Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

A sound made him turn his head and he saw that Derrewyn had appeared at the edge of the curtain. She was kneeling and when the warrior looked at her she dropped her head submissively. She had combed her long hair and hung an amber pendant round her neck, but otherwise she was naked. She kept her eyes lowered and made a whimpering sound as she shuffled forward on her knees. The spearman instinctively looked at the door to see if anyone was watching, but no one was there. Only the very old and the sick were left in Ratharryn; the rest of the folk were at Slaol's temple where the bull men were covering the girls in Slaol's honour.

The spearman watched Derrewyn approach. The fire made the shadows of her small breasts livid and lit her swollen belly. Then she looked up at him and there was an immense sadness in her big eyes. She mewed pitifully, then crept forward into the heat of the fire. The warrior frowned. 'You must go back,' he said nervously.

'Hold me,' she begged him. 'I'm lonely. Hold me.'

'You must go back!' he insisted. He was frightened that her glistening pregnant belly might burst if he used force to push her back behind the curtain.

'Hold me,' she said again, and she edged his spear aside and put her left arm round his neck. 'Please hold me.'

'No,' he said, 'no,' but he was too scared of her to push her away and so he let her pull his head towards hers. He smelt her hair. 'You must go back,' he said, and Derrewyn put her right hand between her thighs where the short bronze-bladed knife was clamped and she ripped the weapon upwards, straight into his belly, and the spearman's eyes widened, then he gasped as she twisted the blade in his guts and jerked it on upwards, through the band of muscle under his lungs and into the tangle of blood tubes about his heart so that she felt the warm gush of his life surge over her wrist and thighs. He tried to push her away, but his strength was gone; she heard the rattle in his throat and saw his eyes turn cloudy and Derrewyn felt the first real joy she had known since Lengar's return. It was as though Sannas's restless spirit had come to fill her and that thought made her go very still, but then the dead man's weight fell onto her and she wrenched the bloody knife free and tilted him sideways so that his head fell in the fire. His hair, greasy because he had wiped his fingers in its strands after eating, crackled and flared bright in the gloom.

Derrewyn was already across the hut. She went to the pile of furs that was Lengar's bed, hauled the pelts aside and began scraping at the soil with the bloody blade. She tore the earth open, delving down until the knife struck leather and then she scrabbled the soil clear and hauled the bag into the firelight.

Inside the bag was one of Sarmennyn's great lozenges and two of their small ones. She had hoped all the gold might be there, but Lengar must have divided the treasure and hidden the other pieces elsewhere in the hut. For a moment she considered tearing the hut apart, upsetting the pelts and scratching at the earth, but these three pieces, surely, would be enough.

She dressed in one of Lengar's tunics, tied leather shoes onto her feet and seized Lengar's precious bronze sword which hung from one of the hut's poles. She took the bag with the three gold pieces and went to the hut's door where she paused. It was still not quite dark, but she could see no one and so she gathered the folds of the tunic and ducked under the lintel.

There were spearmen guarding both the causeways that led through Ratharryn's great embankment, so Derrewyn ran to the ditch halfway between the entrances. There had been rain that summer and the bottom of the ditch was marshy, but she splashed through and then climbed the vast bank. She went slowly so she would meld with the shadows and either the gate guards did not see her or else Lahanna was looking after Derrewyn this night for she reached the embankment's crest undetected. She stopped there for a moment and turned to see that the sun was glinting brilliant through a slit in the dark clouds that otherwise obscured the south-western horizon. The tribe was dancing around the temple poles, while far off, up on the higher land, the new Sky Temple stood deserted again.

She hissed at the sun like a cat. Lengar worshipped Slaol, so Slaol was Derrewyn's enemy, and she crouched above the skulls that topped the embankment and spat at the sun that had turned all the bruised clouds red and gold. Then, quite suddenly, his brightness vanished.

And Derrewyn vanished with him. She slid down the outer bank and through the dark trees until she reached the river where she turned northwards, and as she passed the island where she had first lain with Saban she remembered him, but there was no trace of fondness in the memory. Fondness had been banished from her, along with kindness and laughter and pity, all washed from her by tears. She had become Cathallo's whore and now she would work Cathallo's revenge.

The short midsummer night fell and still she went north.

Later, much later, she heard the hounds baying behind her, but she had taken to the river and hounds cannot follow a spirit across water so Derrewyn knew she was free. She still had to slip past the spearmen who garrisoned Maden and cross the swamps, but she felt confident and strong because Lahanna was shining above her and in her hand she held some of the precious power of the sun god that she would give to Lahanna.

She had escaped, she carried Lengar's child, and now she would make war.

—«»—«»—«»—

In Sarmennyn it began to rain in the afternoon. The wind was rising, the rain fell heavier and beyond the trellis of branches Saban could see that the sky had become a turbulent grey shot through with black. The wind was flicking the thatch from the huts and the rain began to flood the pit.

When the first thunder sounded Saban put his head back and cried to the god of thunder and then he scrabbled at the dripping wet sides of the pit until he had prised out a sharp-edged stone that he used to make a step in the soil. He hacked a second step, a third, and then tried to climb the steps, but his bare feet slipped on the wet soil and he constantly fell back into the rising water.

He sobbed with frustration, found the stone again and tried to enlarge the steps. The water had risen to his ankles. Rain was thrashing on the trellis and dripping onto his face, the wind was a constant howl and the noise was so loud that he did not hear the splintering as the trellis was lifted clean away from the pit. He only knew he was rescued when a wet cloak was lowered to him and Haragg's voice shouted at him to take hold.

Saban saw Haragg and Cagan in the gloom above him. He gripped the cloak and Cagan lifted him like a child, swinging him up and out of the pit so that he sprawled on the grass. He lay there, wet and shaking, staring into the eye of the storm that had come from the sea to batter and thrash the coast. The trees tossed in the screeching gale while whole armloads of thatch were being torn from the huts and blown beyond the river. There was no sign of the men left to guard Saban.

'We must go,' Haragg said, lifting Saban from the grass, but Saban shook off the trader's hand. Instead he went to Kereval's hut and pushed past the curtain, half expecting to find his guards inside, but the hut was empty and he dried himself by rolling on a great pelt, then pulled on a deerskin tunic.

Haragg had followed him into the hut. 'We must go,' he said again.

'Go where?'

'Far off. There is madness here. We must get you away from Scathel.'

'This is Erek's madness,' Saban said as he helped himself to boots and a cloak and one of Kereval's bronze-bladed spears. 'We must go to the Sea Temple,' he told Haragg.

'To see her die?' Haragg asked.

'To see what sign Erek is sending,' Saban said, and he pushed past the leather curtain into the howling rain. One of the spearmen was now out in the settlement's centre where he was peering into the empty pit. As he turned to shout to his fellow guard he saw Saban and ran at him with his spear levelled. 'You must go into the hole!' he shouted, though his words were snatched away in the wind's fury.