The Broken Kings: Book Three of The Merlin Codex (12 page)

The moment they left the fortress, Kymon felt himself become detached from the rest of the hunt. The land whispered to him. The moon seemed to swell. His horse, cantering on the hard ground, became softly fluid, rocking like the wooden model on which he had played when very young. The other riders moved dreamily away from him in the darkness, spreading out to face the forest. The sounds of hooves diminished. Kymon felt enveloped. He looked for his father, but he had been drawn into distance and gloom.

This surreal sensation was abruptly snapped when Colcu rode up beside him, spear held above his head, dye-smeared face grinning. “My cut is already healed. You should have cut deeper. Or used a sharper blade!”

He kicked away, spear now lowered, head down, riding in the direction of the moon itself. The insult—the reference to the blade—infuriated Kymon, as it had been intended to do. His first instinct was to hunt in a different direction than his tormentor, but after a moment’s pause, he followed Colcu at a gallop.

As at Taurovinda, the land around the Coritoni fortress had been cleared to the distance of a spear thrown five times. The edge of the wood rose like a wall, cut clean, shimmering in the three-quarter moon. The hunters now prowled along that edge.

The language of the hunt was a series of brief horn calls and owl sounds. Messages rippled along the line, confusing to Kymon—and no doubt to his father—but meaningful to the Coritoni.

There was sudden movement; the line turned to the north and rode swiftly, again spreading out, but this time wheeling round abruptly and entering the forest, slouched low in the saddle, working their way between the trees. There were no hounds on this hunt, no baying, no snarling, just the crash of horses, the chatter and drone of the signals. Birds flew skywards, alarmed. Creatures snuffled and fled through the underbrush. Kymon became lost in the darkness, forcing himself to follow the sounds ahead of him. Colcu passed in front of him at one point, recognisable by the darting, bright-eyed, and insulting glance, then he, too, was gone.

The earth shuddered, then; the sensation was of something gigantic beginning to run. The hunt turned south, through the woods, men streaming past the confused form of Kymon. Urtha recognised his son—Hernos alone knew how—and urged him to follow.

“Is it the stag?”

“It’s something,” his father agreed. “Though how it’s managing to run in these woods is a mystery to me.”

Again, Kymon was lost. He could hear the sounds of the hunt all around him, but he himself had broken cover. He was not back on the plain but in a clearing. A ridge of bare land rose before him, the moon half-concealed by the escarpment. The earth shook again. His horse became nervous, trying to back away from the ridge despite Kymon’s attempts to urge it on.

A flurry of startled night-wings told Kymon everything he needed to know: the earth-shaker was on the other side of the ridge, approaching.

Spear held high and ready, he waited for the rise of antlers against the moon. Instead, a horseman galloped along the ridge, stopped, turned about, and reared up. Colcu raised his own spear at the oncoming beast, then cried out in alarm.

No antlers rose against the moon. The shape that loomed suddenly and hugely, small eyes sparkling, white tusks gleaming, was a boar of monstrous proportion. It charged swiftly onto the ridge and with a toss of its head had savaged the horse, throwing Colcu to the ground. The youth rolled out of the first lunging strike of those tusks, tried to fling his javelin but had no angle to make a good throw, and the weapon glanced harmlessly off the great boar’s flank.

The animal growled deeply in its lungs and straddled the nephew of Vortingoros, who screeched as the beast placed a foot on his chest and turned its head for the slashing kill.

Kymon shouted a nonsense word, a distracting cry, a fury sound. He kicked his horse towards the fray and flung his own javelin with all his might. The blade struck the animal in the ear, and it straightened up, furious and howling. Kymon, standing on the saddle now, leapt at the raised face, narrowly avoiding the tusks as they tried to catch him, and somersaulted onto the boar’s back, his hands making the lightest of touches with the spine-sharp brow.

He turned and pushed his sword into the tender flesh behind the creature’s ear, his legs wrapped around the neck, his left hand gripping the razor-edged tusk. As the blade sawed and sank, so the boar shook and screamed, then was very still.

It growled again. There was pain in the sound.

“Not the ear! Take the blade out!” it said, its voice a deep rumble of pleading. “Not the ear. It hurts too much.”

