Breathing through his open mouth, Cormac went to one knee to wipe his sword on Thorleif’s leggings. The leg twitched. The Gael turned then to the girl for whom he’d acted so foolishly-and who had aided him in turn.
“It’s well we team,” he said, “and be easy-I seek no strength-taken woman.”
She blinked, frowned slightly-as if she did not understand-and then swung her head to her fallen companion. Without reply she went to him.
She was tiny, less than five feet in height, and passing slim as well. Her clothing had been torn away considerably more than half by her assailants, and certain attributes proclaimed her woman, though she appeared just to have come into her nubile days. Yet her startlingly dark eyes said otherwise. Mayhap she was not yet a score of years in age, Cormac mused, but it would not be long ere she observed that birthday.
She went down beside the fallen youth, murmuring. He looked much like her, the Gael saw; her brother, sure, lying asprawl on his back with a bloody gash on the right side of his head. He breathed, and the gash was not deep. Ere Cormac was to them in that glade of corpses, she was away into the edge of the woods, plucking the leaves from plants Cormac did not know.
He looked on while she pressed them to the youth’s head, murmuring, and the Gael saw that she knew what she was about. He could not help but note how dusky they both were. Black of hair both were too, like himself, but with a shortness of stature that surely could not mark Gaels. Their skin could be the result of much sun… but not those raven locks.
The youth groaned, muttered, groaned again, and only her hands stilled the movement of his ax-struck head. Cormac saw his eyelids flickering.
Her rescuer started to touch the girl, decided against it; she’d enough of the hands of strangers this day. “It’s no death-wound he’s taken,” he said, squatting beside that pair of dark slim youths. “Your brother?”
They spoke, both of them, as the young man gained a hold on consciousness and wits. Cormac was startled. He knew now why she had frowned and blinked at his first words; his reaction to hers was the same.
The words they uttered were recognizable, aye, but only just. Different. Old; they spoke in the old way. He had heard the druids pronounce the language of Eirrin in such a wise. They were of Eirrin, but as if from her past, or as if raised apart by some unchanging oldster without ever hearing others speak their tongue.
“It’s slowly we must speak,” Cormac said, enunciating carefully, with his hand on the boy’s arm and his gaze on the girl’s great eyes. They were brown as good walnut. Seldom did a man see such eyes, who-what were these people? “Slowly and with care, to understand one another. I am Cormac mac Art of Connacht-and ye be not of Eirrin as well, but know her, language.”
She gazed long into his eyes, then looked down at her brother.
“He saved us,” the youth said. His eyes were brown as good walnut…
“We are not enemies,” Cormac said, and added, “tongu do dia toinges mo thuath.”
She looked at him again. She nodded, touched his arm. “Tongu, do Dana’,” she said quietly.
Cormac’s eyes narrowed. He had spoken ritual to her: I swear to the god my people swear by. And she had replied that she swore by… Danu!
She went on, in her quiet voice, whilst her brother struggled up into a sitting position and looked about the blood-splashed clearing among the oaks. Her name was Sinshi, she told Cormac, and it was a name he had never heard. This her brother was Consaer, and he repeated it after her to be sure. Aye, Consaer. Far more familiar, that; “Con” was a common enough name-sound among the people of Eirrin, with others, including even Conn, of the Hundred Battles. And “saer” meant wright; carpenter. Yet her accent and inflections and even the turning of some phrases remained unfamiliar, as she told him that she and her brother were of a city or village inland, Daneira. And the eyes and hair…
“Of this isle? You are-of this land?”
She nodded. “Aye,” she said, and her brother echoed, “Aye.”
Cormac started to ask. He gave his head a jerk; questions born of astonishment could wait.
“Then it’s to Daneira we’d best be taking Consaer and yourself, for these men from a far land, enemy of mine, cannot be alone on this isle.”
Again Sinshi looked nervously at her brother-though her hand remained trustingly on Cormac’s wrist. Mayhap it was not a trusting touch at that, the Gael mused; the diminutive hand was after all on his sword arm.
It was then came the great crashing and jingle of mail in the brush to hillward, and even as Cormac sprang backward and up into a fighting stance the bushes burst inward to admit a rushing form to the clearing. A huge man he was, bigger than big and taller than tall, wielding ax and buckler and on him a great lurid beard the colour of dancing flames, Blue eyes darted a swift look about the glade, taking in the four fallen Norsemen. His face went disconsolate.
“Ah, ye gods-abandoned son of an Eirrin Pig-farmer,” Wulfhere cried accusingly, “could ye not have saved so much as one of these dogs for your old weapon-comrade?”
Chapter Two:
The People of Daneira
While Consaer of Daneira both steadied himself and comforted his sister with an arm across the shaky girl’s bared shoulders, she pressed close to Cormac. Her small hand remained on his arm. Wulfhere Hausakluifr examined the sprawled Norseman, one Hausakluifr examined the sprawled Norsemen, one by one. He kept his eyes carefully from Sinshi, who was more than half naked. Then the Dane came to the man last slain.
“Thorleif!”
The Gael nodded, grim-faced. “Aye.”
“But… Thorleif! Odin’s name, I slew the man, Cormac! My ax split this skull to the chin! What Loki-sent horror is this! More dead men to fight and slay again?”
“He was very alive, Wulfhere, and vaunting it that it was he slew you-years agone, he said.”
The two men stared frowning at each other. Then of a sudden the answer came to the Gael.
“The-the other ‘dimension’ Bas spoke of, whatever that means. Thulsa Doom’s refuge-world, like ours and yet unlike… blood of the gods! Mayhap in this dimension-och, we have much to talk on, and to learn, about this business of being in another dimension.”
“What? Think you that here… wherever here is… things are indeed different? Even the past? Dead men are not?”
“And mayhap living men are, Wulfhere. Consider. It would seem that here, in this… world, Thorleif killed you, old friend.”
“But…” Wulfhere broke off, struggling with the concept, visibly worrying it about in a mind that none had deemed overly speedy. “Does this mean “ He broke off again. “Could there be… have been… two of me here? Another Wulfhere Hausakluifr? Another me?”
Cormac shook his head. “Who knows? Mayhap Bas can tell us-and mayhap we must learn of ourselves, with time and experiences. But just now, Wulf-it’s other matters we must be giving heed to. It’s treasure we have on Quester, and Thulsa Doom-and were better sure to lose the booty than have him loosed again! Only Samaire and Brian and Bas be there with him-and there are Norse about.
“Ye allowed some to escape?
“I did not. Can ye imagine four alone?”
“Oh. No, no of course not. Ha! Enemies here on our island, is it! Well, they’ll find no easy road to Thulsa Doom or treasure or even ship!”
The Dane gave his ax such a ferocious sweep that it moaned in the air. Both Sinshi and Consaer drew back. Cormac felt her hand on his arm, suddenly clamping.
“Och, ye bullish madman, Wulfhere! A woman and a druid and a green weapon-man and him not even a Dane? Suppose the Norse discover them now, with you here?”
That ploy was instantly effective. “Aye, But-yourself, shipmate?”