The Beauty of Destruction (6 page)

‘On the contrary,’ said Scab. ‘God is real and it’s about to eat everything. Good news, we’ll be leaving soon. Just a few more pieces of business. My … Benedict?’

‘As I’m sure you can imagine, our resources are stretched a little thin at the moment but we will help you track down and deal with the possessed Benedict on board the
Templar
…’

‘You have his backups here,’ Scab said, cutting Churchman off. The massive armoured form shifted in his throne-like chair again. Scab was sure that he was being stared at, despite the tinted visor.

‘You’re worried about leaving some trace of yourself, aren’t you?’ the Monk said, unable to keep the disgust from her voice.

‘I suspect that this will be difficult for you to understand, Mr Scab, but I’m not wiping Brother Benedict’s backups. I’m not going to murder him out of some sense of genetic insecurity on the part of his psychopathic father.’

‘Why not?’ Scab demanded.

The Monk laughed humourlessly.

‘Because it’s not the decent thing to do,’ Churchman told him.

Now Scab started to get genuinely angry. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? It’s going to happen. You decide how hard you’re going to make it on yourselves,’ he said, quietly.

‘Do you honestly think we’re frightened of you?’ the Monk asked. Scab turned to look at her with his dead eyes. He felt calm and cold now, like he always did before a fight.

‘The next time I kill you it might be in a way you can’t walk away from,’ he told her. She laughed.

‘Don’t threaten my sister,’ Talia told him, though she was obviously frightened. The Monk couldn’t keep the look of surprise from her face.

‘No,’ Vic said. Scab turned to stare at his ’sect ‘partner’. ‘You can go if you want. If they’ll have me, I’m staying.’

‘That’s not how this wor—’ Scab started.

‘You are most welcome, Mr Matto,’ Churchman said.

Scab smiled. ‘She doesn’t give a fuck about you. She was using you.’

Talia looked down at the floor. Out of the corner of his eye he could make out Elodie smirking. Scab’s olfactory sensors picked up on Vic’s pheromonic misery.

The ’sect nodded, another human affectation. ‘I know.’

Scab walked out of the conference room.

‘I’m bored,’ Elodie said. ‘I don’t like being bored.’

4

Ancient Britain

You did not fight in winter. Britha was no warrior, but she did know this. In winter your greatest enemy was the cold. In autumn you returned from raiding to tend to the fields and harvest for the cold, dark months when the dead could be heard on the wind. Crom Dhubh and the Lochlannach had given them little choice, it seemed.

She was sat on an outcrop overlooking a flat plain in a valley between steep hills, many of which were edged with rock escarpments and cliffs. The chill she felt wasn’t just from the cold air. The valley ran from east to west. She could make out the Mother Hill at the western end. She had since discovered that the hill had been sacred to the southron tribe’s Mother goddess, Cuda. It had been a place for the dead and the ravens when she had been there last. Now the magics that ran throughout her flesh allowed her to see movement in the fort atop the hill. She knew they would be the Lochlannach. She could not, however, make out the cave that was the entrance to Annwn where lay Oeth, the Place of Bones where Crom Dhubh dwelled.

There were a number of small settlements, mostly clusters of roundhouses and granaries. Closer to the west end of the valley, in the shadow of the Mother Hill, she could see a small village with its own longhall but she knew it was deserted. Even from this far out she could make out that much of the farmland was overgrown. The crops had not been harvested and the frost was killing them.

She tried to suppress the irritation of seeing the field rot, sheep, aurochs and smaller cattle left to roam free. She suspected that there were so many of the beasts wandering the valley because the wolves, bears and lynx knew that the western end of the valley was inhabited by the corrupt and unnatural.

With one hand Britha pulled the furs she had bartered for
t
ighter around herself. The
other grasped the longspear that she was leaning on. It
was mostly a memory of cold. Even the shaved side
of her head did not feel the cold as she
once had. She had decided to keep her hair as
it was. They did not trust her, so they may
as well fear her. Her odd appearance went some way
towards accomplishing this.

Below, the warband snaked into the valley
. The scouts, mostly women of the Iceni with their lynx
headdresses, and ash-painted members of
gwyllion
, had gone in
first. Only a few of them had carried weapons blessed
by the Red Chalice – though perhaps empowered was a better
word. Or even cursed. The scouts certainly didn’t lack
for courage in Britha’s eyes.

There were outriders spotted
around the high ground watching over the warband as they
entered the valley. After the final battle with the Muileartach
’s spawn they had continued marching north. Each night as
they camped Bladud had called his advisors to him, which
now included herself. They may not have trusted her but
it seemed they had started to value her wisdom, her
knowledge.

