Hag of the Hills, page 6
The enemies all had dark hair and strange dark clothing. They looked like the men from the hills. They had no weapons with them now and I assume their comrades had taken them. By the fact that they had left their corpses in my house, their comrades must have acted in haste. Kill all the men and take all the women, children, and animals.
I shouted for Fennigus and Auneé. I vaulted up the ladder to the loft and saw only bloody footprints. Downstairs, the hearth still blazed, but the peat had not been fed into it for some time. I raced outside. I checked the slaves' quarters, the paddock, the long underground shaft where we stored our dairy and brewed beer, and the barn where we shat. I did not find anyone – Auneé, Fennigus, any of my other family members, or the remaining slaves.
Invaders. They had come and ravaged our land, and who knew who was still alive? I thought, I must head to Dun Ashaig. Maybe, just maybe the druids have mustered a defence. There was no time to bury the bodies of my brother, dog, or the slaves. I must go now, I told myself. I will get Vasenus and we will revenge upon my enemies.
I returned home. I placed my foot on my brother’s shoulder, and tried to draw the sword out from his chest. It was the iron sword that he had sharpened just yesterday. I moaned. It was horrible. His body pulled up with my sword and slid off. The blade shimmied from his ribs. My brother’s body slopped down on the hard dirt floor in a thud.
The blade was smeared in blood. I approached our altar in the rear of the house, head bowed, where my great-great-great grandfather rested in the form of his grinning skull. I smeared Bodvoc’s blood on his bony cheeks and prayed for his valour to visit me. I left him and returned to Bodvoc, and placed him in the position of the unborn with his hands in front of him. Now I saw he had a swordbelt and scabbard. He had been prepared for the fight, at least. I took the belt and scabbard and fitted them around me. I also took his shoes and to my surprise, they fit fine.
‘Thank you for the gifts, brother. We will kill our enemies together now.’
I left home, stroked Lappie’s bloody neck and left her to guard the entry. I had no time to bury them. Bodvoc, Lappie and the slaves ought to have a mound on our property so that when all pass down the trackway they know that the dead there had done great deeds. If I am to survive long enough, I shall build them just that.
I searched the pasture again, fearing I may have missed bodies lying in the heather in the low light of dusk. Auneé and Fennigus were still missing and I found neither them nor anyone else. I returned to the byre to find Vasenus.
‘Come on, Vasenus! We’re going to Dun Ashaig!’ I called out and retrieved the horse he had ridden on. A sickening, consistent creaking noise interrupted the silence that juxtaposed the slain bodies in the byre.
There, a shadow swayed to and fro inside the structure. When I drew nearer, I saw a belt hanging from a bowing ceiling plank, wrapped around the limp neck of Vasenus.
Perhaps it was a good idea. Don’t give the enemy the satisfaction of killing you. No, I will kill at least one Hillman before they kill me. I will honour the death of Bodvoc by iron.
Horsed, I galloped down toward trackway Dun Ashaig in the last dark blue light of the day. The full moon already shined bright. I unsheathed the crimson-splattered iron sword and painted my face red with it. I raised the sword to the moon, and swore to Epona, who rides her silver horse to lighten the darkest night.
The gloomy moors encroached on both my flanks as I rode down the dark trackway. A flock of geese flew overhead, a horde of black silhouettes in the dark blue sky. It was an omen, of course, but I remain ignorant in that craft. The moon lightened the trackway into a slithering white snake through a sea of dark moorland, nondescript, harrowing in its indistinction. I hated how I could not tell one bush from the next, or what type of tree lurked out in the valley, and above all Slighan still loomed, a dark knuckle. I knew the hag lurked out there somewhere. She had left the mountains in her hut carried out on the backs of four giants, and after that came the Hillmen with their queer weapons and armour that killed my family and forever robbed me of the life I had.
I can give you the life you want…
For a price.
She’ll eat you alive.
Was this the price? The crisp autumn wind reminded me of the dry blood on my face. Was this blood the price of this life? Had the pact I sealed with the hag brewed this evil?
