Warriors of Ethandun (19 page)

‘Please, don't hurt me!' It was the boy. He had put up his hand to defend himself and was trembling with fear –
his voice a frightened squeak. ‘I picked up your sword and cleaned it and my mother asks you to take this cloak and shirt.'

The boy swallowed hard and Dan checked himself to make sure that he had not begun to transform again. His hands looked normal, if rather blue.

‘We are grateful. You saved us. We know that – it was just …'

‘Don't worry,' Dan said. ‘I am frightened too. I don't want to be a bear.' That was true. This new gift was more frightening than anything that had gone before. It was worse than hearing other people's thoughts. Dan had to fight back tears and he did not want this boy to know of his weakness.

‘I am a man and I am sorry that you had to see what I did – how I fought. I am ashamed of that. Battle is terrible and it turns men into beasts – inside.' He shrugged. ‘I did not expect to be a beast on the outside too.'

‘You were brave,' the boy said hesitantly.

‘So were you,' Dan answered, with a smile which felt fake even though he meant it.

‘I didn't have to do anything – they all ran away when … when you did what you did.'

Dan nodded. ‘I am glad you did not have to do anything. It is a terrible thing to kill another person.'

‘But sometimes it has to be done – doesn't it?' the boy said. Dan splashed icy water on his face.

‘I don't know any more. I always thought I fought on the side of good, but all the killing … it has turned me into someone else, something else – a monster.'

‘I am glad,' the boy said. ‘If you hadn't been a bigger monster than them, I would be dead. They would have taken my mother and sister and killed us all.' He hooked the clean, dry garments on the branch of an overhanging tree along with a piece of rough cloth for Dan to dry himself.

‘Thank you,' Dan said. ‘You should probably know that King Aelfred is gathering an army to take back his lands from the Danes and to take back his throne from his nephew. There will be messengers, I'm sure … Think hard before you join him.'

The boy shook his head. ‘I have to fight. I have to fight to keep the farm, to keep the others safe. There isn't anything to think about.'

He ran back the way he'd come and Dan was left wishing he could be as certain. He had lost count of the men he'd killed in his journeys through the Veil and that could not be a good thing. Perhaps each death had made him less a man and more a beast. Maybe he deserved to be a bear.

He took the new clothes gratefully, noticing their fine quality. The woman had given him the very best that she had. He didn't know if that made him feel better or worse.

By the time Dan returned from the stream, Aethelnoth had woken Taliesin and they were ready to leave. Only the boy waved them off. ‘Think about what I said!' Dan called, by way of farewell, though he was certain his warning had fallen on deaf ears.

‘So, still think I'm a Viking?' Dan asked Aethelnoth when they had left the farm behind.

Aethelnoth kept his horse well away from Dan's so that Dan had to shout back over his shoulder to be heard.

‘I don't know what to think. I don't think such savagery can be godly.'

‘Will you tell the King what happened?'

Aethelnoth's silence had an eloquence of its own. Dan doubted that in Aethelnoth's shoes he would want to tell a killer what he did not want to hear either.

They rode in silence again for a while. Braveheart was trotting by Dan's side. He at least seemed to have forgotten about Dan's unfortunate transformation into a wild beast; perhaps dogs were more forgiving. Dan's mount had for some reason decided that Braveheart was not a problem and was far better behaved than Dan had expected. It was a pity in a way, because at least a difficult mount would have given Dan something to think about besides the obvious. Perhaps that was why Taliesin chose to distract him with some questions of his own.

‘Why did you say I was to blame – back when I first saw you?'

‘Because you gave me that orb thing to raise the Veil and lied and told me that it would bring me back to Macsen.'

‘Dan, I don't know what you are talking about. I haven't seen you since we crossed the Veil after we left the battlefield together at Camlann. I did as you said. I left you in the field before we got to the place of the huge land-ships. I took Braveheart, raised the Veil and found myself here. The presence of Rhonwen called to me, I suppose. I am bound to her after all, through thick and thin, through
time and all the strangeness of the Veil.'