They had sent scouts into the wasteland in the
south. Goibhniu had been true to his word. The land
there was starting to recover. Natural plant life seemed to
be returning, albeit unnaturally fast. Bladud was reluctant to send
people back into the wasteland to live and Britha had
agreed with this.

They had discussed what to do with
the survivors who marched with them. Bladud had spoken to
all the landsfolk. He had told them he would send
them to their homes in groups if they lived north
of what the southrons were calling Andraste’s Wasteland. If
they had lived south then they could go and seek
new lives in the north, for the Lochlannach’s raiding
had left many lands short of people to work them
. Bladud had said they were welcome in Brigante lands. He
had, however, explained that if they stayed then they would
become spear-carriers and would fight. He left the appeal
of vengeance against the Lochlannach unsaid. Many had stayed, and
now Bladud had an army, one that was very loyal
to him. He had become the saviour of Ynys Prydain
. Britha had wondered how generous he had been to the
bards who sang of his victory across the land. More
warriors from the different tribes had come to join the
fight, following stories of glory, magics and power. They could
scarcely credit the stories
told by those who had lived through the wicker man and the children of the Muileartach’s onslaught.

‘Act like a
rhi
long enough and everyone starts to believe you,’ Britha said quietly to herself, her lips curving up into something that came close to a smile. She had to admit to liking the Witch King, even having a degree of respect for him, but he was dangerous because he was greedy and too ambitious. However well intentioned he might be, he wanted to tell others how to live. That could only end in war.

She had been aware of Tangwen’s approach for some time now. The small, wiry warrior scrambled onto the outcrop with her.

‘Did you climb up here?’ Tangwen asked. There was disapproval in her voice but the hunter also sounded and looked tired. She had gone into the valley ahead of Bladud’s warband with the scouts. Britha knew that the younger woman was doing just about anything that didn’t require her to take time to think, or sleep.

‘I am pregnant, not crippled,’ she told Tangwen. ‘Where is the chalice?’

Tangwen managed a raised eyebrow at the change in the conversation. ‘Germelqart has it.’

‘And if some of the warriors decide that they want it?’ Much of their conversation these days seemed to be about the chalice and its whereabouts.

‘They will need to be stronger than me, faster than me, and more cunning than a snake to keep it, and if so then they deserve it. It would not be good for Bladud to hear you taking such an interest in the chalice,’ Tangwen warned. Britha suspected that her constant enquiries were making the other woman nervous. Britha glanced at Tangwen. She smelled of leather, and sweat and the cold earth.

‘I will be discreet with my enquiries and speak with only those who I trust.’
Even
though they will not,
can
not, trust me
, she left unsaid.

‘Look at these fools,’ Tangwen spat. The warband was slowing. Starting to form into a rough circle as they prepared to camp for the night. The hunter and warrior were staring at a number of chariots struggling over rough ground; some of them had to be carried by the landsfolk. Britha laughed.

‘Warriors have to have their trappings,’ Britha said. She understood the reason for it but often wished they could be more practical.

‘This is no terrain for chariots,’ Tangwen muttered. Britha had agreed with Feroth on the matter of chariots. The only good terrain for them was a really flat beach. Though even then the chariots hadn’t done the Cirig much good. They could hear shouted commands and landsfolk being bullied in the frigid night air. The
ban draoi
glanced up the valley.

‘There’s flat ground further to the west,’ Britha pointed out.

‘Bress will not fight us in open battle. He is not like other warriors; he seems only to do that which will bring him victory, no matter if it’s the right thing or not,’ Tangwen said. She glanced over at Britha. ‘But you would know that better than me.’ Britha suppressed the urge to flinch, as if the younger woman had slapped her. ‘He will fight from the fort on the Mother Hill, or in Annwn itself. There’s not much reason for him to leave Oeth.’

The first snowflakes drifted down out of a darkening, pregnant sky. Tangwen looked up at the older woman.

‘Are you still a
dryw
?’ she asked, and then glanced down at Britha’s stomach.

‘As much as Bladud is a
rhi
,’ Britha said, angry despite herself. Once she would have castigated Tangwen but she understood why the other woman had asked the question.
And still
dryw
enough to be asked to conduct a wedding ritual
, she thought
.
Though she had been the second that Bladud had asked. Guidgen had refused. There was only so much humiliation that he would put up with.

