Age of Iron (21 page)

“The tribes who’d escaped the destruction saw what had happened and swore never to forsake the gods again. They returned to the old ways of hunting and foraging and the gods were pleased. All writing – the pernicious symbols by which mankind had argued itself away from belief – was banned. To keep belief in the gods strong, it was decreed that all learning must be passed from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, so for as long as people exist, the gods will be remembered. Despite this, the unforgiving gods now deemed humans unworthy of their magic. To this day, only a few men and women are able to access the gods’ powers.

“The message of the gods remains today alongside their revenge. We must remain hard, we must war, we must hunt, we must forage and we must never write. We must accept that adversity is the way of the gods. When we lose those we love, we must remember that they are in the Otherworld. They are not lost and we will see them again. But there is no point in looking for them in this world.”

Ragnall stayed curled up, facing away from Drustan. His face was sore and his balls throbbed. He’d heard the story of the flood a thousand times, but he knew what Drustan was trying to tell him.

But there was Anwen. He had to find her. If anything, the beating from the little man had been a blessing. He’d seriously thought he was just going to walk right on up to Maidun Castle, defeat a champion or two perhaps, and stroll away hand in hand with Anwen. Now he’d taken on one small man and received the beating of his life, the idea was less appealing. As a bonus, he’d also discovered that not all bullies were cowards.

“Drustan.” Ragnall’s voice was harsh. He coughed.

“Have some more water.” Drustan handed him a skin and he gulped it down.

“You’re right. I’ll come to Dumnonia with you.”

“Good. It is the only way.”

It’s the only way at the moment, thought Ragnall. Yes, he’d set off with Drustan and maybe even go as far as Dumnonia, but he wouldn’t stop searching for opportunities to get back to Anwen and have his revenge on Zadar.

“I
t died?” Dug scooped some dog spit off Spring’s shoulder and turned her round, checking for injuries. She seemed unharmed. The dog that had attacked her lay on the grass. It was dead, but its eyes still looked alive, blazing with hatred.

“Its heart must have stopped,” said Lowa.

“Bit weird,” said Dug. “And look at its eyes. I’d say it was under a glamour – controlled by a druid.”

Lowa looked at him pityingly. “And is the druid watching us from its dead eyes?”

“Maybe?” Dug reddened.

“It’s not that weird. The heart pushes your blood around. If that stops you can’t move and you die. I’ve seen Felix prove it. Your heart pushes the blood faster when you exert yourself, and it’s more likely to break when it’s going faster. The surprise of a breaking heart is enough to give any creature a strange look on its face. There’s no glamour here.”

“But just as it was leaping…?” Dug looked at Spring, who was walking towards her horse, making soothing noises.

“If it’s going to happen, it’s got to happen some time. Why not just as it was leaping?”

“You don’t think she stopped it with,” Dug whispered, nodding at Spring, “
magic
?”

Lowa looked at him.
Oh dear
, she thought. “No. I don’t. I’ve seen enough failed healings and false prophecies to know that magic is a story for children. Nothing more.”

“But druids—”

“Are full of shit. One of their best tricks is persuading people that coincidences mean something. They don’t. An eagle attacks a crow as an army lines up for battle and they all go ‘Oooooh’ and it’s some big omen. But it isn’t. It’s just something that happens, happening.”

“Aye, I suppose so.” He looked a long way from convinced.

“OK, so what were the chances of us meeting? Of all the people in the world who have ever lived and ever will live, how odd was it that we were both in that tavern at the same time? Certainly no weirder than an elderly dog with a weak heart happening to die after a long run.”

Dug looked up at the sky, then shook his head. “Nope, don’t see what that’s got to do with it. We were just in the pub. It’s hardly the same as a dog dying when it’s about to kill a wee girl.”

Lowa sighed. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before Ogre can report back.”

T
hey found a caltrop in the hoof of Spring’s horse. With the three-spiked iron device dug from her footpad, the horse seemed happy enough walking with Lowa and Spring on board, but Lowa stole a third horse from the first homestead they came to. “Can’t have too many horses,” she said.

