Nightshade and Oak

Chapter 1

I had run a hundred leagues by the time the moon had risen.

The night sky glittered above me as I paused at the eastern end of the Chalk, listening to the wind whistle along the escarpment.

The dogs settled around me, flopping to the ground and panting loudly.

I stretched, reaching up to the harvest moon so that all the vertebrae in my back seemed to pop apart.

I dropped my arms and swung them around, bouncing on the balls of my bare feet.

The dogs formed a white fur carpet along the ground and the leader, Dormath, snuffled at the pockets of my tunic, hoping for a snack.

I pulled them out to show him they were empty, and he yawned in disgust and plopped down next to me.

I laughed, the wind catching the sound and whipping it away from me, down the slopes of the high Chalk towards the bloodstained grass of the valley below us.

I could feel them, the dead and the dying, out there in the darkness.

Many had passed on swiftly, but some had lingered, lost and confused, not knowing the way.

Any humans still living would be fleeing the battlefield, seeking out shelter in tents and around campfires.

They feared the wandering souls of the fallen, the cold hands of ghosts both Roman and Briton creeping through the night.

But I feared nothing, not even the dead. I was here for them.

Since I was called into being, many seasons past, I have guided untold numbers of exhausted souls, setting them on the path to Annwn, the afterworld.

Most go easily, eager to find rest. Some fight, some curse, some threaten.

They all go west in the end, for I am Mallt Y Nos, the Nightshade, Goddess of Death, and no soul on this island has ever escaped me.

They go west, beyond the sinking sun, and none have ever returned to this mortal world.

I lingered a little longer on the hillside.

Not because I dreaded the work ahead of me in the valley – blood worried me as little as water.

No, I stayed because the night was beautiful, the wind was clear and cool, and the dead would wait for me.

I had passed innumerable nights like this, perched up on the high places of the world, the dogs at my feet, the wind tugging at my clothes and rippling through my long black hair.

I dug my toes into the thin grass of the Chalk, enjoying the softness of the dusty rock.

Dormath shuffled a little closer to my side and I rested my hand on his back, stroking the pale, silky fur.

The others pricked up their red ears, always alert for any special treatment their brother might be getting.

I knew that they would already be smelling the blood on the battlefield – the iron and earth stench of it.

I heard a horn blowing in the distance, deep and eerie, and glimpsed huge, elongated shadows moving along the horizon.

The Wild Hunt were abroad tonight. I strained my eyes but even my immortal sight couldn’t discern more than the vague feeling of their shapes against the sky.

I knew Gwyn ap Nudd would be leading them home from the battle.

There would be feasting at his court tonight, as there always was after the mortals battled.

I flexed my toes again and stood up. I had a long night’s work ahead of me, but time moved differently with the Hunt.

If I finished my task before dawn, I could run down the Wild Roads to wherever he and his queen had made camp and join in the celebrations.

I wouldn’t mind spending a little time with the Hunt this evening, perhaps courting one or two of the beautiful and unkind fae.

I ruffled Dormath’s ears.

“Come on, boy, we’ve tarried long enough. There is much to do.”

He yawned again at me then stretched out luxuriously and barked at his fellows.

They jumped up, yipping and yelping at each other and causing general confusion.

I stepped through them, sniffing the air for the scent of souls and blood.

I gazed out at the glittering plains and considered my approach.

I would go down to the south-eastern corner of the battlefield and wind my way west and north as I tended to the dead. I called to the dogs, and they fell silent, forming a long line at my side. I took one last breath of the clean Chalk air and took off down the hill at a sprint.

The world tilted around me as I ran, down steep slopes and sharp river gullies.

I didn’t fall, I sprinted, each bound propelling me forward as I ran faster and faster.

A human would have tripped, breaking an ankle at the least, a neck at worst, but my feet were sure.

I felt the wind lift my hair and stream it behind me, rippling like a war banner.

The dogs trailed after me, baying as loud as Gwyn’s war horns with the joy of the Hunt. They galloped along, legs outstretched, trying to overtake me. I laughed for the joy of the chase and sped up, pulling away from them though they howled.

