Dreaming the Eagle (50 page)

He did not look like a man preparing to die. The whine of bees began again in her ears, the gods’ warning, and Maroc’s voice faintly, Only know that you must stay together. Warily, she said, ‘You were not thinking that it was sent for us alone - giving no chance to the others?’

The bear was the colour of the night. Even with the clear sight of Mona, it was hard to hold it in focus. In the time she waited for Ardacos to speak, it stood up and made of itself a silhouette against the stars. She heard the man sigh beside her, a nasal whistling of breath. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I do not think it is just for us. Where would be the honour in that? To become Warrior because none else had the chance.’ He squirmed back from the edge and tapped her wrist. ‘Go, then; we must act quickly. I will fetch Gwyddhien. You rouse the others.’

He regretted the decision. Even as he ran ahead along the edge of the water, she saw it in him. She sent Hail ahead for Caradoc and worked along the edge of the water, waking each group as she came to it. The hounds were full of boar offal and somnolent and unwilling to stir themselves. Their warriors were little better. One in every four she left to feed the fires and wrap dried bracken onto sticks to make fire-clubs. The rest she told to leave their spears and arm with rocks of a good size to throw, impressing on them the need not to kill; they knew the laws, but only she and Ardacos had been given a living reminder of the penalties. Midway through, Caradoc joined her and they divided the rest between them, meeting back at the place where the boar was kept. Gwyddhien was there already, standing on the crag above the carcass. Ardacos was nowhere to be seen.

Breaca climbed onto the rock and looked about. The bear was downwind and had caught their scent. It rose on its hind legs, the blunt snout raised to the sky. Breaca said, ‘Where’s Ardacos?’ and the words were barely out before she saw him and realized that the bear did not stand as she did just for the scent of a handful of warriors hidden among the crags, but for a small, wiry man, naked now and weaponless, who stood before it, swaying.

‘Gods, what is he doing?’

Gwyddhien grimaced. ‘Bear-dancing. It is a tradition among the Caledonii, apparently, handed down from the ancestors; they dance with the bear and ask it to leave them in peace and it does so.’ She spoke softly, with the singing lilt of the west. Even shouting above the noise of battle practice it was the same. It was this that had first drawn Airmid to her, that and her outstanding skill.

They watched the dancing warrior together. Breaca said, ‘He’s mad.’

‘Or supremely courageous. If he dies, they will say it is the former. If he lives …’ The tall warrior grinned and spread her hands, as a gamer might at a lost bet when the contest has been hard and fast. ‘We dare not interfere. If we go down, we will break the bond between them and he will die. All we can do is stand and watch.’

Venutios jumped the height of the rock and stood beside her. He alone gripped his spear. Whatever he might become, he was still the Warrior and no-one had the power to tell him to abandon his weapons. He leaned on the haft and watched the dance as bear and man edged sideways, away from the crag.

Breaca watched Venutios rather than the bear. She had reached him last in the round of waking and had found him sitting by his fire, honing the blade of his hunting knife. He had not asked why she came.

‘Were you expecting this?’ she asked.

‘Something like it.’

‘Is it always a bear?’

He ran his tongue round his teeth, considering the limits of what he could reveal. ‘No,’ he said, eventually. ‘Not always.’

She wanted to ask what else they could expect but he would not have been permitted to answer and to ask did him no honour. She stared out into the night. The further Ardacos danced, the harder he was to see. Starlight made him grey, the colour of rocks, and the bear the same. She felt the others gather behind her, scaling the crag slowly. Not all of them saw Ardacos. Twice, Breaca had to hold back a warrior who thought to take on the bear alone.

She was holding the arm of Braint, the girl-cousin of the Brigantes, when she saw the other shapes, smaller and more ghostly, that followed the larger.

‘Cubs!’ She let go of the girl. ‘Gwyddhien, Ardacos must be warned. He can’t take his eyes from the shebear but either of the cubs is big enough to kill him.’

She spoke too late. The boy-cousin of the Brigantes had acted even as she let go of his cousin’s arm. He sprinted down from the crag, yelling his war shout and hurling the stones he had carried. Seeing him, the smaller cub turned. The bigger reared up like its dam and advanced on Ardacos. He may have seen it, but a man can only dance with one bear at a time. He made no move to turn, to engage it or to defend himself.

