“It’s not Kull’s evil, I’m thinking. Will ye go in with me?”
“Cormac! No!”
Cormac ignored Samaire and her hand on his arm. He continued to look questioningly on the. greenrobed servant of Celtic and Gaelic gods, Bas of Tir Conaill who had been a noble of Eirrin.
Bas nodded. He looked about, seeming taller with purpose. He fingered his mistletoe pendant. “Who among ye bears oak? Be there the All-healer among us, an t’uiclass="underline" Mistletoe?”
“The haft of my ax be oak,” a man said, and so called another, hefting his shiny-bladed ax. Hopefully Ros mac Dairb bared a lunula from under his mailcoat; another drew forth, almost embarrassedly, a dried old sprig of mistletoe from his sword scabbard. His wife, he claimed, had insisted on his carrying it…
Bas took the mistletoe, and an oak-hafted ax Cormac thought too light for war. Its owner had a Briton sword now, given him by Wulfhere in a moment of camaraderie the night previous.
Of course the druid wore a lunula, a moon-disk on a cord woven of gold wire about his neck. Larger it was than those of the three men present who also wore them, and surely more potent. Bas looked at Cormac, who wore the usual Celtic torc, and no other jewellery; the leather band about his right wrist was a brace for his sword-arm, not decoration.
“Yourself?”
Cormac gestured helplessly, in some embarrassment. He had little to do with gods, and never had, nor did he encumber himself with their trappings. Bas only put his hands on the other Gael, mistletoe to flesh, and murmured to himself-and to his gods. All heard the names, Behl of the shining sun and great Crom who was older than Eirrin, and the Dagda-the Good God-his son mac Og, and others as well.
Bas’s voice rose and his words became discernible: “…who protected Cuchulain and the first mac Art, Cormac Mor, and the great Finn… protect this Cormac mac Art too, for no more loyal servant of your reveredness exists on all the ridge of the sprawling world.”
Cormac looked around at the others. “Remain without. Bas and I go within, armed by our faith and his knowledge.”
“I go with you, Cormac mac Art,” Brian na Killevy said, a not-unhandsome young man whose face, Cormac felt, was so smooth because fair young Brian could raise no fur on it. The youth’s hair was the colour of flax.
Another young man pressed forward. “It’s not here I’ll be remaining whilst my captain go into danger.” Ros mac Dairb said, just as firmly.
Samaire said only, “No. I choose not to remain without.” Her lower lip pushed forth, nor did it tremble; Cormac knew the sign.
Wulfhere’s rumble summed up: “Lead on Druid. We go where you go; I go where Cormac goes. Damn you, son of an Eirish pig-farmer, I owe you this life!”
“No,” Cormac said. “No. Wulfhere, ye must stay here with these men, who will not object to being termed… indifferent sailors.” He looked at Brian and Ros, like eager-eyed pups when the master makes hunting preparations. “It’s death inside, and sorcerous death at that. I would not bring the red blood on your bodies for it, south or north, east or west.”
“Would be grief to me all my days, Cormac mac Art, if I went not with you after I’ve declared!” Brian of Killevy in Airgialla showed in his face that he’d not remain outside. “And ye know,” he grinned, “I love to fight!”
“And I, son of Art,” Dairb’s son Ros said, a fair young man and lean, with a golden bush of hair like a halo. “And unless the sky fall on me, or the earth gave way beneath these feet, I will not move from your side.”
“Ye be insane both,” Cormac said. “And ye honour your mothers and your people. Very well. It’s this we know: if we be set upon within, it’s no living hands will bring steel upon us, but dead men. No. You two are ordered to go up onto the gallery which I shall show you, and there remain. On your oath.”
Neither looking very happy, the two young men agreed. Cormac looked at Wulfhere. “An we shriek and scream and there be the clangour of arms, come not within. Wulfhere old cleaver of skulls, d’ye hear?”
If Ros and Brian were young dogs eager for the hunt, Wulfhere was an old hunting hound, envious, morose; saddened that he was to be left behind. Stiffly, sadly he said, “Aye.” His right forefinger scratched within his beard.
“If such be the case, if ye hear us attacked and we come not forth… take these men from this place, Wulfhere. And slay a fine calf to the end that this dread Samaire-heim joins her mother Atlantis beneath the eternal sea. You’re agreed?”
Unenthusiastically as before: “Aye.”
Cormac nodded. “Bas… Brian… Ros…”
The three stood ready. Bas muttered, but naught that he said was understood by any present.
“Wulfhere?”
“The All-father’s one eye be upon you, bloodbrother.”
Cormac nodded shortly. “Wulfhere… seize Samaire, and hold her fast!”
Though he’d paid her no mind while he issued his instructions, Samaire was unprepared for this treachery. For a moment she was still in shock. Then she started forward, her grass-green eyes widening.
The man who towered behind her, topping her height by more than the length of her two hands combined, enfolded her in arms that were like tree limbs. Instantly she was kicking and squirming.
“NO! Cormac! No no-Wulfhere, you ugly goatsmelling bull-let me GO!”
Wulfhere held fast. Without a word, Cormac and his trio turned to the castle. They passed between the pillars, and were lost to sight.
Behind them Samaire still combined pleading and demanding in no small voice as Cormac pointed to the stairs and issued swift instructions to Brian and Ros. They all ascended. The younger men went round and out onto the gallery; Cormac and Bas descended into the prodigious expanse of the castle’s high-domed main hall.
Great pillars rose from the tiled floor, propping the gallery and the semi-floor that ran all about the walls, ten feet and more above the floor. The walls were engraved and indited with scenes not discernible until one went close, so that all appeared to be mere decor. The bodies of eighteen Britons still strewed the floor, in pools and splashes of the blood that was solely theirs, amid weapons and pieces of their corpses. Full forty good paces away, back of the sprawling hall’s center, rested the carven throne. Despite the lofty pillars, the closely-etched walls, the decorated ceiling; despite even the dead, that regal throne dominated the hall and the castle; it surveyed all and seemed to own all.
Bas stopped suddenly as if he’d run into some barrier Cormac could not see. The druid looked all about, then lifted oak and mistletoe at the ends of green-robed arms.
“Hail O warming Sun in your bright rising, our shield of gold and our eternal heat-fire; give us good fortune! Hail O Behl lord of earth and sky; You we call now upon to perform a work only you can! A work of the Light to hurl down foul work that comes from the Dark!”
Bas began walking forward, among the corpses toward the throne.
“Soothe pains until they are painless… let the dead sink in rightful unpained slumber with woundy hurts smarting no more… let them rest and begin the Ring of Return, not as shades bearing evil but as Rightful Men in your Name!”
Cormac stood still, feeling a horripilation on him, as the man in the forest-green robe advanced into the immense room, walking amid corpses without looking down to guide his steps, without stilling his voice. But his steps were guided; his feet touched neither blood nor sheared away member nor corpse nor fallen weapon, and Cormac knew that the god was upon the druid.
“Agron, slaughter’s noble mistress: attend us not!
“Shadowy Scathach who did tutor Cuchulain of Muirthemne, grant us invincibility as ye did him!
“Cu Roi mac Dairi, twice-noble master of sorcerers, note ye here Cormac mac Art-lend him your sword!
“Go along now those unneeded, come along now those we need, and perform for the sons of men the work of laying the dead, the word of the Light against the Dark! Hear us, warming Sun in your bright rising! Let not this mortal blood be spilled-we BEG! Let not evil strike down these fair mortal forms-WE PLEAD! Behl, Crom, Cu Roi, Great Dagda… behold your servant Cormac, behold your servant Bas, behold-an t’uil!”