The Dog and the Wolf (39 page)

Gratillonius stared into the spare, fork-bearded visage. “By Hercules, you’re right!”

Rufinus yelped a laugh. “I needn’t be. Here’s extra men for us, all fresh and hot. We’ll corner Niall, and with any luck we’ll bag the currach crews as well.”

Lightning sizzled through Gratillonius, It flashed the numbness and every hurt out of him. He went about calling for volunteers. “‘If you think you can fight one more fight, come with me. You’ll get a double share of booty. But if you can’t, stay here, and no disgrace to you. We’re mortal. No sense in dying, if you’re too tired to send a Scotian to hell. Look after your wounded friends. Pray for our victory.” That last was hypocritical, he could well imagine Rufinus’s lip twitch in amusement, but they expected it.

Evirion had debarked, fully armored, at the head of a formidable team of mariners. Cadoc insisted he was able to carry on. Was that a good omen, those two who had quarreled so much now side by side? The fishers newly come were at least a tough lot. Drusus, Bannon, men of theirs; Rufinus, and those of his who survived—About three to two this time, Gratillonius reckoned; but a fair part of his force was unbloodied, whereas the Scoti staggered along.

“You’d better stay, sir,” Rufinus said.

“No,” Gratillonius snapped. “What do you take me for?”

“You’ve fought as well as anybody. We need you alive.”

“I am damn well going to be in at the kill.” There to avenge Ys and Dahut. The eagle banner rippled on Riwal’s staff as Gratillonius led his troops downward.

Point Vanis shouldered off the wind. Mist eddied and smoked over the bay. It was cold and smelled of the deeps. The sun was a red smear out in the formlessness that crept across the skerries. Ruins and rubble hunched nearly as dark as the cliffs on either side. Waves tumbled and clashed. When they flowed off the beach, it gleamed wet until they assailed it again, higher each time. Eastward, night drained into the valley. That part of the sky was clear, purplish, moon ashy above the hills.

The Scoti had formed rank on the strand, as if hoping the sea would guard their backs for them. They were an indistinct mass where swords and spearheads glimmered. In fact, no vessel but their own nimble kind could reach them through the wreckage in the bay. However, a man could wade in the shallows.

Gratillonius stopped his followers out of earshot. “I’ll lead our main body at the center,” he said. “Let us get well engaged with them. Then you, Evirion, on the right, and you, Rufinus, on the left, take your men around and hit them on the flanks, and from behind if you can. We should be done before those boats get here. I daresay they’ll turn tail when they see, but we can try to grab some. Is this clear? Forward.”

He strode ahead at the Roman pace, sword in hand, shield held just below nose. His sandals smote earth. Grass brushed past his greaves. Mail rustled. Sweat chilled him as it dried, but he’d soon be back in action and warm. A vast calm had taken hold. It was his fate toward which he walked.

Something passed at the corner of vision. He heard a man at his back exclaim, and looked. His stride broke. His heart stumbled. Wings ghosted overhead. Great eyes caught the last daylight. It was a bird, an owl, an eagle owl.

No, Forsquilis was dead, she died with Ys, here was nothing more than a stray! Gratillonius told himself to be at ease. If this meant anything whatsoever, it betokened well, because Forsquilis had loved him. His spirit refused obedience. He went on with a high thin keening in his head.

But he must never show fear or doubt. His was to lead
the attack. He might even have the unbelievable luck that his was the sword to strike down Niall of the Nine Hostages.

The gilt helmet sheened through the twilight. He choked off an impulse to charge and continued at the drumbeat Roman pace.

A cry like a wildcat’s ripped from among the Scoti. Others took it up till it outrode the rushing of near waters, the booming of surf more distant. Steel shook against heaven.

Gratillonius and his men met it. Shield smashed on shield. He laid his weight behind, leaned against his enemy while his blade searched. A blade gonged off his helmet, skittered across his mail on the right side. He cut. He felt bone give beneath the edge. The barbarian yowled and lurched back. Gratillonius pressed inward. They were everywhere around him. No, here was a mailcoat, a man of his who grunted and thrust; there was another, near naked, but wielding a blacksmith’s hammer, and a skull split before it like a melon. He was in the water, everybody was, the tide lapped around his knees. The flanking assault had worked, the Scotic line was crumpled and crumbled. Niall’s banner went down. Rome’s hung over Gratillonius. The colors were lost in mist and murk, but men knew it for what it was.

