Lavondyss (Mythago Cycle) (43 page)

The horn was sounded for a third time, a single blast, long and mournful. The Tuthanach whirled their slings again. Scathach flung his heavy cloak aside. He carried a bronze-bladed spear and a heavy Saxon long sword, which he had won in forest combat some years before. Most of the Tuthanach had weapons of bone and polished stone.

From the direction of the river, from the woodland there, a rider trotted into view. He turned side-on to the enclosure and watched the low defensive wall as he walked steadily along the edge of the trees, a few paces in one direction, then the other. As the light grew so Tallis could see his armoured helmet, crested by a fan of spikes, and the dull leather of his breastplate. He wore short chequered breeches and a reddish tunic; on his legs, metalled boots; on his shoulders, a short cloak. It was an all-too familiar garb to Tallis. She stared at him, then glanced at Scathach and smiled. The raider’s spear rested across the pommel of his saddle, first light glinting on its long, polished blade.

Already Scathach was envying the look of the warrior by the trees.

After a few minutes of this silent contemplation the rider raised a curved horn to his lips and blew it three times.

‘This is it!’ Scathach shouted. Tallis felt her mouth go dry and her vision became suddenly intensely clear.

At once the canopy of the wood erupted into screeching birdlife, fleeing from the sudden disturbance below. Eight riders galloped from cover and came thudding across the
cleared land towards the settlement. As they rode they made gruff, barking sounds; not war cries, just encouragement to their horses. They carried spears and axes. Only two wore helmets; metal armour gleamed on some; mail coats rattled; for the most part they wore an odd, ungainly mix of leathers, mail and furs. Fair hair streamed and tattered cloaks billowed as they spread to ride around the earthwork wall. There was not much colour to this raiding band.

Tuthanach slingshot whizzed and whirred, and two of the horsemen fell back over the mounts’ haunches. Spears thudded into wood. Sharp, guttural cries accompanied the drum of hooves. The leader came towards the gate. His horse, a black stallion of large breadth, reared and stamped, the hooves striking down the gate.

He yelled once, kicked forward, and First-hog-of-summer ran to meet him. Slingshot missed and the rider’s sword arm slashed. First-hog was on his knees, hands to his throat. As Tallis ran towards him she thought, with idle horror, that he looked as if he was praying. The leader had turned, swung again and First-hog was sprawling on his side, head opened above the ear. His dark buckskins shone with blood. The crested helmet of the warrior gleamed in dawn sun and he turned and rode down on Tallis.

The sight of him made Tallis freeze. For a moment she thought it was Scathach himself who came towards her; her mind was full of the vision from the oak tree, of the young man, identically dressed, bleeding out his life …

The black stallion was almost on her. The bearded face of its rider grinned. He was leaning down, his spear arm back, the gleaming bronze blade wavering as it came towards her. She was pushed to one side. The blade sliced her hair. The horse whinnied, turned and rose above her, but Scathach was there, wrenching the spear’s shaft.
Raider and hunter tussled, strength against strength, the one pulling up, the other down.

Around her Tallis heard the strike of wood on wood; a scream; yells; the frantic barking of the dogs as they ran through the confusion of hooves and legs.

Blood splashed her face: Scathach’s. He was stumbling, the wound in his shoulder shallow but momentarily stunning. The point of the spear had slashed and caught him. As the red-tipped bronze blade continued round towards her, Tallis struck it out of line and reached for the booted leg of the rider, pushing up so that he fell over to the side.

He fell heavily. Tallis stood above him, spear aimed down, but a stone axe struck his head and his eyes dulled, his lips loosened. He sank slowly down on to his right shoulder. Scathach pushed her away, turning her in time to deflect the blow from another raider. A slingshot unseated this one and Scathach impaled him. When Tallis looked back at the leader he was slowly sitting up, reaching for his sword. Scathach walked quickly behind him. He used both hands and all his strength to swing his own sword and took the man’s head with a single blow.

