Hag of the Hills, page 12
‘You’re clever,’ he said, ‘the queen is going to like you.’ He leaned down a little, his boulder-like fists akimbo.
Just lean down more…
Ciuthach flared his nostrils and puffed. ‘Enough of your tricks. The queen wants you to come along now.’
‘Does she think I am a bee?’
‘I said no more tricks!’ he cracked his knuckles, the sound like tree trunks snapping. Drool dripped down like a tipped-over bucket.
‘I’m sorry, but what did you say?’ I cupped an ear.
‘I said no tricks! No– tricks!’
‘What?’
‘What are you, deaf?’ he asked, clenching his fist at my face.
‘What? I’m very sorry, gentle Ciuthach, but you are going to have to speak up. I am a bit deaf.’
Ciuthach leaned down toward me and came face to face. He eradicated the dull scent of milkweed and cow muck from the air, and his man-breasts jiggling near my head. When he opened his great, shark-like mouth, his breath almost caused me to vomit.
The oval, puddle-like left eye of the giant twitched as he repeated himself again, so loud that his deep voice beat against my ears.
‘I… said…’
Twitching left eye. An omen. Then was my chance!
A thundering cry bellowed across the moorland. The giant wheeled back, and I hung from the hilt of my sword, the blade jammed into the left eye of the giant. My blue legs dangled against the belly of the beastly monstrosity that retched in agony.
Ciuthach’s greasy hair flopped about, his other eye poured out a rivulet of tears. I grasped a clump of mattered hair and swung across the face of the giant, ripped the sword out and went to jam it into the other eye. I missed and jammed the air near his ear, and fell upon the ground, a torrent of blood from the giant pouring out and splattering my clothes in red. I had intended to impale the other eye, but Danu pulled me back to her bosom and now the half-blind giant looked down at me through both of his eyes, one tearing, one bleeding.
A roar echoed across the moorlands, so loud it must have rippled the nearby stream. I then ran, as fast as I could down the trackway. Ciuthach quaked greatly, his feet shook the ground, but he seemed rattled. I still had his hot blood smeared and dripping all over me.
‘Slighan will have you!’ he called out, ‘come back to the Slighan Hill!’
I raced down the trackway, wishing for night to end, horrified at the prospect of another meeting with the unknown.
‘Thank you, Lugus, the victory is for you, and the blood spilt in your name, and I will sacrifice to you greatly at Lughnasa.’ He had granted me the silver tongue, to trick my enemy. I could not have blinded the giant without his wisdom.
And father! I drank deep from his wisdom that night. I could never have thought of blinding the giant, had I not seen father blind that bear. ‘Thank you, glorious Biturix.’
I slowed my pace. The giant had not followed me. I had defeated it, in part, and secured my oath to Ambicatos. But where did Myrnna go? I looked all around and saw nothing but darkened fields of moorlands at either of my flanks. How could I find her? Did I dare yell her name, with Hillmen and who knows what else lurking about?
In the moonlight, I began my search. I would search all night, until dawn ate away the horrible blackness that spawned that monster.
‘I will find her. I must find her. My oath depends on it,’ I thought.
CHAPTER VIII
I scoured the moorlands all night for Myrnna. It was a daunting thing. The moorlands stretched vastly along both ends of the trackway, strewn in rock shelters and boulders, streams in deep gullies, and the long-robbed foundations of old buildings. I yelled for her despite the threat of Hillmen hearing me.
To make it all worse, I found nothing but death. The Hillmen had ravaged all. Before Beautiful Bride had reddened the sky to wake the world, I had found something that wrenched my heart. On the trackway, half-stuck in the mud, I came across two felled horses in great red pools. They were brown stallions, lean and muscular beasts that had been robbed of their trappings. The stench of blood sullied the air, and near them laid two naked warriors, no older than I, face down in the mud with wooden stakes driven through their backs, spiked to the ground. There were splinters of wood and broken wheels, and I realized it had been a chariot.