I couldn’t fathom it. I had no time. There is little time when revenge beckons.
That poor horse rode hard. When the trackway veered off into the open moorland between the hills and sea, the full moon illuminated scores of men across the moors.
Black silhouettes like scores of minnows swarmed across the moorlands. They had fires that glowed red in pockets like fireflies. I could hardly make out individuals, just clusters of shadows. Some crept around the fires like moths to lights, and they strolled horseless. Above them, on the promontory, Dun Ashaig sat.
Dun Ashaig had been built in the dim days of our ancestors, by Vitellius, the first ancestor of mine to reach these shores. He and his men invaded the island, defeated the inhabitants and drove them deep into the hills. They constructed the fort and the enemy counterattacked and besieged it. Vitellius and the men held out for nine days and nights, and on the tenth day, Vitellius rode down from its great trackway and they all rolled over the enemy in tidal waves. They drove the enemy into the ocean and feasted all night on Dun Ashaig.
Now, Dun Ashaig was the centre of our clan. It had a cluster of houses where craftsmen produced, a grove to Cernunnos that the god himself was said to walk through, and the druids resided there. We went there for our four seasonal festivals, weddings, funerals. Our druids met foreign dignitaries, and much commerce occured. It was still a fort, and indeed, stone ramparts fortified it, and Vitellius’ grinning skull hung from the centre of its entryway to guard against all ill spirits.
The Hillmen had besieged it.
The poor horse I had ridden so hard now became a target. I turned the horse around, hopped off, and slapped its rear hard with the flat of my blade to send it away down the trackway.
I waited in the dark off the trackway in the heather. The moon which had lit my way and showed me the hundreds of enemies in the fields around Dun Ashaig might have given me away, so I waited for clouds to obscure it so I could reach Dun Ashaig unnoticed. It was besieged, but I knew of a hidden way inside, a cavern with a tight mouth that I could squeeze through and climb up the well. Perhaps the Hillmen had discovered this, but it was my only shot at getting inside Dun Ashaig. I had not the foggiest idea what to do besides that, but I could not leave my homeland while the Hillmen still dirtied it.
Night passed and only grew brighter. Now some blue-red omen spangled the sky and all the stars shone. We hardly ever had cloudless nights like this, especially around this time of the year, and I shuddered at the omen. It must be the Morrigan, the queen of the night, warning us of our fate. Bright in the darkness, that is, glory in death.
Slinking through the shadows, sword in hand, I crouched and crawled and started toward the Crow’s Nest. A scream caused me to jump and I dived to my feet, sword in the air. The thing growled now, deep and intense and I found myself faced off with a badger. A relief, yet the badger growled, and I worried since badgers could lobby great offensives against humans, but I growled back until it slunk away. A small victory.
In the Crow’s Nest, I crept until the forest dwindled into a copse that sat atop a hill, and from there I scanned the moorland again, and followed dozens of black figures heading toward the landing-place. That was where the Greeks used to beach their boats with their wine and olives and fabulous beasts. They had a lion once, miserable in its cage yet prideful and ferocious even in its bonds, and I loved that. I had fond memories of waiting at the landing-place with my father, where we would see him off to his next journey. Sometimes, we would get word that father would soon return, so we would wait there after we finished our daily tasks and eat raw cockles we had collected from the mudflats nearby. Sometimes he would come and sometimes he wouldn’t. Then that day when we thought he would come, but he did not arrive. The Greek merchant told us he had died, and suddenly the cockles tasted so sour, and I hated the brine breeze and the fester of baby seagull cries that cut into me and made me jealous because they had parents and I didn’t. That day stung me, but I got over it, and still always had fond memories of the landing-place.
The black figures carried torches, and I saw their dark features in the red glow. Balls of fire hurled seaward. The torches landed on the boats moored there. Flame engulfed them, and soon the sheds and storage houses too, and the entire harbour burned.
Above it all, Dun Ashaig sat, lustred in the moonlight, a white egg sitting on a black litter. Shadows roamed near it, billowy shades of black in the hundreds, assembled around it while other packs patrolled. I must avoid them all, I thought.