The melee opened up. He spied Niall himself, waist deep. The foeman lord was alone, his nearest warriors slain, the rest swept from him into a millrace of slaughter. Two ragged shapes—Gauls, were they Osismii, were they Bacaudae?—closed in on him. He shouted. His sword leaped. A man was no more. The second tried to slip aside. Niall made a step through the tide and clove him.

“After me!” Gratillonius called. He slogged outward. The bottom was lumpy and shifty, the water surged and sucked, but he pushed on to meet Niall, and behind him was a score of avengers.

A curve of white, a drift of gold sprang in the waves. Even by this half-light, he knew that hair was gold, was amber, was a challenge to the sun that would turn it fragrant. Naked she swam, orca-swift, seal-beautiful, and her laughter lilted as he remembered it. She came about in a surge of foam, stood with her breasts bare—rosiness
had left their tips, they were moon-pallid—and held out her arms to him. Her face was heart-shaped, delicately sculptured, with full mouth and short nose and eyes enormous under blond brows. “Father,” she sang, “welcome home, father.”

The sword fell from his hand. The shield slatted loose on its shoulder strap. “Dahut,” he uttered amidst a roar throughout his world.

“Father, follow me, I love you.”

She kicked free of the bottom, straightened her slenderness, swam like a moonglade before him. He groped after her. “Dahut, wait!” he howled. This could not be. How had she outlived Ys? Yet every dear shape was there, head, smile, the little hands that had lain in his. “Dahut, come back!”

He did not see how the men behind him recoiled, stopped where they were, gaped and shivered. He fought his way on into the deepening water. She frolicked close by Niall. The Scotian hefted his sword and went to meet the Roman.

6

It is Dahut, flew through Niall, it was always Dahut, I knew but down underneath I dared not name her.

She streamed by him, supple as the water, white in the twilight. Her speed left a wake in the waves. The wet hair trailed like seaweed, but heavy and clinging to the back that once arched against his weight. Her glance crossed his. It smote into him. The bloodless lips parted in laughter. She rolled over. Light washed across her belly. Legs and one arm drove her onward. The uplifted arm beckoned to the man who raved behind.

She plunged and vanished. Niall wrenched his neck around. Yonder foe who had lost his wits wallowed ahead yet, wailing for her. He’d let go his weapon. She had chosen this prey, Niall thought awhirl. He knew not why, but it was her will, and here in Ys that they had slain together he was her slave. And a new killing should bring
him back to himself, make him able to save his last few men—somehow, with her aid.

He hefted his sword and went to meet the Roman.

Wings beat, soundless above the sounding breakers. He looked up. The span was great, an eagle owl’s. He glimpsed hooked beak and cruel claws. The eyes were glass bowls full of venom. The bird glided straight at him. It could flay his face and gouge his own eyes out.

Witchcraft was abroad. Niall took firmer grasp on his shield. As the owl swooped near, his blade swung.

He should have struck and flung down a bloody carcass. The iron bit into water. The owl veered. Feathers brushed him and he felt just spray off the waves. The owl swept around and came back. He saw the sword pass through. It was like slashing fog. The owl hit him. Nothing tore, but he was blinded. He dropped his shield and with his left hand batted uselessly at the thing that flapped about his head.

It was a wisp, a ghost. It could not strike him nor he it. But it could hold him here, harry him if he fled, keep him fumbling helpless till an enemy found him. “Dahut!” he cried.

She rose from below. The blindness slipped aside. He saw that she had caught the owl by the right wing. It struggled. Maybe it screamed unheard. Claws raked, beak slashed, left wing buffeted. No mark appeared on her white arms. She clung, her strength against its, and dragged it downward toward drowning.

Niall never thought to stand aside, until afterward. You helped a comrade in combat. He lunged. His foot caught on a submerged fragment of Ys. He tripped, splashed, went under. His body collided with Dahut’s. It was as solid as his, but even in the water he felt how cold.

Rising, he saw that the impact had jarred her and she had lost hold of the wing. Yet she had broken it. The lamed owl fluttered wildly athwart the moon, fell, was gone. He should have seen it sink, but didn’t. He thought it faded, thinned, became a drift of mist, and was there no more.

For an instant, Niall and Dahut confronted each other. Amazement shook him. Real, no trick of the eye but
moving flesh, she nonetheless had power to seize a phantom. Half ghost herself, she was.

