‘Yes, go ashore, die in the swamp and we can sail away before the black ships find us,’ Hanno said.
‘Hanno of Carthage,’ Britha said, ‘I don’t think your god lives here. You leave us, and the corpses of those I slew will climb onto your deck as you sleep and slay you and your men. Do you understand me?’
Hanno looked furious. Kush looked close to swinging his axe. It didn’t matter what either of them believed. Britha wasn’t sure if she had the power to make good her threat, but enough of the crew believed her that they wouldn’t let Hanno abandon them.
‘Enough threats,’ Kush told her. ‘I mean it.’
Fachtna opened his mouth to say something but Britha cut him off.
‘You were well paid, trader; all we ask is that you honour it.’
‘I should have asked for more,’ Hanno muttered, eyeing the torcs around Fachtna’s neck and his left arm. ‘You make this quick. If you have not returned by tomorrow morning then we will leave you because the evil spirits that burn the night with their demon fire will have taken you. This is known by the people who live in this evil place.’
Britha nodded.
‘And we will flee the black ships if we sight them,’ the normally quiet Germelqart said.
Fachtna opened his mouth. ‘Agreed,’ Britha said before the warrior uttered something insulting. ‘You cannot fight them.’
‘I only hope you can outrun them,’ Fachtna said. ‘But I doubt it.’
Trial and error left them soaked and covered with thick foul-smelling mud, but eventually they managed to find a trail over what passed for dry ground. Or at least ground that didn’t want to pull them down into sucking mud.
‘So we just walk into the swamp and hope we find someone?’ Fachtna demanded angrily.
He’s like most warriors, Britha thought. He liked being covered in blood, glory or fine things, but not mud.
‘They know we are here,’ Britha said. She could feel the eyes on her. The birds, the insects, reptiles and amphibians moving through the water or over the mud, the constant movement of the undergrowth; it was easy to imagine the whole place as a living being.
‘She’s right,’ Teardrop said. ‘I can hear the mindsong here. But it is distant, far away somehow.’ This got Fachtna’s attention, Britha’s too, but she chose not to show it, hoping that Teardrop would reveal more of his magics if she showed less interest.
‘Why don’t they show themselves?!’ Fachtna cried to the skies. Nearby gulls took to the air, showing their displeasure in raucous squawking. Britha watched them and then moved off the trail and into the rushes. Almost immediately she was standing in water, though the spirits in the mud hadn’t started dragging her down yet. Using the butt of her spear for support, she made her way to where the gulls had been.
Fachtna sighed, looked down in disgust at the mud coating his boots, greaves and trews, but followed her. Teardrop remained on the path, looking out over the rushes blowing in the gentle breeze. Perhaps he was listening for the mindsong, Fachtna thought, but more likely he just didn’t want to get further covered in mud. Cursing, Fachtna pushed through the rushes until he found Britha leaning against an earthen bank, standing in a red pool of bodies.
‘They died in battle,’ he said. The pictures that swords and spears drew on flesh were plain enough to see.
Britha nodded.
‘Someone brought them here?’ There were some twenty bodies but this was not a place to fight a pitched battle.
‘I think they are being given back to the land,’ she said. ‘Perhaps left in sacrifice because they could not protect their people.’
‘But they died well.’
Britha looked up at the warrior, surprised to hear the emotion in his voice. Is this what you fear, Goidel? No tomb, no one to remember your deeds.
‘Their ways are not your own,’ Britha said simply. ‘What I want to know is why the gulls will eat their flesh and bury them in the sky but the insects stay away.’
That got Fachtna’s attention. He jumped into the pool and waded towards the bodies. They were a small pale people, though death and immersion would always make a body pale. There were traces of paint on their bodies but no tattoos. Whatever weapons and armour they might have owned had been stripped from them.
Fachtna cut into the flesh of one of the bodies.
‘That is an ill thing,’ Britha said angrily.
‘It is an augury,’ Fachtna said, distracted.
‘And who are you to augur on the bones of people not yours, who have been left to rest in their own way?’ she demanded.
‘These wounds, they make channels in the flesh, like the roots of the tree,’ he told her.
‘These are Bress’s weapons. We know this.’
Fachtna took some of the flesh into his mouth and tasted it.
‘What are you doing?!’
Fachtna spat the flesh out. ‘These are kin of yours,’ he told her.
‘These are not kin of mine, fool!’
‘And yet in part your blood is the same as theirs.’
‘Then they were corrupted by the demons and left here when they turned on their own people.’
‘They died fighting Bress’s band, and I mean the blood you share with Cliodna and the Muileartach.’
Britha considered this. ‘The insects know that their blood is unnatural.’ Fachtna said nothing. ‘I thought the power you had was in your arms and legs and the weapons you bear.’
‘Don’t forget my cock.’
‘You are a fool and I do not believe you,’ Britha said in exasperation.
‘Then I will have Teardrop tell you.’
Fachtna waded across the pool. He had reached the bank and was about to step up when he stopped.
‘Why did you kill them?’ he asked, not quite turning to look at her directly.
Britha spent some time deciding whether to dignify his question with an answer. ‘Because they didn’t care about themselves so I ate their spirits,’ she finally said.
He nodded. ‘Have you ever done the like before?’
‘I’ve never met people like that before, and who are you to question me?’
‘Would you have done the same in the past?’
Britha said nothing. The silence seemed to go on and on before Fachtna stepped out of the pool and started back towards where they had left Teardrop. Britha watched the warrior’s back until the tall breeze-blown rushes swallowed him. What she didn’t tell him was that she had not felt even a trace of remorse for what she had done. In fact, it had left her feeling stronger. She tried to ignore the sense of how far away she was from home and what she had been. She looked at the corpses and wondered if they had known Cliodna.
Fachtna made his way along a tiny game trail. He could see Teardrop just ahead of him. He was facing towards where the smoke was coming from. Fachtna held the bloody knife in one hand; the other held the strap of his shield, which was slung over his shoulder.
He stopped. Despite the blood, he pushed his dirk back into its scabbard. He was half convinced that his mind was playing tricks with him. Then, assuming a low stance, he swung the shield into his hand, the feel of the leather over wood familiar where he gripped it. His sword whispered from the scabbard. He soothed its song with a thought. It was hungry. It had been drawn and not used too often recently.
They were good. He did not understand how he had not known they were there – his senses being expanded far beyond the normal – but they moved with the direction of the wind in the rushes and they moved quickly. They were like wild animals.
He listened. Keeping still. Britha’s footsteps on the trail behind him seemed thunderous. He had not paid close enough attention to Teardrop. He had not read his body like the weapons masters in the younglings’ camp had taught him. The tension in Teardrop’s stance told Fachtna that they had him.