That tight little mouth. They must have missed it, and had no reason to squeeze into it. There was an underground spring where Dun Ashaig got its water to bless us on Beltane.
I crawled through the wild moors, clambered under logs, skirted around boulders, and pushed through tangles of briar that left scars on me I still have today, for I dared not cease my stealth. I feared bogs and badgers and of course, the sidhe, who live underground and pull men through hare holes so that they never return. All the while on my mind was that little chink in the armour of Dun Ashaig, that tight little mouth I must squeeze through. I had been exploring with Fennigus when we were just boys, and he dared me to squeeze through it and I did, and discovered the well. There I would join the besieged, pledge my sword to my gods, and die for my people.
The hillfort approached me, lit like a beacon, billows of smoke pouring from the roofs of its steepled houses. On the distant swards of the trackway, twixt the great fort and I, the shadows had morphed into men. They were all bare-chested or wood-adorned, crowded in clusters around the hillfort and the surrounding fields. Whatever houses outside the fort that had been farms were now smouldering ruins. The houses on the hillfort seemed intact. Though the hillfort was quiet, I knew there must be a considerable defence there.
I edged toward the moorlands, with the scent of burnt wood stinking the air, ready to scream if startled, but instead of growling like the badger, I would lobby a great offensive with Bodvoc’s sword.
The Hillmen had congregated in the middle of the moors around a wagon. A figure stood on the wagon and must have been giving a speech, but I could hear it clearly. The Hillmen were distracted. Now was my chance, I thought. I then ran across the moors, hopping and jumping and skirting around boulders, taking refuge in ditches, and soon reached the earthen walls of the hillfort.
The smoky air caused me to choke. I crept along toward the cavern.
I heard some odd noise. A juddering, right by my ear. Something moved swiftly up and down near my head. The butt of an arrow, stuck in the earthen wall right next to my head. I spotted someone forty paces away, bow in hand, fletching an arrow.
I darted away, another arrow hissed through the air and checked off the rockface of the wall. I ran, grunting about the coward with a bow, then I slammed right into a Hillman. We both fell and I shot back up, the Hillman also got up, black flint blade lit by the moonbeam. He smelled like pork and had surprise in his big brown eyes. He wore just dark trousers and grey winnigas, and his chest had been painted in odd white shapes. Flint-ax poised, he lunged at me.
Retreating, I dove on my belly. Another arrow stuck in the earthen wall, just above my shoulder. I rolled to my feet and ran outward toward the bowman.
Shouts came in some language. It was not Celtic and didn’t sound Greek, either. I had no idea what it was, but the axman behind me shouted hard, probably for his comrades.
My father’s voice came to me. When I was a boy, he had told me if a bowman ever fired arrows at me, the only hope lies in running in a manner without a pattern, and closing in on the bowman. I zigzagged across the sward, thankful it had been well kept so I could find proper footing, and the bowman notched another arrow. I shot a look behind me at the axman. The bow fired. I dove out of the way, landing hard on my chest so hard that the impact winded me. I had hoped to see that the arrow had plunged into the axman. I tried to align my body with his and goad the bowman into killing his comrade. The arrow missed, but hit the earthen wall a pace from the axman, causing him to shout in his language.
The bowman shouted back and looked furious, and I swore I had heard something in Celtic, a swear word that would make a mother blush. They weren’t taking me seriously, but soon they would regret that.
Now was my chance, I thought. I snatched a rock off the ground and pivoted, poised to toss it at the axman. The axman tottered backwards and I pivoted again and struck the bowman with the rock. He stumbled and now I ran toward the axman. I never knew if I had injured or killed the bowman, but I had at least distracted him, and I am still proud of that throw to
this day.
My sword sung in the air as I ran toward the Hillman. All of me raged for revenge, my hand hot, my sight reddened. The crushed face of Bodvoc, a fiery image, his blood hot on my face. I wanted to kill the axman, I wanted to kill him dead, but Badb pounded in my chest. He had that sharp stone ax and he did not shirk at my charge. I raised my sword to strike and he stepped around me, flanking me.
