Mark Chadbourn - Jack of Ravens

They were a lusty group. The storytelling eventually devolved into arguments and fist fights amongst the men, which tumbled out into the muddy street to be resolved. But once it was over, the men returned, bloody and bruised, and immediately appeared to be the best of friends once more. Regularly, men and women would walk outside for a bout of noisy lovemaking, the sounds often interrupting the stories, and the assembled group would cheer loudly. When the couple returned, they wore it as a badge, with no embarrassment.

On the night of the third day, a ferocious storm swept in from the Atlantic. Thunder banged loudly and white lightning flashes burned away the dark, while the wind whipped around the roundhouses that were scant protection against the elements. Yet with the central fire stoked and the sparks surging up to the tiny hole in the roof, and all the villagers huddled together to hear tales of a darker bent, it was undeniably cosy.

As the warm glow of the alcohol suffused him, Church vacated his seat at the back and slipped out. A maudlin feeling had been creeping up on him all day. He hated his inactivity and his inability to find a solution to his predicament. He wasn’t someone who could lie back and let life wash over him.

In the doorway, he watched lightning play across the horizon as the rain fell heavily. Spindly trees bowed in the face of the wind, and the swirling clouds were caught starkly in each flash. Something about the wild work of nature comforted him.

‘There is beauty in the wildest thing.’ Etain was at his side, her cloak pulled tightly around her. The voluminous swathes of cloth made her face appear unusually delicate.

‘The villagers have got you to spy on me, haven’t they?’

She showed no emotion. A long moment passed, filled only with the driving beat of the rain pounding all around, as she stared towards the black horizon. Finally she said, ‘Our lives have been harsh. In recent times, many have died. But we have survived, and as this new age dawns, we will not allow ourselves to fall back again.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Church said.

Her eyes reflected the flare of the lightning. ‘The gods have withdrawn. We will never be herded by them again. This land is ours now, as it was in the beginning. We all stand together, men and women, shoulder to shoulder, brother and sister, carving out our own path.’

‘You think I’ve come from the gods — a spy, or an agent of some kind, to watch you and report back.’ Church knew how dearly the Celts held their religious stories, one of the richest mythologies in any world culture, filled with symbolism and wisdom. The gods were stitched into the very fabric of Celtic life and death.

‘You carry the sword of Nuada Airgetlamh.’

‘But I’m human, like you.’

‘The gods take many shapes. And only a representative of the gods could wield such a weapon of power.’

Church couldn’t argue with her logic. The sword troubled him, too: where had it come from? Why was he carrying it? The blue light that limned the blade. The way it felt alive in his hand. His fleeting glimpse of it as something that was not a sword at all.

‘You used it to slay one of the great giants of Kernow, and yet you say you are a man, like Finn, who falls in the mud every morn when he tries to catch his mare?’ Etain’s smile was knowing. ‘Yes, I am charged to watch you Jack, Giantkiller, because we will not abide the gods ruining us any longer, after so many seasons of ruin. We will not see our children stolen from their cribs, or our women unwillingly impregnated, or our men turned into goats or stags or trees.’

‘Do I have to worry that you might kill me in my sleep to keep your people safe?’

‘I do not think you are a threat to us, Jack, Giantkiller.’ Another smile, wise and teasing at the same time. ‘But my mind could be changed on the matter.’ She stared deeply into his eyes for a moment, but Church couldn’t divine the emotions that skimmed fleetingly across her features. She may well have said more, but Tannis appeared at the door, drunk and coughing up a mouthful of phlegm. Etain nodded to the new arrival and pushed past him back indoors.

‘That one wants to offer you the friendship of the thighs,’ Tannis said with a wink.

Church ignored him. ‘Do you think I’m a threat sent from the gods?’

Tannis mused, staring into the depths of the storm. ‘I saw you fight. You are a warrior. You saved my men, for the giant Cormoran would not have relented until they were all crushed. The giants do not like humans, like many of the things from Otherworld.’

The giant still loomed large in Church’s thoughts, another of the many things he couldn’t explain.

Tannis nodded thoughtfully. ‘I would show my back to you, Jack, Giantkiller. And I would fight beside you again.’

In the split second during which another flash of lightning turned the world white, Church’s attention was caught by a curious sight. It looked as if there was a surge of black fire away on the rolling grassland above the village, about two miles distant. It showed up starkly in contrast with the lightning, but was gone so quickly that Church couldn’t be sure whether it was anything more than the after-burn of the glare on his retina. For some inexplicable reason it set his nerves on edge. At the same time, the spider-thing burrowing into his arm clenched as if in response.

Tannis followed Church’s glare into the impenetrable storm. ‘You saw something?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ If it had been something tangible, the night was too dark to look for it again until the next lightning flash. ‘You’re not from Carn Euny,’ Church noted, changing the subject. ‘These people are farmers and traders. You and your band are warriors.’

‘When the word went out about the Great Battle, we were dispatched to protect those who were closest to the field.’

‘What battle?’

Tannis eyed Church curiously. ‘Between the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorii.’

Church was puzzled. He presumed Tannis was talking about the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh, a major event in Celtic mythology when the godlike Tuatha De Danann finally defeated the demonic Fomorii and slew their leader Balor, the one-eyed god of death. ‘You believe that actually happened?’ Church asked hesitantly.

‘It took place these four days past. On the night before you came upon us.’

More superstition , Church thought. There was no point questioning it. ‘Then you’ll be leaving soon?’

‘No. We are waiting.’

‘Everyone’s waiting. What for?’

Tannis grinned. ‘Does it concern you?’ He punctuated the question with a laugh, slapped Church on the back and returned to the raucous noise emanating from inside the house.

Church let the unceasing rhythm of the rain ease his troubled thoughts for a few more minutes. In another lightning flash, he thought he saw the black fire again, though he knew it could easily have been his imagination. He immediately went back inside, shutting the door tightly. But for the rest of the night he found himself listening intently to every sound made by each gust and eddy of the wind against the building, strangely fearing it was a hand trying the door, searching for a way in through the window.

He didn’t know why he thought that. He didn’t know anything any more. Nor did he know why a scraping fear was clawing its way slowly up from the deepest part of him, whispering words of warning: run away. Run away, Jack, Giantkiller.

The storm blew itself out during the night. Church was woken sharply by Etain, at the edge of the communal hut where he had drunk himself into a stupor of forgetfulness.

‘What is it?’ he groaned.

‘You must come.’ It was all she said before departing quickly.