‘Then I saw you in my past but your future,' Dan said with sudden certainty. ‘Don't do it! When you get the chance, please don't give me the orb. I don't want to be here. I don't want Ursula to be here. None of it would have happened but for you.'

‘I can't promise anything,' Taliesin said. ‘If I brought you here, perhaps I have to bring you here – I am not fool enough to try to change what has to be.'

As Taliesin had been trying to change things since they first met, interfering and meddling in Dan's life, he felt a burst of hot rage at such a dishonest response. He forced himself to calm down. The bear was waiting for him on the other side of anger and he did not want to turn into that savage beast ever again.

‘Whatever …' Dan said in English, which neither Taliesin nor Aethelnoth understood. He made himself breathe deeply and tried not to think of Taliesin as the interfering old man he undoubtedly was. If Taliesin knew anything of Dan's internal struggle, he didn't acknowledge it, but wittered on in a loud conversational voice, as if Dan cared at all about what he'd been doing.

‘I have been out and about scouting for the King and he told me to meet Aethelnoth near here. I did not expect to see you again. I heard the Dane's charge and saw you transform. It was extraordinary. You were a magnificent beast – a giant even among bears. Amazing!'

‘It did not feel amazing,' Dan said bleakly, but that was a lie. That was the worst thing. The bear had no conscience – men were meat and death was of no
consequence, unless it was his own.

He had loved having that power, that strength, the weapons that were just there in his hands, in his mouth. He had not even needed Bright Killer. He was complete in himself. That was the worst thing of all. When he had been killing those men in such a violent and vicious way, it
had
felt amazing – he had been perfectly and completely happy. Taliesin shot him a quizzical look which Dan ignored and they rode on.

Dan realised that there were Danes ahead at about the same moment that Braveheart stopped, sniffed the air and growled. The scent of men was strong and Dan found himself licking his lips. ‘There are Vikings ahead,' he said softly, ‘and I want you, Taliesin, to put me to sleep. I will not fight as a monster.'

‘But, Dan …'

‘Do it!' Dan's sword was in his hand before he had finished the sentence. Taliesin looked mutinous. ‘Do not trick me again, Taliesin. I am in this mess because of you and you are going to get me out of it. Put me to sleep.'

‘They will kill us.'

‘I am sure with all your spells and charms you can think of something,' Dan hissed. He knew that the transformation was coming. His body was heavier, denser, and he was growing; he could feel it. ‘Make me sleep!'

Taliesin lifted his hands to do Dan's bidding. Dan heard the wild war cries of the charging enemy in the last instant before his eyelids closed.

The girl who was her enemy called Ursula again. She did not like being brought back to her body any more. The pain that might have been hunger was stronger, nagging at her, and there was thirst too and other kinds of discomfort that even the power of magic did not entirely blunt.

They were all there when she opened her eyes. All staring at her hungrily, wanting things from her and giving nothing back. Guthrum, still drunk from the revelling of the previous night, sweaty and corpulent beneath his finery, stood at the front of the crowd of warriors and frightened, abused townswomen. She felt the women's pain as a great rolling tide of misery that repelled her. Her friend, Gunnarr, the one who had stood vigil by her side on the way to this awful place, stood nearby looking anxious. Things were not going quite as he had planned; Finna had taken the role of Guthrum's confidante that he had sought. Ursula felt Gunnarr's resentment and his disgust. The resentment she understood, but she did not at first recognise the source of his disgust. Her eye was
inevitably drawn to the one who'd called her yet again, the one who'd dragged her to this place of misery. Ursula noted that the blind girl wore a huge brooch of precious stones, that her straggly unkempt hair had been washed and plaited and that the clothes that covered her thin body were of the richest colours, of the finest cloth and edged with the most intricate and costly silk braid. She was still the same underneath, though, still a curious absence; nothing more than a steely will hidden in mist. The magic in Ursula burned hot and dry and she was exhausted by it. The magic brought her back at Finna's calling and she did not like that. For the first time Ursula did not feel free, but chained by the power that held her in thrall to the whims of Finna.

