Chapter 8
The Lord of the Dead dropped his cup back into the barrel of water and strode back to the harvest. I didn’t turn to watch him go.
My legs felt so weak it was taking all my strength to remain standing.
I opened my mouth to say something, swayed and fell.
Belis caught me and lowered me to the ground.
I tried to thank her but there was a cold pressure around my throat, choking the breath from me.
Invisible bands of steel seemed to have wrapped themselves around my arms and legs.
I couldn’t form my thoughts into sentences, not even into words; the inside of my head was a hurricane, uprooting everything I thought I knew about myself.
I curled in on myself, trying to block out the world.
Belis grabbed my shoulders and hauled me into a sitting position. She propped me against the water barrel and shoved my head between my knees.
“Breathe deep,” she said, her voice almost drowned out by the panic. I gasped for breath, panting like a dog.
“I’ve doomed us all, Belis,” I gabbled, the words tripping out of me.
“I should have come sooner, should have taken more care. I should have told someone we were coming this way, no one who could help will even know this is happening. It’s my fault, my fault, my fault.
” The words were ragged but I kept forcing them out.
Belis looked around for help then crouched down in front of me. “Take a deep breath, Mallt, you need to stop panicking.”
I screwed my eyes shut and fought for control. It was a losing battle and my eyes snapped open again.
“Can’t breathe,” I choked out. Belis took my head between her hands and stared directly into my eyes. Then she leaned her forehead against mine.
“Breathe in with me, yes, that’s it. Now let go. Again, breathe in, then out.”
I only managed a shallow breath, but my panting was slowing. I felt her palms on my cheeks, coarse from years of gripping a spear. Her eyes were very green in this light and I could count the flecks of silver in her irises.
“That’s better, Mallt, one breath, then another. Slow. Don’t think about anything else, focus on me. In and out.” Her voice was soothing and I felt some of the tension leaving my muscles, the bands of steel around my throat loosening.
“Sorry about that,” I muttered, once I had regained control of my lungs. I half expected her to smirk but she sighed and sat down next to me, leaning back against the barrel.
“Things are not going according to plan,” I said. She barked a short laugh.
“I’ll say. I was hoping we would not linger here long, that we could convince Arawn to release Cati’s soul and be gone before the next sunset. I was already thinking about how to avoid the Romans on our return voyage.”
“Wishful thinking,” I said. Belis nodded.
“You know all that I have done. You understand my urge to remove this stain from my own soul. Now it appears that there will be no redemption for me. Worse still, no second life for Cati, and, most terrible of all, I have managed to pollute whatever chance she had of a peaceful afterlife.”
I leaned over and nudged her shoulder with mine. “I thought I was the one blaming myself for all this.”
“Is there not guilt enough to go around?” Belis didn’t shift away and I found a little comfort in the feel of her warmth next to me.
“So what are we going to do?”
“We?”
“There’s no point fighting it any more. I’m a human now, just like you. It seems that won’t be changing, even if we find a way out of this. You and I are humans together, the only living humans in Annwn.”
“If we weren’t here then I’d tell you being a human wasn’t so bad. You’ve only really met me and Vatta. I wish you could meet Cati properly, you’d like her, I think. Humans are the best part of being human,” Belis frowned, “though they can be the worst part as well.”
“Tell me a bit more about her then,” I said.
“Now?”
“We have nowhere to go, nothing to do. For the first time in weeks there are no Romans on our tail. Since we are sitting here together waiting for the end, why not pass some time. So, what is your sister like?”
Belis took a deep breath and began talking.
At first she was stoic, but as the sun traced its way across the horizon she seemed to settle into her stories.
She told me about Cati, how she had spent her whole life protecting her, proud to be her older sister.
She spoke about her family, her brilliant and beloved father, Prasutagus, and his reign over the Iceni.
Her mother, the firebrand Boudica, teaching her to fight, to survive.
The rise of the Romans and the gradual understanding that her father would be the last of the independent Iceni kings.
Her voice broke as she talked about his death and the betrayal of the Roman governor that sparked the rebellion.
I liked listening to her talk, the sound of her voice humming through the warm autumn air. When her throat grew dry I fetched us more water from the barrel, and when her eyes grew damp I put my hand on hers and she gripped it tight.
When Belis ran out of stories she asked me for mine and I talked about the ages I had spent running across the islands of Britain.
I laughed as I recounted adventures with the Wild Hunt and the old kingdoms when the line between fae and mortal had been blurred.
Belis laughed, too, and I found I liked the sound of her laughter. It felt precious, hard-won.
