Authors: Alice Borchardt
“No. No, you’re right. In fact, you sound depressingly like my father and Dugald, and they’re the smartest people I’ve ever known. Not the best—my mother was the best—but both of them are smart enough to take on that ugly old Greek. . . .”
“Socrates?” she asked.
“That’s his name. Anyway, they could argue him to a standstill and leave him with a lot to think about. Let me go see if I can climb up and see out the hole. Find out if there’s some way to block it.”
“Try not to disturb anything where you walk. I want to get a good look at them where they are.”
He nodded, then moved carefully toward the opening in the wall. When he reached it, Black Leg saw it was only a bit higher than his head. He reached up, and though the broken stone was sharp, he was able to find a smooth spot where he could get a grip. Then he settled his toes on a rough knob of rock above the floor and lifted himself high enough to see out.
He found himself looking down into water. A pothole? Then he realized it wasn’t a natural feature but chiseled out of a shallow depression in the stone. Yes! The water that came in through the cracks in the rock had to be piped in from somewhere. This dwelling was much higher than the river.
But the thin rock wall between the reservoir and the cave had been the weak spot. He pulled himself in a little higher, so he could see down into the water. Yes, the boulders that broke the wall were in the bottom.
He dropped down to the floor and reported on what he had seen. She was standing near him, looking at the room toward the other wall.
“They came in here.” He gestured toward the opening. “My guess is this was some sort of hospital. Reason I think so is the Romans had doctors who traveled with the army, and that was all they did, take care of the sick and wounded. There’s lots of that lichen, the kind that took care of me last night, in here. The wounded were in these pools.”
She nodded yes. Except for those massed at the other end, the bone piles were scattered rather evenly, each either in or close to a depression in the floor, like the one he’d awakened in last night.
“The walking wounded, or maybe the attendants, tried to make a stand at the other end. That’s why there is so much bone piled up there. But the birds were too much for them.”
“Think any of them got away?” he asked her.
She looked for a moment reluctant to answer. She had an unpleasant expression on her face.
“No,” she said. “I don’t. The reason is the skeletons at the other end are pretty much intact, but the wounded were . . . helpless. The birds, when they finished off the defenders, came back and had some . . . fun. Maybe they stopped and ate.”
Yes, the skeletons occupying the depressions were jumbled almost beyond recognition. Sickeningly, Black Leg considered the fact that some arms, legs, fingers, and hands were still articulated, suggesting the wounded had been dismembered while still alive.
“Dismembered,” she said. “Disemboweled and eaten alive.”
Black Leg, remembering the almost unbelievable malice in the first raven’s voice when it spoke to him, decided she was probably right.
“They were shape-strong, too,” she said.
“Shape-strong? No!” Black Leg said.
“Ummmmm. Look at the bones, Doubting Thomas,” she said.
Black Leg began to walk along, studying the remains in each depression until he reached one that was more or less intact but horribly spread-eagled. The distinction was clear—the head and arms were catlike. Most of the torso was missing, but the hips, legs, and feet were definitely human.
“Didn’t help them much,” he said at length.
“No, didn’t help us much either. The only thing that did help was our ability to hide in the river.”
Then they both walked slowly toward the back of the cave where the last stand had taken place. A drift of black feathers covered the floor between the skeletons.
“Looks like they were able to put up a pretty good fight. Even accounted for a fair number of those birds,” he said as he reached down to pick up a feather.
“No!” She grabbed his wrist. “Aren’t you sick of sticking your hand down holes to see if there’s snakes in them?”
He was about to get angry, but decided she was probably right. And, he reflected, he was a little sick of the ugly surprises he’d stumbled across exploring this world.
“Anything connected with those birds is probably dangerous,” she said.
“We should take a look,” he said.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes. “I can still turn to water if I want to. I believe . . . let me see.”
He waited.
“Yes,” she said, opening her eyes. “I can.” Then she reached down and picked up one of the dark feathers.
The result was anticlimactic. Nothing happened.
“Looks like an ordinary feather,” he said.
