The Gods of War Read online

  Wordlessly he followed the older man down the heathered bank to the mill, to the still pool just above the mill itself. Beyond the mill, he could see the House of Marr and its skirting village, the pink sandstone glowing like a jewel in the summer sun. He tried not to think about the woman waiting there as, at Graeme's gesture of invitation, he laid aside his brechan and stripped off his shirt and gillies to plunge naked into the water.

  The cold cleared his head even as he sluiced away the dirt and sweat of his last day's venturing. He plunged his head underwater repeatedly, and the thought crossed his mind that if he simply let himself sink to the bottom and breathed in water, he might be able to end it all himself—Graeme probably could not get him out in time—but James had given his word. Besides that, the enormity of his crime had penetrated fully by now, and he realized that Graeme was right. Only by carrying through with what he had promised could he set the balance right again.

  What Graeme had proposed, and what James had agreed to, was the only just resolution of a most unfortunate but inescapable set of circumstances that James had brought upon himself. If he must die—and he freely acknowledged the blood debt he owed Clan Graeme by killing one of their own—then far better that it be for a double reason, to carry his remorse to the gods along with his prayers for Their blessings on the clan whose messenger he had slain. It was right. It was proper. He had not planned to die so young, but it seemed the gods had other plans for him.

  He was smiling as he surfaced in an explosion of bright, crystal-chill droplets, shaking his hair like a spaniel, grinning at the surprised Graeme, who had knelt at the edge of the pond to wash his hands and face. The look on Graeme's face turned from suspicion to satisfaction as James calmly swam back to that edge of the pond and began to climb out.

  "Did ye think I'd drown m'self?" he said lightly, slicking back his hair with both hands before wrapping himself in the brechan Graeme held out to him.

  With a slow, faint smile, Graeme shook his head. "I'm sure it crossed your mind," he said quietly, "but I was reasonably certain the thought would keep on going. Ah, Mathilda chose you well, lad. What a grand consort you would have made her."

  Shivering a little, even m the noonday sun, James wrapped his brechan more closely around him and shrugged, trying not to see her face.

  "Does she know? What's goin' to happen, I mean?"

  "Aye. Just remember that her duty is no easier than yours, lad."

  Nodding, James lifted his gaze beyond Graeme, to the narrow, rocky path edged with gorse that could cut a man to ribbons, then glanced wistfully at the gillies lying atop what was left of his once fine shirt of linen. "Do ye think I could have m'gillies back—just until we get there?"

  "Aye, of course."

  James tried not to think about Mathilda as Graeme knelt and himself slipped the gillies on James' feet, fastening each with careful attention. As soon as the older man had finished, James lifted his eyes to the upward path and set out, aware that Graeme was following, but forcing himself to put that knowledge to the back of his mind. In just a little while, he would be setting out on another journey for which there was no guiding path. If he truly must die, he hoped he might be granted the grace to die well, at least. He kept telling himself that the way he had chosen was better than death by the noose, but it was death just the same.

  His feet did not seem to know that, though. All too quickly, James found himself climbing the bank above the mill, past the place where they had taken him. Once he stumbled, but Graeme was there to catch him, only nodding silent acknowledgement when James tried to stammer his thanks. The sun cast hardly any shadows as they climbed, and the standing stones on the plateau beyond the hilltop looked smaller than they had by moonlight, the last time James paid them any mind.

  No heather or bracken or even gorse grew within the circle of the stones—only tawny, lion-colored moss studding the rock here and there like velvet patchwork, interspersed with tattered bits of peeling grey and white lichen. (He thought it had been green, that long-ago May night.) The larger stones stood as tall as a man, twelve of them, the grey and black speckled granite glittering with flecks of mica in the sunlight. Graeme clansmen stood in the spaces between each pair, facing the center, each with his basket-hilted broadsword at rest before him. More waited inside.

