Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen (15 page)

At least his mother and five brothers and sisters were safe. The long magus, going against the rule of his father that his family was to remain with him, had spirited them away shortly before the wolves attacked. When questioned by Twilight the old astounder had withheld their destination other than to assure him that they were in a place of safety with an old and trusted friend of his from the past.

With a couple of concerned pica flapping in the trees overhead, Twilight sat in a corner of the compound for a long time thinking about the wolf attack on the settlement. His father had seemed quite cruel on occasions, but it had only been in the interests of bringing up a large family on limited means. An honest but simple peasant couldn’t have been expected to understand the crazy antics of a boy born to sorcery, especially as the boy didn’t understand it himself.

And the village boys, that bunch of ragamuffins who had taunted and harassed him with their rough and ill-conceived pranks. What could they have been expected to understand? Their simple lives had been built, as his had been, around poverty and community. They had been nowhere outside the settlement other than to till the soil and tend whatever livestock their fathers owned in the surrounding meadows. Now their innocent lives had been ripped away from them in the cruelest of ways. He thought of all the men and women who had been so mercilessly slaughtered. Red-faced, careworn women with infants on their hips and others playing in the dirt at their feet, bearded, rough-handed men with implements in their hands forever muttering about what the weather was doing to their crops. Vague names and faces swam through his mind. The family that lived in the next hovel, the noisy arguments between the man and his wife, the one-legged man and village elder with seven children who lived on the other side, the family opposite whose father had been the village smith, beating small, glowing pieces of iron into implements for tilling and plowing the soil. The time he’d been sitting high in an oak tree on the edge of the forest when a young man and woman from the village, giggling and tickling each other, had settled under the tree and begun to kiss. After half an hour of squirming embarrassment as he tried to ignore their ever-increasing ardor, Will, finding his situation too much to bear, began to have strong thoughts about his predicament. Suddenly, both the young woman and man simultaneously leapt to their feet and laughing hysterically ran completely naked back to the village where, to the complete astonishment of all, with hands entwined, they danced around the maypole.

Although no one outside his immediate family had any proof that Will was responsible for some of the strange things that happened around the settlement, most of them regarded him with suspicion, and had probably heaved a sigh of relief when his father had finally taken him away.

But none of their treatment of Will deserved what they got when the slavering gray wolves came rushing out of the dawn.

When Merlin finally closed the huge woven-willow gates of his stockaded compound, he knew he was doing it forever.

“Remember, skirmisher, all strangers from here on, howsoever they present themselves to you, are dangerous. Only when they have proved themselves, either way, will you know how to treat with them. They will say ‘How can I prove myself to you if you will not let me near you?’ Your answer must be that if they value such proof highly enough, they will find a way.”

Twilight nodded as the long magus continued.

“It is not safe for us here at the compound. She will attack very soon, and we must make all haste for the catacombs of Cheddar, and then on to Glastonbury and the southwest to continue the fight within the marshlands of the Levels. From there, if necessary, we will move further west toward Exeter and then Kernow, drumming up support from the local thanes if they have not all grown too fat and lazy upon the land they have stolen from the people. We will take human and wolverine lives as and when we can. Our birds will remain in close attendance. From now on, skirmisher, we fight on the move.”

The long magus took a last look around the compound.

His eyes glowed and twelve blood-dripping skinned deer carcasses appeared, hung from the compound fence posts.

He handed Twilight an ochre pot.

“Use a long stick to smear each carcass with some of the potion in this pot. Be very careful not to get any of the potion on your skin. We will leave more hanging from boughs along false routes.”

“What is it?”

“An appetizer to welcome ravenous guests with highly developed senses of smell and odor.” Merlin chuckled. “A sweet-tasting concoction made up of three plants from around here: spotted hemlock from the
conium
variety, staggergrass from
amianthium,
and foxglove from the
digitalis
strain. Boiled into a delicious-tasting, irresistible meat additive that no self-respecting wolf could possibly ignore.”

“What will it do to them?”

“The spotted hemlock will cause almost instant respiratory - breathing - failure. The staggergrass causes excessive salivation followed by a poisonous death, and the foxglove will immediately stop the heart beating.”

“Why all three? Surely any one of them will do?”

Merlin chuckled. “Elelendise might well be with them. Due to its carnal diet the wolf’s bodily system is basic but hardy and well used to discarding unwanted substances. If she hits on the cause quickly she has the power to provide an antidote for, perhaps, one of the poisons. It is not possible to provide an antidote for all three in the short time she will have before the wolves are past the point of no return.”

Twilight shook his head in awe. “So much knowledge, so much understanding of death.”

The long magus looked down at him from his great height. “We haven’t even begun, my little tyro spellbinder. By the time this battle is over you will understand death in many more forms.”

“Can victory be achieved without so many deaths?” The dark brown eyes glowed concern.

“Only hers.” The long magus turned abruptly.

One hundred wolves hit the compound in a mass of snarling hatred. Again, the flimsy woven willow gates and walls of the shelter splintered under their impact as they frantically sought the presence of humans. Finding none they fell in a ferocious feeding frenzy upon the hanging carcasses.

In no hurry, Elelendise later strode into the clearing with the white baby wolf cub cradled in her arms. She knew Merlin and Twilight would be long gone, but the symbolism of destroying the compound was too strong for her to resist. It would be added to all the other myths that would be sung about around the dying embers of the Celtic campfires as the beginning of the end for the mighty long magus.

And the ascendancy of the wolf-woman.

