The Bear King, page 1
part #3 of Dark Age Series
James Wilde
* * *
THE BEAR KING
Contents
Part One: The Island Chapter One: Red Sails
Chapter Two: The Two Kings
Chapter Three: The War Council
Chapter Four: At Sunset
Chapter Five: Dark Horizon
Chapter Six: The Queen in Exile
Chapter Seven: The Storm
Chapter Eight: Island of the Dead
Chapter Nine: The Wild Hunt
Chapter Ten: The Underworld
Chapter Eleven: Three
Chapter Twelve: The King of the Dead
Chapter Thirteen: The Labyrinth
Chapter Fourteen: The Cauldron
Chapter Fifteen: Strange Allies
Chapter Sixteen: Homecoming
Chapter Seventeen: The Lights are Going Out
Part Two: The Quest Chapter Eighteen: Tempest-Tossed
Chapter Nineteen: The Spiral Path
Chapter Twenty: The Road of Trials
Chapter Twenty-One: Fang and Claw
Chapter Twenty-Two: Hunger
Chapter Twenty-Three: Lost
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Bridge
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Spirit of the Greenwood
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Druid’s Path
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Blighted Land
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Fisher King
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Wound
Chapter Thirty: Sister of Dragons
Part Three: The Beacon Chapter Thirty-One: Long March into Night
Chapter Thirty-Two: Into Cambria
Chapter Thirty-Three: Empire’s End
Chapter Thirty-Four: Bad Seed
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Season Turns
Chapter Thirty-Six: Three Again
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Song of the Attacotti
Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Mountain’s Teeth
Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Pool of the Dragons
Chapter Forty: Samhain
Chapter Forty-One: The Last Battle
Chapter Forty-Two: Into the Fortress
Chapter Forty-Three: The Curse
Chapter Forty-Four: The Last Kiss
About the Author
James Wilde is a Man of Mercia. Brought up surrounded by books, he studied economic history at university before travelling the world in search of adventure. It was while visiting the haunted fenlands of eastern England, the ancestral home of Hereward the Wake, that he decided that this legendary English rebel should be the subject of his debut novel. The first in an acclaimed six-book sequence, Hereward was a bestseller. His novels, Pendragon, Dark Age and now The Bear King, explore the origins of what would become the myth of King Arthur.
James Wilde divides his time between London and his family home in Derbyshire.
To find out more, visit www.manofmercia.co.uk
Also by James Wilde
The Hereward sequence
HEREWARD
THE DEVIL’S ARMY
END OF DAYS
WOLVES OF NEW ROME
THE IMMORTALS
THE BLOODY CROWN
The Dark Age trilogy
PENDRAGON
DARK AGE
For more information on James Wilde and his books, see his website at www.manofmercia.co.uk
For Elizabeth, Betsy, Joe and Eve
And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it,
Neither brave man nor coward, I tell you –
It’s born with us the day that we are born.
Homer
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Part One
* * *
THE ISLAND
Each of us bears his own hell.
Virgil
CHAPTER ONE
Red Sails
AD 375, Tintagel, in the far west of Britannia
THE YEARS OF PEACE SEEMED A DISTANT MEMORY NOW.
Each turning season was punctuated by death, and though the red-rimmed tide ebbed and flowed there would be no respite from battle, they all knew that.
Catia stood among the huddled women on the stony beach and peered out to sea. Though the salty wind whipped strands of blonde hair across her face, her stare never wavered. She was queen of this land, for what it was worth. All that meant in truth was more swords pointed at her heart, hard decisions, sleepless nights.
The ships bobbed closer under the pink-streaked sky. Scarlet sails glowed along the horizon like blood-roses on a shroud.
Catia glanced above the bowed heads of the keening women to where Amarina stood, bundled in her emerald cloak against the dawn chill. Her auburn hair had streaks of silver now. Faint lines marred her pale skin. In the years since they’d travelled into the west, she seemed to have aged a notch faster than others, as if she bore some hidden burden.
She looked back at Catia, her cold green eyes giving nothing away. That was Amarina, a stone chest of secrets.
The ships swept towards the cove, six of them. Catia imagined she could see the Hibernian raiders on board, braced against the heaving swell. All red beards and wild hair and eyes like nail-heads. The steady thunder of the drums rolled out, and when the wind dropped she could hear their full-throated song.
They’d known this day was coming. It had only been a matter of time.
The legend of Niall of the Nine Hostages had surged around the coastline of southern Britannia like the tide. Soon to be the High King of all Hibernia, some said. A warrior gifted with the powers of the gods, others countered. One thing was certain. He and his fierce raiders smote the coastal settlements like a smith’s hammer striking the anvil, and they had done so for long months now. Treasure plundered, stores snatched, men cut down like stalks of barley before the scythe. The Dumnonii who occupied those wind-blasted south-western lands lived in daily fear that Niall would descend upon them again.
‘Oh, they come,’ Amarina cried, her voice dripping with acid. ‘What chance do we stand?’
The keening of the women echoed louder. Soon those raiders would hear it.
‘Courage,’ Catia called.
