Clash of Iron (55 page)

“When the great flood came, like loads of other animals, including us, the surviving Fassites found themselves on a new island. In their case, it was Eroo. Luckily for everyone else in Eroo, the waters kept rising, Eroo was split in two and the island that we now call Fassent was created.”

A few people nodded. The mysterious island, to the south of Eroo, was known about and avoided.

“Ever wondered why we know nothing about Fassent even though it’s only a bit further than Eroo? ’Cos nobody goes there. And why does nobody go there? Because anyone who does gets killed by the nasty Fassites. So the Fassites stayed secret, known about only in Eroo. They grew in number and the danger from them grew. They had no boats, but, as Manfrax realised, it was only a matter of time before some exploratory idiot from Greece or Rome landed on their shore and the Fassites thought ‘oh, look what you can do with wood’, built a fleet and invaded the first place they came to, which would have been Eroo, because you can see it from Fassent.

“So when Manfrax had finished shitting all over the rest of his own island, he looked about for a way of dealing with the Fassite problem. Bruxon, the deluded king of Dumnonia, asked him to invade Britain, and Manfrax found his answer. He went to Fassent and stood in a boat twenty paces from shore and shouted his plan to the Fassites. He’d build them boats, they’d sail to Britain and have all the people to kill and all the land that they could ever need. The condition was that they would never come to Eroo.

“The Fassites agreed, and Manfrax set in motion something that was always going to happen when the Fassites got off their island – the next stage of life, in which Fassites kill all the humans, just like the humans killed the halfmen. There are enough Fassites here to be a problem, but now that they know about boats, many more will come. They’ll kill everyone in Britain, they will multiply like rats in a deserted grain store, then they will kill everyone else. They may leave Eroo until last, due to their agreement with Manfrax, but I doubt it.”

Fire-lit Maidun faces stared dumbly at him.

A familiar voice came out of the darkness: “The question is, how can we kill them before they kill us?” The voice’s owner walked into the firelight. It was Atlas.

Spring leapt up with the rest of them, crowding round and asking what had happened. Even Lowa had a genuine-looking smile. On this day of bad news, everyone was overjoyed that somebody they thought had died was alive.

Spring saw Lowa nod to Dug.

“Quiet everyone, quiet,” shouted Dug, “let Atlas tell his story.”

Atlas told them how they’d killed the first five giants. When the second wave of dozens of them appeared, he’d ordered half the army to hold the shield wall and the other half to retreat. So half the army had fled, and the others had stood to die so that the rest might get away. The giants had struck, then he remembered nothing. He’d woken as the sun was setting and made his way through the enemy camps to Frogshold.

“With skin like mine,” he finished, “it is easy to creep through the night.”

“Unless you smile!” said a wag.

“I wasn’t in a smiling mood,” snarled Atlas. She couldn’t see him in the dark, but in Spring’s mind the wag curled up like a salted slug. Atlas continued: “The immediate question now is how can we beat the Fassites? I cannot see a way. We also face the Dumnonian, Eroo and Murkan armies. Unless the Gauls have upped their challenge or Chamanca and Carden have pulled off a miracle, the Romans will be here any day, though I fear that they won’t find anybody from Maidun left to oppose them.”

“I know what we need to do.” Everyone turned to Maggot. “The gods planted the idea in my head before I was born and it’s grown into a tree. I know exactly what we need to do.” Spring thought the use of “we” was odd, for Dumnonia’s chief druid talking to the Maidun leaders. He smiled at them all.

“What then?” asked Lowa.

“We send someone to talk to their three kings. That’s all I can see. I don’t know what he should say. But I know it will work.”

“He?” asked Lowa.

“Oh yes, I know who the gods have chosen as our envoy. It’s Dug Sealskinner.”

Everyone turned to Dug.

“No,” said Spring. “Not him. I’ll go.”

“No, I will,” said Lowa.

“Think, Spring.” Maggot put a hand on her shoulder.

Spring closed her eyes but she didn’t need to. She didn’t need to think. She knew Maggot was right, as surely as she knew that she had two feet. Dug had to talk to the three kings. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

“He is right. Dug has to talk to them. It’s our only hope. I think he’ll be OK. I don’t think they’ll kill him,” she said.

Maggot smiled sadly at her.

“I’ll do it,” said Dug, as if agreeing to get the next bucket of water from the well. Thinking of water, Spring had a sudden flash of her nightmares in which Dug was dead and bumping along the bottom of the sea.

