Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

There was only the empty plain and, far off, the entry into the twisting passage through the rock that connected this valley with the beach.

A new feeling of nervousness akin to fear drifted over the Gael like a dark mist. The castle… deserted? And without… no matter how he turned his head to peer this way and that, and strained his ears, there was no sound of shout or clash of arms to seaward.

Cormac mac Art walked the length of that defense-hall, hardly pausing to peer out at each of the other three windows. At the head of the second flight of steps, he glanced back. He saw nothing, no one. He crept down the stairs to the landing, peered around.

Below was nothing, no one.

Re-ascending, he passed around the hall’s back wall and onto the railed gallery that overlooked the vast main hall of the eerily silent castle.

Below, sprawled amid great dark splashes, were the bodies of strong men.

Cormac’s and Wulfhere’s Danes had died down there, three months agone, along with fifteen Norsemen. Cormac had been pursuing Samaire and Cutha Atheldane, a druid among Vikings, and had no part in the terrible battle. Only Wulfhere and Samaire’s brother Ceann survived.

Despite some objection from the more civilized prince and princess of Leinster, Wulfhere and Cormac had deemed this great structure a fine tomb indeed. They had left the dead here, friend and foe alike, corpses all. It was these considerably decayed bodies Cormac expected to find this day.

He did not. Not even the bones of those two-and-twenty men remained.

Instead, the scent of new-spilled blood was on the air. It lay barely dry below in splashes and pools, amid the hideously staring, sprawled corpses of eighteen… Britons!

Chapter Five:

The Living Dead

Cormac was outside in the bright sunlight, summoning Bas the Druid and Lugh, the Meathish hunter whom the Gael had surnamed the Manhunter.

Then came the clamor, and the three men whirled. A clot of weapon-men burst into the far end of the Valley of the Castle. A huge red-bearded, ax-wielding Dane… a small warrior in leathern boots with a bronze-studded leathern helmet… three chainmailed men with bows and feather-bristling quivers… others: all of Eirrin. And with them, a stumbling, mumbling Briton.

The man appeared mad and his gibbering was audible to Cormac long before his main party reached him. Great glazed eyes stared awfully from out a pallid Briton face twisted and set in horror.

“That man looks as if he has gazed upon the face of Death itself,” Bas said.

“Mayhap he has,” Cormac said very quietly. “He is the last of his entire crew.”

The three waited; the fourteen came on. All were united before the gaping dark maw of the castle, where its big iron-bound door sagged forlornly from one rotting hinge.

“You’ve been within?” Wulfhere demanded, ere any other could direct coherent words.

“Aye”

“What… did you find?” Samaire asked.

Cormac jerked a gesture at the sagging Briton. “This one’s companions. All of them save the three Wulfhere and I accounted for. All are dead; all of them. Hacked and stabbed and cut to pieces.”

“Gods of my ancestors,” Samaire said, little above a whisper. “This sniveler spoke true, then.”

Wulfhere’s big hand clamped the back of the Briton’s neck. “Tell this man, Briton. Tell him-and the druid.”

The Briton made as if to hurl himself to his knees before Bas; Wulfhere held him back and on his feet, by main strength. “Speak!”

The man did not speak; he babbled, high-voiced, “Druid, Holy Druid, call upon-uhk!”

“I said speak , not beg,” Wulfhere rumbled, squeezing until the Briton’s eyes bulged and his lean fox-face gained a bit of colour.

“I… I… we were… within,” he said, and he shuddered when he cast a fearful glance in the direction of the castle’s doorway. “Drinking, talking of what we’d do with our booty on our return to Silurnum. All was merriment-this demon-haunted keep is overflowing with the loot of a dozen raids!”

“We know that, man,” Cormac said impatiently. He drew deep breath. His gaze flickered up to Wulfhere; back to the Briton. “Your name, man. What be your name? He’d never seen a man so in need of calming.

“Os… Osbrit son of Drostan, of Wroxeter.”

“And I be Cormac, Art’s son of Connacht, Osbrit of Wroxeter. Be mindful of yourself as a surrounded captive, Osbrit Drostan’s son, and attend me: no harm will come to ye. My word on it, before the druid. Now tell me how died those men in there, Osbrit. Who else be on this isle-and how is it you alone made escape?” Cormac raised his eyes. “Wulfhere-let go his neck. He’s a man. He can stand.”

“We… we were… they just appeared , among us, about us! Men of the north countries oversea, all of them. Most were Norse, though too there were Danes-”

“Danes and Norse together? Allies?”

“I swear it! Behl witness-I swear it! Danes and Norse, aye. They just… they were just there . Out of the very air they came, all with axes and swords naked in their hands: No word they spoke-not ever, not one among them uttered aught that I heard. Their faces were grim-set, awful… their business was slaughter! Naught else but to bring red death upon us. Four of our number were down bloody ere we even knew, realized! My cousin Anir… Bedwyr’s brother Cei… oh, ye GODS!” The man paused to shudder and draw a deep uneven breath.

“Then we were snatching up spear and ax and sword and bucklers,” he went on, “wallowing on the floor, stumbling to our feet and defending ourselves as best we could. But… what boots defense, when a man cannot injure his foe!”

“What?”

“Truth! They would not bleed, they could not be hurt. Struck, they bled not. Arms, slashed through, remained attached to body.” A terrible shudder took Osbrit’s body. “They would not die, not even when I passed my spear through the belly of one till the point brast through his backbone.”

“What?”

Osbrit babbled. Tears shimmered in his eyes and spittle flecked his lips to drool upon his chin. “I SWEAR it! I myself faced a Dane, a man with a scar on his cheek like a fork for the snaring of hares, and an ax-haft dyed red and what I took for the emblem of the new faith on his black shield. He-”

Cormac stared with stricken, fixed eyes. “Wait, man. This Dane… his belt buckle… his buckler…”

“The bands of bronze on his black shield I at first thought was the cross of the Christians, and aye, his belt buckle… the face of a wing-eared man it was, moulded of br-”

“Crom and the Dagda!” Cormac gasped. “Wulfhere… it’s Guthrun he describes!”

“He lies! Guthrun Jarl’s son fell beside me these three months agone, in that same great hall of this keep! You yourself saw his body, with his head attached by only a string of tendon. This fellow lies -he saw Guthrun’s remains within-”

Cormac interrupted. “There are no remains within, Wulfhere. All are gone. There are only the new-dead: eighteen Britons.”

“Aye, Behl show mercy,” Osbrit said with a sobbing catch in his voice. “All eighteen cut down by men who would neither wound nor bleed nor die! I slashed a face, I tell you, and that Norseman did not even bleed! At that I backed away in horror, for I knew there was evil upon us, dark magic. All around me good men screamed as they were hacked to death by… by man- things they could neither slay nor even wound! He came on, him whose face I slashed. He said nothing, he neither grinned nor frowned, but only just stared , stared into my soul, like… like a dead man! His ax caught in my shield. I fell back, stumbled-and then to catch my balance I was sitting in that huge curulechair in there.”