The Exile (35 page)

"There's nothing here, lad. This ain't the place I grew up in. I love this village but the Drunes have sucked the soul out of it. Gavra is dying, just like every other place roundabouts. The Sourland is spreading. Paeder said he met a bard last month who told stories of the blight having crept as far north as Albion and as far south as Gabala. It's a creeping death. The entire land will fall to the scourge and then what? What will we eat? How will we live? We won't, that's the how and what of it. You know there's talk that we're entering the end of days." Madaug shuddered. He took a deep swallow of his gutrot and wiped his lips off with the back of his hand. "Hark on me, prattling away like a fishwife. Don't get many folks to listen to me these days. That little fella of yours knows how to enjoy himself, eh?" Madaug said.

Sláine couldn't help but smile as he watched Ukko's antics. The little runt had the cook eating out of the palm of his hand. She had scooped him up and was singing a raunchy shanty that seemed to be about small ones being juicier as she swung him round. "Ukko's a law unto himself."

The door of the taproom flew open and a huge horned silhouette filled the wound it left in the wall. The black night spilled into the inn. Utter silence gripped the revellers. The unmistakable stench blew in with the night wind. Ukko hit the floor with a thud as the woman dropped him. He scrambled back towards Sláine's table, ducking under the tabletop as if that would protect him. The Drune Lord stepped into the taproom. He held a limp body in his arms.

For a moment no one moved. Drinkers held their cups to their lips, frozen in place. The dancers stood alone in the middle of the floor. Slowly, one by one, heads turned to stare in terror at the slough-skinned sorcerer as he walked up to Madaug and dropped the dead boy at his feet. Skull-swords swelled into the inn, weapons drawn.

"Murderers," Madaug breathed, pushing the table back so that he could stand. His legs betrayed him. He fell to his knees beside the dead boy. "Caw. Oh, sweet Lug, Caw, what have they done to you?"

"We killed the child because we believed you were sheltering outlaws." Smiling wryly, the Drune turned to Sláine. "It seems we were right."

Madaug grabbed a blunt bread knife off the tabletop and surged to his feet. He threw himself at the Drune, stabbing wildly even before he was five steps away from the sorcerer.

The Drune raised a hand crawling with maggots and jags of lightning streamed from his fingers, tearing into the old man like arrows, punching through his slack skin and spraying blood out of his back. His arms spread-eagled wide, thrown into the air by the black magic shredding his flesh, Madaug Stagshanks was dead before his body hit the floor.

The taproom stank of ozone and gore; an ugly mix if ever there was one.

It all happened so quickly. Madaug's kin were on their feet, screaming as they were cut down by the skull-swords.

Sláine roared to his feet, hurling the wooden table into the faces of the skull-swords charging at him.

"Come on then! Fight a real man! I'll see you in the Underworld, boys!"

The rage that hit him was so vehement, so strong, that the beginnings of the burning fire that marked the warp-spasm tore through Sláine. His face twisted, shifting into something animalistic, bestial. He grabbed two skull-swords by the throat and hurled them into the cooking fire. He broke two more over the back of the table he had hurled, shattering their spines. Another he kicked so hard that he shattered the man's pelvis.

"Say hello to Cernunnos for me!" Sláine growled, spinning around to drop two more, punching the heel of his hand into their throats. They writhed around on the floor of the taproom, suffocating as they clawed frantically at their ruptured Adam's apples.

After that they came at him in twos and threes, swords hacking away uselessly, unable to get close enough to Sláine to do any real damage. He lifted up a table and charged down four skull-swords, crushing them against the wall. He rammed the table's edge against the heads over and over again. His body burned. The fire of his flesh was enough to sear and scorch them as he fought them back.

He was struck from behind, hard, at the base of the skull. He didn't see it coming. His legs buckled and he fell.

"He still burns, lord," the skull-sword said, obviously afraid to touch Sláine.

Ukko didn't move. He didn't dare. There was no way he was coming out from under the table now that Sláine was unconscious. He fully intended to stay where he was until the skull-swords and the Drune Lord had lost interest and wandered off to torment some other poor souls.

"Bring vats of water, icy cold. We must cool his fire before he wakes or he will throw himself on your swords in hunger to kill you," the Drune Lord spat. The fumes rising off his pustulant flesh were noxious.