She stopped abruptly. All around the smashed compound wolves lay dead. Here and there a gray-furred leg with white markings around the large padded foot twitched as the last throes of life ebbed into the Wessex soil. Stiff, foam-flecked tongues lolled from mouths red with deer blood as the rigor mortise of death had arrested them in mid snarl. Quickly she took in the ripped carcasses, some still hanging, others littered in pieces of torn deer flesh and bone around the compound.

A blue feather fluttered gently on a thin sapling.

Then she got very angry.

Merlin and Twilight sat high in the branches of a mighty oak tree overlooking the Plain of Glastonbury. The long magus had insisted they walk there, a journey that took them the whole day and wore Twilight out. There had been many stops along the way as Merlin explained a particular bit of magic and how it was completed. As the evening shadows began to lengthen they had reached their destination, and Merlin began the process of teaching the boy how to transform from one place to another. Using small distances to begin with in and around the oak tree, Twilight began to get to grips with the complicated enchantment of putting himself instantly in another place.

“As you know, most of what we do is controlled by the mind.” Merlin chuckled as the boy, intending to transform himself to the ground under the tree they were in, suddenly found himself sitting in Merlin’s lap. “In order to execute any transformation, the mind must be completely clear of any distraction. Otherwise, you will end up in the wrong place, as, I believe, you have just demonstrated.” He patted the boy’s head gently. “It’s all controlled from in here.”

“But I can’t get those wolves and the slaughter of the settlement out of my head,” said Twilight. “I keep hearing the screams of the dying villagers and seeing terrible images. And besides all that I’m tired. You have worn me out with all this walking.”

The long magus sighed. “I know. Let’s give it a rest for a while.”

He waved a long arm around to encompass the area.

“We are in an area of Wessex known as Summer Land. A

land of diverse Celtic tribes and independent barbarians, each worshipping their own pagan gods. Fifty years ago this realm was under the rule of Melwas. Each winter the marshes of the Levels flood this plain and turn the Tor,” he pointed to a steep hill rising out of a valley in the distance, “into an island. The people around here call it the Island of Glass.”

“You knew Melwas?” Twilight asked.

Merlin gazed into the distance as if looking back in time.

“Quite well. We were on friendly terms … until he kidnapped Guinevere and imprisoned her in his fortress here in Glastonbury.”

“Why?”

“She was a beautiful woman. He wanted her for his wife, but she was already betrothed to Arthur.”

“Which made Arthur very angry, and they fought a battle for the hand of Guinevere?” Twilight’s dark eyes again shone with the experience of being so close to great events.

“Not this time.” The long magus smiled down at his charge. “Arthur’s army became stuck in the winter marshlands of the Levels and could not make any headway.”

Twilight looked at him quizzically. “You were with King Arthur?”

“I was. In those days he never referred to himself as a king. He called himself
Dux Bellorum
, Battle Leader in your tongue. There were others who had a greater paternal claim on the throne of the Britains, but Arthur was unequalled as an inspirer of men.”

Twilight sighed. “The Latin tongue is so much better at drawing pictures, a kind of speech music. Will I ever learn how to use it?”

“Of course you will. In the meantime you speak a perfectly able substitute, which is universally understood throughout this land.”

Twilight nodded before picking up the theme of Melwas again. “The marshlands of the Levels do not offer a barrier to you. We have just proven that by our instant transition here today.”

“True, and so it was that I traversed the marshes, bargained with Melwas, and Guinevere was released.”

“What was the bargain?”

“Arthur’s army was bigger and better trained. He would have waited until the summer when the marshlands dried out and then put Melwas and his men to the sword. I persuaded Melwas that if he returned Guinevere unharmed, Dux Bellorum would turn back and peace would reign between them.”

“Arthur was happy with that?”

“Only when reunited with Guinevere. She soothed the anger from him. Besides, he had other, more important battles to fight. Saxons, warlords, and pretenders were everywhere.”

Twilight was silent for a while.

“So,” he said at last. “Since we are getting close to winter, the lesson is that Penda’s army could also get bogged down in the marshlands of the Levels.”

Merlin grinned at him. “Good, good, and that way we’ll let nature take some of the strain of battle … if, that is, the wolf-woman chooses to ignore the strategic usefulness of Cadbury Castle.”

“Cadbury Castle?”

“It is a strongly fortified castle on a hill just outside the settlement of Yeovil, which is on the northern edge of the Levels. Currently occupied by Gawain Godwinson, a lord of some standing whose father was one of the twelve Knights of the Round Table - one of only two Grail knights - it would be a good place for Penda’s army to sit out the coming winter.”

“The Knights of the Round Table, the Grail chalice, Guinevere,” breathed Twilight in awe. “Campfire legends and heroes of the finest storytelling. Does the Grail chalice exist?”

The long magus looked at him for a long while as if deciding just how far he should go with this. Then he raised his fingers to his lips to denote a secret and spoke directly to the boy’s mind.

We will come to the Grail and its seekers in good time, my eager little moonshiner. Even though we are at the top of this mighty oak tree some myths must remain clandestina, spoken of only in whispers.

Does it exist? Twilight asked again eagerly
.

It certainly does.

Do you know its whereabouts?

“I am its keeper,” said Merlin simply, reverting back to normal speech. “Now, enough of such matters, we have more pressing deeds to attend to.”

“Does Godwinson have an army?” Twilight continued with his bombardment of questions.

“Hardly an army.” The long magus scowled. “Two hundred, maybe three hundred men at most. I think we’ll pay him a visit tomorrow and see just what he’s made of. If he’s anything like his father he’ll be a man of honor and courage.”