“Feels like an ordinary feather,” she said, brushing the tip on the palm of her left hand. Then she lifted the feather into the sun to examine it in the bright light.
He had time to shout a warning as he saw the edge change, flow, then glitter like a razor. The feather twisted free of her fingers and slashed down at her face.
She got her arm up in time, but the feather opened a five-inch gash in her forearm, one so deep Black Leg briefly saw the white tendons that move the fingers. But then the feather fell out of the sunlight. She concentrated and the gash in her arm vanished as the feather—only a feather again—drifted harmlessly to the floor.
For a brief moment, Black Leg leaned on the wall. She stood, eyes closed, still clutching her arm.
“God Almighty!” she whispered. And Black Leg was sure it was no curse.
When he felt steady again, he said, “Let’s get out of this cursed place and find something to eat.”
He turned and began to walk along the wall, checking for a place to roll under and get out. He kicked something, looked down, and saw a skeletal arm. He realized that all the dark things scattered among the bones weren’t feathers.
He crouched down and saw that the skull was the one he’d glimpsed through the wall crack last night, the sight that led to the discovery of this chamber. The dark shapes covering the bony arm looked as if they might have belonged to some sort of armor.
He glanced at the skull again. He found he couldn’t imagine what sort of creature it had been. The bones of the arms, legs, and torso were human enough, but oddly those of the hands, feet, and skull weren’t.
“They were caught,” Black Leg said, “during the change. Not just the ones in the moss pools, but every one of them. How those birds couldn’t catch us, we were both too fast for them.”
“It didn’t help you much,” she said.
“No, but you were able to get away. I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand. Let me tell you. Don’t feel rained on. Nothing about this cursed place makes any—”
She broke off because he was reaching for one of the dark objects circling the skeleton’s arm. She drew in a sharp, startled breath but didn’t warn him.
“We have to try to find out,” he said as his hand closed around the object. The only thing that happened was that the bones powdered and fell immediately to dust. Black Leg started slightly, but then, seeing that he came to no harm, continued to collect the dark scraps until he held them all in his hands.
She bent over and took the largest one, cradling it in the palm of her hand. “Doesn’t seem dangerous,” she said, then called on her own particular spirits.
The palm of her hand filled with water, and the dark object suddenly took on a jellylike consistency. She dropped it to the floor, where it landed with a slight plop. Just at that moment a breeze blew through the opening in the wall at the far end of the room. Or at least it seemed a breeze. It swirled the dust left by the powdered bone into a mini-whirlwind and sucked it out through the opening in the broken wall into the light beyond.
Black Leg shivered.
She whispered, pointing down, “Look.”
It lay on the stone floor where the jellied mess had fallen from her hand. It looked like a dark hole in the stone floor, except that across its surface, symbols played, changing slowly in a sliding flux the way they had on the walls of the tunnel that brought them both to this strange, dangerous place.
“What do they mean?” he asked her.
“I told you. I don’t know,” she answered. “I am, by your standards, incredibly old, but believe me, that tunnel was very old and long-abandoned by its makers when I was born.”
Black Leg reached down and touched the rag of blackness with one finger. And more quickly than thought, it flowed over his hand and formed a glove covering both hand and forearm.
His shout of terror was lost in the rush of wings.
Splitting the dog’s skull killed it instantly, and Uther knew for a timeless moment that the tormented beast was free of its earthly shell. The rejoicing on the animal’s part was simple, very pure joy. Inarticulate though the beast was, Uther sensed its gratitude.
The flash of light represented Merlin’s fury as he reached out to try to destroy Uther and his power expended itself against a shield Uther hadn’t even known he possessed. Then both presences were gone. The dog’s dying shell convulsed at his feet, the broken skull spraying blood and brains all over the hearth. The banked fire hissed like a snake pit and a vile stench rose from the glowing ashes. The harp in its case thrummed a deep, rich chord and the flames leaped from the ashes, roaring, consuming the spattered flesh and blood.
