The Age of Scorpio

20

Southern Britain, a Long Time Ago





She felt his weight on her. His skin on her flesh was hot, almost feverish. The tang of copper in his mouth, he tasted like the air just before a spring storm. Her fingers traced down his skin. She saw the dark pools of his somehow sad eyes before he entered her and she closed her eyes, back arching as she cried out. Strong fingers against her skin, his arms wrapped around her as she opened herself to him.

But there was something else in the room, something just out of sight, little more than a shadow that whispered to her. Promised her this and so much more, if only she’d give in.

Britha sat up straight, flushed, hot, covered in sweat and gasping for breath. She had wrapped her robes around herself to go to sleep as she always did, but they were in disarray now. The intensity of the dream had shocked her. An intense heat burned through her body.

‘Britha?’ Her head shot round to stare at the deformed man. She narrowed her eyes. She could see perfectly even in the depths of the night. Something had changed in Teardrop’s eye: there was something in it now, a tiny glint of silver. ‘Bad dream?’

Anything but, she thought. That was the problem.

There was a dry chuckle from the other side of Teardrop where Fachtna lay wrapped in his cloak.

‘It didn’t sound like a bad dream,’ Fachtna said.

‘That’s what pleasure sounds like, boy. You’re unlikely to ever hear it as the result of anything you do,’ Britha spat.

The deck of the ship moved with the gentle lapping of the waves. They were anchored off a sandy beach below towering cliffs that should have been little more than shadows in this light, but she could make out every detail of them clearly.

‘Perhaps if you had the real thing, you wouldn’t need dreams to make you sigh?’ Fachtna suggested.

The sound of the waves against the wood of the ship was drowned out by the prayers of the god-slaves that had come aboard with them at the harbour beneath the Goddodin hill fort.

Their presence discomfited her. The ship was a strange place, peopled by stranger people. More than ever she was becoming aware of how small her world had been. It had been one thing to deal with traders not unlike these on her own terms, in her own territory; it was quite another to be thrown in among them. On the one hand she recognised them as folk like any other – they breathed, ate, drank, shat, f*cked and had the same needs and wants; on the other hand she found so little similarity between how they acted and how her own people behaved that she struggled to find any common ground. Even Teardrop seemed less bizarre than the Carthaginians. All of this, along with her new capabilities, hungers, feelings and the dreams that haunted her sleep, left Britha wondering if she hadn’t somehow walked into the Otherworld.

It was obvious the experience was strange to Fachtna and Teardrop as well, but if they didn’t have any more experience of life aboard a Carthaginian ship then they certainly seemed to have more knowledge. Both of the visitors from the Otherworld seemed to be enjoying the experience regardless of how strange it was for them.

Britha was annoyed by the presence of the god-slaves on board. She was sure they hadn’t paid as much as Fachtna had for their passage. She also thought Hanno had since had cause to regret the deal as all they did was pray. It seemed they required little sleep. Their prayers sounded like nonsense even with her new-found understanding of languages. Teardrop said that they tried to talk in a tongue that their mouths were not made for. What she did understand sounded like appeals for secrets or knowledge or madness or death, perhaps all at the same time.

They had exhorted the crew to join in their worship but the sailors thought them all northern madmen, believing that the cold air had driven them insane. This was a belief held particularly strongly by Germelqart, the quiet navigator. A life at sea meant that he understood bits of many languages, but Britha only ever heard him speak the language of Carthage, which she now found herself able to understand. When he spoke it was tersely, his voice carrying to give orders to the two banks of thirty rowers. The rowers were all free men with massive upper bodies, from all over the known southern world. The colour of their skin went from light brown to almost black like Kush. Hanno said that free men cost just as much to feed but were more likely to outrun pirates if they had a share of the cargo.

Germelqart had made it clear that he felt the god-slaves were a curse, that he felt it was madness to invite onto the boat those who wished only destruction for themselves. Britha agreed with the navigator, whose magic was to direct them from one place to the next even though the next was far and out of sight. It was strong magic that to Britha’s mind required a great deal of skill, Hanno’s sacrifices to their god, Dagon, notwithstanding. Britha knew that the god-slaves’ prayers to their Dark Man in the south would interfere with Germelquart’s own workings.

Even if they hadn’t seen what they had seen as they left the harbour, she still would not have wished to travel with them. Her last glimpse of the field of the dead haunted her. She could see them dressed in white or naked, swaying backwards and forwards like barley in the wind, while one of their number, once a warrior judging by his size, walked among them cutting throats. Harvesting them. Leaving them slumped together, their life’s blood turning the sea red at the edge of the shore. She could not conceive of why, harsh as it was, people would not want to cling to life for all they were worth, as beyond this life they were at the mercy of gods who only cared for themselves.

They had been at sea for weeks now, hugging the coast. They had seen river mouths and massive inlets. Britha thought they had been travelling for so long that they must have reached another land, but Hanno, laughing, had assured her that it was still the same island that she had grown up on.

They had passed cliffs. On some of them they had seen beacon fires burning, warning of their passing. On others they had seen henges, some of stone, more of wood. There had been other wooden henges, half submerged, on some of the beaches they had passed.

