The Exile (30 page)

"Ah," Ukko said. "Not good really. In fact you could say badly. I myself have a dreadful bite I sustained wrestling off a damned shoggy beast. That's the dead one, in case you are wondering, although he just looks like a dumb boy now. My companion, the erstwhile hero of our partnership, was unconscious the whole time. Something happened to him at the stones. I've been trying to get him as far away from them as possible but as you can see he's about three times my - ah no, you can't see can you. Well, you'll just have to take my word for it."

"Ahhh," the blind man said, as if that explained everything.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, I mean, you are obviously, ah, erm, hmm, well, blind. So I mean how could you know we were wounded? I mean... it isn't as if you can see or... well... can you?"

The old man smiled. It was a rather lopsided facial expression. Ukko doubted he even knew what a smile was supposed to look like so he didn't correct him. "I can smell the blood, lad. It's a pretty special smell. It's acrid, like iron coming out of the smith's smelting pot, only more alive."

"Remarkable," Ukko said.

"No more remarkable than being able to see blood... Come on then, lad, let's get you and your friend back to my hut, shall we, before night sets in. I've got some stuff you can use to tend to your wounds."

"Is there a village nearby?"

"Well, it ain't much of one any more. It used to be, maybe a score of years ago. I used to work the flint mines. They're long gone now of course. The whole place has been dying a slow death for years. Domnall's about the only one who gets any business done."

"Domnall?"

"He's a smith. He makes some mighty fine weapons, or so folk say. Warriors come from miles around for one of his creations. Even the Drune priests pay the dwarf a pretty penny."

"Dwarf, you say? Curiouser and curiouser. I might have to go pay old Domnall a visit, make acquaintances and all of that."

"Well, he isn't the friendliest of fellows," the blind man said cagily.

"Ah, but I am sure he'll be happy to see a kinsman."

"Aye, maybe you're right, lad."

Eighteen

Temper

Ukko nursed Sláine for the best part of three weeks, feeding him dubious delicacies like rat's liver and fried toad.

Sláine put up with it just as he put up with the dwarf bleeding him regularly.

"It's for your own good, Sláine. Trust me, I know what I am doing."

"I'm not so sure," Sláine said. He felt his strength slowly returning but for all that he still felt as weak as a newborn babe and he knew Ukko was taking advantage of that. The little rat was up to something, and it was almost certainly no good.

"It's the only way to be sure we get all of the poisons out of you, your warpishness. We don't want you coming over all funny again next time you are beside the dolmen, now do we?"

"I suppose not," Sláine said, grudgingly.

Sláine offered up his arm.

The dwarf drew the tip of his stabbing dirk to open up a fresh cut. The wound was shallow but bled freely, filling the tankard that Ukko held under it.

The dwarf disappeared a moment later.

Sláine stared around Blind Bran's hovel. It was simple. None of the furniture had any sharp edges and it was all within easy reach of the low wooden cot. There was an intricate piece of scrimshaw on the table beside the bed, an effigy of Carnun, the Horned God. The detail on the piece was exquisite. Sláine picked it up, turning it over in his hands. It was impossible to imagine a blind man capable of such craft.

"That piece has taken me three months," Bran said, pushing through the curtain. He didn't have his cane. He didn't need it in his own home. He had memorised the position of every bit of furniture and every ornament so that he could move around as confidently as any one with sight.

"It's beautiful," Sláine said, the surprise all too evident in his voice. He put the small statue back on the low table.

"Thank you."

The pair had sat together regularly, Blind Bran telling the story of his village. It was distressingly similar to the Brianna's tale. The Drunes had come with their perverted rituals demanding sacrifices, animal at first, and then young women, to sate the hunger of their wyrm god, Crom-Cruach. For every mile they had come south Sláine knew of a dozen similar tales. The land was being laid to waste by the depravities of these Drunes in the name of their false god. Nothing grew hereabouts. There hadn't been a bountiful harvest in over a score of years, perhaps even longer.

Slough Feg himself had driven the final nail into the coffin of this small, unimportant settlement, promising to solve their hunger and make food plentiful once more.

"We took him at his word," Blind Bran said. "I mean, why wouldn't we?"

"What happened?"

