The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) (51 page)

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Authors: Morgan Llywelyn

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It was obvious he could go little farther, but she was anxious to find a more sheltered, less visible place to spend the night, now that they knew they were hunted. She did not ask Dasadas if he could make it; she did not ask herself. She rode around the mares, bunching them into a tightly packed band once more, then took hold of the rope on the headstall of the lead mare and set off, the rest of the little herd following and Dasadas, drooping in his saddle, bringing up the rear.
They were very fortunate. They soon found a tributary running back from the Duna to a deep, hidden valley that showed no sign of human habitation, or even discovery. In this season there was a thin covering of snow over the exposed grass, but beneath the trees there were patches of dry ground and plenty of deadwood for building fires. In such a place they could stay long enough to recover their strength, Epona thought.
The spirits were being good to them. Perhaps the sacrifice of her child had been enough; perhaps nothing more would be asked.
I have nothing more to give,
Epona thought sadly. When she closed her eyes she did not see Kazhak’s face anymore. She saw a little mound over a grave dug with a Kelti knife, beneath an oak tree.
Dasadas was much the weaker of the two. Even though her own body ached for rest, Epona found herself hunting for him, setting snares to catch small game and patiently waiting for half a day, within sight of the grazing horses, for sight of some edible bird she could bring down with her bow.
But the wild creatures, aware of the presence of the intruders, avoided the area, and game was very hard to get.
We need the art of the shapechanger,
Epona thought, without even a shudder of revulsion at the thought of Kemunnos. He seemed no more than a natural part of the world, now; there
were things far more unpleasant than the vulpine face of the priest.
Dasadas thought of the shapechanger, too, though differently. He dreamed at night of a huge silver wolf that tore at his flesh and sapped his strength, slowing his recovery, but when he spoke of it to Epona she brushed his words aside. “The wolf follows us no longer, Dasadas, I told you that. I give you my word on it.”
But the wolf was in Dasadas’ mind, and it did follow; would follow forever.
When they were able, they moved on, at a much slower pace now. If they encountered no more trouble, they might reach the valley of the Kelti … by sunseason.
Sunseason seemed a very long distance away.
There was trouble, of course. Dasadas’ wound did not heal well, and he was in constant pain, though he refused to admit it. Though he had never been able to link Epona’s spirit with his, he had somehow become infused with her own grim determination to reach the Blue Mountains; to take the horses home. He drove himself relentlessly, and every day he grew thinner, until his gray eyes stared out of a skull-like face. He did not try to touch her now; he had no strength left for anything but the journey. That had become his personal battle; the one left to him that he refused to lose.
When they reached the broad plain of Epona’s earlier memory, where the Duna turned sharply westward at last, one of the mares escaped them. The mares, bred by the Thracians for many generations to have exceptional qualities of both speed and endurance, had handled the trip well, losing little flesh. Epona had particularly looked forward to seeing the colt the gray stallion would sire on one powerfully built brown mare, a splendid animal that would have been the pride of any Thracian wagonmaster. But the mare wandered away, sometime in the night, and they were never able to find her.
Dasadas blamed himself. He should have been standing
watch over the herd that night, and he had fallen into an exhausted, uneasy sleep, filled with frightening dreams … He beat on his head with his fists, punishing himself, until Epona ordered him to stop.
They lost the second mare when the land rose at last toward the mountains again, just as Epona’s heart was lifting. The horse, unused to rocky terrain, stepped into a fissure and snapped her foreleg below the knee, and neither Epona’s skill nor magic could save her.
Epona wept, then; long, deep sobs that wracked her body. Some of them were for the dead horse; some for the escaped mare. Most were for the grave beneath the oak tree.
Her tears frightened Dasadas. He had come to take her strength for granted, relying on her as on a brother, and now he hovered around her helplessly until she lashed out at him and drove him away.
Go to the bottom of grief alone, said the spirit within. Cry out all the pain, then mount your horse and go on.
In the distance, the Blue Mountains stood free and clear, waiting for them.
That was the hardest part of the trip. Since losing the brown mare, Epona had kept the others lashed together in a long string, using thongs and strips of hide and even rope she wove from grass, and now she rode at the head of the column, leading the first mare up the rocky road, leaving Dasadas to bring up the rear. They had traveled for so long and suffered so much, and they were both thin and short of temper. The climbing was demanding, sometimes treacherous, as rocks skittered underfoot and loose earth slid. The thinning air made human and horse tire more quickly. When the pain in his back and side was almost unbearable, Dasadas would sometimes look ahead at Epona, riding on, riding, riding, and shake his head in disbelief. A woman.
She did not look much like a woman now. Since their nearcapture by the Dacians, Epona had hacked off her tawny hair
with her knife, and kept what remained hidden beneath a Scythian cap. Her body would fit in man’s trousers again, and her face and hands were burned dark by sun and wind. She could have been a lean nomad boy, with a sword at the waist and bow and arrows in the
gorytus.
Riding, riding.
The terrain became familiar. The trees, the stones, the light were friends, and Epona acknowledged them with mixed feelings. Her eyes had seen so much since they last saw this place; the Blue Mountains appeared to her through memories of the Sea of Grass, and all the regions between. Perhaps nothing would ever look quite the same again.
But that pine, she knew that one—and that great boulder, bone of the mother, springing free of the earth—and the scent of the air, so sweet—
She was home, in the presence of familiar spirits. She knew them all; she felt them around her and experienced a sense of being reinstated into their world.