The Hillman gave chase as I fled around the curved earthen wall of the hillfort, but I outran him. I still had to squeeze through the hole, and that would take a few moments, enough time for the Hillman to strike me as I did. I had to subdue him, but I dared not try in battle. Badb took me, and it is still in deep shame I say this, but that Brennus is dead now.
I climbed upon a rock outcrop. The Hillman pursued, failed to see me, and I fell upon him. I struck him on the head with a piece of rock and we fell. I bashed his head with the rock, again and again, his mouth agape. His warm hands grabbed my face and his hot breath was on my stomach as I bashed his head again, and again, his mass of brown hair tangled in blood and stuck on the rough edge of the rock. I bashed the piece of rock on his head until it crumbled into pebbles across his bleeding face. I had dropped my sword clumsily, so I snatched it off the ground and I drove it into his chest shouting Bodvoc! as I did.
My taste for revenge was teased, not satisfied, but merely teased, and I wanted more Hillman blood. I thought I ought to return to the sward to find that bowman so he may join his comrade. The axman whined on the ground, his bare chest shimmying up and down my bloodied blade. I couldn’t get the sword out, and I had to place my foot on his shoulder and press down while pulling, just like with Bodvoc. It took too long and I feared the bowman would come back. He did, but with his friends.
‘Badb!’
Five of them came hard down the sward on foot, flint-tipped spears grey in the moonlight, and two bowmen fanned out with loaded bows.
‘Lugus!’ I cried out, and I ran hard toward them. I came closer and closer and then the first javelin was hurled. It landed several paces away, and then the arrows fired down at me.
‘Lugus!’ I cried out again. I dove on my belly and covered my head. No arrows hit me, but they all stuck in the ground around me as if one had unfurled a hedgehog. I rolled to my feet and ran.
The crevice! There it was, just above the ground. The spearmen came closer and soon they would stick me and arrows would pierce me and I’d have as many spikes sticking in me as hedgehogs have spikes sticking out.
There was no way to get through the crevice without getting hit. It was simply too small, and I was too big, and by the time I squeezed through, they’d snatch me out of it by my ankles like a carrot by its leaves from the ground, if they didn’t simply pin my feet to the ground with their spears.
I had to do something else. The spearmen came first. The words of my father came into my mind. There came their spears, sharp flint, grey as the moon. I held Bodvoc’s sword firm and thought I’d stand and die like a man.
Nothing is unconquerable. Even our gods can die.
Father had once shown me how to fight spearmen. One must close the distance between them, and he must place his body between their blades and their bodies. The close distance renders their spears near useless and now one’s blade will strike while they cannot.
The spear came at me and I ran. I swung my sword at the spear and a clank rang as blade hit blade, I shoved it down to the ground and held it there. My foe tried to pull his spear back and my arms tensed as his pressure clashed against mine, my hand keeping his spearpoint down, his spearpoint holding me in place. The bowmen had fanned out and could not hit me. One shouted and they all dropped their bows and drew daggers from their scabbards and they moved closer. The spearmen too all rushed in, from all sides.
The cold flint came for me, three spears and then the two bowmen and their daggers. I charged – a feint – forcing my foe to increase the pressure, and then I released my sword and sidestepped. He staggered and the spear fell from his hands. The other spears jabbed at me. I ran, feeling a cold rasp against my bare back. I dove at the crevice, crashing on the ground, my sword clanked against the rubble, and then I squeezed in. The crevice ripped the skin from my chest as I shimmied, and slid, scurried, scuttled, cried for Lugus, and finally squeezed through. I pulled one leg in but then I felt something grab my foot, but I yanked it back in and then the spears struck the rubble under the crevice. I jumped up, dove back down, and snatched my sword through from among the bare feet of the Hillmen.
As I leapt from the entrance, a spear had been stuck through to stab me. I climbed upon rock and sat there staring at the dark crevice at an angle away from the Hillmen’s spears. They shouted at me, grunted, cursed, and jammed their spears through.
After I caught my breath, I laughed. I laughed hard and loud, enough for them to hear.