Startled, Kymon released his grip, and in that instant was shaken to the ground. As he sprawled, so the animal leapt upon him, leaning down to push its earth-stinking mouth close to the boy’s face. Kymon’s heart raced and he cried out to Avernus, thinking he was about to die, asking for a good walk to Ghostland.

But the killing blow never came. The boar suddenly rose onto its hind legs, a massive silhouette against the gleaming moon. With human hands it plucked the javelin from its cheek, looked at it, made to snap it in two, then changed its mind, tossing the weapon onto the earth. Bright eyes regarded Kymon. The beast’s belly grumbled.

“That was a fine leap and a good throw,” the boar said. “I’ll be in pain until this time tomorrow. Perhaps longer.”

“What are you?” Kymon asked nervously, getting carefully to his feet. “Man or boar?”

“I am
Urskumug.
I am both. Old animal. One of the many. Something has woken us and we are looking around. Freedom is a luxury that doesn’t last for us. A good leap. A good cast.” The towering form again stepped closer to Kymon. Rank breath and fear made the boy recoil. He stepped back until he came up against a tree and felt frozen there. The boar’s nostrils flared; the brow furrowed. The face of the creature was almost human, marked out by chalk, the sketch of a man on the face of a beast.

Urskumug said, “You stink of possession. Inhabited. There is more in you than just boy. You are dangerous. Killing you would make my life easier. But so would making you a promise. Which do you prefer?”

Pinned against the tree, Kymon had no hesitation in answering, “The promise.”

“I can’t promise much, but say my name in any of my sanctuaries and I’ll growl at you. I don’t have many, but they’re well concealed.”

“What good is there in growling?”

“What good is there in leaping?” Urskumug retorted, rubbing his bloody ear.

Then Urskumug raised his snout and sniffed the air hard. “Sour scent. The scent of other lands. Do you smell it? There is something extraordinary in this blighted land. Something at large. Oldest animals waking up. Old ghosts, too. Something shaping. Be careful.”

The beast turned away, dropped back on all fours, growled, tusked the earth, and was gone.

*   *   *

A while later, a horse whinnied with a moment’s pain and died, released from the agony of disembowelment. The sound snapped Kymon from his daze. At the bottom of the ridge, Colcu rose from the grim task, cleaning his blade and murmuring an invocation to Riannon, gatherer of battle horses. Then he walked over to the tree and faced Kymon squarely.

“I was not frightened of you in the combat ring, and I was not in awe of you. I am not frightened of you now. But I
am
in awe of you. That creature could have killed us both. I am alive because of your well-thrown spear and that fine leap. You are alive because the beast spared you. I understand very little of what has happened … Kymon.”

“Neither do I. Colcu.”

“Then again, understanding is for druids. Action is for the rest of us. I have twenty good horse-riders, all of my age, all well-experienced with the feats. I will bring them to your father. I lead them. Do you understand? You can join us if you wish. But I lead them.”

“That is an acceptable condition,” Kymon said in the formal manner.

Colcu hesitated, meeting the other’s gaze hard. “That creature … it said you were possessed.”

“I know.”

“What did it mean, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you feel possessed?”

Kymon looked up at the ridge, then towards the darkness of the woodland where Urskumug had disappeared. After a moment he answered: “I don’t know. All I know is: I will be King in my own land!”

The talk was uneasy. Colcu smiled for the first time without the expression being a mocking one. “No wonder our poor Speaker for the Land was so confused,” he said. “I think we should call to the rest of the hunt. Call it off. It was the wrong moon.”

“I agree.”

Colcu was not quite finished. There was sweat on his face and apprehension in his eyes. He said, “I will be High King when my uncle, Vortingoros, passes on. I have sown the land with charms to make sure this happens. Will you be High King when your father crosses the river?”

“I expect so. But in due course. Not yet. And I have no charms to sow.”

“Your accession is safer. You are a son, not a nephew. Will we be friends, I wonder? Or enemies? What does the possessed man think?”

