The Age of Scorpio (62 page)

Reluctantly Scab put his hands into the black bubble of the suit and let it grow over him before fixing the visor to it. His neunonics interrogated the suit. It was old but functional, so he dropped some updated ‘ware into its systems. The Monk did the same. As she did, she hacked the Rapier’s systems and started them up, running rapid diagnostics on those that she needed.

‘You’ll do,’ she muttered to herself.

‘What, you’re going to fly us out of here?’ Scab asked, both confused and mildly interested, which was arguably more emotional than he’d been for a good long while, not counting his time as Dracup, and he was trying to forget about that. He was deeply uncomfortable with the emotional dependency Dracup had on Zabilla.

The Monk sent the heavily coded and very secure override command. Immediately after, she sent a time-bomb self-destruct routine. She was determined to leave as little trace as possible.

‘Fuck!’ Scab was unused to genuine surprise and had only just sealed the spacesuit as reality tore open and revealed the red beneath. The Rapier had just opened a bridge point. Even Elites couldn’t do that. Scab turned to look at the Monk.

‘Its all bullshit, isn’t it, about not being able to open in a planetary gravitational field?’

‘There’s a fail-safe device on every bridge drive. Any attempt to open a bridge point in a strong gravity field junks the drive.’

‘But you have an override for the fail-safe?’

‘Obviously. Imagine the carnage if people knew they could pop in and out of Red Space, sneak up on their enemies. Also, we’re genuinely not sure of the effects of repeated openings of wormholes in gravitational fields on the fabric of space-time. You coming?’

The Monk stepped forward, the cocoon floating behind her.

‘But it’s all right for the Church to have the knowledge?’

‘Which we can’t use because then people would know. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ She was heading straight for the rip. Scab grabbed another laser rifle, a bandolier of grenades and some spare batteries and followed.

‘No, I’ll keep the information and use it for myself.’

‘I like the way you volunteer for death, or at least total personality erasure,’ the Monk said. ‘Or maybe it’s too late for that.’

The Monk climbed over bodies to step through the tear. Scab followed her into the red.

There was screaming, the
thrum
of a bowstring, and the screaming stopped. Tangwen lowered the bow. She stood on the rampart looking out down the hill and over the vast fertile plain, so different from the sea of swaying reeds in which she had grown up. The morning mists mingled with dirty smoke from the campfires, from the smouldering remnants of the third hill fort, and smoke from the pyres the Corpse People were using to burn their captives in plain view.
If they’d wanted them to suffer, they should have tried burning them out of bow range
, Tangwen thought. There were four Corpse People around the pyres. They had died with arrows in them trying to light the fires, but Tangwen was running short of arrows coated with the poison that was Fachtna’s blood.

The defenders had said little as the four had entered the fort the previous night. Fachtna was still steaming, too hot to approach, Britha, a blood-soaked nightmare, carrying Teardrop. They had thought them gods or perhaps demons and had sunk to their knees – much to Britha’s contempt. Tangwen was afraid that they would let these people down, that they were not what the Atrebates believed them to be, but then she had spent her whole life in the presence of a living god and knew how helpless and how much like everyone else they could be, child of the Great Mother or no.

‘Fools,’ Britha said as she appeared at Tangwen’s side. She used that word a lot, Tangwen thought, but said nothing. The defenders either showed Britha great deference or gave her a wide berth. The warriors who wore stripes of black and blood vertically down their faces and braided crow and raven feathers into their hair, thought her a messenger from their bloody warrior goddess. ‘A man called Feroth taught me to fight and he taught me about battles as well. If you want an enemy to surrender then you show mercy, you give them a reason to. If they think that surrendering will lead to burning then they will fight to the last.’

‘They say that they kill and eat the warriors, those blessed by the Great Mother, but that the rest they take south towards the sea.’

‘I think that is where my people are,’ Britha said grimly and then lapsed into silence. The wounds she had taken last night had all but healed. The Atrebates had left the corpse of the bear at the gate. It would be another obstacle for the attackers. Tangwen had noticed how the carrion eaters, even the flies, stayed away from the corpse. ‘They are just children playing at being dead,’ Britha finally said. ‘They are liars.’

