“What… did you find?” Samaire asked.
Cormac jerked a gesture at the sagging Briton. “This one’s companions. All of them save the three Wulfhere and I accounted for. All are dead; all of them. Hacked and stabbed and cut to pieces.”
“Gods of my ancestors,” Samaire said, little above a whisper. “This sniveler spoke true, then.”
Wulfhere’s big hand clamped the back of the Briton’s neck. “Tell this man, Briton. Tell him-and the druid.”
The Briton made as if to hurl himself to his knees before Bas; Wulfhere held him back and on his feet, by main strength. “Speak!”
The man did not speak; he babbled, high-voiced, “Druid, Holy Druid, call upon-uhk!”
“I said speak, not beg,” Wulfhere rumbled, squeezing until the Briton’s eyes bulged and his lean fox-face gained a bit of colour.
“I… I… we were… within,” he said, and he shuddered when he cast a fearful glance in the direction of the castle’s doorway. “Drinking, talking of what we’d do with our booty on our return to Silurnum. All was merriment-this demon-haunted keep is overflowing with the loot of a dozen raids!”
“We know that, man,” Cormac said impatiently. He drew deep breath. His gaze flickered up to Wulfhere; back to the Briton. “Your name, man. What be your name? He’d never seen a man so in need of calming.
“Os… Osbrit son of Drostan, of Wroxeter.”
“And I be Cormac, Art’s son of Connacht, Osbrit of Wroxeter. Be mindful of yourself as a surrounded captive, Osbrit Drostan’s son, and attend me: no harm will come to ye. My word on it, before the druid. Now tell me how died those men in there, Osbrit. Who else be on this isle-and how is it you alone made escape?” Cormac raised his eyes. “Wulfhere-let go his neck. He’s a man. He can stand.”
“We… we were… they just appeared, among us, about us! Men of the north countries oversea, all of them. Most were Norse, though too there were Danes-”
“Danes and Norse together? Allies?”
“I swear it! Behl witness-I swear it! Danes and Norse, aye. They just… they were just there. Out of the very air they came, all with axes and swords naked in their hands: No word they spoke-not ever, not one among them uttered aught that I heard. Their faces were grim-set, awful… their business was slaughter! Naught else but to bring red death upon us. Four of our number were down bloody ere we even knew, realized! My cousin Anir… Bedwyr’s brother Cei… oh, ye GODS!” The man paused to shudder and draw a deep uneven breath.
“Then we were snatching up spear and ax and sword and bucklers,” he went on, “wallowing on the floor, stumbling to our feet and defending ourselves as best we could. But… what boots defense, when a man cannot injure his foe!”
“What?”
“Truth! They would not bleed, they could not be hurt. Struck, they bled not. Arms, slashed through, remained attached to body.” A terrible shudder took Osbrit’s body. “They would not die, not even when I passed my spear through the belly of one till the point brast through his backbone.”
“What?”
Osbrit babbled. Tears shimmered in his eyes and spittle flecked his lips to drool upon his chin. “I SWEAR it! I myself faced a Dane, a man with a scar on his cheek like a fork for the snaring of hares, and an ax-haft dyed red and what I took for the emblem of the new faith on his black shield. He-”
Cormac stared with stricken, fixed eyes. “Wait, man. This Dane… his belt buckle… his buckler…”
“The bands of bronze on his black shield I at first thought was the cross of the Christians, and aye, his belt buckle… the face of a wing-eared man it was, moulded of br-”
“Crom and the Dagda!” Cormac gasped. “Wulfhere… it’s Guthrun he describes!”
“He lies! Guthrun Jarl’s son fell beside me these three months agone, in that same great hall of this keep! You yourself saw his body, with his head attached by only a string of tendon. This fellow lies-he saw Guthrun’s remains within-”
Cormac interrupted. “There are no remains within, Wulfhere. All are gone. There are only the new-dead: eighteen Britons.”
“Aye, Behl show mercy,” Osbrit said with a sobbing catch in his voice. “All eighteen cut down by men who would neither wound nor bleed nor die! I slashed a face, I tell you, and that Norseman did not even bleed! At that I backed away in horror, for I knew there was evil upon us, dark magic. All around me good men screamed as they were hacked to death by… by man-things they could neither slay nor even wound! He came on, him whose face I slashed. He said nothing, he neither grinned nor frowned, but only just stared, stared into my soul, like… like a dead man! His ax caught in my shield. I fell back, stumbled-and then to catch my balance I was sitting in that huge curulechair in there.”
“The huge… what?” Samaire asked.
“The Roman influence,” Cormac said. “He speaks of the throne. So you gave ground because ye must, in horror I’ve no doubt, and ye lost your balance and fell back into the lord’s chair.”
“Aye!” Osbrit nodded madly. “And-and… he drew back. He turned from me! I saw Dyfnwal thrust into him… I saw the point of Dyfnwal’s sword emerge at that man’s back!”
With a great shudder Osbrit sagged. Samaire gripped his arm and the man beside her held the Briton up merely by his presence; Osbrit leaned weakly against lean young Ros mac Dairb, nor did either seem to take note.
At last, dully, Osbrit regained life, and talked on.
“They… they killed them all. All my companions. All… all of them. No Norsemen fell or bled, no Dane, none of them, and they must have numbered a score. Then in the midst of the red carnage they’d wrought, they… they turned. All of them, as though one had given a signal, though none spoke. They turned to face me. They stared. None spoke. They looked upon me like hungry wolves just beyond the firelight, staring in, waiting, hoping… Gods! O mother… in awful silence they just stared at me thus, and none spoke ever, or so much as frowned. Like masks their faces were, with burning pale fires for eyes. I… sat. Behl’s Name, Fire of Life, I could do naught else! I admit it-nay, I swear it: I was frozen with fear! There must have been a score-”
“Sixteen Norse,” Cormac mac Art said in a quiet, dull voice, and he knew horror at his own thoughts, hearing his own matter-of-fact tone and chilled by it, “and… six Danes, I should say.”
Wulfhere stared at him with wide eyes. “Cormac!”
Cormac met those blue eyes. “Aye.” His gaze returned to what had been a man and was now a frightmad, gibbering creature for pity. “Osbrit… and then…”
“I remained where I was. And then… Fire of Life! I swear it by the sun and the moon-they vanished! Like smoke, like mist in the morning sun.”
Cormac laid a hand on the man’s shoulder; he did not drop it there, but laid hand on the other in commiseration, in a strange, understanding tenderness. “I believe you, Osbrit. Think. Describe others…”
Osbrit described two Norsemen, to be interrupted by Wulfhere; with an oath, the Dane swore he’d cloven the head of one of those Vikings from crown to chin, three months agone.
Cormac nodded. He accepted what he must, and turned to Bas.
“It is a castle of dark sorcery, my lord Bas. The Britons were attacked by men already slain… when last we were here! And when we left, those same slain slayers lay on the floor within. Now there is no sign of them. Only the Briton dead. And the throne… somehow it be safe from their attack.”
Bas was silent in thought. None broke that reverie.
“Such things,” Bas said, “are said to be possible… to have been possible. We druids have no such power, nor do we covet it. It is black sorcery, the sorcery of death, the Old Magick. To raise the dead against the living… to cheat the dead of their rest and return for any purpose… Behl protect and Crom defend! It is too horrible. It is against all that is decent on the ridge of the world. Kull’s or no, this is a place of evil!”