  Smaller stones marked three of the quarters inside the circle, each nearly the height of a man, each with a man beside it. A smooth earth mound occupied the western quarter, where a fourth stone would have stood, and the man waiting there cradled a set of pipes in the crook of his left arm. James remembered the mound, but it looked different in the stark sunlight. A square, flat slab of darker stone dominated the center of the circle, about a handspan higher than the bare earth around it, and Hugh Graeme stood stolidly beside it with a quaich in his hand.

  Of more immediate concern were the six remaining men waiting just outside the circle, three to each side of a vee formation that funneled James and Graeme toward a gap that opened between two of the standing stones as its occupant stepped aside. The blades of the six flashed in the sunlight as they came to attention and saluted, holding in a sword arch as Graeme paused just outside the circle to remove James's gillies. They followed by twos as James and Graeme passed between the two standing stones and into the circle, and the wind suddenly seemed to fall off as a cloud scudded across the sun.

  In silence the Graeme led James to step up alone onto the center slab. The six escort knights, all of them older men, ranged themselves evenly around the slab, saluting with their swords again and then going to one knee as they grounded their blades, heads bowed before him.

  That seemed to be the cue for the twelve between the outer stones to raise their swords in salute as well, though they turned on their heels when they had finished and marched silently off into the bracken, swords held before them, doubtless to prevent the approach of unwanted witnesses or would-be rescuers. Their departure left the six kneeling around him and the four at the quarters—who now also made him low bows, though they did not kneel. Sir John the Graeme was the next to give him salute, standing diagonally opposite Sir Hugh, and then Hugh himself, bearing the quaich, which James now could see was made of horn and silver, and filled with a dark, potent wine.

  "Sir James the Rose, heir of Loch Laggan," Hugh said, offering the quaich to him. "It is meet that ye now give salute to the four airts and to the man whose life ye took untimely, before offering yerself as a fitting substitute and an expiation for what ye have done—if that still is yer will."

  James only allowed himself a small, bitter smile as he took the quaich and inclined his head in a stiff little return of Hugh's bow. It was not his will to die, but given that he must, did they really think he would go back on his pledged word? Besides, it was too late to change his mind now. It had been too late from the instant James spilled the blood of the squire called Angus Graeme. James did not know why he had been fated to take Angus' place, but he would make the best job of it that he could.

  Letting fall his brechan, then, he straightened proudly before them and raised the quaich to the east, tipping it to spill a little of the wine on the ground beside the stone slab, remembering how his father and the Laird of Marr had raised their cups at innumerable feasts and banquets—though never in such important salute as the ones he was about to make.

  "I give salute to the airt o' the East, where rises the Sun in His splendor," he said, well aware for Whom this rite was about to be enacted.

  Turning to his right, he spilled wine again, looking beyond the dour Graeme clansman who stood in the southern quarter.

  "I give salute to the airt o' the South, where arcs the Sun in His turning."

  Again he turned to his right and tipped the quaich, this time in tribute to the West, where the piper waited—and where once had come a Woman clothed in the sun. . . .

  "I give salute to the airt o' the West, the Sun's rest at end o' day." An' mine, in Her, he thought, closing his eyes briefly before turning right
again, to tip the quaich once more.

  "I give salute—to the airt o' the North, the place o' the passin' o' the night in darkness." An' the place o' my passing into darkness, too, a part of him yammered, fearing it.

  But he pushed down his fear and made himself turn to his right again, now facing east once more. He chose his words with care as he raised the quaich in steady hands.

  "So also do I hail th' Mighty Ones, the Sun Lord an' the Lady, Whose children we are an' Whose power an' bounty we honor in this sacred place." Lowering the quaich, he sipped from it briefly and then raised it for the last time.

  "Finally do I give salute to the gallant squire, sealed to the gods, though I didna know it, whose life's blood I spilled in violation of sacred law. I drink to Angus Graeme an' I offer myself in his stead, in expiation for my crime and in hope that I may carry part o' his burden directly to the gods. So mote it be!

