The Dark Mirror (42 page)

THERE MUST HAVE
been a strong wind that night, a capricious wind that eddied in circles. When Bedo looked out of the window to see what sort of day it was, he noticed the eagle feather was gone. This was a disappointment; he had planned, secretly, to slip it into
his baggage before they traveled on. He looked about; it wasn’t on the floor, nor on the bed amidst the crumpled blankets. After breakfast he went to check outside, but there was no sign of it. All that the wind had left on the bare sill was the three white stones.

The next morning they rode on toward Caer Pridne, taking the witch girl with them. Her hair was looking odd; it had been roughly
hacked off level with her ears, and now somewhat resembled Bedo’s own, although it was a lot less tidy. The girl was very quiet. Her mouth was set in a thin line,
as if she was trying not to cry. As the druid’s house vanished into the oaks behind them, she didn’t look back, not even once.

BROICHAN’S MAN HAD
set out before
his master left Pitnochie, equipped with a small pack of rations, adequate means to defend himself, and a message to Talorgen in his head. The message was not complex: there were only two parts to it. First, the old man, Erip, was dead and the news should be passed on quietly to the boy. Second, the boy must have a taster from now on. It was easy enough to remember.

The messenger was accustomed
to covering ground swiftly, even in the most inclement of conditions. It was expected he would catch up with the advancing army within the space of twelve days or so, less if the rain held off. He knew how to avoid wolves and cramps and spies from Dalriada. He knew how to keep going on scant rations and little sleep.

He was no match for the rock slide above Maiden Lake. It had been wet; he was
traversing a narrow path high above the water when he heard the unmistakable grumbling sound above him, growing rapidly to a splitting, roaring cacophony of tumbling boulders. Grimly he clung on, pressing himself against the incline, gritting his teeth and praying to Bone Mother that it might not yet be time for her to gather him to her breast. The tumult abated; small stones dribbled down the hillside
to bounce and settle on the massive pile of rubble far below. And, after all, it was not time; not quite yet. The messenger blinked the dust from his eyes. He took a deep breath, full of joy that he had been spared. His leg was hurting; he looked down to assess the injury and felt the blood drain from his face. A massive stone had lodged itself hard against the rock wall where he had sheltered.
Between boulder and cliff face, his leg was trapped to the thigh. Cold sweat broke out all over him. That single glance had told him the leg was crushed almost beyond recognition; he would never walk again.

For some time he tried to free himself by straining against the rock with his hands and by chipping at it with a smaller stone. His pack was still on his back; he blunted his knife scraping
at the hard surface, leaving a network of desperate scratches. He had food for many days, water for three. At first he rationed the supply, a sip at a time, thinking of rescue. But nobody came. When the water ran out, he thought of taking the knife to his leg while he
still had the strength, of severing the limb somehow, and then . . . and then what? He would bleed to death, crawling along paths
known only to badger and squirrel, marten and beetle. It would be quicker, at least. But the knife was blunt, and he could not bring himself to try.

Rain fell the day after he emptied his water skin. He licked it from the rock that pinned him, wondering through a haze of fever at his own will to cling to life, despite all. He had forgotten the message. He had forgotten all but the pain and the
cold and the creeping darkness of despair. That night, moving in around him like death’s own messengers, the wolves came.

WHEN IT CAME
to the point, it was not possible to think very much at all. Paused in their march, gazing across the lonely glen toward the hill of Galany’s Reach, they saw smoke rising, a banner flying
above the settlement, and they saw that the Gaels were ready for them; the walkways behind and below that rampart of sharpened stakes were lined with archers. On the hilltop beyond, even at such a distance, the tall form of the Mage Stone stood out against the skyline, guarded by rowan trees. It drew the eye and set purpose in the heart.

“They are not so many,” Talorgen said, eyes narrowed. “That
is why they have chosen to go within, to defend rather than come out and face us. We proceed to plan. Are you ready? Morleo? Ged? Fokel?”

Grunts of assent. Ged’s troop, resplendent in its rainbow colors, was to take the right flank, Morleo’s the left, with the main force to approach the gates directly. Close behind Talorgen’s men rode Fokel’s small band. Bridei had seen this leader’s dangerous
eyes, his air of barely contained energy, as if he were in imminent danger of exploding. The bristling armament borne by each of Fokel’s grim followers did nothing to lessen his unease. These men resembled some Otherworld dispensers of arbitrary justice. Perhaps they would not trouble to look where they struck until it was all over. Their close proximity was scarcely reassuring.

The king’s councillor,
Aniel, had sent his two personal guards to join this venture in the name of Drust the Bull. Now his man Garth came forth, bearing the staff with the king’s banner, and others lifted high the symbols of every chieftain here present, Longwater, Abertornie, Raven’s Well, and the ancient flag of Galany. Talorgen raised a clenched fist into the air and gave a
great ringing shout, “Fortriu!” A hot,
rushing pride coursed in Bridei’s blood, like the touch of the Flamekeeper himself. He raised his own voice along with the rest of them in response, “
Fortriu
!,” and the men of the Priteni marched forward into battle.

The approach to the settlement was across a wide vale, where a stream flowed down to empty itself into the vast waters of King Lake. The ground was boggy and their boots sank deep.
There was little cover beyond a few bushes and meager trees hugging the banks farther upstream. As they approached the water, the gates of the settlement swung open and the enemy came out to meet them. It was not, after all, a desperate defense of an undermanned outpost, but a well planned counterattack, army against army; someone had given the Gaels good intelligence and they had used it well.

