Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

Bress lurched back. Fachtna side-kicked him, staggering the tall thin man, though he lost some of his right leg doing it. He moved forward after Bress, but his leg gave out under him. That didn’t matter. He left himself open as he chopped down at his opponent’s head. Bress got his blade up barely in time to parry, but the force of Fachtna’s blow brought the tip of his blade down onto Bress’s head, opening it up. Blood poured down his pale face. Bress had finished humouring Fachtna.

She felt the force of the axe blow reverberate down her arms as she blocked it with the haft. Had the spear not been Lochlannach magic, the axe would have cut straight through. Britha kicked out under the spear. It was a solid blow, but Ettin barely felt it. Instead he brought the axe back for a two-handed sideways blow. Britha hit him with the butt of the spear in the face. Except it was Hanno’s face. The Carthaginian’s eyes rolled up into his head but he did not lose consciousness. Instead he drooled blood as he continued screaming obscenities at her.

She needed to put distance between her and Ettin so she could use the spear. Ettin swung at her. Britha leaped, bringing her knees up. The axe swished under them. She landed and moved to the side and away from Ettin, through the smoke.

The captives were trying to give them as much room as they could, though from the screams they knew that all that waited for them below was fire and death.

Britha stabbed out with her spear. Ettin parried it with the haft of his axe, knocking it away so hard Britha almost lost her grip on it. She went with the momentum of the parry and swung the spear around her head as she backed away from Ettin’s approach. She turned the circular movement of the spear into a thrust. He was ready for her. He caught the spear with the axe and, one-handed, yanked it out of her grip, dragging her forward. He dropped the spear and punched her in the face, sending her staggering back to the sound of Hanno’s cheers. Britha grabbed for the sickle still hanging from her side by the remains of her rope belt. Ettin side-kicked her and took her off her feet. She hit the floor hard as he raised the axe above his head to Hanno’s exultant shouting.

Bress caught Fachtna’s sword hand at the wrist. He smashed the warrior in the face with the hilt of his sword, then brought the blade down on Fachtna’s sword arm, severing tendons. Fachtna’s sword fell away from unfeeling fingers. Fachtna spat at his foe, and Bress flung the Gael away from him. Fachtna landed on the edge of the still-hot area that had been destroyed by the dragon. He tried to get to a kneeling position but now both his arms were useless. Bress helped him to kneel by pulling Fachtna up by his hair. Bress took several steps back. The wind caught the smoke and Fachtna saw clear blue sky. It’s a really nice day , he thought, and I have accomplished much .

Bress swung his sword.

The two halves of Fachtna’s body tumbled out of the wicker man into clear blue sky, only to be swallowed by smoke.

Even as she grabbed for the sickle, she knew it was too late. The axe fell. Ettin was yanked back, the head of the axe biting into the planks just in front of Britha. Kush and Germelqart each had one of Ettin’s arms and were dragging him away from her. Hanno screamed at them to stop.

With one arm, Ettin threw Kush off, sending the large powerful man flying into the framework. Kush bounced off and hit the floor. Ettin grabbed Germelqart with the other hand, lifted the Carthaginian off the floor by his head and then started to squeeze. The navigator screamed.

Britha was searching around desperately for her spear.

Tangwen jumped high into the air behind Ettin and buried her dirk deep into his real head. Ettin roared and tossed Germelqart away. He turned. Tangwen was backing away. Ettin cuffed the hunter so hard that she too was flung into and bounced off the wicker man’s framework.

Ettin turned back to Britha, who rammed her spear into his fat stomach and drove it up into his ribcage, all the while staring straight into his eyes. She wanted to watch the light go out.

With a roar Kush brought his axe down on Ettin’s shoulder, driving the bronze blade diagonally into his chest, where it met the metal branches growing out her spear’s head.

‘It’s my axe!’ he screamed.

As Ettin sank to the floor, Britha knelt down with him to watch death come to his eyes.

Satisfied, she stood up and went to check on Tangwen. Kush put his foot on Ettin’s body and wrenched his axe free. Then he lifted it high and cut off Hanno’s head.

‘I’m sorry, old friend. You deserved better.’ Then he decapitated Ettin just to be on the safe side.

Tangwen was in tears.

‘I’m so sorry. The swim, the climb…’ She stared at Teardrop’s body, guilt all over her face.

‘It’s okay,’ Britha said.

Germelqart was getting unsteadily to his feet, aided by Kush. Both of them bore the ravages of their captivity.

‘I told you I heard Hanno,’ Kush told the navigator.

‘Do you still want my power?’ Teardrop asked, though his voice sounded wrong. All of them turned to stare. His lips were moving; the rest of his body looked very dead. The muscles on his face were slack, making the movements of his mouth all the more obscene, particularly as his head had been cut in half and one set of lips was slightly out of synch with the other. Inside his swollen skull they could see the crystal moving like it was alive, or rather like it was many living things.

‘That should not be happening,’ the normally taciturn Germelqart said. ‘I do not like Ynys Prydein and will not come back here.’

It took Britha a moment or two to realise that the odd rasping noise was Teardrop’s laughter. Kush raised his axe.

‘The dead should be still,’ the tall black man insisted.

‘Wait,’ Britha said, though she almost completely agreed with him.

‘You so wanted my power,’ Teardrop said. He was right. Now she could not think of anything she wanted less. ‘It’s a heavy price. You have no idea, but you are not done yet.’

Britha felt tears spring into her eyes but knelt down by Teardrop. The crystal tendrils that reached for her from his ears, nose, mouth, eyes, that flowed from the grisly split in his head, did not look wholly real.

As they pushed into her head, touched her mind, shattered it, rebuilt it so she could at least perceive – though never understand – she screamed until her throat bled, then they felt very real.

She became a border. She saw the rest of everything that was this tiny space. She drooled blood as the meat part of her mind tried to shut down. Her mind grew beyond the stinking sweet prison of her flesh into other space beyond the ken of the people around her, who cowered away as her cranium bulged and the crystal parasite consumed the meat of her brain and forced its tendrils into her veins and arteries, making them swell.

It wasn’t just Britha who opened mercury eyes.

Bress stalked out of the smoke, bloody sword in hand. Kush raised his axe; Tangwen, her dirk still in Ettin’s skull, grabbed her hand axe from her belt.

Bress glanced down at Ettin’s body. There was a slight smile on his lips. The smile disappeared as he looked at Britha’s inhuman eyes. She stood to face him.

‘It’s still me,’ she told him.

‘For now. Your friend is dead,’ he told them, and then, so there was no confusion, ‘I killed him.’ He nodded outside. Kush, Germelqart and Tangwen turned to look. Britha did not; she had felt the violation opening. Circles of blue pulsing light, and through it living, squirming, black, bacteria-like nothings, reached for its antithesis. To what was left of Britha it was like the sky was being eaten by maggots. It sought to touch the Muileartach and make her the same as her sisters, to corrupt the last progenitor.