“Hang on.” said Lowa. “There’s no point—”

“I see it too,” said Dug. “I’m meant to go. I don’t know how I know, but I do. Don’t you fuss, it’s all going to be all right.”

G
rummog had refused Manfrax’s summons, so the Murkan force was not represented. Army administration was the excuse, but Bruxon had heard that the northern king was catatonic with grief after the death of his queen, Pomax. His weakness appalled Bruxon. He had physical urges himself, which he satisfied with ambitious, unscrupulous women, but the idea of caring for another person to the degree that their death prevented you from going about your business was utterly alien to him, as perverse as the existence of the Fassites. He suspected that such silly, useless bonds were the preserve of the unintelligent.

He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not about the Murkan king’s absence. Grummog was a hate-filled man, his character as twisted as his deformed body, and, all things being equal, Bruxon would have been happy never to set eyes on the nasty little fellow again. However, on a practical level, the coordinated planning for three armies was difficult when only two were represented. And there was another reason for wanting Grummog there. He did not want to be alone with Manfrax.

The Eroo king’s guards ushered him into an enormous leather tent, but remained outside themselves and insisted that his retinue did the same. So it was to be just him and Manfrax. Bruxon felt fear rise and stick in his throat. He swallowed.

The king of Eroo was sprawled on a fur-covered throne that was more bed than seat. His narrow-eyed druid queen was nowhere to be seen and neither were any of the giants. The Fassites were camped nearer the sea, on the far side of the Eroo camp. Bruxon had not seen them up close. He didn’t even know if they could speak.

“Your giants should have remained on their island,” he said, sitting with his back straight, hoping that his regal tone would remind Manfrax that they were equals. “They were not part of our agreement.”

“Oh, don’t fuss yourself,” said Manfrax. Bruxon wished that Maggot was with him but he’d trotted off earlier in the day, saying something about “druid business”, and Bruxon hadn’t seen him since.

Manfrax took a long lug from his wooden beer mug, more a barrel with a handle than a tankard. “The Fassites are lovely people.” He wiped his moustache. “Lambs, they are. They do what I tell them to do, nothing more. They won’t trouble the brave people of Dumnonia. When Lowa and her army are all dead, they’ll return meekly whence they came to go about their farming and their basket weaving. They have no ships, the poor things, and no notion of how to make them, so they won’t be leaving their island again without my say-so.”

“Well, you make sure that they do stay there!” Bruxon barked, appalled anew at the man’s casual appearance and attitude. How could a king deport himself like some drunken adventurer? Manfrax was a disgrace. Why had he let the Eroo army invade?

“Of course,” said Manfrax, “there is another army in Britain that we might have a look at, while we’ve got the Fassites here.”

“Is there?” Bruxon sat forward. This sounded interesting.

“With Dumnonia’s support, I was thinking we might have a wee trip around Murkan territory after we’ve dealt with Maidun. After I take Maidun’s lands, it’ll be a year or two before I’m ready to take a full scale expedition north. Makka knows, it was enough of a hoo-ha getting this one together. But if Dumnonia feeds and supplies my army, the two of us can take the Murkan lands in the next moon or two.”

“But what about the Romans? They’re in northern Gaul now, by all accounts invincible and about to sail.”

“Ah yes, the Romans. Funny that we didn’t include them in our invasion plans, especially when your druids have known about their coming for years. It’s almost like you hoped the Romans would send me and my fine people back to Eroo, or perhaps even to the Otherworld, Danu forbid?” Manfrax smiled and took another pull on his beer mug.

“We … I … had no such intention,” said Bruxon. “The Dumnonians have no druids: Samalur killed them all. What we know of the Romans we’ve heard from merchants and bards, just as you have. Nobody could have guessed they’d fight their way through Gaul so quickly.”

“And your man Maggot?”

“He’s a charlatan. He is a useful advisor, but his talk of magic is an affectation. He is more jester than druid.”

“I see. Well, no matter. If the Romans come, the Romans come. The Fassites will show those strutting, feather-headed cockerels just how invincible they are.”

“I thought the Fassites were going back to Fassent?”

“Well, maybe we’ll keep them here for a while, just until all the obstacles are cleared. Now, get yourself over here to seal our pact against the Murkans. Then we’ll plan the details.” Manfrax sat up. He pulled his jerkin aside to reveal his broad, well-fleshed chest, and a nipple that Bruxon remembered from Eroo. “Come on then, let’s make this official.” His jocular lilt had flattened a good deal.

