The Hallowed Isle Book Two Read online

  “Wise One,” Octha said softly, “our enemies surround us. Speak to the spirits and give us good counsel.”

  “I must have a high place . . .” she whispered.

  Octha nodded soberly. “It shall be so—” He gestured to the others. Silent now, they rose, and as they moved down the empty street Oesc followed them.

  Hæthwæge stared up at the dark bulk of the gatehouse of Verulamium, stark against the sky, its towers looming to either side of the arched gateway. The night was very still. It was only within that she sensed the slow stirring of power. Somewhere not too far away someone was working magic—perhaps it was the British witega they called Merlin.

  They say you are strong to foretell the future, gealdor crafty. But I too am witege, and tomorrow you shall see that I too can sing battle spells. She moved into the darkness of the doorway, frowning. For a moment her questing spirit had touched something stronger and sharper, like the mind of a god.

  The planks of the stairway rang hollow as they climbed, feeling their way along the curving wall, but when they emerged at the top they breathed freely beneath the starry vault of the heavens. To one side glimmered the lamps of the city and on the other the watchfires of their enemy glowed like red eyes in the darkness. A faint breeze stirred men’s hair as if the night were breathing.

  Hæthwæge sank down upon the bench beneath the parapet and pulled down her veil. One by one, the warriors sat on the cold stone walkway until only Octha remained standing, his speech becoming the chant of ritual.

  “Wicce, hear me . . . to this high place I have brought thee. From here thou mayest soar between the worlds.”

  “This deed I will dare,” her own voice came hoarse to her ears, “but the way is long and weary. It is your prayers I carry—let your power carry me. . . .”

  Octha nodded, and began to strike the palms of his hands rhythmically against his thighs. The other men followed his example, swaying gently as the soft vibration pulsed in the air.

  “Wicce, Woruld-Aesce ymbwend,

  Wisdom innan thin hyde gewinn.

  Wicce . . . Wicce . . .”

  The word, repeated, became part of the soft susuration of flesh on cloth, a whisper of sound that lifted the hair and the spirit and whirled them away to journey around the World-tree to the worlds it contained and gain access to the wisdom they held. Wicce, to the Word-Ash win . . . Wisdom, shape-strong, find within. . . .

  Hæthwæge took a deep breath, and then another, letting her limbs relax against the parapet. Awareness extended into the stones, all the way down to the foundations of the tower and then back up again. As her consciousness changed she fancied she could feel it swaying, even though there was only a little wind. She focused on the singing, and with each repetition felt the links between body and spirit loosen, until like a boat that has slipped its mooring, she fell inward and away.

  Images whirled past her—the tower and the army encamped around it, the undulating bands of field and forest, still under starshine, with the rivers, black and shining, veining the land. Then these too dimmed, and there was only the great plain of Middle Earth, and in its midst the huge column of the Worldtree, its radiant branches brushing the skies.

  But the will that carried her drew her downward, diving into darkness beneath one of the three great roots of the Tree. Around and around her spirit spiraled, past mist and shadows, past the roots of great mountains where rushed the icy streams. Through the heat of Muspel’s fires she journeyed, and sped by the cool grey mirror that was the Well of Wyrd. And still her way led downward, around, and deeper within, until she saw the great gorge of the worldriver and the last bridge, and beyond it the land where the Dark Lady rules and the apples of the blessed and the wild hemlock grow.

  One final gate remained to pass. She dropped into darkness, and for a time beyond time, knew no more.

  A long time later, it seemed, she became aware of a quiet voice calling her name. Unwillingly she forced her mind to focus. It was Octha, using the same calm voice with which he commanded his warriors.

  “Wise One, say then, what dost thou see?”

  At the words, images began to dislimn from the darkness. She struggled to make her lips form an answer.

  “A dark plain, and a dark lake, and a black swan swimming . . .” she murmured, her voice sounding thready with distance. “My raven flies before me, and around me glimmer the pale faces of those who have gone before.”

  “Our enemies surround us. How shall we bring them to battle?”

  In the pause that followed, her breathing came and went like the wind, fluttering the fabric of the veil. The scene before her blurred. There was still water, but in its midst now she could make out an island. From the woods that surrounded it she could hear the yammering of hounds, and in another moment she saw them, leaping up and down on the shore. What were they barking at? She strained to see, and presently became aware that she was speaking once more.

  “I see a wolf brought to bay upon an island. The dogs wait on the shore. They will not swim across to meet the wolf’s sharp fangs. He gazes around him and sees where the circle is weakest—where the old pack-leader watches—there he will make his fight.” She drew a deep breath. “Wilt thou know more?”

  “Will the British king die?”

  “All men die!” the answer came to her immediately. “And this one is half-dead already.”

  “And will our sons inherit the land?” Octha added then.

  Hæthwæge took a deep breath, releasing the vision, observing the ebb and flow of image until at last there came something she could put into words.

  “I see the wolf and the dog running in one pack . . .” more visions came to her “. . . I see the wheat crop and the barley crop growing in one field . . . his seed shall rule men’s hearts, but yours will rule the land. . . .”

  While they were still chewing on that answer, another voice, that she recognized as Baldulf’s, spoke.

  “And what about the battle?”

  Hæthwæge shivered violently, her awareness battered and reeling beneath the onrush of vision. Ravens were fighting—not the friendly presence that was her own spirit guide, but feathered forms, huge and terrible, whose cries scored the soul.

  “I see the Raven of Battle rising, men die when she screams. But Woden sends Hyge and Mynd against her; men battle as the god and the goddess strive. . . .” Her spirit soared with the battling birds.

  Then with a suddenness that seared her vision, the scene was split by a Sword of Light. Hæthwæge stiffened, features contorting. For a moment she glimpsed the figure that gripped it in all His glory. “Tir comes, Tir comes! Beware the Sword of War!”

  Light and darkness crashed together around her and with it vision and consciousness were swept away.

  When she could hear once more, she realized that she was lying on the cold stone of the walkway, her head resting on Octha’s arm.

  “Hæthwæge,” he said softly, “do you hear me? Come forth from the dark plain and the dark lake. Return to Middle Earth—in Woden’s name I summon you! Your raven will show you the way. Come to my calling until you can feel the night air on your skin and the bench beneath you. Come then . . . come. . . .”

  With a murmur of soft speech, as if he were gentling a fractious mare, Octha continued to call her. Hæthwæge forced herself to breathe, to reconstruct the image of the dark lake and to send forth the inner call that would bring her raven to her side. She wanted only to float in the friendly darkness, but Octha’s voice was insistent, and so, painfully, she moved to the gate, and image by image, summoned the landmarks of the spirit that would show her the way home.

  By the time she had recovered control of her limbs and was able to sit up again, her memories were fading.

  “What is it?” she asked, looking at the grim faces around her. “What did I say?”

  “You called out to Tir, and told us,” said Baldulf, “to beware the Sword of War.”

  For a moment she closed her eyes. “I remember,”
she said finally, “it blazed in the sun.”

  “What does it mean?” Octha asked then.

  “I give you vision,” answered the wisewoman tartly. “It is for you to find the meaning.” Then a fragment of memory came to her. “But in the land of the Huns, I have heard, there were once great smiths who forged seven magic swords for the god of war.”

  “There are no Huns here,” said Colgrin.

  “Perhaps not. But there are swords. Make an offering to Tir before you fight, and perhaps he will spare you.”

  “Tir is a god of justice, not mercy,” muttered one of the men, but Hæthwæge shook her head and would say no more.

  The earth trembled beneath the tread of the warriors as the Saxon army marched out to meet its foe. Their footsteps rang hollow from the great arch of the gate and pigeons fluttered screaming from the cornices. Then five hundred spear butts smote as many shields, and thunder leaped from earth to heaven. Oesc, a helm drawn down to hide his features and a tattered cloak concealing his lack of armor, felt himself become one with the men who were crowding through the gate. The driving rhythm overwhelmed thought and hearing, and with it, the fear that even now his father might somehow discover he had disobeyed and send him back.

  Then they were through the gate, and the crush eased as men began to spread out into the wedge formation called the Boar’s Head. Faint through the thunder he could hear the blare of British trumpets, then the irregular drumming of hoofbeats blurred the rhythm of spear and shield. In the next moment the British horsemen struck the Saxon line, and the thunder gave way to the clash of steel.

  Oesc was lifted off his feet for a moment as the shock of the charge drove the man on his left against him. Then the Saxons steadied, spears bristling outwards, and began to drive forward against the foe. Oesc got his breath back just as a horseman in a scarlet cloak crashed through. He made a clumsy sweep out and heard the horse scream. Then another man thrust upward and the rider fell, blood spraying red around him.

  The boy stared, but there was no time to worry about his reaction. Another enemy, dismounted, was slashing wildly with a long Roman cavalry spatha; a Saxon fell, then Oesc jabbed and caught the blade with his spear. The impact jarred down the shaft, almost knocking him over, but in the next moment two warriors speared the Briton through the body and he went down.

  A figure in Roman armor loomed up before him and he thrust, then stared in horror as his point sank in and the man’s face contorted in agony. Oesc jerked the spear free, shuddering. Again and again his swordmaster had told him that in battle there was no time for thinking. He had never explained that no sane man would want to think about what his blade was doing as it tore through flesh and bone.

  Then another figure lurched towards him, and without his will he turned, taking the attack on his shield and jabbing back until his foe fell or the tide of battle tore him away, he never knew which, and the next enemy came on.

  Some endless time later, a scream from overhead recalled him to himself. His spear had broken, and the short seax was in his hand. All around him, Saxon warriors were staring upward, their arms faltering as the raven wheeled above them, alternately black and white as the sunlight flared from its wings. He saw the litter in which the British king had been carried to the battlefield, and near it his father, staring upward with a face as anguished as his own.

  But the British returned to the attack with courage renewed. “Cathubodva, Cathubodva, Raven of Battle,” they cried.

  Oesc yelped at the sting as a spear tip sliced across his shoulder and got his shield back up, striving to shut out that dreadful keening cry. The enemy spear struck again and he felt the wood begin to crack, then two shadows flickered past and it seemed to him he heard a deep voice crying—

  “Stand fast, son of Woden, and you shall have the victory!”

  Wind swirled in the dust of the battlefield; suddenly the air had a bite that tingled through the veins. Now it was his enemy who paused. Oesc glanced up and saw two smaller, darker, ravens, engaging the first one in a deadly aerial dance. Hyge and Mynd—he thought. Hæthwæge has called on the god!

  The British raven screamed her fury, and the two attackers replied, and as those cries clashed in the heavens, to Oesc’s blurred vision his opponent was revealed as a monster, the foulest of etin-kin. The burning in his belly erupted in a scream of fury, and casting away both seax and shield, he leaped upon his foe.

  It was a Sword of Light, searing through mind and vision, that separated man from monster and mind from madness. When Oesc came to himself he was on his hands and knees, with the iron taste of blood in his mouth and his chest and arms splattered with gore. Guts roiling, he struggled to his feet. All around him those who could still stand were doing likewise. Only near Uthir’s litter were men still fighting, but as Oesc stumbled towards it, an arc of brightness seared his vision once more.

  For a moment he saw, red against the radiance, a figure who rose from the ruins of the horse-litter, wielding in his single hand a Sword whose stroke scythed down all foes within a radius of ten yards. Then the light flared beyond his strength to bear it. Sobbing, he sank to his knees, arm raised to shield his eyes from that deadly flame.

  And then it was gone.

  The plain light of day seemed dim in contrast. But there was enough of it for Oesc’s recovering vision to make out the body of his father, blood still pumping from the stump of his neck. The head had fallen a few feet away; its features still bore a look of appalled surprise.

