The Druid King (27 page)

“No!”

“It cannot be!”

“Silence!” roars the Arch Druid, and, with one hand, he holds his staff aloft. “Hear my words, and spread the tale of what occurs here today to every corner of this land, and let it enter the Land of Legend! I, Guttuatr, Arch Druid of Gaul, take it upon my own spirit to commit a lesser evil in order to prevent a greater one. I command—yes,
command
—an unnatural pact among us, among all the tribes of Gaul!”

He turns to regard Diviacx, whose eyes have remained downcast and averted. “And there is only one way to seal it,” he says in a much quieter voice.

Diviacx looks up slowly to meet the gaze of the Arch Druid.

“And you know what that way is, do you not, Diviacx?”

“In blood sacrifice . . .”

“Freely given, Diviacx, freely given.”

“Is there no other way?” asks Diviacx, looking slowly around the gathering of druids, but his voice betrays the knowledge that there can be none.

No one speaks, no one moves.

“So be it . . .” Diviacx declares.

“Speak your judgment, Diviacx!”

Diviacx hesitates, then raises his head high and speaks in a loud, proud voice:

“Before the tribes of Gaul, I accept this sacrifice as a fitting end to my story in this world and a worthy beginning to my story in the Land of Legend!”

“And at whose hand, Diviacx?
You
must choose.”

Slowly Diviacx turns to regard Vercingetorix.

“To seal this pact among the tribes in Eduen blood, I choose an Arverne. In the name of justice, I choose the man whose father I now see served the same destiny and made the same sacrifice for it. To unite the Gaul to which I brought the scourge of Rome, and which I now must give my life to save, I give it to the man the heavens have declared must lead us.”

He hands Vercingetorix back his sword.

“I choose Vercingetorix, son of Keltill!”

Vercingetorix looks deeply into his eyes, and his expression is tender. “Noble words, Diviacx,” he says softly.

Then he turns to address the druids.

“Behold, it is not the son of Keltill who sends Diviacx from this world and into the next in the name of vengeance, nor an Arverne in the name of his tribe’s honor, but a
druid
in the name of the people and the spirit of Gaul!”

Diviacx spreads his arms and offers up his chest.

“I offer up my life with an open heart that that spirit not perish!”

Vercingetorix places the point of his sword upon Diviacx’s breast. He pauses. He takes Diviacx’s right hand in his own, and places it upon the hilt of the sword, then the left, so that their four hands are clasped together around it.

And together they plunge the sword into Diviacx’s heart.

XII

CAN YOU SEE the clouds moving?” asked Rhia.

Vercingetorix gazed up at a leaden ceiling of dirty grayish clouds, the sort from which snow or rain might come down, but not the sort likely to produce a short storm that would clear the heavens.

He shook his head.

“Neither can I,” said Rhia.

“I believe this weather will hold. . . .”

“And there will be no moon. . . .”

Gergovia perched atop a hill that rose out of a broad meadow, both logged clear in the long ago, but the stream meandering through the meadow nurtured a string of copses along its banks. A makeshift village had grown up under the shelter of these trees: crude huts of wicker and wattle with conical thatched roofs thrown up by impoverished peasants whose winter stores and livestock had been stolen by the Romans, and who hoped to survive until spring by fishing the stream and hunting the small game that gathered round the water source.

Or that was what the Roman garrison occupying Gergovia was supposed to think.

Vercingetorix and Rhia stood on the stream bank farthest from the city, just far enough out of the trees to be able to study the late-afternoon sky.

“So be it,” said Vercingetorix. “We do it tonight.”

Most of the inhabitants of the village
were
starveling peasant families, and huntsmen with their wives and children as well, for among the early arrivals were some dozen of them, led by Oranix, the “great hunter,” whose lives and livelihoods had been imperiled by pillaging Romans turning hunters into prey.

Vercingetorix had immediately put them to work winkling out the scattered warriors who had, singly or in small groups, escaped Caesar’s legions and hidden in the forest. Now there were about half a hundred of them in the village. Many had arrived lacking arms, but smiths had fled into the haven of the forest too, and deep within the woods they had forged new swords and axes.

The seemingly pathetic refugee village was now a hunting blind from which Vercingetorix intended to take Gergovia from the Roman cohort holding it.

Gergovia, like all such Gallic redoubts, was designed to be easy to hold and difficult to take. An approaching army would be visible from long distances, giving the defenders ample time to prepare a warm reception of arrows.
The Roman general Tulius had obviously reckoned that a few hundred men would be enough to hold the city through the winter against whatever the scattered Arverni could muster.

Vercingetorix had hoped that the druids would gather him an army from the other tribes, particularly the intact forces of the Edui, to overwhelm by sheer numbers the six hundred or so Romans holding the city.

But the druids had failed.

