Nulty found himself praying to the Seeders, something that he had not done in a very long time, that both sides would want the Seeder craft intact. On the other hand, he could not imagine that whoever got the craft would have a good reason for keeping him alive.
Nulty started the ship’s systems via interface. He would just have to skip into Real Space and hope he could find a way home. If the worst came to the worst, he could set a repeating mayday, point the craft in Real Space towards the closest planet or habitat and hibernate.
Sorry, boss, he thought. He wasn’t surprised when the unpleasantly organic-looking docking tube would not relinquish its grip on the Swan. Nulty had already manoeuvred one of the torches into place. Just as he was about to start cutting, he noticed something in one of the optics and, with a thought, magnified it. The skin of the Seeder craft was changing, becoming more mottled, unhealthy-looking, diseased.
Seeder’s sake, Nulty thought as the two cruisers began to stab bright beams of energy at each other, what kind of viral had Eldon taken in with him?
One of the ship/thing’s inhabitants moved too close to Melia and she fired. Eldon also fired as they closed on him. To Eldon it looked like black veins of disease were crawling across the walls/flesh of the ship/creature. Eldon cursed himself roundly. The virals he had brought on board were the most potent he could find in Arclight. He had never imagined that they would be as potent as this. He had killed his prize.
‘You’ve done this!’ one of the women screamed at him with a larynx designed for a different language.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ he cried, and then shot her with both barrels. The craft bucked under his feet. It felt like an impact, a powerful one. The ripple that surged through the craft and knocked him off his feet reminded him of dry retching. In the ceiling above he watched as the flesh transformed itself into fire. A chemical reaction as explosives fed on flesh until it reached fusion and breached the outer hull.
Eldon did not see space. It was his torn-up constituent parts that were sucked through the hole in the ancient creature’s flesh and into Red Space’s clouded starless night.
5. Northern Britain, a Long Time Ago
She felt the heather against her cheek, under her, providing a soft warm bed. Normally bleary in the morning, she was sharp. Britha was aware enough to remember the expectation of being cold and stiff after a night in the heather. She was not. She felt fine though it was a strange awakening. Like she had just woken from a fever to find that it had broken. She felt better than she could remember feeling in a long time – fit, strong, aware and more attuned to her surroundings. However, she had a strange sense of disconnection that she could barely put a name to, let alone explain, and a taste in her mouth that for some reason reminded her of Cliodna.
Britha unwrapped her robe from around herself. She had been using it as a blanket. She belted it in place as she watched the others rise. Talorcan had already been awake. It had been his turn on watch, his features as impassive as ever.
Nechtan sat up in the heather, pushed his arms through the sleeves of his blaidth and reached for his sword. He didn’t pick it up. It was just an unconscious gesture to make sure it was still there. Many champions were huge muscular men. Britha suspected that they won battles as much through intimidation as skill. Nechtan, though well built, was not overly muscled. He was, however, fast and he practised, a lot; he did not just rely on past glories. Britha also thought larger warriors underestimated him. Nechtan brushed down his short beard with his fingers. Vanity was the enemy of all warriors, Britha thought. She was pleased that Nechtan had managed to limit himself to just his silver torc in terms of decoration. She watched as Nechtan smoothed his dark wiry hair back and tied it into a ponytail with a leather thong before getting up to join the others.
Drest and Giric, the other two warriors, had come from the same womb but not at the same time, although they looked like twins. Both were young, their whiskers sparse, but they had completed the tasks required to join the cateran after training since childhood. They were eager to please. Britha suspected that Nechtan had chosen them as much because they looked up to him as because they needed the experience. That said, Britha had to admit they were both easy on the eye, largely because they had not been in as many fights as the other warriors. They had yet to be scarred; they weren’t missing fingers, ears or teeth. She considered bedding them, wondering if both of them would come to her at the same time. Perhaps to celebrate the shortest night, she thought.
Her musings were broken when the most worrying member of their scouting party walked across her line of sight on the way to make water. With him having no tongue and no knowledge of how to make symbols, there had been little communication. He had nodded when agreeing to lead them back to his village. Not even threats of violence had made the man answer other questions.
This was not the most disturbing thing about him. Britha had had no more visions like the one of crawling flame under his skin, but the man’s wounds had healed very quickly. If this was the result of her ministrations then she had never been that successful before. Despite the severity of his wounds when he had ridden into camp, most of them were just white scar tissue now. Even the stump of his tongue had healed over and he seemed to move with vigour. The lines of blood were still visible in his eyes, however. Most of the time his features were expressionless, or close to it, but Britha was sure that she saw hunger there, somewhere deep down.
‘He did not sleep all night,’ Talorcan said quietly, appearing by her side. Normally Talorcan was one of the few that could sneak up on her, but even on the soft heather she had heard him. ‘He just stared towards the north.’
‘It’s his home and he wants to get back,’ Britha said, but even she did not quite believe this. The man had had an encounter with something else, something from the Otherworld, she suspected, and it had changed him.
‘How far are we?’ she asked.
‘Half a day’s ride, a little more if Ferchair had the right of it.’
Britha knew she had put more time on the ride by insisting on coming through the mountain passes. The coast would have been much quicker, but she did not trust the sea. She hoped it was not just because she connected it with Cliodna, though it could have been Cliodna’s words that had put her off.
Nechtan had mocked her, but Talorcan had guided them without a word of complaint.
The champion, three warriors, the ban draoi and six ponies was a lot of resources to risk, Britha mused. Cruibne must be almost as worried as she was. As an added precaution she had painted some charm stones as protection from the Otherworld. Each of them carried one. They were as much reminders to tread cautiously when dealing with the Otherworld as anything else. Britha smiled bitterly. She should have carried one when she first visited Cliodna, she thought.
When she had made the stones she had not begged favours from the gods like she had heard the Goddodin and some of the other southern tribes did. The Pecht knew that the gods were no friends to men and women. Instead she had invested part of her will into the stones, her will focused as protection against the gods of darkness and ill will.