Cormac broke off to stare down the strand at the solitary figure- of Bas.
“Blood of the gods! We stay all in sight of each other-at all times!” he snapped, pouncing to the ship’s side. “Prepare both ships for sea. Sail or oars, we depart the instant they are in readiness!”
He swung over the side of the long boat and, with mailcoat clinking, he ran down the sandy shore to the druid. The others stared after him, shocked into brainless immobility. Until Wulfhere shouted, in a roar.
“Ye heard him! Wind or no, it’s a beautiful day for being asea! Prepare to depart this abode of Loki and fire-eyed Hel!”
“But a day since,” a grim-faced Bas said, “I bade ye never interrupt me and those I serve. Ye try me sore and risk godlike anger as well, son of Art.”
“To Bas and Behl and all the gods I make apology,” Cormac said, bowing his head-shallowly and briefly. “But there is reason, Bas, or I’d not have done and it’s thanking ye I’ll be for no further chiding of me like a father to a child, druid or no. Make no answer: attend. We must leave this place, Bas, and at once.”
Bas spoke with a coldness Cormac had not previously known: “So I was assured, and I was begging good seas and homeward winds, that we must not row all the way to Eirrin as we rowed nearly all the way to this… place.”
“Bas. No man must be apart from the others. None must leave the sight of all. Best indeed that we set sail in one ship-but I’ll not have one left here for him to use.”
Bas’s eyes flared and gleamed and his chin lifted attentively. “Ye’ve been long gone-ye’ve seen him?”
“Ah, Bas! I’ve seen him, aye!” And hurriedly, Cormac told of it, all of it, including that which Samaire had already related to him befell her, body and mind. Bas gave ear in silence, though his face spoke much. The druid’s expression changed many times during the other man’s hurried and abbreviated narrative.
At last that surprisingly strong hand came out to close on the other Gael’s mailed shoulder. “It’s much ye’ve endured, much ye’ve won past… won through, Cormac of Connacht. The gods have blessed ye, that ye’ve kept sanity through such a night! Samaire?”
“-keeps hers as well. The gods blessed us both long ago, with endurance and strength of mind.”
“Umm. And… but… what ye’ve told me is that at this moment you might be Thulsa Doom.”
“Or you, since I know I’m not he.”
The druid’s eyes went past Cormac’s, to the ships.
“Or… any man of those.”
“Aye, though I think not-now. Ye see why I durst not allow ye to remain here alone, Bas.”
Bas, considered, and shook his head slowly. “We must talk on this, when there be more time. But… your view of it is a sideward one, Cormac. I standing here alone am in no danger, and represent none to others. While all others are together, he could come upon me only in his own form-”
“Cutha Atheldane’s.”
“It’s if I were to go away from sight and then return… aye, then might I be this form-changing wizard. For it’s not bodies themselves he seizes, but the forms of bodies he assumes.”
Cormac nodded, having considered and seen and agreed ere Bas finished. “Well stated. Natheless-we leave this place, now.”
“Aye. Strand the monster here, forever, and hope he cannot move by means arcane.”
A frown came on the instant into Cormac’s face, and he wore it through every step back up the beach to the ships. Eleven men and a woman waited-all now in their armour and with weapons buckled on.
“We are ready to sail,” Wulfhere greeted him. “Or to row.”
Without speaking, Cormac boarded Quester, though it still lay drawn up on the strand. He placed himself then so as to face them all; the Gaelic druid, the woman, the giant Dane, the Briton with his thong-held hair, and nine sons of Eirrin.
“Attend me now. The druid has said something that makes me think beyond myself-which is all I’ve considered since Princess Samaire and I drove the dark mage from us but a short time ago. Consider. We are here, and we know that he is here. Thulsa Doom, anciently dead and raiser of the dead; master of illusion, enemy of humankind, servant of the serpent-god time out of mind. We know of what he is capable-and mayhap of what he is not.” He half-turned to nod at the brooding pile of lock called Samaire-heim.
“Power he has, but it is not without limit. Somewhere there, he is. In the body of a slain man, a priest or druid or whatever it is the Norse call their wise men, though he has re-assumed his own form, his own face-a death’s head. He waits, Thulsa Doom does… waits for another body, another disguise.
“Let him wait until he rots!” Wulfhere rumbled, and there were nodded heads and sounds of “Aye.”
“But will he rot?” Cormac pursued. “Can he? And… consider. Does he wait until he rots as ye put it, or… until another ship haps all unsuspecting on this place?”
There was silence. They gazed at him, waiting.
“Is it right,” Cormac asked, “that we depart this place, knowing that someday, somewhere, even on our own soil, before our very hearths, we may have to face him again… Thulsa Doom?” He paused, shook his head. “Nay. It is not meet. It is I his quarrel is with. Ye must-”
Cormac broke off. He knew abruptly that he was no longer heard. Every eye was wide, and every gaze was directed past him. His stomach twisted and went acid. His nape prickled. Heat invaded his armpits and his heartbeat speeded.
Slowly, Cormac turned to face what held their gazes.
He stood not on the beach but atop the grim pile of granite rising above it. Tall and thin he was, in a night-dark robe that broke over his insteps. Its hood was up, so that his face was invisible in shadow, yet Cormac felt the predatory stare. An arm rose and a finger extended, a finger that was but skin drawn tautly over bone and knobby knuckles.
“Go then,” he shouted, and alive or dead there was much power in that pitiless voice. “Go, all of ye… save… HIM!” The finger was pointed at the lone man in Quester’s bow. “It’s him I seek, it’s with him I have quarrel older than your conception of time! Go in safety, little men, and leave-”
But one among them found voice; and she dared interrupt to shout out her challenge. “Leave Cormac for you to murder, creature of evil? Only him, you without heart? Do you not want me too, monster, whom you called pigeon-chested blowze? Only Cormac? O ye coward who be more at home in the slithering cold body of a crawling serpent than the hide of a man-a dead man!”
“Samaire!” Cormac snapped, turning only his head to look at the woman in the stern.
She lashed at him with angry eyes. “You! You were about to tell us that his quarrel lies only with you, weren’t you? You were about to suggest that we remain behind, to-”
Cormac turned. “No. I was about to suggest that ye all take the Britonish ship, loaded with our gains, and leave me this one. Wulfhere brought a ship to shore alone; so can I!”
“Go your way, melon-butted slut!” Thulsa Doom roared out from the rocky promontory. “I want only him ye know as Cormac mac Art!”
None noted Bas, who had swung wide his left arm and was muttering, not for their ears. His right hand was at his throat, fingers splayed out to touch, simultaneously, the lunula and sun-disk and mistletoe he wore. His eyes stared into the sky, and his words were in the language only druids knew.
“I go nowhere without you, Cormac!” Samaire said, so vehemently it seemed as much fierce challenge as promise made in love.
“It be true he wants only you, Wolf?”
“Aye, Wulfhere. Only me. Now do you take the Briton craft, and-”