Much of the land was heavily wooded, a lot of it very flat and nearly always marshy near inlets or the mouths of rivers that rivalled the size of the Tatha or the Black River. What few villages they passed were either abandoned or destroyed. The black curraghs were so far ahead of them now that the remains were not even still smouldering.

All but the most inaccessible of the clifftop forts had suffered the same fate. They had either been abandoned by their shrewd, if cowardly – in Britha and Fachtna’s eyes – defenders, or they too had been destroyed, their walls pulled down, presumably by the giants.

At the larger settlements Hanno, Kush and some of the oarsmen went ashore for supplies and goods to trade back in their homeland. Britha was not happy with this and had told Hanno that this was not a good way to behave. Hanno had told her that had the people been there they would have traded, but they were not and he would be ruined if he returned with nothing to show for his voyage. Not to mention they needed supplies if they wanted to eat. He scoffed at the idea of leaving goods as payment. Sometimes Fachtna would go with them. Not to loot but to get a feel for the land.

They saw people very occasionally. Here and there they would see a warrior on horseback. The southrons were a tall, well-made people with no beards to speak of, but their dark hair was long, as were their moustaches, which they braided. Their mail and weapons looked fine from a distance, and their horses were much larger than the ponies they used in the north. Britha understood that their appearances were a futile show of force. These were chiefs, princes and champions who had come too late to save their people from Bress’s depredations. It looked like a rich land but in the wake of the black curraghs the land seemed almost dead, populated mainly by ghosts.

At other times Britha had the sense that there were people keeping pace with the Carthaginian ship beyond a coastal treeline or hidden in the marshes. They were most likely a warband shadowing them in case they were raiders. She was sure that Teardrop sensed this too.

Fachtna was restless. It was all happening too slowly for him. He wanted, needed, to confront Bress. Britha wondered how much of that was fear of Bress and wanting to get it over and done with. He spent most of the time standing by the prow of the ship, getting soaked as the ram prow ploughed through wave after wave as sail and oar carried them south. Whenever he had the chance, he went ashore. Britha was sure that the nonsense of the god-slaves bothered him as well.

Britha had thought Teardrop ill. He had seemed in pain. She had seen him mouthing words in what she thought were the clipped syllables of his own language. At first, with disdain, she had thought him praying in a servile manner to his gods – it looked a little too much like begging. Then she had started to get the feeling that he was talking to someone that she couldn’t see. This disconcerting feeling grew.

Fachtna had told her that pain was the price of Teardrop’s power. This she could believe: it looked like the strange man was being tormented. Teardrop became colder, more distant, as if he was resigned to something. She was not sure if she was imagining things, but it looked to her like the veins in his head were bulging more. More than once she had thought something was moving under his skin. The flecks of silver in his eyes were not of her imagining. When she focused she saw that each one looked like a tiny shard of frozen quicksilver. The god-slaves were the least of Teardrop’s worries.

The ship was eighty feet long by ten feet wide. They slept on deck with those rowers who did not sleep below, all of them crushed together, sweating, farting and, in the god-slaves’ case, puking when the wave sickness was upon them. The wave sickness did not bother Britha, Teardrop or Fachtna.

‘Is it getting stronger the closer we get?’ Teardrop asked with urgency in his voice. Meaning her dream. It was, but she neither wished to admit that to Teardrop nor think about what it meant. She was frightened by the intensity of her experience, embarrassed that it had been so public, tired of being in the cramped stinking confines of the ship and thoroughly sick of listening to meaningless jabbering and incessant praying.

‘Enough,’ she said quietly to herself. She got to her feet, not even bothering to adjust her robe, grabbed her sickle and made her way over the sea of sleeping and half-awake rowers towards where the god-slaves were kneeling by the stern of the ship.

‘Britha!’ Teardrop hissed, but she ignored him.

‘Don’t want your life?’ she demanded. The god-slaves turned at the sound of her voice. She was no longer sure what language she was talking but they seemed to understand it. ‘Fine. I’ll have it.’

She started the words of the chant in the language of the Pecht, the language of her people. She saw the battle on the beach, the ruins of Ardestie, the destroyed broch empty, her people gone. Her people had fought until Bress’s magics, the demon magics – she had to not forget that – had enslaved them. The warriors fought, the landspeople fought, the old folk would have fought, the children would have fought, and here were people, victims of the Lochlannach like her people had been, and they wanted to embrace it.

The words of the working were not familiar to her. They were old and cold, taught to her a long time ago in veiled whispers by the black-robed sacrificers. Dark magics, every bit as dark as the consumption of the flesh of your enemies to know their secrets.

She grabbed the first one by the hair. He did not resist. Her pleasure at the hot salt splash of blood on her face was a pale echo of what she felt when she made love to Bress and the Dark Man whispered to her. She kicked the corpse over the side of the boat. She had taken what she needed from it with powerful words. Let Dagon consume the flesh now, or the cowardly gods of the Goddodin. Carrion gods.

