The Age of Scorpio (16 page)

The malformed axeman looked at Bress. The tall man’s nod was almost imperceptible. The axeman reached into the fire, his flesh blackening and blistering; sweat beaded his skin, teeth gritted, the pain written across his face. From the flame the axeman pulled a chalice of red gold. Inside the chalice was the same red metal heated to a molten state. The kneeling man was screaming and struggling, but the axeman held him with his other hand with ease. As Britha watched, the axeman’s burned hand started to heal itself in front of her.

The axeman brought the chalice to the captive’s mouth, who clamped it shut, but the molten metal surged out. The man screamed as it touched his face, and the metal crawled into his mouth, lighting it up through his skin. He dropped to the ground writhing and jerking. Britha watched the fire course through his body. Finally he lay still.

Britha had to force herself to look away. All attention was on the man who’d drunk from the chalice. Now was the time to move. She kept to the shadows. The night matched the blue of her skin as she willed herself to be nothing more than a shadow and moved as quickly as she could towards the skin hut. It was difficult to influence someone unseen and unknown but she kept her thoughts on Bress returning to the hut alone.

Britha waited. Her eyes adjusted much faster than she thought they would. But even before she could see, she knew that she was not alone. The skin hut did not feel empty. Her hearing, now seemingly more sensitive, like her other senses, picked up the sound of breathing. She smelled sweat on flesh, mixed with the scent of recently extinguished burning oil in braziers and some kind of incense. The smell of the sea, carried on the gentle night breeze, was the only reassuring scent.

Slowly she could pick detail out of the darkness. She saw the bent tree branches lashed together with leather to provide the framework for the hut. She saw the pallet with fresh ferns and a clean woollen blanket, the urns of wine and very little else.

They were asleep in the corner, piled on each other the way a dog or wolf pack sleeps. The way her people slept if they were caught out overnight during the winter months. It was difficult to make out what they were at once, to even recognise them as human, as children. They were hairless, pale, like they lived in the darkness. It took a moment to realise why. Their physiology was all wrong. These children were built like dogs. They looked like they could move at speed on all fours. Their finger- and toenails ended in sharp black claws. Their hands and feet were all red, marking them as creatures from the Otherworld.

One of them stirred as she watched. Yawned and opened his eyes. They were completely red. He looked straight at her and hissed. The others began to wake. Britha gripped her sickle but she had no stomach for this sickness. They began to move about, growling and hissing. She shrank back as one of them lunged at her. The thick chain around the creature’s neck brought her up short. The other end of the chain must have been buried deep in the sand.

Britha backed into the corner of the hut, into the deepest shadow. The pack of children was going mad. All Britha could hope for was that the noise would draw Bress in.

It was the axeman who appeared first.

‘Quiet!’ he shouted in a language Britha was sure she didn’t know but somehow understood all the same. His accent was similarly strange, his voice sounding like it was made for anger.

‘Stranger,’ one of the children said bestially, pointing into the corner. The fact that one of them had spoke just seemed to make it worse. The axeman turned towards her. Britha readied herself.

Bress ducked into the hut. The axeman was moving. For someone of such bulk he shifted with surprising speed. He was a blur as he grabbed two bronze blades from the front of his leather jerkin. Somehow she was moving faster. The point of her sickle headed straight towards Bress’s head. Bress just seemed to reach out and casually catch her wrist.

‘No,’ he said quietly. The axeman’s blade stopped against her skin. A drop of her blood ran down the surprisingly sharp bronze blade.

Britha knew she was going to die. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she took Bress with her. She kicked out, connecting solidly with his leg. He shifted slightly but showed no other sign of even feeling the blow. She struck out at the axeman, who cursed and grabbed for her other arm.

Suddenly she was lifted high, Bress’s fingers wrapped around her neck. She panicked. She could no longer taste the air. There was a sharp pain in her wrist and she felt the sickle tumble from her numb fingers. Bress pushed her down onto the pallet. She fought him, kicking, punching, scratching but never once screaming. His grip never faltered. Her nails drew red lines on his pale flesh, but the wounds quickly closed.

