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lightweight flax-knit leggings or trews that were a thousand wrinkles. Bustling Lendabaer with her rich mass of black hair (bound back with no less than three ribbons, of three several colours) wore a long skirt of dull blue. It flowed from beneath a tunic of unbleached white, with a voluminous apron over that. Though Samaire was not so tall as five and a half feet, she stood several inches above Lendabaer and was nearly the height of Dond but hardly that of the early-developing boy of sixteen. Plaited into Samaire s flaming hair was the ribbon, and a leathern jerkin covered her white tunic. It was belted to drape over the leather leggings she d worn at the time of her kidnap and they vanished into the soft, striking boots that rose above her knees and that she had contrived to fasten to her belt with hide thongs. She has the look of a warrior about her, Cormac muttered. Every inch, Ceann said, nodding. Then the two men saw the family and Samaire disappear into the little house, and they heard the lowering and bracing of the heavy bar across the door. Exchanging a small smile, Cormac and Ceann entered the shed and found places to stretch out. Whew, Ceann commented, and Cormac chuckled. Aye, and now ye know, Ceann, why they noted no smell of the sea on us. I d lay wager that the interior of the house smells no less fishy than this shed! Ceann stirred in the darkness. On Irish soil, the two men drifted easily into sleep, despite the hardness of their pallets and the stench of fish and the salt sea. Cormac awoke. It was still dark. His had not been a life that allowed a man to sleep deeply, and he awoke both easily and swiftly. He sat up. And heard the sound again; a twitching thrashing, accompanied by the faintest of whimpers. Frowning, he slipped sword noiselessly from sheath and stepped as quietly to the door of the shed. Just outside, he saw the source of the sounds that had, roused him. It was the dog Flaith, and he twitched and whimpered no longer. From his throat stood a slender wand of wood that had ceased to shudder with his movements. Staring at the arrow, Cormac mac Art needed not step forth to examine it; he knew it was a flint tip that had stolen the dog s life, and that in moonlit silence. With the blackness of the shed s interior behind him, he looked out onto Dond s moon-splashed land. He saw squat burly figures ghosting silently. They were ringing the silent little house. With an equal lack of sound, Cormac returned into the fisherman s shed. He crouched beside the sleeping Ceann. He knew not yet what sort of man Ceann was, save that his life had not paralleled his own. Wulfhere said the redhaired prince fought like a warrior born, but how did he waken? He was woken this time by two iron hands: one closed on his arm to shake him, the other pressed over his mouth. The moment he moved, Cormac, bending close, whispered, It s Cormac. Be silent. Wake and take up weapons the house is about to be attacked. Ceann tensed, then Cormac felt him nod. He withdrew both hands. Ceann rose quietly. He asked no questions, but bustled. The prince had permanently borrowed himself a scalemail corselet from one of the Vikings on Samaire-heim, as well as a good sword and two daggers, with belt sheaths. The round shield he had worn on his back, like Cormac. Both men, in order to seem less warlike and fearsome, had arrived here wearing tunics and cloaks over their body armour. Nor had they removed aught for sleeping but shields and weapon-belts, and Cormac his helm. They had just buckled on the broad, sheath-pendent belts and taken up their bucklers when the night air was rent wide by a hellish wolf-yelling that rose from many throats. God of my ancestors! What Picts, Cormac snapped, brushing past him on his way doorward. They shriek when they attack. It s supposed to strike terror to the hearts of their prey, and render them stone-still with fear. Ceann saw the other man s broad shoulders and helmeted head, filling the doorway where it was lined in the moonlight. And amid the din of the banshee-howling Picts arose another battle-yell, a ferocious bellow. The charging Cormac vanished. With a swift jerk of his head to clear it of the awful sounds, Ceann charged after him. These Picts of the far coast were short and squatty men, powerfully built, with shocks of black hair they often bound with silver fillets. Few wore armour and indeed most had little clothing besides. They were normally armed with flint or bronze; when they bore steel, it was stolen. They attacked in wild beast frenzy, savages that struck and hewed without interest in prisoners or heed for cries for quarter. Ceann reached the shed door to see them in a dark ring they d made about the fisherman s hut, their number surely a dozen. They whirled from their encirclement to meet the man who ran upon them like a flying shadow. His Viking-won shield was up and ready to tip this way or that, and his sword was carried well out to his right side, streaking through the night like a flying ribbon of cloth-of-silver. The next Pictish cry Ceann Ruadh heard, as he went running after the other man, was not one of those challenges; a shriek of bloody death rose as Cormac s sword ripped the warrior open. An arrow rang off his helmet and another thudded against his chest just inward from his sword arm. Turned by his good chaincoat, it dropped away and the nearest of the yelling charging savages fell silently with a death wound under his heart. Ceann hadn t time for niceties. The man starting to lunge at Cormac s back happened to have his own back turned to the prince of Leinster but that was his fault. Ceann did not slow down. He slammed his shield into the man s back and arm and flailed over it to cut the Pict s other shoulder nearly off his torso. The short dark man went falling in a spray of blood from a wound that would empty him in minutes; it was too huge for coagulation. The terrible cries continued to rend the air. There was added now the grunt and gurgle and gasp and cry of fighting men, accompanied by the ring and skirl of steel on steel and its chunking sound as it found flesh, or brittle cracks when it bit to bone-depth. Cormac had gained the door of the house, and in his wake lay three bloody Picts. With a bloodcurdling shriek a short, ape-built man sprang high into the air, having run in from the side. He landed directly in Ceann s path. Up went the barbed Pictish blade for a death-stroke and Ceann lengthened the man s navel, splitting him with the full force of his own charge after Cormac. The Pict was carried back several feet, and his slayer had to pause and back a step himself, to free his blade. An Eirrin-made sword struck hard on his shield with a frightful clang and a force that staggered him. Narrowly avoiding a thigh-full dagger, Ceann kicked with all his might straight into the dark warrior s crotch. Only a loincloth of well-tanned hide protected the Pict, who was hurt so sorely that he could not even make an outcry. He dropped puking to his knees and soon was curled up there, twitching, holding himself. Ceann had no time to end that foeman s life; two Picts came at him at once. He took a hardswung blow on his shield and another far down his sword, close to the guard so that the weapon was nearly carried from his hand. Blindly, he swung both buckler and sword inward toward each other, arms extended before his body. The shield sent one man staggering back with a grunt of pain, while the sword cut the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |