Sword of Neamha Read online

  I rolled to one side and grabbed the shaft with both hands, twisting with all my strength. The muscles I had developed at the forge were aiding me now, but the chainmail taxed my efforts to rise. With one final effort, I ripped the spear from his hands, swinging the blunt end toward his head.

  He went down as though pole-axed. I reversed the spear quickly, throwing up my free arm to block the blow descending toward my head from another of the Calydrae. His effort had taken him off-balance and I counterattacked, thrusting the spear into his belly. He screamed, his eyes glazing with death as blood flowed from his body. He went down into the street, taking the spear with him.

  Once again I was weaponless. The conflict ebbed and flowed around me. Men were dying on every hand. I moved forward, dazed by the carnage. The brihetin, the champions of Tancogeistla, dashed to and fro, almost trampling some of our own men.

  A javelin hissed past my ear, burying itself in the doorpost of a nearby house. I looked up to find an enemy warrior rushing toward me. His face was familiar to me, one of the young men I had played at javelins with, testing our skill and accuracy. One of my friends among the Calydrae.

  There was no friendship in his eyes now, only a lust for blood. I stooped down, as though guided by instinct, my hands closing around one of the war-hammers used by the ordmalica. The corpse of its owner lay scarce a foot from it.

  I parried his thrust with the haft of the hammer, and then swung back at him, putting all my strength into the swing. I was entering the zone now, detached from myself, issuing commands to a body I no longer inhabited. I seemed to see myself, as though I watched in a dream, fighting against the army of the Calydrae. The army of my preservers.

  I heard the sickening crunch of bone breaking, a twisted cry erupting from his throat as my hammer slammed into his breastbone, collapsing the chest cavity. He slumped to the ground, frothy blood escaping from between his lips. Death was knocking at his heart’s door.

  I looked down into his eyes, eyes once vibrant with the joy of living, now harboring only the vacancy of death. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. And yet to survive, I had to keep moving, keep killing. And I did.

  A sudden blow from the side stunned me, nearly spinning me around as fire raced up and down my back. I was bleeding.

  Cinaed. “You should have stayed in your home,” he hissed, raising his spear for the final blow. “We did not seek this war.”

  “Nor did I,” I whispered, lacking the strength to raise the hammer against him. His thrust had ripped open my side, letting the blood flow freely. “Nor did I.”

  He hesitated, one moment, as though confused by my words. But it wouldn’t matter in the end. I knew that.

  A sword descended from the air, smashing into Cinaed’s bared neck, just above his cloak. A crimson spray erupted from severed veins as the chieftain collapsed to the ground, his life flowing from his body.

  I looked up into the eyes of Tancogeistla. There was a fraction of my mind that knew I should thank him for saving my life, but a larger part of me wanted to curse him for his manipulations, for bringing us here in the first place. For I knew now that he had possessed the power to stop Malac, even before we came across the waters, before we had marched on Attuaca. And he had not used it.

  I stumbled away through the carnage, moving as though in a dream. I collapsed in a doorway, weak from blood loss, my hammer slipping from between my fingers.

  The skirmishers, the imannae of Ivernis, were putting up a stiff fight only a few yards from where I sat.

  I lacked the strength to join them. Something warned me, a glimpse of motion out of the corner of my eye, a sound, what I don’t know. I rolled weakly to the side just as knife plunged into the doorpost where my head had been resting.

  “Dog!” A woman’s voice cried, loud and shrill. And familiar. I reached up, grabbing at the knife hand, arresting its downward swing.

  A young woman glared down into my face, her eyes red from weeping, rage on her countenance. Then her eyes changed. “Cadwalador?”

  I shook my head to clear the cobwebs from my mind, attempting to place her. “Diedre?” I demanded incredulously.

  She nodded, falling to one knee beside me. The knife fell from her hand, much to my relief. I could scarcely believe that the young woman now at my side was the same girl I had walked with over the heather-covered hills so many years ago. She had blossomed into the maturity of womanhood in the intervening years, leaving behind the gawkiness of her youth.

