiff and anxious patrol that waited for him. Their swords were drawn, their eyes wide in the dimness as they sought to identify this lone rider. The decurion finally sheathed his weapon and called, ‘The Horned Warrior! Fetch the Centurion!’

Swiftaxe discovered that the main detachment from Venta, and from several other garrisons in the east, had not yet arrived to swell the heavily depleted forces of Paulinus’s Legions. The war against the Ordovici had been very hard, and losses on both sides crippingly large, though the missives that had been dispatched to Rome had said nothing of the sort, of course.

Effectively, no one here knew that Swiftaxe had slaughtered a patrol of Romans and deserted; no one knew that he had been discovered conspiring
with Queen Boudicca. No one knew that in fact he was a greater danger to the Legion than were the druids who waited across the water.

He had arrived ahead of his own bad news.

He was grateful for that, for now he would not have to attempt to bluster his way back into the army, nor fight his way out of the camp and cross the water alone. But he knew that the troop from Venta was not far behind him, perhaps four days at the most, and that when they came then his own situation might be questioned rather too closely for comfort.

Smug in the knowledge – the Centurion had appraised him of the plan of action – that by the time the small force of men arrived the conquest of Mona would be complete, and he would be on his way elsewhere, Swiftaxe relaxed, and led his horse to the stabling rails.

He ate and drank, and cleaned his wounds and his flesh of dirt and blood. He changed his clothes, and polished his helmet, sitting apart from the suspicious legionaries in the camp.

The night advanced. He left the tent and walked through the camp to the highest ground that he could find so that he might look around at the full night scene.

This was just one camp among many. He could see the fires of six others burning on this edge of land for several miles; the northern coast fell sharply along most of its length, a difficult descent to the waters of the Mona Straits, and in places a narrow shelf of land at sea level could be dimly seen by the light of an outpost fire. The shapes of rafts and strange devices could be seen here, indistinct in the flickering yellow light; there was also much activity of men, still building and preparing for the invasion.

The waters were wide; there was talk of a few narrow places for an easier crossing when the tides were low, but the mud was deep and treacherous. There were no good fords across the straits, which were only a few hundred paces wide, but were impassable except by boat. And even boats were going to be difficult to handle in those tricky waters, as a small force of men had already discovered.

One hundred men had launched into the water in flat-bottomed rafts, beginning their journey as the tide had ebbed; the current had carried them fast, but they had rowed forward very hard and would have landed easily on the opposite shore, save that the tide had started to rise again!

The sea gods had saved this trap especially for the Romans, it seemed; Neptune could be heard laughing as he divided the flow of waters around the island of Mona so that one half of the tide came in from the western end of the straits, and the other half of the tide from the east, some minutes later. The rafts had become hopelessly difficult to control, had upturned in the sudden turbulence, and only twenty of the hundred men had been saved.
Half of the eighty who had escaped drowning had been carried to the Mona shores and set upon by hordes of screaming women.

Their heads now watched the Roman Legions from forty stakes on high ground across the water, sombre dark shapes against the starry skies. Their dismembered corpses had been strewn, naked and much carved with the symbols of evil spells, along the water’s edge. No man, then, could come ashore without stepping across the cursed remains of a countryman.

Not even a trained and hard-faced Roman legionary would be able to put that from his mind as he beached for the attack.

Mona was much in darkness, though fires burned in many places, and particularly around the heads of the killed Romans so that all through the night the gruesome sign of their earlier defeat would be there. Shapes moved in the darkness, running fleet and half-invisible through the trees and across the rocky slopes. At times, when the noisy wind ceased to sing in his ears, Swiftaxe could hear chanting voices raised in spell-song. He looked about the island but could see no vast shapes moving, no invoked gods manifesting.

But that would come.

There was movement behind him and he turned quickly, but saw only the night, only the star-shadows of trees and rocks, and the distant whites and greys of the tents, illuminated eerily by the night fires.

Shrugging the movement off, thinking it made by an animal, Swiftaxe sat on a boulder and caressed, for a moment, the ring that adorned his middle left-hand finger. He could see the stars reflected in it, and wondered about the power of this ring that could put him in touch with the dead.