Fachtna was sitting up now. His face neutral, he translated what she was saying so the crew could understand who she was, what she was. Someone had run screaming for Hanno. He came on deck, pulling his blaidth on. Kush was next to him, naked but for a loincloth, carrying his bronze axe. The rowers were scrabbling away from Britha now. Hanno and Kush exchanged a look and Kush started forward. Fachtna stood up, still translating Britha’s words as another god-slave died with no cry of pain, nor had she begged for her life. Britha used her sickle to paint the planks of the ship with the god-slave’s blood. It ran into the gaps and dripped into the hold below.

Fachtna stood between Kush and Britha. He was leaning on his sword, which was still in its scabbard, but his message, as he continued with the translation, was clear. There was not a moment of hesitation from the tall axeman, who stepped forward, but Hanno placed a hand on Kush’s shoulder and nodded towards Germelqart. The navigator was shaking his head.

Teardrop was on his feet, but Fachtna put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Teardrop, not long ago, would have stopped her, would have ignored Fachtna. He watched another of the god-slaves die and get kicked overboard. Then he knew he was just as culpable as Fachtna, as Britha. He found he didn’t care about their lives.

Britha cared about their lives because she wanted them. She wanted what was left of their lives. She wanted what would have been. She would take their weak and meagre spirits. She would deny the Dark Man even the paltry strength of their weakness. She only hoped that by saying the words that stole their spirits, she would not taint herself with their weakness.

It was only after she had sawn through the final god-slave’s throat, only after her robe was soaked with their blood, only after her skin was hot and red, that she realised how grateful each of them had looked.

She turned around to face the rest of the ship. The rowers cowered away from her even as blood trickled towards them. Hanno stared at her with horror, Kush with distaste, and Teardrop’s expression was cold. Fachtna had an unpleasant-looking half-smile on his face, and the navigator, Germelqart, looked at her with approval and nodded his thanks.

Britha sat down on one of the benches with her back against the rail and hugged her legs. She could ignore the corpses in the dark water behind her but she still knew they were there. Britha did not sleep again that night, but that meant that she did not dream again either. When morning came, it brought raucous gulls to feed on the flesh of the floating dead behind them, the sun to dry the blood on wool and skin, and wind to carry them further south.

‘This is not a good place to be,’ Germelqart said. They had gone into the mouth of a river. It was not as large as the Tatha or the Black River but it had looked a reasonable size. Hanno had said that he knew the river and that the people there called it the Tamesas, meaning Grey Father, who was apparently the god of the river.

Either side was marshland. Britha could not understand how people lived here, but apparently they did or had. They knew this because they could see smoke rising from what used to be their villages.

‘This makes no sense to me,’ Hanno said. ‘These people were careful, clever people. They built their villages on mounds of dry earth in the marshes, and only those who had a guide who knew the secret ways could take you there.’

‘They would have made one of the guides drink from their chalice,’ Britha said. She still wore the blood of her victims. Flies from the marshes buzzed around her. The Will of Dagon was hidden from the main waterway of the Tamesas between a sparsely wooded island and the swampy mainland.

‘It would be easy to get trapped here,’ Germelqart said. Kush nodded in agreement.

‘You are a timid people,’ Fachtna observed dryly. Teardrop did not even admonish him for baiting the Carthaginians; he was staring to the north into the marsh at the rising smoke.

‘This happened recently, I think,’ Kush said. Hanno nodded. Britha stared west. Following the snaking line of the river they could see more columns of smoke. It was definitely the work of Bress.

‘I think now we sail east to the land of the Gaul,’ Hanno started. ‘Then we hug the coast and head south regardless of how stormy it is. Their god Taranis hates and fears me, I think.’ There was a snort of derision from Fachtna. ‘Through the pillars of Hercules and back to my beloved Carthage.’

Germelqart nodded his agreement.

‘No,’ Britha said. ‘They are not on the river any more.’ She was certain of this. She had been feeling much stronger since she had taken the lives of the kneelers.

‘And the Grey Father told you this himself, did he?’ Hanno asked. His tone was derisive, but she smiled when she heard the fear there as well. They thought her a moonstruck witch now. It was a part she could play. It might even have been true.

‘We go south,’ she insisted. Hanno opened his mouth to protest.

‘We’re being watched,’ Teardrop said.

‘Frightened survivors,’ Kush said.

Teardrop pointed into the swamp. ‘And there’s something in there . . . power of some sort. It hides from me every time I reach for it.’

Fachtna turned to look at his friend with interest.

‘Madmen, demons and witches.’ Hanno spat over the side of the ship and touched an amulet that he had taken to wearing. It was a tiny effigy of Dagon carved from driftwood.

‘If Teardrop says he feels something then he feels something,’ Fachtna told them. Britha had turned to look at the man who claimed to be from a tribe called the Croatan.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

Teardrop shook his head as if concentrating. ‘Something ancient and slippery, it coils away from me every time I reach for it.’ He turned to look at Britha, then seemed surprised as if he was only now seeing her covered in drying blood. ‘I think we should go ashore.’

‘Yes, go ashore, die in the swamp and we can sail away before the black ships find us,’ Hanno said.

‘Hanno of Carthage,’ Britha said, ‘I don’t think your god lives here. You leave us, and the corpses of those I slew will climb onto your deck as you sleep and slay you and your men. Do you understand me?’

