Andrew Offutt: The Mists of Doom

A grassy branch popped loudly in the fire and one of the five men gathered about it shot out a foot to wipe the good-sized spark into the ground. He continued rubbing that foot along the ground; little, value a well-made buskin of good cowhide if he burned a hole in its sole. Still, one had to be mindful of the sparks. This forest- Sciath Connaict , the Shield of Connacht-had stood here in southern Connacht far longer than any man had lived, and fire in a forest was a terrible thing.

Huddled in furs to ward off the breeze-brought chill of early March, the five men stared at the fire. Eyes of blue and of grey gazed at the great haunch and leg of fresh-slain elk that sizzled on the makeshift spit they’d constructed of good green wood gathered from close round about. Bubbling fat became grease that dripped down to spat and sizzle and pop amid the flames. The aroma that rose thick on the air was enough to make stomachs rumble, and stomachs did.

Beneath their furs two of the five wore mail, linked in five circles of chain again and again in the manner of Eirrin. Two others wore the far less dear-and more swiftly made-armour coats of boiled leather. Bosses of bronze winked dully. One of these men of weapons, his helm beside him and his dark hair falling loose and sweat-matted nigh to his shoulders within his robe’s hood of hare’s fur, had bossed his leatherncoat with two great blunted cones of iron. Like huge shining blue nipples, they stood forth an inch from either side of his chest. Another of the five had doffed his plain round helm, too, and was combing tangled wheaten locks with his fingers.

The five stared at the meat, waiting. They swallowed repeatedly.

“Best ye get that pot back on your head, Roich, and forget the beauty of your hair.” It was the reddish-bearded man in chainmail who spoke. “This air does a sweaty crown no good, none at all.”

“Damned thing’s heavy,” Roich muttered, but he picked up his helmet.

“That’s because ye’ve a neck like a chicken, Roich,” the man beside him said, he in the thick heavy cloak of grey wolf and hare combined.

Roich pushed him angrily and the speaker chuckled, rocking on his buttocks.

“To gain Midhir’s advice is one thing, Bran, but to have my ears wounded with that raven’s voice of yours is more than a man can bear.”

Bran and Midhir chuckled.

The fifth among them wore an enveloping cloak of brown woollen, to which had been sewn a collar of badger. Around his hair a narrow leathern binding, a sort of head-torc or niamh-lhamn; on his chest a sun-symbol on a woven silver chain. He it was who spoke now:

“It’s with weapon-men of Art mac Comail I set forth as druid companion, and with children about a campfire I find myself. Och, only the youngest among us keeps his peace as a man.”

“Once again Edar the Druid speaks sense and truth,” the mailed, reddish-bearded man called Midhir said.

The four of them looked at him the druid had singled out; a lad he was, his face showing only the adolescent intimation of a beard to come. It would be black. Black the hair falling below his pot-like helm; nor was his skin fair like Bran’s and Midhir’s. Yet his eyes were grey-blue, the colour even in the light of the dancing fire of good sword-steel. Was he wore the other coat of chainmail, over a shirt of soft doeskin and leggings of the same. His gaze moved swiftly from one to the other of his ‘companions, returned to the elk’s leg over the fire. Praised for his mannish silence, he nevertheless spoke now.

“Midhir…“ he said, in, a voice not quite through its change to that of manhood, for he had recently reached that age at which boys were called men whether they were ready or not, and were so called until old age began to set in-usually at about forty, and usually not of long duration thereafter.

“Aye,” Midhir said, looking also at the meat.

Bucking up the knees of his crossed legs, he pressed with his heels. Chain rustled then as he thrust himself easily to his feet without touching the ground with his hands, for all the weight of his muscular self and his chaincoat and helm. His right hand pushed away his furs; his left went in to his hip and came forth with a long dagger.

Behind him, a horse whickered. Another stamped. Midhir paused to glance at the four animals, staked out for the grazing just without the fire’s light. Nearby rested the two carts they had drawn hence from Cruachan. The carts were empty.

Roich twisted half around. “Heard they something I did not?”

“It’s but happiness on them to have delivered the annual tribute to our king and have naught to pull but empty carts,” Bran said. “And less than a day from home.”

“We’ve been still and so have they,” Midhir said. “Morelike they were startled by my getting up to test this meat.” And he leaned in toward the haunch and leg of juicy elk.

It was then the thundersome roar exploded from the darkness of the woods. The noise seemed to shake the very twigs of the trees with their fledgeling buds. With wild calls, startled birds vacated their nests. One of the horses, the red-brown, reared and tugged at his leg-tether.

All five men were on their feet in an instant and staring into the darkness.

Mighty crashing noises, slavering snarls, and another roar announced the coming of… something. The men’s long spears stood from one of the carts like huge needles from a good wife’s cushion, and Roich and Bran lurched into movement toward them as if shoved. Driven they were, indeed, by the weapon-man’s training that became as instinct.

Was Bran who first snatched his spear, and at that instant the great bear came charging into the little encampment.

Like a jealous guardian of the forest privacy he was, angered at the intrusion of men into his wood, and bent on doing death on them all. Up on his two hind legs he was so that he towered over all; a shaggy brown beast rising eight feet in height. A fleeing ring ouzel hurtled across the little clearing on blurring wings, and a sizable shrew, fearing the bear more than the evidence of its nose, rushed in among the men, headed directly for the fire. It swerved sharply, skidded, and was a brown streak that vanished into the forest again.

Bran could not cast or make a running stab; the bear was already too close, and coming. The weapon-man swung his spear to get it in line with the beast even as he backed a pace. One paw the size of Bran’s head snapped the spear, bringing a grunt of pain from him as the haft slammed into his hip. The spear broke, for all its being good seasoned ash.

And then the bear caught Roich, who screamed out in a voice not a man’s.

Ere Midhir could abandon dagger and draw sword, the furs flew in a rustle from the lad at his side, and clumbed to the earth. Surely it was worse than unwise for that tall, beautifully constructed youth to do what he did then, all in an instant; he drew both sword and foot-long knife at the same time as he rushed to Roich’s aid.

That writhing weapon-man had managed to strike the bear in the nose with no more than his knuckly fist, yet with an angry and pained roar the beast hurled him aside. His gaze lit instantly on that which moved: the rushing youth. A huge shaggy arm leaped out to grasp him. The beast emitted such a fierce growling that it might have been heard through all Connacht, and he moved on the youth as if he had a mind not to stop and tear him up at all, but to swallow him at the one mouthful.

The mailed young man reacted in the manner of a seasoned warrior. So deeply did he chop into the furry arm that the bear’s instant yanking back of his limb tore the sword from it’s weilder’s grasp. The brute had shrieked-but attacked in bleeding rage, rather than fled. The other arm swept forth, and then the wounded one as well. The sword dropped free of riven flesh while the animal seized the source of its pain.