The Bear King, page 16
part #3 of Dark Age Series
Lucanus jerked his own blade up. How long had it been since he’d had to fight? His arm felt like lead and his reactions were dull, his muscles creaking.
The Pict hacked down. Though he could not have told how, Lucanus clashed Caledfwlch against his enemy’s blade. Sparks arced in the dark.
He felt his heart pounding, his head throbbing with blood. Dread. The sudden knowledge that he was no longer the man he had been. Too feeble, too depleted by time and pain. He could die here, cut down like the rawest soldier, and Catia would be left with no one to protect her.
Silver light flashed in his head and the mind of a man was dashed away. In its place roared the wolf, the beast he had killed the night he had become a true member of the arcani.
Lucanus flung himself forward, ducking under the cleaving sword. He sensed his enemy’s shock, and then he rammed into the Pict and they crashed to the sodden ground, the wolf wrestling, tearing with its claws, bones clashing, the stink of meat and sweat in its nostrils, gouging, heaving, bucking.
Survival. Survival.
And then his teeth snapping and rending and the feel of hot blood gushing into his mouth. His mind crept back and he realized the Pict was still beneath him. A hand grabbed him and he jerked back, trying to throw it off. Bellicus’ face loomed into his frame of vision.
Lucanus swallowed, allowing himself to be helped to his feet. The Grim Wolves clustered in a circle round him, their swords waving from side to side, while the barbarian war-band thundered towards the camp. They heard the cries of alarm ring out, and the clash of steel, and the maddening din of battle.
If the Fates had been kind, they might have stayed hidden there in the shadows with the torrent rushing by, but no. Warrior after warrior all but crashed into them, and his brothers hurled themselves into furious battle. A wild-haired barbarian with a broken nose thrust his sword towards him. This time he was quicker. He swung back on the balls of his feet and the tip of the blade swept a fingerwidth from his chest. Before the enemy could recover, he rammed Caledfwlch into his gut.
As he wrenched his weapon free, the warrior fell away. Another took his place. Lucanus stared into his foe’s eyes and felt a pang of shock. A mane of wild black hair, eyes like the deepest well. A familiar face: Erca, leader of the Scoti war-band, who had once seized Catia as his captive. During the time he held her prisoner, the barbarian had learned to desire her. And, Lucanus feared, Catia in return had found something to admire in him.
‘The Pendragon,’ Erca growled. ‘We have unfinished business.’
Lucanus staggered back, his single arm throwing him off balance. In that instant, he could see his death.
The Scoti leader swung his sword in an arc.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Road of Trials
‘LEAVE HIM!’
Apullius threw himself between Lucanus and Erca. Lucanus cried out, too late. The blade raked across the younger man’s chest. He spun back and the Wolf caught him, crashing down on one knee.
‘Half a man,’ Erca spat. ‘Too weak to fight your own battles. You need a boy to protect you now?’ The Scoti leader yanked his arm back, ready for a killing thrust.
Lucanus fumbled with Caledfwlch, but Apullius pinned him down. He felt hot blood soak him.
Before he could thrust, Erca’s eyes darted to the side. Lucanus followed that look and saw pale shapes flitting towards them. He shuddered, his despair at Apullius’ sacrifice shading into confusion at the flicker of fear he had glimpsed in the barbarian’s face.
A Pict racing by crashed down in front of them, blood spurting from a wound to his neck that had appeared so fast it was little more than a blur. Another barbarian clutched at his tumbling intestines, eyes wide with surprise that he was suddenly dying. And then those pale shapes coalesced as they burst from the shadows and the Attacotti danced forward, still silent, feet barely whispering as they swept through the woods.
His saviours; his captors. If he were to die it would be by their hands alone.
More barbarians fell as the white hunters rushed forward, their blades whisking this way and that. The war-band knew who their former allies were, knew and feared them more than any other. In an instant cries of warning were ringing out. The flood of barbarians drained away.
Lucanus jerked back from the mesmerizing approach of the Attacotti. A hulking shadow was disappearing into the trees. Erca was gone.