  As they echoed his words, "So mote it be!" he brought the quaich to his lips and drained it to the dregs, lifting his eyes to the burning sun when he had done. He heard the rustle of their brechans as they rose to their feet around him, and started at the touch of Graeme's hand on his elbow, almost hoping they would do it now, before he had too much more time to think about it.

  "Step down now," Graeme murmured, guiding him off the slab toward the stone in the north quarter—the place James somehow had known would be his final destination. Hugh came with them, taking the quaich from him and tucking it inside his shirt as he moved to the right of the stone. The six swordsmen followed, swords held at salute, basket-hilts at chest level.

  It was fairly clear now how they would do it. The man guarding the northern quarter was already kneeling at the left of the stone as Graeme guided James to stand with his back to the stone, facing toward the center and toward the sun. Hugh Graeme came to take up a similar position on the right. The stone was smooth and cool against James' bare back, curved to fit the arch of his spine, reaching just to his shoulders. He had noted the slight depression in its top as he approached, and he tried it briefly as he lifted his gaze above the heads of the six swordsmen.

  "Will you be held or shall you stand alone?" Graeme murmured in his right ear, as the piper in the west struck up a coronach. "If you flinch at the final moment, the blow may be sure. You are not meant to suffer."

  The words brought home the purpose of the two men kneeling to either side of him, waiting to hold him. For a moment James wavered, as the sad lament of the coronach brought unbidden tears to his eyes, but then he shook his head, dismissing them with his gesture, and purposefully stretched his arms around the stone and behind him, pressing his splayed fingers hard against the cool granite for courage.

  "I shall stand alone, he whispered, as the two gave him salute and withdrew beyond the ring of glittering steel. The eyes of the six were averted, but their swords burned in the noonday sun. "Will it be your blade or theirs?"

  "Does it matter?" Graeme replied.

  "It does to me."

  "Mine, then," Graeme said softly.

  "May I see it?"

  "Perhaps later."

  At his minute nod toward the man in the east, a soft, slow drumming began: a simple, almost inaudible rhythm just on the pulsebeat, tapped out on a small, skin-covered drum. It gave eerie counterpoint to the coronach as the six swordsmen brought the tips of their blades together in salute above his head and then began a slow, intricate dance around him and Graeme and the standing stone.

  The sunlight caught the steel and his fascination. In time to the beat of the drum, the six paired off in every conceivable combination to cross or clash their blades, sometimes grasping another's sword-tip to turn or dip or weave a pattern of flashing steel. James was aware of Graeme easing around behind him, withdrawing something long and shining from inside his shirt, but he tried to keep that image out of his mind, concentrating instead on the dancing swordsmen.

  Time and again they closed, making mock menace with their blades; time and again they retreated. Again and again the swords clashed above his head as the tempo of the dance increased, drawing his attention, holding his gaze, jangling at his nerves. Until finally the six spread wide their arms and stretched their swords behind and to their right, each man's left hand reaching behind to grasp the point of his neighbor's sword two places away—lifting up, over, wrists crossing—

  Suddenly, in a slither of steel, the blades were interlocked above him in the knot, the six-pointed star, its open center just large enough to admit his head. He caught his breath as it was lowered almost to his shoulders and then miraculously raised again—three times—gasped as the interlocking symbol then was tilted before him by just one man holding it aloft, the opening now framing the Sun in Splendor, high above his head.

  James flung his head back to see it, squinting against the glint of sun on steel, awestruck at the image of the Sun viewed thus through the magic of the interlocked swords. His eyes streamed with tears as he tried to focus on a vague, brighter shape that almost could be coaxed into resolution. He strained to see it, starting to reach with one hand to grasp the vast, elusive prize.

  Only in that final instant but he catch the glint of what he now knew to be another blade that suddenly was in Graeme's hand, flashing toward his upturned throat, and feel the tug of fingers locked in his hair, holding him steady—and then the brief, sharp kiss of the Sun at his throat, of the Woman clothed in the Sun, of the blinding light lifting him out of his body and into his destiny.

