The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (77 page)

Silent at last, the druid bowed, and Maelchon swept beyond him. He didn’t particularly care what the man did now; the time was past for dealing with such Otherworld matters. Now it had come down to warriors: his men; Calgacus’s rabble; and the blight on his heart that was Eremon of Erin. And, of course, the prince’s red-haired whore. She who had scarred him.

At that thought the ruined eye stabbed him with pain, as it often did, and Maelchon schooled his face into calmness. It hurt when he was angry, and therefore he would only become angry now when he needed to, when the prince of Erin faced him across his blade.

Savouring such thoughts, Maelchon did not take note of the druid melting away, to where the lines of baggage ponies brought up the rear.

Eremon sharpened his sword blade in a hollow among the bracken, more to pass the time than anything else, for he always kept it obsessively honed.

He found, to his surprise, that he was more excited than nervous. For the first time since his arrival in Alba, he was to lead a confrontation between tribesmen, not against Romans. And among these people, as among his own, there were certain rules of war. The concepts of honour and glory were strictly defined, and would, he hoped, deliver him his victory.

Eremon’s eye now fell on Aedan, crouched alone in the wet bracken lower down the valley. He had taken himself away from the rest of Eremon’s men, who huddled in the damp, blowing on their sword hands and flexing them to keep them warm. The bard was wrapped in his embroidered cloak, yet studying his averted head, Eremon did not think he was terror-struck. Alba had been a forge for them all, and not the least Aedan.

The bard now turned his head, a silent song moving on his lips. His grey eyes were glassy with the bardic trance and his cheeks were flushed, but he seemed to be cradling some inner core of calm, and Eremon bent back to his sharpening, satisfied.

Conaire’s feet padded up through the damp undergrowth behind him, and his foster-brother squatted down. ‘Nectan has them sighted, brother.’ Conaire grinned, folding his arms around his knees like an excited boy. ‘Lugh blessed us with his light, for it was the sun on their spears that gave them away.’

The Epidii spear-tips had been wrapped in scraps of hide and cloth, and each man had shielded his horse’s eyes with leather, and muffled the snouts. No sound of horse or sight of man had been allowed to escape their hiding place.

‘I think we will need the blessing of every god we can muster,’ Eremon remarked, laying his sharpening stone on his knee.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Conaire’s eyes glittered. ‘It is the weakness –and strength – of men we are relying on.’

‘I would drink to that if we had one, brother.’

‘Later,’ Conaire said, slapping him soundly on the back. At Dunadd, when all this is over. Then I will drink an entire keg of Rhiann’s mead with you, and gladly suffer for it.’

Maelchon’s men shied like horses as the first of Nectan’s arrows flew out of the dark trees clothing the upper slopes. His warband was halfway along the bracken-filled glen, strung out in a long line by the banks of the rushing stream.

It took a moment of shock for the Orcadian king to register that the missiles had not been loosed to kill, for they thudded into the ground a short distance before the leading scouts in a neat arc, their shafts vibrating from the impact.

With surprised oaths, Maelchon’s guards fell back around him, as the Lugi warriors edged into a similar ring around their king. Yet those curses were mild compared to the growl that now tore itself from Maelchon’s barrel chest as a lean, dark-haired warrior rose to his feet a good way up the hillside, unfurling his limbs from the bracken around him. He was naked to the waist, his gleaming torso crossed only by the jewelled strap of a magnificent sword that hung across his back. On his head was a helmet of polished iron with a bristling boar-crest of bronze.

‘Well met, Orcades king,’ the young man said pleasantly.

At the sound of that familiar voice, the day around Maelchon darkened into a night of rage.

*

Aedan now brushed past Eremon, his head high, his cloak drawn back over his shoulder to unveil his polished harp. The instrument was his badge of office, the sign that made him sacred, untouchable. Only for this reason would Eremon bring him anywhere near a battle.

‘Take care,’ Eremon muttered to Aedan, as the bard strode down towards the seething column of warriors. Now that their leaders had halted, the men were milling along the side of the stream and part way up the slope near the eastern valley entrance, their agitated murmurs growing louder than the rushing water.

