Calgaich the Swordsman (4 page)

They stopped at the crest of a low hillock that overlooked the sea. The gray-bearded waves rolled in against the shoreline in serried ranks, and a thundering shock could be felt through the trembling earth at their feet.

She looked up at his taut face. “What is it,
fian?
The Picts again?”

Calgaich shook his head. “The
birlinn
was a good craft. She was as swift as a seal, and she rode the white-maned sea horses like a gull. It was a terrible sight to see her die like that, a broken thing at the mercy of the seas.” It was almost as though he spoke of a once living thing.

"And the men who died with her,
fian?
Do you not think of them?”

He looked at her. "They were there by choice, woman. The
birlinn
was not.” He turned away from her and strode on across the sandy, hummocked ground, wigged here and there with coarse furze bushes.

A great land-cup lay within a grim circle of lowering hills whose tops were crowned with thick lowlying clouds of dark gray that seemed to be racing inland, driven by the powerful western wind. A sea loch of leaden-colored water probed into the land. Drifting mist hung throughout the great land-cup within the embrace of the hills. The strong salt smell of the sea hung in the air. A light drizzling of cold rain began to descend.

A humped earthen mound stood not far from the steep slope of one of the hills, as though a giant of nature had lain down to rest and covered himself with a thick cloak of bracken and heather. The sea wind ruffled the growths as if beneath them the huge chest of the giant were rising and falling in his deep sleep.

Calgaich stopped short. He quested with eyes, ears and nose as if he were a hunting hound. His hands tightened, white-knuckled, on the shaft of his spear.

"What is it?” Cairenn whispered.

He shook his head. His eyes were fixed almost hypnotically on the huge earthen mound.

Cairenn waited uneasily, puzzled and shivering. She looked curiously about herself and made out a rough circle of great, lichen-covered stones standing on end, half-sunken in the thick turf. The stones encircled the mound. She eyed the mound more closely. A cold and eerie feeling came over her. This was no curious feat of nature. The mound was manmade. Between the upright stones at one end of the mound were the remains of a paved open court that reached to the front of the mound. Slowly Cairenn perceived a rough doorway set into the end of the mound. It had uprights and a lintel of age-eaten, lichened granite. Bracken hung about the shadowed doorway like a ragged beard around the mouth of a toothless old man.

She could not help herself. "Calgaich?” she cried.

He did not move. He had been unafraid of the hungry sea between Hibernia and Caledonia. He had not feared to turn back the
birlinn
to face the pursuing Pictish reivers. He had not been fearful of casting himself into the watery domain of mighty Nodons. Now something deeply frightening had come silently through the overcast to roost on the broad back of the
fian.
It was something that had swiftly woven a slimy green thread of fear through the bright red fabric of his great courage.

“Calgaich?” Cairenn drew closer to him.

There was no sign of life within that foggy land-cup encircled by the gloomy hills. The only things that moved were the drifting mist and clouds, and the uneasy gray waters of the mysterious-looking sea loch.

He turned slowly to look down at her, hidden fear lurking within his eyes. “It is a Holy Place,” he murmured.

“Then there is nothing to fear.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. It is a bar-row. The Ancient Ones, the Little Dark People, left such places.
This is the place of the Horned One
, woman.”

A cold feeling like the tracing of a sharp icicle tip went down her spine. She hesitated, then said softly, “I did not think you feared the Old Ones,
fian.”

“It is not them!” he lied hastily. “It is the men who might still worship here that are to be feared.”

“The Painted Ones?”

He shook his head. “More likely the Damnonii. They came from the south long, long ago, and either killed or drove away the Little Dark People.” He looked beyond the mound toward the distant hills. “The Damnonii do not like trespassers,” he added.

“I see no one.” Cairenn moved closer to him.

Calgaich fingered his spear shaft. “No one that can be
seen,”
he murmured softly. “Can’t you smell the evil? There is a stench of old blood about this place.”

“If the Damnonii think so much of it, why isn't it guarded?”

Calgaich wet his dry lips. “It
is
guarded,” he whispered.

“I see no one. I hear no one.”

“The Horned One!”

Cairenn asked no more questions. She knew by the tone of his voice that he felt something alive and evil lurking here, something he could not or would not explain to her. The faint howling of a wolf came from far across the great cup of land shielded by the mist-haunted hills. The howling did not sound real to her.

