Jack Whyte - Uther

Moments later, she again heard the sound that had snapped her from her doze. It was a sustained, agonized screeching, coming from a tortured throat, a demented, inhuman series of shrieks that set her teeth on edge and caused a formless, queasy stirring in her guts. She knew it was a man screaming and vaguely remembered having heard it earlier, but it seemed to her that the screaming had been more distant then. Now it was close by, and it sounded far worse than it had, and that frightened her, because she knew that such a thing could not be possible. No man who was wounded badly enough to produce such sounds could possibly move anywhere. Her entire skin rose up in a gooseflesh of superstitious horror as the thought came to her that the demonic sounds might not be coming from a man at all but from some hideous goblin, drawn from the blackness of the underworld by the smell of all the blood that had been spilled here in this place.

She was on her feet, holding her breath and clutching the hill of her sword in both hands before she even knew she could move. Her head was filled with the ungodly screaming in the middle distance, and until the sound died away into silence she stood staring about her wildly, her back pressed against the trunk of the tree. Then she became aware of the stillness that surrounded her. The morning mists had evaporated and the winds had died away, and because of that the fires had died down so that the blackened trees on her right only smouldered now, angry smoke drifting silently upward on the edges of her sight, rising into lowering rain clouds. No bird sang and no breath of air disturbed the sullen calm. No sound of battle or movement anywhere. Nothing except the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. Nemo looked about her at the carnage, unable to count the corpses that littered the ground, observing the way the bodies of her former companions all lay together where they had fallen, in a clear line that ended in a tangled knot of bodies, a long windrow of corpses showing the direction and distance of their slow advance into annihilation.

Suddenly the screaming came again, louder and more agonized than before, and this time she could tell where it was coming from, directly ahead of her when she turned slightly to her left. The ground there rose gently to a low ridge, and the sounds were coming from beyond that. And then, because it was the last thing in the world that she wanted to do, she sheathed her sword slowly and began to move towards the awful noise, biting down hard and pressing her left hand against the bulky dressing over the wound in her side as she placed one foot carefully ahead of the other, step after faltering step, surprised that she was even capable of movement. Slowly, painfully, she moved towards the low ridge, bending into the rising ground and leaning for support on everything and anything that came close to her and was big enough to bear her weight.

She saw the crown of the trees even before she breasted the ridge, and her throat closed up in terror as she recognized immediately what they represented: a Druidic circle of ancient oaks, towering over the scrub trees that surrounded them. But still she moved forward, until she reached the crest of the low ridge and could see them clearly, and she was appalled but unsurprised to hear that the unearthly screaming was issuing from there. Her eyes were filmed with tears from the effort of climbing the slight incline, but a huge image of her long- forgotten father's face, hated and feared throughout her childhood, interposed itself between her and the circle. He had come for her, she knew, and the screams were his—rage and anger, hatred and despair blended into one demanding, unforgiving summons. A chill shook her entire body, reminding her of the bowel-loosening terror she had known once before, when she had chased the witch, Cassandra, to her lair. But she had killed the witch. Perhaps, if the gods willed it, she could kill the ghost of Leir the Druid the same way, with black iron. Unsteadily, her head reeling. Nemo drew her sword again and moved down towards the ring of oaks.

She was unaware of time passing as she crossed the distance to the nearest tree in the circle, making her way slowly and painfully around and between the clumps of hawthorn and hazel that had grown up around the perimeter of the circle over countless years. All her attention was focused upon the screaming, which seemed to grow weaker and less strident as she approached. Finally she reached the first great tree and leaned against it, her face against the bark, her legs shaking with fear and her entire body drenched with clammy sweat as she tried to will herself to straighten up and move on. And as she leaned there, exhausted, a hand clamped on her shoulder.

Nemo shrieked, insane with fear, and spun around, thrusting blindly with her short-sword as years of military training took over. The thing she had imagined at her back was not a goblin but a man, however, and as the length of her blade stabbed into his unprotected neck, she recognized him. It was Noric, Lagan's man, the one who had taken her to find her armour the day before. She saw the shock on his face as he jerked his head, trying to look down at the sword that had killed him, and watched as the light of life faded immediately from his eyes. His body, unable to fall backwards, sagged forward against her, following the pull of her blade as she tried to withdraw it from his throat, and she brought the heel of her left hand up beneath his chin and thrust him away from her, jerking her blade free as he fell back. She turned back towards the circle of oaks immediately, aware that the violent effort of killing him had reopened the wound in her side.

The screaming had stopped again. Nemo looked down at the blade in her hand, still dripping with blood, then raised it and pushed herself away from the tree, lurching forward into the circle. She saw movement immediately, close by her beneath the closest tree on her right, but her sight was blurred and at first she could not define what she was seeing. She blinked, rubbing at her eyes with her sleeve, and then saw what it was: two men, one of them hauling the other up into the air by a rope around his chest and beneath his arms, the rope thrown over a low oak limb. The man being hanged was apparently dead, his clean-shaven face bloodlessly pale, and she saw that both his hands and his feet had been cut off. The other man, covered in blood and recognizable only by his size, was Lagan Longhead.

Nemo had no care for what Lagan was doing and no interest in the other man. She knew only that she had to bring Lagan to Uther. That had been the King's command, and nothing in the world had ever mattered more to her than obeying his wishes.

She tried to call Lagan's name, but all that issued from her mouth was a strangled grunt, and at the sound of it Longhead exploded into motion. Nemo saw the hanging body plummet to the ground as he released the rope and spun around, one hand whipping down to his belt while the other swung up to point at her. Then he turned completely on his heel and threw something at her. She barely had time to see that it was a whirling axe before it smashed into her forehead, killing her instantly.

Longhead barely glanced at her as he scurried to where she lay and ripped the axe out of her cloven skull, but even had he looked at her closely. Nemo was completely unrecognizable. The Cornish Chief remained in a crouch, brandishing the axe and hopping from foot to foot as he peered around, searching for other attackers, but when he was satisfied that there were none, he turned and scampered back in the same stooped run to his interrupted work, where he thrust the long handle of the axe into the belt at his waist.

The body lay where it had fallen, festooned with the coils of rope that had landed on top of it, and he stooped quickly to gather them up again, starting to loop them in one hand as he peered up at the bough above. But the large, richly brocaded bag securely fastened around the dead man's waist caught his eye and he stopped suddenly, crouching down even lower to look at it and linger its richness.