  And she was very clearly with child. Tears flowed from her eyes, silent sobs wracking her body.

  “Why did you come back?” She gasped out through her tears. “Why, like this?” I gazed past her, out the doorway. The ranks of the Calydrae were broken now, men running for the town square, disheartened at the death of their leader.

  There was no answer to the question of her broken heart. “Had it been my decision, I would never have returned,” I replied quietly, my own heart torn in two at the betrayal I had been an unwilling part of. “But some men’s ambition knows no limit.”

  My words had no effect on her sorrow. I had hardly expected that they would. I wanted to reach out and comfort her, but I was acutely aware of the awkwardness of my position.

  “Where is your husband?” I asked, my hand stealing surreptitiously toward the hilt of the knife. In my weakened condition, I hardly wanted to be caught in this compromising position with another man’s wife.

  She shook her head, some of her anger returning as she gestured out the doorway to the body-covered ground. “Somewhere out there.”

  I looked across the hard-packed sod, so thickly strewn with the dead and dying that it was impossible to walk without stepping on a corpse. Her husband, the father of her babe, was dead.

  All at once, cheering seemed to erupt from the ground, rolling down from the hill in the center of town where the last of the Calydrae had taken refuge. Apparently, the day was ours. But none of that mattered. Not to me. Not to the young widow who grieved at my side. All that mattered was the loss—that could never be restored.

  Oh, yes, this was a victory…

  Chapter XII: Aneirin moc Cunobelin

  The days which followed were filled with mourning, the women of the Calydrae weeping for their dead. Our troops rampaged through Attuaca, looting and burning, drinking themselves drunk. Diedre bandaged my wounds and together we went out to find the body of her husband.

  The corpses were beginning to stink, bloating under the sun. Only the intense cold kept the town habitable. Some of the bodies were barely recognizable. Tancogeistla’s sword-slash had nearly taken the head off Cinaed’s body. The chieftain lay face-down in a frozen pool of his own blood.

  We found her husband, lying in front of a nearby door. He was stretched out on his back, his spear still clutched tightly in hands now stiff with death. His torso was smashed in by a hammer, the entire rib cage collapsed inward.

  He was the man I had killed. Diedre let out a small cry and fell to her knees beside the body, cradling his head in her lap. Clearly, she had loved him.

  I saw no need to tell her that I had taken his life. It would only add to her grief, as it already had to mine. My friend. Her husband. Dead at my hand. War…

  Malac came skulking back into town a week after the battle’s conclusion, but we saw little of him. People avoided him in the streets, shunned him by their scornful silence. Vergobret though he still was, he was an outcast

  Tancogeistla was leader in all but name. The people listened to him, respected him for the bravery he had shown in the battle. They called him Kuaroas, or champion. Men flocked to his banner.

  But I did not. His deceitful ploy to reclaim his rightful place had cost many lives and wreaked havoc in many others. Mine included.

  Rumor had it that he still sought Malac’s life and the Vergobret fled from Attuaca, back to Erain, where he assumed the governorship of Emain-Macha. However, he had lost almost all his influence and for the moment Tancogeistla seemed to have other t
hings on his mind. His rival could be dealt with later.

  Tancogeistla quickly went about quartering his troops in every house in the settlement, thus securing at the least the overt loyalty of the inhabitants.

  Almost three months to the day from the fall of Attuaca, Diedre brought forth a baby-girl, the child conceived of her and her husband’s union.

  Over the months, I had found the fondness I had once felt for the Belgae maiden growing steadily into love, and it seemed that the feeling was mutual as she bandaged my wounds and endeavored to make me at home there in the town in those early days. I made the necessary arrangements to take her as my wife once the time of her mourning was fulfilled.

  My dreams of Inyae had finally ceased to haunt me, those visions of that dark night with Cavarillos. Instead, as I lay beside Diedre in our small chamber, Inyae’s face was replaced by another.

