Calgaich the Swordsman (56 page)

Bruidge of the Battle-Axe had his head bent over his large drinking horn. The rising firelight reflected from the silver mounting of the horn and on the crescent blade of the battle-axe that hung on the wall behind him.

Calgaich went toward him, treading on the filthy dried rushes and bracken that covered the floors. He threw wood and bracken onto the fire. The dancing flames flickered eagerly over the fresh fuel, and the firelight grew.

Calgaich walked back to the center of the hall and leaned on his spear. Bruidge raised his drinking horn. His eyes fell upon the tall warrior. His jaw dropped a little and a thin trickle of saliva drooled from the comers of his mouth.

Once, long months past, Guidd One-Eye had spoken of Bruidge:
Once Bruidge of the Battle-Axe was a man to be reckoned with in battle but now he is a coward. He fears everything, including his own people, and, mark you, he sees things in the darkness of his own bedchamber and hall
that no one else can see.
Therefore, he is never alone
.

Bruidge slowly extended a shaking hand and held it in front of his eyes. “There is no one there,” he muttered to himself.

The rising evening wind moaned softly through the high slit windows of the hall.

“Calgaich is dead, slain by the Red Crests.” Bruidge reassured himself. He nodded. “Yes, that's so.”

Bron raised his head and growled.

Bruidge gripped his drinking horn. He did not look up. “The great wolfhound Bron is dead. My brother Lellan is dead.
There is no one there
. .."

Calgaich looked quickly behind himself. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck. Why had Bruidge mentioned Lellan? By the dark gods! Was it possible that Lellan
was
there, but unseen by Calgaich and only seen by Bruidge? Calgaich looked down at Bron. The hound was looking up and to one side, away from Calgaich, as if he were looking up into the face of someone he loved as much as he now loved him.

Bruidge slowly stood up. His shadow loomed large on the wall behind him.

Bracken snapped and crackled in the fireplace. A burning branch flew from the fire and landed on the dried rushes. The eager flame began to eat quickly into them.

Bruidge held out a shaking hand. “Go,” he ordered.

Calgaich and the hound did not move.

“My brother! My nephew!” Bruidge cried in a hoarse voice. “Go! You are no longer among the living! Leave this hall! It is mine now!”

The fire ate its way through the rushes toward the pile of firewood and bracken. It licked at the bracken and began to take hold.

Bruidge turned quickly. His large, veined hands gripped the thick shaft of his battle-axe. He whirled with the great weapon upraised in his hands. Then he bent forward in acute pain. His mouth squared from an inner agony. Cold sweat burst from his forehead.

Calgaich walked toward the table.

“Stay back!” Bruidge roared.

Calgaich shook his head.

Bruidge swung the axe up over his head. He screamed hoarsely as he brought it down in a tremendous stroke. The keen iron bit deeply into the table. Greasy plates and cups leaped into the air and then clattered down again. The beer from Bruidge’s drinking horn flowed across the surface of the table and dripped at Calgaich's feet.

Bruidge gasped and then fell forward to lie on top of the table beside his great axe. He did not move again.

The firewood was flaring upward as it gained strength. A chair was catching fire. Runnels of fire stretched out into the dried rushes in all directions from the burning bracken.

Calgaich gripped Bruidge by his thick gray hair and turned the head sideways to look into staring eyes that would never see again.

Calgaich walked to the door of the hall. He turned. He looked about the hall as it now was, for he knew he would never see it like that again.

Bron whined deep in his throat. He was looking at something, or perhaps
someone
, he alone could see or sense.

An eerie feeling came over Calgaich. There was a presence there. But he knew he had nothing to fear.

Calgaich closed the outer door of the great
dun.
Smoke was already leaking thickly through the high slit windows of the towering structure. The flickering of rising flames could be seen reflected in the thick smoke.

Calgaich turned on a heel. With Bron beside him he strode down the long rocky hill toward the forest of birches at the foot of the slope.

Calgaich did not look back.

It was late spring and the trees were budding. Here and there in the hollows and on the shaded slopes were patches of snow which shrank visibly every day. The sky was bright and clear with a warming sun shining down upon the land. The wind was fresh and cool.

Calgaich rode up the long reverse slope of a hill which overlooked the Wall of Hadrian. He carried the great war spear of Evicatos slung across his back. Cairenn rode beside him, cradling their infant son, Evicatos the Younger. Bron trotted beside Calgaich's horse.

