Warriors of Ethandun (35 page)

Finna stood no chance. She had no time; in the instant she had wrestled control of herself back from Ursula it was too late. Finna fell, and Ursula, still linked to her by that small thread, heard Finna's neck snap and then the world went silent.

Ursula opened her eyes. Rhonwen was watching her, horror on her face.

‘Thank God, you're free – now do something!' the former priestess screamed. ‘Our wall is on fire! They are dying up there and there is no water!'

Ursula's mind was suddenly very clear. To be free, to wield the magic again, was a kind of ecstasy. First she did what she could to douse the flames. They were sustained
by magic and the ground was damp; without the magic to make the fire live, the flames died down swiftly. She healed those she could – for many it was too late. The flames had taken their toll. Then Aelfred raised his sword and Aethelnoth and Gunnarr steadied the line and the Wessex men rallied.

It felt so good to let the magic fill her up. She could not think of anything else. How had she ever resisted it? She stood up in her own body and let the magic crackle like lightning from her fingertips. She wanted to cry out in joy. She stretched and let herself grow, expand to fill the room. She made roses bloom over the cart. She took Rhonwen's ageing hand in hers and with a little concentrated pulse of magic made her young again. She let herself feel the magic of the world surge through her, rebuilding muscles wasted in recent days, restoring herself to strength. She felt more alive than she ever had. On the invisible wings of power she saw the battlefield and Dan. He was the beast. He had not been able to find her and without her voice in his mind to remind himself of who he was, he was lost. She watched him feed on a corpse and did not look away.

She knew what had to be done. There was no other way. She had known for a long time. She had to save Dan. She had to keep him from remaining the monstrous bear for ever. There was only one way she could think of to do that properly, definitively. She had to make what was for her the ultimate sacrifice. She had to lock away the magic.

She did not actually know how to do it, but she
knew it could be done because someone had done it in her own world. Someone had found a way of pouring all that magical power into the core of the earth, locking it under tons of rock, safe from the meddling hands and whims of men and women who would use it for good or ill – who could always say which was which?

She restored herself to her usual size and walked a short distance to a grove of trees and knelt on the ground. Rhonwen followed her and Taliesin too, but she didn't take any notice. She wouldn't let them dissuade her. She took off her shoes and let the power of the earth surge through her, and then she laid her hands on the ground, closed her eyes and sent it home. She let her awareness travel to the deepest places of the earth at the burning core and she gave the earth its magic back. Ursula was soon drenched in sweat, swaying with the effort of it, but Rhonwen, who seemed to understand, held her in her arms and whispered to her as if she was a child in need of comfort.

‘Go on, my sweet. This is the answer: lock it away – where no one can use it.'

She was surprised that Rhonwen supported her, in that one small part of her mind that was not totally focused on her task. Both she and Rhonwen were sobbing, trembling as Rhonwen lent her what help she could. Then Taliesin joined them, held Ursula steady when her whole body shuddered with the strain and the shock, as if she were a woman in childbirth, expelling her body's most precious gift.

He wiped her face and whispered, ‘Go on, cariad! It is the only way to set him free!'

It hurt more than she could say. It felt like she was bleeding to death. It was as if someone was slicing through her bones and sucking out the marrow, tearing at her heart with talons of steel, leaching the very colour from her hair. It felt like she was burying almost all that made life worthwhile. The world shifted from technicolour to black and white. She grew small and ugly and ordinary. Her heartbeat felt sluggish, her blood without magic flowed like sludge through a body made of everyday stuff. She could not stop crying. It felt as if she was pouring everything that had made her someone worth knowing into the centre of the earth: her courage, her beauty, her strength. At the end she was just Ursula Dorrington again, no sorceress, no goddess, no warrior, just an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl. When she'd finished, she did not even know if she'd succeeded. She could not see Dan any more. She could not know if she'd saved him: even that gift had gone.

Rhonwen and Taliesin were both weeping too. They clung to each other, exhausted, drained. Rhonwen patted her cheek. ‘It is as well. There was too much of it. That much power cannot help but corrupt.' She was the Rhonwen of old, before she was scarred – beautiful, imperious; her long dark hair hung round her face, a rich curtain of silk, but her eyes were no longer green but brown, devoid of magic.