"Why don't I just cut his throat and be done with it, master?"

"Because," the sorcerer said patiently, "his death would be a waste. There are times when it is better to cage a wolf than kill it."

Ukko winced as the skull-sword drove a boot into Sláine's side.

Sláine groaned and drew his arms underneath himself. He turned to look sideways, under the table at Ukko. "I'm still alive," he said. "There must be a reason."

"There is always a reason," the sorcerer said.

Sláine turned to look up at the slough-skinned mage wrapped in stinking pelts.

"What do you want from me?"

"All that you are good for, warrior: your strength, your tenacity and your fire. I require the services of a bodyguard." He looked around at the devastation Sláine had caused without so much as a weapon. "You bested a good few of my men with your bare hands. I would rather have a man like you fighting at my side, not against me. Oh, dwarf, do get out from under the table, you aren't fooling anyone by hiding under there."

Ukko crawled out grudgingly. He stuck his head out and looked around. There were fifteen skull-swords still standing, as many lying broken on the floor of the taproom. He did not think it too many. In all honesty he would have liked the other fifteen to be down there with them instead of pointing their swords at him. He went to Sláine's side as the big man drew himself to his feet. Ukko ducked in close, letting Sláine lean on him.

"And if I say no? Which, let's face it, I will. I couldn't stand the stench for a start."

"Oh, you'll soon grow accustomed to my mystic aura."

"Mystic aura? My sick aura more like," Ukko muttered, making a show of covering his mouth and nose with his hand.

"Hold your tongue, dwarf."

"I am, and my nose, and it still stinks in here," Ukko said. "P-eeew-eee!"

"You'll be paid well for your services," the Drune told Sláine, ignoring Ukko's hectoring.

"No," Sláine said, "it's not happening."

"Let me put it another way: these people will be given food enough to last them through the winter."

"And if I refuse again?"

"This miserable hellhole will be burned to the ground, every man, woman and child will be sacrificed as an offering to benevolent Crom and you, Sláine Mac Roth, and your cowardly dwarf friend, will suffer the death of the blood eagle. I might even consider dragging your miserable souls back from the half-dead to kill you all over again."

"An offer you can't refuse," Ukko said, shivering at the thought of his ribs parting company with his backbone.

"What do you expect me to do?" Sláine asked. Ukko could read the warrior like a book. He was painfully aware of exactly how hungry the people of Gavra were, and of Madaug's corpse lying amid those of the skull-swords. Sláine looked at the body of the boy, Caw. "I won't kill innocent people for you. I am not a murderer."

The citizens of Gavra huddled up fearfully against the walls, bunched together. Ukko saw the slack skin and sunken features of the hungry and the desperate, and thought again of what Sláine had told him: "You shouldn't save the lives of people fated to die, that's cheating the gods." But when it came down to it Crom-Cruach was one god worth cheating.

"I say we do it, Sláine, if it helps these people," he said, "and hey, maybe it'll tick the wyrm off, you know, stealing souls fated to die and all that. So it is kind of a good cause, right?"

Sláine studied the sorcerer. "How do I know you can be trusted? How do I know you won't just butcher three-quarters of the people and then tell the rest they're lucky because they have plenty to see them through the worst of the winter?"

The Drune chuckled mirthlessly. "I see you are familiar with the benevolence of Slough Feg. You have my word, they will all be fed."

"Aye, to the crows," Ukko interrupted, jumping up to sit on the table.

"They will be cared for."

"Taken care of, you mean," Ukko said, kicking his feet in the air.

"Do you want me to flense your hide from your flesh, dwarf? It can be done, believe me," The sorcerer snapped.

"Just negotiating the terms, don't want any loopholes in the contract, that's all, your smelliness. No hard feelings."

"There will be food aplenty for everyone. There will be no sacrifices. You will be giving the people of this village a chance at life. Is that plain enough for you?"

"All right," Sláine said, "but I won't be your butcher."

"Understood."

Sláine didn't trust the Drune, Slough Throt, but the sorcerer did keep his word. Food was delivered by skull-swords, enough to fill the empty grain silo, keeping the mill wheels turning. The morning air smelled of freshly baked bread. Sláine had forgotten how good such a simple smell could be.