The gate was up, pushed back into place by two of the Tuthanach women. The four riders who remained inside the compound were unsettled by the dogs, which ran among their horses causing them to buck and rear.

Tallis felt wind on her face as a stone whirred past. She dropped to a cautious crouch. One by one the riders fell, not without causing loss themselves: three of the villagers lay in their own gore, and one had been blinded by slingshot in the confusion of the raid. But whoever these men had been, they had not expected stone and stone had won the day against the metal of their more ferocious weaponry.

Now Scathach stripped the body of the leader. Tallis
leaned on her spear and watched him. He sniffed the breeches and wrinkled his nose. He tugged off the leather breastplate, then the tunic, and brushed at the blood. He removed the boots. He inspected the helmet, with its heavy crest and the circling ruff of fur around the rim; his blow had cut the ruff and damaged the cheek guard. But when he put it on, for a moment he looked like a prince.

He smiled at Tallis, then removed the helmet. He hefted the dead man’s sword, then strapped the scabbard to his waist, over his heavy furs.

When he came to Tallis, carrying the spoils, there was a strange look in his eyes; he had been fired by the bloody encounter. He was aware of her, but he was envisaging greater battles still. His breathing was almost the panting of a hunting dog. ‘This will be more suitable clothing for whatever lies to the north.’

‘It will be colder in the north.’

‘This is for battle, I mean.’ He raised the soldier’s clothes. ‘In the heat of battle I shan’t need fur leggings.’

The Tuthanach had gathered their dead. Wynne-Jones, leaning on the arm of a younger man, surveyed the corpses, which had been laid on their side, knees slightly bent, hands covering their faces. There was an unexpected and odd silence. No wailing, no beating of drums, no sobbing. The families gathered round in a circle, staring down at the remains of their menfolk. Even the dogs had fallen silent.

Tallis stared into the distance, where the sky was brightening, a beautiful iridescent blue, dark hued; the new day, and her last day here, she was sure of that now. Smoke from the burned rajathuks still coiled into the heavens. Tallis suddenly understood the eerie silence among the clan.

Wyn-rajathuk’s power was gone; there was no way to bury the dead. If they wished to bury them they would
have to summon Tig. Tig-en-cruig; Tig never-touch-woman, never-touch-earth.

He was the power now. He had stated so last night. Tallis, listening to the silence, realized that Wynne-Jones was whispering to Old-woman-who-sang-to-the-river. She was listening, her face grim. Then she flung back her head and closed her eyes. Her mouth opened and after a few moments a strange ululation sounded, a despairing cry, a death cry.

Wynne-Jones detached himself from the supporting arm and came over to Tallis. He looked down at Scathach’s armour, touched the small wound on his son’s shoulder, then looked into the young man’s face; he saw the distance there, the faraway look. Tallis asked him, ‘What will happen to these people now?’

Wyn shook his head, then glanced round at the circle of villagers and the wailing old woman. ‘They are calling for Tig. Before he comes we must be gone. If Tig orders my killing they will do it. I’ve told them that my power is finished. I’ve told them that Tig is the new guardian of the threshold. Whatever rituals he devises will be their rituals. Until he comes they have no idea what to do.’

Indeed, even as he spoke Tallis saw fleeting movement in the wood towards the hill. She thought it was Swimmer of Lakes for a moment, but her horse had already returned to open land and was quietly grazing to the east. This new movement was the boy.

He appeared on the grass. He held two tall staffs, one in each hand. His face was blackened, an echo of Morthen. Around his body were tied strips of greying cloth, and Tallis recognized the ragged shrouds of the decaying dead, before they were dismembered and burned. They hung on him loosely, like a tattered dress.

Tallis went into the long-house and gathered up her masks and Wynne-Jones’s few possessions. It was too late
to go to the shaman’s lodge and fetch his precious writings. Wynne-Jones stood as if in a daze. Scathach slung the clothing he had looted across one of the horses which still paced nervously in the enclosure. He calmed the animal, quickly inspected it, then led it to a second, checked this animal too for wounds and led it to Wynne-Jones.

