The Paradise War (27 page)

I took another step, and another. Cynan stepped forward to meet me—grinning now. “Another fall? Have you not had enough for one day?”

“One more,” I told him, my voice flat.
Yes, just one more, you noxious creep.

He moved closer, grinning with gleeful spite. He was cocky and cruel; he enjoyed knocking me around. Well, he had thumped me once too often, and now I had nothing left to lose. If I went down again, it would only be another in a long, sorry string of defeats. But if my plan worked . . .

I lowered my blunt spear. Cynan lowered his. I took a step closer. He stepped closer.

Boru, standing in the center of the field, raised his silver horn to his lips and gave a long, shimmering blast which signaled the end of the practice. But I ignored it. A look of surprise appeared on Cynan’s ruddy face. Usually, I was the first to call it quits. “Not yielding?”

“Not today, Cynan. Make your move.”

He edged forward, thrusting his spear in quick, short jabs, hoping to draw me. Instead, I stood motionless and let him come nearer. “You are obstinate today, Collri,” he laughed. “I must teach you better manners.”

Collri is what they called me—it is a play on a word that means “loser,” which is what I was to my underage warrior comrades. “Teach, then, Cynan,” I said. “I am waiting.”

Others, sensing the tension between us, were gathering around. There were some jibes and jeers, but most were just interested in seeing who would get beaten. They offered inane advice and sniggered.

Cynan saw a chance to show off and made the most of it. He lowered his head and lunged. I lowered my lance and knocked his thrust down, as we had been shown. Anticipating, as the head of his spear fell, Cynan spun the butt overhand toward my head. It is a good move. Very good.

But he had used it before. And this time I was ready. I spread my hands and lifted my lance crosswise above my head to meet his crown-cracking blow. This left my stomach unprotected, to be sure. And Cynan saw this. He turned and aimed a kick at my vulnerable midsection with his foot. As his foot came up, I slid my hands together quickly.

His spear connected with my upraised shaft. I let my spear shaft absorb the shock and spun it down, hard. I hit him a solid rap on the shin of his extended leg. He yelped—more in surprise than in pain, I am certain. Those gathered around us laughed out loud.

Cynan threw the head of his lance into my face to drive me back. But I dodged to the side and rapped a glancing blow on his knuckles. I thought this would keep him off balance and I could knock him down. Instead, he threw an elbow into my ribs, and I was the one to stagger. Seizing the advantage, Cynan snaked out a foot, hooked my heel, and tripped me. I fell backwards onto the bare earth of the practice field, and Cynan thumped me on top of the head.

The insolent brat laughed, and those gathered around laughed with him. And there I was, yet again, rolling on my backside in the dirt. I saw his smirking face, saw his head turn to make some cocky remark to Boru, who was looking on with the others. He had bested me once again.

I heard the laughter, and rage boiled up inside me like lava. Everything went red. The sound of the surf pounded in my ears. Without thinking, I whirled the wooden spear at Cynan’s knees and caught him a resounding crack across both kneecaps. He dropped his spear and pitched forward, his horselaugh becoming a strangled yelp in his throat.

He fell onto his hands beside me. I rolled onto my knees and brought the shaft of my spear down upon his back. He kissed the dirt. I leaped to my feet and thrust the butt of my spear down hard between his shoulder blades. Cynan shrieked with pain and passed out.

I lifted my spear and stepped away. The ring of jeering bystanders had gone utterly quiet. No one tittered now; no one laughed. They turned toward one another, wide-eyed.

Boru pushed through the crowd and bent over the inert Cynan. He rolled him over, satisfying himself that I had not killed the boy, and motioned for a cadre of Cynan’s companions to carry him back to our lodge. Four young men stepped forward, lifted their fallen friend, and dragged him off the field.

When they had gone, Boru turned to me. “That was well done, Col.” Boru always called me Col, stopping just short of the open insult, preferring the implied slight.

“I am sorry,” I muttered.