Niall was cunning. He’d saved the best until he was certain what feeble defences existed along that coastline. Catia craned her neck back to look at the towering fortress perched on the clifftop that had been their home for seven years now. Raised up into new life from the ruins once occupied by the great kings in the west. Creamy stone shaped by the finest masons among the Dumnonii. And inside, treasure beyond reckoning: gold and silver, coin and ingot and plate, lapis lazuli jewellery from the hot lands in the south, the finest pottery and statuary, oil and wine, all of it tribute or trade sent to this place by those who knew the standing of the new occupants.
How Niall had resisted until now, she didn’t know.
But then, just before dawn, one of the beacons had been lit further along the coast. The Hibernian pirate must have heard the stories of their army’s foray into the east, and that they were now defenceless.
‘Perhaps they’ll sail by when they see what a miserable force awaits them,’ Amarina said. ‘Hardly worth shaking an axe at.’
Catia pushed her chin up. Even in that moment, their enemies should know they faced a queen.
The cries of the women soared up to the heavens, drowning out the shrieks of the gulls.
The ships came on towards the narrow horseshoe-shaped cove. It was surrounded on two sides by granite cliffs, and on the third by a steep wooded valley. Currents and swell tossed the vessels and the helmsmen fought to guide them to their destination. The cove wasn’t broad enough to allow entry to the entire fleet, so four held back while the remaining two skimmed towards the shallows. If they’d ventured just around the headland on which the fortress stood, they would have been able to land all six ships.
But the queen stood there, and so the raiders had come to her.
The anchor-stones splashed into the brine. The rowboats pulled towards shore.
The Hibernians were wrapped in furs smeared with lamb fat to keep out the ocean’s cold. Catia’s nostrils wrinkled at the reek. Underneath the furs, she glimpsed creaking leather armour. They carried short-hafted single-bladed axes and round wooden shields brightly painted with reds and yellows and blues, each carrying a design that was a token of good fortune to the bearer.
Catia nodded when she saw the one she knew instantly to be Niall of the Nine Hostages. He was taller than the others, broad-shouldered, his white teeth gleaming in his bristles. But it was the eyes that identified him, the confident look of a man used to ruling. All fellow leaders knew that look. His shield was red, with a curled black dragon at the centre.
She had to smile at that.
‘Hold your tongues,’ she called.
The women choked back their cries, but kept their heads bowed.
Niall splashed into the shallows and squelched up the wet sand to stand on the stones in front of her. He looked her up and down.
From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the other raiders approach Amarina, the only other woman standing. ‘Take care,’ she said. ‘That one bites.’
Niall laughed. ‘We’ve heard tell of you, even in Hibernia. The Queen of Fury. Where is your rage now, eh? Where is your defiance?’
Catia forced a cold smile.
‘It takes wit to be a leader, and strategy, and cunning,’ continued Niall. ‘We lured your army away. We left you defenceless so we could sail in and take what we want with impunity.’ He screwed up his mouth, feigning disappointmen t. ‘From the tales, I expected more.’
‘We are never defenceless,’ Catia said.
He must have seen something in her face, for his eyes widened. He opened his mouth to bark an order, but he wasn’t quick enough.
A flash of silver on the edge of Catia’s vision. Amarina’s blade, whipped from the depths of her cloak. Slashing across the throat of the raider who stood in front of her, so fast it blurred. The pirate was still gaping, not aware that he was dead. The blood gushed over Amarina from his severed artery. She stood there in the torrent, smiling.
And then the whirlwind.
As one, the women surged to their feet. Short blades gleamed in hands that had been hidden, stabbing and slashing.
Catia and Niall backed away from each other.
‘You think we won’t slaughter you because you’re women?’ the pirate-king bellowed.
Catia snatched up her bow from where it had been hidden, nocked an arrow and loosed. She cursed as it whined a finger’s width from Niall’s head and smacked into the eye socket of the man standing behind him.
Drenched in blood, the women scrambled back up the beach to the valley’s mouth before the bewildered men could fight back.
Amarina lurched up, eyes white in her gore-streaked face. She seemed breathless with exhilaration. ‘It takes wit to be a leader, and strategy, and cunning,’ she said. ‘Never forget.’
And then she was gone with the women, into the shade beneath the trees. Catia stood alone on the edge of the beach, watching the raiders surge in confusion. Rage crackled between them. Five bodies littered the stones; three more men clasped deep wounds.
Niall cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed to the ships out on the swell. He waved an arm, urging them to draw in. Then he spun back and fixed a murderous gaze on Catia. She nocked another arrow and waited.
The men pounded up the beach. This time she ignored Niall, showing him he wasn’t worthy of her attention. She thumped her shaft into the chest of another pirate. Then she slipped away into the trees and found a hiding place from which she watched the cove through a web of branches.
The four ships swept towards their sisters heaving on anchor in the shallows. As they reached the edge of the headland, the deluge began. Shafts rained down, ripping through the pirates who had nowhere to hide. She could hear the howls of agony, see the bodies plunge over the sides.