  Diedre’s husband rose up before me on our first night as man and wife. I could see the look of agony on his face as my hammer smashed into his breastbone, hear his death cry as his broken body collapsed to the ground.

  Then all that passed away and his face changed, a look of reproach crossing his countenance. I could almost hear his voice rebuking me for my action. I rolled onto my back, coming awake with a start, sweat rolling in beads down my face. Diedre still lay at my side, her slow, regular breathing assuring me that she was still asleep. There were three of us in the bed that night…

  A year passed, then two. I saw nothing of Tancogeistla, save in public. Perhaps sensing my condemnation of his actions, he no longer visited the man who had saved his life. The rewards he had promised during the battle never came to pass. I had hardly expected that they would.

  And yet, for all the fame and power that he had gained through his cunning, still one thing eluded him. An heir. Perhaps it is man’s desire for immortality that causes him to crave a son, someone to continue his noble exploits, fulfill the dreams that are now beyond the grasp of his aged hands. Tancogeistla and his wife had never been able to have children.

  Some spoke in hushed whispers that this was the curse of his usurpation of power from Malac, but the more sensible realized the truth. He and his wife were simply too old. His youth had been spent fighting the wars of the Aedui. Such things as siring an heir had been cast by the wayside until it was too late.

  Friends of mine who came to the forge told me he had even employed a witch of the Calydrae to try to work her magic. Whatever she attempted, it failed to work.

  Thus, the announcement in the city square nearly two and a half years after the fall of Attuaca came as no surprise.

  Tancogeistla arrived in the square, standing tall and erect despite his years. If one improvement had been made to his character in the years since our migration together, it was that he had finally won his war with the bottle. Wine no longer had the same power over him that it once had. He was dressed in full battle regalia, chainmail and all, the helmet concealing his snow-white hair. But beside him stood another, a far younger man whom I did not recognize.

  Tancogeistla raised his hands over the assembled crowd, calling for silence. “As all of you know,” he began, “I am old, and well stricken in years. And I have sacrificed my life in the service of my people. My days upon this earth are numbered.”

  His speech was interrupted by the cries of the people, earnest protestations against what he was saying. It was as though he had become a god to them, a champion who would continue to lead their forces through eternity. They did not know him as I did. Diedre stood at my side, cradling her daughter in her arms. She was with child once again. I too prayed for a son.

  Our leader continued as soon as the crowd would allow him. “It is true, my people. And if I die, who will lead you? The old woman who ran from battle those years ago, the man some still recognize as vergobret? Or the fruit of his loins, those two young boys who have not yet grown to manhood? Might they not too run from the test of brave men?”

  Shrill cries of approbation greeted his words.

  “The man who stands beside me is one in whom I have the greatest confidence. A man I have decided to adopt as though he were my own son. A man from the tribe of the Cruithni, whose homes have been made in Erain for countless centuries.”

  My ears perked up. The Cruithni were an ancient race, but in the years since the invasion of Erain, they had hardly been known for their loyalty to their new Aeduan overlords. Perhaps this man was an exception.

  The crowd went wild. A figure pushed through the mass of people to stand at my side. It was Berdic, an unusual sobriety on his typically carefree countenance. We exchanged greetings and he stood in silence for a moment before asking what I thought of the new heir.

  I shrugged. “Only time will tell us. Until then I shall reserve my judgement.”

  He nodded slowly. “You know, old friend, that could have been you…”

  Diedre suppressed a small gasp. I turned, staring him full in the face. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “Of course you do…”

  I shook my head, wondering if despite his sober countenance, my old playmate was drunken. “What are you trying to say?”

  Berdic smiled grimly. “Tancogeistla had every intention of making you his heir, instead of this cursed Cruithni.”

  He was dead sober. I didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps it was the reward Tancogeistla had alluded to several times. Still, if so… “What kept him from it?”

  “You,” he replied. “Your rebuke of his actions at Attuaca. I feel he no longer trusts you as he once did, Cadwalador. You should watch your back.”

