Andrew Offutt - The Sword of the Gael

Ceann hadn’t time for niceties. The man starting to lunge at Cormac’s back happened to have his own back turned to the prince of Leinster-but that was his fault. Ceann did not slow down. He slammed his shield into the man’s back and arm and flailed over it to cut the Pict’s other shoulder nearly off his torso. The short dark man went falling in a spray of blood from a wound that would empty him in minutes; it was too huge for coagulation.

The terrible cries continued to rend the air. There was added now the grunt and gurgle and gasp and cry of fighting men, accompanied by the ring and skirl of steel on steel-and its chunking sound as it found flesh, or brittle cracks when it bit to bone-depth. Cormac had gained the door of the house, and in his wake lay three bloody Picts.

With a bloodcurdling shriek a short, ape-built man sprang high into the air, having run in from the side. He landed directly in Ceann’s path. Up went the barbed Pictish blade for a death-stroke-and Ceann lengthened the man’s navel, splitting him with the full force of his own charge after Cormac.

The Pict was carried back several feet, and his slayer had to pause and back a step himself, to free his blade. An Eirrin-made sword struck hard on his shield with a frightful clang and a force that staggered him. Narrowly avoiding a thigh-full dagger, Ceann kicked with all his might straight into the dark warrior’s crotch. Only a loincloth of well-tanned hide protected the Pict, who was hurt so sorely that he could not even make an outcry. He dropped puking to his knees and soon was curled up there, twitching, holding himself.

Ceann had no time to end that foeman’s life; two Picts came at him at once. He took a hardswung blow on his shield and another far down his sword, close to the guard so that the weapon was nearly carried from his hand. Blindly, he swung both buckler and sword inward toward each other, arms extended before his body. The shield sent one man staggering back with a grunt of pain, while the sword cut the empty air. That Pict had crouched under it. Despite his desperate swiftness in hurling himself aside, Ceann felt the cold kiss of steel on the skin of his leg and knew his leathern trews had been opened like linen.

His whistling blade came back around even as the Pict yanked his own sword back. For a moment the dark, burly man stood there holding it as if unhurt, though a great crimson stripe crossed his belly from flank to flank. Then, staring down at the eruption of his own entrails, he dropped to his knees. Ceann saw no more of him-he was rushing past toward Cormac.

Cormac stood with his back to the door of the hut, while his sword flashed and whirred in the air, round and round, keeping at bay the five squat dark men who strove to get at him like yapping dogs with a cornered wolf.

A Pict sprang at Ceann with high-lifted dagger, and lost teeth to the violently-driven edge of the Gael’s shield. Then a sword struck Ceann’s left shin with such force that he toppled, though no blood spurted.

Flat on his back he looked up to see his death coming, from a high-raised sword that would chop through two such corselets as he wore.

“HE-E-EEEEEEEYYAAA-A-A-AAAAAAAA!”

It was a ghastly, inhuman shriek, and a new one that shivered on the air from behind the Pict standing over Ceann. The fallen Leinsterman saw the squat body jerk, bowing-and then the point of a fish-spear appeared in a bloody spray from the man’s muscular belly. He fell.

Ceann rolled away from the dying Pict, and gained his feet to find that he had been saved by Dondal, son of Dond the fisherman.

Having launched himself from one of the house’s two shuttered windows, the strapping boy of sixteen had seemingly gone berserker on the instant. Now he had to use his foot against his victim’s back to free the spear’s barbed tip.

“Leave it, and with thanks,” Ceann called. “Can ye use this?” He extended the Pict’s sword-which was of good Irish steel stolen from some fresh corpse. It seemed more than fitting that it return into Gaelic hands the same way.

“Aye!” Dondal said-or rather shouted. He snatched the sword. With a blood-rage dancing in his eyes, the boy swung about.

He was just in time to find himself staring at a charging Pict who held his sword before him like a foreshortened lance. A heavy swing of Dondal’s arm lashed the sword away with a heavy clang, and on the backswing he took the Pict’s arm off.

“Dondal!” Ceann called, heading again for the house and Cormac, for though the Pict was down and down to stay, Dondal stood over him and hacked and hacked as if he were at the business of making kindling.

Dondal looked up, and Ceann had never seen such eyes. “Araughhh!” Dondal the fisherman’s son snarled, and pounced forward, unarmoured and without shield, ready to face a world of steel.

Bodies strewed the ground before the cottage, and still Cormac was against the door, with four men lunging and feinting and hacking at him. The din was loud, chaotic; awful. There was the smell of gore on the air.

Abruptly the door jerked open behind him and an astonished Pict died two seconds later with a fishing spear in the throat.

“Nicely done,” Cormac grunted. “Stay back now; Dond-it’s no armour ye have!”

“The family stays back,” Dond mac Forgall answered as he jerked back his blooded spear. “Step aside, that we may face them together!”

The man emerged, naked but for a breechclout like the Picts. Behind him his woman slammed and barred the door. Cormac hewed away the arm of the Pict that sought to take off Dond’s leg at the knee; Dond sent another skipping back with a lunge of his spear.

Dondal had found himself an armoured man who knew somewhat of the play of sword and buckler. Though he defended himself from the boy’s lunges and swings, both backhand and fore, so vicious and swift were they that the steadily backing Pict had no opportunity to leave the defensive. A similarly seasoned warrior Ceann had found, and they were trying each for the other, blow for blow.

Sword rang off shield and sparks flew, and then the launcher of that foiled stroke had to interpose his own shield to stave off a return hack. Around and around the two circled, Ceann with his red hair loose and swirling in the moonlight and his foe a man wearing a necklace of bear-teeth and a ridiculous loincloth of bright yellow.

Lendabaer and her younger son and daughter remained within and were safe-but another was with them, and she was not content to remain sheltered inside. Amid the high-voiced sounds of Lendabaer’s expostulations, the door was again yanked open.

“HA-A-A-A-A-A-AAHHHHHH!”

With that Samaire lunged through the doorway, right knee and hand extended. In that fisted hand was the great old sword of Dond’s grandfather. Sliced but not killed, the Pict who had been attacking a man, and who had now been blooded by a woman, went reeling back. His eyes were huge as he stared at her.

She boiled forth like a fury, between Cormac and Dond, the big bronze sword in one hand and a kitchen-knife in the other.

“Heee-yahhhhh!” Samaire screamed again. She made a vicious swipe with the sword, and allowed that ducked attack to swing her completely about-whereupon she kicked the astounded Pict in the shin so hard that he fell.

“Ooohh!” she said, with impressed enthusiasm, for she saw how Cormac, without interrupting his parry of sword with sword, went to one knee and slammed his shield-edge down. So great was the force of that blow that it smashed the chest of the man she had downed. The stab she made into his hard flat belly with her ancient weapon of dull-gleaming bronze was unnecessary; already dark blood was bubbling from the man’s mouth like a horrid spring.

Beside her, Don’s sideswung spear sent a squat dark man a-rolling, and the fellow regained his feet on the run. He vanished around the house, racing toward the shore.