‘See what we have brought to feed you, Goddess,' Finna said.

It was then that Ursula saw them – the chained prisoners. Even then she did not guess at what was to come.

Dan woke to the tickle of Taliesin's beard against his ear and Taliesin's voice whispering urgently: ‘Wake up now or you'll never wake.'

Maybe there was magic in that or maybe not – either way Dan did as he was told. It was dark and he was surrounded by shadows and the stink of human waste. Dan gagged. His sense of smell was all too acute, as if he retained the senses of a bear even after he had lost the form. It was some time since Talieisn had bathed and his clothes smelled like those of a tramp who'd lived rough for a couple of years.

‘Where are Aethelnoth and Braveheart?' Dan whispered.

‘Braveheart is muzzled and tied up, but he will be well cared for – the Vikings were impressed by his ferocity and he's been given as a gift to Guthrum. The news is not so good on Aethelnoth.' Dan felt the sudden chill of fear and guilt; if Aethelnoth had died because he had not been awake to fight for him there would be another death on his conscience. Taliesin seemed to guess at his concerns and patted Dan's arm reassuringly. ‘He fought well enough and was captured as a warrior. He was barely injured …' Taliesin paused.

‘So?'

‘I'm sorry, Dan, but the Goddess has demanded the sacrifice of twenty warriors.'

‘What goddess?' Dan asked, but he knew the answer even before he'd finished speaking. Ursula. ‘What has happened to her?'

‘She always did love magic,' Taliesin said softly. ‘I fear it has consumed her and driven her mad.'

‘Can you tell that, or is it just a guess?' Dan spoke more sharply than he had intended.

‘I can feel her power, but I can't get near her,' Taliesin said. ‘But why would she demand sacrifice if she was sane?'

Dan shook his head more to shake away the idea of Ursula turned mad than to disagree. ‘I have to go to her!'

‘Then your best bet is to get yourself recognised as a warrior and readied for sacrifice.'

It was not such a stupid idea, but Dan was not sure that
he could control the bear sufficiently to allow himself to be readied for sacrifice.

When Dan looked around him, he could see that he was corralled in a sheep pen with women, children and old men. He did not know what was to become of them, but he doubted that they would kill the women – not from chivalry, but because they could be put to good use. He was less confident about the children and the old men.

The pen was formed of nothing more secure than a loose fence, designed to contain sheep not men, but it was guarded by three well-armed warriors. When Dan touched his sword belt, he was surprised to find that Bright Killer was still there. Taliesin shrugged modestly. ‘I have some power here. I made you look like an old man.'

‘They might have killed me.'

‘They would have killed you if they'd recognised you as the bear man. Some gratitude would not go amiss.'

Dan mumbled his thanks. ‘What if I got all the able-bodied people left here to help me attack the guards?'

Taliesin raised an eyebrow. ‘There are no able-bodied people here.'

But Dan wasn't listening; he'd spotted a young woman sitting alone. Something about her posture suggested that she still had some fight left in her. Dan moved stealthily to sidle alongside her.

‘Do you want to help us get out?' he asked. She gave him a penetrating look. He did not know if Taleisin's glamour was still on him, but if it was she saw through it.

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘There are three guards – my friend and I might be able
to manage two. Could you take a third?'

She weighed up the possibility. ‘I have this,' she said and, turning her back on Dan, fumbled under her overdress to produce something that glinted dully in the moonlight.

Dan tested it with his thumb; it was sharp enough. ‘Do you know what to do?'

He saw her teeth flash in the darkness. ‘My father will help,' she said, indicating to an elderly man sitting nearby. ‘He has killed men before.'

If her father had posed any danger, he would already be dead. Still, the Danes were drunk and not expecting trouble and if Taliesin were able to cast some spell, the old man might be some help. ‘All right. Which one will you take?'

She pointed at the drunkest of them – a young lightly built man, barely out of his teens.

‘When my friend starts to sing, start moving. When he stops – do what you can.'

He thought she smiled.