Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

The spearmen at last managed to haul Saban and Lewydd to their feet and just then the first arrows flickered in the flame-light. A man fell close by, a shaft dark in his throat. Saban rammed his elbow hard back, heard his captor's breath rush out and wrenched himself free. More arrows thumped home as Saban crouched and wrapped Leir in his arms. He could hear little over the roar of the fire, but he saw the arrows whip through the firelight. Lewydd was free now, his captor struck by one of the missiles. Lengar's spearmen were slowed by the liquor they had drunk and they had still not seen the attackers who had come down from the embankment's crest into the shadows where they were now loosing arrow after arrow. The flint heads drove into flesh. Some struck the huts and a few wasted themselves in the fire.

Saban pulled at Lewydd. 'Come!' He picked up Leir and ran towards Aurenna who had still not realised the danger. Lengar's drunken men were only just awakening to the attack, and did not yet know where it came from. Saban reached Aurenna, but one of her guards saw him and moved to intercept him, opening his mouth to shout a warning to Lengar, and an arrow slapped straight into his gullet. The man staggered back, choking and with blood pouring down his beard, then fell to the ground. Lengar turned anyway and Saban hit him with his free hand. It was a desperate, wild blow, but it struck Lengar's cheek, knocking him down and Saban grabbed Aurenna with his bruised hand and tugged her into the shadows between the huts where women screamed and dogs howled. 'Run!' Saban shouted at her. 'Run!'

But there was nowhere to run. Enemies had crossed the embankment's northern side and were already at the tanning pits, and their arrows plunged into the thatch close to Saban who, frantic, twisted aside to Galeth's hut. He pushed Aurenna and Lallic inside, then Leir, and afterwards ducked in himself. 'A weapon!' he said to Galeth, who had refused to witness the murderous blaze.

He took Galeth's old spear, the great heavy spear, and gave another to Lewydd.

There was screaming outside. Spearman ran past as Saban pushed into the moonlight. No one noticed him now. He and Lewydd were simply two more spearmen in the chaotic night where a handful of folk tried to extinguish the many small fires that had been started on the thatch of the huts where burning straw had blown from the flaming hall, but most of the panicked and inebriated throng were seeking an enemy and when Ratharryn's warriors did discover the archers and ran towards them, those attackers retreated back across the embankment into the dark beyond.

'Who are they?' Lewydd shouted at Saban.

'Cathallo?' Saban guessed. He could think of no other enemy, but surmised that Rallin, knowing he was to be attacked next day, had sent his bowmen through the night to sting and humiliate Lengar's men.

The archers had all vanished now. They had come, they had wounded and killed, and now they had gone, but the panic did not subside. Some of Ratharryn's warriors attacked Drewenna's men, mistaking them for the enemy, and Drewenna's spearmen fought back as Lengar strode among them, shouting at them to stop. Saban stalked him.

The fighting slowly died. Men and women beat out burning thatch with cloaks and pelts, or else dragged the burning straw clean off their hut roofs. Wounded men crawled or just lay bleeding. The twelve temple poles stood charred and smoking above the red hot fire that still consumed the feasting hall. Lengar parted two fighting warriors, then turned when one of the temple poles fell to scatter bright fire across the settlement and, in the sudden livid light, he saw Saban and saw the spear in his brother's hand. He smiled. 'You want to be chief, little brother? You want to kill me?'

'Let me kill him,' Lewydd said vengefully. 'Let me!'

'No.' Saban pushed Lewydd aside and walked forward.

Lengar tossed aside his own spear and drew his sword. He looked bored, as though the chore of killing Saban would be a small thing. Saban should have been cautioned by his brother's confidence, but he was too furious to be wary. He simply wanted to kill his brother, and Lengar knew it, just as he knew that Saban's fury would make him clumsy and easy to kill. 'Come on, little brother,' he taunted Saban.

Saban hefted the spear, took a breath and readied himself to make a wild charge fuelled by rage, but then a man screamed and pointed to the settlement's southern entrance and both Lengar and Saban turned that way: Both stared open-mouthed. And both, for an instant, forgot their quarrel.

For a dead man walked the night.

PART THREE

The Temple of the Dead

A dead man walked in the moonlight and the folk of Ratharryn gave a great moan because of the horrors that were being brought on their tribe.

The walking corpse was stark naked and skeletally thin. His eyes were black holes in a pale mask, his skin was ghostly white, his ribs were edged with black and his lank hair was grey. Scraps of his skin and hair dropped and floated away in the air as if he were decomposing even as he walked. The moon was higher now, higher and smaller and paler and brighter, and a spearman near Lengar suddenly screamed in terror, 'He has no shadow! He has no shadow!' Warriors who had been drunkenly fighting now fled or else dropped to the ground and hid their faces. Lengar alone dared advance towards the dead thing that cast no shadow, and even Lengar shook.

Then Saban, who had been rooted to the ground with fear, saw that the wraith did have a mooncast shadow. He saw, too, that every time the corpse put his weight onto his left foot he gave a small lurch. And the dropping grey-white scraps were not flesh flaking, but ash drifting in the small wind. The man had soaked himself in the river, drenched himself in ashes and blackened his eyes and ribs with soot, and as the ashes dried they sifted and fell away from his hair and skin.

'Camaban!' Lengar snarled. He too had recognised the limp and he spoke the name angrily, ashamed of having been afraid of the ghostly figure.

'Brother!' Camaban said. He opened his arms to Lengar who answered the gesture by raising his sword. 'Brother!' Camaban said again, chidingly. 'Would you kill me? How are we to defeat Cathallo if you kill me? How will we defeat Cathallo without sorcery?' He capered some clumsy dance steps as he shrieked at the moon: 'Sorcery! Trickery! Spells in the dark and charms in the moonlight!' He howled and shuddered as though the gods were commanding his body, then, when the fit passed, he frowned quizzically at Lengar. 'You do not need my help to thwart Derrewyn's curses?'

Lengar kept his sword blade extended. 'Your help?' he asked.

'I have come,' Camaban said loudly enough so that the warriors who had fled to the huts could hear him, 'to defeat Cathallo. I have come to grind Cathallo into powder. I have come to unleash the gods against Cathallo, but first, brother, you and I must make peace. We must embrace.' And again he stepped towards Lengar who backed away and glanced towards Saban. 'There will be time for his death,' Camaban said, 'but first make peace with me. I regret our quarrel. It is not right that we should be enemies.'

Lengar checked Camaban with his sword. 'You have come to defeat Cathallo?'

'Ratharryn will never be great so long as Cathallo thrives,' Camaban cried, 'and how I do wish for Ratharryn to be great again.' He gently pushed Lengar's sword aside. 'There is no need for us to quarrel, brother. So long as you and I fight, so long will Cathallo be unconquered. So embrace me, brother, in the cause of victory. And then I shall fall at your feet to show your folk that I was wrong and you were right.'

The thought of defeating Cathallo was more than enough to persuade Lengar to end his quarrel with Camaban and so he opened his arms to allow Camaban to step into his embrace.