Andrew Offutt - The Sword of the Gael

He made a cross of himself, extending his sword-arm one way and his buckler the other. Sharp-edged brand struck wall; buckler plunged through emptiness. That emptiness was floored, and Cormac turned leftward.

Three steps took him into another wall, and he cursed volubly as he turned to his right.

A grin without mirth pulled at his mouth: ahead he saw a flicker of torchlight, already around still another bend in this serpentine passage. He hurried after it. His extended sword apprised him of that turning. Three steps beyond, the dark corridor swung still again.

Were these walls not so smooth , the Gael thought angrily, I’d think this circuitous trail was hollowed here by a man both blind and drunk-and led by a lazy serpent!

He knew otherwise. The passageway was of course an ancient escape-route, its turnings designed to baffle and slow pursuit. Cormac was slowed, right enough, though he refused to be baffled. Then the dusty floor beneath his feet changed, and he nearly fell headlong.

The shaft angled downward, a sloping ramp that dipped steadily, rather than stairs, Shield and sword ready, Cormac mac Art descended.

And descended.

His feet scuffed through dust so that he blew through his nostrils like a tracking hound, to clear them. Already he was sure that he was below the level of the palace entry, which was on a level with the valley’s floor. A way to the sea? Probably. He tried, with care, to speed his steps. The darkness absolutely forbade running.

Down and down he went the further. The passage turned now and again, but twice after sufficient distance to enable him to see the flicker of his quarry’s torch, well ahead. The pursuer dared not race after it; while Cutha Atheldane’s glim would show him any traps this dusty floor might hold, Cormac was in darkness, and forced to a warily slow pace.

Dust lay instep deep on this downward angling floor, where no feet had trod for uncounted centuries. With his shield out to warn him of another blank wall and his sword close to his hip, ready to drive forward in a skewering thrust if he came upon lurking ambush, Cormac descended the somber trail into the earth. Now and again the floor leveled for a space, then angled down once more. All was silence; he heard only the susurrant hissing of his feet through dust older than time.

Samaire!

Gods of Eirrin, he’d not set eyes on her for a half-score and two years, long years of blood-splashed exile! Another time rose up in his mind…

The young Cormac had been a sturdy boy, and that and his auspicious name attracted him notice. Too much notice: High-king Lugaid was a fearful man whose ancient crown rested shakily on his head. And so time came when Cormac’s father was mysteriously slain. Nor did Cormac mac Art tarry for blood-feud, even in his own land of Connacht!

Large for his age, well trained at arms and in letters as well by the old Druid Sualtim, Cormac vanished from his homeland.

None knew him or his true age, when he took warrior-service in Leinster, using the name Partha mac Othna of Ulahd. He was too young in years even for that, but a good and sturdy soldier was Partha, who kept his counsel as a “man” apart. Soon he had a secret friend who was then a lover: the king of Leinster’s own daughter Samaire, but a year younger than himself. Forfeit would have been his head, had His Majesty known of Cormac/Partha’s off duty activities!

Came the day when the young weapon-man well represented Leinster in the fighting over Tara’s collection-with the sword, as usual-of the hated Boru Tribute. The aged High-king in Tara soon knew that the hero was Partha mac Othna, a warrior so accomplished that some compared him with the legendary hero Cuchulain of old. And then the High-king learned the real name of that Partha. His gold it was that brought to an end that era of Cormac’s life, at the Great Fair when he was deliberately goaded into slaying. After that his choice was simple: flight or death.

Cormac mac Art fled Eirrin.

Samaire of Leinster had wept, and assured him that she loved him…

Samaire!

What strange whim of the capricious gods of old Eirrin sent her now into his life, after so many years, and her as Viking captive and central in some Druidic plot to gain… whatever ends it was Cutha Atheldane hoped to gain, by seeing her wed to a Norseman.

She did not even recognize me , Cormac thought, and blundered into a wall, which meant another turning.

Cursing the wall and himself equally, he turned, and four paces after he made the usual second turn.

Then his pursuit down that dim corridor beneath the earth was arrested by a vision, and he stared in astonishment.

Before him stood a woman, beautiful, and she having the appearance of a queen. Yellow plaited hair like new quern she had, and folds of fine silk, purple and silver, draped soft skin white as the foam of a seaborne wave. A cloak of gold-worked green silk swung from her shoulder, and sandals of white bronze protected her feet from the tunnel’s dusty floor.

Cormac stared. The sword was forgotten in his hand.

“All good be with you, warrior of Eirrin.”

Her softly spoken words roused him-partially. Though his heart raced and his temples pounded, he made sure he’d got a good grip on his sword. “How… came you here?”

Her pleasant expression did not change. “I swear by the gods my people swear by, O warrior, that ahead lie Midir and his son the man you seek, Cutha Atheldane, and with him three times fifty men, and the victory will be with them. Pursue and it’s your own father you’ll be seeing this night, and him in the other world.”

Cormac drew breath. “Who are you, who tells me of that yet to come?”

“One who wishes only good, and no burial-keening, to so noble a warrior of Eirrin born!”

“Swear it then-on my sword!”

But the queenly vision shook her head, and smiled. She stretched forth her snowy arms through the folds of her gown. “I will not, but beg you to put it from you, handsome warrior, and tarry here with me in activity less warlike.”

“Two things I know,” Cormac bit out through clenched teeth. “That I am not handsome, and that Druid-sent demons cannot abide iron! Be ye shade of the Sidhe, or demon of the Northlands, or yet again this Cutha Atheldane in a new guise, you’re no woman born of woman, and it’s the colour of your blood I’d be seeing!”

Lunging forward with the swiftness of those things called serpents he had first seen in Britain, Cormac plunged his long sword between the breasts of the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld.

But he did not see the colour of her blood, for she vanished on the instant. Nor was the dust disturbed, where she had stood.

Blinking and shaking his head violently to clear it of the Druid-sent vision of temptation, Cormac went on. Ancient dust puffed up about his feet. Along that thrice-old corridor he went, on silent feet, with good steel ready in his fist and his ears sharp as five senses for the sound of his quarry. Around a bend in that dim tunnel he moved, close to the, far wall-and he brought up short.

A trio of war-girt men blocked his way, staring at him from feral eyes. Their knuckles were pale as they gripped the pommels of their naked swords.

Cormac gazed at them and they stared. Then did his brows rise, and he felt the prickling of his skin. These men who barred his way where the floor’s dust was disturbed only by the footsteps of Cutha Atheldane and his captive… he knew them!

The big one with the blond beard and evil eyes and horn-sprouting helm-it was Sigrel of the Norsemen. He it was who had recognized the son of Art and called down attack on him, months ago in Alban Dalriada. And that one-he was Arslaf Jarl’s-bane with his broken nose,’ follower of Thorwald Shield-hewer of little Golara… and that other, the Pict…