“Fare there in Amber Rowan, then,” Findbar said. “We leave nothing.”
“Then ye’ll not be departing.”
Findbar’s eyes remained fixed an Cormac, but he said, “Cet! There stands your enemy. Ye heard him, man; he’ll not suffer ye to depart this place! It’s Cormac mac Art stands betwixt ye and the Eirrin ye long to be in-kill him!”
“No, Cet! We’ve sailed together, man, fought Picts together, bled together and endured the horror of Thulsa Doom together, day after day. Blood of the gods, Cet-ye and me cannot war one with the other!”
Cet paid the Gael’s words no mind. He came on past Findbar with buckler high and ax low and balanced to swing, a thick man of surpassing strength who lacked only Wulfhere’s height to balance him in size. Nor was he without skill at weapons, else Cormac would not have picked him as part of a carefully chosen crew.
“Cet!” Cormac called out as the big man neared.
“Cet!” Findbar echoed from behind Cet mac Fergus. “Kill him!”
Cet essayed to do. Cormac waited until the ax was swinging in a blur of silvered grey ere he spun away, drawing steel on the move, coming about to face Cet across the three feet of space through which the ax had whished.
“This must not be, Cet Son of Fergus!”
Cet spoke not, and Cormac remembered Wulfhere that day on the mesa. And like Wulfhere then, Cet and his ax now came attacking still.
Cormac contrived to twist his buckler as he swung it to meet the ax, deflecting it with a great grating cran-n-ngg of ax on shield of ironbound wood thick with enamel. At the same time the Gael aimed a stroke at the bigger man’s head. This Cet’s greenand-blue targe caught with a great noise; surprisingly, he anticipated and caught, too, Cormac’s murderous backswing.
The two men circled, fighting with brain rather than with the necessity of the combat among many, or the berserker rage upon them. Each eyed the other, ever shifting their feet in the sand, flexing muscles to keep shields and weapons amove.
Cormac feinted low; Cet met point with buckler and tried a sidearm chop. That Cormac both ducked and deflected with interposed shield. The bear emblazonment of Carnal Uais was long since ruined, though the buckler was undented. Steel on wood hardened to the likeness of iron boomed out. Once more the two men’s arms were stilled but for a constant swaying as each sought an opening or slip on the other’s part; either would lead to the one cut that was frequently all that was necessary.
Moving warily, each made small feinting movement, the other’s obvious readiness for which stopped them short of full cuts or stabs.
Shaken still as Cet seemed not to be, Cormac made an error. Circling, testing each several step in the sand, he moved more to his right, until he was unable to see the ship and the seven men before it. He had accepted the unstated but tacit understanding that he and Cet would duel whilst the others awaited the outcome and the decision it brought.
He was wrong.
Findbar spoke no word; he must have gestured. Cormac saw nothing; heard nothing until Wulfhere shouted.
“Cormac! FALL!”
The Gael reacted instantly, as if instinctively. Many months had passed, over a year had gone since Cormac had heard that cry. He knew its meaning. It told him that he was in danger from someone other than him he faced. He was to betake himself from that attack with all swiftness-and down, not merely aside. With a feint at Cet’s legs, the Gael lunged sideward and let his knees drop him to a squat. His sword he held upward to keep Cet back; at the same time he rolled his eyes to the side.
Cormac saw Laegair mac Gol in the act of attacking him where he’d been; he heard the rush overhead of Wulfhere’s thrown ax; he saw it smash fully into Laegair’s face. Laegair mac Gol of Tir Edgain died on the instant of a crushed skull, far from his home in Ailech of Eirrin.
Cormac thought, Why?
Then he was up, meeting a vicious whirring stroke of Cet’s ax and doing his very best to chop off the burly Meathman’s sword-arm.
Wulfhere was meanwhile taking two strides to the side and with a swift twist, plucking the ax from the hand of Bas the Druid.
“Your pardon, Druid, but I have more need of this than you!” The Danish giant strode forward past Cormac and Cet to face the other followers of Findbar. “Stay back. These two fight. I’ll not interfere on Cormac’s behalf. We all wait, unless any of you is of a mind to join that treacherous weasel!” He jerked his shield-arm at the fallen Laegair, whose face was no longer recognizable.
Findbar turned, and in a passionless voice he pronounced a sort of litany: “Ruadan mac Mogcorf… Ros mac Dairb… Laig Senain’s son… Osbrit Drostan’s son of Britain… Duach mac Laig of Airgialla.” As men aslumber and yet afoot they stared at him. Findbar pointed at Wulfhere. “Slay the foreigner; kill the Dane!”
Every man raised weapon and shield and turned eyes on Wulfhere.
With a twinned yell, Brian and Samaire came running. Lugh was close on their heels. All three armoured attackers held shields and long swords up for combat.
It was chance set Samaire against Duach, who was also left-handed. Though willowl-slim, Duach had been picked by Cormac for the expedition because of the speed and agility that made him, with some skill, a formidable swordsman. He wheeled and braced round shield against Samaire’s rushing sword and sent his own forward in a blur of silver-grey steel to open her face. Her buckler whipped up; both blades clanged harmlessly on bucklers.
Brian’s initial charge would have done for Laig the navigator, but Ruadan cut at the youth, and on the instant he who loved to fight gained opportunity more than enow. Brian was beset by two countrymen bent on the sight of his blood.
After a wild passing swipe at Samaire that she surprised them both by sword-blocking, young Ros of Dun Dalgan met Lugh with a new ring and skirl of clashing steel. But a little distance removed, Osbrit and Findbar harried Wulfhere like cautious but fierce dogs, while he kept the two busy ducking and fending off his swooping ax.
The sound of battle cries, challenges, and curses rose on the air to mingle in cacophony with the steely clangor of blade on helm and buckler and armour. Stamping, twisting, sliding feet churned up the sand around the twelve unevenly divided opponents. This was battle indeed, made more horrible by the fact that all were shipmates.
The broad side of Cet’s ax slammed into the mailed leg of a twisting Cormac, and with a grunt of pain he was knocked off his feet. Grinning, Cet raised his ax for a killing stroke. Hastily he aborted that attack when he found himself staring at a swordpoint extended upward so as to spit him with his own movement. He rushed sideward, ax still on high; Cormac kicked himself over and rose fluidly with sand falling from his steel links. A swift lunge forced Cet to parry with buckler and back away to seek another opportunity.
Findbar, in ducking, lost his footing and sprawled backward. Wulfhere hove up his ax for the stroke of death but Osbrit interfered; his sudden rain of stabbing, hacking steel kept the Dane busy long enow for Findbar to scramble up. A bear-like stroke tore through the edge of Osbrit’s shield and down so that ax-edge rang on iron boss.
As the ax caught momentarily in sheared iron and splintered wood, only Wulfhere’s swiftly swung shield prevented Findbar’s blade from splitting his scalemail and flesh-his shield, and the vicious hopping kick Wulfhere gave the other man’s calf. The Dane’s ax came free; the flurry ended. The three men moved warily, watching each other.
Duach was perhaps stronger, but Samaire was not only good with sword, she had been shown certain concepts of tactic by Cormac, who had surprisedly pronounced her an instinctive weapon… woman. In swiftness she and Duach were well matched. The lean man of five-and-twenty or so, with his fortnight-old orange beard, was hard pressed physically and mentally to protect himself from her unpredictability, while Samaire must guard against the man’s longer reach.