The same word came back from all the tribes. Take your own city back, Vercingetorix, and then we shall consider joining your army of Gauls. Even Litivak, who now commanded enough Edui himself to make the difference, informed Vercingetorix that he would not endanger his own position by attempting to lead his warriors where he knew they would refuse to follow.

And so Vercingetorix had been reduced to assembling about half a hundred actual warriors and about three hundred peasants and hunters, and hiding them here in plain sight of the Romans. It would be suicidal folly to attempt to storm the city and scale the walls or ram in the gates with such a force, and he had assembled and held this “army” together only by swearing a blood oath that they would not be called upon to try.

“The gates will open themselves for you,” he promised whenever wills had wavered. “If they do not, you will know I have been slain. And I cannot be slain on the soil of Gaul.”

Only his death could render the vision false and his boast vain. No matter how many times he defied death and prevailed, he could never truly know that the next time might not be the last.

And tonight he was going to have to do it again.

The only magic that he truly had was the magic he must make.

Under other conditions, Vercingetorix would hardly have considered a cold, misty rain a favorable omen, but on this moonless night under a starless sky, it was a gift of the gods, further cloaking their approach to Gergovia.

Vercingetorix and Rhia climbed the hill under cloth blankets smeared with mud from the stream and then coated with the brownish remains of winter grass.
They crawled quickly for a bit, stopping still for longer intervals, so that only by unfortunate chance might the Romans on the wall catch sight of these little knolls in motion.

Theirs was a slow, soggy, miserable progress, but in the end worth the discomfort, for they reached the base of the wall without causing the alarm to be sounded. Here, pressed against the foot of the wall, they were invisible to those upon it, and made their way to a section of the wall midway between two of the towers.

Vercingetorix made certain that both his sword and the trumpet he carried were firmly fastened to his belt and well baffled with the rope coiled about his waist, then nodded to Rhia. From her sack, Rhia withdrew two daggers and handed them to him. The daggers had been purpose-crafted by the most skilled of the smiths. Their blades were short and stout and sharpened for only half their lengths. The handles, forged of a piece with the blades, were overlarge, and their broad, flattened sides formed a cross with the blade edges.

Gergovia’s wall was constructed of large rough stones held in a kind of log cage rather than simply mortared together. The logs were arranged in no rigid order, their placing complementing and reinforcing the piling of the stones, and there were plentiful chinks and small gaps between rock and wood.

Vercingetorix drove the first dagger into such a chink at knee height, then the second into a chink at waist height. Rhia handed him a third dagger, which he drove in at head height above the first. He put his right foot on the handle of the first dagger, then, using the third as a handhold, put his other foot on the second, so that he was now standing on both dagger handles, using them as steps.

Rhia handed him a fourth dagger, which he placed an arm’s length above the third; then he withdrew the first, placed it an arm’s length above the fourth, and, using the highest dagger as his next handhold, climbed a step farther up the wall.

Slowly, painstakingly, quietly, Vercingetorix scaled the wall on a movable ladder of daggers. It was arduous, muscle-straining going, and when he finally reached the top of the wall, he was panting, his arms and legs ached, and he was sweating even in the wintry night. But even now he could not ease his limbs’ fatigue. He hung by the knives just below the lip of the parapet, uncoiled his rope, and dropped the end down to Rhia.

He then raised his head cautiously to peer up over the lip of the parapet. A single legionnaire, armed with a lance and patrolling the section of the walkway between the nearest two towers, was approaching. Vercingetorix ducked back down until he heard him pass, reach the right-hand tower, turn, pace back to the left-hand tower, turn again, and return. He clung there, timing the guard’s movements, as the Roman repeated the cycle twice.

When the guard’s footfalls dwindled away to the left a third time, Vercingetorix waved to Rhia, pulled himself up onto the walkway, drove two daggers into the top of the wall, and secured his end of the rope to their handles, allowing Rhia to scramble quickly up the wall behind him.

As the guard reached the left-hand tower and turned, they both dropped to their bellies in the shadows. Rhia handed Vercingetorix her sword and its belt and doffed her cloak.

Beneath it she was entirely naked.

She crawled toward the approaching Roman until they were only a body’s length apart, then suddenly stood up.

Startled, the Roman brought his lance down to bear on her, but then, in the next instant, he froze.

“Where . . . where did
you
come from?” he stammered.

“From a cold and lonely bed,” purred Rhia, striding forward with arms opening wide to embrace him.

Transfixed, the Roman lowered his lance, no doubt without thinking, as Vercingetorix could well understand, for, inappropriate to the occasion though it might be,
his
brain was powerless to prevent his own manhood from rising.

Rhia pressed her naked breast hard against the unprotesting Roman’s chest, reached up behind his neck with both hands to draw his face down into a kiss.

There was a dull crack and a low grunt as she snapped it.

Quietly, almost tenderly, Rhia slid the dead legionnaire to the walkway as Vercingetorix ran toward her. She buckled on her sword and threw her cloak around her shoulders, hiding very little, as they dashed to the ladder by the tower and scrambled down it.