Hanno looked furious. Kush looked close to swinging his axe. It didn’t matter what either of them believed. Britha wasn’t sure if she had the power to make good her threat, but enough of the crew believed her that they wouldn’t let Hanno abandon them.

‘Enough threats,’ Kush told her. ‘I mean it.’

Fachtna opened his mouth to say something but Britha cut him off.

‘You were well paid, trader; all we ask is that you honour it.’

‘I should have asked for more,’ Hanno muttered, eyeing the torcs around Fachtna’s neck and his left arm. ‘You make this quick. If you have not returned by tomorrow morning then we will leave you because the evil spirits that burn the night with their demon fire will have taken you. This is known by the people who live in this evil place.’

Britha nodded.

‘And we will flee the black ships if we sight them,’ the normally quiet Germelqart said.

Fachtna opened his mouth. ‘Agreed,’ Britha said before the warrior uttered something insulting. ‘You cannot fight them.’

‘I only hope you can outrun them,’ Fachtna said. ‘But I doubt it.’

Trial and error left them soaked and covered with thick foul-smelling mud, but eventually they managed to find a trail over what passed for dry ground. Or at least ground that didn’t want to pull them down into sucking mud.

‘So we just walk into the swamp and hope we find someone?’ Fachtna demanded angrily.

He’s like most warriors, Britha thought. He liked being covered in blood, glory or fine things, but not mud.

‘They know we are here,’ Britha said. She could feel the eyes on her. The birds, the insects, reptiles and amphibians moving through the water or over the mud, the constant movement of the undergrowth; it was easy to imagine the whole place as a living being.

‘She’s right,’ Teardrop said. ‘I can hear the mindsong here. But it is distant, far away somehow.’ This got Fachtna’s attention, Britha’s too, but she chose not to show it, hoping that Teardrop would reveal more of his magics if she showed less interest.

‘Why don’t they show themselves?!’ Fachtna cried to the skies. Nearby gulls took to the air, showing their displeasure in raucous squawking. Britha watched them and then moved off the trail and into the rushes. Almost immediately she was standing in water, though the spirits in the mud hadn’t started dragging her down yet. Using the butt of her spear for support, she made her way to where the gulls had been.

Fachtna sighed, looked down in disgust at the mud coating his boots, greaves and trews, but followed her. Teardrop remained on the path, looking out over the rushes blowing in the gentle breeze. Perhaps he was listening for the mindsong, Fachtna thought, but more likely he just didn’t want to get further covered in mud. Cursing, Fachtna pushed through the rushes until he found Britha leaning against an earthen bank, standing in a red pool of bodies.

‘They died in battle,’ he said. The pictures that swords and spears drew on flesh were plain enough to see.

Britha nodded.

‘Someone brought them here?’ There were some twenty bodies but this was not a place to fight a pitched battle.

‘I think they are being given back to the land,’ she said. ‘Perhaps left in sacrifice because they could not protect their people.’

‘But they died well.’

Britha looked up at the warrior, surprised to hear the emotion in his voice. Is this what you fear, Goidel? No tomb, no one to remember your deeds.

‘Their ways are not your own,’ Britha said simply. ‘What I want to know is why the gulls will eat their flesh and bury them in the sky but the insects stay away.’

That got Fachtna’s attention. He jumped into the pool and waded towards the bodies. They were a small pale people, though death and immersion would always make a body pale. There were traces of paint on their bodies but no tattoos. Whatever weapons and armour they might have owned had been stripped from them.

Fachtna cut into the flesh of one of the bodies.

‘That is an ill thing,’ Britha said angrily.

‘It is an augury,’ Fachtna said, distracted.

‘And who are you to augur on the bones of people not yours, who have been left to rest in their own way?’ she demanded.

‘These wounds, they make channels in the flesh, like the roots of the tree,’ he told her.

‘These are Bress’s weapons. We know this.’

Fachtna took some of the flesh into his mouth and tasted it.

‘What are you doing?!’

Fachtna spat the flesh out. ‘These are kin of yours,’ he told her.

‘These are not kin of mine, fool!’

‘And yet in part your blood is the same as theirs.’

‘Then they were corrupted by the demons and left here when they turned on their own people.’

‘They died fighting Bress’s band, and I mean the blood you share with Cliodna and the Muileartach.’

Britha considered this. ‘The insects know that their blood is unnatural.’ Fachtna said nothing. ‘I thought the power you had was in your arms and legs and the weapons you bear.’

‘Don’t forget my cock.’

‘You are a fool and I do not believe you,’ Britha said in exasperation.

‘Then I will have Teardrop tell you.’

Fachtna waded across the pool. He had reached the bank and was about to step up when he stopped.

‘Why did you kill them?’ he asked, not quite turning to look at her directly.

Britha spent some time deciding whether to dignify his question with an answer. ‘Because they didn’t care about themselves so I ate their spirits,’ she finally said.

He nodded. ‘Have you ever done the like before?’

‘I’ve never met people like that before, and who are you to question me?’

‘Would you have done the same in the past?’