I pulled the spikes out and wheezed at the viscera wrapped around the spikes. I righted the two warriors, and closed their eyes. They were beautiful, lean, and Lugus-like. I should have laid them near their horses, but I had to move on to find Myrnna.
All along the trackway, I entered and exited the crow-strewn farmsteads, and left with more hatred against the Hillmen, and still without Myrnna. Three men impaled on stakes, through their arses and out their mouths. An old man hacked to death. A torso stuffed into the belly of a rotting horse. A young boy brained against a wall of an abandoned home. Heads with cocks hanging from their mouths posted on a fence. A young fox gnawing on a severed hand. Roofs burned, horses slaughtered, sheep gone, foodstuffs plundered, no women or children in sight. Often, I ran into mere bones in a roundhouse; the Morrigan’s children were hasty in their feast. The putrid stench and sight and even sound when the bodies farted was all over. I recognized some of them, if the Hillmen or the carrion eaters had not disfigured them too much. They were neighbours, friends, kinsmen. All dead, all nothing I can do. It exhausted me to search the farmsteads, and I dreaded it, but the trackway was hardly better. I am sure the battlefield outside Dun Ashaig looked even worse. I decided, there and then, to kill all Hillmen I found until there was no more blood left to spill.
The songbirds filled the morning, and Belanus sheened the moorlands gold, the sky clear, while the Slighan Hill loomed. The trackway ended several paces before me, the moorlands rolled into greenland, hillocks and then a frown of pine forest. It was Torrin forest, a wall of pines where our chiefs should be hunting stags on shared land, and after it the coast, and then to Dun Torrin, the cliffside fort with its high ramparts and that brooding foreign king. I headed forest-bound and found the path that Cúchulainn once walked. I entered the pine forest with the canopy over my head and pine blanket under my feet, and found the byway. A squirrel flickered throughout the trees, frogs croaked from a mossy pond, and then I spotted men deep on the pathway, and they spotted me. Their shadows stopped, turned, and approached me.
I thought to run, perhaps, since I would be one against many, and I did not desire death yet, but then one must have entered a treeless spot, for his hair burned blazing fire. He was a redhead. Hillmen are not redheaded. The second one then followed shortly, and his hair too glowed, but gold. Hillmen are not blond. They aren’t Hillmen!
They approached me from the left. Now, this may sound odd to so-called civilized men, but a man does not approach another man from the left. We will traverse through briars or down a deep gulch or even over a mountain if it meant approaching from the right, the only way to approach a man.
Unless you’re looking for a fight.
The two of them weaved in and out of the pine trees and then hopped over a creek. They were both lads, stripped to the waist, lanky, with long hair. They wore check pants of white and yellow, cinched at the waist by string. From just their pants I could tell they were foreigners. They came closer and I now realized one carried a longspear leaned against his shoulder, and the other a shortspear and shield. The redhead stepped in a bog and stopped, but then the blond gave him a light shove, and that set the redhead marching through the bog and the blond followed, both lads coming toward me.
‘Why on the left?’ I asked when they came into earshot.
‘You’re on our road,’ said the blond one behind his comrade. I understood what he said, and understood he spoke a tongue similar to mine. They were Celts, from where – Alba, Albion, Hibernia, Gaul, Iberia – I did not know.
‘There’s no road here,’ I said, so foolish back then, but I fingered the hilt of my sword, and readied to unhook the shield from my neck.
‘What’s the word?’ asked the redhead one.
‘He doesn’t know it,’ said the blond. ‘Look, he has his woad on.’
The redhead was taller and muscular and had a fish-mouth, always open, with a gap tooth, and a freckled face. Both had budding moustaches that had not quite filled out yet.
‘If he doesn’t know the word, then he has to pay the toll.’
‘Tell me – have you seen a girl? A brunette.’
‘Think we found her last night, chief,’ a third voice said behind me, in another Celtic language I did not recognize.
I pivoted to see a short man behind me, armed with an iron dagger gleaming in the sun. He too was stripped to the waist, and he had baggy green trousers, and a yellow-brown check cloak wrapped around his shoulder. He possessed long grey ringlets of hair that danced at his shoulders, a thick grey moustache, and tawny, leathery skin. He had small blue eyes and he never looked me in the eyes when speaking. He seemed aloof, yet I suspected he wanted me to think that.
