Andrew Offutt: The Mists of Doom

At the feet of the druid lay another robed man, though his garb was not the green of nature’s life but the black of death. A priest of the Dead God. Cormac saw the splash of colour; the scarlet on the man’s forehead and left cheek, and on the ground beside that cheek. Beside him too lay a good-sized stone, bigger than Cormac’s fist, and on it was more of the priest’s blood.

Cormac stared at Sualtim Fodla.

“A druid carries no weapons,” the whitebeard said, and his voice was as though he spoke down a barrel or up from a well. “Nor is a priest supposed to do. This one did.” Sualtim nodded, and Cormac looked, and saw the dagger protruding from the priest’s fist; the blade was covered by his robe’s skirt. “Yet the earth of our Eirrin holds weapons for one attacked. I was; the stone proved effective.”

Cormac swallowed. “Sualtim-”

“Let me talk,” the druid said, his voice seeming to come from a great distance though he stood but a pace away. “This man is-was-one Milchu. Him I told ye of. A priest of Iosa Chriost… a spy for the High-king… a greedy ambitious man who desired his own ‘bishopric’ as they call it. He was also the man who bade Aengus-that is Eoin mac Gulbain, Cormac-to do that which a more honourable priest had forbidden: slay your father.”

“Sualtim-”

“Hush. Only listen. It’s little time I have. I should be… elsewhere. Was the High-king bade Milchu to go to Eoin, and bid him do death on Art of Rath Glondarth. Our noble High-king fears one of Art’s ancestry…’ and is even more fearful of a son bearing the name of that great High-king of old: Cormac mac Art. Particularly once you’d slain those first Picts, my boy, and your name and deed were becoming well-known, with comparisons to Cuchulain.”

“The… High-king! Lugaid himself!

“Aye, Lugaid himself. And now, Cormac… now does Lugaid knew that the hero of Boruma-hero in Leinster, villain in Meath-is Partha mac Othna. And he knows that Partha is also Cormac mac Art. Lugaid wanted ye dead aforetime; he does so doubly, now. The regaining of the Boru Tribute and your other successes in Leinster have but increased the Ard-righ’s apprehension, and hatred.”

“Gods of my father! Is there never to be a ceasing of-”

“Attend me! I have not done, and time is short. There is one who spied on you in Leinster. He knew of your-unwise, most unwise, Cormac-trysts with King Ulad’s daughter. And he told Ulad, who told the High-king and conferred with him even this night! My boy, my boy-they two kings plot to destroy you, Cormac mac-”

Sualtim’s voice had grown so weak, so seemingly distant that Cormac had bent closer, straining to hear even in the night silent but for insects. Now that voice broke off. The wise old eyes that gazed on him went vacant as though Sualtim had fled his own body. The druid made no further sound. He merely fell, crumpling like a tent bereft of its stiffening pole. As he did so, to lie face down at Cormac’s feet, the youth saw that the whole back of Sualtim’s robe was a mass of blood.

Ah gods-he was stabbed, and yet slew the stabber, and stood erect so as to tell me what he has told me! Cormac squatted. Ah, Sualtim, why do you think my unhappy life could be of more import than your-

Cormac shuddered and his nape bristled. He had put a hand to the face of his fallen mentor. What he felt was not credible, never to be believed… and undeniably, horrifyingly true. The old man’s skin was cold.

Hurriedly, though his flesh crawled and so too his stomach within him. Cormac caught up a thin, veined, old hand.

Oh ye gods and blood of the gods!

The hand was cold. And it was stiff. Like ice it was… no. Not like ice was Sualtim’s hand. Cold as that of a dead man it was; a man from whom life had long since flown.

Shuddering so that he clamped his teeth against their clicking, Cormac rose and backed from the pair of corpses. Milchu’s, too, was cold. Cormac stared down at them, and his brain spun in a maelstrom of horror, and disbelief. For he stared at the result of unhuman powers, at the incredible and unimaginable.

Sualtim had come early to meet Cormac. And so had Milchu. And Milchu had come up behind the druid, and stabbed him with his death. And then he must have gloated, sneering, flaunting his triumph over the dying druid and over the house of Art. And then, somehow, perhaps with Sualtim prostrate and dying and Milchu bending over him, the druid had smashed the stone into the priest’s face.

The slain had slain the slayer. And then, because his will and his power were so great and his mission so important, and his love for Cormac… then had Sualtim evaded Donn’s dread clutch, and spoken to Cormac-from the other side of death.

Chapter Eighteen:

Fugitive

What to do?

What wonder and sore trouble on the mind of Cormac mac Art, and sadness at Sualtim’s death complicated his attempts to think.

The High-king of all Eirrin plotted his death. King Ulad of Leinster knew of his daughter’s affair with a common weapon-man. He plotted. And now both kings plotted together.

Am I so important then, as to occupy the time of two monarchs?

No, he thought; doubtless they’d given him but a few minutes of their valuable time, and made their plan to determine his fate, and gone right on to the other matters requiring their attention.

What to do?

He still hoped to expose the Ard-righ at the Great Assembly in the fall. But-will I be allowed to live that long? Or if to live… to remain free? There was more now, so much more. Ard-righ Lugaid was ultimately responsible for the death of Art mac Cumail. And of Midhir. And of Sualtim.

And for Cormac’s fleeing Connacht, taking on another name-a name that Lugaid now knew was an alias.

And Cormac mac Art?

He had no proof!

Bewildered, feeling once again very young and very alone, he was in need of counsel. None was available. Dead, dead, dead. Art. And Sualtim and Midhir. Dead. And even Forgall, whom though he was no great brain Cormac respected and liked-and trusted. General Conan Conda? Perhaps… could a general give listen to words against the highest of kings? If he did, what then when he demanded proof? No; was worse than that, Cormac realized. He could not confide in Conan the Wolfish. That would only compromise that good soldier and good man; by now Partha/Cormac was far less than popular with the general’s king.

Tu, I need you!

Cormac frowned.

Tu? What word was that? A name? he knew no tu or Tu . What had been that sudden weird sensation, as of a great weight on his shoulders, a crown-like weight on his head? Were his senses taking leave of him; was his sanity staggering?

He had no idea. He was horribly alone.

Miserable, he took refuge in the company of others, and of exciting distractions. Cormac went with six others of his Fifty to watch the first of the martial games. They arrived just after Bress had fought, for he was Leinster’s Champion and had won. He and the youth he knew as Partha affected not to see each other. Amid the cheering crowd, Cormac watched another pair of men circling, staring, striking at each other with leather-covered swords of wood. One combat ended, embarrassingly for the loser, in two strokes. Another went long and long, and Cormac saw how closely Bress watched. One of these men he’d later face over his shield’s rim, and if he won that combat, it was another of these he’d be meeting later still, in the continuing eliminations.

“Pfah!” That from Eoghan mac Foil, on Cormac’s left. “None of these puny shield-lurkers we’re seeing could stand up to yourself, Captain!”

“A shame ye do not compete,” another of his men’ said, from beyond Eoghan. “For the next Champion of all Eirrin might then be Partha mac Othna!”