  Scarcely knowing what he did, Oesc crawled forward, pulled off the remnant of his cloak, and began, fumbling, to wrap the head. As he did so, one of the stricken figures stirred. It was Baldulf. Groaning, he gained his feet, then stopped short, features contorting with grief as he saw the boy, and the headless body of his lord.

  He cast a quick glance around him, then limped forward.

  “Tir’s judgment fell against us—” he said hoarsely, “the field is lost, but our hope lives so long as you are alive.”

  Oesc looked up, dimly aware that most of the figures that were beginning to move around them wore British gear. Beyond Octha’s body he could see the British king sprawled among his cushions, in his hand a sword whose brightness still hurt the eye. Baldulf took a step towards it, but the British warriors were too close. Swiftly Baldulf gathered up Octha’s torque and his seax. Then he hauled Oesc to his feet and hurried him away.

  There was no wind.

  Oesc was never able to recall much about the journey that followed. His wound went bad, and at times he was fevered, but mostly he simply did not want to remember. At some point Hæthwæge found them. He did recall the foul taste of the herbal teas she brewed to bring down his fever, as her compresses and charms fought the infection in his arm. For three nights, he was told, they had hidden in the forest, waiting for the crisis and muffling his delirious mumblings when British search parties went past.

  Of that, the boy had no recollection. All he retained were visions of a dark land and a dark lake beside which he wandered, calling his father’s name, until the wisewoman came walking through the shadows, her raven on her shoulder, and led him back to the light of day.

  And through all his illness, and the travel that followed, the head of Octha, hid now in a leather sack and packed with leeks to preserve it, stayed by his side.

  Travelling mostly by night, they fled to the East Saxon lands, where they found a boat to carry them across the broad mouth of the Tamesis. After that, they were in Hengest’s country and could move openly, following the old Roman road between the sea and the North Downs. By then, of course, word of their coming had gone before them, and Hengest had sent an escort and a horse litter in which Oesc could travel like the British king.

  But Uthir was dead. Even in hiding, they had heard that news. The High King of the Britons had died after the battle and left no heir. If the Saxons had lost the battle, and with it the greatest of their own leaders, at least that much had been achieved, and they, like the British, woul
d have time to heal before the warring began once more. Better still, the rumor was that Merlin, the witega who had caused such devastation with his magic, had disappeared.

  For Oesc, life began once more when they drew up in front of the meadhall Hengest had built in the ruins of Cantuware and he saw his grandfather, tall and weathered as a storm-battered oak, waiting for him there.

  Oesc swung at the practice post set into the mud of the yard, wincing as the wooden blade hit the straw that had been bound around it and the impact jarred the weak muscles in his arm. In the three months since Verulamium his flesh had healed, but it still hurt at times. Since he left his bed, he had spent his days in ceaseless motion, hunting, running, even chopping wood for the fires. And whenever Byrhtwold was free, he had pestered the old warrior to give him more work with the sword.

  His body was fined down to bone and sinew, and day by day he could feel his arm growing stronger. But no exercise he had tried could make his heart strong enough to deny the pain, and though each night he fell into bed, too tired to move, the hours of darkness brought dreams from which he would wake whimpering, his vision seared by a sword of fire and his cheeks wet with tears. But once awake, though his throat ached with grief, he could not cry.

  Only when it grew too dark to see the post did Oesc give up. From inside the hall he could hear voices, but the yard was empty. Above the wall the first stars were glittering in the deepening blue of the sky. A bird flew towards the trees, crying, and then it was still once more. Now that he had stopped moving, fatigue dragged at back and shoulders. Sweat drying cold on his skin, he stumbled towards the hall.

  After the brisk air outside, the warmth was welcome. His stomach rumbled at the scent of boiling beef and he realized that he was hungry.

  His grandfather was already in the high seat, long legs stretched towards the fire, his gaunt frame as splendid in its ruin as a Roman tower. Once Hengest had fought to master all Britannia, but now he was content to cling to the corner that the Vor-Tigernus had given him. But his son would never inherit it now.