The Swordswoman Collection

Chapter 9

They backed from the knoll and slipped northward as the sun slid down over the plain of Lodainn. Chilled by the sights they had seen, nobody spoke. Melcorka thought of the s*******r of the Alban royal army in three short hours by a smaller and far better-disciplined force of Norse.

"What now?" Melcorka asked, as the Firth of Forth gleamed silver in the distance.

"Now, we head to Castle Gloom and plan what to do." Bearnas said. "Did anybody see what happened to the Blue Boar?"

"I did," Melcorka said.

"Well?"

"It was at the forefront of the battle," Melcorka said, "and then it fell."

"There is no hope then," Baetan said, "if the boar has gone. The kinfolk of the king are all dead."

Granny Rowan gave a short cackle. "Why do you say that? There is no hope because a princeling is dead? Many are dead, many more will die. One prince is as good as another, and a woman with a stout heart is as good as any prince born."

"Were you not watching?" Baetan asked. "They destroyed the royal army with ease."

"They destroyed a r****e," Bearnas contradicted, "a mob that had no more idea how to fight a battle than I have to fly to the moon."

"It was the only army we have." Baetan"s voice rose to something approaching panic. "Now we have nothing."

"Let"s get to Castle Gloom," Bearnas said, calmingly. "We can breathe more easily there and decide what to do next."

"How can we cross the Forth? The Northmen will be there!" Baetan was near breaking-point.

"We will find a boat," Bearnas said. "Come on."

There were scattered houses near the shore of the Forth, a few fishermen"s cottages with small cobles or coracles, and a group of terrified camp followers hiding from the wrath of the Northmen.

"There"s no boat big enough to hold all of us," Baetan said.

"Then we take the little boats," Bearnas told him. "There are fourteen of us, so we will take as many as we need. Gather them together."

"And hurry," Granny Rowan said softly. "Look inland."

At first, Melcorka could not understand what she saw; some red pinpricks, slowly growing larger as she looked. "Fires," she said.

"Fires," Bearnas agreed. "The Norsemen have disposed of the defenders, and now they are looting, r****g and murdering to while away the night."

"They are also coming this way," Granny Rowan warned.

"We should run," Baetan said.

"We stay," Bearnas told him, "and we gather boats. The fishermen will have dragged most of them above the high-tide mark on the beach."

The small coracles held a single person, the larger held three, while a fishing coble could hold four at a squeeze. There was quite a sizeable fleet by the time Bearnas was finally satisfied that they had enough vessels to carry every man and women in the Cenel Bearnas across the Forth.

"Rope them together," Bearnas ordered.

"We"ve no rope," Baetan said.

"Then unravel a fishing net." Bearnas obviously had to force herself to be patient. "There will be one in each cottage."

Before they were ready, moonlight glinted along the chopped waves of the Forth, with a million stars sparkling in the abyss of the night sky. Silver fingers ghosted toward the northern shore, black now and featureless.

"Melcorka." Bearnas took hold of her daughter"s arm. "We must speak."

"Mother?" Melcorka allowed Bearnas to guide her away from the others. "What is it?"

"There isn"t much time," Bearnas said, "so listen to what I say."

"Yes, Mother."

Bearnas took the half-cross pendant from around her neck. It dangled from her fingers. "This is not valuable," she said, "it is made of pewter and is broken, as you can see, but I want you to have it."

"But Mother! You"ve worn that all your life. I"ve never seen you without it."

"It was from your father." Bearnas was curt. "So you have as much right to it as I have." Reaching across, she placed it around Melcorka"s neck and fastened it. "Wear it always. One day, it will come in very useful."

"You always said not to mention my father," Melcorka said.

"It is all I have of him," Bearnas said, "except for you. Now, ask no more."

Melcorka touched the broken cross. "Thank you."

"I have never given you any jewellery, or anything else," Bearnas said, "and this is a poor excuse for a gift, but always remember me fondly if you can."

"Mother, you say that as if we are parting."

Bearnas smile was as tender as any Melcorka had seen from her. "One hug please, Melcorka. Grant me just one hug." She crushed Melcorka with her embrace, holding her close as if to merge their bodies together.