Britha said nothing. The silence seemed to go on and on before Fachtna stepped out of the pool and started back towards where they had left Teardrop. Britha watched the warrior’s back until the tall breeze-blown rushes swallowed him. What she didn’t tell him was that she had not felt even a trace of remorse for what she had done. In fact, it had left her feeling stronger. She tried to ignore the sense of how far away she was from home and what she had been. She looked at the corpses and wondered if they had known Cliodna.

Fachtna made his way along a tiny game trail. He could see Teardrop just ahead of him. He was facing towards where the smoke was coming from. Fachtna held the bloody knife in one hand; the other held the strap of his shield, which was slung over his shoulder.

He stopped. Despite the blood, he pushed his dirk back into its scabbard. He was half convinced that his mind was playing tricks with him. Then, assuming a low stance, he swung the shield into his hand, the feel of the leather over wood familiar where he gripped it. His sword whispered from the scabbard. He soothed its song with a thought. It was hungry. It had been drawn and not used too often recently.

They were good. He did not understand how he had not known they were there – his senses being expanded far beyond the normal – but they moved with the direction of the wind in the rushes and they moved quickly. They were like wild animals.

He listened. Keeping still. Britha’s footsteps on the trail behind him seemed thunderous. He had not paid close enough attention to Teardrop. He had not read his body like the weapons masters in the younglings’ camp had taught him. The tension in Teardrop’s stance told Fachtna that they had him.

Behind him he heard Britha stop. She had seen Fachtna’s sword and shield at the ready. Fachtna heard her change her position, presumably readying her spear. Now have the good sense to be quiet, Fachtna thought. Then he heard the mindsong.

Britha had her back to Fachtna. She was still, her spear ready. She was not sure what was her awareness of someone or something in the gently swaying reeds around her and what was her mind playing tricks. All she heard was the wind and the water from the nearby river. She glanced over towards it. She could just about make out the Will of Dagon. There would be no help from that quarter. Quite the opposite: they would be pleased to see them gone.

She became aware of the music. It sounded simple, ancient and beautiful. It was a song without words. It was open, baring all. She started when she realised that she could understand it on a level much deeper than mere words, though she was not hearing it. She was listening to it some other way. She heard it inside her head, felt it through her body; her blood responded to it.

They came out of the reeds on all sides. They wore armour made of panels of boiled leather sewn onto skin to make it easier for them to move. Their spears were odd, made of wood, the ends carved into blades and then fire-hardened. Their shields were small and round, leather over wood, all painted with the same design. What could be seen of their skin was covered in mud. Over the top of the dried mud the same symbol was repeated. They wore full head coverings, not unlike the dog masks worn by the Cirig, except these were unmistakably in the shape of a serpent’s head. The serpent was the symbol painted over the mud and present on their shields.

‘Fachtna, I think I’ve made a mistake,’ Teardrop said quietly, but his voice carried.

Britha saw Fachtna move imperceptibly. He was getting ready to attack. He, like her and Teardrop, was surrounded. It looked like death to her. She heard him spit out an unfamiliar word through gritted teeth: ‘Naga.’

‘Fachtna, wait,’ Teardrop said, his voice carrying over the breeze, through the rushes.

‘Better to die,’ Fachtna said.

‘It may not be as we think. Bress raided them,’ Teardrop said. The warriors surrounding them said nothing.

‘Look at them. This is typical. They have set themselves up a god.’

‘Our god sees through our eyes and you are from elsewhere,’ one of the warriors in the snake masks said.

‘Isn’t everyone?’ Fachtna responded.

Britha could hear the warrior talking to Fachtna. The warriors around her were absolutely still, not even responding to any movements she made. Calm, yet she could feel their anger. She wondered how many people they had lost when the black curraghs came.

‘I don’t even want to know your name,’ Fachtna said, an insult. It was not the ritual insult of a challenge but disgust at what the warrior was, letting the man know that he was beneath him.

The man said nothing; he just watched Fachtna.

‘Fachtna, I need you to wait,’ Teardrop said.

‘It serves us nothing,’ Fachtna said. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Britha wasn’t sure what was going on but she had never heard of Naga and so was sure that this tribe was no enemy of hers. They may become such, but there’s time for that later, she thought.

‘How will you face Bress if you are dead?’ Britha asked.

‘Better to die fighting than to come into their power. There is nothing left of you when they are finished anyway. It makes slavery under Bress look desirable.’

This chilled Britha, but the warrior was given to exaggeration, as all warriors and most men were.

‘But this does not look like that,’ Teardrop said. ‘There are magics here but they are weak.’ Britha could only just hear Teardrop, spread out as they were.

‘Why aren’t they attacking?’ Britha wondered out loud.

‘Because their god is watching us,’ Fachtna growled.

‘And wants you to know that the poison we coat our blades with is made from his blood. Our spears will pierce armour and flesh and rupture bowels. You will smell the filth of your own death.’ It was the same warrior who had spoken before.

‘Enough!’ Teardrop cried. His stance relaxed but his staff stayed at the ready. The warriors shifted slightly, keeping their spears levelled at them. ‘Either fight or take me to your god,’ Teardrop demanded. Fachtna looked less than pleased.