‘I'm sorry, Taliesin,' Ursula said. ‘I grew to hate the magic. It filled me up, but I did not control it – it
controlled me. I hope I didn't do wrong?'

‘Asser will be very pleased,' he said, trying without much success not to sound bitter. Ursula knew that he too had enjoyed his power; it had never troubled his conscience. ‘I am going to miss it but you were not wrong. The magic of this world is strange, perverse. You did right. It is just that I feel lost without it.'

Ursula did not feel so much lost as desolate, empty, a hollow girl in an alien world. Taliesin seemed to understand. He gave her a fatherly hug.

‘You did it for the best of reasons. How else can we choose our way?'

Perhaps if she'd known how terrible she'd feel without the magic rushing through her, she might have hesitated. Perhaps she would not have done it at all – even for Dan. Ironically, now that she was free enough of magic to get back home, she had no magic to get her there and neither had Taliesin or Rhonwen. She was stuck for ever in this terrible world with no power, with nothing but her own ordinary self to work with.

‘Can you see what is happening out there?' she said dully. ‘Can you see Dan?'

Taliesin had obviously been using some of his magic to improve his vision, because he squinted at her shortsightedly. ‘What do you think?'

Rhonwen shrugged. ‘I don't know. You have done enough. We none of us can help. I will get us some of my tisane to steady us. I feel as if someone has been flaying my soul.'

Perhaps Ursula had been wrong. What if Dan had died
without the protection of the bear, without the bear's brute strength and thick fur-covered hide?

Dan's mind cleared almost immediately the magic disappeared. He felt himself shrink, felt the bear leave him, felt alone and small and vulnerable, separated from his own men and behind enemy lines.

By some miracle he had not discarded Bright Killer in his transformation into the beast and he was still wearing clothes, though he had avoided wearing mail because he knew the bear would not have been able to remove it. He picked up a discarded helmet and shield from the ground and thought about what to do. The Wessex line had been restored, though the air was still tainted by the terrible smell of burning flesh, leather and cloth. The raven banner lay on the ground where Guthrum and his standard-bearer had abandoned it. He picked that up too. Both shield walls had regrouped. Without the power of the bear, what could he do now?

He looked around for inspiration and spotted the horses that had been loosely tethered behind the Danish lines. There was still a measure of confusion. The appearance of the bear had created such panic that Guthrum and his bodyguard had retreated behind the line of horses. He approached the animals cautiously. They reared as if he still stank of the beast. Quickly he untied them and mounted the largest of them. He unsheathed his sword and raised the raven banner high. He thought he might die of fright, but he had to do something. Soon the enemy would realise who he was and if they thought that Odin
had abandoned him, they would take the greatest pleasure in killing him. The capacity to find that calm, clear part of his mind that allowed him to focus utterly on the moment had not left him. Once he'd entered the Veil it had somehow become connected with and polluted by his berserker madness, but that was all gone now. He felt whole, clean, able to think. He took a deep breath. Ursula had called to him. Somehow she had set him free. Perhaps he would die, but at least he would die as Dan. He had a chance to make a difference, a chance to help Aelfred achieve victory without magic or madness, just by being himself, by concentrating and by taking the risk. He slapped the horses beside him hard with the flat of his sword, dug his heels into his horse's flanks and screamed ‘For King Aelfred!', and raising the Dane's own banner he charged the rear of the Danish line.