The Attacotti ghosted by him, not even offering a glance in his direction. The prize was still theirs. Beyond that, he was not worthy of their attention.
The Wolf flipped Apullius on to his back and pressed his hand on the chest wound. Blood bubbled up between his fingers. In the gloom, the Grim Wolf’s face was as chalk white as those of the Attacotti, his eyes flickering half closed.
‘Do not worry. My life means nothing compared to yours,’ the younger man croaked.
‘A lie,’ Lucanus snapped.
‘It’s true. And every man here knows it.’
Lucanus felt acid burn his mouth. He was no more worthy than any of them. ‘Mato!’ he called. ‘Bellicus!’
A moment later he heard feet pounding towards him and Mato dropped down at his side. ‘Let me,’ his friend said, easing his hand away from the wound.
The Wolf flopped back on to the sodden ground, drained. Apullius tried to force himself up, but Mato pushed him back down, dipping into the pouch at his hip. Lucanus wrinkled his nose at the reek of a foul-smelling paste which Mato smeared on the wound before binding it with cloth.
‘More of Myrrdin’s potions?’
‘The druids are … were … wise men. Healers as well as teachers.’ Mato’s voice was barely audible beneath the distant din of clashing swords and battle-cries as he worked to seal the wound. ‘If this knowledge is not passed on, much will be lost.’
‘Will it work?’ Lucanus murmured, trying not to let Apullius hear.
Mato didn’t answer.
Apullius’ eyelids fluttered shut, but Lucanus could see he was still breathing.
‘That’s all I can do, for now.’ Mato stood and tugged Lucanus to one side. ‘We have a hard choice now, brother. If we go on to find Catia, Apullius will probably die. We need to get him to a leech before the rot grips him. If we go back with Apullius …’
He let the words hang. Lucanus knew what his friend could not say. Any retreat might mean Catia would die. He felt his throat narrow at the unbearable decision. How could he choose?
‘This is talk for later,’ he said. ‘For now, we need to find safety.’
He blasted a short, sharp whistle and the rest of the Grim Wolves pounded out of the night. Circling him, they stared down at Apullius. All they needed to know they could read from that wound, and Mato’s grim face.
‘We must be away from here,’ Lucanus said, his voice hoarse. ‘The barbarians care little about us, for now. They want their vengeance on Rome. But soon enough they’ll be back.’ He remembered the look in Erca’s eyes, the look of a man who was not used to being denied.
The Grim Wolves hooked their arms under Apullius and lifted him as gently as they could. He moaned from the pain, but his eyes remained shut. Through the trees they ran, until the thunder of battle was lost beneath the howling of the wind. Finally, they rested in the lee of a valley beneath a natural shelter of outcropping granite.
While Comitinus moistened Apullius’ lips from a water skin, Lucanus trudged away. He felt the weight of the younger man’s sacrifice crushing him down. Perching on a lichen-crusted rock, he bowed his head and let his thoughts sweep back, across the fields, hills and moors and through the years, to Vercovicium and the simpler life he had led there. With the coin he took from the army for his work with the arcani, he had followed what had seemed a preordained path. Until the druids and the witches had interfered, steering his life off course.
He sucked in a deep, juddering draught of the damp air, feeling the steady beat of droplets on his wolf-pelt from the branches above. And yet there was always Catia. If life had remained the same in Vercovicium, the love they had always felt for each other would never have come to fruition. Her days would have been miserable in the orbit of her brute of a husband. He would never have had a son.
Is this what the gods did? Give joy with one hand, and steal it back with the other?
Hauling himself to his feet, he squelched back through the sea of mud to the overhanging rock. The grey shapes beneath it looked like a sheltering wolf pack. At their heart lay Apullius. His eyes were open again, black pebbles in a frozen pool.
‘Leave us,’ Lucanus grunted. The other Grim Wolves drifted away as he dropped to his haunches beside the dying youth. ‘You saved my life. I’ll never forget that.’
‘Any man here would have done the same.’ His voice sounded like autumn leaves.
