Dark Eagle VIII: Shadow Walker, page 26
Falco looked across to where Cadoc sat motionless, his weathered face turned up towards the sun with his eyes closed. The older man’s breathing was slow and measured, his posture suggesting meditation or prayer. The leather pouch containing the mushroom paste lay on the ground before him, unopened but ready.
‘He is one, isn’t he,’ said Bran quietly at last. ‘One of the last who knows the true secrets.’
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Falco stared at Cadoc, understanding finally dawning. This was why the Silurian had been so quiet over the past days. Why he and Bran had exchanged those looks that spoke of communication beyond words.
‘How long does he have?’ Falco asked. ‘After he eats the paste, after the transformation begins, how long before...?’
‘He doesn’t eat the paste,’ said Bran quietly.
Falco frowned.
‘What do you mean? Then how does the transformation work?’
Bran looked at him, and in the young man’s eyes Falco saw something that made his blood run cold.
‘You will see.’
----
Cadoc remained motionless throughout the afternoon, his body so still he might have been carved from the same stone that sheltered them. The sun crawled across the sky whilst shadows lengthened and birds settled into their evening roosts. Still he sat, eyes closed, breathing so shallow it was barely perceptible.
Bran and Falco kept their distance, watching from the edge of their rocky shelter. Neither spoke. There was nothing left to say but when the first pale light of the moon touched the clearing, Cadoc opened his eyes.
He rose slowly, his movements deliberate. The leather pouch lay before him, dark against the earth. Beside it, his blade caught the moonlight, now waiting for one final purpose.
‘We should move back,’ Bran whispered. ‘Further back.’
They retreated to the shelter’s far edge, perhaps thirty paces from where Cadoc stood. The distance felt both too close and impossibly far.
The first words of the chant were so quiet Falco barely heard them. Celtic phrases that meant nothing to him, ancient syllables that predated Rome by centuries. Cadoc’s voice grew stronger as the moon climbed higher, his words carrying across the clearing like a summons to powers that had no names in any living tongue.
The chanting continued as the moon reached its zenith. Silver light painted the clearing in shades of grey and black, transforming the familiar landscape into something alien and otherworldly. Cadoc stood at its centre, his face turned upward, his voice rising and falling in rhythms that seemed to resonate with something deeper than mere sound.
Then he stopped and the silence that followed was absolute. No night birds called. No insects chirred. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Cadoc reached down and stripped off his clothing. The garments fell to the earth, leaving him naked under the moon’s cold gaze.
He picked up the blade and pressed it against his chest. For a moment he held it there, the edge pressed against his skin just below the collarbone. Then he drew it across in one smooth motion.
Blood welled black in the moonlight, running down his chest in a line that followed the curve of his ribs. Cadoc made no sound. His face remained impassive as he raised the blade again.
Another cut, parallel to the first. Another line of blood joining the flow that now streamed down his torso.
‘Gods,’ Falco breathed, starting forward.
Bran’s hand clamped on his arm with surprising strength. ‘No. The ritual must continue. If you stop him now, it will all be for nothing.’
‘He’s killing himself.’
‘He’s transforming. Watch.’
The blade moved again. Cadoc worked methodically, cutting shallow lines across his chest, each stroke precise despite the blood that now covered his hands and made the hilt slippery. The cuts were not deep enough to kill, not placed where major vessels would open and drain his life away in moments. But there were so many of them.
His chest bore a dozen cuts. Then two dozen. The blade moved to his arms, opening the skin from shoulder to wrist in parallel lines that wept blood onto the earth below. His thighs received the same treatment, the sharp edge parting flesh with clinical precision whilst the blood flowed freely.
Falco had seen men wounded in battle, had inflicted terrible injuries himself during his years in the arena and with the Occultum. But this was different. This was deliberate self-mutilation performed with ritualistic care, each cut placed according to some pattern only Cadoc understood.
The chanting began again. Quieter now, the words interspersed with sharp intakes of breath as the blade found fresh skin. But Cadoc never faltered, never showed any sign that he might stop before the work was complete.
His legs were covered now. His arms glistened wetly in the moonlight. Blood pooled at his feet, turning the earth beneath him dark and sodden. Still the blade moved, opening new cuts along his flanks, across his back where he could barely reach, down to his calves and across the tops of his feet.
When he finally lowered the blade, his entire body was
crisscrossed with shallow wounds. He looked like he had been mauled by some great beast, his skin barely visible beneath the blood that sheeted down from dozens of cuts. Yet he remained standing, his breathing controlled, his eyes focused on something beyond the physical world.
Finally, he set the blade aside and reached for the leather pouch. His bloody fingers fumbled with the ties for a moment before pulling it open and scooping out a handful to begin applying it to his wounds.
The process was slow, methodical. He rubbed the paste into each cut, working it into the raw flesh with fingers that should have been trembling but remained steady. Starting at his chest, he covered every wound, his movements almost tender as he anointed himself with the poisonous mixture.