"Mother?" Melcorka felt the damp warmth of her tears. "What is it, Mother?"

"Think fondly of me," Bearnas repeated. She broke free, held Melcorka at arm"s length for a long second, hugged her again briefly, and let go. "Be off with you, Melcorka." She patted her arm and turned away.

As clouds scurried across the rising moon, flitting pale light alternated with dancing shadows along the coast and highlighted the white-topped waves of the Forth. A southerly wind carried the tang of smoke.

"Ready?" Bearnas looked over her people. "It"s only a couple of miles to the northern shore."

"Ready," they answered.

The water of the Forth was cooler than that of the Western Sea, with shorter, steeper waves. The Cenel Bearnas pushed their flotilla out, so the boats tossed and bounced a few yards off the shingle beach. Melcorka sat in a coracle, wielded the unfamiliar paddle and pushed out into the dark waters. She gasped as the cable attaching her to the adjoining coble tautened and jerked her back as their crew rowed in a slightly different direction.

"Paddle toward the north," Bearnas ordered. "On my word: ready: stroke!"

Oars and paddles dipped into the water and pushed onward. The flotilla inched into the Forth, unwieldy and impossible to manoeuvre. Melcorka found her coracle spinning this way and that as she thrust with the paddle.

"Whoever thought that a circular boat would be a good idea?" She swore to herself as the coracle moved in crazy circles. She dipped her paddle in deeper, swore again as she splashed water uselessly and stopped with a start as the cable brought her up short.

"Stop! Keep quiet!" Bearnas voice sounded sharp across the splashing of oars and subdued cursing.

Melcorka lifted her paddle. The sounds of the flotilla died away, so she heard the hush of the waves, the call of a bird and something else further away. It was a more regular beat, such as the marching of disciplined feet or the thrust of a bank of oars in the sea. Melcorka took a deep breath: there was a ship in the Forth, moving fast from the east and here they were in a group of tiny fishing boats, utterly vulnerable to any attack.

The voice of a man giving orders was next, hoarse and low, speaking in Norse. The sound of oars increased in volume.

"They"re coming this way," Melcorka said.

"Paddle hard," Bearnas ordered, "all together!"

Lifting paddles and oars, the Cenel Bearnas tried urgently to force their mass of boats to the north shore, until Baetan unsheathed a knife and cut his coble free. "Every boat for itself!" he shouted. "Get away as best you can!"

"No!" Bearnas warned, but it was too late. With the connecting cable cut, the boats drifted apart on the Forth as paddles and oars flailed at the water.

The Norse voice boomed a challenge and a torch flared, casting orange reflections on the steep waves. Melcorka saw the carved wooden head of a dragon rearing above her coracle; a tall mast rising and the gleam of torch-light on a row of circular shields. A man stood in silhouette in the bows, gigantic, with spreading shoulders and a mane of long hair. The treacherous wind pushed a cloud away from the moon, so light gleamed momentarily on the Norseman, showing a hard face despoiled with the spiral blue lines of a tattoo on the left cheek. Then the cloud returned and the man was in shadow, a dark shape on a ship that surged onward under the press of a hundred oars.

Melcorka realised that her coracle was drifting toward the dragon-ship, spiralling out of control whichever way she paddled. She glanced behind her, where the fires on the Lodainn shore were still distinct, while the northern coast was black under the dark sky.

There were more torches on the dragon boat, more men silhouetted. Melcorka heard them talking and quite distinctly smelled the smoke from the rush torches. She lifted the paddle and tried to push the coracle further from the Norse and succeeded only in making it spin.

One of the Norse stood on the gunwale and held his torch out in her direction. Melcorka ignored his echoing challenge. A spear whizzed from the dark to splash a few yards away. She reached for her sword, but even that small movement upset the balance of her coracle; it spun crazily, so one second she was facing the Norse ship and the next, the coast of Lodainn.