Maelchon’s eyes were obscured by the shadow of his helmet, yet he had remained still and silent since Eremon appeared from the bracken. The men behind the king surged in confusion, the edges of the crowd disintegrating as some flowed further up the near slope to gain a better view. Others were hemmed in by the river on one side, and the rest of the warriors pressed in from the rear. Their ranks of spears dipped and swayed as they jostled each other, cursing and snarling.

Aedan halted some way up the slope, his long fingers drawing themselves across his harp strings with one flourish. As the high, piercing chord echoed off the peaks all around, the men below grew quieter, for it was appearing less likely by the moment that they would be subjected to attack.

‘Honourable fighters, fierce warriors!’ Aedan’s bardic voice rang out clearly over the hushed crowd of men and the sound of the river. ‘We salute the fire of your eyes, the strength of your arms, the heat of your hearts. So hear me, and honour my own lord, Eremon mac Ferdiad, war leader of the Epidii, consort of the Ban Cré, King Stag of the westlands, rightful king of Dalriada in Erin.’

At the announcement of Eremon’s identity, a ripple of mutters ran over the warriors below, and the edge of Eremon’s mouth quivered with a certain satisfaction. So not even Maelchon could stem the tide of rumour; it flowed everywhere at will.

The Orcadian king obviously thought he’d try, though, for he suddenly came to life, shouting ‘Silence!’ at the top of his voice, and raising his clenched fist. His whole arm shook with visible fury. ‘Spit out your words, harper, and quickly! After we deal with your rabble we have a battle to join.’

Aedan ignored him and kept his head high. The rising breeze blew his dark curls back from his high forehead, and streamed his blue cloak out behind him. ‘I bring a challenge out of the old tales; a challenge for only the most valiant, noble and skilled of men.’

So baited, Maelchon lurched forward one menacing step, opening his mouth to cut Aedan off. Yet before he could speak, there was a stir among the other warriors, as a man of Calgacus’s age pressed free of the men who guarded him. Like Maelchon he was of dark, northern blood, yet slight compared to Maelchon’s bulk. Eremon could see little of his face beyond the beard that fell to his chest, yet his thick gold torc and profusion of gleaming armbands confirmed that this was the Lugi king.

‘What is this challenge, bard?’ the king demanded, his posture wary rather than hostile.

‘Our forces are hidden all around in the trees,’ Aedan answered. ‘Two thousand horses, two thousand spears, two thousand swords. We do not have to let you leave this valley alive. Yet my lord offers you mercy – a battle to be decided in the old way of the tribes. By a duel of champions.’

The Lugi king made some exclamation of surprise, as the murmurings of the warband swelled restlessly.

Aedan held up his hand for attention, raising his voice. ‘Further, my lord, the greatest swordsman in Erin will act as his own champion – and he calls out the Orcades king to meet this challenge and take the field himself.’

Eremon expected the shock, and on the edge of his vision he saw the impact of the words vibrate along the wedge of men like a hammer striking iron. Yet Eremon’s eyes were fixed on Maelchon, and though the planes of the king’s florid cheeks were broken up by his writhing blue tattoos, still Eremon saw from afar the slight curve of his smile.

Maelchon could only react in two ways, and Eremon wasn’t sure yet which he’d take. Accepting the challenge would be quick and clean – and satisfying for them both. But there was something greater that Eremon hoped for, upon which he had gambled.

And Maelchon chose much as Eremon expected. The Orcadian king threw back his head and laughed, a rasping sound with a sharp edge that sought to cut deep with its scorn. ‘
I
, fight
him?
I will not soil my own sword, my honour, by crossing blades with a homeless exile, a
gael
, a man with no kin or lands! Well may I fight with any peasant from the fields! Be gone, harper, and bring on your men, for I’d wager you lie about their numbers.’

Aedan said nothing in reply, but merely shrugged, turned and walked back up the slope, stepping onto a rock that had fallen from the cliffs and now lay half-covered with bracken. There, he flung out one arm towards the gathered men, none of whom could fail to see him clearly, outlined in the morning sun.

‘Hear me then, men of Alba!’ he cried now, with all the force his trained voice could muster. ‘So the craven coward is revealed among you at last! He, your king, would sooner shed your blood than his own! Follow him and he will lead you to death – your names will be as mud and ashes to your people, and your lives fall into dark forgetfulness, because of your shame!’

