Uneasily Bran remembered his descent through Dagon’s Barrow to the chamber of the Black Stone. This Britain was an ancient land, much of its history lost long before the Pictish invaders had wrested the island from the red-haired giants they found here. It was a haunted land of heroic myths and dark legends. Perhaps the age would come when Pictdom, too, would vanish into the mists of legend, and Bran Mak Morn would be a forgotten saga.
The moon was but a sickle, honed thin as a Druid’s blade, and gave no light as it glinted over Kestrel Scaur. Bran paused in the copse of white-petalled rowans that encircled the nameless barrow, watching across the clearing. His mount snorted nervously and stamped. Against the grey hump of the barrow Bran glimpsed the outline of a cloaked figure.
Bran calmed his anxious steed, speaking soothingly and stroking its mane. When he glanced up again, he saw that he had been mistaken, for there was no figure standing there after all. A trick of the deepening gloom on his taut nerves. The Pict scowled and stared more intently.
The twilight faded entirely, a massy cloud groped across the rind of moon, and for a moment the blackness was unbroken. When the cloud drifted past the wan sickle, Bran saw that he was no longer alone.
Taking a long breath, the Pict nudged his horse from beneath the rowans and across the expanse of bent and broom that surrounded the silent barrow. A darker square yawned from the grass-grown curvature of the tumulus, whence issued the mephitic, dead air of a long-enclosed tomb. Earlier, in the dying light, the slopes of the hillock had seemed unbroken. Now a darkened tunnel pierced the barrow, and standing beside the great stone that formerly guarded the entrance were two figures. Riding closer, Bran recognized the sinuous form of Atla and a soldier in armor he took to be Claudius Nero.
His horse cared little for the breath of the tomb that the black portal exhaled-or perhaps it was the faint reptilian scent that hovered on the night air. Bran remained mounted, controlling his stamping mount with difficulty as he scowled down at the pair who awaited him. Unless the two had steathily come up through the darkened trees around them, Bran concluded they must have hidden within the barrow itself. Such probability did nothing to enhance the Pict’s impression of either.
“Have you brought Morgain?” Bran demanded, in his savage wrath unable to dissemble.
“Patience,” Nero assured him. “Your sister shall be safely detained until we have evidence of your good will.”
Bran spat. “Whatever your fold schemes, Roman, the king of Pictdom does not ally himself with woman-stealers and cowards who strike from shadows!” His face still broken and swollen from Nero’s cestus, it took all of the Pict’s control to keep his sword in scabbard.
Atla laughed softly, oblivious to the death that danced in the Pict’s glare. “Would you so rashly refuse our alliance, Bran Mak Morn? Think better on it! The king of Pictdom has need of powerful allies-now more than ever!”
“What do you mean!”
“All secrets are heard by those who listen in darkness.”
“I hadn’t thought such worms had ears,” sneered Bran.
“The Children of the Night have ears enough to listen to the murmurs of discontent that rumble in every Pictish village, Bran Mak Morn,” the witch returned. “Even in Baal-dor the stout warriors of Pictland quail before the cairn of Roman skulls that has followed them into the heart of their proud citadel.”
“Enough! I know the loyalty of my people!”
“Then that worry that gnaws at the hearts of all kings must feast in your breast, milord Bran,” smiled Atla. “But the listeners in darkness hear the outraged voices of the Romans in their camps and villas as well. All the South is astir over this last Pictish atrocity, for thus the Romans give our triumph to Pictdom. South of the Wall there rises the cry for vengeance-and in Eboracum, Alfenius Senecio has again sent word to Rome for aid against the wild Picts of Caledon!”
“Rome will not heed,” Bran snorted.
“Not so, Black Bran! This time Rome will listen. Already the emperor himself prepares to come to Britain with new legions.”
“Let Severus come if he dares! We’ll send him and such of his legionaries as escape howling in fear back to the safety of Rome’s walls!”
Nero’s voice cut him short. “Who will? You alone?” Bran bit down on his angry retort. Black rage smouldered within him, controlled only barely by his iron will. He knew that once unchecked, that rage would be an all-consuming blaze-and he dared not yet unleash that force for Morgain’s sake.
“So you’ve cunningly undercut my strength in order to compel me into some unhallowed coalition, have you, legate? Well then, I’ve come to hear your mad proposal-so enough dissimulation. Who are you and what powers do you really represent?”
The moon was a sharp lens in the night skies, where a bright river of stars shone between rolling islands of cloud. Bran’s mount continued to vex at their proximity to the barrow entrance. By stages Bran allowed the stamping horse to draw away from the dank-smelling passageway, so that unconsciously the pair on foot stepped away from the barrow to keep apace. As they passed from the thick shadow into the wan fall of moonlight, Bran noted with a start that both pairs of eyes made yellow slants in the reflected luminescence.
Claudius Nero smiled as one with superior knowledge, and though his features were still masked by shadow, Bran caught the bright flash of teeth. “Eighty years ago, Pict, your ancestors massacred Legio IX Hispana in Serpent Gorge-but that massacre was not so complete as they might have hoped…”
“No Roman left Serpent Gorge alive!” Bran growled, for he had heard the tale of that battle a thousand times.
“True-to that extent, King of Pictdom!” Nero hissed with mockery. “But not all those who remained in Serpent Gorge were dead.”
Bran frowned, knowing that he was being played with, but forced to accept it for Morgain’s sake. “There were some few who fled into a cavern-Calidius Falco and the last of his men took refuge with their women and brats. My people sealed the cavern and the Ninth never again crept forth from their hiding.”
“The caverns ran deeper than your barbarian ancestors suspected. Far deeper.”
The starlight brightened with the clearing of the night skies. Perhaps Bran’s eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness. Glowering down at Claudius Nero, Bran now could see the subtly pointed ears and the thin-lipped smile over sharply pointed teeth.
There was sardonic light in those slanted yellow eyes, and Bran knew how wrong he had been to call Claudius Nero a Roman…
“The Children of the Night came upon the Ninth in the darkness,” Nero explained needlessly. “Not all were slain.”
“By the gods!” Bran cried with loathing. “My people inflicted a far more evil doom upon the Romans that day than any dared imagine! Would that Utha Mak Dunn had broken in to see that all perished by sword and flame-instead of entombing human souls to spawn with the Worms of the Earth!”
Sick with revulsion, the Pict stared at the being who was neither Roman nor wholly human-like Atla, an unthinkable hybrid of man and a race of creatures who had almost become as man in distant ages before the Picts had driven them from the surface of the earth. His mind groped to conceive of the visions of hell that must have followed when the doomed survivors of the Ninth were set upon in the depths of the earth by creatures who had sunk closer to their reptilian heritage with each generation in darkness. Death, no matter how hideous, would have been the lot of the fortunate.