There was another roar from the dragon ship and it suddenly altered course. To Melcorka"s relief, it passed without slowing, affording her a view of ranked shields, the hard faces of warriors and oars pulling in unison. The tall man still stood in the bows and for a second Melcorka looked directly at him. He stood a foot above the other men in the ship, with braided hair descending to his shoulders and that tattoo decorating his face. Then the dragon ship had passed. Melcorka heard the hoarse shouts of men and, once, the clash of metal on metal, then silence. She lifted the paddle and tried to make progress again, more slowly; this time the coracle responded, moving crabwise but roughly toward the north, she hoped.

Melcorka started when there was an outcry from the west, and she distinctly heard Bearnas" voice shouting orders, and then once more there was again the clash of swords.

"Mother!" Melcorka touched the hilt of her sword. "I"m coming!" The surge of power ran through her again as she grabbed the paddle and thrust it hard into the water, but once again the coracle only spun around. "Mother!" she yelled as the sounds of battle increased. There was the roaring of men and the repetitive, sinister chant of "Odin! Odin!"

Melcorka stood in the coracle, staring to the west as the flaring torches on the ship flickered over the waves, allowing her to see brief vignettes of combat. The dragon ship had sailed into the heart of the scattered flotilla of the Cenel Bearnas, and there was a battle underway. Melcorka swore in frustration at her inability to take part. She saw the darting shape of men silhouetted against the torchlight, heard a long, drawn-out scream and heard the splash as somebody or something fell into the water.

And then the torches went out. The sounds continued, fading slowly into isolated clashes that died away one by one. Silence fell, save for the hush and suck of the sea and the call of a night-flying gull. There was another order, and then the regular beat of oars began again. Then silence.

Melcorka replaced Defender in her scabbard, lifted the paddle and began to slowly, cautiously, propel herself toward the place where the battle had taken place, hoping to find a survivor. Bodies were floating on the Forth: Granny Rowan with a gash on her face, dead; Aedon the potter, trailing greasy blood; a Norseman with his intestines floating beside him, food for questing gulls. There were pieces of shattered coble, an upturned coracle and a Norse spear. There were no survivors; there was nothing to bring hope.

And finally, Melcorka saw Bearnas, floating face-up with two massive wounds in her breast and her right arm missing. Melcorka reached for her, only for Bearnas to sink slowly down into the Forth. She was alone, and there was only darkness in the world. She fingered the half-cross her mother had given her.

"You knew it was a final farewell," she said, as the hot tears burned in her eyes. "You were saying goodbye to me." She felt her voice choke into silence. "You should have told me, Mother."

"It is not yet time to grieve." The voice was familiar; she had heard it on that great cliff island when she gained Defender.

It is not yet time to grieve"My mother …" Melcorka said.

"It is not yet time to grieve," that voice repeated quietly.

It is not yet time to grieve"Who are you?" Melcorka did not expect a reply.

"It is time to follow your destiny, warrior."

It is time to follow your destiny, warriorPerhaps it was because of the clarity of the voice, but Melcorka felt an easing of her grief. She had other things on her mind; somehow, she had to cross to the northern shore of the Forth, as Bearnas had intended. Lifting her paddle, Melcorka tried again. Once she had mastered the skill, she found she made adequate, if not fast, progress. As the night drew on, clouds obscured the moon and stars, and the fires from the Lodainn shore diminished and died. The water was dark, with only an occasional spark of phosphorescence allowing any relief from the Stygian black. Melcorka paddled on, shifting from the left to the right side of the coracle with each successive stroke. There was no sign of progress, no friendly stars to guide her, no landmark or seamark, nothing except the endless night and the sough and swish of the sea.

"Don"t leave me, Mother. Don"t leave me alone out here."

The night eased on forever in a thick darkness that enfolded her, hiding the happiness of the past and the bitter sorrow of the present, allowing her to worry about her mother and the islanders she had known all her life, permitting her to recall the b****y events of the previous day"s battle. Had that s*******r in Lodainn only been a few hours before? It seemed a lifetime ago, an aeon filled with the screams of hideously wounded men and the death rattle of warriors already dead.

Melcorka closed her eyes and immediately saw the banner that held a living raven and the sight of the blue boar of Alba falling, falling, falling. It fell into the ranks of victorious Northmen with their linen-board shields and stabbing swords and the broad-bladed axes which cut the legs off brave men in a single sweep. And there had been that final and sickening horror of seeing her mother sink to the depths.

