The Defiler (15 page)

"A little," Sláine admitted.

"Well, there were four great artefacts of legend that were divided amongst the tribes of the Goddess: the Cauldron of Rebirth, the Spear of Lug, the Stone of Destiny and the Sword of the Moon. These were no mere trinkets, far from it, together they symbolised the Land of the Young united. One was given to each tribe of Danu, in part to prevent their theft, but mainly to reduce the chance of corruption amongst the brother kings. The fear was that if one man held all of the treasures he would become the invincible king - and few invincibles possessed the strength to remain pure. Power on that scale can only serve as a breeding ground for greed, selfishness, covetousness, and ultimately self-aggrandisement, treachery and betrayal. How could it not? After all who can stop them? They are invincible. There is wisdom in the separation of the treasures. The Sessair were given stewardship of the Cauldron - but even before my imprisonment it was lost to them, shattered into four pieces and scattered on each of the four winds."

"Then what hope is there in these stupid stories?" Sláine said bitterly, a sudden sense of helplessness welling up inside him. They were chasing children's sagas. Great treasures scattered to the four winds. Myrrdin might as well have said they needed to pluck a single hair from the Morrigan's crusty lips for all the hopes they had of reclaiming the Cauldron. He knew all about the failure of his people. The Cauldron had many names, and purposes. They called it the Cauldron of Plenty, for any pure warrior who reached into the steaming pot would be fed. Others knew it as the Cauldron of Rebirth for its links with the kingdom of the dead and its restorative powers. It was also the home of the freak Avagddu, the Morrigan's foul child. Its sundering had trapped the monstrous child within whatever hellish El World the beast had been banished to. They had cost the Crone her child; was it any wonder the Morrigan hated his people?

"They are far from stupid, champion. They are our histories. These treasures are not some child's fantasy. They are our heritage. Do not be so quick to dismiss them. Feg refers to them repeatedly for a reason, I am sure."

"And what reason would that be?" said Sláine, more harshly than he intended. The smell of the hare reminded him of just how hungry he actually was. He took the second animal from the fire and tore out its breast. The meat was stringy. The hare had obviously died running, muscles bunched taut with fear - he could taste it in the cooked meat.

"The very best one - he fears them."

"What is there to fear from a few trinkets long since lost?"

"Not the treasures, precisely, but what they represent to the people of Tir-Nan-Og. They are iconic. They remind us of who we are. Where we come from. They are focal points of our history, wielded by Lug himself. They bring hope because they signify the tribes united. Never underestimate the simplest of powers - hope is a mighty weapon against the oncoming storm. The treasures epitomise the power of the Goddess herself. To wield the sword, to hurl the spear, to feast from the Cauldron, to stand upon the holy stone of destiny and be proclaimed high king by right - all of that is ours! That is to be Danu's champion, to be her chosen one, her warrior! That is what Feg fears! He fears the very heart of our beautiful land. That is why he sours it so. He seeks to suck the marrow out of the very stuff of life, to drain the Earth Serpent so its power cannot thwart his dark master, the Wyrm God itself, Crom-Cruach. Only by killing the very land itself can he hope to prevail."

"There is no Ard Ri," said Sláine. "There is no unity between the tribes. What you speak of does not exist outside fireside tales."

"Indeed," said Myrrdin. "Like the Cauldron itself, they are fractured. But, in that similarity lies the genesis of our plan. To stand against Feg we -
you
- must reunite the tribes of Danu, and to do that you must reforge the Cauldron itself," the druid looked at Sláine across the fire. "It is a gift fit for a king." And Sláine knew then, with a cold certainty, that the Lord of the Trees had seen his shaming and understood the nature of his exile, and more tellingly, his desire to return home despite the risks such a homecoming promised. "And one that might well bring forgiveness with it."

And suddenly he understood. Realisation crystallised with his mind. It was not about Feg, or Danu, the Sessair, not even Tir-Nan-Og. No, it came down to something as simple as a mother's love.

He had known from the start that he was being manipulated, finally he understood by whom; at the root of everything that had happened since he had first set eyes upon her back in the forest glade so close to home, the Morrigan. His mother's death, his exile, his journey south into the Sourlands, the Crone was behind it all, even, no doubt, the Weatherwitch's visitation. The Sidhe had foretold his return, directing him to find the Skinless Man, and even as he awoke from the dream the Morrigan had been there to steer his feet to the very tree where she herself had bound the Lord of the Trees centuries before, the same Skinless Man Sláine sought.