Calgaich bent his head. His hands tightened on his spear shaft, as though in doing so he would gain spiritual strength from it. "Lugh of the Shining Spear,” he prayed, calling on his god. Cairenn waited quietly, her head bowed, for him to finish. The wolf howled again.

Calgaich raised his head. He strode purposefully toward the mound as though he had gained that strength for which he had just prayed. Without hesitation he passed between two of the ancient ring stones. Cairenn came just behind him. Calgaich approached the furze-shrouded doorway of the barrow. An old hide studded with age-greened bronze bosses hung in the doorway. He thrust out his left hand with the first and little fingers extended and the two middle fingers bent within the palm—the sign to avert evil. He pulled aside the hide. The bronze bosses clashed dully together as he did so. Calgaich looked quickly about as though someone else other than Cairenn might have heard the sound. Then he motioned for her to follow him and disappeared inside. Cairenn glanced over her shoulder at the surrounding mist, which seemed to grow thicker, before moving forward. The bronze bosses felt rough to her touch as she pushed them aside to enter. Then she became Calgaich’s shadow as he felt his way within a passageway. The flagstones were cold against her bare feet. An indescribable odor drifted about them like the dank breath of an ancient tomb. Then this icy miasma settled about them as though welcoming them into the barrow. Welcoming them in to what? Cairenn thought. The aura was that of stale blood; lichened stone, damp with the moisture of many centuries; and above all, the odor of ancient evil from deep within the bowels of the earth itself.

Calgaich paused. "Lugh of the Shining Spear,” he murmured again. Cold sweat dewed his forehead and trickled down his sides. He must move on. There was no other recourse. It was more than his fear of the unknown that he must overcome. He could not show fear in front of this slave woman. That was beneath the dignity of any warrior of the Novantae.

Calgaich moved on through the clammy darkness, probing the shadows with the tip of his spear. Now and again the metal chimed musically as it struck stone.

Calgaich squeezed past a pillar that divided the passageway in two. He moved on with the woman holding onto the tail of his tunic like a little child following its mother. He stopped. "This is like entering the pit of hell itself. We need light.” He fumbled at his waist and passed a sealed bladder back to Cairenn. She untied the bladder and took the firestones and some dry tinder from within it. Then she crouched on the cold, flagged floor and struck the firestones together until they shed sparks into the tinder. There was a faint glowing amidst the tinder, like a ruby on black velvet as the flame caught quickly. She snatched up the tinder and blew sharply on it until it was fully afire.

They stood at the entrance to a wide circular room. The roof was just inches above Calgaich’s head. Dried reeds and twigs lay to one side. He motioned toward them. Cairenn placed the burning tinder among the reeds and fanned them into flame and warmth. A fitful flame rose.

Calgaich sucked in his breath as the light grew. This
was
the Holy of Holies. The room was very large and roughly circular in shape. Rough-hewn pillars held up the wide stone slabs that formed the subroof on which lay the heaped earth that shaped the mound over the barrow. Beyond the circular room were dark cells, or galleries, from within which came the slow sound of dripping water. The walls were veined with dampness and textured with lichens. The shadows of Calgaich and Cairenn leaped and postured on the damp walls as they moved about.

There was a low stone table or altar at the far end of the room. A ring of white stone was set into the flagstones before the altar. Several exquisitely shaped, fine-grained greenstone axe heads lay within the ring of white stone, mingled with two finely figured bronze axe heads, which had evidently been deliberately broken in half.

Calgaich moved cautiously toward the altar. A cup beautifully shaped from amber was on the altar. The inside seemed to be coated with a dark material like pitch.

A cold feeling crept through Calgaich, for he knew what the substance was, perhaps the blood of a deer or a black cock, or possibly that of another sacrifice—a human—a slave or a condemned criminal. A slave woman? Calgaich did not look back at the lovely face of Cairenn. He hoped she would not notice the amber cup.

Cairenn fed the growing fire from a large pile ©f branches and pieces of log that lay to one side of the chamber. Steam arose from the damp wood and from the heavy woolen cloak to mist within the chamber. She watched Calgaich as he poked about with the tip of his ever-ready spear. He used it almost as if it were an extension of his arms.