An hour further north, she asked Spring to steal food from another settlement.

“We’ll leave a trail,” Dug said while they waited for the little thief.

“We will.” Lowa nodded.

As the day darkened, she led them off the road. They dropped down a steep wooded bank and doubled back southwards, single file along a dark streambed. After a few miles they clambered out of the widening watercourse onto a road that headed west, away from Zadar’s territory.

The crescent moon and starlit road wound around hills, forded streams and a couple of rivers, and plunged through forests of broad-leafed trees. They skirted three sleeping villages. The round huts with their conical roofs, blue in the moonlight, could have been haystacks for all the life they showed. The only large animals they saw were a family of beavers, who lolloped ahead of them along the road for a short time before disappearing into the woods.

The night was old by the time they heard the shouts of Zadar’s messaging system. Dug didn’t catch the exact words, but “Lowa” was definitely one of them.

“We’ll be safe where we’re going,” she said as the echo died.

“But they’ll hear the shout. Whatever it was.”

“‘To all. Capture Lowa Flynn and companions. Help Weylin Nancarrow,’” muttered Spring.

“It doesn’t matter if they do hear it,” said Lowa. “We’ll be safe. We’ve nearly reached a village called Kanawan. It’s run by a friend of mine. We can lie low with him until Zadar stops searching for us and relaxes his guard.”

The idea of lying low with Lowa appealed to Dug. Relaxation, he’d always thought, was most enjoyable when it was forced upon you so it didn’t feel like indolence; like the time he’d broken a leg and couldn’t do anything apart from lie in the sun, drink cider, eat and watch the world go by. But he didn’t like the sound of this friend much.

Some while later the eastern sky began to pink behind them. Colour suffused the hills, meadows and trees so softly and sweetly that Dug almost had to blink back a tear at the beauty of it all. So quietly that he could hardly hear it at first, Spring began to sing.

Dug assessed his two new companions. Lowa rode in front, head up, more like a hero setting out on a quest and still within view of his tribe than a woman who’d been riding all day and night. Next to him Spring lolled into sleep then jerked awake with a snort. A strange child and a beautiful, skilfully vicious young woman. By all the badgers’ arses in Britain, what was he doing? Three days before he’d been on his way to sign up with Zadar’s army for a lifetime of remunerated sloth. Now he was a fugitive fleeing Zadar’s army out of choice, and he’d managed to adopt a child by mistake.

Yet helping Lowa seemed the decent thing to do, and it had been a while since he’d done the decent thing. Brinna would approve. He wasn’t helping her because she was achingly attractive. It was nothing to do with the way that she made him feel like the king of the world every time she spoke to him. And the girl? He liked her. When he’d left her, it was because he couldn’t bear being responsible for her. Now, it wasn’t just that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself. There was something special about her. The gods clearly loved her no matter what Lowa said about coincidence. He felt honoured that she seemed to have chosen him to hang around with.

He looked from one to the other. He’d travelled with innumerable companions over the years – great Warriors, hilarious bards, fascinating men and women – but he could never remember being as happy as he was with these two. It’s odd, he thought, where life leads you.

Pale dawn lightened into blue morning sky. The road crested a hill to reveal a thriving agricultural valley. Clusters of round huts, triangular grain stores and other buildings lay either side of a grey river. A patchwork of fields was outlined by a network of stone walls and wooden fences. Some fields were given to corn, flax or oats, others were pastures containing pigs, sheep, cattle and horses. On the far side of the valley the road climbed to a small hillfort. There was no sign of life on the fort, so it looked like everyone was down in the village, not expecting any trouble.

W
eylin didn’t like him. He had no ears but seemed to be able to hear. That was freaky. If you block your ears you can’t hear, so how can you hear if you don’t have any? He’d have to ask Felix. The druid was sure to have chopped someone’s ears off at some point to see what happened. Deaf or not, the squat, tough-looking man had an attack-first-and-don’t-ask-questions-ever air about him. There were plenty of aggressive twats like that in the Maidun army. Weylin had found that one, it was best not to upset them, and two, they tended to upset easily.

