In a circle, they faced the woman and chanted words he couldn’t understand. One of the apprentices threw a black powder onto the fire that blazed nearby. A roiling, dense smoke arose and wafted toward him, relaxing his joints and calming his mind. It also created a smoky haze over the scene that played out before him.
The white dress spoke volumes. White was sacred. Pure and virginal. It was only ever used in ceremonies, and he’d been comforted that this similarity was shared between their clans. Tritus knew as soon as he saw the white dress that he was in no position to interrupt whatever was going on. Their alliance had been recently formed, tentatively growing and awaiting the final ceremony, so his curiosity about these blue men had been ripe. He’d wondered how they could have the same beliefs regarding the guardianship of nature but have such different gods and hold such strange ceremonies. This was his opportunity to discover more, so Tritus settled himself quietly in the undergrowth, camouflaged from sight.
The woman was young, with a supple body, and hair that was the most beautiful shade of red—a rarity in this new land. He remembered how she’d bucked and tugged against the restraints, her eyes wide, her face contorted as they removed her fingernails, then her toenails, one after the other. But it hadn’t ended there. The acolytes next took turns peeling her skin from her body, strip after agonizing strip.
When they finished their slow, barbaric torture, the virgin was completely drenched in blood; the pure, white dress stained red and ruined. Tritus still remembered how her screams had faded into rasps until finally, she’d uttered no more.
They hacked her beautiful red hair off her unconscious form, scattering the silky strands at her feet. Then, just when Tritus thought the end had finally drawn nigh, the Dark Master stepped forward. Up to that point, he’d stood apart from them throughout the ceremony, silent but watchful of his acolytes actions. He moved in front of the woman and pulled a dagger from within the folds of his robe. Grasping the girl’s shorn locks in one fist, he lifted her head to expose the line of her throat. Without hesitation, he whet the blade smoothly across her neck.
As her rich blood fell to the earth below, he raised his arms to the sky. With head thrown back, he spoke aloud in their strange language, gesturing and shouting to the heavens above. Then he motioned his acolytes closer, and they stood in a circle around the girl, heads downcast. At first, Tritus thought they were in prayer to their gods, but when they started to toe the ground and point to it, he understood that they were observing the rivulets of blood oozing from her cooling corpse. The Dark Master motioned at the ground, and his acolytes nodded, eyes sparkling, and lips pulled back into garish smiles that held no warmth.
Tritus was numb by that stage. Frozen to the spot, no longer shocked, no longer feeling. Throughout the ceremony, he hadn’t made one move to help her. A voice had whispered that this was not his fight. He told himself he didn’t understand what was going on, what the girl had done, or why she was being tortured. He comforted himself with stories that she had cheated on her intended, stolen goods from another, murdered an innocent—anything to allow his moral compass to accept what he was watching.
It had all been lies, because by the end of the ceremony, Tritus felt nothing but shame. He knew it had been more than a means to an end. It had been a glorification, and his moral compass had known it was wrong. That level of torture should only be reserved for the lowest of scum—for usurpers. That girl was too innocent, too young, to have deserved the brutal torture she’d been subjected to.
Oh, he’d killed; he’d killed many. But there was always a reason. Never for the simple pleasure of it. As he turned from the scene and headed for his new home, blind to his surroundings, one thought repeated over and over in his mind. That could have been Sedia. His sister. She could have been strapped to that post, forced to endure that torture.
At that moment, Tritus understood that this clan’s Druids, especially the Dark Master, were dangerous. He held sway over his acolytes and they, in turn, dictated rule within the village. His people did not have an equivalent to the Dark Master. Their Druids were nurturing, seeking balance in the world. Peace was what they hungered for most in this new land. At first, the blue men had scoffed at their claims for peace and had sought the glory of violence, taunting his people that they were weak with their abundance of golden hair and soft hands. But his people had shown them with action how advanced their society was, how specialized their weaponry could be, fighting tooth and nail for their right to claim somewhere to call home in this new land.
Tritus’s skills had played a pivotal part in winning peace between the two tribes, for they hadn’t been able to compete with his advanced weaponry. And now he’d come to their attention.
Drust stood before him, asking if he would make daggers for the Samhain ceremony, for both of their tribes, and at their Druids’ request. If he didn’t agree to forge them, would the Wise Ones take him? Make an example of him, as they did to that girl in the forest? Would he be the first Gaul Druid to be put on trial if he did not support this fragile peace treaty?
As he asked himself these questions, Tritus knew he didn’t have a choice.
Resignedly, he asked, “What will the ceremony entail?”
Drust’s mouth opened, but Talorgan answered first, his voice leaving no room for argument. “It is forbidden to talk of the sacrifice before its time.”
“To make the blades fit for purpose, I need to know what they will be used for,” argued Tritus, choosing his words carefully. “If they are to be used for thrusting, the blades will require a different weight and width when compared to a dagger that would be used for other means.”
Talorgan’s eyes burned with such an intensity that Tritus felt he could see into the apprentice Druid’s mind, to the memory of the girl skinned piece by piece.
“It is forbidden,” Talorgan repeated.
Clearly, there was no gain to be found in pursuing the matter. Shifting tack, Tritus asked, “What’s in it for me?”
A glint appeared in Talorgan’s eyes, as though he’d expected the question. “What is it you desire, Gaul?”
Tritus looked at the meat he still held in one hand. He had seen the boar taken down by a bow. The blue men had not needed to get close to their prey, and they were skilled with the weapon, their arrows flying with effortless accuracy into the boar’s eye. He’d been raised with a sword in his hand like all other Gauls, and the bow was a foreign weapon that only a few of his people knew how to wield. These people had an advantage with this weapon, one that he wanted to master.
“I would like you to teach me how to hunt with the bow.”
Talorgan’s expression didn’t change, but there was a satisfied gleam to his unblemished eye. Instead of answering, he turned and looked at Drust. Clearly, this was not his burden to carry.
Tritus patiently waited while Drust considered his request. It didn’t take long to make a decision.
“It is agreed.”
6
Brydie
I blinked, taking in the familiar walls of my bedroom. My dreams had been so vivid that I’d expected to wake around a campfire. The images had been confusing, though, the people from a time long ago.
I sat up, dislodging the last vestiges of the reverie, immediately regretting it as daggers of white-hot pain stabbed my head. I groaned, raising my hands to clutch at it. My mouth was like sandpaper. I swallowed, trying to dislodge the horrible taste in my mouth.
What the hell had happened last night?