Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

Lengar rested his forehead on the mound's summit. The soil and chalk had been roughly piled on the fire's remains and the fumes still seeped through the mound to sting Lengar's eyes, but he dutifully kept his head down. 'You will be proud of me, father,' he told Hengall, 'because I will raise Ratharryn and humble Cathallo. I will be a great chief—' He went very still for he heard footsteps.

The footsteps were close to him, very close, then they were on the mound itself and despite having cut off his father's foot Lengar was suddenly terrified that this was Hengall's spirit come to avenge itself. 'No,' he whispered, 'no.'

'Yes,' said a deep voice, and Lengar let out a great sigh of relief and straightened his back to look up at Camaban. 'I decided to follow you from Sarmennyn after all,' Camaban explained.

Lengar found he had nothing to say. He was sweating with fear.

Camaban was a man now. His face was thinner than before and much harder, with high cheekbones, deep eyes and a wide, sardonic mouth. His hair, that used to be a tangled mat of filth, was now neatly tied at the back of his scalp with a leather thong from which a rattling tassel of small bones hung. He wore a necklace of children's rib bones and carried a staff tipped with a human jawbone. He now rammed the butt of the staff into the grave mound. 'Did you feel that, father?'

'Don't,' Lengar croaked.

'Are you frightened of Hengall?' Camaban asked derisively. He rammed the staff into the mound again, then spat. 'Did you feel that? I spit on you!' He gouged the staff in the chalk rubble. 'Can you feel it, Hengall? Feel it burning? This is Camaban!'

Lengar scrambled off the grave. 'Why did you come here?' he asked.

'To make sure you did the right thing, of course,' Camaban said, then, with a farewell spit to his father, he clambered down the mound and walked towards the Sky Temple. He still had a limp, but it was much less noticeable than before. Although Sannas had straightened his foot by forcing the bones straight, they did not flex properly, so he still had a halting step, though it was nothing like the grotesque and twisting dip with which he used to walk.

Lengar, following Camaban, spoke. 'I don't need you to tell me what is the right thing to do.'

'Got your courage back, have you?' Camaban sneered. 'You were shaking when I found you! Thought I was Hen-gall's spirit, did you?' He laughed.

'Take care, brother,' Lengar said in warning.

Camaban turned and spat at him. 'Kill me, would you? But I am Slaol's servant, Lengar, Slaol's friend. Kill me, you fool, and the sky will burn you and the earth will refuse your bones and even the beasts will shrink from the stench of your death. Even the worms and maggots will refuse your putrid flesh, brother, and you will dry to a yellow husk and the winds will carry you to the poisoned marshes at the world's end.' He pointed his staff at Lengar as he spoke, and Lengar backed away from the threats. Lengar might be older, he might have an enviable reputation as a warrior, but Camaban commanded powers that Lengar did not understand. 'Did you kill Saban?' Camaban asked.

'I enslaved him to Haragg.'

'Good,' Camaban said carelessly.

'And I have taken his bride.'

'And why shouldn't you?' Camaban asked. 'Someone has to. Is she pretty?' He did not wait for an answer, but walked on to the Sky Temple where he crossed the low outer bank, limped through the ditch and climbed up to the high inner bank. He stopped there, staring at the four moon stones. 'They have been busy,' he said sarcastically. 'Gilan's work?'

Lengar shrugged, for he knew nothing about the new temple. 'Gilan is dead.'

'Good,' Camaban said, 'for this has to be his doing. Either him or some priestly scum from Cathallo. They didn't have the courage to make a temple to Slaol without bowing to Lahanna as well.'

'Lahanna?'

'Those are moon stones,' Camaban said, pointing his staff to the paired pillars and slabs inside the ring.

'You want them removed?' Lengar asked.

'What Slaol wants,' Camaban said, 'I will arrange, and you will do nothing unless I tell you.' He walked on into the temple's centre where the high moon cast a small shadow from the hummock that marked the body of the deaf child. Camaban thrust his staff deep into the soft earth and tried to lever the corpse upwards, but though he disturbed the soil he could not shift the body.

