Chapter Ten
A rdahl went to the training field as he had nearly every day of his life for the past half-score years. In all weather. In times of victory and relative peace, or under threat of war. When tired, when wounded, when eager. A place he belonged—the wide, wide field surrounded by low drystone walls had always welcomed him.
Till now.
Never had it been harder to go there than this morning. Conall did not walk at his side.
Conall did not walk at his side.
But he wore Conall’s clothing, his own being foul with dirt and blood. And he carried Conall’s sword in his hand.
That made for an odd juxtaposition. So often had he seen the weapon clutched in Conall’s fingers; so often had he plucked it up out of the turf to return to his friend, it felt familiar. But och, so wrong in his hand.
The red of the sky had bled away, but clouds hung heavy on the western horizon, promising rain. The light felt stark, and it lit the scene—the green, green turf with the young men all gathered, the glittering weapons and a pony or two off to the side—too sharply.
Just as at the spring, he was met with silence, this one as sharp-edged as the swords. A broad sea of antagonism.
Yet when the first of the men gave a wild cry and came at him, he was not prepared.
A young man named Neil, he was, whom Ardahl knew right well. He and Conall had often sat and drunk with him in the warriors’ hall.
Now he came with his brown hair flying and his sword raised, whirling about his head.
Ardahl barely raised Conall’s sword in time.
The two blades met, one with maddened rage behind it, the other sheer trained reflex. Ardahl’s mind struggled and stuttered, seeing what filled the face behind the weapon. The anger. The hate.
Just like Conall had looked at him in the moment before he’d attacked. Too much like.
He could not allow what had happened then to happen again.
For good reason was he considered among the best of Chief Fearghal’s warriors. He had a good eye with a surfeit of strength behind it, and, as Dornach often said, he reacted before he thought. His da, aye, had been a charioteer, and a fine one. But Ardahl had always known he wanted to be a warrior.
To earn a place among the first of them.
He had never thought to slay his friends.
So despite the quickness of his blade, he met Neil with cautious care. Even though the man came at him howling bloody murder, he did not push back but merely met him blow for blow.
His relief, when he managed to knock Neil’s blade from his hand, was short-lived. No sooner had Neil fallen back, no sooner had Ardahl drawn a breath, than another of his friends rushed at him in turn.
He began to worry then. As his muscles screamed at him and his mind protested, he stepped back and back, now ringed by his fellow warriors. When he tripped his opponent, whose name was Dalen, and landed him on the sod, a third man came for him from behind.
He turned, barely in time.
He missed his own sword, which, when fighting, felt like an extension of his arm. Conall’s was balanced differently and made him clumsy, but he must make it serve. Sweat began gathering on his brow and trickling down into his eyes. He tossed his hair out of the way again and again.
Perhaps one of the strangest aspects of the scene was that, save for the grunts and cries of his challengers and the clangs of the weapons, it was silent. As if the whole world held its breath to await the outcome.
He could not fight like this forever. That thought appeared suddenly in his mind. Defending and not pressing, he would soon grow so spent that one of the crashing blows would break through.
Take his head.
These men, his friends, wanted his head.
Then a voice called out, “Enough. Enough!”
A fierce voice it was, and one accustomed to command. All young men there had trained beneath it and were used to obeying it.
Ardahl’s opponent, Craen, lowered his sword. Ardahl followed, even as Dornach strode up to stand between them.
The war chief, a big man, towered over even Ardahl, who possessed more height and quickness than bulk. He had a wild head of black hair and skin tanned like hide from the sun, with tattoos twining over it. His eyes, also dark and furious, stabbed at each of them before sweeping across those gathered.
“What is this?” he bellowed. “What happens here, that one o’ us should raise a blade against another?”
Neil spoke up. “Ask him that! He raised a blade to Conall. And killed him. Conall, who was a brother to us. How should we let him walk back here and take a place among us?”
“A place.” Dornach swept Ardahl with a look, down his body and up again. Ardahl stood trying to quiet his breath and his heart, which threatened to beat out of his chest. “A place, aye, but what place? Is it no’ Conall’s? Is that no’ what the druids decreed? Would ye treat Conall so?”
“He is no’ Conall.” It was Cathair who stepped out now from among the others, hair plaited for fighting and his sword in his hand. “He slew Conall.”
Dornach faced the young man, nearly as large as he. “Ye ha’ told the priests so. And they have made their decision. Would ye go back and sneer in their faces?”
Cathair said nothing, though his jaw grew tight.
“He is Conall,” Dornach declared, pointing at Ardahl, “to all purposes. Hard as it may be, ye must treat him as such.”
Cathair shifted on his feet. “Then he must take Conall’s place in the ranking.”
Behind ye, ye mean , Ardahl thought but did not say.
“To be sure,” Dornach barked, turning those burning eyes now on Cathair. “And so he shall. Let us get to work. And the first man I see o’ ye lifting a blade to his fellow will answer to me.”
That did not mean things henceforth got easier for Ardahl. His fellows continued to glare at him from the corners of their eyes. To whisper. Those he faced while sparring held nothing back and, save for Muirin, had nary a good word for him.
When the session ended, when the promised rain moved in, proving the omen of the red morning, and Dornach called it, Ardahl found himself covered with bruises, scrapes, and not a few bloody wounds.
His fellows, clearing off quickly, would now repair to the warriors’ hall, where they would shelter amid an atmosphere of camaraderie. Ardahl had no doubt as to what their subject of conversation would be.
He had nowhere to go, save back to the hut, where Conall’s mother wailed and his sisters could not hide their hatred for him.
As he moved to leave the field, Dornach called him back. “Ardahl, a moment.”
Ardahl stood with the cold rain sluicing down him while the war chief approached. Once again, the canny, dark eyes examined him.
“Are ye much hurt?”
“Nay.”
“They were rough on ye.”
Ardahl lifted his head and said nothing. He stung from the wounds, and the slights—mayhap the second more than the first.
Dornach’s gaze narrowed. “Lad, I have known ye from a young age, when ye came running here and asked to train well before your time. I know ye like a son o’ my own. What happened?”
Ardahl’s only answer was a shake of his head.
Dornach swore softly. “I believe full well ye would never ha’ hurt that lad. He was dear to ye as your own blood.”
“Dearer.” Ardahl choked. It helped—it helped that this man whom he had respected for so long did not think the worst of him. It solved nothing, yet it did assuage some of the pain.
He looked the war chief in the eye. “I do not know what happened. Believe me when I say so. We were sparring. He—he turned on me. Turned on me like a rabid hound. I saw such rage in his eyes.” Ardahl swallowed hard. “I believe he would ha’ killed me in that moment. We struggled. The knife ended up in his chest. I began to draw it out again, but there was so much blood—”
“Is that all?”
“All, master.”
Dornach stood there regarding him with the rain running down his face. Unflinching. At last one of his big hands came up to clap Ardahl’s shoulder.
“Aye, well, there will be more to it, ye may be sure. More may be discovered. Meanwhile, ye must bear your punishment.”
“’Tis still harder to bear his absence.”
“His absence wounds all o’ us. A bright light, was Conall MacAert.”
“Master Dornach, why would he turn on me that way?”
Slowly, Dornach shook his head. “I cannot say. I cannot fathom. My advice to ye is, accept your punishment. Fill his place well. Work hard. Trust in the gods that all will come clear in time.”
Trust in the gods? Dornach rarely spoke such words, and they startled Ardahl now. Apart from a prayer muttered before a battle, under the duress of the priests, the gods had little to do with him.
Why should they now step forward and take an interest in his life?
Unless—the startling thought occurred to him—they already had. Perhaps they already had.