Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

'I would be sad if you did not,' Kereval said, smiling. The chief was white-haired now, and stooped, but he had lived long enough to see his bargain fulfilled and so he was happy.

Scathel intervened, 'But we do not go back until the gold and the other treasures are returned.'

'My brother knows that,' Saban said and just then a warning shout made him turn round to see that six horsemen had appeared among the grave mounds to the south. All carried spears and had short Outfolk bows across their shoulders and all six were warriors who, long before, had marched to Ratharryn to help Lengar snatch the chieftainship. Their leader was Vakkal whose face had the grey ashen scars of Sarmennyn, but whose arms now boasted the blue scars of Ratharryn. He was a tall man with a harsh face and a short black beard that had a badger's streak of white. He wore a leather tunic that was armoured with bronze strips, had a bronze sword at his waist and fox tails woven into his long plaited hair. He dismounted when he came to Kereval, then dropped to his knees in submission. 'Lengar sends his greetings,' Vakkal told the chief.

'He follows you?' Kereval asked.

'He will come tomorrow,' Vakkal said, then stood aside as his five Outfolk warriors came to greet their chief. Saban saw how the folk of Ratharryn made way for the men, how they scuttled apart as if it was suddenly bad luck to be close to a spearman. Vakkal was gazing at Aurenna who, made uncomfortable by his stare, went to stand beside Saban. 'I don't know you,' Vakkal challenged Saban.

'We met once,' Saban said, 'when you first came to Ratharryn.'

Vakkal smiled, though no pleasure showed in his eyes. 'You are Saban,' he said, 'Jegar's killer.'

'And my friend!' Kereval said loudly.

'We are all friends,' Vakkal said, still looking at Saban.

'Does Lengar bring us the gold?' Scathel demanded.

'He does,' Vakkal said, at last looking away from Saban. 'He brings the gold, and until he comes he asks only that you and your men be his honoured guests.' He turned and gestured towards Ratharryn. 'He says you are welcome to his home and that a feast will be made for you.'

'And we are to receive the gold?' Kereval asked eagerly.

'All of it,' Vakkal promised with a sincere smile, 'all of it.'

Kereval fell to his knees in gratitude. He had sent a temple and kept faith with his god and the treasures would now be returned to his tribe. 'Tomorrow,' he said happily, 'tomorrow we shall take our gold and we can go home.'

Home, Saban thought, home. Tomorrow. It would all be over and he could go home.

Ratharryn had grown. There were more than twice as many huts as when Saban had left, indeed there were so many that they now filled more than half the space inside the encircling wall, while a whole new settlement had been built beyond the embankment on the higher ground close to the wooden temple of Slaol. Yet the most startling change was that Lahanna's temple had been replaced by a great round thatched building. 'It used to be the temple,' Galeth told Saban, 'only now it is Lengar's hall.'

'His hall?' Saban was shocked. It seemed a terrible thing to transform a temple into a hall.

'Derrewyn worships Lahanna in Cathallo,' Galeth explained, 'so Lengar decided to insult the goddess. He pulled down most of the poles, roofed it, and he now feasts here.' Galeth had led Saban through the soaring hut's doorway into a cavernous interior much higher and larger than Kereval's great building at Sarmennyn. A dozen of the Old Temple posts were left, only they now supported a high thatched roof that soared towards a hole at the peak where smoke could escape, though that vent was barely visible because the roof beams were hung with a multitude of spears and smoke-darkened skulls. 'The spears and heads of his enemies,' Galeth told Saban in a hushed voice. 'I do not like this place.'

Saban hated it and Lahanna, he thought, would surely want revenge for the desecration of her shrine. The hall was so large that all Kereval's men, well over a hundred of them, could sleep on its rush- and bracken-strewn floor, and all ate there that night, feasting on pork, trout, pike, bread, sorrel, mushrooms, pears and blackberries. Saban and Aurenna ate in Galeth's hut where they listened to tales of Lengar's chieftainship. They heard stories of endless raids, of the slaughter of strangers, the enrichment of the warriors and the enslavement of countless folk from neighbouring tribes, yet through it all, Galeth said, Cathallo had resisted. 'All who hate Ratharryn,' he said, 'befriend Cathallo.' So Cathallo and Ratharryn still fought, though it was Ratharryn who raided the deepest. No boy could now become a man in Ratharryn until he had brought back a head to add to the skulls in Lengar's great hut. 'It is not enough to survive the forest these days,' Galeth said, 'a boy must also show his bravery in battle, and if he is thought a coward then he must spend a whole year dressed as a woman. He must squat to piss and fetch water with the slaves. Even their own mothers despise them!' He shook his head and made a keening noise.

'Yet Lengar is building the temple?' Aurenna asked, puzzled that a man who so loved war should make a temple that was supposed to bring a time of peace and happiness.

'It is a war temple!' Galeth said. 'He claims Kenn and Slaol are one!'

'Kenn?' Aurenna asked.

'The god of war,' Saban explained.

'Slaol is Kenn, and Kenn is Slaol,' Galeth said, shaking his head. 'But Lengar also says a great leader must have a great temple and he likes to boast that he has stolen a temple clean across the world.'

'Stolen?' Aurenna asked with a frown. 'He is exchanging it for gold!'

'He is building it for his own glory,' Galeth said, 'though there are rumours that the temple will never be finished.'

'What rumours?' Saban asked.

The old man rocked back and forth. The fire lit his gaunt face and threw his shadow on the underside of the roof's thatch. 'There have been omens,' he said quietly. 'There are more outcasts than ever among the trees and they grow bold. Lengar led all his spearmen against them, but all they found were corpses hanging in trees. They say the outcasts are led by a dead chieftain and none of our spearmen dare confront them now, not unless a priest goes with them to make charms and spells.' Galeth's wife Lidda, who was toothless and bent now, cried aloud and groped under her pelt to touch her groin. 'Healthy children have died,' Galeth continued, 'and lightning struck Arryn and Mai's temple. One of its posts is all blackened and split!'

Lidda sighed. 'Corpses were seen walking beyond the Sky Temple,' she moaned, 'and they cast no shadows.'

'It isn't a Sky Temple now,' Saban said bitterly. The airy lightness of the first stones had been stolen by Sarmennyn's squat ring. It was not even a Temple of Shadows, but something belittled and inadequate.

'An ash was cut in the forests and it cried like a dying child!' Galeth said. 'Though I did not hear it myself,' he added. 'Axes are blunt before they are used.'

'The moon rose the colour of blood,' Lidda carried on the lament, 'and a badger killed a dog. A child was born with six fingers.'

'Some say' — Galeth lowered his voice and glanced warily at Aurenna — 'that the Outfolk temple has brought ill fortune. And when Camaban came here in the spring he said the temple should be remade, that it was all wrong.'

'And Lengar disagreed?' Saban asked.

'Lengar says Camaban has gone mad,' Galeth said, 'and that Slaol's enemies are trying to prevent the temple's completion. He called Camaban an enemy of Slaol! So Camaban went away.'

'And the priests?' Saban asked. 'What do they say?'

'They say nothing. They fear Lengar. He killed one!'

'He killed a priest?' Saban asked, shocked.

'The priest tried to stop him turning Lahanna's temple into a hut, so Lengar killed him.'