They lingered outside as I calmed myself, bloody sword across my lap. It was too dark to see in here, but I knew there was a well. I heard the water tinkling behind me.
I shouted for Fennigus and Auneé. I vaulted up the ladder to the loft and saw only bloody footprints. Downstairs, the hearth still blazed, but the peat had not been fed into it for some time. I raced outside. I checked the slaves' quarters, the paddock, the long underground shaft where we stored our dairy and brewed beer, and the barn where we shat. I did not find anyone – Auneé, Fennigus, any of my other family members, or the remaining slaves.
Invaders. They had come and ravaged our land, and who knew who was still alive? I thought, I must head to Dun Ashaig. Maybe, just maybe the druids have mustered a defence. There was no time to bury the bodies of my brother, dog, or the slaves. I must go now, I told myself. I will get Vasenus and we will revenge upon my enemies.
I returned home. I placed my foot on my brother’s shoulder, and tried to draw the sword out from his chest. It was the iron sword that he had sharpened just yesterday. I moaned. It was horrible. His body pulled up with my sword and slid off. The blade shimmied from his ribs. My brother’s body slopped down on the hard dirt floor in a thud.
The blade was smeared in blood. I approached our altar in the rear of the house, head bowed, where my great-great-great grandfather rested in the form of his grinning skull. I smeared Bodvoc’s blood on his bony cheeks and prayed for his valour to visit me. I left him and returned to Bodvoc, and placed him in the position of the unborn with his hands in front of him. Now I saw he had a swordbelt and scabbard. He had been prepared for the fight, at least. I took the belt and scabbard and fitted them around me. I also took his shoes and to my surprise, they fit fine.
‘Thank you for the gifts, brother. We will kill our enemies together now.’
I left home, stroked Lappie’s bloody neck and left her to guard the entry. I had no time to bury them. Bodvoc, Lappie and the slaves ought to have a mound on our property so that when all pass down the trackway they know that the dead there had done great deeds. If I am to survive long enough, I shall build them just that.
I searched the pasture again, fearing I may have missed bodies lying in the heather in the low light of dusk. Auneé and Fennigus were still missing and I found neither them nor anyone else. I returned to the byre to find Vasenus.
‘Come on, Vasenus! We’re going to Dun Ashaig!’ I called out and retrieved the horse he had ridden on. A sickening, consistent creaking noise interrupted the silence that juxtaposed the slain bodies in the byre.
There, a shadow swayed to and fro inside the structure. When I drew nearer, I saw a belt hanging from a bowing ceiling plank, wrapped around the limp neck of Vasenus.
Perhaps it was a good idea. Don’t give the enemy the satisfaction of killing you. No, I will kill at least one Hillman before they kill me. I will honour the death of Bodvoc by iron.
Horsed, I galloped down toward trackway Dun Ashaig in the last dark blue light of the day. The full moon already shined bright. I unsheathed the crimson-splattered iron sword and painted my face red with it. I raised the sword to the moon, and swore to Epona, who rides her silver horse to lighten the darkest night.
The gloomy moors encroached on both my flanks as I rode down the dark trackway. A flock of geese flew overhead, a horde of black silhouettes in the dark blue sky. It was an omen, of course, but I remain ignorant in that craft. The moon lightened the trackway into a slithering white snake through a sea of dark moorland, nondescript, harrowing in its indistinction. I hated how I could not tell one bush from the next, or what type of tree lurked out in the valley, and above all Slighan still loomed, a dark knuckle. I knew the hag lurked out there somewhere. She had left the mountains in her hut carried out on the backs of four giants, and after that came the Hillmen with their queer weapons and armour that killed my family and forever robbed me of the life I had.
I can give you the life you want…
For a price.
She’ll eat you alive.
Was this the price? The crisp autumn wind reminded me of the dry blood on my face. Was this blood the price of this life? Had the pact I sealed with the hag brewed this evil?
I couldn’t fathom it. I had no time. There is little time when revenge beckons.
That poor horse rode hard. When the trackway veered off into the open moorland between the hills and sea, the full moon illuminated scores of men across the moors.