With a roar, Maelchon drew his sword with a ringing sweep, rage twisting his face.

‘Aye, shame!’ Aedan continued, spreading his cloak out like wings. ‘Shame for betraying your land, your Mother, out of greed and lust and lack of courage to stand your ground against the traitor in your midst!’ He pointed with dreadful finality at Maelchon. ‘This traitor, who has betrayed you, and led you to your own betrayal!’

Maelchon was now alone in the empty space before his men, shaking his head like an enraged bear. ‘After me!’ he screamed, the cords in his neck standing out in the sun that spilled down the valley walls. ‘After me, to pound this rabble into dust!’ His own guard, some two hundred men, rushed forward to surround him, howling their war cries as they swung their swords over their heads.

Yet the rest did not act as Maelchon demanded. The Lugi king had flushed a deep red, his mouth twisting in dismay, for to be so accused by a bard could be the ruin of his kingship. Suddenly he seemed to come to some decision, crying out, ‘Back! Back! The bard speaks true: let the challenge be decided!’

Hardly believing his eyes, Eremon watched the movement gain ground as all the other men – Lugi and fur-clad Orcadian warriors both – began to melt away from Maelchon and his guards, drawing back from the front ranks like an ebbing wave, the mutters and murmurs now open cries of anger and shame. Many turned tail and fled altogether, shoving for all they were worth on the men gathered behind.

As all order disintegrated, a thrill of relief shot up Eremon’s spine. Aedan’s words, and Maelchon’s refusal to take the field as champion, had undone what years of fear and intimidation had wrought, melting the weak bonds of loyalty like leaf-bud snows.
Fear is a foolish way to control people
.

And so Maelchon’s own realization of this hit him, that his allies and even his own tribesmen had deserted, and would not fight. The king’s scream then became a terrible roar of rage, issuing from his open throat, just as Eremon raised his hand. From the trees on his side of the glen his horsemen burst out, their swords pointing down as their mounts charged the valley floor. And from the lower ground, hidden among the boulders, Rori and Nectan’s archers let loose another volley of arrows, this time set to kill.

Trailing Dòrn, Conaire reared to a halt beside Eremon, with Colum, Finan and Fergus behind. Eremon was already in the saddle as he reached back over his shoulder for his sword.

The men around Maelchon were fine fighters; they tightened into a circle with their shields facing out, deflecting the arrows, and the first volley of their spears took down a few leading Epidii horsemen. But when the mounted charge hit the shield wall, it crumbled, and then all order was lost in a mass of rearing, screaming horses, slashing blades and war cries being hurled in all directions.

As he ducked and dodged the first violent sword-swings, Eremon’s blood pounded with a wild, unleashed fury – the desperate need not to kill all the men, but one man only.

This single flame of rage powered Eremon’s blade almost of its own accord, and he stabbed with desperation, pushing closer to the protective circle around the Orcadian king. Conaire was close by his shoulder, and when Eremon was bodily hauled from the saddle and set upon by hordes of heavy northmen, Conaire yelled and flung himself from horseback, quickly joined by Fergus and Colum. Together they fought to regain their footing, and formed themselves instinctively into a tight wedge to pierce the inner circle around Maelchon.

The last shreds of coolness in Eremon’s head were shattered when the back of Maelchon’s helmet came into view, his huge shoulders bunching and heaving as he swung his great sword. With an unearthly howl, Eremon launched himself forward, slicing through the net of arms that sought to hold him back. On both sides his own men parried swords with the other warriors, freeing Eremon to dart through when a breach opened before him.

The edge of his blade caught Maelchon’s helmet just as the king himself whirled to face this new onslaught, and as the helmet clattered to the ground Eremon was arrested for a moment by the ruin of Maelchon’s face. The whole of his right eye was a pulpy mass of scar tissue that sealed the lid shut. From the socket, a crimson scar sliced down in a cruel curve, scoring the cheek like the tracks of bloody tears.

Rhiann
.

At the thought of what Maelchon had done to release such terror in her, rage burned Eremon’s chest, and his sword was flinging itself at Maelchon’s unprotected neck. The king parried the blade, and then suddenly cut under Eremon’s left side with the edge of his shield. The shock ran up Eremon’s arm, and with a grunt he dropped his own shield, his fingers momentarily nerveless.