  “My loyalty to him is unquestioned,” I retorted hotly. “I saved his life many years ago in this island, at great cost to myself.”

  “My statement to you still stands. In this time, loyalties are changing, as unstable as a brook of water. This day the people flock to Tancogeistla’s banner. The next, they could just as easily turn back to a resurgent Malac. Tancogeistla knows this. And he will crush anyone who stands in his way.”

  “Or in the way of his heir, Aneirin moc Cunobelin.”

  “Exactly,” Berdic warned, his tones dark with meaning. “You have a family now, Cadwalador. The daughter of a Calydrae warrior and a wife who will bear your child. Take care of them. Don’t offend Tancogeistla again.”

  “I did only what I felt was right,” I replied, feeling a need to defend myself from the accusation my friend had made. “There was no justice in this war.”

  “Does there need to be?” Berdic asked, laying a hand on my shoulder before disappearing into the crowd. “Take care, my friend.”

  I looked down into Diedre’s worried eyes. “Are you in danger, my love?”

  Wishing to reassure her, I shook my head. “Nothing that you should worry about,” I replied, taking her into my arms. But even as I did so, I looked up to the platform where Tancogeistla and Aneirin still stood. There was danger there. Should Aneirin moc Cunobelin prove as ruthless and cunning as his patron, there was much danger…

  Thus it was that Berdic’s words were on my mind when a knock came on my door early one morning five weeks later and I opened it to find Belerios standing there. As always, a longsword nestled in the scabbard at his side.

  The swarthy brihetin wasn’t smiling as he bid me a good morning.

  “Tancogeistla wishes to speak with you. Immediately.”

  I glanced back into the shadows of my home, saw the fear in Diedre’s eyes as she held her daughter close. “What does my lord wish?” I asked, endeavoring to fathom Tancogeistla’s intent.

  “He wishes you to come with me,” Belerios replied stolidly. “That is all you need to know.”

  “I will be with you in a moment,” I responded. “Let me bid my wife good-bye.”

  “Very well.”

  I closed the door and turned back to Diedre, folding her into my arms. “Come back to me, my husband,” she whispered, her tears falling against my chest. I could feel the child she bore kick against me from her
womb and I smiled.

  “Our child is strong,” I stated, stroking her long hair with my fingers. She nodded, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

  “A strong son. And he will need a father. Please, Cadwalador,” she begged, gazing steadfastly into my eyes. “My first husband was taken from me by this man’s lust for power. He will destroy you as well if he thinks you are a threat. Please return to me.”

  My heart was torn by the despair in her voice, by the earnestness of her plea. “Don’t worry, love,” I whispered, gently pulling myself from her embrace. “I will do everything I can. We will sup together tonight. I promise you that.”

  Belerios knocked again at the door. “Are you ready, Cadwalador?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Goodbye, Diedre. Remember, I will be home before the night falls.”

  I left my house and walked through the streets of Attuaca with Belerios. Much had changed in the years since its fall to our army. More of the Aedui from Erain had moved to this new possession, thus securing their mastery of the place.

  Tancogeistla’s dwelling, more of a rude palace than anything, stood at the end of a long street. It was of new construction.

  Guards stood at the entrance as we approached, the light of the early morning sun glittering off their bared weapons. I knew Tancogeistla to have been a light sleeper ever since the night with Cavarillos so many years earlier. Clearly his feud with Malac had not diminished his desire for security.

  Together we were ushered into an inner courtyard, where several young men practiced at javelins. One of them was Aneirin moc Cunobelin. Tancogeistla stood watching them.

  He turned at our entrance. “Welcome, Cadwalador. It’s been some time.”

  “Yes, my lord,” I nodded. “My forge keeps me busy.”

  “And your wife,” he added, with a hint of a twinkle in his eye. “She carries your child, I hear.”

  “Yes.”

  “The gods have blessed you.” I felt it was prudent to acknowledge that statement with a short nod, whether I believed it or not.