Bruxon tried to remain calm. “Manfrax, this is Britain. I am king here. You are asking for an act of subservience. It was different when I was in your hall on Eroo. I was in your realm, bound by its rules. But I’m sorry, such supplication cannot be contemplated in my own land.”

“Really? Stand up.” Without thinking, Bruxon did so. Manfrax stood as well. His chest came to the same height as Bruxon’s face. Suddenly the big tent seemed very small.

Manfrax reached up with a hand not much smaller than a Fassite’s and gripped the back of Bruxon’s head. “Thousands of people have sucked my nipple, Bruxon,” he said, looking down at the Dumnonian king like a kindly father. “And I can tell when people like it. Usually it’s women that enjoy a good suck. Sometimes it’s men. And one of those men, my British friend, is you. Don’t be embarrassed about it, we all have our desires.”

Manfrax pulled his head forward. Bruxon resisted. Wrenching his head to one side, he saw Manfrax’s queen, Reena, watching from the corner of the tent. How had she stayed there unnoticed? he thought as Manfrax pulled his head back round. There was no resisting. He stopped fighting and opened his mouth.

L
owa lay awake in the chief of Frogshold’s hut, next to the snoring Dug. They’d made love. Lowa had cried afterwards. Dug had comforted her, then fallen asleep pretty much mid-word. He seemed calmer and more assured than she’d ever known him, not at all concerned about the prospect of walking out to the enemy. It worried her. She liked to be in charge and fully clued up, yet here was something she didn’t understand. Something was going on between Maggot, Spring and Dug. She’d questioned each of them. Spring and Dug, she was sure, knew nothing more than their bizarre conviction that Dug would somehow be able to walk down the hill, meet the three kings and save all their lives.

Maggot did know more, she was sure. There was something in his eyes. A sadness that terrified her.

Pressed as they were, armies all around, pretty much certain to die, she did not want to lose Dug. She’d sooner lose everybody else, herself included. She’d decided to tell him that she was pregnant, but then hadn’t. She didn’t know why. She knew he knew anyway. She just didn’t want to talk about it, she supposed. Not with Dug about to face such impossible danger.

She lay in the dark, sick with worry, listening for alarm horns and annoyed with herself for worrying. They said that strange things happened to your emotions during pregnancy, and perhaps that’s what was happening to her now. She’d faced certain death before without getting all pathetic about it. Great, she thought. As if swelling up into a giant sow then having to force something the size of a baby out of her vagina wasn’t bad enough without the added weepiness.

When dawn finally came, slowly diffusing through the thatched roof’s chimney hole, she hated it and cursed and silently pleaded with the sun to melt back into the darkness and let the night last for ever.

W
ell, it was a lovely day for it, whatever “it” was, thought Dug as he trudged alone, southwards down the steep side of Frogshold hill. The breeze had returned and was blowing brilliant white clouds across a huge, pale blue sky. The sheep-stripped turf was springy underfoot.

He could feel the eyes of the Maidunites behind him; Lowa, Spring and the rest all watching. Ahead, the three kings of Dumnonia, Eroo and Murkan waited, the Fassites next to them and their armies stretched for Danu knew how far in every direction around them.

“You’ll know what to do when you get there,” Maggot had said, as if Dug were nipping out on an errand. He had no idea what the druid could have meant, he didn’t have a clue what he was even going to open with, yet he felt strangely happy about it. There was a bounce in his step that usually came only after miles of walking on the very finest days.

He thought of Lowa’s baby. She hadn’t told him, but he knew; he’d seen the same when his wife Brinna had been pregnant with their twin daughters Kelsie and Terry. It was so long since they’d died, but they were still very much part of who he was. He remembered the day that they were murdered by raiders. He remembered falling to his knees and wailing. When he’d been able to think again, many days later, it had seemed that his life couldn’t possibly go on. But now, more than a decade afterwards, it didn’t seem such a world-ending tragedy, just a moment when his life had changed direction with a jerk. As it had that day in Bladonfort when he’d met Lowa. He hoped that she and baby Dug – he had a feeling it was a boy this time – lived longer and more happily than Brinna, Kelsie and Terry had. It didn’t seem likely, given the current situation, but Dug was irrationally optimistic.