Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

Jegar fell. He had dropped his spear and was clawing at his throat where his breath bubbled with dark blood. He twitched, and his knees came up to his belly and his eyes rolled as Saban twisted the bronze blade, then twisted it again, so that yet more blood ran into the leaves. He dragged the spear free and Jegar looked up at him with disbelief and Saban drove the blade down into his enemy's belly.

Jegar shivered, then was still. Saban, eyes wide and breath heaving, stared at his enemy, scarce daring to believe Jegar was dead. He had thought himself outmatched, and so he had been, but Slaol had intervened. He pulled the spear from Jegar's corpse, then turned to look at Ratharryn's shocked warriors. 'Go and tell Lengar that Derrewyn is avenged,' he told them. He spat on Jegar's corpse.

Jegar's men backed away and Saban stooped to untie the leather thongs that strapped the sword to Jegar's dead hand. 'How long will you stay at Sul?' he asked Lewydd, who had stayed close to Saban throughout the brief fight.

'Not long,' Lewydd said. 'We must be home by midsummer. Why?'

'I shall be back here in four days,' Saban said, 'and I would travel to Sarmennyn with you. Wait for me.'

'Four days,' Lewydd said, then flinched when he saw what Saban was doing. 'Where are you going?' he asked.

'I shall be back in four days,' Saban repeated, and would say no more. Then he picked up his burden and walked uphill.

The killing at Sul was over.

Saban was tired, hungry and sore. He had walked for the best part of a night and a day, first travelling eastwards from Sul, then following a well-worn traders' path that led northwards through unending woods. Now, on the second evening after leaving Sul, he was climbing a long gentle hill that had been cleared of trees, though any crops that had ever grown on the slope had long vanished to be replaced by bracken. There were no pigs, the only beast that ate the bracken, and no other living thing in sight. Even the air, on this warm and oppressive evening, was empty of birds, and when he stopped to listen he could hear nothing, not even a wind in the bracken, and he knew that this was how the world must have been before the gods made animals and man. The clouds about the low sun were bruised and swollen, shadowing all the land behind him.

Saban had left his bow, his quiver and his spear with Lewydd and he carried only Jegar's bloodstained tunic with its weighty burden. He was dirty, and his hair hung lank. Ever since he had left Sul he had been wondering why he was making this journey and he had found no good answers except for the dictates of instinct and duty. He had a debt, and life was full of debts that must be honoured if fate was to be kind. Everyone knew that. A fisherman was given a good catch so he must offer something back to the gods. A harvest was plump so part must be sacrificed. A favour engendered another favour and a curse was as dangerous to the person who pronounced it as to the person it was aimed against. Every good thing and bad thing in the world was balanced, which was why folk were so attentive to omens — though some men, like Lengar, ignored the imbalance. They simply piled evil on evil and so defied the gods, but Saban could not be so carefree. It worried him that a part of his life was out of balance and so he had walked this long path to the bracken-covered hill where nothing stirred and nothing sounded. More woods crested the hill and he feared to walk in their darkening shadows as night fell, and his fear increased when he reached the trees for there, at the edge of the forest and standing on either side of the path like guardians, were two thin poles that carried human heads.

They were mere skulls now for the birds had pecked the eyes and flesh away, though one of the skulls was still hung with remnants of hair attached to a yellowing scalp. The eyeholes stared a bleak warning down the hill. Turn now, the eyeholes said, just turn and go.

Saban walked on.

He sang as he walked. He had little breath for singing, but he did not want an arrow to hiss out of the leaves so it was better to announce his presence to the spearmen who guarded this territory. He sang the story of Dickel, the squirrel god. It was a child's song with a jaunty tune and told how Dickel had wanted to trick the fox into giving him his big jaw and sharp teeth, but the fox had turned around when Dickel made his spell and the squirrel got the fox's bushy red tail instead. 'Twitch-tail, twitch-tail,' Saban sang, remembering his mother singing the same words to him, and then there was a sound behind him, a footfall in the leaves, and he stopped.

'Who are you, twitch-tail?' a mocking voice asked.

'My name is Saban, son of Hengall,' Saban answered. He heard a sharp intake of breath and knew that the man behind him was considering his death. He had announced that he was Lengar's brother and in this land that was enough to condemn him and so he spoke again. 'I bring a gift,' he said, lifting the blood-crusted bundle in his hand.

'A gift for whom?' the man asked.

'Your sorceress.'

'If she does not like the gift,' the man said, 'she will kill you.'

'If she does not like this gift,' Saban said, 'then I deserve to die.' He turned to see there was not one man, but three, all with kill scars on their chests, all with bows and spears, and all with the bitter and suspicious faces of men who fight an unending battle, but fight it with passion. They guarded a frontier that was protected by the skulls and Saban wondered if the whole of Cathallo's territory was ringed by the heads of its enemies.

The men hesitated and Saban knew they were still tempted to kill him, but he was unarmed and he showed no fear, so they grudgingly let him live. Two escorted him eastwards while the third man ran ahead to tell the settlement that an intruder was coming. The two men hurried Saban for night was looming, but the summer twilight was long and there was still a thin light lingering in the sky when they reached Cathallo.

Rallin, the new chief, waited for Saban on the edge of the settlement. A dozen warriors stood with him while the tribe had gathered behind to see this brother of Lengar who had dared come to their home. Rallin was no older than Saban, but he looked formidable for he was a tall man with broad shoulders and an unsmiling face on which a wound scar streaked from his beard to skirt his left eye. 'Saban of Ratharryn,' he greeted Saban dourly.

'Saban of Sarmennyn now,' Saban said, bowing respectfully.

Rallin ignored Saban's words. 'We kill men of Ratharryn in this place,' he said. 'We kill them wherever we find them and we strike off their heads and put them on poles.' The crowd murmured, some calling that Saban's head should be added to the cull.

'Is it really Saban?' Another voice spoke, and Saban turned to see Morthor, the high priest with his empty eye-sockets, standing among the crowd. His beard was white now.

'It is good to see you, Morthor,' Saban said, then wished he had not used those words.

But Morthor smiled. 'It is good to hear you,' he answered, then he turned his sightless eyes towards Rallin. 'Saban is a good man.'

'He is from Ratharryn,' Rallin said flatly.

'Ratharryn did this to me,' Saban answered, holding up his left hand with its missing finger. 'Ratharryn enslaved me and cast me out. I do not come from Ratharryn.'

'But you were whelped in Ratharryn,' Rallin insisted obstinately.

'If a calf is born in your hut, Rallin,' Saban asked, 'does that make it your son?'

Rallin considered that for a heartbeat. 'Then why do you come here?' he demanded.

'To bring Morthor's daughter a gift,' Saban answered.

'What gift?' Rallin demanded.

'This,' Saban said. He lifted the bundle but refused to unwrap it, and then a scream like a vixen's shriek sounded and Rallin turned to stare towards the great embankment of the shrine.