There were few duels in that howling, clangourous melee. A man parrying the stroke of a second while slashing or stabbing at a third was often wounded or, given his death by a fourth, and sometimes by accident. Bright red dotted the air and gleamed on helm and mailcoat, jerkin and blade and skin. And on the deck, where footing grew precarious with flowing scarlet and moveless corpses.
“Och, I love to fight!” Brian of Killevy enthused, and hewed away an arm.
Men died, or were sore wounded, or were wounded and got their deaths from another’s hand, almost negligently, or took wounds that slew them later rather than at once. A hacked calf guaranteed a Pict a limp the rest of his days-had not the boss of Cormac mac Art’s shield smashed his face and, in crushing his nose, driven splinters of its bone into his brain.
Some who fell or reeled had eyes of blue or grey; others’ were black as the bracelets of polished coal they wore on their thick dark arms.
It was a princess of Eirrin’s Leinster who took a swordcut on the helm that made her head ring and formless grey dance before her eyes, and who drove a booted foot into the crotch of him who had landed that blow turned by her bronze-bossed helmet, then spitted the enemy’s mouth and nose and most of his chin on her sword. The Pict died without even knowing it was a woman had sped his soul. Samaire took a cut on the hand too, and was pinked in the right forearm, but managed to crush that attacker’s face with her buckler’s boss even as his sword dropped.
Sons of Eirrin fought the better for her presence among them, for she was like unto Agron goddess of slaughter that day, or Scathach, the war goddess whose tutoring had made invincible the hero Cuchulain of Muirthemne.
It was she who ferociously out-shouted the Picts, and was hoarse three days after, while limping from the thwack of a shield-edge against her leathershod shin.
And then the ship was clear of living Picts.
So too was the sea all about, save for one. He had plunged overside and, gaining a carack, began paddling madly away. A hard-flung spear missed him but brast through the bottom of his boat, so that he was forced to leave it there, a strange sail-less mast, lest by withdrawing the point he was reduced to floating while he baled.
Yet there could be no immediate rest for the victors, each of whom was ghoulishly blood-spattered, for it had fountained on that weltering ship this day and those without scathe were bloody as their wounded comrades.
There was the gory, twice-unpleasant business of pitching overside Pictish corpses-and pieces, including three limbs, a grimacing head, and a ghastly long coil of pink sausage from a sundered belly.
Even then none could sink down gasping to rest; there were the wounded to see to, and the dying to comfort, and the dead to be buried in the only available grave, that great endless tomb of the sea. Too, the tyrant who commanded them insisted that every inch of blade and mail be wiped of blood and gore, then greased against salt spray.
“Ye fought well,” he told them, “and these weapons served us well. It may be we’ll be having need of them another day-and rust, lads, is the weapon-man’s worst enemy!” He grinned. “Aye, and were some of ye hardly weapon-men this morning-so ye be all now!”
The final words assured willing compliance with the unwelcome command.
Then the sun died, as bloody-red on the horizon as the many battles it had witnessed, and eleven men and a woman sank down to the sleep of exhaustion, while the ship wallowed.
Chapter Two:
Warrior and Priest
The wind was hardly worthy of the name. A gentle breeze, it was just enough to fill the sails. Laeg mac Senain was well chosen, and Cormac was grateful to have the man aboard. Laeg the navigator made the most of even this pallid stir of air, with hardly a limp nor complaint whatever of the cut he’d taken in his right thigh. It was as much Laeg’s skill that made the vessel skim over the water, oarless, as the breeze that others might have thought too little.
The Cormacanacht-so were the men happy to call themselves, men of the Champion of Eirrin who’d bested even Bress Long-hand of Leinster at the great Feis of Tara-took their ease. They lounged, or exercised, or talked idly and looked about, though there was only water to see. Not so glassily flat as on the battle-day afore, Manannan mac Lyr’s bluegreen demesne was nevertheless quiet. The breeze turned only little ripples that gleamed in the sun like twinkling gems.
At the prow, Cormac son of Art of Connacht leaned on the bulwark, gazing ahead.
Beside him was the short, slight warrior. The strange high boots still sheathed her legs above midthigh. Overlarge for those slim firm thighs, the rare boots she loved were held up by thongs she’d fastened to the belt of her tunic, under her coat of good mail. The yellow tunic covered her legs to the knees. Of linked steel in the Irish fashion, her mailcoat fell almost as far, and covered her upper body to the throat.
Discarded this day was her bronze-studded cap of leather. Her hair, which was of a light golden red that might be called orange, blew this way and that, caught by the wind of their passage and by the wind that pushed them so gently.
They’d launched the light Irish longboat with its single sail from the baile or town called Atha Cliath, which some called Darkpool, or Dubh-linn. The vessel skimmed along east by south. Well behind them now was the Pictish attack, and the bodies of good sons of Eirrin that nurtured the ever-hungry sea. They were mourned, though none aboard Quester was of the New Faith, whose adherents believed in an eerie bodily afterlife not of this earth, but cluttered all together in a sky-place called coelis or heaven. There they lived eternally, with their god Iosa Chriost. They did naught, so far as Cormac mac Art had been able to ascertain; he held no discourse with the dark-robed priests that had followed Padraigh to Eirrin.
A venerated Druid rode this ship of men of the old beliefs. None had failed to note that he lifted no weapon against the Picts, nor was he menaced by them… which would hardly have been the case, had he been a priest of the new god from the East-and Rome. The Druid’s robe remained green. All aboard were of his belief, for Cormac mac Art had no Christians about him. These men knew that their slain comrades would return to tread this earth, though with different visages and names.
“Cormac,” the orange-haired warrior said, “is’t true what that man of Baile Atha Cliath said, that once he sailed with you?”
“Aye. Tiobraide lost his arm with me, Samaire, in a battle with the men of Norge up north of Britain.”
“He called you Wolf.”
“So did they all. It was Cormac an-cliuin I was then; Captain Wolf.”
“How came you by that name?”
“Men are fanciful, Samaire.”
“And ye be evasive, dairlin’ boy. Come-how came you by that fierce name?”
Cormac continued to look ahead, on the sea. “I earned it.”
Samaire daughter of Ulad Ceannselaigh heard, and heard more than his spare words. She queried no further into that matter.
“He said too that it was your wont ever to counsel that one should kill only when necessary.”
Staring ahead, the one-time wolf of the sea said nothing.
“Cormac?”
“Aye.”
“Be it true?”
“Aye. Often I said it,” he said, with a catch in his voice that was not quite a sigh.
“And… but… was it meaning that, ye were?”
He nodded, without turning his face toward hers. He was aware of her bright green eyes-and of nine other men.
“Aye. I meant it. Ye’ll be asking further, and I’ll make answer first. It’s true, Samaire: I believe that one should kill only when necessary. Unfortunately it is more often necessary than not.”