“How many?” Bridei managed to shout to Donal, who was shadowing him grimly, spear in hand.

“Enough,” said Donal. “We’ll do it. They’ll try to draw us within reach of their archers. Talorgen will hold the fellows back, that’s if that madman Fokel doesn’t charge in first. Stay close if you can, Bridei. I need you in sight.”

Still
, thought Bridei,
still, on the brink of battle, Broichan’s hand
reaches out over me, as if I were a child to be sheltered. When will it be time for me to be a man?

Then, beside him, before him, behind him the men began to run, and to shout, and the day turned to madness. The cries rang like trumpet calls in his ears; his heart, already racing, now took on the rhythm of a fierce drum, his own legs carried him forward in the surge, the press, the hot wave of
bodies and then, abruptly, arrows began to rain down, men fell pierced in eye or throat or shoulder, there were bodies underfoot, blood bright on cloak or helm, on clutching hand or staring eye or shattered limb. He could not stop to help them; it was on, on, his feet carrying him forward with the tide, the ranks thinner now, his own throat hoarse with screaming above the din, “
Fortriu! Fortriu
!”

Past the arrows and into the melee, thrusting-spears used to skewer and pierce, Donal with a fellow spiked like a fine trout, wriggling on the shaft; Gartnait, glimpsed between straining, gasping figures, piercing a downed man’s heart with one savage thrust of his dagger. Gartnait’s eyes strange, exalting, almost as if he were in the presence of a god. A big man, Breth, seeking the space allowed
by a hillock crowned in low bushes, using his bow steadily, coolly, to pick off one then another from among the chaotic tangle of men.

Stay close?
thought Bridei.
That’s a joke
. He scrambled up the rise to Breth’s side, readied his own bow, began to loose his shafts with care; the slightest miscalculation and the arrow intended for a hulking warrior of the Gaels might instead pierce the breast
of one of their own comrades.

“Over to the south,” muttered Breth. “See, beyond the main mass of Ged’s men? Give Fokel cover.”

From here it was just possible to see what Fokel was doing, though in the press of the battle all had seemed random, the pattern of the day’s conflict reduced to a single man with a big knife who was trying to kill you, another with a spear who had just killed your comrade.
Down there all was moment to moment, strike, breathe, survive, press on. From the little rise, Bridei saw that Talorgen’s forces were making slower progress now; they were barely past the stream bed, facing a sizeable number of Gaels, and many men from both sides lay prone or writhed on the ground, their moans drowned by the shouting of exhortation or insult, the clash of blades, the whistling
of arrows.

Ged and Morleo were doing little better. Their forces, somewhat farther from the settlement walls, were bearing the brunt of the archers’ work. From down there none of them could see Fokel and his small band of fighters. Fokel had taken his men far upstream, and now they snaked their way back on the other side, making use of the bushes that grew on the banks for cover, edging ever
closer to the chaos before the gates.

Following Breth’s lead, Bridei sighted and loosed an arrow and another, trying for the Gaels at the back of the throng, those most likely to be in the way when Fokel’s men broke cover and surged up the hill toward the walls. It was crazy; it was just the sort of thing Fokel could be expected to do. Likely his entire squad would be picked off before they reached
the enemy positions. Still, that man whose chest Bridei’s arrow had just pierced would not see them coming. Nor would the fellow Breth got in the eye, nor that one, nor that . . .

“Always said you were a good archer in the making,” muttered Breth, sighting and loosing again.

“How many arrows have you got left?” Bridei asked him.

“Two. Here.”

They shot together; a pair of Gaels fell. Then it
was down the hill again, into the nightmare. Donal was nowhere in sight; Gartnait, too, had disappeared in the melee. Talorgen, shadowed by Garth, was using his sword to
devastating effect; this was a leader ready to put his life on the line with his men’s. Ged’s forces, bright tunics now spattered with blood, their own, the enemy’s, were across the stream and making progress up the hill. And
now, beyond the seething mass of men, something new could be seen. From within the neat palisade of sharpened staves came a brilliant glow of light, a harsh crackling and the voices of women raised in screams of alarm. Fokel’s men had set fire to the settlement. Their creeping approach had brought them within range; flaming arrows had done the rest.

The archers on the upper walkways ran, deserting
their posts; quenching the blaze was more urgent. Grimly, the Gaels on the ground held their positions. Perhaps it was their wives, their children in there where flames caught hungrily at grain store and tannery and sleeping quarters, where folk scurried desperately for buckets, where lads too small to fight set their puny arms to pumps, where women used sacks and blankets to beat at the engulfing
flames. The men fought on, hard-faced, as the smoke blew over the battlefield, bathing sword and spear, splintering shield and blood-drenched banner in an eerie half-light, rose and gold and shadow gray.

Bridei had not carried a thrusting-spear; he had a short sword, a knife, and his bow, now useless unless he could scavenge a new supply of arrows. It became impossible to see what was happening;
to know what the leaders wanted them to do. It became purely moving forward in a general direction of uphill and managing not to be killed. It was one small desperate battle, then another and another. Bridei made use of both sword and dagger. There was a young warrior, a Gael, with a hideous wound to the stomach, his entrails dangling, his face whey-pale with terror. Bridei had not thought he
could reach down and slit a man’s throat in pity but, when it came to it, he did so without hesitation, muttering a prayer to whatever gods this fellow believed in,
Take his hand
.