Black silhouettes like scores of minnows swarmed across the moorlands. They had fires that glowed red in pockets like fireflies. I could hardly make out individuals, just clusters of shadows. Some crept around the fires like moths to lights, and they strolled horseless. Above them, on the promontory, Dun Ashaig sat.
Dun Ashaig had been built in the dim days of our ancestors, by Vitellius, the first ancestor of mine to reach these shores. He and his men invaded the island, defeated the inhabitants and drove them deep into the hills. They constructed the fort and the enemy counterattacked and besieged it. Vitellius and the men held out for nine days and nights, and on the tenth day, Vitellius rode down from its great trackway and they all rolled over the enemy in tidal waves. They drove the enemy into the ocean and feasted all night on Dun Ashaig.
Now, Dun Ashaig was the centre of our clan. It had a cluster of houses where craftsmen produced, a grove to Cernunnos that the god himself was said to walk through, and the druids resided there. We went there for our four seasonal festivals, weddings, funerals. Our druids met foreign dignitaries, and much commerce occured. It was still a fort, and indeed, stone ramparts fortified it, and Vitellius’ grinning skull hung from the centre of its entryway to guard against all ill spirits.
The Hillmen had besieged it.
The poor horse I had ridden so hard now became a target. I turned the horse around, hopped off, and slapped its rear hard with the flat of my blade to send it away down the trackway.
I waited in the dark off the trackway in the heather. The moon which had lit my way and showed me the hundreds of enemies in the fields around Dun Ashaig might have given me away, so I waited for clouds to obscure it so I could reach Dun Ashaig unnoticed. It was besieged, but I knew of a hidden way inside, a cavern with a tight mouth that I could squeeze through and climb up the well. Perhaps the Hillmen had discovered this, but it was my only shot at getting inside Dun Ashaig. I had not the foggiest idea what to do besides that, but I could not leave my homeland while the Hillmen still dirtied it.
Night passed and only grew brighter. Now some blue-red omen spangled the sky and all the stars shone. We hardly ever had cloudless nights like this, especially around this time of the year, and I shuddered at the omen. It must be the Morrigan, the queen of the night, warning us of our fate. Bright in the darkness, that is, glory in death.
Slinking through the shadows, sword in hand, I crouched and crawled and started toward the Crow’s Nest. A scream caused me to jump and I dived to my feet, sword in the air. The thing growled now, deep and intense and I found myself faced off with a badger. A relief, yet the badger growled, and I worried since badgers could lobby great offensives against humans, but I growled back until it slunk away. A small victory.
In the Crow’s Nest, I crept until the forest dwindled into a copse that sat atop a hill, and from there I scanned the moorland again, and followed dozens of black figures heading toward the landing-place. That was where the Greeks used to beach their boats with their wine and olives and fabulous beasts. They had a lion once, miserable in its cage yet prideful and ferocious even in its bonds, and I loved that. I had fond memories of waiting at the landing-place with my father, where we would see him off to his next journey. Sometimes, we would get word that father would soon return, so we would wait there after we finished our daily tasks and eat raw cockles we had collected from the mudflats nearby. Sometimes he would come and sometimes he wouldn’t. Then that day when we thought he would come, but he did not arrive. The Greek merchant told us he had died, and suddenly the cockles tasted so sour, and I hated the brine breeze and the fester of baby seagull cries that cut into me and made me jealous because they had parents and I didn’t. That day stung me, but I got over it, and still always had fond memories of the landing-place.
The black figures carried torches, and I saw their dark features in the red glow. Balls of fire hurled seaward. The torches landed on the boats moored there. Flame engulfed them, and soon the sheds and storage houses too, and the entire harbour burned.
Above it all, Dun Ashaig sat, lustred in the moonlight, a white egg sitting on a black litter. Shadows roamed near it, billowy shades of black in the hundreds, assembled around it while other packs patrolled. I must avoid them all, I thought.
That tight little mouth. They must have missed it, and had no reason to squeeze into it. There was an underground spring where Dun Ashaig got its water to bless us on Beltane.