‘You found her last night? Really?’
‘Your sword – hand it over,’ said the short man.
‘Who are you people? Bandits?’ I asked. I had heard of lawless men that prey on lone travellers in Alba, but never suspected them on Skye.
‘I’m Antedios,’ said the gap-toothed lad, his spear shaft in both of his hands and iron point aimed at me. ‘That’s Cattos.’ He gestured to the shorter blond armed with a shortspear and shield. ‘And that’s Aldryd.’ He gestured to the man behind me, dagger still poised. ‘And you’re on our road.’
‘You’re going to pay the toll,’ Aldryd said.
Black Badb crawled in my chest as red Camulus tremored my sword-arm. I unhooked my shield and unsheathed my sword and did not know which way to face, for they had already surrounded me. ‘You’re foreigners! This is the commons – it’s my clan’s road!’
‘This is no man’s road now, chief,’ Aldryd said. ‘Except ours. Put the sword down. Rather, put it down at your feet. We’ll let you live if you just drop it and leave. Real easy, chief.’
I refused to answer as Camulus raged in my heart. Where is Myrnna? By good Danu – has she been taken? Will she be sold into slavery? If I could get Myrnna back, then I would put my sword down. The thought of losing Bodvoc’ sword hurt, but I had sworn an oath to Ambicatos to protect his daughter no matter what. The sword for my oath.
Cattos and Antedios fanned out on both of my flanks.
‘Tell me – where is the girl! You’d better not have touched her – I am her protector!’
‘You’re her protector?’ Aldryd asked. He rubbed his grey chin. ‘Well, no dispute then if you’re dead. Stick him! Go – lads – go!’
Badb entranced me, she bound me to the ground, I did not act as the three closed in on me. Then the corpse of my brother entered my mind. How many did he fell before he himself fell? Could Badb have ever bounded my father?
Nothing is unconquerable. Even our gods can die.
Those words burned in me as the longspear plunged toward my thigh. I slapped the blade with my shield and held the spear away from me. I charged at Antedios, the edge of my shield sliding down his shaft.
‘I am Biturix’s son!’ I shouted at him. If I were going to die, Antedios will come with me. I sought revenge, not for myself, but for Myrnna. And death hemmed in on me, both Cattos from my right and Aldryd from down the bypath, my foemen readied to strike me down from three places.
I rushed Antedios, butted the spearshaft so that his arm leaned awkwardly away, and then I slashed at the unguarded man.
Antedios sprawled away from me, spear landing softly on the pine carpet below. A fourth man appeared. He had grabbed Antedios and tossed him away. His shout had halted Aldryd and Cattos, and the man stood arms waving, shaking his head, as Antedios collected himself from off the ground.
‘You idiot! He almost gutted you!’ he yelled at Antedios.
The man was tall, fat, sturdy, bald, skin-faced, and ruddy. My eyes were first drawn to a bronze torc wrapped around his neck, though he spoke Celtic with a thick, strange accent. He wore a red kilt and wooden sandals, and I had rarely seen such bright red-coloured clothes before on someone. He had deep scars over his chest and one across his face. With his shimmering torc and red garments, he was outfitted both legally and brutally.
‘He said Biturix. I know that name. You’re not killing him,’ he said to his men. ‘At ease.’
They all lowered their weapons, though Antedios kept a gape-mouth, gap-toothed, goofy grin on me. He breathed heavy and so did Cattos, both red-faced, ready for another round at a moment’s notice.
Aldryd, on the other hand, looked nonplussed. He leaned against a tree and crossed his arms.
‘Oh, calm down you two,’ the newcomer said to the lads. ‘And you, too,’ he said to me.
I had not lowered my sword, and I could feel my shoulders hunched to my ears, and realized I stood on the balls of my feet.
‘Put the sword down,’ he said to me.
I refused.
‘You said you’re Biturix’s boy?’ he asked, hand to stubbled chin.
I nodded.
