Fachtna was back on his feet, the shimmering, singing ghost sword sliding from its scabbard. His features seethed in fury.
‘No!’ Teardrop shouted, putting as much authority into his voice as he could. He knew his friend well and was certain he would kill Britha. Fachtna hesitated, staring at Britha with unbridled hatred. She met his gaze defiantly. Teardrop could see her own anger at the breaking of the ban on touching a dryw, but it was as nothing compared to the rage that was close to pouring out of Fachtna.
‘Fachtna, please.’ Teardrop poured the magic of reason and old friendship into his words.
‘If we baulk at the first hard decision then we will not succeed,’ Britha told the seething warrior. Teardrop cursed her, wishing she would keep her tongue still behind her teeth.
‘If we become our enemy then we are already lost,’ Teardrop countered calmly. Britha turned to look at him.
‘The boy was weak.’
‘So were you when we first found you,’ Teardrop said.
‘I would have survived.’
‘Not if we’d cut your throat,’ Fachtna spat and turned away into the darkness.
Britha watched him go, trying to mask her contempt. She looked back down at the dead boy. Then what she had done hit her, and she almost retched. Teardrop watched the stricken expression crawl across Britha’s face.
‘It’s getting worse the closer you get, isn’t it?’ he asked as he returned to dressing Tangwen’s head wound. The hunter from the People of the Snake had chosen to remain quiet. She was not sure that she would have done what the ban draoi had done but she had recognised the need for it. If Britha hadn’t killed the boy then he would have been torn apart by wolves or tortured to death by the next band of Corpse People that came through here.
‘I’m not—’ Britha started and then looked from the dead boy back to Teardrop. All the colour had drained from her skin now. ‘For my people…’ she started. They were all that mattered, she thought, but traces of doubt were creeping in.
‘Freeing your people will mean nothing if this madness remains unopposed,’ Teardrop told her as he tried to control the harshness in his voice.
It wasn’t just the responsibility to her people that was making her doubt. A kingdom of desire was not an unattractive idea.
Britha had lapsed into a feverish sleep lying in a wet ditch listening to Fachtna and Tangwen having sex. Fachtna was making most of the noise.
It was like the time that Cliodna had taken her far out into the sea and then pulled her down with her as she had dived deep. After Britha had conquered her fear, once she had understood how much time she had under the water on one deep breath, she had found that she liked it. She had liked looking up at the sun through the water. Except that this was cold and dark and she felt the weight of the water pressing on her. She heard the songs of the mighty fish that Cliodna had claimed were not fish, but their singing was wrong, twisted, as if both pained and malignant somehow. Yet these songs were familiar from long ago. From before she was born, before any of them had been born. It was welcoming in a disconcerting, bordering-on-obscene way, like returning to a once-familiar place after a hideous crime had been committed there. And she burned, Britha burned from within. She felt like she contained the pregnant fire of a forge within her, but the pain and the heat were not unwelcome.
She could go deeper. There was something beneath her through the cold murk of the water, something huge and old.
Britha’s eyes flickered open. She was immediately aware. She was uncomfortable and cold but not to the degree she should be. The normal aches and pains she would expect from spending the night in a cold wet ditch just weren’t present. She knew the wind had changed; she could smell wood smoke on it. She could hear the sound of distant hoof beats. She could smell the metal, leather, wood and sweat of her companions. She had not liked the dream, least of all her response to it.
She could smell the cake made from flour and ground tansy leaves that Tangwen was eating. Britha sat up to look at the other woman. The lean hunter was younger than Britha had first thought, her hair cropped very short. Tangwen realised she was being watched and looked over at Britha.
‘I do not wish to bear his children,’ she said, gesturing with the tansy cake. She turned away from the ban draoi. ‘They would be stupid.’ Britha tried to suppress a smile. All warriors wanted children, well, sons anyway, so part of them would carry on and probably grow up to repeat their father’s short brutish life.
Fachtna was kneeling in the ditch some distance away looking to the south. It was late afternoon, Britha guessed. She had slept a long time and woken ravenous. They had decided that night was the best time to travel, though the Corpse People seemed to fight and patrol as much at night as they did during the day.
‘They have seen more of the white-furred animals from the Otherworld. Teardrop has a potion that helps disguise our scent,’ Tangwen told her quietly. ‘It seems there is little natural left here.’ And it was true. The Corpse People seemed more interested in burning, killing and destroying for the sake of destruction than looting or taking slaves. Crop-rich fields had been burned and even salted in some cases.
Teardrop came crawling along the ditch. Britha risked a peep over the top. The line of hills seemed closer now. Three of the hills were topped with wood-walled forts surrounded by defensive ditches: the Crown of Andraste. Two were besieged; the third had fallen last night. The gentle breeze brought the screams of the defenders of the fallen hill fort, their torturous executions a portent for the other two garrisons.
Teardrop sat down next to her, keeping his head well below the lip of the ditch.
‘What are we doing here?’ Britha asked
‘If we are to fight Bress, we will need help.’
‘Those forts are about to fall; these people cannot help us.’
‘They were strong enough to last this long.’ But Teardrop didn’t sound like he believed it himself. ‘We will see if we can make it to the forts during the night.’
‘And then we will be trapped in there like the defenders until these people break the gates or come over the wall and kill us all.’
‘Do you have a better idea?’ Suddenly an angry Fachtna was right next to her. ‘Can you summon an army of dead heroes to fight with us?’ He was right: she had nothing. ‘It’s very easy to come up with reasons not to act.’
It had started to rain heavily, making the dark night darker and colder. The torches and the campfires were dimmed but did not go out. Fire arrows still left arcs of light in the night sky as they flew into the hill forts. The thatched roof of more than one roundhouse was ablaze behind the forts’ walls. They could hear the cries of the defenders, screams of anger or pain. The attacking Corpse People were strangely quiet, however.
They kept their heads down and approached where they saw the fewest attackers. They were the least of the Corpse People’s problems. After all, who would be stupid enough to join the besieged during a siege? The problem was that the Atrebates inside the walls had no reason to trust them and every reason to think that anyone wanting to gain entrance was part of a ruse.
This was how they found themselves running along the second-innermost defensive ditch. Those Corpse People they had encountered had ignored them, though more than one had glanced in their direction, wondering who the warriors and the dryw not covered in lime were, but then they knew that Crom Dhubh had other allies in the south.
Teardrop skidded to a halt and sank into a crouch. Fachtna stopped and backed towards him, keeping an eye out all around. Tangwen did likewise, an arrow nocked, though she did not like using her bow in the rain.