Falco watched in horrified fascination. This was no battle wound being treated, no injury being dressed. This was something else entirely, something that belonged to a world older and darker than Rome had ever known. The paste disappeared into the cuts, absorbed by blood and tissue, beginning whatever work it had been prepared to accomplish.
Cadoc’s breathing changed. It grew deeper, slower, as if his lungs were learning to process air differently. His eyes, which had been focused and alert despite the self-inflicted trauma, began to take on a distant quality. The pupils dilated until almost no colour remained, just black pools that reflected the moon like dark water.
He covered his arms, his legs, his back as far as he could reach and the paste vanished into dozens of wounds, drawn into his body through openings he had deliberately created and when the pouch was finally empty, he dropped it and stood swaying slightly, his blood-slicked body gleaming in the silver light.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Cadoc stood motionless, his breathing the only sign of life. Then something began to change.
It started with his posture. The slight sway ceased, replaced by an unnatural stillness that made him look less like a man and more like a statue carved from meat and bone. His muscles tensed and relaxed in patterns that seemed random, rippling beneath the blood-covered skin as if something moved beneath the surface.
His eyes, those black pools that had replaced the grey-green Falco knew, began to glow faintly. Not with reflected moonlight, but with something that came from within. A pale luminescence that grew stronger as Falco watched, until Cadoc’s gaze seemed to pierce the darkness like two cold flames.
The blood that covered him began to darken, turning from red to black to something that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
Cadoc turned his head slowly, taking in his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. His movements were fluid but wrong, lacking the small hesitations and adjustments that marked normal human motion. He moved like water, like smoke, like something that existed between the solid and the ethereal and when he finally looked at Falco and Bran, his face was no longer entirely human. The features were Cadoc’s, the scars and weathering of age still visible, but something else looked out from behind those glowing eyes. Something ancient and terrible and utterly without fear. His lips moved and the word that emerged was barely recognisable as speech, more like the whisper of wind through dead trees or the sound of water over stone.
‘Go!’
----
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Valley of the Druids
Night had fallen over Mordred’s valley, the darkness broken only by the fires that dotted the camp like fallen stars. Smoke rose from hundreds of cooking fires as the evening meal was prepared, the daily routine of an army that had grown too large for the valley to comfortably hold. Warriors moved between the flames, their shadows dancing across tents and shelters as they tended to weapons and told stories of battles yet to come.
The camp sprawled across the valley floor, the Silures warriors who had gathered under Mordred’s banner occupying the ground in rough clusters based on clan and kinship. Each group maintained its own fires, its own customs, its own hierarchy, but all answered ultimately to the druid whose influence had drawn them here.
Women moved between the fires, their eyes lowered as they went about their evening tasks. Clearing away food, tending to children who fought against sleep, banking fires that would need to burn through the night. They wore their hair covered and their movements were subdued, the enforced modesty that Mordred’s presence demanded. Those who forgot themselves, who looked too boldly or spoke too freely, received reminders from the druid warriors who patrolled the camp with quiet authority.
These warriors were different from the tribal fighters who made up most of the army under Caratacus. Taller, better armed, men who had been selected for their spiritual purity as much as their combat skills. They wore robes over their mail, dark fabric marked with symbols that predated Roman occupation by centuries. Their weapons were sanctified, their training rigorous, their devotion to Mordred absolute. They were his personal guard, chosen from those who had proven themselves worthy through trials that killed as many as they elevated.
Near the centre of the camp, Mordred’s dwelling stood larger than the others. Its stone walls were carved with scenes of battles and rituals, whilst the entrance was flanked by standing stones that had been dragged from some distant sacred site to guard the druid’s threshold.
Mordred sat outside on a chair carved from a single piece of oak, its arms shaped like serpents and its back bearing symbols that seemed to shift in the firelight. Beside him stood Kendra, her leather armour gleaming in the firelight, her war spear never far from her hand.
A chieftain had come to speak with Mordred, his nervousness evident despite his tattoos of rank and the scars of many battles. He spoke of supplies and training, of warriors who needed weapons and horses that needed feed, the mundane concerns of an army that grew larger each day.
‘The men are restless,’ the chieftain said, his eyes fixed on the ground rather than meeting Mordred’s gaze. ‘They came here to fight Romans, not to sit in a valley and wait.’
‘They will fight,’ Mordred replied. ‘Caratacus will lead them to glory when the time is right, when the signs are favourable, when the gods have been properly appeased. Not before.’
‘But winter approaches. If we wait too long, ‘
‘Winter is when the Romans are weakest. When their supply lines are stretched and their soldiers huddle in their fortresses dreaming of warmer lands. Patience will serve us better than haste.’
The chieftain nodded, though his expression suggested he was not entirely convinced. But no one argued with Mordred, not here in his stronghold, not surrounded by warriors who would kill at a word from their master.
The evening continued its normal rhythm. Warriors drank around their fires, sharing mead and stories whilst the darkness deepened around them. Craftsmen banked their forges for the night, their work pausing until morning light would return.
