Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

“Meaning you bought the ale.”

“-and, to my eternal shame, a tavern-wench, an exotic Romish looking girl with shield-broad hips-and may she be accursed with lice, piles, and phlegmy throat all her days! I… she…”

“Ye got drunk with her and your lip flapped like a loose sail in the wind.”

The massive chest rose and fell in another great dolorous sigh that rippled the waters. “Aye, old comrade. When I awoke, my men were gone and I was captive. The wench had two brothers and she brought them fast enow, once I was asleep.”

“Blood of the gods,” Cormac said, his wondering tone not all feigned. “You, drunk unto sleep! Why ye must’ve drunk the land dry as far inland as Powys and Gwent!”

“The place was … well stocked,” Wulfhere admitted. “Naturally it was only denials I made, despite some small pain… I be missing a fingernail now. But these fellows had a ship, and plenty there were about who sought any sort of hope other than being pushed into the sea by the Saxons-ye know how goes it with the Britonish.”

“Ye denied what ye drunkenly blabbed to the wench, but they elected to come and look for themselves.”

“Ah, that brain-how I’ve missed ye and your wise counsel, Cormac!”

Cormac said nothing. Wulfhere, waiting, realized then that so was his fellow-pirate of old. He went on, dully.

“Aye, they decided to sail down here anyhow. With me bound to the mast, stiff and baking by day and shivering by night.”

Such things Wulfhere Skull-splitter was not wont to admit, Cormac knew; how anxious the giant was becoming, with the water approaching his collarbones!

“Were there no such isle they said, or no such castle upon it, they avowed it was back they’d take me, and mayhap even aid me in seeking out my crew and the ship they stole from me. An it were here, I’d die though, for having lied that it wasn’t. They, claim to set great store by the truth, these lying Britons!”

“It’s considerable regard for it I’ve always been having myself,” Cormac said musingly.

He ruminated. He believed most of the woeful story, and decided to press no further into the matter of a few points he believed not, and some few details he was sure had been left unmentioned. He knew Wulfhere. He understood.

Cormac was sure that the Dane’s shame was unfeigned. Mayhap he had foolishly made alliance with the wrong men, who’d turned on him when he spoke too much of their destination and what it held-though he’d split many skulls indeed, Wulfhere might too have been surnamed “the Impetuous.” Or mayhap he had indeed fallen deep into his cups and blabbed to some Roman-descended Briton temptress who knew how to love a man and bring his secrets from out him-particularly when they were bragging matters. And mayhap there was another explanation altogether.

It did not matter. Cormac knew he’d been told the greater part of the truth, and that assured him Wulfhere remained the same, and his friend. The Dane had ever been too much given to the moment’s call and too little to thinking a bit. It was a fortunate good pairing they’d made, after they’d met in that foul prison years ago; the Dane had always bent ear to his Gaelic comrade’s counsel, and nearly always abided by it.

With a few swift movements of his knife, Cormac cut Wulfhere loose. He waded back onto the beach while the giant stood flexing his great arms and sucking up vasty breaths.

Following, Wulfhere picked up the Briton ax. He hefted it, plucked up the buckler, with its large protruding boss-which Bledyn had failed to use as he should have done. Wulfhere rushed the ax through the air, swung the shield in a blow that would have sent a foeman flying.

“Nice of ye not to carve up his shield, old Wolf!”

“It was on you my mind was, o’course. I fear his armour won’t be fitting you, though.”

Wulfhere chuckled. “Well, it seems to be leaky in the area of the stomach, anyhow. Mayhap this.” But no, the helmet would not encompass his head. He tossed it aside. “Where be your ship?”

“You know. Down below the spur of rock that cuts down to sea’s edge and ends this pretty beach.” “Umm. How, many men have we, Cormac?”

“ I have ten, not counting Samaire-and I do. The Picts robbed me of a few.”

“Samaire!” But Wulfhere said no more. If he refrained from asking aught of mac Art-such as what he was doing traveling asea from Eirrin with the princess he’d taken so much trouble to convey there-perhaps Cormac would ask no more questions either.

“There be two-and-twenty with Bedwyr-oh.” Wulfhere looked down at his former death-watcher, and his big strong teeth flashed in a grin. “ One -and-twenty, and Bedwyr. Good odds, surely: one for each of your men and seven for me. Ye can handle five, Crom’s own son?”

“Four is what your accounting left for me, ye rapacious barbarian.”

Wulfhere shrugged. “Four, then. Whatever. Saw you their ship?”

“Hours ago.” Cormac pointed; Wulfhere nodded.

The beached longship of the Britons, so painstakingly hide-covered, lay ten tens of paces up the strand. Cormac had come along the beach from the opposite direction. It was the ship he’d had as goal in his reconnoitering; his discovery of Wulfhere and Bledyn had been accidental.

Wulfhere nodded. “Bedwyr left two men aboard.” The Dane scratched under his beard.

“Two. Apparently they be earless!”

Wulfhere made a foul noise. “You know how it is with men fit for naught but crewing, when their chief’s not at hand to bid them scratch their itches. They were drunk hours ago.” Having recalled that sore subject to his mind and his friend’s, Wulfhere looked away. “That leaves a score for us to brace. Tonight, or by ambush on the morrow, when they return from the castle.”

“Mmm. Ye recall how we hid the Norsemen’s ship, when last we bode here?”

Wulfhere’s teeth flashed. “Aye! Your men are with your ship?”

“Aye.”

The Dane hefted his new ax. “Do you fetch them then, old friend, whilst I stroll up the beach and discuss possession of yon ship with its present occupants.”

“Ye’ve no armour man, and no helmet, and ye be wet and muscle-tight from long strain, and…”

Cormac’s voice trailed off. Wulfhere had turned to look at him.

The Gael read what was in those blue eyes, and he understood. Wulfhere had lost much face, and nearly his life. Helpless as a hare in a Dumnonion snare, he’d had to be rescued from death, and that rescuer had not so much as left him Bledyn for the venting of his spleen and the betterment of his sore-wounded pride. Wulfhere wanted atonement, and needed it. Those two Britons on the beached ship would be only a beginning, but his bracing them alone, Cormac knew, would help. Too, he knew that this giant Dane with his prodigious reach and mighty thews was a match for any five men… and probably eight of Britain.

Besides, Wulfhere had said the two men were drunk.

With a nod, Cormac turned without a word. He set off back along the moon-sparkled strand, to bring his crew for the floating and concealing of the Briton ship.

Chapter Four:

The Castle of Atlantis

The ship of the Britons, its two guardians afloat facedown, was concealed near the Irish vessel. The latter, just in case, was hidden even more thoroughly.

This island south of Britain was a bare and inhospitable one, despite the incredible structure inland. There was only one slender strip of sandy, sparkling beach that split a coast otherwise stony and high and forbidding, and… of rock. Brooding granite rose like a bulwark just back of the beach, and the darker stone too of basalt, igneous rock that was like petrified sponge.