"He promised us that there would be an end to our hardship, that there would be food aplenty. All we had to do was bend the knee to Crom and our needs would be seen to."

"And were they?"

"Not in any humane way, warrior. The Drunes rounded up the young of the village, all under twenty summers, and butchered them."

"Soth!" Sláine said, realising even as he said it that he was beginning to sound more and more like the pesky dwarf.

"That was more than half of us. He laughed in my face as I challenged him. What are you upset about, miner? Now there is food enough for everyone! You should be happy. I have saved your life. That's what he said to me. He expected me to be happy that he had killed my friends, my son, and the future of our village. There are no children now. Our little place in the world is dying. None have the heart to bring new life into this wretched world. In that Feg and his vile wyrm god have been our damnation."

"I am sorry, Bran. I don't know what to tell you. I am here to prevent this fate befalling my people."

"Then I pray you succeed, Sláine, for the sake of the children."

"I cannot fail." It wasn't arrogance; it was a statement of fact. To fail was to damn the Sessair to the same fate that had befallen these nameless villages all throughout the Sourlands.

"I thought the same once. I was a proud man. I am not so proud today. I haven't always been this way, Sláine. It wasn't just my son they murdered that day, I died as well. This life is a half life. Feg took my eyes because I had the gall to challenge him. 'Perhaps being blind will help you see better', that's what he told me as the branding iron did its work. I remember it so vividly, my boy lying on the floor, this tiny broken thing, and all of the others piled up around him. I can't stop seeing the looks of betrayal on their faces. It's funny how the last thing I saw has stayed so fresh in my mind's eye, almost as if Feg trapped it there deliberately to taunt me. I wouldn't put it past the monster."

"He will pay," Sláine promised.

"I hope so lad, but I have long since past believing it will happen."

"I refuse to live in a world where it doesn't."

"Ah, then don't let Slough Feg hear you say that or he will twist your words and you will be the dead one lying on the stone slab as an offering to Crom."

"I'd like to see him try," Sláine said.

"Again?" Sláine grumbled, holding out his arm for Ukko to cut.

"This hurts me more than it does you, Sláine, believe me. I wish you'd just get better."

"I'm sure you do."

"Oh, I do. Believe me, I do. Nothing would please me more than to see you up and about and back to your old warpish ways."

"Well, of course you don't want me to croak here. I'm not an idiot. I know that stories about the great warped one, Sláine Mac Roth dying in a blind man's hovel won't get you a halfway decent meal in any inn we've been to, now will it?"

Ukko tied off the wound with a strip of cloth. The blood quickly soaked the rag a rich crimson.

"You wound me." Ukko grinned. "Hold your arm above your head, there's a good man. I think I might have cut a little deep this time."

Sláine raised his hand, scratching his ear.

"Good, keep it like that," Ukko said. "I'll be back in a while. Got to go see a man about a cow."

"From anyone else that would be an odd sentence."

"Ah, but I'm not anyone else," Ukko said, grinning as he backed out of the room. Sláine didn't like the look on the little sneak thief's face one bit.

Sláine waited for the outside door to close before he lowered his arm. He stood up. He walked over to the door. He pressed the bandage against his arm but it did little to staunch the bleeding. He stood there for a moment, counting to eleven before he cracked the door open an inch. Blood dripped, a few drops pattering around his feet as he peeked through the crack in time to see the dwarf skipping around the corner of a low longhouse fifty feet away. Ukko cradled the tankard of Sláine's freshly drained blood to his chest. Sláine shook his head. The better he got to know the dwarf the less he trusted the little runt. He was up to no good, of that Sláine was sure, and it had something to do with his blood.

There was only one way to find out. He followed Ukko.

Weak from his wounds and the constant bleeding, Sláine moved slowly, all too aware that the world was precariously balanced and wanted to roll away under him every third step. He kept close to the buildings as he walked. He used them for support when his legs threatened to undo him. The streets were empty, which was far from ideal. A few more people moving around would at least have offered something approximating cover. Still, beggars couldn't be choosers. He inched up to the corner and peered around it. Ukko was whistling and looking far too happy with himself as he ducked into a doorway. The sign above it was of a hammer and anvil.

Sláine crept closer, pressing up against the wall, beneath the window so that he might eavesdrop on the dwarf's clandestine business.