Calgaich leaned his spear against a pillar and then rummaged about within a pile of something heaped behind the pillar. “By Lugh!” he called out. “He has answered my prayers
\”
His hands had closed on the hilt of a sheathed sword. He held it out to the light. The sheath was of finely-worked and figured bronze and the drag of it was shaped like a serpent's head with its mouth wide open to show its fangs. Its hilt was beautifully fashioned of ivory and wood with a pommel and guard of enameled bronze.

Calgaich stepped back and withdrew the iron-bladed sword from the scabbard with a crisp hissing of the metal. The long, leaf-shaped blade of polished gray iron reflected the dancing firelight like the sun shining on swiftly running water, so that the blade seemed like a tongue of flame itself.

There was a look of sheer ecstasy in Calgaich's eyes. Cairenn watched fascinated as he swung the heavy, balanced blade in slashes, thrusts, parries, crosscuts and a curious weaving pattern that was so swift in its execution she could have sworn she saw the reflection of the blade tip still hanging in the smoky air even after it had passed on.

The sweat of exertion broke out on Calgaich's face and flew from it with his rapid movements. It was almost as if he were repeating his recent battle with the Picts. Now Cairenn knew why Cuill had once spoken of Calgaich with awe and deep-seated fear.
“Don’t you know who he is?”
he had asked with astonishment, when she had inquired about her new master. “
Calgaich the Swordsman! One of the wild Novantae from southwestern Caledonia who have no peers in the red wet work of the blades! Calgaich, son of Lellan, who is lord of five hundred war spears and the deadliest of all enemies to the Romans! Calgaich mac Lellan, grandson of Evicatos the Spearman! Calgaich the Swordsman!
Cairenn knew now who Calgaich’s true gods were—weapons and red battle!”

Calgaich lowered the fine blade and ran a thumb along both edges. He tested the point, the heft and balance of the sword. He studied the finely figured metal of the blade, which had been cunningly inset with fine gold wire in the symmetrical, intertwined patterns that Celts loved so well. He snapped the nail of a first finger against the metal and then quickly raised the blade to his ear as if he were listening for something within it. He raised the sword and tapped it against the low stone ceiling so that it rang musically, then quickly placed it next to his ear again. A strange and faraway look came over his face.

"Does it speak to you,
fian?”
Cairenn asked in an awed voice.

He stared at her across the blade. It was almost as if she were looking at a stranger, so different was his expression. "Aye, woman,” he replied softly. "There is a spirit guardian within all master blades.”

"Who is the spirit guardian of that blade?”

He grinned at her like a hunting wolf. "The wolf howls within the blade. It is a good omen for Calgaich, for the wolves are my foster brothers in spirit.” He held the awesome weapon out toward her. "See here? The mark of a master smith.” He tapped a finger on the blade just beneath the cross guard. She leaned close to it and saw the punch marks of the smith—an oval stamping of two gaunt wolves with their forepaws resting against a bell-shaped stone tower while their heads were held back with open jaws as though they were howling. Under the stamping were some cryptic symbols.

She looked up into his shadowed face. "What does it mean? Who was he?”

"Examine the blade of my war spear,” he said quietly. He looked toward the wall of the chamber but it seemed to Cairenn that he was looking far beyond the wall of the barrow at something she could never see and would never understand.

She took the heavy war spear and turned it so that the firelight shone on the base of its blade. The same design she had seen on the sword blade was also punch-marked into the base of the spear blade. A strange feeling ran through her hands. She quickly leaned the spear back against the pillar and returned to sit near the fire.

"The war spear was that of my grandfather—Evicatos," Calgaich quietly explained. "He was the greatest war leader of all Albu in his time. Long ago he led the People of the North—the Novantae, Selgovae, Damnonii, Votadini, the Picts and the Older People—across the Great Wall of the Roman emperor Hadrian. They fought against three Roman legions and were driven back in time, but they almost reached Londinium! Evicatos was an older man then but still a great warrior. My father and my uncle rode with him on that raid. Evicatos left that spear to my father who in turn gave it to me when I left Caledonia to take service with the
fianna” It
was as if he were speaking to himself or to someone unseen beyond the barrow.