‘That name was not taught in the groves,’ Britha told him.
‘I do not know of it either.’
‘It is not a good name.’
‘Agreed.’
Tangwen came running back, keeping low.
‘I have found a causeway onto the island and hopefully through the marsh.’ The east side of the western island looked boggy.
They could hear the sound of hoof beats behind them. Britha glanced over her shoulder. The Corpse People had made their way down and were now galloping towards them but were still some distance away.
Tangwen turned and headed off. Britha went to follow. Morfudd stayed still and her people did likewise.
‘This is a poor place to fight warriors on horseback,’ Teardrop told her. ‘On the causeway they can only come at you a few abreast.’
‘Though if you run you may live longer as a craven,’ Britha said impatiently. She was sick of having to coax them every step of the way. Morfudd stared at her. Britha realised then that the other woman hated her and would quite like to kill her.
‘Your people are dead; your rhi is dead,’ Fachtna said grimly. ‘All any of us have left is to sell our lives dearly to the monsters that did this.’
Morfudd turned to Fachtna. The warrior had been getting steadily grimmer. The choices they had made, the sacrifices, Britha’s killing of the boy and the changes in Teardrop had all taken their toll. The swaggering bravado was gone.
Finally Morfudd nodded and they all made their way down onto the causeway.
‘I think they know we are here,’ Tangwen said nervously.
‘I don’t think those that matter care,’ Britha told her. The hunter had been scouting ahead. She had now decided to stay closer to the main group.
They had crossed the causeway to the east side of the western island and were now following it past channels of water and reed-choked islands of viscous mud. It smelled of low tide and decay. The shore of the eastern island was hundreds of feet away but they could still make out the bodies tied to poles. They were above the waterline now, but at high tide the poles would be partially submerged. Each of the corpses tied to the poles was a red ruin below the waist. They had also had their faces cut off. Gulls picked at the cadavers.
All along the shore of the eastern island the mad had come to jeer and scream at them. Clad in rags or naked, many of them bearing self-inflicted wounds, they looked wretched. Britha didn’t like it and it was clear they were making the Cigfran Teulu nervous. They spat and made signs to protect themselves from evil. They saw their future on those poles.
Standing among the army of the wretched were what Britha guessed were their dryw. They wore soiled robes that might have once been white. Leaning on grisly decorated staffs, each of them wore a flayed skin mask of someone’s face over their own features. If once they had cared for the unwanted, moonstruck or other unfortunates, then that time was long gone.
Some of the mad ran across the mud, threw themselves into what was now quite a small channel between the two islands and swam towards them. Some of the warriors readied their casting spears.
‘Save your spears!’ Fachtna’s voice rang out over the mud. The authority in it had them hesitating. Fachtna was at the front of the column with Britha, Tangwen and Teardrop. Morfudd was at the rear because that was where they were expecting to be attacked first. Morfudd glared at Fachtna, who cursed himself. The Cigfran Teulu glanced at Morfudd. She motioned them to lower their spears.
‘Horsemen!’ Morfudd’s voice carried to the front of the column. Britha, Tangwen, Teardrop and Fachtna turned to look. Sure enough, Corpse People on horseback were approaching three abreast along the causeway.
It was an interesting choice, Britha thought. She would have dismounted to attack. The back three rows of the column formed up. Their longspears became a wall of pointed metal enchanted with Fachtna and Britha’s blood magics.
‘Make way! Move!’ Fachtna was pushing his way through the men and women of the Cigfran Teulu towards the rear of the column.
Ysgawyn rode in the third rank of horsemen on the causeway. Under normal circumstances he would have attacked on foot, but the horses they rode were from the Otherworld. They would not shy from iron spearheads like normal horses and he was impatient to taste the meat of the last of the Atrebates. The slaughter at the Crown of Andraste had been a fine thing, but there had been no challenge, no warriors. They had sneaked away like cowards, and he wanted the power of the four who had defied his army at the gate.
Ahead they could see the three lines of Atrebates. Six abreast, they had levelled their longspears but had no armour or shields. Gwydyon rode in the second rank. The squat, massively built, scarred war leader held up his hand to bring the column to a halt.
‘Sound the carnyx,’ Ysgawyn whispered to the man next to him, who lifted the long curved brass instrument to his lips. The head of the carnyx was in the form of a horse’s skull in bronze. Normally they would not sound the horn. Normally they were as quiet as the dead when they attacked.
The deep bass note of the carnyx sounded out over mud, marsh and water. Bress moved to the side of the curragh and looked north towards the two islands and the mainland. Ettin joined him. Bress noted that he now carried a great axe with a double head made of two crescents of bronze. On his shoulder Ettin’s second head, that of a painted man with a lacquered beard and dark hair, remained silent. The tall pale man glanced at his second with distaste.
‘If he has told you all he can, let him die,’ Bress said.
‘There,’ Ettin said pointing. Though some miles away yet, they could make out the horses on the causeway.
‘Cowards! Your king begged for mercy while we ate his flesh, raped the corpses of your women and fed your children to our wolves!’ one of the Corpse People shouted, a rider in the front rank. He opened his mouth to shout again. The casting spear broke his teeth on its way through his head. Fachtna kept moving through the ranks of the Cigfran Teulu borrowing another two casting spears as he went. He stopped just behind the last three ranks.
‘They will charge,’ he said.
‘Horsemen will not charge a wall of spears,’ one of the warband replied.
‘They will charge. You must not break. You must hold. Those of you not in the front three rows, lend your strength and push. Put your spears in the horses. Push them deep and up – make them rear – you understand me?’
The warriors around him did not look happy but they nodded. Morfudd was otherwise occupied in the rearmost rank preparing to receive the charge.
‘First give me some room.’ Fachtna had seen who had given the order to halt the horses and the man behind him who had given the order for the carnyx to be blown, presumably to warn the black curraghs. Across the channel on the other island the mad jeered and called for their blood.
With a simple gesture Gwydyon ordered the advance. The three horses in the front rank, one of them now ridden by a truly dead man with a casting spear through his head, charged. The line of horses behind them moved forward at a slower pace.
Hands changed their grips on the hafts of longspears. Feet shifted for better purchase on the causeway. Despite Fachtna’s words, they expected the horses to shy from the spears at the last moment. Closer, the horses becoming larger, their colouration told of their heritage, known from dark tales told around the campfire or late at night when the warriors were children. Those they had thought, until recently, to be unkillable dead rode the Otherworldly steeds.
As the horses reached the spearheads they all but leaped into them. Spears pierced horseflesh. Horses screamed. The spears soaked in the blood of the daughter of their goddess and her champion held, somehow, and did not splinter. Men and women slid back on the causeway; those behind them pushed, stopping the slide, adding their strength to the three rows of spears, giving them the strength to hold their ground.