They were not deserting, they swore to Bran and to themselves. Since there was to be no battle, they would return to their homes to await their king’s next call-to-arms. Bran Mak Morn did not seek to halt their withdrawal-dry sand cannot be held in a clenched fist for all the strength of its sinews. Dully he wondered whether they would indeed rally to his standard on another day.
Exhaustion and overwrought nerves took their toll in the chill drizzle. As the remnant of Bran’s personal guard reached the familiar walls of Baal-dor, the Pictish king looked upon his fortress through fever-bright eyes.
The Pictish keep commanded a position of strength in the Highlands of Caledon. Its stone walls had lain half in ruin until Bran had undertaken its restoration. Pictish legends held that Baal-dor had been a citadel of the autochthonous race of red-bearded giants against whom the Invading Picts had striven and conquered in epic battles obscured by the veil of centuries. Certain other legends attributed its building to darker eons still, and its name was clearly not Pictish. This much was certain: that the massive stones that bore up the rising walls of Baal-dor were of extreme antiquity, and that the fortress had been occupied and again abandoned at several points in the long centuries of Pictish dominion in the Highlands.
The Picts had no cities or towns, such as the Romans had introduced to Britain-nothing of a more complex order than the fortified stronghold of a chieftain with the dwellings of his clansmen in close enough proximity for the clan to band together in event of attack. In his vision of a unified Pictish nation, Bran saw a need for a central stronghold-both for an administrative capital as well as a permanent base for his army. Early in his efforts to consolidate his claim to kingship, Bran had reoccupied the ancient fortress and begun repairs on its ruined walls.
The position was one of considerable natural strength, so that Bran’s decision was well conceived, even were there not already standing walls whose massive stones neither the rush of armies nor the erosions of time had breached. Baal-dor crowned the heights of a towering bluff below whose precipitous slopes two tumbling mountain streams came together. From here the fortress commanded any approach along the river gorges, while ascent along the face of the cliffs from below was impossible for purposes of assault.
From that quarter of the height that did not rise above the converging streams far below, the ground sloped sharply away. Here the approach was guarded by high walls of stone from whose ramparts archers could command the heathered slopes without. The ancient foundations were of cyclopean construction, in places incorporating stone slabs as large as menhirs. In repairing the fortress Bran had raised its walls another ten feet, building upon the existing construction a continuous rampart of packed earth and rock enclosed within a dry stone revetment. A system of ditches and earthworks was carved from the rocky slopes beyond-further indication that the Pictish king had carefully studied the defenses of a Roman camp.
The surrounding heights were all well beyond bowshot, while from Raal-dors ramparts Pictish archers had the advantage of trajectory over an enemy toiling up the forward slope. To breach Baal-dors walls would require siege equipment on a scale never seen in Britain. Again acting on the Roman model, Bran had ordered construction of stone and timber barracks and storage buildings within the fortress-giving it the appearance within the high walls of both a Roman camp and a Pictish settlement. Fully provisioned and with a certain flow of water from its deep wells against the downward wall, Bran was confident that his army could hold Baal-dor against any siege.
A warmth of pride returned to him, cutting through the haze of fever, as Bran caught sight of Baal-dor rising above the river mists that swirled beneath its precipices in the gathering twilight. Let his army melt away, those grim stone walls would remain.
Now he wearily straightened on his saddle-pad and rode ahead of his loyal warriors as they labored up the slope to the gates of Baal-dor which welcomed them through the smurr of rain.
The fear that had haunted them since the discovery of the massacred camp awaited them in Baal-dor. News of the enigmatic slaughter had preceded the returning army, and the faces that looked down from the walls bore expressions that defied precise definition. These were not the grim, set visages that might await a defeated army, reflected Bran. Nor was there the loud jubilation with its undertone of mourning that greeted the heroes of some blood bartered victory.
The Roman enemy were dead. The warriors of Pictdom had returned unscathed. True, they had been cheated of their battle, their foemen butchered by an unknown army… It was good that the Romans had died; it was good that comrades and clansmen had returned without wounds or losses; it was strange that another army could have struck and vanished… The faces showed a mingling of triumph, relief, bewilderment…
But above all else, Bran recognized, the faces showed fear.
Fear of an unknown power that struck savagely and invisibly, that killed and mutilated in a manner that chilled the fierce hearts of warriors inured to bloodshed and torture. A power that had slain and disappeared-to strike again… Where?
Had ten Roman legions pursued Bran’s army to Baal-dor, the Picts would have welcomed them with a shout of defiance, and all within who could hold spear would man the walls to hurl back the enemy. Instead an army of ghosts dogged their retreat, and dread of the unknown chilled the spirits of Baal-dor as thoroughly as the cold drizzle dulled the nerves of the returning warriors.
Bran shook with a sudden chill. After that one rush of pride, despondency gripped him again. Give the Picts an enemy of flesh and blood, and Bran knew they would leap into battle with no thought of odds. But the whisper of supernatural dread awoke atavistic fears in their savage breasts-racial memories etched indelibly in lost eons when primitive man was prey for the forces of elder horror whose shambling presence sent mans apish forebears cowering in the depths of cave or treetop.
And for this, Bran could not fault his people. For in all Pictdom, he, Bran Mak Morn, with his straight features and his proud dreams, was the greatest atavism of this age.
In a dreary procession the Picts filed past the fortress gates and into Baal-dor. Many of them made their way to the newly erected row of barracks; but for most their women and children gave a joyous welcome-forgetting their anxiety at the safe return of their men. To an extent Bran had organized a standing army after the Roman model, at least his warriors’ families had not joined in the ill-fated march on the Roman camp, as was the usual fashion in all movements greater than a small raiding party.
Smoke hung in a heavy reek in the cheerless drizzle, obscuring the limits of the some two hundred acres enclosed within Baal-dor’s walls. Rude huts and hide tents were scattered in chaotic prolusion, vying with the recently built barracks and halls of stone and timber. The dismal rain laid a scum of mud upon the hard-packed earth, and the smells of cooking fires, packed bodies and livestock thickened the damp air. Knots and clusters of Picts broke away from the press at the gates, straggled away to familiar hearths amidst a whirl of yapping dogs and yelling children. Later there would continue the anxious questions and frightened speculation. For now, warmth and shelter, food and rest.
“Bran!” A glad voice welcomed him, and for the king of Pictland there was also a homecoming.
A rare smile broke across Bran’s gloomy countenance. “Morgain! I’d begun to think you’d forgotten your brother!”
The girl flashed him a peeved look, knowing by his tone he spoke in jest. She stepped toward him as quickly as she dared, concentrating fiercely on the steaming goblet she carried in outstretched hands. “Here’s mulled wine to drive the chill from your bones,” she announced, reaching him the cup.