Calgaich drew rein at the crest of the hill and looked across the shining river. Beyond it was the Great Wall. The sunlight flashed now and then from the polished helmets and spear points of the auxiliaries who manned the watch towers and mile castles. “Give me our son, Cairenn,” he requested.

He held the infant in his powerful swordsman's hands. “Look, Evicatos. There is the Great Wall of Hadrian. You will not remember it now, but in the later years to come you will know it well and learn to hate it as all our people hate it."

The others of Calgaich's party rode up beside him and Cairenn. There were Guidd One-Eye, Fomoire, the Druid, Lutorius, the Bottle Emptier, and Cunori, the Dolphin. Niall, the Selgovae, Loarn of the Brigantes, Onlach of the Votadini, and Ottar, the Saxon, stood slightly apart from the others. It was time for them to leave Calgaich and his people for their ride to their homelands in the east. Two days earlier Girich, the Pict, Conaid, the Little Hound, of the Damnonii, and Muirchu, the Niduari, had left Rioghaine for their own homelands. They had each borne a message from Calgaich, chieftain of the Novantae: "The time is nearing when all the tribes of Caledonia must unite to drive the Red Crests from Britannia. I ask each and all of you, Pict, Damnonii and Niduari, to join me in this last and greatest campaign to rid Britannia of the oppressors. Let me hear from you on this matter before the spring is gone from the land.” Niall, Loarn, Onlach and Ottar each bore the same message for deliverance to their people.

A message was being flashed along the wall, from mile castle to signal tower, on and on as far as the eye could see to the west and to the east. The Romans had seen the barbarian horsemen standing out clearly and boldly against the skyline.

"Go now, sword-brothers,” Calgaich suggested with a smile. "The Romans are alerted.”

Those still on the hillcrest watched as the easternbound party went their separate ways and disappeared into the forest.

"Here they come, barbarian,” Lutorius warned.

A
turma
of Dacian auxiliary cavalry hammered down the slope across the river and thundered out onto the wooden bridge. Infantry could be seen double-timing along the wall toward the mile castle nearest the bridge.

"There are a lot of them,” Guidd said thoughtfully. He grinned like an old grizzler of a wolf.

"The long arm of Rome,” Fomoire added.

Cunori spat to one side. "Let them come!”

Calgaich handed Evicatos the Younger to Cairenn. "Take him back.” He looked at the others. "Get off the skyline,” he added.

Calgaich remained alone on the crest. He held the Spear of Evicatos in his right hand. The fresh wind ruffled the heron’s feathers at the base of the blade.

Roman auxiliary infantry formed their ranks at the far end of the bridge while the cavalry hammered up the long slope toward the lone horseman. At a command from their centurion the foot soldiers double-timed across the bridge.

The young centurion who led the cavalry drew his sword and waved it. There was a smile on his face. He was new to the frontier and he badly wanted to blood his virgin sword.

The veteran decurion of cavalry suddenly recognized the lone barbarian horseman. “Centurion!” he shouted. “Wait!”

The centurion looked back over his shoulder. “Why?”

“Don’t you know who that barbarian is, sir?”

“I don’t give a damn! I want him for myself!”

“That’s Calgaich the Swordsman!” the decurion shouted.

The centurion’s horse dug its hoofs into the soft turf as his reins were abruptly hauled back. He reared and nearly threw his rider. The centurion was hardly a hundred feet from Calgaich.

Calgaich made no motion; the only movement about him was the wind-fluttered heron’s feathers at the base of his spear blade.

On the same ridge, far to the left of Calgaich, sat a figure on a horse, holding a bundle in her lap. Cairenn and Calgaich had been parted too many times in the past, and they would be apart in the future as the tribes of Caledonia banded together to fight the Romans at the hated wall. She would not leave him now. Patiently, Cairenn waited for him to turn and see her there. Then he would smile and ride toward her and their young son. Together they would begin the journey home.

The centurion turned in his saddle. He thrust up an arm to halt the infantry coming up the slope. He turned again to look at Calgaich—the great barbarian swordsman who was a legend in his own time.

Minutes passed.

The centurion slowly raised his sword and saluted Calgaich. He then turned his horse and led his troops back to the bridge and across it to the Wall of Hadrian.

The centurion looked back as the mile castle gate was opened to admit his troops. Calgaich was still there. The centurion ran up the steps to the wall walkway and again looked across the river. The hillcrest was empty of life.