Age of Iron (7 page)

Aithne took Lowa’s wrist and pulled her closer.

“Lowa, surely it’s not right that we’re killing all these people. They say it wasn’t like this before Zadar. They say it was so peaceful that hillforts were falling apart. It can’t be right that everyone needs to build them again. It can’t be right that we’re sacrificing children. The Earth Mother cannot approve.”

“If Danu doesn’t like it, why doesn’t she do something?”

“Maybe we should do something for her?”

“Aithne, seriously, stop this. Unless you really, really want to end the evening impaled on a stake?”

Aithne smiled saucily. “Well, I sort of do…”

“That’s better.”

The gateway opened up into the wide hillfort interior and chattering knots of conquering Maidun soldiers. Lowa fixed on her party face and plunged into her least favourite form of mêlée.

D
ug Sealskinner ran. He knew it was too late. His feet sank into sand and marram grass cut his hands as he hauled himself up the dune. The dune shouldn’t have been that high. A small part of his mind realised that he was dreaming, but it couldn’t make itself heard over the much larger part of his mind which was gibbering in a rolling boil of horror because it knew what he was going to find on the other side of the dune.

He paused when he reached the summit. His broch stood firm by the burbling burn, peaceful as a sleeping dog. Maybe he was wrong. Its circular stone wall was so solid, everything looked so quiet, surely this time all would be fine? Brinna would be waiting for him, Kelsie and Terry playing nearby? Kornonos had only blessed Brinna once with pregnancy, but Danu had given them two in one go and he loved them so much that just saying their names in his head almost made him weep.

He jumped down the dune in two huge leaps, sinking knee-deep in sand, like he’d done so many times with his wee girls whooping in his arms. He ran across springy estuarine turf, splashed through the burn’s stony ford. Geese scattered on the bank, honking angrily. Geese that should have been fenced into the walled yard. Horse hoof marks in the mud. They didn’t have any horses. No twin tots running out to meet him. No squeals of joy with the sunlight shining in their beautiful red hair. No noise from the broch. The door open.

He felt his bowels slacken as he walked in. He knew he’d find Terry first. They looked identical, Kelsie and Terry, but he always knew who was who.

There was Terry, the tiny thing, four summers old, slumped against a wooden pillar, as always. One eye staring at him, as always. One eye part of the pulp that the other side of her face had become. A mace blow, Dug thought, as he always did, as his knees buckled.

L
owa Flynn sank her teeth into a gooey venison haunch. She was standing on her own, but not so far from the throng that people might ask what was wrong. She came to Zadar’s after-battle parties for the food. She stayed for the booze. Small talk she could do without. Chat at the beginning of parties was not conversation, it was just people making noises at each other. Lowa preferred to stand, watch and think.

She could hear Aithne’s honking laughter from over by the fire, above the minstrels’ cacophony. Her sister had shed her misgivings about the regime quickly enough once Atlas the Kushite showed her some attention. Shaking her hair and inflating her chest, she put a hand onto his broad, dark-skinned shoulder. Of Lowa’s mounted archers, Aithne was the keenest to leap into bed with pretty much anyone who asked. Actually, leaping into bed was rare. Nipping round the back of a hut, tumbling into a defensive ditch or simply shuffling a little further from the firelight was more her style.

People were always surprised that they were sisters. Aithne was big-boned, big-arsed, busty and tall with hair the colour of piss-soaked stable straw, while Lowa was average height, slender, with hair so blonde it was almost white. Admittedly she was on the stocky side of slender. Riding and archery had built muscle, and a keen observer would have seen that her right shoulder and arm were bigger than her left from drawing the longbow, but she was slim-waisted and supple, with a bottom that lobbed slingstones would have bounced off. Aithne had the small-featured, freckled face of a milkmaid. Lowa had the pale skin and high cheekbones of a fairy princess. Aithne had dark, bovine eyes with long heavy lashes. Lowa’s eyes were blue, pale-lashed and slanted like a wildcat’s. Aithne was gregarious while Lowa watched from the edges. Aithne was confused and idealistic where Lowa was logical and pragmatic. Aithne was a glutton for food and booze, often to be found vomiting before bed, while Lowa never overate and had never been sick after drinking. Aithne was two years older, but Lowa had been the leader as long as she could remember.