‘I have not forgotten what I swore to you,’ Tangwen said after a while. Her voice had softened. Her words reminded Britha of another moment of weakness, of Tangwen telling her that she would help Britha on her impossible task: to steal back her never-seen daughter from the Otherworld. Britha wanted to release the young warrior from her oath. She wanted to destroy the false hope of ever seeing her daughter again. Instead she said nothing.

‘Let us go and find Anharad then,’ Tangwen said. She started to climb down off the outcrop. The air was filled with falling snow now.

Tangwen felt the looks, and thanks to having drunk from the Red Chalice, could actually hear the mutters as they made their way through the camp. The warriors who had not fought with them against Andraste’s spawn looked too clean and well fed to her jaded eyes. She heard the words they called Britha. She knew they thought Tangwen too young and weak to hold onto such power as the Red Chalice. She knew she would have to kill some soon. Or Britha would. The
ban draoi
was pretending that she couldn’t hear them describe her as their enemy’s whore, but as her pregnancy became more obvious Tangwen knew that one of them would be stupid enough to say something. She did not wish to kill any more of the people that stood with her. Britha had no such qualms. So far the newcomers had been kept in line by those who had fought with them against the spawn of Andraste, those who had seen Tangwen fight and had seen the magics of the chalice unlocked. She still didn’t like the feeling of all those eyes on her as they made their way through the camp.

They found Anharad close to the centre of camp. Bladud and the rest of the Brigante were conspicuous by their absence. A number of the new warriors were of the Trinovantes tribe and Anharad was well known to them. She was deep in conversation with the warrior who commanded their contingent. He looked young for the responsibility but the network of scars down one side of his otherwise handsome face, and the claw-like ruin of his left hand, told her he had seen battle.

Mabon was nowhere to be seen but Caithna, the young girl from Britha’s tribe, was sitting on a barrel just outside the skin-and-branch shelter Bladud had made for his wife-to-be. The snow was coming down steadily now and sticking to any surface that wasn’t being churned up by heavy boots. Tangwen smiled at Caithna and the girl looked terrified. Even though Tangwen had cared for the little girl, Caithna had also seen her kill to maintain discipline, to keep more people alive, because she had to. The girl was considerably less afraid of Britha, despite her position as a
dryw
, her bizarre appearance, and her black robes. Caithna stood up and ran to Britha, peeking out at Tangwen from behind the
dryw
. Absently, Britha stroked the girl’s hair. Tangwen caught the unhappy look on Anharad’s face at Caithna’s actions. It was quickly replaced with a look of distaste.

‘I am no more pleased at this than you are,’ Britha said.

‘Then why did you agree?’ Anharad snapped. The highborn Trinovantes woman had no love for Britha.

‘It seemed churlish to refuse,’ Britha said.

‘That didn’t stop Guidgen from doing so,’ Anharad pointed out. Tangwen could see by the set of Britha’s mouth that the
dryw
was getting angry. ‘There will be
dryw
with the rest of the Trinovantes …’

‘Well, perhaps if Bladud wasn’t so quick to marry—’ Britha started.

‘Both of you be quiet!’ Tangwen said. Britha turned on Tangwen, her face like thunder. ‘I’m sorry, but if we are to spend the night together among the trees …’ Britha’s expression softened a little. Tangwen could practically feel the discomfort coming off the Trinovantes warleader in waves. She turned on him. ‘And why are you still here?’ she demanded. ‘Have you a cunt between your legs as well? Do you wish to walk among the trees and sacrifice to the gods for a virile young warrior to fill it?’

‘What? No!’ the man sputtered.

‘Perhaps you would be wed to Bladud and see yourself ploughed on the morn?’ Anharad demanded. The warrior went a red bright enough to make out in the fading light. She was surprised the snow in his moustache wasn’t turning to steam.

Britha took a step towards him. ‘Or perhaps you seek to learn the magics of women?’ she asked in a low, dangerous voice. ‘Would you know of the power of the moonblood? Do you wish me to fetch my sickle so I can harvest the fruits between your legs that you may learn?’

The warrior fled with as much dignity as he could manage. The three of them started laughing, and even Caithna managed a smile.

‘And the funny thing is Clust would not think twice about facing a Lochlannach shield wall on his own,’ Anharad said between gasps for breath. ‘Utterly fearless in battle.’

‘Unmanned by women’s words. It’s a wonder we ever get pregnant at all,’ Tangwen said without thinking. Anharad stopped laughing and her eyes went wide. Britha turned to stare at Tangwen, but then the
ban draoi
’s face cracked and she started laughing again.

Relieved, Tangwen knew that the laughter could not heal the dislike the two women held for each other, but it might make the night that bit more tolerable.