I crawled through the wild moors, clambered under logs, skirted around boulders, and pushed through tangles of briar that left scars on me I still have today, for I dared not cease my stealth. I feared bogs and badgers and of course, the sidhe, who live underground and pull men through hare holes so that they never return. All the while on my mind was that little chink in the armour of Dun Ashaig, that tight little mouth I must squeeze through. I had been exploring with Fennigus when we were just boys, and he dared me to squeeze through it and I did, and discovered the well. There I would join the besieged, pledge my sword to my gods, and die for my people.
The hillfort approached me, lit like a beacon, billows of smoke pouring from the roofs of its steepled houses. On the distant swards of the trackway, twixt the great fort and I, the shadows had morphed into men. They were all bare-chested or wood-adorned, crowded in clusters around the hillfort and the surrounding fields. Whatever houses outside the fort that had been farms were now smouldering ruins. The houses on the hillfort seemed intact. Though the hillfort was quiet, I knew there must be a considerable defence there.
I edged toward the moorlands, with the scent of burnt wood stinking the air, ready to scream if startled, but instead of growling like the badger, I would lobby a great offensive with Bodvoc’s sword.
The Hillmen had congregated in the middle of the moors around a wagon. A figure stood on the wagon and must have been giving a speech, but I could hear it clearly. The Hillmen were distracted. Now was my chance, I thought. I then ran across the moors, hopping and jumping and skirting around boulders, taking refuge in ditches, and soon reached the earthen walls of the hillfort.
The smoky air caused me to choke. I crept along toward the cavern.
I heard some odd noise. A juddering, right by my ear. Something moved swiftly up and down near my head. The butt of an arrow, stuck in the earthen wall right next to my head. I spotted someone forty paces away, bow in hand, fletching an arrow.
I darted away, another arrow hissed through the air and checked off the rockface of the wall. I ran, grunting about the coward with a bow, then I slammed right into a Hillman. We both fell and I shot back up, the Hillman also got up, black flint blade lit by the moonbeam. He smelled like pork and had surprise in his big brown eyes. He wore just dark trousers and grey winnigas, and his chest had been painted in odd white shapes. Flint-ax poised, he lunged at me.
Retreating, I dove on my belly. Another arrow stuck in the earthen wall, just above my shoulder. I rolled to my feet and ran outward toward the bowman.
Shouts came in some language. It was not Celtic and didn’t sound Greek, either. I had no idea what it was, but the axman behind me shouted hard, probably for his comrades.
My father’s voice came to me. When I was a boy, he had told me if a bowman ever fired arrows at me, the only hope lies in running in a manner without a pattern, and closing in on the bowman. I zigzagged across the sward, thankful it had been well kept so I could find proper footing, and the bowman notched another arrow. I shot a look behind me at the axman. The bow fired. I dove out of the way, landing hard on my chest so hard that the impact winded me. I had hoped to see that the arrow had plunged into the axman. I tried to align my body with his and goad the bowman into killing his comrade. The arrow missed, but hit the earthen wall a pace from the axman, causing him to shout in his language.
The bowman shouted back and looked furious, and I swore I had heard something in Celtic, a swear word that would make a mother blush. They weren’t taking me seriously, but soon they would regret that.
Now was my chance, I thought. I snatched a rock off the ground and pivoted, poised to toss it at the axman. The axman tottered backwards and I pivoted again and struck the bowman with the rock. He stumbled and now I ran toward the axman. I never knew if I had injured or killed the bowman, but I had at least distracted him, and I am still proud of that throw to
this day.
My sword sung in the air as I ran toward the Hillman. All of me raged for revenge, my hand hot, my sight reddened. The crushed face of Bodvoc, a fiery image, his blood hot on my face. I wanted to kill the axman, I wanted to kill him dead, but Badb pounded in my chest. He had that sharp stone ax and he did not shirk at my charge. I raised my sword to strike and he stepped around me, flanking me.