“No, do not be sorry,” he insisted, loud enough for all those gathered around to hear. “You have done well.” He clapped me on the back in rare commendation. “It is not easy to bring down a foe with your back to the ground. You did not surrender to defeat—this is what separates the living from the dead on the battleground.”

Boru turned to the stunned onlookers and dismissed them. They drifted off, mumbling to themselves. The incident would be well discussed at the evening meal. I wondered what Scatha would say when she found out about it.

I did not have long to wait, for no sooner had Boru and the others dispersed than I heard the light jingle of a horse’s tack. I turned to see Scatha approaching, leading a black horse whose withers and flanks were lathered from a vigorous ride.

Scatha was our Battle Chief: a more beautiful woman could not be found, nor one more deadly. The hair beneath her bronze warcap was plaited into tiny beaded braids that gleamed like sunstruck gold; her pale blue eyes were cool beneath long golden lashes and smooth, straight brows; her lips were full, but firmly set. Her features were those which adorned the classic sculptures of an Athena or Venus. If there is such a thing as the poetry of battle, she was it: graceful and formidable, dazzling movement and terrible skill.

Scatha was renowned as the finest warrior in all Albion. And it was in Scatha’s school on the Isle of Sci where I labored to learn the craft of war. Such labor! Up every morning at first light to run on the beach and swim in the cold sea, and then to break fast on brown bread and water before beginning the day’s activities: practice with sword and spear and knife and shield, strategy sessions, lessons in combat of various types, more physical conditioning, sports and wrestling games, and on and on. When we were not running or climbing or wrestling, we were in the saddle. We rode incessantly: racing one another in the surf, hunting in the wooded hills and glens of the island, engaging in mock battles.

I had become accustomed to the regimen, and even enjoyed it for the most part. Alas, I had not greatly improved as a warrior. Apparently I still lacked some mysterious ingredient with which to bring all the skills together into a harmonious, effective whole. I was least and last among my fellows, and they were all younger than me. Boys barely eight summers old possessed skills I could only imagine, and they mercilessly demonstrated their superiority at every turn.

I swear by the tongue in my head, one has never learned humility until one has been bested by children!

I turned to meet Scatha, and understood from the sharply disapproving expression on her face that she had seen what I had done. “You defeated Cynan at last. You have taught him a valuable lesson,” she said, adding pointedly, “though I would not await his thanksgiving.”

“I did not mean to hurt him.” I gestured vaguely toward the boys who were dragging my adversary’s inert body across the practice field. Cynan’s feet left two long tracks in the dirt.

“Of course you did,” Scatha told me. “If your spear had metal at the tip instead of birch, you would have killed him.”

“No, I—”

She raised a slender hand and silenced me. “You faced two today, and were defeated by one.”

I did not catch her meaning. “Which two, Pen-y-Cat?” I used her preferred title: Head of Battle. She was that, and more: a canny and cunning adversary, endlessly ingenious, as shrewd and sly an opponent as one would ever care to face.

She replied, her voice low. “You were angry, Col. Your anger defeated you today.”

It was true. “I am sorry.”

“Next time, perhaps, you will not be sorry. You will be dead.” She turned and began leading her horse to the stables. She motioned for me to walk beside her. “If you must always defeat two enemies each time you take the field of battle, you will soon be overcome. And of any two enemies, anger is always the stronger.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she did not allow me to interrupt. “Give up your fear,” she told me bluntly. “Or it will kill you.”

I lowered my head. She was right, of course. I feared ridicule, humiliation, failing—but, more than that, I feared getting hurt, getting killed.

“The feats you achieved against Cynan are yours, Col. You possess the skills, but you must learn to call them forth on your own. To do that, you must give up your fear.”

“I understand. I will try harder,” I vowed.

Scatha stopped walking and turned to me. “Is life so piteous where you come from that you must cling to it so?”

Piteous? Certainly she had it backwards. But then, the language still threw me sometimes. “I do not understand,” I confessed.

