The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (61 page)

Then the starlight caught someone’s sword. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Eber telling the story of an old raid on the Picts, with some fanciful embellishments. Cahir smiled at the disbelieving snorts of the younger warriors.

A shout echoed across the darkened fields.

Instantly everyone was on their feet, as the cry came again, faint and distressed. Cahir was already reaching for his sword and bellowing orders when a horn blasted out. It was Ruarc, blowing desperately, again and again, before finally being silenced. Another sound came, an unearthly rumbling.

Cursing, Cahir fumbled with his sword-belt. There were no Romans for miles … How could anyone approach so fast? He ran to the edge of the firelight just as a blurred throng of stallions exploded into view from the darkened fields, long-legged Roman stock like his own captives. He desperately tried to visually disentangle riders from mounts. Wild hair, mottled furs, curling tattoos – perhaps seventy or eighty.

Picts
.

He must be dreaming … but as his sword came up, his back to his men, he heard the howl of fury emerge from his own throat. The Picts were close enough for Cahir’s hastily-assembled bowmen to shoot now, so, with wild screeches, the easterners threw themselves from horseback instead, and drew their swords.

The Dalriadans around him leaped forward, and both sides merged in a clash and plunge of arms. After the shock, Cahir’s blood resumed pumping and he ran in, enraged beyond all reason. Many of his men, caught half-asleep, had been cut down in the first rush. But the sides were evenly matched now, as they whirred swords about their heads in the way of the tribes, double-handed.

Coals and burning branches were scattered from the fires, and in moments the black figures all struggled against a backdrop of flaming tents and bushes. The faces of the men before Cahir were twisted masks of tattoos and bloody firelight, cut across by shadows. The self-inflicted wound on his arm had opened, and blood from it slickened his sword-hilt. He felt exposed without his mailshirt, his skin itching as if a thousand spears were poised to skewer his flanks.

Now he was backed up against the fire-pit, swinging his sword slowly around, waiting for the next man to come at him. Ardal and Mellan were fighting furiously with three of the enemy beneath an ash tree. At Cahir’s feet, piled in with a mound of Picts, Eber’s glassy eyes gazed up. He would not reach his wife’s thighs after all.

With a roar, Cahir lunged at the nearest Pict, but the man glanced at him and backed away, shouting. He tried again, pouncing at another warrior who also leaped far from his blade, looking fearfully over his shoulder to something behind him.

He whirled. A man was striding onwards towards him through the heaving knots of fighters with no glance to left or right, a long dagger in one hand and a naked sword in the other. He ploughed on through the mass of men, pausing only to cut down the Dalriadans who managed to throw themselves under the guard of Picts around him.

Gede.

Now Cahir understood that the real battle was here. Suddenly, Gede began running towards him, driving in hard and fast, and Cahir leaped to the side and lunged to block the blow. Their swords clashed, and across the blades he looked into Gede’s face and saw unveiled at last his true self. Hunger. Hatred.

They blocked, jabbed and staggered back, parrying between the fire and the flaming trees. In moments Cahir’s face was running with sweat: he had never fought anyone so swift and lithe. He renewed the attack, slashing and ducking, unwilling to be put on the defence. Chillingly, through it all, Gede’s expression never wavered, and he kept his sharp gaze on a place below Cahir’s chin, and went after it with unflinching determination. The hawk-eyes tattooed on those cheeks pierced him, the red beard a stabbing beak … Cahir tossed sweat from his eyes.
A man … he’s just a man
.

Sparks flew as one of the Dalriadans flung a Pict into a pile of flaming logs, and Cahir took the moment of inattention to target not Gede’s body but his hand. With a grunt, he caught Gede’s sword out of his fingers, and it fell amid the tree roots. For the first time, Gede’s eyes flickered.