He loomed over her, holding her down, ignoring her attacks, staring down at her like he was confused, as if he was studying her. The pack was pulling at its chains in a frenzy as it tried to reach her to tear her apart. The axeman appeared at Bress’s side. He was drooling.

‘Let me hurt her,’ he demanded. ‘I’ll wear her head and make her talk.’

‘We’re about to be attacked,’ Bress said. Britha’s heart sank even as she fought on. ‘Take the pack outside, Ettin.’

‘What?!’

‘Now.’ He said it quietly, but even over the sound of her struggles his authority was unmistakable. The axeman glared at him but grabbed the pack’s chains, cuffed a few of the feistier ones hard and dragged them outside.

‘If I let you go will you calm down so we can talk?’ he asked calmly. Slowly Britha stopped fighting; finally she nodded. Bress relaxed his grip from around her throat. Britha dived for her sickle. Bress let her get her fingers round the grip and then kicked her so hard in the stomach that it lifted her off her feet and sent her flying across the hut. It wasn’t the pain of the blow. It was the momentary sensation that she would never be able to breathe again that frightened her, but again she was surprised by how quickly she recovered.

Britha swung at him. He swayed backwards; the curved blade just missed. Britha tried to bring the sickle up into his groin. It was the closest she had got to an expression out of him. Bress stepped back quickly, brought his palm down to block the blow and then cried out, more in surprise than pain, when the sickle bit hungrily into him, the point appearing through the back of his hand. Britha kicked him with all her might. He staggered back crying out, this time in pain, as the movement tore the blade out of his hand. Britha swung at his head. Bress stepped to the side and punched her. She felt sick and the ground seemed to fall away from her as the force of the blow lifted her off her feet. Bress walked quickly over to where she had fallen. Britha was trying to get up. Something in her head felt broken. Her vision was blurry. Bress stood on her hand. He knelt down, warding off her blows, and tore the sickle from her grip. Examined it.

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked quietly, turning to look at her. The deadness of his eyes aside, his beauty and the intensity of his stare caused Britha suddenly to find herself struggling to breathe for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t stop fighting, however. Bress flung the sickle into the corner of the hut and grabbed her around the neck, easily picking her up and laying her on the pallet again.

‘You can’t hurt me,’ he told her. ‘Talk to me, just talk to me.’ His voice remained quiet and calm, but Britha thought she could hear just the slightest hint of pleading in his voice. She stopped fighting, but decided that if there was to be rape she would not make it easy for him.

‘Let go of me. Now,’ she demanded. Cursing herself for giving in.

‘If you fight again I’ll have to kill you.’

Britha nodded. Bress let go. Britha sat up, rubbing her throat.

‘You’re here to kill me.’

It wasn’t a question so she didn’t bother to answer.

‘Why are you here? Why are you doing this to my people?’

‘Does it matter? There’s nothing you can do about it so you might as well resign yourself to it.’

‘You know that won’t happen.’

‘I don’t know anything. Your people will suffer more if they resist.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘Because I must.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I am nothing: less than a ghost, a servant, a mercenary, serving a god I do not believe in.’

‘Gods make slaves of people.’

Bress’s laughter was devoid of humour.

‘And people overestimate their importance in the scheme of things, but I cannot deny your words. What is your name?’

‘Britha. They say you will bring madness on the land.’

Suddenly all trace of humour was gone.

‘And who are “they”?’

‘The spirits on the night wind, the dead who speak to me in my dreams,’ she lied.

He stared at her suspiciously. Britha met his eyes. She didn’t like how they made her feel, but that feeling subsided as she remembered the pack.

‘What you’ve done here – despoiling, slaving – what you did to those children . . .’

‘Flesh is a tool, something to shape for the amusement of the gods.’

‘Do you not know this is wrong? Evil!’

‘Yes, I just don’t care.’ He wasn’t looking at her now. He was looking out through the entrance to the skin hut into the night beyond.

Britha stared at him. He just sounded tired and horribly alone. Britha cursed herself for her weakness, remembered the pack and forced down any feeling of sympathy. He was a monster from the Otherworld.