The animal’s carcass lay limp at Uther’s feet. Impelled by who knew what impulse, Uther hurled it into the seething blaze. There it seemed to become involved in a dash of magic. The fire suddenly damped down almost to nothingness and the dead animal writhed as though filled with unnatural life, lifting its head, eyes red, glowing like coals, livid tongue protruding from the jaws as though trying to get its legs under it to leap again for the king’s throat.
Uther stood sword in hand, feet braced apart, ready to confront the dead thing should it attack again. He laughed the powerful, free laughter of a king. A king who, in the final analysis, committed soul and body to stand between his people and evil.
That seemed a signal, and the fire blazed again, consuming the slain beast, the devilish instrument of darkness, Merlin’s darkness. Uther turned from the blaze and saw everyone in the room was awake, and through the small parchment-covered windows, the sun was rising outside.
Bread, some fresh cheese, and oat porridge did for breakfast. Uther gave the lady of the house another silver coin to feed everyone still present. When the crowd departed (none thanked him), he helped the lady of the house clean and carry the trash to the midden heap.
Alex and Alexia were indoors, boiling water to wash down the stone floor. Uther didn’t feel he owed her the labor, but in winter human dwellings were thick with smoke and stank of spoiled food, damp mold, and unwashed bodies. Uther simply wanted a breath of cool, clean, rain-washed air.
It had been freezing the night before, but now the sky was blue, the brilliant, hard blue of winter. The air was almost balmy and last night’s sleet melted to puddles, reflecting the sky’s brilliant blue from their places among the muddy brown road.
“I am Eme,” the lady of the house told Uther.
Uther stopped, startled, for he knew what the name meant.
“Do not use that name unless we are alone,” she continued in a dry voice. “No one else knows it. Least of all . . .” She pointed away toward the buildings of the villa topping a hill nearby. “Least of all the master of that stronghold.”
“No,” Uther said. “No. I won’t. I wouldn’t, in any case.”
She nodded. Then she glanced away at the villa, her eyes flat, cold, and empty.
“I think he may suspect, but he doesn’t know.” She paused for a second, then added, “He calls himself Count Severius, but as far as I know, has no Roman blood.”
“Wants the best of both worlds, doesn’t he?” Uther commented.
“Wants the best of all worlds,” she answered. “He killed my son.”
Oddly, Uther felt the weight of the harp on his back. He said the conventional thing. “I’m sorry.”
“It was over ten years ago,” she replied. “There was no need. So many conquerors. Our family is buried deep. Even before the Romans, people from the Continent had defeated and pushed us aside. But we were among the priestly families and even the Romans deferred to us at least a little. Yet to take my son from me was cruel. A child—that is always cruel.”
Uther nodded.
“The boy played near the villa. The war dogs got him.” She laughed, a sharp cackle, snapping twigs. “When I asked for justice—” She pointed at the villa again. “—he gave me one of the dogs.”
“An unworthy object for your cruelty.” Uther spoke sternly, but as if to an equal, because if the name were any indication, she might indeed be royal.
“I know that now,” she answered. “But it is dead—and I didn’t speak to justify myself, only out of concern for you. He will hear about your music. There is little faith in my lord count, so he won’t believe all he hears. But he will believe enough to summon you to entertain his guests. Be warned. Hurry away now, if you wish to reach London, because those he summons cannot escape his hospitality until he gives them permission to depart.”
Uther felt his neck prickle. He glanced again at the complex of buildings in the distance.
“We will leave within the hour,” he said as he hurried toward the door.
But the harp halted him. It strummed itself softly and in the distance he heard music. Even Uther didn’t remember the Romans. But sometimes, as with all ancient armies, they sang as they marched.
The music was not like those melodies he had been taught. It was deep and harsh, like the discipline of a Roman legion, martial and masculine. They favored the pipe, drum, and trumpet, like the paean that took warriors into battle and celebrated valor in victory or defeat, Uther felt it through the soles of his feet, through his skin, and it resonated in his bones.
He turned back toward the road.
They came.
Eme whispered,
“Ahhhhh . . .”
“The horse fights,” Uther said. “They will finish them here.”