They waited, two-and-fifty men lying flat, in the darkness. They could hear the Picts. Time dragged by on feet set in muck and honey. Never had a night been so long. Two Cruithne approached, muttering; mailed men prepared, their helmets off against a flash in the moonlight. The two Picts relieved themselves, not the length of a man’s body from Forgall mac Aed.
The Picts returned to their fellows. Naturally they’d be keeping a close watch on the eastern slope, against a night attack. The Leinstermen waited, in the moon’s ghostly radiance. Time shuffled past with the gait of a tortoise heavy with eggs. The Leinstermen waited.
The blackness of the sky was mitigated. The stars dimmed. Slowly, so horribly slowly, black became indigo. It faded to a deep grey. Some stars disappeared against a sky less dark. The Leinstermen waited, and their stomachs writhed as the time drew nearer. Death seemed to grin down at them, from the paling face of the moon. The sky’s grey grew less deep, as though an artist mixed more and more white with his black-gradually, oh so gradually.
Hands clutched helmets. Bare heads turned to stare at the pearly hue lighting the eastern horizon. Doubts rose; the mesa’s expanse cut off their view of the eastern world’s edge; would the others begin their charge too soon? Should they leap up and move now? The sky went pearly. The horizon grew pink. And then gold fingers rayed upward from below the edge of the world. Every man knew, then: had they possessed a cock, it would have crowed. Brilliant yellow-gold washed up from the far horizon. The sky overhead went pinkly nacreous, like a shell lined with palest pink.
Forgall slid his helmet to him, ducked his head to the ground, helmed himself. He gestured. The gesture was passed. Helmets were pressed on. Two-and-fifty arms slid through shield-straps. Fists closed on the grips within those bucklers.
Forgall rose up to his knees and reached across his armoured midsection to lay hand on hilt.
“Now.”
“Now.”
“NOW!”
The word burst as a shout from half a hundred throats. It was drawn, out to form a battle-cry as two-and-fifty men bounded up and drew their swords, all in one motion. Before them the enemy, too, came alive.
The mesa, broad enough to accommodate perhaps seven hundred men, was occupied by three hundred Picts, and now they found themselves not alone. The attackers appeared by surprise, and charged; they must not be too close to the cliff’s edge. In that first attack, the latest of centuries upon centuries of yelling Celtic onslaught, thirty Picts went down in blood. After that, the battle began.
The dark men defended themselves and struck back, spreading out so as to flank and encompass the force that was armoured as they were not-but was only a sixth their number.
Yelling, hacking Leinstermen could but hope their fellows were ascending the long eastward slope of the mountain, as swiftly as they could pull and hurl themselves up among the rocks and rocky irregularities. The Leinstermen had no place to go. They could but hack and slash, fend and parry. They could but endeavor to remain a curved wall, for the enemy was so sizable as to be able to surround every man. They could but fight and fight, either to be aided by hundreds of others who’d come onto the mesa behind the Cruithne-or to die heroes of Eirrin. For fifty could neither best three hundred, nor retreat.
And then they were forty.
And then thirty, and Cormac knew that beside him Forgall had gone down, but Cormac could not even think about it, for Forgall’s fall left him surrounded the way that he must slash his way out to have allies on either side of him again. He did, and still the Picts pressed, and no Gaels had come onto the mesa behind them. Even so, with his fellows Cormac had no time for despairing thoughts. Every man would rather have turned and fled over the cliff’s edge; every man knew that way was no succor, no escape, but only a death more ignominious; here was death with honour.
Cormac struck so violently that he crippled two attackers at a blow. In that powerful half-whirl he saw Bress go down, and Cormac was not glad. His captain; the second-and Champion of Leinster! And how many stood yet? As many as a score?
No time to think; Cormac was engaged by two Picts who worked well together. He beat them away, destroyed a shield, back-stepped, let one err by advancing. Cormac showed him what Forgall had said was a Romish use of the sword: he stop-thrust the man. Even as he saw the Pict shiver, huge-eyed, the youth heard the charging Gaels of the main army falling on the Pictish rear. That brought a wave of relief, of gladness, but even so it was too late.
As he freed his sword from the muscular belly of the dying Pict, Cormac saw the man’s fellow bringing down a steel ax, and knew he could neither shield nor dodge. He tried, letting himself fall, wrenching his arm for his sword was not quite free. He felt a great blow to his head, heard a terrible boom and a roaring thrumming, and saw an explosion of bright lights before his face.
He knew he was hit, knew the Pict wielded a steel ax taken from a dead Celt, knew too that it had bit through his helm and then into his very skull. And as even the bright lights vanished from before his eyes, Cormac mac Art knew that he was surely dying-dead.
Chapter Fifteen:
Scars
“Partha.”
Strange word. A name? Aye, a name. I died then; it’s back in a new body I am and without a glimpse of Donn or I-Breasil. Back as someone called Partha…
Partha! No, no, that’s the name I’m after using these months since Connacht-why seems it years? Then… then… I am not dead?
“How is that possible?”
“Partha! Ah ye speak-what?”
“How-how is it possible I be not dead? Why is it so dark-uh!”
He opened his eyes and saw that it was not dark at all. Light seemed to sear eyeballs long covered. Something tight around his forehead seemed to press down his lids. He blinked, again and again. A face looked down at his; someone stood over him. A man. Oh, it was that minstrel. What was his-no, no come Par-come, Cormac, Cormac, find yourself, gain control, think!
“Partha?”
“Prince… Ceann.”
“Aye! Ho, ye be awake! Hold ye still, now; it’s long and long ye’ve been abed, and ye’ll not be wanting to disturb your bandages, Partha. At least ye know me! We feared for your life… then, when we at last felt ye’d live, days and days later, we feared ye’d come awake with no memory on ye. That I have seen happen, from such a slice as ye took to your skull.”
“It is… hard.”
Ceann smiled. As Cormac started to lift a hand to his head, the other youth grasped his wrist. Amazingly strong he was, for a king’s minstrelly son, Cormac thought; he holds me with ease!
“Wh-where-”
“Carman. It’s Carman this is. My father’s own leech has been treating yourself, and the others, and both druid and priest have been here daily.”
“The… others?”
“Aye. Hold still, Partha, else we must tie ye down again. Your head is swollen still, healing under a great swath of bandage. Ye’ve no need to be feeling of it. It’s many a day ye’ve lain here thus, and many a change of bandage ye’re after having.”
Cormac relaxed his arms, repeated; “The others?”
Ceann mac Ulaid’s face went very serious. “There be but eight of ye left of those who made the climb. Twoscore and four are dead, heroes in Leinster and Munster and Osraige and aye, up in Meath and Connacht once the story’s spread in verse and song. But-but, Partha… only thirty others were slain! The deaths of twoscore and four, and the wounds on you and seven others… these saved surely hundreds of lives and limbs, Partha! As for the Picts… thrice a hundred and twoscore and twelve died on that mesa! And a few others; some jumped over the cliff and none took trouble to search for them.”