He had hoped never to use the ring, to keep it only as a reminder of what had been, and what could never be again … those years as a child when he had hunted hare and dove in the magic valleys of the Coritani tribal lands, chasing over rocks and through thinly wooded glades … the months he had known Aithlenn the Hag, and had shared bright moments of laughter and magic with her …

It reminded him, too, of the scraps and mock duels he had fought with Bedivyg, his brother, as they had ridden their ponies out of the valley and explored a land that had seemed a hundred miles wide to their young minds, but had been just the rim of the country around the river, and the Wall of Llug that had protected their people.

All that was gone, now, and in the ring was his sole reminder of that special power his people had had, thanks to the guardian spirits of the rock caves, the Hags. How his people had despised them, those three old women. And yet how much they had depended on them! And when the goddess had decided it was time the play was ended, how swiftly his people had been absorbed back into the reality of flesh and bone and spilled blood.

He kissed the ring and held it close to his lips.

For a while he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, mindful of what Aithlenn had told him … her warning in the cave that final day.

But at last he found his courage, and called through the darkness of death, the bitter black crystal in the metal frame. ‘To the jade, Aithlenn. Your spirit to the crystal.’

At once the black jade began to glow with a fringe of yellow; Swiftaxe held the ring away from him, the hair on his neck prickling with the anticipation of what he would see. His eyes seemed to be drawn deep into the fabric of the crystal, as if he looked through a gate into another world, and helplessly followed the direction of his gaze.

Shapes moved there, strange shapes, hulking past, shambling and shuffling in the shadow land of death.

‘Aithlenn,’ he whispered. ‘To the jade. Your spirit to the crystal. Aithlenn. Where are you? Show yourself!’

A wind began to blow from the ring, the wind of winter, of death; it cooled his skin, and ruffled his hair. It carried with it the scent of decay, but this was no new smell to the Berserker, and he leaned closer, looking deeper into the dark world beyond the stone.

One of the shapes came forward, hooded head bowed as it approached the ring.

When it was so close to the window into Swiftaxe’s world that just its head was framed by the jade, the figure looked up, looked out, looked at Caylen Swiftaxe!

Death regarded him: a decaying skull, watching him through its orbless sockets; it grinned at him in that most humourless of smiles. Shrivelled flesh and tatters of muscle clung to the prominences of the bone, and things crawled among this rotting tissue, feeding to the last on the flesh that had been killed in the cave, so many years before. Wisps of grey hair blew from beneath the cowl, and when the corpse of Aithlenn drew back her covering, Swiftaxe saw the way the Roman sword had sliced through her skull, taking her life.

‘Why do you disturb me?’ asked the ghastly figure, its voice a hiss of air, the jaws parting slightly allowing Swiftaxe to see the squirming things in the vault of the mouth.

‘I am Caylen, the boy …’

‘I know you, Caylen, and I remember you. Even in this dark world of shadows, heartless through decay, mindless through putrefaction, even here I often think of you with fondness. Regard not my hideous features. Close your eyes I beg you. And tell me what you desire …’

Swiftaxe closed his eyes, but found his attention drawn back to the foul face that watched him from the jade; again his lids flickered open, again his eyes searched the dark sockets of the skull for some sign of the Hag he had known and been so fond of.

‘I still seek the key to the gateway in the stones. I am at Mona, the sanctuary of druids. But whom do I seek here? Which among all the thousands will help me?’

The figure was silent for a moment, and Swiftaxe heard the hissing of its breath. Then: ‘He is called Gryddan. Stand on the hill of the severed heads and turn to the east. A shallow valley is there, winding into the land of the druids, and at the head of the valley is a small settlement. Gryddan lives there, with another. He knows the key. Show him the ring, speak the calling spell, but with the jade covered. He will help you then. But be swift. The shadow of death threatens all who live there.’

‘I shall,’ said Swiftaxe, and touched the jade. ‘Aithlenn!’

‘What now?’

