They had walked down the coast looking for horses to steal but had found only devastated or abandoned fishing villages. Even without horses, Teardrop and Fachtna had set an exhausting pace.
It was the kneelers that were making her angry, many of them naked, some of them with the blue-scaled tattoos of Goddodin warriors. Those that were clothed wore white. They lined the shore of the small bay on all fours, swaying from side to side, singing in some non-language that she didn’t understand but found deeply unnerving.
‘Look at their throats,’ Teardrop said. They were standing among them. So far they had been ignored. The kneelers all looked deformed in the same way, as if their mouths and throats had had to change to make the words of the strange keening chant. Britha wasn’t sure why and hated the thought, but somehow they reminded her of Cliodna.
‘Is this Bress’s doing?’ Fachtna asked. ‘Do they worship a new god?’
‘This looks more like a sickness,’ Teardrop said, distaste and more than a little worry evident in his voice. ‘If Bress is the cause, I don’t think he knew or meant to do this. People are frightened when they witness such power, and there is little they can do about it.’
‘Aye, people follow power,’ Fachtna said, nodding in agreement.
Britha spat and kicked one of them over. The thin elderly man looked up at her, his eyes managing to look both dead and ecstatic.
‘How can people live so weak?’ she demanded to no one in particular except perhaps the spirits of the air.
‘They won’t. Look,’ Fachtna said, pointing to the promontory cliffs. Some of the kneelers were clambering up to the scorched rocks where the palisade had been destroyed. Britha shaded her eyes from the bright sun and watched.
‘I knew fire would have worked,’ she said to herself as she looked at the scorched rocks.
The climbers pulled themselves over the rock.
‘All fire does is set them to burning. They wouldn’t have felt it. When they noticed, they would have just dropped back into the water,’ Fachtna told her to her further irritation.
‘If they used the fire oil from the southern traders across the sea, then they would have seen the creature burning under the water. What must they have thought?’ Teardrop said mostly to himself.
By now there were worried-looking spearmen standing in the breach in the palisade wall as the climbers approached.
The keening stopped. The swaying stopped. All eyes were on the climbers now, though all the kneelers remained on all fours.
‘Why won’t you stand up?’ Britha demanded of them. ‘You’re not animals!’ Teardrop laid an arm on her shoulder, shaking his head.
‘They can’t hear you,’ he said.
Britha actually let out a cry of shock despite herself when the first one jumped. Her vision was now so keen that she saw the red splash he made on the sharp rocks just above the waterline.
Teardrop’s face was etched with sadness as he looked down, shaking his head.
Fachtna stared at them, unable to understand what was happening. ‘But he chose to—’
The next climber jumped. Britha turned towards the shoreline, though she had no idea what she was going to do.
‘Stop them!’ she shouted in a language she was pretty sure was theirs. Her voice carried across the harbour but the warriors in the fort gave no indication that they had even heard her. Her hand went to her mouth as the third one hit the rocks, the waves now moving the broken bodies of his two friends.
‘Why—’
‘There is only death or the sickness of the moon,’ a voice said. It sounded strange – somehow gravelly and wet at the same time. She turned to see the emaciated man she had kicked over staring at her. ‘The sickness of the moon is better. It is a blessing from the Dark Man, but some cannot wait. Some want the gifts he offers in our dreams too soon.’
Britha stared at him, trying to marshal her thoughts, thinking about the visions that the demon-tainted flesh she had eaten had given her. She thought of the dark man, the figure of nothing and the feeling that there was something terrible beyond him. She started to feel cold. The emaciated man narrowed his eyes, studying her.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘You’ve felt his touch.’
‘How could you give in like this?’ Britha demanded. She had not liked his words. ‘You have slain yourself, what you are, for dreams. Who willingly allows themself to be conquered?’
The old man shook his head sadly. ‘You can no more fight the moon sickness or death than you can the sea. We followed false gods. Now all of Ynys Prydein belongs to death and madness. Can you not feel it?’ It was the first time she had ever heard of Ynys Prydein. She could not, however, deny that something inside her but not of her was pulling her to the south. The man was smiling at her knowingly. She turned from him and started towards the fort.
Fachtna and Teardrop had built a fire. They were on the shores of the bay trying to keep as far from the kneelers as they could. Fachtna was cooking the last of the salted deer meat, with some wild vegetables that Teardrop had found. They would have to forage and hunt again soon, particularly if they kept eating as much as they had been. That would slow them down more. The black ships and Britha’s people would slip further from them.
Britha was sitting away from them, hugging her knees, not really feeling the cold from the fresh clear windy night. Her spear was next to her on the ground. She was looking up at the hill fort. She could see the flickering glow of fires. There were roundhouses behind the palisade walls. Some of them had been damaged, but the intact ones looked very welcoming to her at the moment.
They had gone up to the hill fort but the Goddodin would not let them in. There had been a shouted conversation through the gate while slingers and warriors with casting spears covered them. Fachtna had not helped by cursing them for cowards who were too afraid to offer hospitality. Teardrop had sent the warrior away.
They’d had the bare bones of it. The black curraghs had come and with them giant demons from the sea. They had landed warriors further up the beach. The giants had climbed the cliffs while the warriors had attacked in a disciplined formation the likes of which the frightened warriors in the hill fort had never seen before. To hear them tell it, they had bravely fought off the Lochlannach, but Britha agreed with Fachtna: had Bress wanted the fort he could have taken it. Still, she had to admit these god-slaves had done better than her and her people, though she saw no Lochlannach bodies.
Without hospitality they had the choice of moving on, though it was growing late, or risking a camp close to the kneelers. Their keening and chanting were an annoyance, and their continued murder of themselves was shocking. A few had tried to speak to them. Britha had become so angry that she had set about them with the haft of her spear until she realised that they would have welcomed death at her hands. When Teardrop had threatened to curse them with everlasting life, they had fled.
‘You wish you were up there, warm?’ Fachtna asked. Britha had only just heard the warrior’s approach. She sighed to herself – she could guess what was coming.
‘I don’t relish the company of cowards and fools who cannot tell friend from foe and break that which should never be broken,’ she said, referring to the law of hospitality, without which there could be no trade, no diplomacy and peace could not be brokered after war. ‘But I would welcome a roof above me and a fire near,’ she conceded. ‘Of course it doesn’t help that your friend looks so strange. Where is he from?’ she asked, not caring but trying to forestall the inevitable.
‘From very far away, like me.’
‘You are from very different people,’ Britha said for want of anything else.