Cahir circled him with teeth bared, but the Pict king made no move for other weapons beyond his dagger, though swords lay in tumbled piles at his feet. Then, out of nowhere, the brute Garnat came in for the attack. As Cahir swung to face him, from the corner of his eye he saw Gede dart in and grab his own blade at the base of the tree. As soon as it was in his hand, Garnat melted away, leaving the two kings alone once more amid the morass of heaving fighters. Gede lunged for him.

Parrying desperately, Cahir was forced to retreat again and again, until at last he tripped over a discarded helmet and stumbled. In that moment, frozen in time, Cahir saw how Gede fractionally shifted his grip lower, and in a flash realized what was coming – the same sword slash he’d seen Gede use on the Romans so many times.

So many times.

The memory poured into his mind: Gede on the battlefield dispatching the Roman soldier with that unexpected blow.
And here it comes
, Cahir’s mind thought from afar, with perfect clarity.
The impossible twist, mid-lunge, catching me off guard, then the plunge of the blade
.

He remembered it all, but, as Gede’s torso twisted on itself, Cahir could only stretch back like a bow string. He didn’t have time to move his feet, he couldn’t shift his body out of the way. All he could do was concave his chest, round his back and pull in his belly. Gede’s blade, which should have sunk deep into flesh, instead only parted cloth and sliced skin. Cahir felt the burning trail and cried out as he over-balanced, falling backwards to his haunches, stunned. Instantly, Gede recovered his surprise from the aborted swing, and turned to deliver a more triumphant blow.

He never got the chance.

‘The Boar! The Boar!’ came the cracked roar, and Ruarc came stumbling into the firelight from the shadows at the side, drenched in blood from a head wound, limping from a cut across the thigh. He threw himself at Gede a moment before the second lunge. The Pict king was knocked sideways to one knee, and Ruarc snarled as he unsteadily gripped both hands around his blade, going for his head. Wildly, Gede blocked the descending sword with his own, and as Ruarc poised there, bearing down like some gory, avenging god, Gede slashed up with the weapon hidden in his other hand. The long, wicked dagger ploughed straight into Ruarc’s unprotected belly to the hilt.

With a bellow of rage and grief, Cahir hurled himself from his knees while Gede’s dagger was still stuck inside Ruarc’s ribs. He stabbed under the Pict king’s arm beneath the mailshirt, Gede’s sword slipping from nerveless fingers while Cahir scrabbled furiously for Ruarc’s fallen blade. As Cahir’s head swooned queerly, he threw himself on top of Gede, the Pict king still stuck in the tangle of his own weapons, and drove the point into the hollow of his throat.

With all his weight, Cahir, King of Dalriada staked the king of the Picts to the ground.

As a wail went up from all the Pict warriors, Cahir found his legs going out from under him and he slumped to his buttocks with a distant, dizzy sense of surprise. Next to him Gede’s bloody face was already frozen in a rictus of shock and fury.

Everywhere the Picts were stumbling back from the fight now their king was dead, Garnat alone trying to reach Gede’s body. But he was dragged away by the surviving enemy, their war cries echoing from the hillslopes.

Strength was draining away from Cahir. He collapsed onto his side and watched the remaining Picts racing for the darkness.

Chapter 57

M
inna thought she was still dreaming.

But the whisper was repeated with feverish impatience, like a drum struck sharply beside her, dragging her back from Cahir’s smile.
Minna. Minna.

‘Minna!’

She opened one swollen eye a slit to the glow of the bonfires against the night sky and the black shapes of her captors dicing and drinking.

‘By the gods, wake up!’

She went rigid – she was being tricked; she must be.

An expulsion of breath sounded on the other side of the shelter, against the crumbling wall. ‘Tiger, I can see your eyes so I know you are awake. But don’t say anything; just stay still.’

She could not move anyway. She tried to moisten her dry throat to say his name, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Cian
. She said it inside, to make him real.

Hands reached through the screen of branches and a blade sawed at the rope. ‘I presume you want to get out of here,’ Cian murmured. ‘So no throwing your arms around me, no noise.’ He paused. ‘Please tell me you are better at escapes than last time.’