  Later, much later, as dusk was advancing across the purpled moors, Sir John the Graeme rode back to the House of Marr with four and twenty belted knights. Twenty-three of those who rode with him wore the colors of the Clan Graeme, but one was wrapped in a different brechan, and rode tied across the saddle rather than astride, his blood staining his pony's sides. Sir Hugh Graeme led the dead man s mount, and six more Graeme men gave them escort, bearing torches rather than the swords they had brandished earlier in the day.

  The Graeme himself bore an even more awe-ful burden: a bloodstained shirt of white linen wrapped around something stuck on a boar spear. There was blood on his own shirt of saffron, spattered on the sleeve shoved back to bare his arm to the bicep; and blood had run down his forearm like scarlet ribbons. His face was grave as he drew rein outside the castle gate to nod greeting to the woman who waited, a plaid of Graeme tartan covering her loosed red hair.

  "It is done, then," she whispered, coming to set a hand on his stirrup, her face white and taut as she searched his eyes with hers.

  "Aye. And it was done well, lass," he said quietly. "You—may be proud. He carried his burden like a true messenger of the gods."

  "His burden—aye," she whispered. "He made payment for his sacrilege and carried Them his remorse, but Angus still is dead. Who will carry his burden, come next Beltane?"

  Graeme smiled an odd little smile as he handed her the spear. "Why, a new carline, of course. We ride back now to choose him. No man here would refuse the sacred charge. The bannock will be broken, and the gods will make Their will known. Perhaps the willing victim rides among us even now."

  "Aye, perhaps he does," she whispered, looking at him strangely. "Do nothing for me in this regard, John."

  With a shrug, he backed his horse a few steps and made her a little bow in the saddle. "I do what I do for Them," he said lightly. "Take care that you do the same. Until next time, then."

  "Aye. Next time."

  She clutched the spear and its grisly burden next to her heart as he and his men rode off into the light of the rising moon, remembering another moon, and the divinity that had come upon her and upon the young lover who lay with her that night.

  But for now, she must play another kind of priestess and bear his final relic back inside the castle walls, where a heart-shaped casket awaited filling. She held her head high as she turned back through the gates and headed slowly across the yard, and allowed herself no tears. The men of the yard doffed their bonnets and the women curtsied as she passed, a
s they always did, but this time she knew that the reverences they made were not for her.

  LORD OF THE BRITAINS

  It was several long moments before the young god pulled his eyes off the now blank screen. "I would prefer my heroes to survive," Tek observed dryly. Even as he said it, the young god realized the remark was unnecessary and it showed just how strongly he had reacted to the story.

  "Not all my heroes die," corrected a deep voice from someone standing to Tek's side.

  Tek, already nervous and not sure why, literally jumped. He decided that for a war god he was being snuck up upon much too often.

  Mentor grinned. "May I introduce the Lord of the Britains and guardian of their isle."

  "You can," Tek spat out the two words nervously. Something told him he was in danger. But when he faced the old man that had just appeared, there seemed no threat to him. Still the feeling he was missing something important bothered the new god.

  "Welcome to existence," the new intruder offered in a resonant, comfortable voice. "I did not mean to startle you. Has this one not explained the effect of Names upon this plane?"

  Tek transferred his annoyance from the stranger to Mentor.

  "I've hardly had time," the teacher sputtered, backing away half a step when he noticed the static sparks surrounding Tek's hand. "Nor did I expect so rapid a response, Lord Lugh."

  The old man smiled, then looked puzzled and stood with his head cocked to one side staring at nothing. Finally he spoke.

  "There is something amiss with the feel of this place."

  There sure is, Tek thought to himself. My security stinks. But a distant feeling of urgency made the war god feel the need to assert himself.

  "Then tell me why you are here?" Tek demanded. Then turned to Mentor for confirmation. "I doubt you appear anytime you are mentioned in a tale."

  "True," Lugh agreed, "but rarely is the tale being told to the newest of mankind's gods."