"Excellent," said a voice he didn't recognise. "More of the warped one's blood. This will temper War-Flame, making her the most fabled of my creations, worthy of the Lord Weird himself."

Sláine stiffened at the mention of Slough Feg. It took every ounce of restraint he had not to throw himself through the window and choke the life out of the two-timing double-dealing backstabbing dwarf. He seethed.

"Five bits I think we agreed." He heard the clink of coins being counted out and Ukko's strangled cough.

"I think you'll find it was nine, Domnall."

"Nine, nine, of course, yes. Never try to grift a grifter, eh? Nine bits it is."

Four more coins rattled out of the pouch and into Ukko's greedy hands.

"Sure you can't make it say thirty bits? I mean this is hero's blood, not some shoddy guttersnipe's. It's the good stuff. You said so yourself, Sláine's was the best blood you'd ever come across. Perfect for quenching swords."

"Did I? Well, it isn't bad but it is hardly perfect. It will do. It will be used to forge a mighty sword, the match of any ever wielded by giants, dwarf: a true hero's blade. Slough Feg will reward me greatly for War-Flame when I offer it up to him to wield."

"Soth!" Ukko exclaimed. "You mean the sword is for the horned priest? Sorry, I'll be needing that blood back, and much as it pains me to say it, you can have your coins."

"You think so? The way I see it you aren't in any kind of position to try and bargain. We struck an honest deal. I have upheld my side, and you have upheld yours. That's what we call business."

"You dirty rotten cheat. Give me that blood back or I'll set Sláine on you."

"Really? You don't think he'd have your guts for a hero harness for stealing his blood?"

Sláine didn't wait to hear anymore. He barged through the smithy door.

Ukko and Domnall, the smith, had each other by the throat. Both turned, furtively, to look at the door as he stormed in. Domnall let go first, dusting his hands off on his apron. They were standing beside a huge black iron block that the smith obviously used as an anvil to beat out the red hot metal.

"Sláine!" Ukko gulped. "I can explain! It isn't what it looks like."

"It looks like the smith is trying to throttle the life out of you," Sláine said coldly.

"Well, maybe it is what it looks like then."

"Welcome to Domnall's, armourer to the great warriors of old. What can I interest you in? A beautifully crafted gáe bolga perhaps? Or a razor-edged shield? Your companion here tells me you are one of the fabled warped ones. It would be an honour to craft the mightiest of hero harnesses for you."

"Have you been stealing my blood?" Sláine asked. He cracked his knuckles.

"A helmet, perhaps?" the smith went on, ignoring Sláine's question. "I guarantee anything I craft would make even the most timid of warriors strike fear into the hearts of their enemies."

"Women wear helmets," Sláine spat. "Now, I'll ask you again, have you been stealing my blood? Take your time and think about your answer, both of you. I'll try to ignore the coins in your hand, Ukko, and the tankard of blood in yours, smith, giving you the benefit of the doubt."

"Well," Ukko mumbled, looking down at his feet, "just a drop. Nothing you'd miss, and it was for your own good, Sláine. Domnall here's making you a sword, a hero's weapon tempered in-"

"Don't lie to me, you dirty little rat bastard. You've been bleeding me white for bloody coins!"

"I was going to give you a cut," Ukko said, and then realised what he had said and closed his eyes. "You know what I mean."

"Now's the perfect time to shut your mouth, Ukko, before it gets you in more trouble." Sláine rounded on Domnall. "And you, master smith, have been using my blood to temper a blade for the scum that murdered my mother. This stops now. I will have my blood back. Ukko will return your coins."

"Like I said to your friend, I think not. I bought this blood and now it is mine. It's business. Now, if you don't mind me saying, you look a little pale. Perhaps you should go and lie down?"

Sláine grabbed the iron ring on the side of the anvil and heaved, upending the huge block. Beneath it was a gaping black hole. He sent it bouncing across the floor of the smithy, cracking the stone wall.

"You shouldn't have done that," Domnall said, shaking his head. He moved with surprising speed, stepping back and grabbing a long iron poker from the forge's fire and swinging it around. Sláine barely managed to get his head out of the way but stumbled, his foot falling into the hole in the floor. "Now I've got no choice but to kill you and your damned fool friend."