‘No!’ Breaca was already running. She held the two rocks she had collected and she had Hail. It was not enough. She felt Caradoc at her left side, the place of the oath-bound, and was glad of him. Gwyddhien joined on the right. Others ran, strung out behind. Venutios stayed on the rocks, observing.

‘Go!’ With a prayer for his life, she sent Hail to harry the shebear. From a distance beyond spear-throw, she cast the first of the two stones. With the gods’ aid, it bounced on a rock by the bigger cub and shattered, spitting debris. The cub yelped and fell to all fours. Ardacos turned, letting go of the dance. The shebear reared higher and slashed the air. Hail launched at her from behind, ripping a mouthful of pelt and turning away before the claws could smash him to rags. The bear yarled, a small noise for one so vast, and spun to face the new threat.

Breaca shouted, ‘Ardacos! To your right. There’s another cub!’ and knew she was too late.

There were six of them within striking distance and all had hurled their stones. One of the younger warriors had a fire-club and threw that too but all of them had aimed for the adult or the bigger cub; none had taken heed of the smaller as it threw down the youth of the Brigantes and came to the aid of its dam. It was not large for a bear, but Ardacos was not large for a man and he had no defence but his guile. He rolled away from the strike as he had rolled from the boar and so was not disembowelled. The claws caught him on the shoulder where the boar-tusk had already struck. With a crack like breaking greenwood, they broke his arm and ripped the flesh beneath. He fell without a sound.

‘Ardacos?’

He lay belly down on a bed of moss and green bracken with his head to the west in case he should die. The boy-cousin of the Brigantes was already dead. Venutios had spoken the invocation to Briga to accept the soul of one lost in the hunt, although it was his own fault and the god would know it as well as they. His cousin mourned him alone and silently. Of the rest, three had been wounded such that they could not walk unaided. The remains of the thirty had made a crescent about the fallen bodies and driven the bears off with the noise of stones clashed on rocks and the fire-clubs spun in the air to make rings of flame. Hail had harried the beasts into the distance and had not been injured. For that Breaca gave thanks, privately, even as she was sending others to search for the plants she needed to begin the treatment of the wounded. In the time it had taken to make a drag-litter to carry Ardacos safely to camp, she had found she was the one with the most knowledge of healing. Three years with the elder grandmother was worth a lifetime of others’ teaching. She had described what she needed and where it might be found, and half of the thirty had run at her bidding.

By the time she had made him comfortable, she found that three years of anyone’s teaching made no difference when those looking searched in the dark at the start of winter on the far western edge of the world. None of the plants she wanted had been found and she had to make do with green moss, lifted whole from the rocks and laid in the wound as Ardacos had done in the morning. She was binding it in place on the warrior’s back when she felt him move.

‘Ardacos?’ His head was turned away from her. She moved round and bent to look. His eye was open and held a question. ‘You succeeded,’ she said. ‘The bears have gone. The boy of the Brigantes died, out of recklessness. All the rest are alive. You were wounded and have bled greatly but you will-‘ The eye closed. She was saved from speaking platitudes that might yet prove untrue.

She looked up. To Gwyddhien, sitting on the rock above, she said, ‘I have done what I can. His arm is set and bound. The wound is closed but still bleeding. He needs Airmid or Talla if he is to live. We should leave now.’

‘Do you think so?’ The tall warrior was silent a moment, then shook her head. ‘We can’t move out yet. It’s already too dark and clouds are moving in from the east. We will have rain soon, or mist. The route back to the greathouse is not without its own dangers and none of us knows the way well enough to find it at night. We had better wait until daylight.’

‘We can’t. It’s too long.’ Urgency gave a bite to her tone.

Gwyddhien smiled, halfway to the peace of the Warrior. ‘I think not. It’s past midnight. Morning is not far.’

‘But still too far. If we leave now, we will reach the greathouse at dawn. If we wait until dawn before we move, we won’t get there before mid-morning and he will be dead by then.’

‘Better one dies than many. We have three who are weak and will need to be carried, and there is a body that cannot be left-‘

‘We can leave it. If we bury him with rocks, the bears will not take him. I will come back with others tomorrow’

‘No.’

