Andrew Offutt - The Sign of the Moonbow

Cormac swung and stared with his lips held tight. “I trust ye no farther than I could be throwing ye, skullface-uphill! Now be silent, and…” He looked back at Erris. “Erris, prepare yourself for a hideous sight, and remember that he is chained to me by Danu’s own bonds.” He slid an arm back and down and, found her hand. It was not cold. “Thulsa Doom: Be silent. And give over the likeness of Bas the Druid that ye dishonour-assume your own form, creature of death!”

The undying wizard obeyed. The robes and face of Bas swam, went all murky and tenuous, were gone. The gleaming head of death stared at them from above the dark robe of Cutha Atheldane.

With a gasping throaty cry Erris lunged up to press hard against Cormac’s back. She clung there, and he felt her shudders. Wulfhere glanced at her back, and down. His eyes widened and he raised pale red brows. The Danish giant looked away-and then at her again, as if helplessly, to admire the young woman’s naked back.

After glancing at him, Cormac said, “Best ye back away, Erris, and swing that cloak about yourself properly.”

“He-he-”

“He has no face. He is a mage. He is in my control. I wear the Moonbow-and ye see it on him, too, downside up. Do as I bade ye.”

She released him reluctantly, looked at Wulfhere, glanced at Thulsa Doom, and then with the cloak held before her she squatted to catch up its brooch. Unblushingly she swung the cloak about her as he’d suggested, and pinned it above her left breast. The greyish blue mantle enveloped her completely, to the toes. Again she moved to stand close to Cormac.

“Erris… where be this Dithorba Loingsech? It’s he should be as glad to be our ally as we his, I’m thinking.”

She shook her head distressedly. “Tarmur Roag mocks his fellow mage by binding him with chains of silver-” Her head jerked up and her eyes were wide as new excitement and hope came upon her. “HERE, outside Moytura!”

A smile toyed with Cormac’s lips; failed to manifest itself. “Any hands can remove the Chains of Danu, save those of the wearer of the inverted Moonbow-why have ye not released him?”

Her shiver was conveyed by the rippling of the encompassing cloak of blue-grey woollen. She licked her lips.

“I was just put forth from Moytura. Dithorba is guarded. I… I…” Erris looked down. “I was too loyal to my mistress. It is why I was stripped and thrust out here… for them . Those who guard Dithorba. Rough weapon men who are like blood-hungry beasts with Tarmur Roag’s sorcerous bidding upon them. I was… I was to be their… ‘Here, wench,’ snarled those who thrust me forth, ‘provide entertainment for the lonely watchers of Dithorba, that they may recreate themselves.’ This was just before you came.”

Cormac heard the emphasis on the word “you” without making any indication of reaction. Yet at her words of Danan weapon-men about, his and Wulfhere’s hands had gone to sword-hilt and ax-helve as if at a signal. The Dane’s crimson beard twitched, which meant he was smiling, somewhere within that flaming bush.

“And where is Dithorba, Erris… and his guards?”

She pointed past them. “Straight there. Along the other branch from… from the Door to Them.”

Cormac mac Art saw to his shield-straps. “Say not ‘them’ with such a fearful heaviness on ye, Erris… Wulfhere and I, after all, are ‘Them’!” He turned to look at his weapon companion of several years, grim and blood-splashed seagoing years as rievers. “Wulfhere?”

The giant hefted ax and buckler. Anticipation lit his cerulean eyes with bloody portents for the guards of Dithorba.

“How many guards be there?” Cormac asked Erris.

She shook her head. “I know not. Less than ten methinks but no mere two or three-five, mayhap.”

“Hmp, Wulfhere rumbled. “In that event, Cormac, why don’t ye wait here? I’ll be back from this encounter in a few heartbeats…”

Cormac gave him a look. “Stay ye well back, Erris,” he said, and the two men set their feet in the direction she’d indicated; the other arm of the Y down the stem of which they had come from outside-Outside. At Cormac’s beck, Thulsa Doom fell in behind them-and Erris stayed well back, indeed, staring at that hairless and gleaming skull.

They moved along the subterranean hallway with the cautious silence of great stalking cats. An occasional scuff of buskin on hardpacked earth or stone, and a faint clink of mail were the only hints of the advance of two weapon-men followed by a silent, faceless mage and a cloak-swathed young woman. All three men were forced to stoop as they went along that pearl-lit passage within the earth.

It came upon Cormac to wish he had asked whether the tunnel debouched into such a chamber or “room” as the one in which they’d found Erris. Too late now. If not-fighting in this low-ceiled tunnel with oppressively close walls might well be to the advantage of the Danans, Cormac clamped his lips. He had not come here to fight the people of Danu!

If only surprise could be with him and Wulfhere…

They rounded a turning, and Cormac’s eyes narrowed; aye, up ahead was an obvious widening and heightening on the other side of what resembled a doorway notched in the earth. Dithorba Loingsech was not bound in the tunnel itself, then, but within a larger chamber. Good! They approached more slowly now, careful not to jostle each other or to make the faintest sound.

At what might be called a doorway without a door, they paused. Within lay a chamber of stone that was nigh square, each wall perhaps thrice Cormac’s length. Not a huge room, but big enough for the wielding of ax and sword and buckler, and the swift necessary movement of their feet.

In the far right corner was piled a cairn of stones, and there too was him they sought. The Moonbow of Danu hung upon his chest at the end of its silver chain, its points downward. This had to be Dithorba, who like Thulsa Doom was captive of the Chains of Danu. A very short and passing thin man he was, with a beard like dirty snow that was plaited on his chest; above, his pate was bald and gleaming. In addition to the Moonbow necklace, the queen’s mage was chained to the wall itself by shackles of silver. Pitifully, the old fellow wore naught but a loincloth.

Gael gave Dane a querying look; Dane nodded.

And the bigger man moved. Before Cormac could step forward, Wulfhere entered the chamber of stone. He sidestepped swiftly leftward so that there was room for his companion to enter and range himself beside him-and it fell out that the guards were there, to the left of the entry.

Two men squatted, and the knuckle-bones in the hand of one struck the floor with a little clatter just as the newcomers came upon them. Four others stood about them. Instantly a dozen pale de Danann eyes fixed on Wulfhere the Splitter of Skulls, and every man showed shock.

A full half dozen there were, unnaturally pale, grim-faced men who were both armed and armoured. Their widened eyes changed swiftly; now they flared as unnaturally with the scarlet killing-lust. Cormac saw on the instant that Tarmur Roag was their master, and that the traitorous sorcerer of Moytura had made animals of these guards; they were mindless, fearless slayers.

The two dicers scrambled up and wrapped, fists around pommels; six short pale men faced the two who had come so unexpectedly upon them. Surprise had been lost; Wulfhere had not immediately charged. Yet the men of Moytura hesitated, staring at men who to them were weird of hair and complexion-and gigantic of stature. Like their cousins of the Isle, none of these Danans was above five and half feet in height.

Corselets of scintillant, superbly wrought mail they wore, chain after the manner of Eirrin rather than the short coat of overlapping scales that armoured Wulfhere’s massive frame from collarbones to upper thighs. The links were dark. Each Danan bore a sword rather than ax or spear, and their bucklers were ornately wrought, six-sided and inlaid and painted and enameled as though the makers had sought to make jewellery of the implements of war and red death. Shaped like crescent moons were their helmets, with outcurving wings that Cormac thought were surely silver, welded onto the sides of their round helms of iron.