Colcu was a powerful, subduing presence. Though Kymon had not been in fear of this older boy in the combat ring, he was anxious now. There was a sudden deadness in Colcu, the insensate staring of a beast. Kymon chose to respond as he imagined his father would respond to such a challenge. “Friends now,” he said in an even tone. “That is certainly the case. In the future? I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“That is an acceptable answer,” Colcu said quietly. And in the formal way.

Chapter Eleven

Oestranna’s Child

At the same time that Kymon was encountering the man-boar, his sister, Munda, was undergoing a transformation of her own.

Her own new blood on her hands, a strange fury of excitement glowing from her, she escaped from the women’s lodge and ran to the high wall of the fortress, climbed the ladder, and stood there, staring out towards the west. She was wearing only the woman’s robe that had been given to her—her first, not to be her last. The two women who had been guarding her ran behind, but were too slow to catch the fleet-footed child. Though they summoned her back, Munda ignored them. She was in a state of despair, it seemed.

The moon was low, a three-quarter moon. The west was dark, Ghostland seemingly asleep, though everyone in Taurovinda knew better.

The two guardians were intercepted by the High Woman, Rianata, also known as the Thoughtful Woman. “Leave her alone.”

“She is in our charge.”

“Leave her alone,” Rianata insisted. “She has the light of foresight. It will either stay with her or slip away. This is either a dying or a growing time for the king’s daughter.”

Munda screamed and wailed from the wall:

“I see it dark,

“I see it drowning.

“I see it moonless and with winter eyes.

“I see the night-surge of the dead.

“My brother opposes this gathering of old land, old life.”

Then, with an almost childish tone of voice, she called, “But I can still see! I can still see!”

She had spread her arms wide, as if welcoming everything she could envision in the darkness.

She cried out then; with pain, with fear. After a time she came down from the ramparts and huddled into Rianata’s maternal embrace.

“My brother will destroy us,” she whispered. “He will act to stop them coming. I must stop him acting. Somehow I must stop him.”

She saw me, then, standing in the shadows, and brightened up. She ran to me and hugged me around the waist. Almost at once she realised the state she was in and stepped back sheepishly, holding her bloody hands out as if they were dead rats.

“I’m Oestranna’s child, now. I’ll be like this for a long time.”

“Yes. You will.”

“Life will form in me. Raw, rough life.”

“It will.”

“But I can still
see,
Merlin,” she whispered delightedly. “Most of the women thought the sight would have gone. The farsight. The light itself. Even Rianata. Will I have it forever, I wonder?”

“Come with me,” I suggested. “To the well. You can clean your hands there and I’ll show you something.”

The three women who guarded the well looked up as we approached. Their initial outrage at the uninvited intrusion subsided as they saw my companion. They each sat by a torch, which illuminated both their pale faces and the deeper gleam of the water. Niiv was not with them—up to her own form of mischief, no doubt.

When Munda was clean, which is to say, as clean as decorum and company would allow, I made her look down at the shimmering surface. “What can you see there? In the deep.”

She peered hard, but shook her head. “Nothing. What
is
there to be seen?” Then she added, glancing up at me, “What can
you
see?”

“An old friend,” I told her. “Quite a few things, in fact, not just the old friend. There’s a world down there, an amazing place, spreading out through the streams below the land, all leading to and from the Winding One. Your dear Nantosuelta.”

Again, Munda stared hard, leaning out so far across the stone wall around the well that there was a murmur of warning from one of the three.

“Nothing,” the girl repeated in frustration. “What point are you making, beyond that you’ve got the eyes of both a hawk and a fish?” The three women laughed at that.

“When she first looked down, Niiv, who has a great many strengths in charm and enchantment, could see a great deal, too. Not so much as me, but a great deal. Now she can’t, not unless she expends a great deal of her energy.”

“You’re saying it will fade, then. The sight will fade.”

“I’m saying that it
might.
It might not. I’m saying that it is a talent to be used wisely, a gift and a commodity not to be squandered. Act as if it might cease at any moment! In the time that I’ve been in Alba, I’ve learned that it is rare for there to be
two
women with the
imbas forasnai.
As has been happening to me for a
very
long time, the gift wanes with usage.”

Munda looked at me with mischief in her eyes. “Everybody says you’re very mean with your gifts.”