‘But it’s wrong. I’m just a filthy ditch-crawler like the rest of you.’
Apullius tried to laugh, but it rolled into a hacking cough. ‘You’re not like us, Lucanus. Why can’t you see that? Could Solinus command such respect from an army that they would follow him to certain death? Would Bellicus, for all his long years, have the wisdom to be a king who faces questions, new demands, every day? No.’
‘I don’t want to be raised up.’
‘You have no say in it.’ Lucanus recoiled at the snap in the voice. There was fire in Apullius’ eyes. ‘This is the story that’s been written for you.’
Lucanus stiffened. ‘I choose my own path.’
Apullius shook his head. ‘You must embrace who you’re supposed to be, for the sake of all who follow you into what is to come. All depends on you, Lucanus. You are the key. You are the Pendragon.’
‘My wishes don’t matter?’
‘Your life ended a long time ago. Embrace that freedom.’
Lucanus looked deep into the face of the other man. There were already lines there. That should not be the case in one so young, but suffering made men of all boys.
Apullius forced a wan smile. ‘You don’t see yourself as others do. The Grim Wolves … they’ll follow you anywhere. Do you think a woman like Catia would have chosen a lesser man? Your soldiers, who gave up their families and their work and everything they knew, men who had never lifted a sword before, all of them marching towards a monstrous enemy? You’re a good man, with a good heart. That’s what everyone sees. In the end, that’s all that counts. They don’t need a hero of old. Just a good heart.’ His voice trailed away into another series of coughs.
Lucanus felt overwhelmed. For a moment, he bowed his head, listening to the steady beat of falling droplets in the dark.
‘You’re a good man too, Apullius,’ he said slowly. ‘You brought a light into this dark age in which we’ve found ourselves. The first time I met you I could see it, that night in the woods, where you waited with the other children, and the old and the sick, comforting Morirex, never thinking of yourself. Though your mother and father were stolen from you that night, you shouldered your burden like a man. You thought only of others. And in the hard days that followed, you grew stronger. All of the other Grim Wolves saw it. That was why you were asked to join us, and mark my words, that is not an honour given lightly. And you met that challenge. You defeated the wolf one on one. You earned your place among us, and we stand shoulder to shoulder. Equals. You’ve proved yourself time and again. There is no finer man, no one I’d rather fight alongside. You have honour and courage.’ Lucanus swallowed. His mouth was dry. ‘You’re like a son to me, Apullius. My heart swells with pride whenever I look upon you. And that’s why I’ve decided to send you back with the others, to gain the healing you need. I’ll go on alone. I’ll brook no dissent.’
The Wolf raised his head, waiting for the argument. Apullius would never agree to it. What lay ahead was too much for one man, especially a one-armed shadow of his former self. But he had decided, and he wouldn’t back down.
The wind whined in the branches and the raindrops beat upon the mud, and still there was no objection. And then he looked down at the lad and saw the utter stillness that could never lie across a living thing. And he felt himself swallowed by a torrent of grief so deep and black that he thought he would never see light again.
There was no dry wood to build a pyre and they had no tools to dig a grave, so for the rest of that long night they searched through the areas where fingers of granite thrust out from the banks and valley sides to find enough rock to build a cairn.
Solinus would not show any of them his face, but he chose a spot in a clearing that would receive the sun by day and moonlight by night, and vowed to fight anyone who would deny him his choice.
It was a peaceful location, but a sad one, so far from any life, where no one would come to mourn, or in years to come to sit and reflect on what great hero was buried there. But it was fitting too. The Grim Wolves had always lived their days in loneliness, away from human habitation, under the stars, on the windswept moors and in the deep forests, with only the song of the hawk and the hoot of the owl for company.
As the dawn broke, Lucanus stood at the head of the cairn while Mato summoned up some words. The Wolf could see that they touched the hearts of his brothers gathered round that small pile of stone, but he heard none of them. All he remembered later was the steady tidal wash of the blood in his head.
