‘No.’ Sharp nails dug into flesh, drawing lines of red on weather-beaten skin. ‘No!’ Louder, more forceful. Those who were dead had lived and died well; they could not have asked more from life. The memories of them could not be stolen from her even if the demons came for her flesh. This was weakness, self-pity. She still had responsibilities. Some of her people were still alive. She could fight the Lochlannach. She was the only one who could. She needed to find a way for others to do the same.
Britha stood on the shore and watched the fire arrows arc into the night air on the other side of the Tatha. In flight they were mirrored in the black glass of the river before studding the demon curraghs with points of orange and red light. It was a good plan but she knew it would not work. She watched the Fib villages all along the river’s north shore burn.
Then because she did not feel tired she turned to the west and started walking. She walked all night, tireless, no pain in her muscles or her feet despite a steady, fast pace.
She passed the black rock on the shore of the Tatha. In the distance she could see the hill fort. The height it sat on was just known simply as the hill. It would be locked up tight but only the younger children and the older landsmen and -women would be there. They were Cirig – their clan elders owed fealty to Cruibne – and all of the elders had been at the feast with their warriors and would have died on the red beach.
Beyond the hill fort were the Sidhe Hills, where the fair folk slept in their mounds and her people chose not to go. Best to leave the Otherworld alone. What if it would not leave you alone? she wondered.
In the woods just west of the black rock she met some of the older children from the fort. They had chosen to go out scouting. She told them to return to the fort and that if they saw the black ships land on this side of the river they were to flee, with everyone, carrying the old if they had to, into the north and stay away from the coast and the wider rivers. They knew her – she had delivered some of them – and would listen and do as she asked.
Watch fires on either side of the river flickered into red life, Cirig and Fib alike warning of the black ships. Still she headed west. She was sure that Bress would take his people raiding as far up the Tatha as they could get where there were still villages and settlements worth raiding. This time she wouldn’t hesitate. She would kill him and that monster, Ettin, as well.
Under the wooded grey cliff-lined hills to the west, the Tatha narrowed considerably and there was an island in the middle. Britha tied her robe around her. She had taken as much food as she could carry – oatmeal, heath pea, salted meat, anything that wouldn’t spoil quickly – and wrapped it in hide sacks. She tied the sacks and the horseshoe fungus carrying the embers of her hearth fire to the end of her spear and waded into the cold river.
She had taken off her fur leggings. Barefoot she was better able to grasp the smooth stones on the riverbed with her toes. Even so, halfway across, when the water was over her stomach, she began to feel as if she had made a mistake. The sacks of food tied to the end of her spear threatened to unbalance her. She managed to compensate and then slipped, going down on one knee. The fast-moving current nearly tore her off her feet. She fought to hold on to the spear, dipping the sacks slightly in the water but regaining her balance. Eventually she managed to stagger to her feet and take another step, knowing that if it got any deeper she would have to ditch her food and spear and swim for it. But the water got shallower.
The island was important to the Fib. It was a place of power for their dryw. It was said that the Auld Folk had come here to worship their terrible and uncaring gods. To the Cirig it had been a convenient place to cross when they went chasing Fib cattle, though they always had to ford the beasts further upstream on the way home.
From the island she watched another of the Fib’s villages burn. She was close enough to hear the screams but it was how quickly and efficiently it happened that got to her. The Fib were not as strong as the Cirig, but how quickly their resistance was dealt with shocked her. Standing on the shore of the island, she watched the Lochlannach, black figures silhouetted against the flames, herd their captives to the curraghs. The black ships were much larger than they had been when Britha had last seen them. If they came further west to make for the settlements on the Tatha further inland then Britha could try to sneak on board, either by swimming or via the branches that hung over the river.
The sun rose. The smoke from the still-burning settlements on the south bank was easier to see now. As were the black curraghs sailing east, back to the sea, their magics taking them against the wind. Britha still did not feel like sleeping. She ate too much, again, watching the huge black ships getting smaller and smaller. When she had sated herself she waded across the Tatha to the south shore and trudged south through the steep wooded hills. Avoiding the cliffs of wet grey stone when she could, losing time climbing them when she couldn’t.
Two days of walking. Britha had never been this far south in Fib lands before. She knew she could not be too far from the lands of the Goddodin. A tribe not of the Pecht, they were a weak people who bent their knees to a god of the sea. The only Goddodin that Britha had ever seen had been slaves of the Fib. If they worshipped gods this made them suitable to be slaves, in Britha’s opinion. But she knew that the Black River lay to the south – she had heard tell of it from southron traders all her life. If it was, as they said, similar in size to the Tatha, then she was sure the Lochlannach would raid along it for more captives.
Britha’s eyes flicked open. Usually a restless sleeper, she had woken from a deep, restful, dreamless sleep fully aware. The sensation that had roused her was a tug from deep inside. Instinctively she knew that something was wrong at a fundamental level with the world around her. She reached for her spear, the demon inside it long since cowed, and rolled to her feet.
She could see it through the trees. A bright, rapidly pulsing, blue and white light illuminated the thickly forested hill. It made the silhouettes of the trees look grotesque and alive. There was the sound of wind rushing through the branches. It tugged at her robes. She had been sleeping with them wrapped around her, although the night cold did not seem to bother her so much now. She realised that the air was being sucked towards the light and that her hair was standing up just like it did before a thunderstorm, but this feeling was stronger than any thunderstorm she had ever experienced.
She retreated and dropped low as she saw lightning play across the trees in the distance. Cursing herself for a coward, Britha forced herself to stand. She had never seen the like but she was sure it had something to do with the Otherworld. It was moments before dawn, and as the pulsing subsided, the forest was lit by the soft grey light of that time of the day and the occasional flash of lightning in the branches of the trees. Dawn was the time between times, the border times when it was easiest for things to cross over.
Britha cursed inventively for a long time for no other reason than to put off what she knew she had to do. As ban draoi she had to deal with the Otherworld, though she was of the opinion that Bress, Ettin and the Lochlannach were more than enough Otherworldly trouble.
‘Let’s just try not to sleep with them this time,’ she rebuked herself as she made her way towards where she’d seen the light.
It was a cairn, one of the circles of stones left by the Auld Folk. All the trees within a hundred feet of it had been blown over, their broken trunks pointing towards the circle. Lightning still arced between the stones.