Lowa had no memory of her father, but she was pretty sure he wasn’t the same guy as Aithne’s.

Her other four archers stood by the blazing fire, in a circle talking to each other, as they always did at the beginning of any social gathering. Lowa felt a swelling of affection.
Must be the booze
, she thought. Part of her wanted to join them, but she couldn’t be both friend and leader. Yes, they’d been together for years. Yes, they’d become Zadar’s most favoured fighters – right now more favoured than the Fifty. And yes, she loved Cordelia, Maura, Seanna and Realin like daughters. But that was exactly it. Lowa loathed mothers who got drunk and shared smutty jokes with their daughters. Too much familiarity cheapened and weakened the bond. So, even though she was younger than at least two of them, she kept a maternal distance.

Looking around at the chatting, laughing throng, it was odd to think that these people had spent the morning up to their armpits in gore, slaughtering the massively more numerous but woefully inferior foe.
Ah, not all of them had fought
. There was Keelin Orton, Zadar’s latest mistress, standing on her own because none of the men dared talk to her and none of the women wanted to. She was a beautiful girl, about fifteen years old, with come-and-get-it eyes, a two-handspan waist, an equine rump, tits the size of her head and a pout pettish enough to sour milk. Her white linen dress and broad leather belt would have looked virginal on most other girls. On Keelin, it had Lowa questioning her usual preference for men. She was typical Zadar fodder. When Zadar announced that she would open the morning’s battle by driving the gruesome man-drawn chariot, Keelin had squealed with delight. Once the draught-men were mad with the agony of a thick piece of metal hammered through each shoulder, she’d teased them coquettishly. She was no sweetie.

Lowa could see a little smile playing on Keelin’s lips as she looked at Mylor. Next to the fire, where all could see, stood a wooden-fenced pen of pigs. Barton’s king was inside, chained to a wooden upright. The former ruler didn’t seem to mind. He was sucking his thumb and stroking a big hairy boar. The boar was enjoying the attention and grunting encouragingly. It looked like it was thinking about mounting Mylor. That would please the spectators.

She saw Keelin stop smiling as the druid Felix oozed up to her. He’d clearly finished the sacrifices quickly, or maybe he was saving some for later. He stood too close to Keelin, took both her hands and looked up at her like a half-bald puppy. If Felix noticed her cringe, he didn’t show it. He barked out a joke and laughed roaringly as she looked over his head for a rescuer. Lowa was not going to help.

The party was in the lower section of the hillfort, where buildings were sparse and livestock should have been corralled in times of danger. Long tables had been piled with Barton’s food reserves. Near the fire the revellers’ cheeks were bronzely aglow with health and happiness. Further away, soft starlight painted people gentle silver in the moonless night. It was vastly more pleasant than Zadar’s usual hellishly smoky hall-based shindigs. On summer evenings like these it was impossible to remember the winter.

But still Lowa couldn’t shake her unease.
What the Mother was it?
Booze and food hadn’t helped much. She thought about going back to her hut, but she couldn’t face the inevitable door-hanging, arty dickheads, whose role was to drunkenly and belligerently demand where you were going and why, take personal offence that you could think of leaving, then splatter you with spittle as they demanded that you stay. She didn’t want to talk her way past them just yet, and she couldn’t kill them. Even in Maidun’s army wanton murder was frowned upon. Unless it was Zadar’s idea.

She turned her attention to the band. Five men in brightly patterned outfits were playing brass instruments on a platform extending from the rampart at the side of the enclosure. The blaring of bronze instruments died in a long, ugly blast, and the men sang unaccompanied in a rumbling bass,

“The weakest section of the army, I’ve always thought.”

Lowa jumped. For such a huge man it was uncanny how Carden always managed to creep up on her.

Carden Nancarrow, Zadar’s champion. As a teenager ten years before, he’d beaten Barton’s five best with ease. At the celebrations two nights before, and several times before that, he and Lowa had ended up together.

She smiled. “My horse farts a better tune.”

Carden leaned his head back and laughed like a god. His thickly muscled chest heaved as he guffawed, then he shook his long dark locks as the laugh became a chuckle. Lowa’s reply hadn’t been that funny. He was clearly after a shag again. Maybe that was what she needed? She felt a quiver in her groin. Yes, Carden was exactly what she needed.