When they were done, the others drifted away to be alone with their thoughts. Mato strode over to him, a sad smile on his lips. Still trying to find some brightness even in the darkest moment. Lucanus knew he would always feel kindly towards his friend for that.
‘There are no words that will bring comfort, I know,’ Mato said. ‘We must keep Apullius in our hearts, that’s all. And we will need that light in days to come.’
Lucanus nodded. ‘The barbarians will be roaming far and wide, ready to spill blood and plunder. We can expect no help from the Dumnonii. Every step of the way now is fraught with danger.’ He tried not to think of Catia and what she might encounter in a land now filled with cut-throats and rogues.
‘This is a road of trials.’ Mato leaned on his staff, his sodden hair plastered to his head. ‘Myrrdin spoke of this. It’s said that whosoever searches for the cauldron of the Dagda will be tested time and again. The gods will not allow those who are not worthy to reach that prize.’ He squeezed Lucanus’ shoulder, a touch of comfort. ‘The wood-priest said everyone who quests for the cauldron must at some point defeat themselves. What that might mean, you know as well as I. Myrrdin loved speaking in riddles. But he was adamant about one thing: deep truths must be learned.’
Lucanus shrugged. ‘We do what the Grim Wolves have always done. When we know hard times lie ahead, we don’t turn away. We do the work we’ve been charged with. If we win, it’s because of what lies in our heart. If we don’t have that fire in our heart, we don’t win.’
Mato nodded and walked away to find the others. For a long moment, Lucanus stared at that lonely cairn, seeing in it more than just a shelter for the remains of a man he valued. He was not ready for this road of trials.
But who ever was?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Fang and Claw
THE LAMP OF THE MOON BURNED WHITE THROUGH THE branches. Stark shadows carved across the pools of light leading them on as they raced through the trees.
‘Thank the gods it’s not a dark night. We’d be dead by now,’ Solinus croaked. He was scowling, sweat running along the lines of the scar that quartered his face. Though he looked as vinegar-sour as always, Bellicus could sense the fear washing off him. And who could blame him?
Behind them, howls tore through the night, whipping up into a frenzy.
Bellicus felt his stomach knot. That chilling sound, so familiar from their long nights in the Wilds. The wolf pack sensed their prey was almost in their grasp. They were exhorting their brothers to run faster, driving their meal on to exhaustion. The music of that baying, soaring up then clashing, would wring terror from even the bravest heart, and in that dread mistakes would be made. Wrong paths would be taken. The prey would stumble, or dash wildly into a place from which there could be no escape.
They mustn’t make that mistake.
Bellicus threw himself on, leading the way along the narrow trail through the forest. Feet pounded behind him. The others were still keeping pace. That was good. There was no room for even the slightest error, because he knew too well that the wolves were faster, their stamina greater. They would never simply give up the hunt.
His nostrils wrinkled and he smelled brine on the breeze. Had they been driven so far off course that they were near the southern coast? His legs burned. He felt as though he’d been running for ever. Hours now since the wolves had first picked up their scent and decided they would make a good feast.
But they were brothers. That’s what he couldn’t understand. And he knew all the other Grim Wolves were thinking the same. Never had any wolf threatened them before. Not since the night of their ritual, when they had stalked and killed an old wolf, the king of a pack, and earned their place as arcani.
‘The gods have abandoned us,’ Comitinus moaned at his back. ‘There can be no other explanation.’
‘You know what would solve this problem?’ Solinus snarled. ‘If I punched you in your face and threw you back there. We four could get away while they feasted on you. What say you?’
‘Silence, both of you,’ Bellicus roared.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they can smell Comitinus’ fear,’ Solinus grunted, demanding the last word as always.
Bellicus thundered to a halt, snatching at a branch to prevent himself from plunging over the edge into an abyss. He sucked a mouthful of air into his searing lungs and peered down. As his eyes searched the dark, which was punctured here and there by silver moonbeams, he sensed the lie of the land. A valley side, so steep at the top it was almost sheer. The earth had fallen away in places and the trees punched up in a jumble of angles, some half slipped, their roots straining. A treacherous route. But they had no choice.