He helped the old man climb into the saddle. At the last moment Wynne-Jones seemed to come alive. ‘My work. My journal …’

‘No time,’ Scathach said. ‘We have to get away.’

Tallis ran from the long-house, arms filled with furs, blankets, cord and sacks of oatmeal and barley. Scathach led the way to the gate, pulled it down again and mounted his own horse. He clattered over the wood, reaching for Tallis’s simple provisions. Tallis ran to Swimmer of Lakes and flung herself across its back, twisting into a sitting position and quickly flinging a simple rope harness around its neck. Tig took no notice of her. He was still motionless, standing at the edge of the wood, perhaps waiting for them to leave.

Old-woman-who-sang-to-the-river filled the dawn with her wailing and chanting. Scathach kicked his horse towards the river track, leading Wynne-Jones by the leather harness.

Wynne-Jones cried out, ‘My journal! My writing. Let me fetch my writing. There is no point, otherwise … my writing!’

‘No time,’ barked Scathach again. Tallis rode after them.

As she entered the wood, following the narrow track towards the water, she glanced back.

Tig was standing by the gate to the enclosure, staring in through the earth walls, his dream-filled mind on other things than the old shaman.

(i)

They finally reached the edge of the ancient lake late on the second day of their journey up the river, and in company they had not expected to attract.

They had not been able to travel fast, Wynne-Jones finding riding hard and requiring constant rests. He was very weak and his body trembled and broke into sweats whenever he tried to sleep. Scathach, impatient to get on, took note of Tallis’s cautionary wisdom. Wynne-Jones’s knowledge of the woodland realm was far too useful for them simply to abandon him and race furiously for the north.

Wynne-Jones cried – cried for the loss of his daughter, Morthen, and for the leaving of his manuscript in the primitive village of the Tuthanach. A lifetime’s work, he wailed, and Tallis soothed him. Scathach hunted and killed a wild pig. They cooked strips of its meat over a
fierce wood fire, but the old man’s appetite was small. He chewed and stared to the south, where his precious parchment sheets might even now be ash, blowing on the storm wind of the new shaman’s power.

It was during this first day of the journey that Tallis realized they were not the only travellers moving north, towards the marshlands. At first she thought of wolves as she listened to the furtive movement in the woods to each side of the river. Whatever it was, it journeyed in parallel, slightly behind the three riders. When Scathach ventured into the forest, all sound stopped. He emerged, shaken and slightly puzzled, long hair filled with leaves which he brushed away. He had seen nothing. Yet as they continued on through the shallows so birds wheeled about them in alarm, and creatures shifted in the undergrowth.

As she rode, Tallis unslung Skogen – the shadow of the forest – and placed the mask against her face, tying it, then covering her head with her woollen cowl. Now, as she cautiously peered behind, she began to see the shadows in the trees, the gaunt and sinewy shapes of the mythagos which followed them, darting from shadow place to shadow place. She kicked forward and whispered to Scathach, ‘They’re not wolves, they’re humans. Or human-like.’

Scathach turned in his saddle, scanned the skies through the tangle of branches which arched across the river. Wynne-Jones, slumped in the saddle, raised his head. Spears of light made his pale features glow. He sensed the movement all around, then saw Tallis’s mask covered features, recognized Skogen.

‘What can you see?’ he asked. ‘Are they green?’

The three of them rode to the bank of the river, dismounted, then slipped quickly through the underbrush. They found the ruins of a flint and pebble wall, all that remained of an old stronghold, perhaps, or the
defensive wall of a village; perhaps a tomb place, or shrine. Beyond the wall there was nothing but the wild-wood, a tangle of small oaks and patchy flowers, not yet destroyed by winter.

In the lee of this wall they crouched, horses tethered, weapons on the ground before them. Wynne-Jones constructed a fire and pushed cut fragments of the wild pig over the flames.