The Hillman gave chase as I fled around the curved earthen wall of the hillfort, but I outran him. I still had to squeeze through the hole, and that would take a few moments, enough time for the Hillman to strike me as I did. I had to subdue him, but I dared not try in battle. Badb took me, and it is still in deep shame I say this, but that Brennus is dead now.
I climbed upon a rock outcrop. The Hillman pursued, failed to see me, and I fell upon him. I struck him on the head with a piece of rock and we fell. I bashed his head with the rock, again and again, his mouth agape. His warm hands grabbed my face and his hot breath was on my stomach as I bashed his head again, and again, his mass of brown hair tangled in blood and stuck on the rough edge of the rock. I bashed the piece of rock on his head until it crumbled into pebbles across his bleeding face. I had dropped my sword clumsily, so I snatched it off the ground and I drove it into his chest shouting Bodvoc! as I did.
My taste for revenge was teased, not satisfied, but merely teased, and I wanted more Hillman blood. I thought I ought to return to the sward to find that bowman so he may join his comrade. The axman whined on the ground, his bare chest shimmying up and down my bloodied blade. I couldn’t get the sword out, and I had to place my foot on his shoulder and press down while pulling, just like with Bodvoc. It took too long and I feared the bowman would come back. He did, but with his friends.
‘Badb!’
Five of them came hard down the sward on foot, flint-tipped spears grey in the moonlight, and two bowmen fanned out with loaded bows.
‘Lugus!’ I cried out, and I ran hard toward them. I came closer and closer and then the first javelin was hurled. It landed several paces away, and then the arrows fired down at me.
‘Lugus!’ I cried out again. I dove on my belly and covered my head. No arrows hit me, but they all stuck in the ground around me as if one had unfurled a hedgehog. I rolled to my feet and ran.
The crevice! There it was, just above the ground. The spearmen came closer and soon they would stick me and arrows would pierce me and I’d have as many spikes sticking in me as hedgehogs have spikes sticking out.
There was no way to get through the crevice without getting hit. It was simply too small, and I was too big, and by the time I squeezed through, they’d snatch me out of it by my ankles like a carrot by its leaves from the ground, if they didn’t simply pin my feet to the ground with their spears.
I had to do something else. The spearmen came first. The words of my father came into my mind. There came their spears, sharp flint, grey as the moon. I held Bodvoc’s sword firm and thought I’d stand and die like a man.
Nothing is unconquerable. Even our gods can die.
Father had once shown me how to fight spearmen. One must close the distance between them, and he must place his body between their blades and their bodies. The close distance renders their spears near useless and now one’s blade will strike while they cannot.
The spear came at me and I ran. I swung my sword at the spear and a clank rang as blade hit blade, I shoved it down to the ground and held it there. My foe tried to pull his spear back and my arms tensed as his pressure clashed against mine, my hand keeping his spearpoint down, his spearpoint holding me in place. The bowmen had fanned out and could not hit me. One shouted and they all dropped their bows and drew daggers from their scabbards and they moved closer. The spearmen too all rushed in, from all sides.
The cold flint came for me, three spears and then the two bowmen and their daggers. I charged – a feint – forcing my foe to increase the pressure, and then I released my sword and sidestepped. He staggered and the spear fell from his hands. The other spears jabbed at me. I ran, feeling a cold rasp against my bare back. I dove at the crevice, crashing on the ground, my sword clanked against the rubble, and then I squeezed in. The crevice ripped the skin from my chest as I shimmied, and slid, scurried, scuttled, cried for Lugus, and finally squeezed through. I pulled one leg in but then I felt something grab my foot, but I yanked it back in and then the spears struck the rubble under the crevice. I jumped up, dove back down, and snatched my sword through from among the bare feet of the Hillmen.
As I leapt from the entrance, a spear had been stuck through to stab me. I climbed upon rock and sat there staring at the dark crevice at an angle away from the Hillmen’s spears. They shouted at me, grunted, cursed, and jammed their spears through.
After I caught my breath, I laughed. I laughed hard and loud, enough for them to hear.
They lingered outside as I calmed myself, bloody sword across my lap. It was too dark to see in here, but I knew there was a well. I heard the water tinkling behind me.