Coincidence?

Hardly, the Crone was playing the long game.

Her pieces had been in motion for centuries working towards this moment, on the fringe of the dead forest where once Myrrdin ruled, and why?

The answer was as obvious as it was simple: so that the druid returned could set another subtle chain of events into motion. And that chain of events? The reforging of the four fragments of the lost Cauldron - the same Cauldron that served as prison for the Morrigan's only child. The manipulations of the Crone were far-reaching but their purpose was the most natural of all, a mother's love.

Despite the fire, a cold chill touched his heart, put there by a sudden thought.

With the Crone's machinations laid bare another possibility arose, one that Sláine could not afford to discount: had the Morrigan somehow fed the madness of Slough Feg? Had
she
created the monster that she would ultimately need to provide the threat to the Land of the Young knowing that would in turn prove to be the impetus for the liberation of her son?

It made a perverse kind of sense, one that adhered to all he had ever heard of the Crone from Cathbad.

It was like seeing the strands of a huge and elaborate spider's web picked out by the morning frost; suddenly it was all too clear.

"You know where these pieces lie hidden." It wasn't a question. The druid gave no sign that he had caught the subtle difference in Sláine's intonation. He nodded.

"One is in the possession of the Sidhe king, Finvarra, on the Isle of Glass. Another was claimed by Weyland the Smith. The third is in the saddle bags of the fabled Huntress."

"And the final piece?"

"That is held by the Morrigan herself," the druid said.

"So what am I supposed to do, Myrrdin? Appeal to the better nature of these fabled folk and hope they take pity on my fool's quest? Or steal the pieces and invoke their supernatural wrath and earn their immortal enmity?"

"It will be no easy thing," the druid admitted. "Indeed, the reforging of the Cauldron is a hero feat worthy of a true king. With such a treasure a man could return home without fear of his fate - not just as the voice of doom but as a beacon of hope. That, champion, is what Feg fears the most. That is why she brought us together. We both know it. It is our destiny. You are the champion I was promised, Sláine Mac Roth. This one act was what you were born for. All aspects of the Goddess have marked you; Mother, Maiden and Crone, you are their chosen one, their warrior. You are the light."

And there it was, the bait spoken.

It hung in the air between them.

Sláine took another bite from the hare's charred carcass and swallowed the greasy meat without taking his eyes off the druid for a moment.

Sláine grunted, tossing the stripped bones into the fire. The fat caused the flames to crackle and spit, leaping high enough to obscure the druid's wooden eyes for a moment. The elemental dance of the orange flame was hypnotic, seductive. A part of him yearned to enter the fire and be forged like iron by the flame. He watched the bone shrivel and crack open, the marrow scorched by the intense heat until it was all but consumed. He was the bone within the Morrigan's fire. Her quest would consume him. He knew that. But he had no choice. If he refused her all the Crone had to do was ask it of him and he would be forced to play the part she had scripted for him. One promise eroded his freewill. In this, and in so much else, he knew, he was the Morrigan's plaything. When the flames diminished, he said "What would you have me do?" across the top of them.

The druid told him: "We must travel north, into the heart of Emania and reach the Moon-Torn before the Night of the Questing Moon. The Night Bringer is a legend, like the great smith. To find any of these immortals one must understand their nature. The Huntress and her wild hunt are tied to the stories people tell about them. She is the sum of the stories, trapped in a cycle of repetition, cursed to live again and again the sagas mortals spin about her myth."

Sláine nodded his understanding. "And one such story promises that the Great Hunt will ride through the hill fortress of Navan on the night of the Questing Moon."

"Exactly," Myrrdin said.

"What do you know of this Huntress? You called her the Night Bringer?"

"Before you boys get all wrapped up in hatching your schemes and forget about me, let me just remind you that a little misdirection and sleight of hand goes a long way. Or put more plainly, if there's any stealing to be done, I'm your dwarf," Ukko smirked, licking the last of the hare's juices off his fingers. "Now, what were you saying about this Night Bringer? Doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant individual if you ask me. How come we never go hunting for the Smiling Goat or the Gentle Giant? It's always the Night Bringer, the Dark Mistress, and the Raging Banshee that you heroes are obsessed with." Ukko shook his head in mock despair.