"Mother! I"m afraid."

At last, far too late, Melcorka sensed the easing of the night. It began with the faintest lightening along the eastern ridge of the world, a band of lighter dark that altered to a shimmer of pink which spread across the sea, slow and secure and then swifter as the sun was reborn. Melcorka sat in her coracle, now paddling mechanically with arms past pain and eyes too weary to open and too defiant to close.

Dawn brought no hope, only a vision of never-ending sea stretching as far as she could see in all directions. Wave followed surging wave, some blue as the summer sky, others azure, and yet others of vicious green with their tops flicked off by the half-felt wind.

"I am alone," Melcorka said to herself. "There is nobody here save me and myself."

She knew the ebbing tide had carried her out to sea, so the east coast of Alba must be there, somewhere, beyond the horizon. She lifted her paddle, put the rising sun of dawn behind her and paddled to the west. It was the first time in her life that she had been truly alone. Always, there had been her mother in the background and some of the islanders there to help or support her. Now there was nobody and nothing, not even a trace of land.

Alone… Melcorka thought of the yells and screams of the night before. She hoped that at least some of the Cenel Bearnas had reached the north shore of the Forth in safety. She wished she had been able to remain with them. She wished her mother was there. She wished the Norse had killed her in place of her mother. She wished anything other than what was.

She did not see it coming until it landed at her side, a black and white bird with red legs and a long beak of the same proud colour.

"You are an oystercatcher," Melcorka said. "My totem bird and the one I follow."

The oystercatcher perched beside her on the narrow bench, its eyes bright and hard. The cross on its breast was a reminder of the old story that it had once helped conceal Christ when he hid from the Romans in the Western Isles of Alba.

"You are my guide." Melcorka swayed with exhaustion and lack of food and water. The bird did not move. "Well then," Melcorka chided, "you had better do some guiding before I die here." She lifted the paddle again, dipped it into the sea and thrust forward. "If you don"t guide me, then I must make my judgement without your help."

The oystercatcher took off again, circled the coracle and flew away, south of west.

"That way, is it?" Melcorka asked. She briefly wondered what to do, sighed and altered course to follow the black and white bird. When a sudden squall brought rain, she leaned her head back to drink what fresh water she could, regretted that she had brought no food and paddled on. She ignored the cramp in her legs and back from her unusual squatting position, ignored the pain in her arms and shoulders and continued chasing that always receding horizon.

Behind her and to her right, the sun ascended, growing in heat as the day wore on. Her thirst seemed to increase in direct proportion to the increasing weakness of her arms. She continued to paddle as the oystercatcher circled above her, flew a quarter of a mile ahead and returned again and again, encouraging her onward.

As the sun reached its zenith and began the long, inexorable slide downward, Melcorka saw something like a dark line across the sea to the west and south. The sight gave her renewed strength, so she paddled harder as the something gradually took the form of a coastline with a range of hills blue in the background.

somethingThe oystercatcher circled again, flew lower until it almost touched her, then altered course slightly and waggled its wings. Melcorka followed again, paddling hard as daylight began to fade. Was it only twenty- four hours since that battle started?

The orange glow was little more than the size of a pin when she first noticed it, and as she paddled, it grew to a pinkie-nail and she realised it was a fire. She could no longer see the oystercatcher and had to follow its piping call through the deepening dark.

Melcorka heard the shush and suck of breaking surf before she saw the silver streak, while the fire was full-sized now, with flames flickering through the dark. She paddled into the surf until the coracle grated on something, clambered out with her limbs stiff and weary, and stepped knee-deep in cool water.

The man emerged from the side of the fire and watched her drag the coracle up a beach of shifting shingle, above the line of dry seaweed that marked the high tide mark.

"I wondered what the oystercatchers were guiding in," he said calmly. "I have nettle tea, fish stew and porridge ready."

When Melcorka tried to speak, her voice came as a dry croak. She stepped forward, only for all strength to drain from her legs. She did not feel herself falling, only the strength of the man as he caught her before she hit the ground.

"I"ve got you." His voice was reassuring. "You"re safe with me."