The village was a series of roundhouses not too dissimilar to those of Britha’s own people, although smaller. They were set on a number of low islands of hard-packed dirt that rose out of the surrounding marsh. They called themselves the Pobl Neidr, the People of the Snake, and were part of the much larger Catuvellauni, whose name meant Leaders of Battle. They had burned their own village, taken what supplies they could and fled into the marshes before Bress’s raiders. They had tried to fight them using cunning and their greater knowledge of the land, or so Tangwen, the warrior who had been doing all the talking, told them. Tangwen was a woman but apparently found it useful to impersonate a man in order to get other warriors to take her seriously. This didn’t make any sense at all to Britha, who also found it odd that they showed no reaction to Teardrop’s swollen and deformed head

Fachtna was clearly not happy. He treated the snake-masked warriors with contempt and was obviously itching for a fight despite near-constant warnings from Teardrop. Leaving the village, they were taken deep into the marshes by hidden trails and sunken causeways. The People of the Snake moved with an easy grace through the marsh, but more than once Fachtna, Britha or Teardrop missed their footing and ended up soaked or covered in mud.

‘We are going to find this thing and kill it, root out the centre of the corruption, yes?’ Fachtna demanded.

‘We are going to see what it is. Things are not as they should be here.’

Beyond realising that the Naga were a hated enemy of Fachtna, Britha could not make out what was happening.

She did not realise that there was a large island in the marsh until she stepped from a sunken causeway and onto it. It just blended with the rest of the marsh. There, staying low beneath the height of the rushes, she saw the rest of the People of the Snake. They did not have the fearsome countenance of the mud-covered, painted and masked warriors. They were landsfolk, or more likely fisherfolk and those who hunted birds, judging by the wooden frames with hanging fish and fowl. They regarded the newcomers with apprehension and would not look directly at their own warriors. This Britha understood: the warriors had taken on aspects of the serpents that they looked like. Dangerous spirits would possess them when they wore the snake masks. They were no longer kin to these folks but fearsome animalistic warriors.

In the centre of the island was what initially looked to Britha like a stone-lined well, but as she got closer she realised that it was a series of wooden steps lodged between the rocks of a dry-stone shaft going down into the island itself. Fachtna was shaking his head.

‘What are you frightened of?’ Britha asked, goading him.

‘I am to keep Teardrop safe. Go down there yourself if you want.’

‘You are safe if you do not wish ill on us and our father,’ Tangwen said. She nodded to some of the folk nearby. They shrank from the serpent visage of her mask, and just for a moment Britha caught the look of discomfort on the other woman’s face through the mud. They were brought food, a stew made from fish and fowl in bread trenchers, and wooden mugs of something ale-like. As a child offered Fachtna his food, he slapped it out of her hands. The little girl looked shocked and then very angry.

‘I’ll not accept hospitality from the likes of you,’ Fachtna told Tangwen. Teardrop look pained. Britha watched Tangwen’s expression darken and saw the look of anger on the other warriors’ faces.

The blow landed so solidly because Fachtna had not been expecting Britha to hit him. His nose flattened itself against his face and squirted blood down over his mouth and bearded chin.

‘What was that for?’ the genuinely aggrieved Fachtna demanded.

‘I don’t care who these people are to you,’ Britha told him, using her left-handed voice, the sinister tone, the one designed to frighten and curse. ‘If you don’t want their hospitality, then refuse it. If you want to fight, then challenge them. What you do not do is behave with the manners of a diseased dog in my presence, because what you do affects Teardrop and myself as well. They do not fear our swords or spears so you should not fear their food and drink! Do you understand me, boy!’

Fachtna looked furious. Britha was sure that he would at least strike her, perhaps even draw his sword. She was prepared to use the spear. The warriors of the People of the Snake and the folk under their protection watched. Chagrin replaced anger on Fachtna’s face. Whatever he might have been, he did know how to behave with respect, and he knew that he was in the wrong, much to Britha’s relief.

Fachtna knelt by the little girl.

‘I am sorry,’ he told her in her own language. Like all other languages he could speak it, and like all others Britha found herself able to understand it. Fachtna picked the bread from the ground, found bits of meat, barley and vegetables and put them back into the trencher. Then he ate it all. He handed the girl the wooden cup. ‘If you would be prepared to get me another drink, I would drink it and with thanks. I would understand if you did not.’ The little girl stared at him fiercely. He met her look, but she fetched him another drink. Fachtna thanked her and then stood up.

‘I apologise. Please do not judge my companions on my behaviour. I will meet you over meat or metal as you prefer,’ he said to Tangwen, who nodded her acceptance. Finally he turned to Teardrop and Britha. ‘I apologise to you both.’

Teardrop shook his head, looking bemused. Britha nodded, accepting the apology though still angry. It was clear to her that the Naga, whoever they were, had done Fachtna a great wrong in the past. She had gratefully accepted her trencher and cup. It was good to taste normal food again, not the strange stuff they had given her on the Will of Dagon, which had done terrible things to her bowels.

