Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

Camaban had watched this display and grinned at it, but Kereval had run into the temple. 'Scathel?' he shouted angrily. 'Scathel!'

Scathel was the high priest of Sarmennyn, and had been the high priest when the treasures were stolen, but he had blamed himself for the gold's loss and so he had gone away into the hills where he had howled at the rocks and scarred his body with flints. Others of the priests had followed him and, when Scathel's madness had passed, they had built themselves a new temple in the high rocks and there they had prayed, starved and abased themselves, making amends for the loss of the treasures. Many in the tribe believed that Scathel had vanished for ever, but now he had returned.

He ignored Kereval and prodded Leckan out of the way with his spear so that he could advance on the frightened Aurenna. If Scathel was impressed by her beauty he did not show it, but instead thrust his raw-skinned face at her. 'You are a goddess?' he demanded.

Aurenna could not speak, but did give one small nod in nervous acknowledgement of the question.

'Then I have a petition for you,' Scathel shouted so that every soul in the settlement could hear him. 'Our treasures must be returned! They must be returned!' His spittle flecked her face as he shouted and she stepped back to avoid it. 'I have built a temple!' Scathel bellowed over Aurenna's shoulder, addressing the whole crowd, who stared at him aghast. 'I have made a temple with my own hands and I have bled for the god, and he has spoken to me! We must fetch the treasures back!'

'The treasures will be returned,' Kereval intervened.

'You!' Scathel turned on the chief, and even levelled his spear so that a dozen warriors ran to Kereval's side. 'What have you done to retrieve the treasures?' Scathel demanded.

'We have lent men to Ratharryn,' Kereval replied courteously, 'and will send them a temple.'

'Ratharryn!' Scathel sneered. 'A small place, a miserable place, a bog of stunted people, goitred pigs and twisted serpents. You are a chief, not a trader! You do not bargain for our gold, you take it! Take our spears, take our arrows, and take back the treasures!' He stepped aside and raised his arms to attract the tribe's attention. 'We must go to war!' he shouted. 'To war!' He began to beat his spear against one of the stones. 'We must take our spears, our swords, our bows and we must kill and maim until the things at Ratharryn scream for our mercy!' The spear shaft broke and the crude stone head flew harmlessly away. 'We must burn their huts and raze their temples and slaughter their livestock and throw their infants into Erek's fires!' He turned back on Kereval and thrust out the splintered spear staff. 'Lengar has our men to fight his wars, and he has our gold, and when his wars are won he will turn on our men and kill them. You call yourself a chief? A chief would even now be leading the young men to war!'

Kereval drew his sword. It was a bronze blade, beautifully balanced, part of the tribute that each trader who came from the island across the western sea had to pay to the folk of Sarmennyn before he was allowed to carry his goods further eastwards. Kereval suddenly slashed at the spear staff and the ferocity of the attack drove Scathel backwards. 'War?' Kereval asked. 'What do you know of war, Scathel?' He slashed again, knocking the staff violently aside. 'To go to war, Scathel, I must lead my men across the black hills, then through the land of Salar's people. You would fight them?' The sword cut a third time, slicing a thick splinter from the rough ash staff. 'And when we have buried our dead, priest, and crossed the further hills, we shall come to the tribes of the great river. They have no love for us. But perhaps we can fight them too?' He slapped the staff aside again with his sword. 'And when we have fought our way across the river, and up into the farther hills, then Ratharryn's allies will wait for us with spears. With hundreds of spears!'

'Then how did Vakkal reach Ratharryn?' Scathel demanded. Vakkal was the man who had led the forces to help Lengar take the chieftainship.

'They went by hidden paths, led by your brother,' Kereval said, 'but they were only fifty men. You think I can take all our spearmen secretly? And to conquer Ratharryn, Scathel, will take all our men, and who will stay here to protect our womenfolk?'

'The god will protect them!' Scathel insisted.

Kereval slashed the sword again. This time Scathel dropped the staff and spread his hands as though inviting Kereval to drive the heavy sword into his belly, but the chief just shook his head. 'I have given my word,' Kereval said, 'and we shall give Lengar of Ratharryn time to keep his word.' He raised the sword so that its tip disappeared into the filthy tangle of Scathel's wild beard. 'Be careful of what you stir in this tribe, priest, for I still rule here.'

'And I am still high priest,' Scathel spat back.

'The treasures will be returned!' Kereval shouted. He turned to look at his tribe. 'We have chosen a bride who is more lovely than any girl we have ever sent to Erek's bed,' Kereval announced. 'She will carry our prayers.'

'And what will you do' — Scathel repeated Camaban's grim question — 'if the god rejects his bride?' He suddenly turned and snatched the bronze knife from Leckan's hand. For a heartbeat men thought he was about to attack Aurenna, but instead he held his own beard with his left hand and slashed at it with the knife, slicing off great tangled hanks of matted hair. Then he threw the hair into the temple's centre. 'With my beard I put a curse on Kereval if the god refuses this bride! And if he does, then it will be war, nothing but war! War and death and blood and slaughter until the treasures are back!' He stalked towards his old hut and the tribe parted, letting him through, while behind him, at her temple, Aurenna shuddered in horror.

Camaban watched, and afterwards, when no one watched him, he retrieved the hanks of Scathel's hair and wove them into a ring through which he stared at a cloud-shrouded Slaol. 'He will fight me,' he told the god, 'even though he loves you as I do. So you must turn his thoughts as I have turned his hair,' and with that he cast the circlet of hair into the river that flowed past Kereval's settlement. He doubted the small charm would effect the change by itself, but it might help, and Camaban knew he needed help for the god had given him a gigantic task. That was why he had returned to Sarmennyn in the time of their sun bride's rule for it was then that the Outfolk tribe was most vulnerable to suggestion, to magic and to change.

And Camaban had a whole world to change.

Haragg, Saban and Cagan reached Kereval's settlement on the same day as Aurenna, but it was evening when they came and the good weather had turned into a heavy downpour that beat on the dark land and soaked Saban's hair and tunic. Haragg unloaded his horses, then led the weary beasts into a decrepit hut, evidently his home, before taking Saban and Cagan to a great hut that stood on the highest ground within the settlement's timber palisade. Water streamed from the thatched roof of the hut that was larger than any Saban had ever seen, so large that, when he ducked inside, he saw that its ridge pole needed the support of five great timbers. The hall stank of fish, smoke, fur and sweat, and was crowded with men who feasted in the light of two great fires. A drummer beat skins while a flautist played a heron-bone flute in the hut's corner.

A silence fell as Haragg entered and Saban sensed that the men were wary of the big trader, but Haragg ignored them, pointing instead at a small man sitting at one end of the hall close to a smoky fire. The man's wiry hair was crammed into a bronze circlet, while his face was thick with ash-grey scars. 'The chief,' Haragg whispered to Saban. 'Called Kereval. A decent man.'