‘I think they believe it,’ Tangwen said. Though they hadn’t last night when the four of them had driven the corpse people away, but then she herself had wanted to flee when she had seen Fachtna and Teardrop’s magics, and Britha’s bloodlust.

‘You have done what was asked of you. Will you return to your people? I think a hunter of your ability would be able to sneak past them.’

Tangwen wasn’t sure.

‘I think . . .’ She searched for the right words. She remembered the time before the black ships had come. They would hunt, they would raid or even more rarely they would go to war with another tribe. Things were hard, but looking back they seemed simpler: she had been much more carefree, even if she might not have appreciated it at the time. ‘. . . that it will not matter if I go back to my people. These –’ she nodded towards the Corpse People ‘– or the ones in the black ships, they want everything, like the tribes the traders tell lies of, who they say cover many lands across the seas.’

‘You’ll come with us?’ Britha asked. Tangwen wasn’t sure but she thought she heard something like gratitude buried deep in Britha’s words.

‘Where?’

‘This place is a trap. We stay here, we die. We must know what lies to the south and we must take an army.’

‘I do not think that the warriors of the Atrebates will—’

‘The king will see us now.’ Neither of them had heard Fachtna’s approach and Tangwen jumped at his words. They turned to look at the warrior who looked like a Goidel to Britha and claimed to be something called a Gael. He was not carrying his shield, but his armour, which Tangwen knew had turned many a spearhead, arrowhead and sword, looked almost good as new. The singing ghost sword was sheathed at his hip. Tangwen noticed that Britha was staring at the leather case strapped to his back. It was about half the length of a spear and Tangwen was sure she had seen it move as if something was struggling to get out. She knew that if Britha was interested in it, it was because she smelled power there, magics that she could use to help her people.

Fachtna bore no scars, though he was walking with a slight limp. He had said the Corpse People must have painted their weapons with blood blessed by their gods. Like Britha he looked pale, gaunt and hungry. This was a siege. Regardless of how grateful the Atrebates were for their brief respite, or the awe in which they held the four of them, they could not allow Britha and Fachtna to gorge themselves.
It must be the magic
, Tangwen thought.
It feeds on them when they use it.

‘How is Teardrop?’ the young hunter asked.

‘Dead,’ Fachtna said. He did not look at Tangwen, he just glared at Britha.

Tangwen felt her stomach lurch and tasted bile in the back of her throat. She had liked Teardrop despite his strange appearance and outlandish dress. Fachtna might be a fine warrior, handsome, well made and worth a tumble, but she could talk to Teardrop and they had a bond of blood – they had saved each other’s lives. She reached up to touch the dressing on the side of her head. When one of the
dryw
had checked the wound this morning, they had told her that it was all but healed.

‘His power will be missed. It is much needed. Can it be taken from his body after death?’ Britha asked. Tangwen turned to look at the other woman. The hunter was offended but knew that the
dryw
tended to be a lot more practical than warriors.

‘He had a family, you know?’ Fachtna said with a voice full of contempt and anger.

‘The proper rituals will be honoured.’

‘A wife.’

‘Fachtna, I’m sorry, but people still live who can be helped.’

‘Three daughters.’ Britha sighed and looked impatient. ‘A fine young son, and all you care about is stealing power from his still-warm body?’

Tangwen watched anger spread like fire across Britha’s face. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the haft of her spear more tightly. This had been coming since Britha had killed the boy. Tangwen understood why she had done it – it was kinder – but Britha had done it so coldly.

‘What I care about—’

‘A cruel jest, Fachtna.’

Britha and Tangwen looked towards the now familiar, strangely accented voice of Teardrop. Tangwen turned angrily on Fachtna.

‘Why would you say that?!’ she demanded.

‘Because its true. My friend Teardrop is no more.’

Tangwen was confused by Fachtna’s words. Was he in another impassioned warrior sulk? She turned to Britha, who was staring at Teardrop suspiciously.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded. Tangwen turned back to look at Teardrop and noticed his eyes. They were a silver colour and multifaceted like the gems the richest of the traders from across the sea wore on their fingers. All the veins on his head stood out as if they were gripping his head tightly. ‘What are you, for you are no man?’

