‘If I let you go will you calm down so we can talk?’ he asked calmly. Slowly Britha stopped fighting; finally she nodded. Bress relaxed his grip from around her throat. Britha dived for her sickle. Bress let her get her fingers round the grip and then kicked her so hard in the stomach that it lifted her off her feet and sent her flying across the hut. It wasn’t the pain of the blow. It was the momentary sensation that she would never be able to breathe again that frightened her, but again she was surprised by how quickly she recovered.
Britha swung at him. He swayed backwards; the curved blade just missed. Britha tried to bring the sickle up into his groin. It was the closest she had got to an expression out of him. Bress stepped back quickly, brought his palm down to block the blow and then cried out, more in surprise than pain, when the sickle bit hungrily into him, the point appearing through the back of his hand. Britha kicked him with all her might. He staggered back crying out, this time in pain, as the movement tore the blade out of his hand. Britha swung at his head. Bress stepped to the side and punched her. She felt sick and the ground seemed to fall away from her as the force of the blow lifted her off her feet. Bress walked quickly over to where she had fallen. Britha was trying to get up. Something in her head felt broken. Her vision was blurry. Bress stood on her hand. He knelt down, warding off her blows, and tore the sickle from her grip. Examined it.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked quietly, turning to look at her. The deadness of his eyes aside, his beauty and the intensity of his stare caused Britha suddenly to find herself struggling to breathe for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t stop fighting, however. Bress flung the sickle into the corner of the hut and grabbed her around the neck, easily picking her up and laying her on the pallet again.
‘You can’t hurt me,’ he told her. ‘Talk to me, just talk to me.’ His voice remained quiet and calm, but Britha thought she could hear just the slightest hint of pleading in his voice. She stopped fighting, but decided that if there was to be rape she would not make it easy for him.
‘Let go of me. Now,’ she demanded. Cursing herself for giving in.
‘If you fight again I’ll have to kill you.’
Britha nodded. Bress let go. Britha sat up, rubbing her throat.
‘You’re here to kill me.’
It wasn’t a question so she didn’t bother to answer.
‘Why are you here? Why are you doing this to my people?’
‘Does it matter? There’s nothing you can do about it so you might as well resign yourself to it.’
‘You know that won’t happen.’
‘I don’t know anything. Your people will suffer more if they resist.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘Because I must.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I am nothing: less than a ghost, a servant, a mercenary, serving a god I do not believe in.’
‘Gods make slaves of people.’
Bress’s laughter was devoid of humour.
‘And people overestimate their importance in the scheme of things, but I cannot deny your words. What is your name?’
‘Britha. They say you will bring madness on the land.’
Suddenly all trace of humour was gone.
‘And who are “they”?’
‘The spirits on the night wind, the dead who speak to me in my dreams,’ she lied.
He stared at her suspiciously. Britha met his eyes. She didn’t like how they made her feel, but that feeling subsided as she remembered the pack.
‘What you’ve done here – despoiling, slaving – what you did to those children…’
‘Flesh is a tool, something to shape for the amusement of the gods.’
‘Do you not know this is wrong? Evil!’
‘Yes, I just don’t care.’ He wasn’t looking at her now. He was looking out through the entrance to the skin hut into the night beyond.
Britha stared at him. He just sounded tired and horribly alone. Britha cursed herself for her weakness, remembered the pack and forced down any feeling of sympathy. He was a monster from the Otherworld.
‘I have to kill you,’ she said almost involuntarily. He nodded.
‘Take your blade and go,’ he told her quietly. Britha stared at him. ‘Fight and die in the battle if you will, or run and live, but if you ever falter then never forget that I have done this to your people.’ He turned to look at her with his dead eyes. It was all Britha could do not to flee. Bress stood up and walked out into the night air. Britha didn’t move. Then the deep howl of the carnyx, the Cirig’s dog-headed brass war horn, filled the night air.
The carnyx had sounded at the last moment. The warriors had been, like Britha, painted blue as the night, and had slowly made their way on their bellies across the sand as close as they dared. These were cateran, professional soldiers. The spear-carrying landsmen waited in the dunes still.
With a gesture rather than the sounding of the carnyx, Feroth had sent the chariots onto the beach, each wood and wicker cart pulled by two ponies straining at their harness at full gallop, driven by a kneeling charioteer. Trying to close with the enemy as quickly as they could before they were noticed.
To Cruibne, the familiar beach was a blur beneath him as he crouched on one knee. Gone were the days when he would stand in a chariot – he didn’t feel so steady on his feet these days. He glanced to his right and saw Nechtan in his armour walking carefully out onto the yoke between the two horses – the chariot feat. The champion had his casting spears at the ready. Nechtan, like all the cateran, wore a wicker framework headdress designed to look like a dog’s skull covered with dog hide. Still, it would have been better if he had gone to battle skyclad like the rest of the cateran. Nechtan was lost to view when the chariots drove into a narrow channel in a spray of water.
Cruibne reached down to grab the boards of the chariot as it bounced back onto the wet sand. Ahead he could see the spearmen lying down. They had previously agreed lanes for the chariots to drive through. Ethne, who was the only person he trusted as his charioteer, expertly controlled the horses through the prostrate spearmen. Cruibne heard a scream, the sound whipped away from him by the speed of the chariot: someone had not been as accurate. Ahead he watched as the enemy, seemingly unhurried, arranged themselves into a tightly linked shield wall. Cruibne kept his mouth open – he didn’t want to break any teeth as the chariot bounced up and down – and shifted his grip on his casting spear. No shield wall ever stood against a chariot charge.
Behind him the dog-headed spearmen had got to their feet and were sprinting in behind the chariots. The carnyx sounded again and the spear-carrying landsmen poured out of the dunes and started their long run across the sand. The baying war dogs quickly outpaced them, the rags that had held their jaws closed had been removed.
As the cart bounced and juddered despite the smoothness of the sand, Cruibne watched as the wall of shields and spears got closer and closer. They had to break. Everyone did.
Britha heard the carnyx sound again. The attack. Her tribe were about to throw themselves against these creatures and she had not done what she had said she would.
Britha ducked out of the hut. She had a moment to see the back of the shield wall and hear the hoof beats echoing across the beach. The man she had seen drinking from the chalice of molten metal was standing behind the shield wall with a few others. They didn’t have armour or spears but were carrying swords. They were for those who got through. Britha moved quickly towards him, not allowing herself to think that he was an innocent victim who had been forced into this by Bress’s magic. Britha jumped at him and cleaved the sickle into his neck, driving it down into his chest cavity. She stared at the wound, wet and red, appalled. How can I have the strength for that? The sickle felt hungry in her hand. As the man juddered and sank to the ground, Britha noticed that his entire hand was covered in the red-gold filigree – it looked like it had grown out of the pommel of his sword. Then the chariots hit.