He’d been asking in Bladonfort for information on Lowa Flynn. Annoyingly, the story of the day before had got about and he was getting more questions than answers. Who was she? Where had she learned to use a bow like that? Who’d made the bow? Who was the strong man who’d smashed the bridge? Had he heard about the child who’d outwitted Zadar’s best? The last question was asked by people, he was pretty sure, who knew that it was he who the child had outwitted. Their mockery made him yearn to torture information out of them, but he believed that they didn’t know anything more than he did about Lowa, and he didn’t have the time for pointless torture. He had the inclination for it though. He resolved to return, find everyone who’d disrespected him that morning and make them regret it.

Down in the lower market Savage Banba had brought the man Ogre to him. She’d been the first person he’d picked to make up his twenty-strong pursuit group, more because he wanted to sleep with her than for her fighting skills. She hadn’t seemed particularly impressed. In fact to get her to come at all, he’d needed to tell her that he was working directly for Zadar and to talk to him if she had a problem. No matter. He’d show her.

He stood close to Ogre, almost shouting over the din of the bustling market.

“You’re sure it was Lowa Flynn?”

“Smallish, blonde hair, shoots a bow like Kornonos?”

“That’s her.”

“Travelling with a man and a child.”

“Possibly.”

“She killed my dogs. I want compensation.”

Weylin stared at the man with loathing. Ogre looked back, small eyed, thin lips turned down at the corners in an inverse smile.
Compensation.
How he hated people who blamed everything on everybody else, who couldn’t accept that accidents happened. He’d lost his fucking
wife
yesterday. He didn’t need compensation. Revenge, yes. Gold or some other kind of unrelated reparation, no. He stifled an urge to headbutt the man.

“You can get your ‘compensation’ from Flynn when we find her. Tell me all you know about where she was heading.”

“Nah.” Ogre put his hands on his hips. The corner of his lips rose into a smile, but there was no mirth in it, only derision and challenge.

“No?”

“Happens I’d like to catch up with her myself. Like you said, I need to collect my compensation for the dogs. I’ll tell you where she went when we get there.”

“What?”

“I’ll come with you on your hunt. I can help you because I know which way she went.” Ogre enunciated each word as if talking to a simpleton. Behind him his two henchmen grinned toothlessly. Their leader was teasing the Warrior, and they were loving it.

Weylin’s head hurt. He’d managed to turn another conversation into a battle and, yet again, he was losing. How did other people manage to talk to each other so easily?
Fuck it
he thought
.
He’d take the earless thug and his two skinny men with him. He didn’t want to overstate Lowa’s skills – he could have definitely taken her in a fair fight – but having twenty-three people under his command would be better than twenty, and anyway the chances of a fair fight were very slim. He’d kill these three when he found her, or maybe Lowa and that fucker Dug would do the job for him.

“All right. But you’re going to do what I say, and we take Flynn unharmed. Got it? I report directly to Zadar. You do not want to fuck with me.”

Ogre looked him up and down. “You’re right. I wouldn’t think that anyone would want a fuck with you.” Everyone laughed apart from Weylin. “But seriously,” Ogre continued, “you can trust me, my friend.”

When Weylin and his brother were children – he must have been about six years old and Carden ten – they’d swum in the sea. They’d gone to the coast with another family. Their mother, Elann the blacksmith, had as usual been too busy to come. “Swim between my legs!” Carden had said. Weylin did everything Carden told him to, so he’d taken a breath and dived down. Carden had closed his legs and trapped him. He’d thought it was a joke at first, but then Carden hadn’t let him go. He remembered as if it were yesterday the moment when he’d realised Carden was trying to kill him. When his struggles had weakened, Carden had opened his legs and pulled him to the surface. “Learn a lesson, Weylin,” Carden had said as Weylin gasped in sweet air. “Never trust anyone.”

And he never had.

“Why do you want Flynn?” he asked Ogre.

“Like I already said twice. Compensation for the dogs.”

Weylin looked down at the stout criminal, then looked around. About ten of his own troops had gathered behind him while they were talking.