“Lowa, you do know that women aren’t meant to be witty?” His dark eyes sparkled with mischief underneath the strangely protruding brow that stopped him from being typically handsome, and a spasm shot across his cheek. Even his
face
was muscular.

“And men are. Topsy-turvy situation we have here.” She raised an eyebrow.

Carden chuckled but less enthusiastically. He wasn’t a massive fan of having his own qualities brought into question, which didn’t, thought Lowa, make him particularly unusual.

“How was your battle?” he asked. “You and your girls opened up very quickly in the face of such stiff opposition.”

She ignored the innuendo. “You’re right to mock, Carden. Six archers attacking a few thousand soldiers is nothing to be impressed by.”

“The Fifty started the rout.”

“Yes. You came in nicely behind my archers.”

“Perhaps you’ll show me exactly how that manoeuvre works later on?”

This time, she smiled.

“Yes, that’s why it’s such a shame—” He stopped mid-sentence and shook his head sadly. The band’s song ended and trumpets blared a high-pitched fanfare. Lowa turned, expecting to see Zadar borne towards them on his golden shield. Instead, she flinched as Carden grabbed her from behind. Strong fingers dug painfully into her arms.

“What the Mother…?”

She watched as men and women near Cordelia, Maura, Seanna and Realin grabbed swords from hiding places under tables and behind screens. A sword lashed out and Seanna went down. The others saw it wasn’t a joke and formed a circle around their fallen comrade, brandishing nothing more than wine horns.

“Carden, what the fuck!?” Carden didn’t answer. She struggled ineffectively. The partygoers were advancing on the archer girls with grim-faced, united purpose.

“Carden! What the fuck is going on?! Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed. No response.

The attackers closed in and swords came down. A severed hand flew high, spraying an arc of blood. One of the Fifty – a man with a large head called Aydun who Lowa had never liked much – stumbled back, blood spurting from his neck. Cordelia Bullbrow hacked her way out of the circle. Somehow she’d got hold of a sword.

Lowa shouted and struggled, but Carden’s grip was iron and her legs were clamped between his knees. She slammed her head back, but it thumped harmlessly on his chest.

“Give it up, Lowa,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry. We have orders.”

Cordelia turned back on the circle hacking at her friends. Lowa felt hope surge. The big woman sliced a man two-handed across the back. He went down, limbs flapping. Another came at her with an upward sword thrust. Cordelia parried and slashed her blade across his face.

Weylin Nancarrow, Carden’s younger brother, son of Lowa’s friend and weaponsmith Elann Nancarrow, strode up behind Cordelia. He swung his sword and slashed the backs of her knees open. Lowa’s strongest horse archer, the last hope for all of them, collapsed like a sack of mud. Weylin raised his sword matter-of-factly, swung it down, and chopped her head off.

Lowa tried to wrench herself free again and failed. She was still holding her venison bone, a potential weapon, but her arms were pinned. She looked for Aithne, but all she could see was Atlas walking away from where he’d been talking to her, wiping his war axe on his sleeve.

Carden shifted one arm to grab Lowa’s hair. Atlas walked towards her.

“Atlas!” she shouted imploringly.

He shook his head with a sad smile, like a child rejecting a fat friend when picking teams for a running game.

“Atlas, what are you doing? Why…?”

Atlas raised the axe. Carden twisted his hand in her hair to expose her neck.

Atlas pulled his axe back. Was this really happening?
It must be a dream
, she thought.

A shape rose behind Atlas. It was Aithne. She grabbed his dreadlocked hair and swung a fist into his ear. Atlas stumbled, the axe fell and Carden had to step away to avoid it. His knees loosened their grip. Lowa wrenched a leg free and stamped on his foot. Bones crunched under her iron heel. Carden fell back, clutching at her dress. She spun and smashed her right elbow into his temple. He went down. She grabbed a stool and flailed it at Atlas, who’d broken free of Aithne. He ducked. She rammed her venison haunch up, into the soft flesh under his jaw, and on. He dropped to his knees. She twisted the bone then let go. Atlas clutched his face with both hands and fell with a bubbling scream.