Swiftaxe shook his head, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes. A summer wind blew through his mind; Aithlenn’s laughter as he sprawled whilst in pursuit of a hare was loud in his ears; her touch on his grazed knees was so real, in memory, that his skin tingled. ‘Why darkness?’ he asked softly. ‘Why not a place of brightness and laughter? Why this shadow world? What did you do to deserve this?’

Aithlenn drew her cowl across her head, hiding her face. ‘I gave you the ring,’ she whispered quietly.

Swiftaxe was shocked. ‘Then I shall destroy it at once. I shall bury it in the earth, close to the goddess.’

‘Not yet,’ said the dead woman. ‘Not yet. Only when the time is right. It was my gift to you, and I did not give it without knowing the consequences. Only when the time is right must you destroy the ring.’

The vision of the dead faded, then, and the black jade twinkled in the starlight.

Swiftaxe rose to his feet and breathed deeply in the gloomy night.

A sword blade pricked blood from the back of his neck and he froze.

‘Kill me, or identify yourself,’ he said, with all the calm he could muster.

The deadly point was removed, but aware that it hovered very close to his head, Swiftaxe behaved carefully. He turned to face the man who had crept up behind him. He found himself facing Bedivyg, his own brother.

Neither man said a word. Bedivyg, in the stiff and gleaming armour and uniform of a Roman legionary, glared at his brother through dark, narrowed eyes. There was no flicker of a smile upon his face, no warmth, no sign that he still loved his brother.

The short, square-bladed sword he held slowly lowered, and finally he sheathed the weapon. He removed his helmet, shook out his blond hair, growing again after he had had it shaved in accordance with military regulations. It was the one aspect of his Celtic upbringing that he could not reject, though in every other way he had become a soldier of Rome.

He looked proud in his uniform. He looked elegant and strong. He looked … right. He held himself stiffly to attention, and he cradled his helmet in the crook of his arm rather than slinging it across his shoulder by the straps.

Swiftaxe grinned at him. ‘Every bit the follower of Nero. Do your own people mean nothing to you now, nothing at all?’

‘Of course,’ said Bedivyg quietly. ‘And when they are fully aware of the glory of the Roman Empire they will mean even more. I don’t believe in clinging to the muddy past, Caylen. I believe in progress, and as a Province of Rome our lands will flourish, will progress.’

Unable to resist the jibe, Caylen Swiftaxe sang a brief stanza of a song he and Bedivyg had often sung together as boys: ‘See the young Coritanian sell his sword for a passage to the sea coast, anxious to know what lies beyond the deep waters of his home; see the Coritanian warrior dressed in the green clothes of a wanderer, exploring the hills around his home, until he finally loses his way back.’

Bedivyg smirked as Swiftaxe finished the lament. Another sign of his British upbringing – he dared not interrupt a singer until the man had finished. ‘Your voice is as painful to the ear as ever.’

‘I care not,’ said Swiftaxe. ‘I still love you, Bedivyg, and I fear to see you lose your way so.’

‘I shall not lose my way, Caylen. My way is as clear and as straight as the
stone roads of my new people. You would do well to think seriously about committing yourself more fully to the cause of assimilation.’

‘Assimilation? You mean butchery and barbarism.’

Bedivyg shook his head. ‘I should kill you now. I know how little you care for Rome and how much you care for preventing the army subduing the tribes.’

Swiftaxe shrugged. ‘My main concern is freedom of a more personal nature. You must have ridden fast to arrive here so far ahead of the main troop.’

‘I did,’ said Bedivyg. ‘The main troop from the east will not arrive for two days yet, even though they walk ten hours in every day. But a small patrol of us came on ahead to bring news of Prasitagus’s death.’

‘Dead? Then now Boudicca is queen.’

‘In a sense. When she was taken back to the settlement at Venta she was flogged for her disobedience in leaving the garrison. Now she broods and it will not be long before she rises against the Legions. The word that the troop brings is that you must be killed immediately, for you have sided with the Queen. You are known as a traitor to Rome, and your head is in demand.’