‘We are safe now,’ she said as they accepted the protection of the law of hospitality by sharing food and drink with the People of the Snake. Perhaps Fachtna was right: perhaps these people were the lowest of the low, oath-breakers who would break the law of hospitality, but she knew that for her part she would not reject it.

Britha now understood why Fachtna had wanted to fight. This was neither natural nor right. She too felt the urge to drive her spear through the abomination of their hosts’ living god.

Her people respected the serpent. It was a powerful animal. They invoked it on stone, in paint and in their woad tattoos. It was the symbol of the ban draoi, the female symbol of power, which was why it was tattooed across her back. What she saw before her, however, was nothing more than a mockery of the serpent she respected.

The chamber was large and lined with stone. They had entered from the shaft through a crawl space following a shallow stream. There was a dirt mound in the centre. The shallow stream surrounded the mound. Some kind of silver-coloured crystals covered the dry-stone walls. They crystals had formed in similar patterns to that made by wax as it melts down the side of a candle.

Set back further in the chamber, in the shadows thrown by the free-standing bronze braziers that lit the room, was the entrance to another chamber. Through the darkness Britha could make out the second, much smaller chamber. It was also lined with the crystal. There was a strange-looking sleeping pallet on the floor of the room. Something about it made Britha think of a nest. The air was thick with the smell that she had always associated with animals. As ban draoi she shared in the meat and milk provided by the livestock kept by the rest of the tribe. Her roundhouse had to be kept as a ritual space, however, and as such she had never had to share it with cows, sheep, goats or chickens.

On the mound was a handsomely carved wooden chair. The designs on it were strange to Britha’s eyes. They seemed to flow and run into each other, hinting at some story that was beyond her ken. Next to it was a similarly designed table; it too looked ancient and strange. On the table were little tear-shaped fragments of crystal. Teardrop was looking at them with interest. They looked different to the crystals on the wall, more refined, or made from a different material.

Fachtna’s face was made of stone. Britha could respect the effort he was putting in to remaining calm. Tangwen had said that their god had wanted to see them on his own. She had left the warning of the consequences of harming him unsaid.

‘You have met my people before, I see,’ the creature said. The S wasn’t as drawn-out as she had expected, but it was longer than she was used to.

It was the very human-looking robes that disturbed Britha the most. They were not of her people nor any of the tribes of this island, but they would not have been out of place on some of the more outlandish traders she had met in her time. They had been colourful, once, finely made of some thick material that Britha could not identify, and fur-lined. They were also old and very worn.

To see clothes worn by such a creature seemed like a mockery. Its head was elongated, almost like an arrowhead. Its eyes were vertical yellow and black slits. Its skin was a patchwork of scales, mostly an unhealthy off-white colour, though with black patterns running down them. Its legs and hands were wrapped in rags but even disguised they looked wrong, unnatural. Long black nails poked through the rags at the tips of its fingers and toes.

Strangest of all was the long tail, also wrapped in rags. This strange creature looked very, very old.

‘Do you have a name?’ Britha asked.

‘A number – I have been alive for a long time. You would be capable of pronouncing few of them. The people of the swamp call me Father. I misliked it at first but have come to appreciate it. People as disparate as they and I coming to have such a close bond.’ When it spoke its long forked tongue flickered out in a way that Britha found unsettling. Behind the tongue she could make out wicked-looking teeth that folded up into its mouth.

‘I think not,’ Fachtna spat.

‘They call you a god,’ Britha said.

‘That is no doing of mine.’

‘Are you a dragon?’ Britha asked. The creature hissed at her. It took her a moment to realise that it was laughing. Teardrop was as well. That earned him an angry glare.

‘Would you like me to be?’

‘I’d like you not to make sport of me with your forked tongue.’

‘Then I am not. I am as you are. We have the same mother.’

His explanation posed more questions than it answered.

Fachtna grunted derisively, a sneer on his face.

‘Do you seek death?’ the warrior demanded.

‘I allowed you in here armed as a show of good faith, of trust, as a result of your friend’s mindsong. You look like a warrior from here, but you are unscarred, as are your armour and shield, and I sense you carry weapons of –’ it glanced at Britha and then back to Fachtna ‘– ancient power. You are not from here, though your people once were or may be again, I am not sure which.’

Teardrop was looking around the cave at the crystal, a look of intense concentration on his face.

‘What do you want of us?’ Britha asked, trying to mask the revulsion in her voice. As the creature swung to look at her, she had to resist the urge to shrink away from its gaze.

‘To help you, I think. The raiders are no friends of yours and they are certainly no friends of ours.’

‘You are hurt?’ Fachtna said.

‘I am old and weak,’ the creature replied.

‘Else you would have changed these people.’

The serpentine creature looked at Fachtna for a long time. Its eyes didn’t blink. The warrior held the strange gaze as best he could.

‘I am not as others of my kind you may have met,’ it finally said. Despite the creature’s disquieting appearance, Britha could not miss the loneliness in its voice.

‘You did not fall,’ Teardrop said finally. ‘Something about this cave protected you. You are not insane and corrupt like the others.’

The weight of the creature’s years was apparent as it shuffled to its chair and sat down. Despite the strangeness of its face, the sadness there was unmistakable.

