Turoc had been watching me closely, and now he indicated the bundle he had brought back with him. "Dry clothes, " he grunted. "Not clean, but dry. Better get them on you now. No telling when we might have company. You still haven't told me why you're here or how you got here. "
I waved a hand towards the slope I had descended. "Came down from up there, and I'm here to find Carthac. Where is he?"
His eyebrows rose, but he answered me straightforwardly, with no more than a grunt of surprise. "He's not here. He went out with a raiding party yesterday, before noon, and hasn't come back. "
This was bitter news, and I had to bite down on my anger and disappointment. "Where did he go, do you know? And how many men did he take with him?"
Turoc made a face and dipped his head to one side. "Took about half a hundred with him, but I don't know where they went. I wasn't in camp at the time. I was up on the cliffs above the northern entrance. What do you want with Carthac? He'll kill you as soon as he sets eyes on you. He's raving mad, the most frightening man I've ever seen. No man's life is safe around him—no one's. Even his closest captains live in fear of him. "
"I know, Turoc. " I sat straighter, grunting as I felt pain rippling up and down my ribs. "But I'm here to kill him, not to be killed. All I want to do is to get close enough to reach him. "
He squatted back on his heels and stared at me, shaking his head, and then his eyes scanned me from head to foot. "You can't even walk. How are you going to kill a man who can't be killed? I've seen him lost among a swarm of twenty men, all of them trying to kill him, and he's come out with barely a scratch on him. "
"Aye, but he has been scratched, has he not?"
"Well of course he has!" I could see him doubt my sanity. "But never badly. The worst injury he's had was a spearhead in the right thigh. "
"Aye. He killed the surgeon who dug it out of him, did he not?"
Now his eyes flew wide. "How did you know that?"
"No matter. " I shook my head. "I merely need to scratch him, that's all. Once scratched, he'll die, I swear to you. "
Turoc shook his head and looked away immediately, trying to hide his confusion and trepidation. There could be no logic, to his mind, in what I was telling him, and I knew that. I reached out, surprised at how difficult it was to make my arm and hand obey me, and gripped him by the forearm.
"Turoc, " I said, fighting to put conviction into my weakened voice. "Trust me in this. I know what I am doing, and I can kill him. Once he is dead, his warriors will melt away like snow in spring. They feed on this... this legend he has spawned, this thing about his immortality. Once he is dead, they'll quickly sicken of his memory. They'll recall the cannibal, not the demigod; the torturer, not the warrior. Get me to a place where I'll be able to see him and reach him, then leave me to do the rest. "
He shook his head again, more vehemently now. "You'll be recognized the moment you go in there, and you'll be killed. What use is there in that?"
"No, you're wrong, man. Look at me! Do I look like Merlyn of Camulod? Look at my beard, my clothes. You almost killed me yourself, not recognizing me, and you've known me for nigh on a score of years. None of these people know me at all, and if they think of Merlyn of Camulod, they think of my brother, Ambrose, who is now become the man that once I was. Get me inside there, Turoc. That's all I require. Take me inside, and then leave me. "
"But they'll know you're not one of them! They are uncouth and wild, Merlyn, but they're not stupid enough to fail to recognize a stranger in their camp!"
"Then I shall be a messenger. Where's Ironhair?"
"Ironhair? God knows! They say he's with the Danes, fighting to the north of here. We haven't seen his face in months. "
"Does he send messages to Carthac?"
"Aye, once in a while. "
"Then I shall be a messenger—a sick messenger, poisoned by Merlyn's Vengeance in a camp that I came through on the way here. My name will be... " I paused, thinking quickly, searching for an ordinary name that would be memorable to us both. "Mod, " I said then, remembering my young Druid friend, whom Carthac had murdered. "Mod is perfect. You'll say you met me as I came up through the southern entrance, and that I was raving with fever. You knew me long ago, and recognized me. I am a... a fisherman, but also a warrior. No explanation of how I avoided the guards above the pass; I was but a man alone and the gods were watching over me. I have messages for Carthac from Ironhair, and while I wait for his return, I'll need to lie beside a fire somewhere, where I can be warm and recover from my sickness, which is internal—poisoned, remember—and not contagious. Can you arrange that?"
His face was still troubled, but he nodded once, and then again, more emphatically. "I can do it, but I don't like it. Besides, you've no weapons. How will you kill Carthac with no weapons? I don't like this at all, Merlyn."
"You don't have to like it, Turoc, you merely have to put me into place. Besides, I have a weapon. My knife there, by my scrip."
"What, this?" His voice dripped scorn as he held up the Varrus dagger in its sheath. "This is your killing weapon?"
Thinking that he was about to draw the blade, and knowing that I had smeared it thickly with the deadly, venomous green paste, I cut him short, stretching out my hand for the knife.
"It's all I need. Now belt it about my waist, and my scrip, too. And if the thought of what I am about to do frightens you, then think upon this instead: think about who I am, and about the strange tales you have heard of me, down through the years. And ask yourself this: why should the death that stalks the Danes and Carthac's other mercenaries out there in Cambria be known as Merlyn's Vengeance? And why, if you find yourself believing in the immortality of such a thing as Carthac, would you doubt the sorcery of Merlyn?"
. He straightened up at that and I saw his hand thrust down behind his back, no doubt making the ancient sign against the evil eye. I waited till he breathed again, then said, "Are we agreed? Because if we are, we should move soon. I'm beginning to feel dizzy in my head again."
He grunted and stood up, leaning forward to take my hand. With his help I struggled to my feet and stood there swaying until he threw one arm about my waist and brought my left arm over his shoulder, gripping me firmly by the wrist.
"Don't be afraid to lean on me, " he told me. "But try to walk, if you can. I've got you firmly, so you won't fall. We're less than a hundred paces from the longhouse, but it might seem like a long way. If anyone stops us, don't try to talk. Just leave it to me. "
We set out then, and my legs felt as though they had no muscle in them at all. The light-headedness had come back and my vision was doing strange things again. I saw several men approach us, then move on after casting strange looks at us. On one occasion, directly challenged as to what was wrong with me, Turoc recited the story I had concocted, and it was accepted, with a muttered curse and a warning to keep the whoreson away.
Some time later, we entered the open doorway of the longhouse. I can remember looking up and seeing that the walls were higher than I had judged from above, and that two tall wooden doors hung limply and drunkenly from sagging rope hinges. We passed into the dim interior, and I saw open patches high above, where great holes in the thatch admitted beams of daylight. I smelled thick woodsmoke, and then I felt myself being lowered to the ground, and the heat of flames radiating against my face.
I opened my eyes again and found myself close by a large fire that had been built beneath a roofless section of the longhouse. Turoc was wrapping the folds of his big cloak tightly about me, and I heard voices all around me, and Turoc's voice repeating yet again the tale of my misfortune. He had known me for years, he swore, and had stumbled upon me this morning by accident and good fortune, since had he not found me, I might have died, and I bore messages for Carthac from Ironhair. I had survived a camp blasted by Merlyn's Vengeance, down on the plain, he told his listeners, and I had purged myself of most of the poison on the way up here from below. Now all I needed was to regain my strength, and since Carthac had not yet returned to camp, the best thing for me to do was sleep until he came. There came a chorus of mutterings, and, wonder of wonders, I slept, lulled by the sounds and the warmth of the fire.