Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

He pulled her to her feet. She moaned as she put her weight on her wounded leg, but she waved away Saban's help then called for her spearman. It seemed she would leave without saying any farewell, but then, abruptly, she turned back and kissed Saban. She said nothing, just kissed him a second time then limped southwards through the trees.

Saban watched until the leaves hid her, then closed his eyes because he feared he would weep.

—«»—«»—«»—

There would be so many tears that day. The avenue of stones was thick with bodies, many with skulls crushed by axes or clubs, and still more with missing heads. But there had been so many heads to take as trophies that, after a while, the bodies were no longer decapitated and some heads had even been discarded by the pursuers. Others of the enemy still lived, though they were horribly wounded. One man, blood dripping from his hair, clung to a stone pillar as Saban trudged past. What songs they would make of this in Ratharryn, Saban thought sourly. Ravens flapped down and dogs came to feast on dead men's flesh. Two small boys who had followed Camaban's men to war were trying to hack a woman's head off. Saban chased them from the corpse, but knew they would find another. The avenue's stones were dripping with gore and he remembered Derrewyn's prophecy that the stones of the new temple at Ratharryn would steam with blood. She was wrong, he told himself, wrong.

The first curls of smoke were writhing from the thatch in the settlement where Camaban's warriors, having fetched what valuables they could from within the huts, were hurling firebrands onto the roofs. While their huts were thus destroyed, the surviving folk of the defeated tribe sought sanctuary in the great shrine. It was there that Saban found Camaban. He was alone on the summit ridge of the huge encircling earthwork where he was systematically kicking the guardian skulls down into the ditch. 'Where have you been?' he demanded.

'Looking for Derrewyn,' Saban said.

'You found her?'

'No,' Saban said.

'She's probably dead,' Camaban said vengefully. 'I pray she is. But I still want to piss on the bitch's corpse.' He kicked a wolf's skull down to the ditch bottom. There was blood on his long hair and on the bones tied to its braids, but it was not his own blood. The bronze sword, which hung from a loop on his belt, was thick with blood. 'I hope Rallin's children have been found by now,' he went on, 'because I want them dead.'

'They're no danger to us,' Saban protested.

'They're Rallin's family and I want them all killed. And Derrewyn's bitch-child with them.' He kicked another skull off the embankment. 'Calls herself a sorceress! Ha! See where her sorcery has left her tribe!' He grinned suddenly. 'I like war.'

'I hate it.'

'That's because you're no good at it, but it isn't difficult. Gundur wanted to retreat because he hadn't thought about the problem, but I knew Rallin would lead with his best men so it was easy enough to lay a trap for them and, to give Gundur his due, he did see how it could work. Gundur fought well. Did you fight well?'

'I killed one man,' Saban said.

'Only one?' Camaban asked, amused. 'I used to be so envious of you when I was a child. You were like Lengar, tall and strong, and I thought you'd be a warrior and I would always be a cripple. But it's the cripple who has conquered Cathallo. Not Lengar, not you, but me!' He laughed, proud of his day's work, then turned to stare at the crowd of Cathallo's people who had gathered about Sannas's old hut. 'Time to frighten them, I think,' Camaban said, and he walked back to the causeway and then into the temple's centre. Less than a dozen of Ratharryn's spearmen had come into the shrine, so Camaban was virtually unguarded, but he showed no fear as he walked to the very centre of the temple, into the space between the twin stone circles that were girdled by the greater ring of boulders, and there he raised his arms to the sky and held them aloft until the frightened crowd had quietened. 'You know me!' he shouted, 'I am Camaban! Camaban the crooked child! Camaban the cripple! Camaban of Ratharryn! And I am now Camaban, chief of Cathallo. Does anyone dispute that?' He stared at the crowd. There were at least two score of men there, most of them still armed, but none of them moved.

'I am more than Camaban,' Camaban shouted, 'for I came here in the night many years ago and I took the soul of Sannas with her last breath! I, Camaban, have Sannas inside me. I am Sannas! I am Sannas!' He screamed this claim, and then, suddenly, began chanting in Sannas's old voice, her exact voice, ancient and dry like old bones, so that if Saban closed his eyes it was as if the old sorceress were still alive. 'I am Sannas come back to earth, come to save you from punishment!' And he began to writhe and dance, to leap and twist, yelping desperately as though the old woman's soul struggled against his own spirit, and the display made terrified children hide their faces in their mothers' clothes. 'I am Sannas!' Camaban screamed. 'And Slaol has conquered me! Slaol has taken me! Slaol has lain between my thighs and I am full with him! But I will fight for you!' He screamed again, and thrashed his head so that his long bloody hair whipped up and down. 'You must obey, you must obey,' he said, still in Sannas's voice.

'Kill them…' He was speaking in his own voice now, and he drew his gory sword and advanced on the crowd as he chanted the words. 'Kill them, kill them, kill them.' The crowd backed away.

'Take them as slaves!' He had changed to Sannas's voice again. 'They will be good slaves! Whip them if they are not good! Whip them!' He began writhing again, and howling again, and then, very suddenly, went still.

'Slaol talks in me,' he said in his own voice. 'He talks to me and through me. The great god comes to me and he asks why you are not all dead. Why should we not take your babies and dash their heads against the temple stones?' The women cried aloud. 'Why not give your children to Slaol's fire?' Camaban asked. 'Why not give your women to be raped, and bury your men alive in the dung pits? Why not? These last two words were a screech.

'Because I will not let it.' It was Sannas once more. 'My people will obey Ratharryn, they will obey. On your knees, slaves, on your knees!' And the people of Cathallo went on their knees to Camaban. Some held out their hands to him. Women clung to their children and appealed for their lives, but Camaban just turned away, went to the nearest stone and rested his head against it.

Saban let out a great breath that he had not even been aware he had been holding. The folk of Cathallo stayed kneeling, terror on their faces, and that was how Gundur's spearmen found them when they filed through the western entrance.

Gundur went to Camaban. 'Do we kill them?'

'They're slaves,' Camaban said calmly. 'Dead slaves can't work.'

'Kill the old, then?'

'Kill the old,' Camaban agreed, 'but let the others live.' He turned and stared at the kneeling crowd. 'For I am Slaol and these are the slaves who will build me a temple.' He raised his arms to the sun. 'For I am Slaol,' he cried again in triumph, 'and they are going to build my shrine!'

—«»—«»—«»—

Camaban left Gundur to govern Cathallo. Keep the people alive, he told him, for in the spring their labour would be needed. Gundur also had orders to search the woods for Derrewyn, whose body had never been found, and for her daughter who had also disappeared. Rallin's wives and children had been discovered and their bodies now rotted in a shallow grave. Morthor was buried under a mound and a new high priest had been appointed, but only after the man had kissed Camaban's misshapen foot and sworn to obey him.

So Camaban went home in triumph to Ratharryn where, all winter long, he toyed with wooden blocks. He had asked Saban to make the blocks, insisting that the timber was squared into pillar shapes, and he demanded more and more of them and then disappeared into his hut where he arranged and rearranged the blocks obsessively. At first he made the blocks into twin circles, one nested within the other like the unfinished temple that Saban was now removing, but after a while Camaban rejected the twin circles and instead modelled a temple like the existing shrine to Slaol just beyond Ratharryn's entrance. He devised a forest of pillars, but after staring at the model for days he swept it aside. He tried to remake Slaol and Lahanna's pattern in stone: twelve circles imposed on one greater circle; but when he stooped so that he could see the blocks with an eye close to the ground he saw only muddle and confusion and so he also rejected that arrangement.