Minna nodded, so light-headed the flames danced before her eyes. Blood rushed to her unbound wrists, tingling painfully.

‘Then listen.’ Cian’s voice cracked. ‘ We’re going to slide around the wall into the shadows, past the waste pit, and push through the fence over there. Follow me closely, though, because there is a horse in the woods and we need to be off quickly. Understand?’

She groped through the gap in the shelter and found his warm, callused palm. Cian gripped her hand for the briefest moment before withdrawing his. ‘No time, Minna.’

After peering over his shoulder, he helped her through a hole he tore in the brush shelter. On hands and knees they crept around the corner of the wall. It was late, and the disorganized rabble by the fires were either arguing drunkenly or had already passed out. No one looked back.

Cian went ahead, pulling back a section of the thorn fence and sliding down the slope towards a dark bank of woods. At the edge of the thorn-brake, halfway down, he paused and dragged her into a crouch. Two soldiers on watch approached from opposite ends of the farmyard. As they met, one grunted, ‘Bloody idiots will bring the barbarian army down on us with a blaze that big.’

Cian waited until their footfalls faded, then, half-carrying Minna, he stumbled across the cleared ground into the woods. As soon as they reached the horse and Cian caught the reins, she sank to her knees in the soaking undergrowth and brought up the remains of the charred meat. It was brought on by terrible relief, swamping her.

He made no move to touch her, gazing down impassively as she shuddered. When she finished, he shoved a water flask at her and, after she drank, heaved her, shivering, onto the horse. He levered himself up before her and nudged the stallion into a walk.

At first Minna was dizzied by the rush of shadows and moonlight, the scents of leaf-mould and streams, the scratch of branches on her cheeks and huddled shoulders. But then her hand crept to her belly and was absorbed there.

Tentatively, she sent fingers of awareness inside, and was rewarded by the tiniest glimmer of soul-light, enough to draw her on from despair.

They rode through the hours of night, stopping every now and then to listen, peering cautiously ahead into the shadows and starlit clearings. Minna never asked him how he came to be there. All that mattered was that he was.

He was silent … she could sense no feeling in him … and so at last she simply pressed her cheek into his back, clinging on. Dully, she realized he was broader across the shoulders now, and the muscles under her cheek were taut and hard as iron. He was different. That was all her mind could cope with, before she closed her eyes with no thought except that she was safe.

At dawn Cian stopped in a clearing and lifted her down. She hobbled a little way, the bruises from the jab of lances still sore, her back aching. There was a hint of grey light in the sky through the trees, enough to see the mist wreathing the ground.

Enough to turn and absorb Cian’s face.

Weak though Minna was, she forgot all her own pain the moment she set eyes on his face, her gaze roaming over the dreadful hollows and protruding cheekbones. It was a gaunt skull sculpted by bruised eyes and grey skin. Cuts webbed his flesh, and his black hair was hacked brutally short. Slowly, her hand rose towards him, her fingers brushing his cheek. ‘Cian?’ she whispered.

He flinched at her touch but did not step back, his entire body quivering. But it was when she met his eyes that she saw the true loss of him, for they were haunted and glassy, as if he looked through her because he could not face her.

‘I heard of the Dalriadan witch when I came back to camp,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I did not believe it could be … but then I brought you the meat to find out.’ He dazedly touched her hair, fingering a matted tendril as if he had never seen the colour before. ‘They hurt you. You are bruised.’

She touched a long scar on his jaw. ‘You have your own wounds.’ It was as her palm held his cheek that she felt the storm raging in him, and suddenly her own pain and weariness simply faded. The eyes she turned up to him held sorrow, for what was marked in his face.

He gasped as he met them. ‘I have fought for so long … killed so many. I’ve tried …’ He stopped. ‘I wanted …’ It was terrible watching him, as if he were gagging on the words, unable to make any sense, or to think beyond pain.