They were inside the city.

Rhia had done her magic.

Now, thought Vercingetorix, I must dare to do my own once more.

The streets of Gergovia were largely deserted and quiet, for no one would be abroad in the depth of this rainy night without pressing purpose.Vercingetorix’s memory served him well as he led Rhia away from the wall to approach the gates in it stealthily through a maze of back streets and alleys where unseen footfalls gave easy warning of the few patrols.

They emerged from an alley into the main avenue between the plaza and the city gates, close by the gates themselves. The avenue was deserted at this hour, and they were able to move from portal to portal, shadow to shadow, until the gates were visible where the avenue ended in a small open area.

Now the easy part was over.

Two low stone towers flanked the gates, and two legionnaires armed with lances were positioned on either side of each tower atop the parapet, gazing outward. Two more lance-armed legionnaires guarded the gates on the ground inside the city.

“Six to two, not bad odds,” Vercingetorix whispered.

“And those lances are better at intimidating unarmed townspeople or dealing with horses,” said Rhia. “Foolish of them not to arm the guards with swords.”

“They could hardly expect an attack by swordsmen from
inside
the city . . .” said Vercingetorix.

He gazed into Rhia’s eyes. She gazed back steadily into his. Never more than in this moment, which might be their last, had he wanted to kiss her. He was certain that his desire was shared, but he knew that it could not be.

“Still the thought that slows the mind . . .” Vercingetorix whispered instead. And found that she was whispering the same thing to him. And then—

—they were running silently, swords in hand, toward the Romans guarding the gate.

The Romans shouted wordlessly, one foolishly threw his lance, Vercingetorix slapped it out of the air with his sword, there were more shouts from the wall above, and then they were upon the gate guards.

Rhia slashed the neck of the Roman who had thrown his lance, nearly decapitating him; Vercingetorix ducked aside from the other Roman’s first thrust, dived to the ground, rolling under his second thrust, and came up with his sword plunging into the Roman’s gut.

The guard screamed in dying agony, screamed even louder as Vercingetorix yanked his sword out, pulling a slimy green loop of intestine with it. He and Rhia dashed to the gates, unbarred them, flung them open. Vercingetorix grabbed the lance from the blubbering Roman’s flaccid hand and rammed it into the lower right-hand gate hinge, jamming the gate open. Rhia, looking around frantically for something to secure the left-hand gate and finding nothing close to hand, shrugged, took off her cloak and belt, and stuffed them into the upper and lower hinges.

Vercingetorix blew a long, loud, warbling, and inexpert note on his trumpet, and then he and Rhia, who was naked once more save for her sword, were standing side by side just inside the gateway passage as planned, while Romans clattered down the ladders from the gate towers.

They must now hold the gates open for perhaps five minutes. Unless their courage had failed them, Vercingetorix’s little makeshift army would now be running toward the open gates, and once inside would be a match for the Romans, most of whom would be waking unprepared from sleep.

The gateway was wide enough to accommodate the passage of two wagons, which was a disadvantage, but the passage through it was as deep as the width of the city wall, and the last thing the Romans would have anticipated was to have to take it from defenders already inside the city.

As half a dozen and more legionnaires clambered in confusion toward the open gates, Vercingetorix and Rhia took up positions facing each other with their backs close to the passage’s walls and their swords held out at arm’s length to block it.

This still left a wagon width’s gap, and after only a moment’s hesitation, three Roman lancers and two swordsmen spontaneously dashed into it.

Once again, a Roman foolishly tried to spear Vercingetorix by throwing his lance like a javelin, and once more Vercingetorix slapped it aside with his sword. The now defenseless Roman wisely sought to flee, but was trapped in the passageway by the crush of his fellows.

Vercingetorix took a long, quick stride toward him, swinging his sword high, sideways, and two-handed, severing his head from his neck with a single blow, then kicking the headless body toward the center of the passage as it fell, jerking and twitching and spewing blood.

Rhia had already somehow slain one of the Roman swordsmen and likewise thrown the corpse to the center of the passage, where the body of the decapitated Roman fell upon it even as Rhia gutted the other swordsman, whipped him around screaming with her sword to shield her from a thrown lance, then threw him, not yet dead but unable to do more than howl in agony, upon the two corpses.

Having seen their fellows slain in moments and turned into a barricade of flesh, the two remaining Romans recoiled in horror and fear and fled backward, leaving Vercingetorix grinning ferally at Rhia. She grinned back at him, naked and panting, and spattered with blood, and unspeakably desirable.

But such a bizarre thought was driven from his mind in the next moment when a fresh press of Romans jammed into the passageway, all swordsmen now, and Vercingetorix became one with his weapon.

Swords flashed and clanged, men shouted and screamed, blood flew through the air in drops and gouts, and bodies piled up in the center of the passageway, the dying blubbering and groaning in a growing pool of red.