To his surprise and relief the men's instinct was to press forward to avoid the trampling hooves of the wild and terrified horses. Some spearman ought to have turned and finished Dan off, but somehow no one thought of that, at least not in time. The line shrank from the horses and scattered, while Dan pressed on. The men at the front of the shield wall were being pushed from behind on to the spears of the Wessex men, who somehow heard Dan's cry and realised that the precious raven flag that had filled the Saxons with fear for so long was now wielded by one of their own. There was a moment when all hung in the balance, when Dan might have been cut down and when the Danes might have rallied, but perhaps word had spread of Guthrum's ignominious retreat from the bear, of the
death of Finna at the hands of Odin, or perhaps the men just panicked when the horses charged. Either way the battle-hardened veterans of the Danish line decided that it was not their day to die. They broke the line and ran, and it was the men of Wessex, Aelfred's men, that had the day. They chased the Danes with wild cries, finding new energy in triumph, cutting down all the men they could. Dan left them to it. When he was sane and clear-headed, he had no stomach for slaughter. He rode back to their base camp and to Ursula.

Ursula saw him riding into camp – whole and sane and without injury – and had to fight down a sob. She felt almost naked without her magic, strangely vulnerable. She was flanked by the two Combrogi whom she had known since that first time through the Veil. It seemed that their fates were still entwined. Taliesin rose to meet Dan and to Ursula's surprise Rhonwen found her hand and squeezed it.

‘You saved him,' she said simply. ‘And you saved the day for Aelfred too, though he'll never know what it cost you.'

Taliesin added, patting her shoulder, ‘I now know why you had to come here. Without your action Finna would have used my power and the power of anyone with magic. You saved us. I will bring you here in my future if you tell me it was worth the pain.'

‘I don't know. No. Now I can't get home,' Ursula said in a choked voice.

‘Don't be so sure of that,' Taliesin said cryptically.

‘Go to Dan,' Rhonwen whispered. ‘Why do you hesitate?'

She couldn't explain about what had happened in their own world, the strange distance that had grown between them there and the peculiarity of their relationship in Aelfred's world. She had been half mad with magic and he had been half mad with the battle-lust of the bear. Who were they really? Had they ever known each other without magic in some way running through their veins and changing their reality?

‘Get on with it, Ursula. You are not one for false shyness. You have saved him; the least you can do is give him a hug.' She pushed Ursula forward and then pointedly turned away to talk to Taliesin.

‘You are safe!' Ursula said.

‘I am not mad either,' Dan answered, strangely shy. ‘How did you do it?'

‘You saved me – by killing Finna. She had me trapped and then I locked away all the magic. You know how there is no magic in our world – I think that might have been down to me!'

‘Is that why I feel so strange?'

‘Probably.'

‘I didn't mean to kill her. She was only a girl. Ursula, I've done so many bad things since we've been here. It has all been a nightmare.' Dan's face was contorted with grief. He dismounted and then sort of fell into her arms.

‘I know, Dan,' she said, hugging him tightly. ‘It's not your fault, it's mine. I should never have made you raise the Veil – it was wrong. I was wrong from the beginning. I wanted the magic too much – that's why I locked it away – but now we can't get home.'

Ursula could feel the dampness of Dan's tears against her cheek. She felt the sobs that wracked his body. ‘I never want to hurt another human being again. I don't even know how many men I've killed.'

‘Hush,' she said. ‘It was the corrupting power of the magic, Dan. It changed us both. We've done wrong, but now we're free of it.'

He pulled away from her, wiping his eyes. ‘I charged the line. I think it gave Aelfred the day – so that is one small thing I did. And you – you locked up the magic. That has to be a good thing, doesn't it?'

Ursula shrugged. ‘I hope so. What can we do here now? We are no use to anyone as ourselves.'

‘You are of use to me,' Dan said quietly. ‘I'm sorry. I should have said so before, back at home, and I didn't dare – too proud, I think. I love you, Ursula.'

She smiled. ‘I know,' she said, swallowing down a lump that had appeared unaccountably in her throat. ‘I don't know why I ever doubted it. I love you too.'

They kissed briefly and clung to each other like survivors from a shipwreck.

‘Oh, Dan! I just want to go home!'

Dan remembered the orb that he had recovered from the disloyal householder. Amazingly it was still in the pouch he had tied round his waist. He had not forgotten the orb; he had kept it with him even in battle. It was a kind of miracle that he had not lost it in his Bear Sark madness; somehow it was still there, unbroken. The orb was heavy in his hand, but it still looked like a cheap prop in a bad play. It was hard to believe that it held any power.