I reached the base of the Chalk and rocketed forward, finding my pace over the rolling fields, dodging between hedges and great spreading oaks.

I felt cold stone beneath my feet as we passed over the new Roman road that pointed north and heard the claws of the dogs skittering on the stone slabs.

We were close now, the iron stench of blood burning in my nostrils.

I could feel the dogs’ energy change and sensed my own heartbeat quickening in my chest in anticipation.

Then we were there and even the dogs pulled up in shock.

The field of battle was wide, tilted down towards the north from where I stood.

I thought I recognised the place. A few weeks before it had been a meadow full of long grass and waist-high wildflowers.

Now it was a marsh, the grass ripped up and the soil churned into a mire of mud and blood.

Broken chariots were scattered across the field, wheels still spinning in the wind.

Spears and javelins forested the ground, forming spiky clusters where once cornflowers had bloomed.

The smell was terrible, blood and shit and sweat, all mixed in with smoke and the bitter reek of the earth.

Bodies were strewn everywhere, still fresh enough to twitch.

A few were Roman, their gleaming metal armour and proud crests of horsehair spattered with mud.

Most of them were Britons, men and women both, dressed in woollen trousers and leather boots.

Moonlight glinted on golden torcs, silver earrings, red blood.

There were thousands of them, tens of thousands.

This was the end of the Firebrand’s rising, I thought to myself.

The Romans had crushed the rebellious tribes of the Iceni and the Trinovantes, ground any hope of resistance into the dirt for a generation at least. That cheered me a little: the massacres at Londinium and Camulodunum had resulted in months of long nights for me.

Tonight was the worst of it, but would be the last of those for years to come.

There was a mewling sound by my feet. I looked down.

A Briton was half curled into a ball, cradling the bloody stump where his left hand had been.

From the shield still clutched in his right I could see he was one of the Trinovantes, and I remembered all of his clan brothers and sisters that I had helped over the past thousand years.

He turned to peer up at me and I saw he had lost half his face, the exposed eyeball swivelling in the night air.

I crouched down and laid a hand on his cheek.

“Come,” I whispered, then strengthened my voice into a command.

“Come.” I lifted my hand from his face and pulled.

His soul came free easily and his body shuddered and fell still, now no more than so much cooling flesh.

I cupped the silvery fragment of light that had been the man’s hopes and dreams, his shame and his fury, everything that had brought him here to die in this field of ruined flowers.

I lifted it to my mouth and blew. The breeze caught the soul and carried it up and away.

I watched as it floated off, slow at first, but then the pull of the afterworld caught it, and it vanished from sight.

I could still feel it as it drifted, flowing westwards, riding the wind to Annwn.

An easy start. The man had wanted to be free of his agony but had not known how to let go.

I clicked my tongue and the dogs fanned out around me in a wide arc.

I whistled and they leapt forward, fae-quick, running in looping circles around the battlefield.

Even all two dozen of them could not cover the whole space but they barked as they ran, snapping at the air.

I sensed the lingering spirits drawing back from the edges of the carnage.

Good. I had enough to do tonight without traipsing after some poor tribesman’s soul before it twisted itself into something dark and horrific and started eating his countrymen.

I squared my shoulders and set off across the field.

On average only one in twenty or so dead or dying had trouble departing and needed my assistance, but when the slain were as numerous as this I had thousands to release.

I passed quickly, trailing my long fingers over hideous wounds and shattered bones, helping the souls trapped by pain to find their way out of their bodies and into the cool night air.

I had stopped noticing the foul smell of the slaughter, focusing only on my work.

A handful of the Roman casualties were also in need of my aid.

I paused at the first of them and looked down.

He looked no older than twenty and a bronze amulet dangled from his fingers, bloody from where he had tried to hold in his intestines.

I trapped his soul in my hands and called for Dormath.

He broke off from the loop and padded over to me, his jaws dripping with gore.