‘You served the Muileartach,’ Teardrop added. The creature nodded its head. The gesture looked strange in something so inhuman.

‘When the madness broke through, I fled with my mother, who I served even as the rest of them were infected. We fled as far as we could, through the seas, but this is a small world.’

Teardrop walked to the wall of the chamber and reached up to run his hand over the rough crystalline growths.

‘The crystal protects you?’

‘Or hides me. I’ve never been sure which.’

Fachtna was following this exchange with a look of confusion.

‘What are you saying?’ he demanded. He did not like it that a cornerstone belief of his seemed to be under threat.

‘That this Naga is not your enemy,’ Teardrop said.

‘I am more than a weapon. I will not use your flesh or plant my warped children in you.’

Britha was still confused but relieved that this Naga creature did not seem to wish them ill, horrifying though it might look.

Fachtna muttered something about the Naga not having a chance to defile his flesh.

‘We have met other servants – they are starting to fall,’ said Teardrop.

‘We were not her servants. We were her, or rather their, children, just like you.’

‘You speak of the gods?’ Britha asked, confused.

‘I speak of your forebears,’ the creature told her. It turned back to Teardrop. ‘I hear them fight. I hear their song as they fall. My cave keeps me safe. So far.’

‘So the Muileartach has fallen?’ Teardrop asked, sounding worried.

The creature shook its head slowly. ‘No, you would have felt it. She sleeps.’

‘So what is Bress doing with my people?’ Britha asked.

‘Bress is a servant. I have heard his master at the ceremonies of the Corpse People from the west and the demon-ridden slaves that Bress keeps. I have heard this in my dreams. I have seen the Dark Man in their fires. He comes to give birth. The anti-birth. Instead of life there will be death and Ynys Prydein will become Ynys Annwn, the isle of the dead.’

‘Who is the Dark Man?’ Fachtna asked, his hatred gone now, drawn in by the Naga’s story.

‘The Corpse People of the west call him Crom Dhubh. He will kill a man, steal the secret of birth so all will be stillborn, and then the Muileartach will fall and from her poisoned womb will come Llwglyd Diddymder.’

‘What does that mean?’ Teardrop asked.

‘I only know the songs they sing to their servants, nothing more. I do not know this Crom Dhubh, but he is old and has power.’

‘Only one man must die for this to happen?’ Fachtna asked. The Naga’s head seemed to wrinkle. Britha guessed it was frowning or concentrating.

‘This is what is sung,’ it finally said.

Fachtna turned to Teardrop. ‘Have you heard this?’

‘I have not dared open myself. Even with what little I did today, I heard the murmur of madness in the background. It sounded like ten thousand voices all struck by the moon and wretched.’

‘You must beware his followers, the Corpse People. They eat the flesh of heroes, kings and those touched by the gods. They harvest their power.’ Britha noticed the meaningful look that the Naga gave Teardrop as if trying to convey something else.

Teardrop nodded as if he understood. ‘Where is the Muileartach?’ he asked.

‘You cannot go there. The very land itself will fight you.’

‘We have no choice,’ Britha said. ‘Bress has my people.’

‘Then they are not yours any more.’

‘There is no shame in dying even though it proves you right,’ she replied.

‘You will not die. Not at first anyway. Not in the flesh.’

‘You know we will go,’ Teardrop said. The creature gave this some thought.

‘I will ask Tangwen to guide you. Do not go down the coast but instead travel the length of the Grey Father. I will tell her to take you to the lands of the Atrebates to my friend Rin, their rhi. That will take you closer. Do not get Tangwen killed. Her people need her strength.’

For a moment nobody said anything.

‘Thank you,’ Teardrop finally said. Britha nodded in agreement. Fachtna was quiet.

‘I’m sorry,’ the warrior finally said.

‘It saddens me to say that I think your response is probably the wisest. When you meet one of my people, don’t hesitate. Kill them. All that they were would thank you for your kindness.’ There was so much sadness in its voice, but even so Britha was surprised to see the tear that rolled down Fachtna’s cheek. The creature turned its head towards her. ‘I wish I could have been your dragon.’ She had no words for him. ‘Instead all I am is a foolish old snake who pisses in a circle to hide from the bad folk.’

‘Do you come from the Brass City?’ the creature asked as they turned to leave. Teardrop looked back and shook his head. Fachtna looked confused. ‘You carry weapons of the many-edged ones.’ For a while neither of them answered.

‘We are from the Ubh Blaosc,’ Fachtna told him. ‘When you sing, sing of us.’

The seeds were flung into dark rough waters. They spiralled to the seabed to burrow and grow. Strange roots dug deep into the earth, drinking energy from its heat and travelling far to take metal from its flesh. Slowly it began to rise through the silted depths.

The captives were quiet now. Ettin had taught them the value of silence when their screams were not wanted. The smell of fear still sickened him though, and he could feel eyes full of hate staring at his back. The black curragh held steady in the choppy sea as he watched its head slowly grow out of the water.

They were not quiet when they saw it, when they realised what it was, what they were to become. Ettin laid about them with his whip, his latest victim begging him and cursing him to stop from his shoulder as he did so.