“It is the poor man who clenches so tightly to the gold he is given—for fear of losing it. The man of wealth spends his gold freely to accomplish his will in the world. It is the same with life.”

Suddenly ashamed of my conspicuous poverty, I lowered my eyes. But Scatha placed a hand beneath my chin and raised my head. “Cling too tightly to your life and you will lose it, my reluctant warrior. You must become the master of your life, not its slave.”

I gazed into her eyes and believed her. I knew that she spoke the truth, and that she saw me for what I was. All at once, I wanted nothing more than to prove my worth in those clear, blue eyes. If largesse of spirit made a good warrior, I would become a spendthrift!

“Thank you, Pen-y-Cat,” I murmured gratefully. “Your words are wise and true. I will remember them.”

“See that you do.” Scatha inclined her head in acceptance of my compliment. “There is no glory in teaching warriors to die.”

Then she handed me the reins to her horse and walked away, leaving me to tend the animal. This was my reproof for losing my temper with Cynan.

I had been in Scatha’s island school for over six months, by my reckoning. The folk of Albion did not go by months, but rather by seasons, which made precise time-keeping slightly difficult. But two seasons had passed since I had come to Ynys Sci, and two more made a year. At the end of the third season,
Rhylla
—the Otherworld equivalent of fall or autumn—most of the boys would return home to winter with their clans and tribes. But I would not. Always a few of the older youths, like Boru, stayed on through the dark, dismal northern months of cold and icy wind.

There were nearly a hundred young warriors in training on the island. The younger boys were trained apart from the older, although no strict age division was enforced. It mostly had to do with size and aptitude. I was sometimes put with the older boys and young men, even though I was rarely a match for their prowess—or even skillful enough to create much in the way of an interesting challenge. Consequently, I was the butt of their humor and the target of all their scorn.

Nor did I blame them. I was a hopeless warrior. I knew that. But until today, I had not really wanted to succeed. I wanted it now. And not only success, I wanted to win acclaim and honor. I wanted to cover myself in glory in Scatha’s eyes . . . or at least to avoid further disgrace.

That evening, when I had finished watering and feeding the horse and settled it for the night, I joined my companions in the torchlit hall where we took our meals. But this night I was not greeted with catcalls and cheerful derision; this night I was welcomed with a silence approaching respect. Word had indeed spread about my contest with Cynan, and most, if not all, were on Cynan’s side. They were annoyed with me for besting him and turned the cold shoulder. Still, their silence was more tolerable than their mockery.

Alone of all the rest, Boru came to sit at the board with me. We ate together but spoke little. “I do not see Cynan,” I said, glancing from one to another of the long tables in the hall.

“He is not hungry tonight,” replied Boru affably. “I think his head hurts.”

“Pen-y-Cat believes I struck in anger,” I said and told him about my talk with Scatha.

Boru listened to what I had to say, then shrugged. “Our War Leader is wise,” he said solemnly. “Heed her well.” Then he smiled wide, his thin face merry. “Still, I think you have earned a new name. It is no longer Collri—you will be Llyd from now on.”

I warmed with unexpected pleasure. “Do you think so, Boru?”

He nodded and lifted a narrow hand. “You will see.”

A moment later, he was standing on the table. He raised his silver signal horn to his lips and gave forth a loud blast which reverberated in the hall. Everyone stopped eating and talking, and all eyes turned to him. “Brothers!” he shouted. “Fortunate am I among men. I saw a marvel today!” Bards sometimes introduce an announcement in this fashion.

“What did you see?” came the expected response from the tables round about. Everyone leaned forward.

“I saw a stump grow legs and walk; I saw a clod of dirt raise its head!” Boru answered. Everyone laughed, and I knew they were laughing at me. They thought he was making fun of me. And, truth to tell, I thought so too.

But before I could hide my head, Boru thrust his open hand toward me and said, “Today I saw the spirit of a warrior kindled in the heat of anger. Hail, Llyd ap Dicter! I welcome you!”