Sharp teeth gleamed in a snarl that mocked a smile. She kissed him on the mouth. The cold of it burned. She dived. He had a glimpse of her writhing away like an eel.

Dazedly, he looked about him. The Roman soldier had vanished too. Maybe he’d come to his senses and returned to the men of his who roiled in the shallows. The sky was still pale overhead, Niall could see for many yards, well enough to know friend from foe. The enemy had broken ranks, withdrawn one by one from battle into bewilderment. The Mide men were farther out, in disarray but together.

Niall grew aware of shapes slipping inward from between stumps of wall where billows surged and broke. For a skipped heartbeat he supposed them a pack of sea demons. Then he recognized, and gladness lifted stark. Those were currachs of Ériu.

He had lost his shield but never his sword. He raised it on high. His voice crashed through the surf: “To me, lads! To your King! We’re going home!”

7

Rufinus guided his master shoreward. Gratillonius lurched as if blind. Rufinus held him tightly by the arm.

“Dahut,” Gratillonius sobbed. “The owl, what became of the owl?”

“Easy now, sir, we’re almost there,” Rufinus said.

Leaderless, terrified by what some of them had seen, the Armoricans milled on the beach in clumps or flattened themselves and moaned out prayers. The Hivernians could have taken advantage of it, but they were few, worn out, most likely also shaken by sight of a mermaid who fought with a bird of prey. Besides, leather boats were arriving to bear them off. The lean hulls rocked as warriors crawled aboard. Most needed help.

“It was Dahut,” said Gratillonius numbly. “But who was the owl?”

The tide washed dead men onto the strand.

8

Outside the bay, wind blew hard and waves ran mighty. Their dash around the headland, following a long day’s travel, had wearied rowers. Their craft overloaded with fugitives who could only stare emptily at sea and sky, they could not buck against the weather. At best they could keep a northwesterly heading. It bore them to the skerry grounds. Billows crashed and spurted across reefs. Rocks loomed. Riptides swirled between. The last daylight was fading, the moon was less than full, and the mistiness that had already swallowed sight of distances was here thickening from haze to fog.

Niall crouched in the bows of the lead currach and peered ahead. Wind whined, water brawled and hissed, spindrift blew sharp. His whole body ached and throbbed. “Sure and it was a bad thing that we came,” he confessed under his breath to his Gods. “There will be keening aplenty in Mide. I’m sorry, Lir. I should have left Ys to You.”

Something gleamed in the froth. A slim shape with a wondrous roundedness of breast and hip swam before him. She waved, she summoned, her song mingled with the wind. Follow me, follow me.

“You will guide us?” he whispered out of the maze wherein he wandered.

Follow me, follow me.

Fresh joy leaped forth. He rose, balanced himself against roll and pitch and yaw, gave his tattered cloak to the nearest man and said, “Lash this to a spear for my banner.” His helmet, too, caught the last wan light. He would be the beacon for his handful of boats, while Dahut led them through rocks and shoals to open sea. “Follow me, follow me!” he shouted.

A vessel hove in view from behind Point Vanis. She was plank-built, bigger than any currach, an Ysan fisherman. Steel agleam crowded her deck. The black hull swung
about on oars till the eyes at the prow found the wayfarers from Ériu. A sail flapped up on her yard, filled, and drove her swiftly ahead.

9

“Skipper, ye’re daft!” Usun protested. “Into yon hell, strong wind, high tide, night falling and fog rolling in ’gainst every law o’ nature—nay!”

“Aye,” said Maeloch. “Daft ’ud be to let him go free and work more harm on our folk.”

“How can ye tell he be there?”

Maeloch pointed. Through the dusk and brume, across half a mile, a helmet glinted like a star. “Who else? From what we’ve heard, he’d be the last o’ the lot to fall, and ’twould be on a heap o’ slain. But the pirates ha’ taken off such as lived at the bay. He’d be in the lead, cutting his way through and bringing; them back to their lairs. Sure as death he would.”

“But—”

Maeloch slapped Usun’s back. “Brace up, man. We can overhaul them well ere full dark. The moon’ll help. They’ll nay be far inside the skerry grounds—which we know like the way to our women’s beds, and they nay at all. I think the rocks will catch most ere ever we can. As for the rest, we’ve bowmen and slingers, we’ve a good stout forefoot to ram with, and our rail’s too high for them to beswarm. Ha, they’ve been given into our hands. Ye wouldn’t scorn the gift, would ye?”