It was a night like any other in the camp… until the screaming began.
----
The first cry came from the northern gate, high and terrified, cutting through the evening’s calm like a blade. Then another, and another, voices rising in panic as something entered the camp that did not belong. Warriors grabbed for weapons as everyone turned towards the commotion that was spreading through the darkness.
Mordred stood. Beside him, Kendra’s hand tightened on her spear as her eyes scanned the camp for the source of the disturbance.
The druid warriors were already moving, running towards the northern gate with weapons drawn. Their discipline held despite the chaos spreading around them, maintaining formation as they converged on the threat. But the screaming continued, growing louder as more people saw whatever had entered their sanctuary.
Guards backed away from the gate. Not fleeing, not breaking, but giving ground before something that made even hardened fighters hesitate. Women ran, seeking shelter in the tents and buildings and the crowd parted like water, creating a widening space around whatever approached.
There were no sounds of battle. No clash of shield walls, no war cries, no coordinated defence. Just the occasional ring of steel meeting steel, a cry of fear and pain, and then an unearthly roar that made Mordred’s blood run cold despite all his power and knowledge.
The sound was wrong. Not the battle cry of a warrior or the rage of a wounded beast, but something that came from a throat that should not have been capable of producing human speech. It resonated in the chest, made the heart race, and spoke of things that existed in the spaces between life and death.
Kendra stepped in front of Mordred, her spear levelled. Around them, more of the druid warriors formed a protective circle, their sanctified weapons ready. But their faces showed something the chieftain had never seen before. Uncertainty. Perhaps even fear.
Torches were being lit now, warriors rushing to bring light to the darkness. The flames illuminated the carnage near the northern gate where bodies lay twisted and broken and the crowd finally opened completely, torchlight revealing what had entered their camp.
Cadoc stood in the circle of firelight, perhaps fifty paces from where Mordred sat. He was covered in blood, both his own and others. It painted him from head to foot, turning him into a figure from nightmare. In one hand he held a sword, its blade dripping red onto the earth. In the other hand, he held two heads by their hair, freshly severed, their dead eyes reflecting the torchlight.
His own head was tilted slightly down, looking at Mordred through the top of his eyes. The posture should have been submissive, but there was nothing submissive in that gaze. His mouth was stretched in a grin that bore no relation to human expression, too wide, too empty of anything except a terrible purpose.
His eyes were the worst. They seemed blank and lifeless, pupils so dilated that almost no colour remained. He looked like a corpse that had forgotten to lie down, a dead thing animated by something that cared nothing for the flesh it inhabited, and in the flickering torchlight, those eyes seemed to glow with their own pale luminescence.
The Shadow Walker had arrived.
----
Mordred stared at the blood-soaked figure across the open ground, and recognition dawned. His breath caught in his throat, his hands tightening on the arms of his carved chair until his knuckles went white.
‘Impossible,’ he whispered.
But it was not impossible. It was standing before him, a living testament to powers that were supposed to have been lost generations ago. A Shadow Walker. Not the pretenders who claimed the title, not the warriors who adopted the name without understanding its true meaning, but a genuine transformation. A man who had undergone the ancient rituals and paid the terrible price they demanded.
Mordred felt something he had not experienced in years. Awe.
Here was proof that the old ways held genuine power. That the rituals he taught, the sacrifices he demanded, the devotions he required from his followers, all of it was grounded in something real. The gods still listened. The ancient forces still responded to those with knowledge and will enough to invoke them. This broken, blood-covered thing standing before him was validation of everything he preached.
The crowd had fallen completely silent. Every eye in the camp was fixed on the Shadow Walker, every breath held as they witnessed something that belonged in legends rather than the waking world.
The power radiating from Cadoc was palpable. It pressed against Mordred’s skin, making the hairs on his arms stand upright and sending shivers down his spine despite his years of studying such forces. The Shadow Walker existed partially in this world and partially in the realm of spirits, and where those two realities touched, reality itself seemed to warp and bend.
But alongside the awe came another emotion. Fear.
Because that power was not under Mordred’s control. It belonged to a man who had sacrificed everything to reach this valley, who had transformed himself into something beyond human specifically to threaten what the druid had built. The Shadow Walker had come with purpose, and that purpose was written in the blood that covered him and the severed heads he carried.
Mordred’s heart hammered against his ribs. His mouth was dry. He had studied the old texts, knew the rituals, understood the theory of transformation. But knowing and witnessing were entirely different things and the reality of the Shadow Walker was so much more terrible than the stories had suggested.
The druid warriors around him shifted nervously, their sanctified weapons suddenly seeming inadequate. These were men trained to face supernatural threats, chosen for their spiritual purity as much as their martial skill. But even they could sense that the thing standing before them was beyond their capability to combat.
Kendra stood at his side, her spear levelled at Cadoc, her face showing none of the uncertainty that marked the others. But Mordred saw the tension in her shoulders, the slight tremor in her hands. Even she recognized that they faced something that existed beyond normal definitions of life and death.