‘I have to kill you,’ she said almost involuntarily. He nodded.

‘Take your blade and go,’ he told her quietly. Britha stared at him. ‘Fight and die in the battle if you will, or run and live, but if you ever falter then never forget that I have done this to your people.’ He turned to look at her with his dead eyes. It was all Britha could do not to flee. Bress stood up and walked out into the night air. Britha didn’t move. Then the deep howl of the
carnyx
, the Cirig’s dog-headed brass war horn, filled the night air.

The
carnyx
had sounded at the last moment. The warriors had been, like Britha, painted blue as the night, and had slowly made their way on their bellies across the sand as close as they dared. These were
cateran
, professional soldiers. The spear-carrying landsmen waited in the dunes still.

With a gesture rather than the sounding of the
carnyx
, Feroth had sent the chariots onto the beach, each wood and wicker cart pulled by two ponies straining at their harness at full gallop, driven by a kneeling charioteer. Trying to close with the enemy as quickly as they could before they were noticed.

To Cruibne, the familiar beach was a blur beneath him as he crouched on one knee. Gone were the days when he would stand in a chariot – he didn’t feel so steady on his feet these days. He glanced to his right and saw Nechtan in his armour walking carefully out onto the yoke between the two horses – the chariot feat. The champion had his casting spears at the ready. Nechtan, like all the
cateran
, wore a wicker framework headdress designed to look like a dog’s skull covered with dog hide. Still, it would have been better if he had gone to battle skyclad like the rest of the
cateran
. Nechtan was lost to view when the chariots drove into a narrow channel in a spray of water.

Cruibne reached down to grab the boards of the chariot as it bounced back onto the wet sand. Ahead he could see the spearmen lying down. They had previously agreed lanes for the chariots to drive through. Ethne, who was the only person he trusted as his charioteer, expertly controlled the horses through the prostrate spearmen. Cruibne heard a scream, the sound whipped away from him by the speed of the chariot: someone had not been as accurate. Ahead he watched as the enemy, seemingly unhurried, arranged themselves into a tightly linked shield wall. Cruibne kept his mouth open – he didn’t want to break any teeth as the chariot bounced up and down – and shifted his grip on his casting spear. No shield wall ever stood against a chariot charge.

Behind him the dog-headed spearmen had got to their feet and were sprinting in behind the chariots. The
carnyx
sounded again and the spear-carrying landsmen poured out of the dunes and started their long run across the sand. The baying war dogs quickly outpaced them, the rags that had held their jaws closed had been removed.

As the cart bounced and juddered despite the smoothness of the sand, Cruibne watched as the wall of shields and spears got closer and closer.
They had to break. Everyone did.

Britha heard the
carnyx
sound again. The attack. Her tribe were about to throw themselves against these creatures and she had not done what she had said she would.

Britha ducked out of the hut. She had a moment to see the back of the shield wall and hear the hoof beats echoing across the beach. The man she had seen drinking from the chalice of molten metal was standing behind the shield wall with a few others. They didn’t have armour or spears but were carrying swords. They were for those who got through. Britha moved quickly towards him, not allowing herself to think that he was an innocent victim who had been forced into this by Bress’s magic. Britha jumped at him and cleaved the sickle into his neck, driving it down into his chest cavity. She stared at the wound, wet and red, appalled.
How can I have the strength for that?
The sickle felt hungry in her hand. As the man juddered and sank to the ground, Britha noticed that his entire hand was covered in the red-gold filigree – it looked like it had grown out of the pommel of his sword. Then the chariots hit.

They weren’t going to break. Ethne slewed the chariot to the side hard, showering the enemy shield wall in sand. Cruibne felt the cart start to turn over and held on for dear life, but Ethne was better than that, forcing the terrified ponies forward through the sand, their speed pulling the cart straight.

Others weren’t so lucky. Some tried, like Ethne, to turn at the last moment but lost control, sending ponies, cart and passengers tumbling sideways into the shield wall. Others, their charioteers unable to believe that the shield wall hadn’t run, ploughed straight into it in a screaming, tangled, tumbling collision of wood, metal, human and horseflesh.