Water. Spirits. Trees. Spirits. Stones. Spirits. They knew she moved among them. The water saw her with its shining eye. The stones felt her presence. The trees heard her passing. She was forever bound to the great communion of spirits, of which her own was a part.
She halted the gray stallion and dismounted slowly, walking to a massive stone thrusting nakedly from the hillside, its exposed surface patterned by lichen and warmed by the sun. Dasadas watched as she stood beside it, concentrating, seeking to take part in the interchange she sensed between sun and stone. Something was being given and something taken, a timeless intercourse beyond the understanding of humankind, but as necessary to the pattern of life as earth and rain.
After a time, she smiled and returned to her horse.
When she heard the sentry’s voice challenging her, at first she did not recognize it as that of Vallanos. Both the voice and the accent were unfamiliar. Then the words formed themselves into patterns she recognized and she knew all at once, and truly, that she was home.
“Vallanos! It is I, Epona! Daughter of Rigantona!” She
kicked the gray horse into a trot and hurried forward.
Vallanos came scrambling down from his customary rocky perch, sword in hand. He did not see Epona of the Kelti; he saw a beardless Scythian horseman, and this time he was ready. He had almost reached the gray stallion’s side before he got a good look at the blue eyes laughing down at him, and then he halted in confusion.
“Epona? Is that really you?”
“Yes, Vallanos. Don’t you know me?”
“No one would know you, dressed like that. Where did you come from? Where have you been, what’s happened …”
“All in good time, Vallanos. I suppose I should speak to the elders first, and Taranis.”
“Yes, they will want to see you, all right. You will have much to explain.” He broke off, staring in wonder at the string of mares, and Dasadas, waiting with them. “Is
that
a Scythian, that man with you?”
“Yes, Vallanos. He is my … friend. If it were not for Dasadas, I would never have found my way back to you. I want him treated with all the hospitality of the Kelti, and I want the
gutuiters
to see him soon, for he was badly wounded and the wound has never properly healed. He needs their care.”
“Nematona has died since you left, Epona,” Vallanos said sadly.
“Nematona?” She could not believe it. “What happened?”
“She said it was her time. She lay down in the sacred grove and did not wake up again.”
Daughter of the Trees. A slim brown shape moved among the trunks, rustling with the leaves, and vanished into them forever. Part of the whole.
Epona closed her eyes and bowed her head.
“You wait here, Epona,” Vallanos told her, “and I will go and announce your arrival in the village. Everyone will want to come out to greet you … this is such an occasion! … wait right here, don’t go away …” He ran off, already breathless with the news, and Epona and Dasadas exchanged amused glances.
“You are welcomed here,” said the Scythian.
“And you, as much as I. I owe you a great debt, Dasadas.”
The Scythian was slumped low in his saddle. “There is nothing you can do for Dasadas, Epona.”
“You are mistaken. We will make you well, here; you will be strong again, and you will be honored among my people.”
“Is not important.” His eyes were almost lost in their darksockets and she saw how dreadfully thin he was; how much of his own life he had spent for her sake.
And in thislife there was nothing she could do to make it up to him.
Vallanos returned, aglow with delight, to lead them triumphantly into the village himself. He told Epona that news of their arrival had thrown the community into an uproar; a feasting fire was even now being prepared, oxen were being slaughtered, runners had been sent for Mahka and the warriors.
“Mahka and the warriors?”
“Okelos has put together a band of trained fighters and allowed Mahka to join them. They have built two-wheeled carts for battle and they practice each day on that small strip of level land across the lake. They plan to leave the Blue Mountains soon, in search of new land and more room for our tribe.”
Epona looked at her string of horses and smiled. “There are faster, easier ways to travel than in a cart, Vallanos,” she said. “Though I suppose these Thracian wagon mares could speed a light cart along very fast, with a pair of armed warriors whipping them on.”
Following the strutting Vallanos, she and Dasadas rode down to the village beside the lake.
The lake was as intensely blue-green as she remembered it. The embracing mountains were as steep, as furred with pine. But the village itself had changed.
Many of the lodges boasted heads on poles, either real skulls or carved wooden heads mounted until the genuine article could be obtained. Men walked about in trousers of tartan wool, modeled on the Scythian garment. Curving animals
similar to those represented in Scythian decoration were carved on the sides of wagons; sculptured in bronze and affixed to the rims of cauldrons; painted on the row of shields leaning against the sides of every lodge.
There was a heady tension in the air; the tension of people bursting with energy, on the move. The village no longer felt like a placid, prosperous community, nestled in its mountains and waiting for the world to come to its gates. It was exploding like a fire when fat pine knots are thrown into it, sparks flying out in every direction. Epona had been gone only a few seasons, but in that time the Kelti had begun thinking in new ways and looking in new directions.
The village was an exciting place to be in; she could feel it. The energy was not random now, spending itself in games. It was directed like an arrow nocked to a bowstring, ready to be shot outward.
Epona leaned down from the saddle. “What caused this, Vallanos?”
“Your leaving, partly. Everyone thought the Scythians had stolen you, and Okelos got support from the other young men to prepare a war party and go after you, but then bad weather came early and they could not leave. They fretted here, and complained of being trapped in these mountains. A small band of Taurisci came after snowmelt, looking for trouble, and Okelos killed their leader in a quarrel and mounted his head on a pole. The other men liked the idea. They already had their women making two-legged skirts for them to wear; they say the garment is more convenient in the mines. Once things began to change, it happened faster and faster. Traders came and were … made nervous … by what they saw here, they bartered quickly and left, giving us more for less. Taranis was pleased, and he encouraged the young men in their aggressive behavior.
“Now there is much talk of fighting, and we all look forward to it. I may go myself.”

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