Lengar recoiled from the stench which wafted from the loosening soil. 'What are you doing?' he asked in protest.

'Ridding the place of her,' Camaban said.

'You can't do that!' Lengar said, but Camaban ignored him and dropped to his knees so he could scratch and claw the soil and chalk away from the body and, once it was almost free, he stood and used his staff again, this time heaving the decaying corpse into the moonlight.

'Now she'll have to be buried again,' Lengar said.

Camaban turned on him savagely. 'This is my temple, Lengar, not yours. It is mine!' He hissed the last word, scaring Lengar. 'I kept it clear when I was a child! I loved this place, I worshipped Slaol in this circle when the rest of you were sucking on Lahanna's tits. This place is mine!' He rammed the butt of his staff into the dead child, smashing through her ribcage. 'That thing was a messenger sent before her time, for this temple is not finished.' He spat on the corpse, then tugged his staff free. 'The birds and beasts can have her,' he said dismissively, then went to the entrance of the sun. He ignored the two pillars flanking the entrance, making instead for the paired sunstones. He frowned at the two stones. 'This one we shall keep,' he said, laying a hand on the larger of the pair, 'but that one you can throw down.' He pointed to the smaller stone. 'One stone is enough for the sun.' He waved a laconic farewell to his brother and, with as little ceremony as he had arrived, began to walk northwards.

'Where are you going?' Lengar called after him.

'I still have things to learn,' Camaban said, 'and when I know them I shall return.'

'To do what?'

'To build the temple, of course,' Camaban said, turning. 'You want Ratharryn to be great, don't you? But do you think you can achieve anything without the gods? I am going to give you a temple, Lengar, which will raise this miserable tribe to the sky.' He walked on.

'Camaban!' Lengar shouted.

'What is it?' Camaban asked irritably, turning again.

'You are on my side, aren't you?' Lengar asked anxiously.

Camaban smiled. 'I love you, Lengar,' he said, 'like a brother.' And he walked on into the dark.

—«»—«»—«»—

Saban learned that it had been Haragg who had guided Lengar and his men from Sarmennyn to Ratharryn, for only an experienced trader would know the roads, would know where the dangers lay and how to avoid them, and Haragg was one of the land's most experienced traders. For ten years he had been crossing the world with his train of three shaggy horses that were loaded with bronze, axes and anything else that he could exchange for the flint, jet, amber and herbs that Sarmennyn lacked. Sometimes, Haragg told Saban, he carried the teeth and bones of sea monsters cast onto Sarmennyn's shores that he could exchange for rich metals and precious stones.

Most of this he grunted to Saban as they walked north. Part of the time he spoke in Saban's own tongue, but most of the time he insisted on speaking the Outfolk tongue and he would lash Saban with a stick if he did not understand or if he failed to reply in the same language. 'You will learn my language,' he insisted, and Saban did because he feared the stick.

Saban's tasks were simple. At night he made the fire which cooked the food and deterred the forest beasts from attacking, while by day he led the three horses, fetched water, cut forage and blew Haragg's ox-horn as they approached a settlement to warn that strangers were coming. The deaf-mute, who was called Cagan, could do these things, but Saban realised the huge boy, who was a few years older than himself, had also been born simple. Cagan was enormously willing and watched his father constantly for a sign that would allow him to be useful, but then he would stumble over the task. If he lit a fire he burned himself, if he tried to lead the horses he used too much strength, yet Haragg, Saban noted, treated Cagan with an extraordinary gentleness as though the deaf-mute, who was half as tall again as Saban, was a much-loved hound, and Cagan responded to his father's kindness with a touching pleasure. If his father smiled he would shudder with joy, or else bob up and down and smile back and make small whimpering noises deep in his throat. Each morning Haragg dressed his son's hair, combing it, plaiting it and tying it with a thong, and then he would comb Cagan's beard and Cagan would wriggle with happiness, and Haragg, Saban noted, would sometimes have a tear in his eye.