A helmsman fell with an arrow bursting from his neck. His ship rolled into the one nearest to it. The groan of timbers merged into a terrible rending that echoed even above the crashing of the waves.
And then came the fire.
Catia breathed in the stink of pitch on the breeze. A moment later, a sheet of scarlet and gold rushed down the rock face. The burning pitch swamped the third ship as it tried to find space in the lee of the cliffs. Throat-rending screams rang out, and the sail erupted in flames. Shimmering sparks whipped up on the sea breeze. A thick black pall rolled across the rosy sky.
The sea was on fire.
Catia watched Niall and the first group plunge into the trees. Though they were little more than shadows, she could sense their confusion, and perhaps smell their fear too. They’d never encountered resistance like this before. They’d grown too complacent in their many victories.
Catia huddled in a twisted net of roots, her bow clutched to her breast. Through the half-light, she glimpsed the silhouettes of the raiders lumbering like wounded beasts, roaring their fury as they roamed. Screams echoed above the pounding of the surf and the crackle of the conflagration.
Disaster has struck you down, she thought. You are doomed, but you don’t yet know it.
And the howl of a wolf moaned, low and long.
Smiling, she cocked her head, but heard nothing more. As it should be.
The first pirate thumped to his knees. The blade was withdrawn and the attacker moved on in a blur. From nowhere, the trees throbbed with life.
Her army flooded from its hiding place. Not in the east as Niall of the Nine Hostages had believed, but creeping back under cover of darkness to lay this trap. Why wait for an attack you knew was inevitable?
Wit. Strategy. Cunning.
Catia thrust herself to her feet, nocking another arrow as she ran. One of the raiders backed away from the treeline, his face twisted with shock. Her arrow crunched into his breastbone and he spun back.
She glimpsed Niall, his furs now soaked with blood. He wrenched his axe free from one of her men and dashed out into the thin light. Fleeing? No. To his credit he merely stood on the shore, furiously waving his arms to urge his remaining men to retreat.
Raiders on the one intact ship were plucking survivors from the swell. Others raced past the pirate-king and dived into the sea, striking out for safety. Once he was sure as many of his men as possible had escaped, he lurched forward to follow. Too late. Catia’s guards had emerged from the wooded valley to surround him and the few stragglers. Blades whipped up to his throat.
Niall of the Nine Hostages pushed his head up just as Catia had done earlier. His eyes were half closed. She could see no fear there, no desperate plea for his life. He was their bitter enemy, but she admired him for that.
Crunching over the pebbles, she felt the eyes of her guards flicker towards her. These were loyal men who had been by her side since the first moments of the great struggle that had upended Britannia. She looked around their faces and felt her heart swell that she was so blessed. Once they’d been the Grim Wolves, a rag-tag band of spies for the army of Rome, known as the arcani, who wandered the wilderness beyond the great wall to watch for the empire’s enemies.
Bellicus was the oldest and wisest there, his once-red hair and wild beard now almost the colour of snow. He was as big as a bear, still strong despite his years. Some said he could cleave a man in two with his sword. He held her gaze, waiting for her order.
Beside him stood Mato, tall and slender and as fast as the wind. His heart was huge and he had the soul of a poet; a priest by any other name. Even in the thick of battle he refused to kill a man, and carried no weapon beyond a gnarled staff.
Solinus was the sour one, his tongue always dripping acid. Perhaps that bitterness was a result of the old scar that quartered his face. He found his sport in bickering with Comitinus, a worrier, a doubter, at times a whiner, but whose caution had saved Solinus’ life on more than one occasion. Yet those who didn’t know would think them the worst of enemies.
Four brothers, bound by the spirit of the wolf, and a life of hardship. Her anchors in this turbulent ocean of strife.
Once there had been another. But if she thought of him her heart would break.
Catia stepped in front of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
At first she thought he wouldn’t deign to look at her. But then he lowered his head and she nodded when she saw the gleam of respect in his opening eyes.
‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ she said.
Niall nodded thoughtfully. ‘I should not have underestimated you. True, I heard the stories of the great Queen in the West, but—’
‘You thought a woman couldn’t match you in battle,’ Comitinus chipped in.
‘I thought you were weak Romans.’ Niall cracked a cold grin. ‘You all rolled over and bared your throats when the tribes attacked. Scoti, Picts, Alemanni …’ He turned up his nose. ‘None of them are as fierce as us. And yet they swept across your great wall with impunity, and flooded across Britannia. If they had had more wits they could have carried on to the walls of Rome itself.’
‘They were beaten back,’ Bellicus growled. ‘Where are they now?’
‘Aye, beaten back, finally, when Rome sent its fabled army to save you. And even then it was not an easy task. And now those self-same saviours are leaving you. Garrison after garrison is being abandoned, in the west and in the south. They return to Rome to shore up your flagging emperor, you know that.’
‘He’s not my emperor,’ Catia said.
Now she could see mirth in the pirate-king’s grin. ‘The empire is abandoning Britannia. If not this day, then soon. And that leaves you poor lambs at the mercy of wolves like me.’