They faced each other across the injured man. Breaca found she was shaking. The blood coursed hot in her veins and her palm-scar ached again. She drew a breath and hissed it back through closed teeth. With careful clarity she said, ‘Then I will run alone to the greathouse and bring a healer back with horses and a litter. We will be here before dawn. He cannot be left longer.’

‘No.’ Venutios shook his head. ‘You can’t go alone. The thirty must not be separated. It is the law of the choosing.’

He was still Warrior. She would have trusted him with her life. But Ardacos had been a friend and had woken Breaca when he could have danced with the bear alone and perhaps succeeded.

‘Who will stop me?’ she asked.

‘I will.’ Venutios sat on a rock with his spear held loosely across his knees. His quiet eyes promised death if she defied him. He shrugged an apology. ‘I’m sorry. I would let you go if I could but the law on this is certain and not open to discussion. Either all of you go or none.’

Breaca was breathing too fast to think clearly. She slowed and thought of Eburovic, who had always counselled calm and the need to find the reasons behind the words in any conflict. To Gwyddhien, she said, ‘This is not about finding or losing a path. We have all hunted here at night many times, you more than any. We could find our way blindfold if we had to. Why do you not want us to go?’

The warrior nodded, the heat going out of her. ‘I have lived here ten years,’ she said. ‘There are no bears on Mona.’

Breaca said, ‘There were bears tonight. We saw them.’

‘This is the night of the Warrior’s choosing. What we see may not be there. Only with daylight will we see the truth. We have lost only one of our group, maybe two if Ardacos dies. The elders predicted three or four times that number. If we walk through the night, we risk more than him alone. Dreams come in other shapes than bears.’

‘Ardacos was not wounded by a dream-shape.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Hail does not see dreams. There may have been no bears on Mona before, but there are three now. We will deal with them later, or leave them to live in peace.’

As she spoke, she vaulted up onto the crag beside Gwyddhien. Her knife was in her belt, a better weapon than none. Hail would follow her if no-one else. She stepped round to the side, putting Gwyddhien between herself and Venutios. Clearly, so it could be heard by the full group, she said, ‘If the dreamers are sending dream-shapes, they will send them to us here as much as on the walk back. Ardacos needs help and the laws are not fit if they condemn a man to death for no reason. Those who agree with me may follow. I am leaving, now.’

She jumped. She ran. Hail bounded beside her, so close she could smell the heat of his breath and the bear-stench on it. In three strides, Caradoc was shielding her left. By ten, Braint, the girl-cousin of the Brigantes, was on her right with Cumal of the Cornovii just beyond. By the foot of the hill, there were more running behind her than she could readily count, certainly more than were left up above. She paused and looked back. On the crag-top, Venutios raised the Warrior’s horn and blew the recall. Breaca knew a moment’s exultation, as she had done on the day when she broke his blade. Taking only Caradoc and Braint, she ran back up the hill. Venutios met her, his face still as an elder’s pronouncing law.

‘You may not go alone but the greater number have chosen to leave. It is Gwyddhien, then, who must follow.’

The tall warrior stood behind him. In her hand she carried her own spear and Breaca’s. She passed the latter over, butt first, in the sign of good faith. ‘I am ready.’ The lilt to her voice made it a prayer.

Breaca offered her hand in the warrior’s greeting. She said, ‘If we are to carry the wounded, we will need more wood for stretchers. Give me half of the thirty and I will get it.’

‘You have them.’ The clasp was accepted and returned. Gwyddhien grinned. ‘Get a new pole for the boar also,’ she said. ‘We will halve the carcass and it will be less weight to carry. We can go faster like that.’

They ran through the night; not fast, but fast enough. No dream-shapes threatened and they made good time. Clouds covered the sky but did not shed rain. Without stars to guide them, they sought for and found a hunter’s path. marked with cleft sticks and followed it. Gwyddhien ran at the head of the column, checking the route. Venutios ran at the back, keeping pace with the stragglers to ensure the group was not split. Breaca and Caradoc made a team with Braint, who needed work to keep her from grieving the loss of her cousin. Between the three of them they carried Ardacos, rotating so that two carried and one ran, and they swapped places often to keep fresh. The injured man passed in and out of consciousness as they ran but even when awake he lay silently and did not cry out when they stumbled or had to pass him hand over hand across a stream.