‘You ever hear him mention the name Tratonius?’
‘No.’
‘Too bad, because that’s me. Biturix was an old friend of mine. I knew he had sons, doesn’t surprise me you almost ran poor Antedios here through!’ he said and grinned to show he was missing at least half of his teeth. ‘Come on, put the sword down, I wouldn’t dishonour Biturix by betraying his son, that’s what you’re thinking, right?’
I lowered my sword. Tratonius stared at me, he had big grey eyes and a straight, long nose, and there was a hard kindness in his face. I sheathed my sword, and felt it secure in its sheath, away from the grubby hands of banditry.
‘Now, what are you doing here?’
‘This is the commons!’ I shouted back at Tratonius, and he raised his palms in response to me. ‘How dare you ask me that! You foreigners come here and threaten me on the path Cúchulainn took when he travelled from Hibernia to train in the Cuillins with Sgàthach? You demand my brother’s sword on my ancestral home?’
Tratonius held out a hand, nodding.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘We’re sellswords,’ he answered.
‘Who do you work for?’
He failed to answer.
‘The brunette! Tell me, where is she?’
‘Yeah, we have her, what of her?’
‘You didn’t… touch her, did you? How is she?’
‘How is she?’ Aldryd answered from behind me. ‘Don’t know, didn’t try her yet.’
I wheeled around toward him, and before I could even think of grabbing for my sword, he had flicked his wrist to show me his drawn dagger.
‘He’s joking,’ Tratonius said.
I was breathing heavily, and I could not fathom how any man could joke about such a horrible thing like that. I have seen men lose their lives for lesser slights, and I should have drawn my sword and slashed his thick, wrinkly throat, but that would have been suicide and thus a breach of my oath.
‘No one’s touched her,’ Tratonius said. ‘Her maidenhood is fine.’
‘She’s mine,’ I said. ‘Her father was the chief druid of Dun Ashaig.’
‘She’s not yours anymore. Her father’s dead.’
‘I swore an oath!’ I cried out, and my eyes and his locked, and though his expression did not change, he seemed to frown with his eyes. Now Luceo, I came to know this man very well, as did you, and I would be right to say that I saw pity in the eyes of the old mercenary captain. I saw pity buried behind his scarred, tired face, right there on the path that Cúchulainn had walked a long time ago.
‘You don’t look much like your father,’ he said, ‘and I never saw him so desperate as I see you. Now come on, son, do you really think you’ll get her back?’ he asked.
‘I’ll do whatever I can to get her back,’ I said, ‘even if that means killing you.’
Tratonius grinned at that. ‘There’s your father!’ and his face relaxed. ‘But listen, son, her father is dead, so your oath is over.’
‘That’s wrong,’ I said. ‘He made me swear it knowing that he would die!’
‘Told you it was easier to kill him,’ Aldryd said, and leaned against the tree again.
‘We’ll ask Verc,’ Tratonius said. ‘Former druid, he knows this shit.’
I had a feeling that this Verc would not be on my side, but my hope brightened.
‘Come and visit our camp,’ Tratonius said. ‘We’ll settle this over some food, and maybe I can tell you a story or two about your father.’
I neither agreed nor disagreed, but Tratonius took my silence as agreement. He hit me lightly in the meat of my shoulder and walked down the byway.
‘Good, I need a catamite for the night,’ Aldryd said, and I did not say anything because I did not know what a catamite was. He, too, then walked off with Cattos.
A former druid, I thought. Auneé didn’t like the druids too much, and she always warned me of their cunning nature. A druid will agree to your terms until he no longer cares to, and then he shall breach his word, citing some divine law the rest of us had not heard of, because only druids can discern the laws of the gods. I was still covered in blood that had fountained over me from the giant, and I imagined this Verc declaring my entry an ill-omen and discarding my argument as unfounded before he even heard it.
Antedios looked at me, spear slung over his shoulder, mouth drooped open. I looked back and we stared at each other for a bit, and then he spoke. ‘Good work, you nearly got me.’
I nodded, we locked eyes for a moment and both grinned.