Tangwen took a step back. Holding her bow in her right, her left hand moved to the quiver that hung from her hip. Teardrop turned to look at her. There was nothing of Teardrop there, only something strange and monstrous.

‘Still want my power?’ Teardrop asked, looking back to Britha.

‘I want weapons to fight Bress and this Crom Dhubh,’ she said more cautiously.

‘This is the price,’ Fachtna said. Teardrop looked at him but said nothing.

‘Will he stand with us?’ Britha asked. Fachtna just nodded. ‘Then let us go and see this king.’ Britha walked past Fachtna, heading deeper into the hill fort. Teardrop looked between Fachtna and Tangwen as if examining them both, as if he had never seen either of them before, then turned and followed Britha.

Tangwen and Fachtna were left. The silence grew.

‘It’s difficult to mourn your friend when his body still stands among you,’ the warrior finally managed. Tangwen was shocked to see tears streaming down Fachtna’s face. The warrior sank to the mud. Tangwen knelt next to him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him as sobs racked his body. She felt tears come to her own eyes, though she wondered how either of them could cry among all this madness.

The track branched into three and the middle path branched into two more routes further up. One of the two central tracks led to a gate in the west wall that had been blocked up. Britha and Teardrop took the other. They walked past granaries raised on stilts to keep out vermin. There were guards on the granaries. Not the professional warriors of the Cigfran Teulu, the Family of the Raven, the Atrebates
cateran
, but rather doughty landsmen with staves. The landsmen here did not seem to carry spears, Britha noticed with disdain
. This must be a soft land
, she thought.

To their left were a number of roundhouses little different from those Britha had left in Ardestie. The people watched the two strangers pass, women, children and men. They looked gaunt, haggard and more than a little frightened. They stared, but when Britha stared back they did anything to avoid looking her in the eyes. There were still some sheep, pigs, a few cows and chickens, so the siege had not gone on too long, but just looking at the animals reminded her of the hunger that gnawed away at her. She felt like she was being eaten from the inside and her blood burned.
I am as much monster as you now, Cliodna
, Britha thought.

‘A fine salmon leap,’ the creature that was trying to contain itself in Teardrop’s body said, referring to her killing of the bear creature.

‘What are you?’ Britha demanded. She had seen the thing sprouting out like a vast crystalline plant from his body, reaching to places that didn’t make sense to her. It hurt for her to look at him, pain through her skull so bad it made her feel sick.

‘An explanation would do you no good.’

‘Why don’t the others see you as you are?’

‘Fachtna can, obviously. The rest do not have the potency in their blood that you do. Blessed by the Muileartach and Crom Dhubh, by life and death. That is why you can see, but sadly you will never understand.’ Britha felt like she was being insulted but chose not to rise to the provocation. This thing was unknown but seemingly powerful, and she did not wish to provoke it. ‘Because of your slaying of the bear, they think that you are one of us.’ Britha realised that he was talking in the language of the Pecht, her language. It had similarities to what was spoken by the southron tribes, languages which she now somehow instinctively understood, but was different enough so that any of the Atrebates who were listening would not understand.

‘They think I am from the Otherworld?’

‘They will.’

Britha was about to ask more but they had arrived at a large circular stone structure in the north-west corner of the fort. It was raised on a mound and its walls were about eight feet high, though with regular square gaps in the stones. There was a large opening in the southern part of the wall.

‘What is this?’ Britha asked.

‘A holy place.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘A place dedicated to their gods.’

‘But it’s huge. They could build many roundhouses here, or granaries, graze animals or train warriors.’ Britha could just about understand why god-slaves would have small shrines in their roundhouses to bargain with their gods for favours, but this extravagance seemed like insanity.

‘They are a rich tribe.’

‘They are moonstruck.’ Britha would have said more but they had passed through the gap into the circular structure. Inside was a large stone pool of what looked like very stagnant water. In the centre of it was a stone statue of an exaggeratedly pregnant female figure with an oversized vagina.