At last I fell silent. The swallows were darting back and forth in the evening sky, black silhouettes against the lavender. Arawn’s group of farmers had moved on. I could see them in the next field lighting a fire and erecting a small spit.
“Could we do that?” I said, breaking the quiet.
“Light a fire?” asked Belis, shifting her arm out from where I had leaned my head against it.
“If you like. It’s not very cold here, though.”
“No, I mean, could we live here like that? Work during the day and then sit by the fire all night. They look happy enough.” I peered towards the distant blur of the flames.
“We could,” said Belis, moving her arm back, “but they won’t be happy for long. Arawn said the darkness would break free soon enough, spreading across this whole land.”
“Then I suppose we’d better stop it.” I sat up, twisting around to look Belis in the face.
“If I’m going to be human, I’d like to enjoy it properly.
Find a patch of land to farm, maybe up in the north, where the Romans haven’t reached yet.
You could come and stay if you wanted, teach me some of the landcraft. ”
She blinked at me and I felt a little of the closeness we had built in the last few hours shake. This friendship was a fragile thing.
“Or not,” I said, hurriedly. “You and Cati could travel further, up into the Pictlands and the islands.”
“That wasn’t my problem, Mallt,” Belis said to me, her mouth quirking up at the corner. “Have you forgotten what Arawn said? There is nothing to be done.”
“I don’t accept that. There must be something we can do. Maybe we can find Arawn’s seneschal or cure this sickness. We’ve still got a few weeks before your sister will be beyond help, and who knows how long before these shadowbitten overrun us. I’m not prepared to give up just yet.”
I scrambled up and held out a hand to Belis. She frowned for a moment then took my hand and I pulled her up.
“Where should we start?” she asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. “We should consider our strengths, that’s what Mother would say. Other than the druid’s spell, I only know a few cantrips, but I’m still a trained warrior, I have my spear and my sword…”
She glanced at me and I patted the sword’s hilt where it was strapped to my belt. “Well, you have. What are your strengths, Mallt?”
I considered. I seemed to have left most of them back in my old life: speed, strength, power over souls. I had been wrong about pretty much everything since meeting Belis, from trying to eat poisonous mushrooms to forgetting humans couldn’t run on water.
“Not much,” I said. “Perhaps we should focus on your skills for now.”
Belis frowned. “I see we’ve moved on from towering self-importance to self-pity. You have lots of strengths, Mallt. You’re stubborn as a donkey, you’re smart as a crow, you’re tough as—”
“An old boot?” I suggested. “Or did you have another unflattering comparison in mind?”
Belis grinned at me. “There you go, you’re as old as the hills themselves but your mind hasn’t gone yet.
You might not be a goddess any more but you’re still formidable.
And I haven’t mentioned the one thing that separates us from every other creature in this land, even the shadowbitten themselves. ”
“What’s that?” I asked. Belis shrugged.
“We’re alive. Maybe that’s the missing piece. Arawn can’t fight his own people, nor can the uncorrupted dead. But we’re neither, we’re alive, the first living mortals ever to set foot in this world. We don’t belong here yet so we can’t be corrupted so easily.”
She clapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go and find Arawn and tell him we want to fight.”
Arawn leaned back over the map he had drawn in the ashes next to the fire, conjuring the dirt into hills and valleys with a wave of his hand, water trickling out to form rivers and streams. It was near dawn; we had spent most of the night talking with him.
The Lord of the Dead did not seem entirely convinced but we had persuaded him to let us try.
“The most trouble we’ve had is along the canyon, the current border with the shadow,” he said, pointing to the deepest slash in the map.
“I have sentries stationed along there to watch the line, but I cannot guarantee your safety there. You think that living mortals can fight the shadow. That’s a possibility I want to explore but let’s start somewhere more controlled. Then we can consider a bolder move.”
Belis looked at the map with a warrior’s eye.
“I think we should strike hard and fast, before the shadowbitten know we’re here. Use surprise to push into their land and—”
“And do what?” Arawn cut in. “You are only two women and only one is in the least bit trained in combat. Mallt has spent her existence trailing battlefields like a crow, always late to the feast. This is my land, child. We will do things my way.”
Belis looked as though she wanted to respond but bit her tongue. Arawn stabbed his finger into the map.
“Here: this is where we shall start you off. It is a few hundred miles north of where we are now, a good fifty from the current border. There is a corruption there that I have been unable to root out. Come.”
Arawn strode from the field. Belis and I hurried after him.
“If it is hundreds of miles away,” I said, “it will take us weeks to get there. I have lost my old speed and—” Arawn grabbed my arm in one hand and Belis in the other and the world seemed to spin around us.