Throt came to him that evening, bearing gifts.

"As you can see, I have upheld my part of the bargain, warrior. There is grain and other staples, plenty for everyone. Now it is time for you to earn your life in return." The Drune made a show of taking an oilskin-wrapped bundle from the skull-sword beside him and handing it to Sláine. "Yours, I believe. My men claimed it from the Babd's reclusium. The women were more than happy to see it removed."

Sláine unwrapped the bundle.

Inside was his father's axe, Brain-Biter. The blade had been cleaned and sharpened on a whetstone. He covered the axe head with the oilskin. "Do you expect me to be grateful?"

"I don't expect anything, warrior. Common courtesy would suggest you ought to say thank you, though."

"Thank you for returning what is rightfully mine," Sláine said, grudgingly.

"My pleasure, warrior. I look after my people. Now, we will be moving out in the morning, by Cloud Curragh. Make your farewells tonight. If you could arrange to leave the dwarf behind I would be eternally grateful."

"As would I," Sláine said, "but the little fella is like your mystic aura, he just won't go away. You do get used to him though, eventually."

Slough Throt took Navindar Sark aside.

Sark was a trusted soldier, a leader amongst the ranks of the skull-swords.

"I have a task for you, my friend."

"Anything, Lord. You know that if it is in my power it will be done."

"Indeed. I wish you and three others to remain in Gavra on the morrow. When the Curragh casts off and is well clear, you can drop all pretence at compassion. Kill the villagers. Dispose of their bones however you see fit. Make arrangements for the grain to be returned to Feg's stores before the Lord Weird realises they have been borrowed. When you have done that, make for the peak Shadow's Reach, in Lyonesse, we will meet you there."

"It will be done."

"Oh, I have no doubt it will, no doubt at all."

The Cloud Curragh was a huge longship, a merchantman, only it didn't sail the seven seas, it sailed the steel grey skies.

Throt and his skull-swords led them up a narrow gangplank behind a cart overburdened with essentials for what promised to be a long journey. Ukko's eyes bulged with wonder. Sláine grew more and more taciturn as he came to understand the nature of the sky chariot. The Curragh was moored within a ring of sacred dolmen. The standing stones would obviously be used to raise the huge ship, the power of the weird stones somehow anchoring the ship to the mystical paths of the ley lines.

"The rising incantation will be invoked before the shadows stretch another hand's span," The Curragh's pilot called down, "so all aboard who's coming aboard!"

"This ain't natural," Ukko scowled at the reefed masts. "Ships ain't made for flying."

Herdsmen bullied six oxen up the gangplank.

"Sacred animals," Throt explained, seeing his puzzlement. "Their blood feeds the weird stone."

"Blood magic?" Sláine rasped.

"Nothing so crude. The blood merely acts as a facilitator. It is amazing how much more willing the earth is to yield up her power when a little blood is used in offering."

Three horned Drunes hunched over a huge weird stone in the centre of the Cloud Curragh's deck. They were scratching Ogham symbols into the surface of the rock.

"Oh Lug, great god of the skies, look after little Ukko, even if the others get it, just make sure I am right and I'll be a good person from now on: the perfect dwarf." Ukko looked distinctly uncomfortable as he settled down on the deck.

Sláine shook his head.

"Oh and Lug, if you can manage it, look out for Sláine, eh? Thanks." Ukko buried his face in his hands miserably.

Slough Throt joined the Drunes at the weird stone, raising his hands as if for silence. Around Sláine the ship's crew began to mumble in low subdued tones, their words indistinct but growing slowly and steadily in volume and intensity until Throt began the invocation. The slough-skinned sorcerer threw his head back and his arms wide, calling on the spiral energy of the earth, the serpent. The sharp tang of ozone filled the air, strong enough to temporarily mask the stench of rotten flesh that was the Drune Lord's mystic aura. Ribbons of blue energy sparked and chased up the huge dolmen, crackling with life. The sparks danced and chased across the stones, arcing down and striking the earth all around the longship before they finally lanced into the weird stone on the Curragh's deck.

Sláine's stomach heaved as the deck beneath his feet lurched.

The huge longship rocked sickeningly and then began to rise.