SIX

Acting as their guide and teacher, Myrrdin told them what he knew of the Huntress and her wild hunt as they journeyed on. The stories did little to soothe the doubts nagging away at the back of the young warrior's mind.

She had two names: the Huntress and the Night Bringer. The duality reflected both aspects of her legend. As the Huntress she led the spectral hunt of the dead and damned, refused the peace of eternity. To join her hunt was to earn immortality of a sort.

"The Huntress is not a woman," Myrrdin said, the dwindling sun at his back. "She is an essential being."

"What?"

"An energy, a spectre drawn from the land herself. She is not as powerful as a true aspect of the Goddess, but more like a shade fuelled by Danu's essence, if you would. She is a part of the Goddess - Danu is the land, but in the sky above her there is an uneasy truce between the sun and moon. The Goddess is at the mercy of these things and thus she channels part of herself into the Night Bringer, a warrior aspect mighty enough to rail against the very heavens above and bring on the night in answer to her summons."

"Are you really sure we want to find her?" Ukko said, his short legs struggling to match their longer strides.

"If there was another way," Myrrdin said, "believe me, I would choose it."

"Well, that's even more comforting, I must say."

The further north the companions travelled the closer winter drew around them, until, almost in the shadow of the Great Cairn itself, the first flakes of snow began to fall. The landscape was harsh - outsiders often called it the savage frontier. There was a wild beauty to it. Fields rolled out, blanketed by lavender and lilac heathers. Gorse and bramble filled in the patches between the purples. Jagged spars of rock rose like broken teeth, the chalk-white hills and the iron-rich ores adding grey, white and red hues to the countryside. The vista was hauntingly familiar - so similar to the land he had grown up in - but that was unsurprising. They had travelled deep into the territories of Emania. They were less than a day's walk from Ard Macha, two from the Great Cairn and the fortress of Navan. The fortress demarked the northernmost edge of the lands of Emania - or as Sláine thought of the geography - the southernmost fringes of Sessair territory. If they were to walk north by north-east they would arrive in Murias before the week was out. The proximity of his childhood unnerved him.

"How do we find the Moon-Torn? I have lived most of my life in the shadow of these white-capped mountains and I have never heard talk of them. What are they, more ghosts?"

"They are not ghosts," the druid said, without meeting his eye. "Not truly."

"I don't like the sound of
that
," said Ukko. "Funny how this almost ghost thing never came up over the last few weeks of walking to find them, isn't it?"

"They are people, just like you or I. It is their curse that makes them... different."

"Oh, a curse, this just keeps getting better every time he opens his mouth."

"Hush, dwarf," Sláine said, brushing aside Ukko's snide remark. He stirred the fire with a stick, causing a shower of sparks to punctuate his rising anger. "Explain, druid. I am in no mood for surprises," Myrrdin looked decidedly uncomfortable under Sláine's scrutiny. "If you won't talk, it ends here, Myrrdin. Don't make the mistake of thinking you know my mind just because you shared a few memories. Murias is close enough that the duty to warn my people burns inside my chest. It is called loyalty. Now it is time to lay your cards on the table. You know something of these Moon-Torn and whatever it is, it concerns you enough that you are uncomfortable talking about it. That in itself tells me enough to know I should be wary."

"There is not much to tell."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"Very well. Their curse is an old one. In many ways they are just like your people... or rather, they
were
your people once, long before the sundering of the Cauldron and the diaspora of the Goddess's tribes."

"Speak plainly, man. I am no fan of your fancy words. They were Sessair, yes or no?"

"Not Sessair, no, but children of Emania, brothers and sisters of your tribe. They turned their back on the Goddess, offering benediction to the heavens. They believed that the skies surpassed the wonder of the earth, and moreover, that the stars themselves sheltered ancient deities worthy of their worship. They paid lip service to Danu, but even as they did, they betrayed themselves with ceremonies of star worship. The Morrigan blessed them with what they believed was their heart's desire: she drew the strands of her dark self from deep within her being, conjuring or creating the Night Bringer, the Huntress who rode the land for eternity, claiming all those who looked upon her in her aspect to join her savage hunt."