Chapter 2 #3
He searched the ground until he found two flat rocks, each about the length and width of his forearm. He drove the rocks into the ground, staggered one before the other so that they stuck up like bizarrely positioned teeth.
“What is he doing now?” Uathach asked, squinting to try to see him better.
“He’s a strange one,” Tabiti muttered.
Cuchulainn took a stance in front of the two rocks. Then he bent so that he could place his hands on the ground. He pressed one foot against the first rock and then the other against the second.
Scáthach felt a jolt of understanding. “He’s using the rocks to push off, so that he can gain speed quickly.”
Cuchulainn exploded from the crouch, racing toward the bridge so fast his arms and legs blurred. He sprinted up the first half of the bridge and did not pause at the arch but allowed his momentum to carry him over it and down the far side.
For a moment Scáthach thought he would make it. She’d never seen a warrior so swift, and it wouldn’t have surprised her if he raced down the bridge and straight up the stairs to the door above which they watched.
But the Bridge of Leaps was wily and not so easily defeated.
It twisted as if it were made of rope and not rock, turning itself upside down.
Cuchulainn fell. The watching warriors gasped as he grabbed the side of the bridge.
While it rolled and bucked, he swung his legs up onto it and then tumbled, head over feet, from it and didn’t stop rolling until he was back at the monoliths.
The students on the battlements laughed and jeered.
“You think he’ll try again?” asked Tabiti.
“I see the stubborn set of those broad shoulders,” answered Uathach.
She jerked her chin in the direction of the man with the harp, who still sat beside Cuchulainn’s fire.
“And his bard is observing, no doubt already composing a ballad about the great Ulsterman Cuchulainn and how he leaped like a spawning salmon, conquering the bridge easily. That tune will have to be revised if he doesn’t make it. ”
“He can’t stop without his failure being set to harp song for generations to laugh at,” said Scáthach, shaking her head. “It was foolish of him to bring a bard.”
“What by all the gods is he doing now?” Tabiti squinted, trying to make sense of the warrior’s actions.
Cuchulainn had retrieved a short riding crop from the saddlebags that rested beside his campfire. His horse and the bard’s were tethered just off the raised castle walkway. The horses remained close, as the boggy field was filled with sucking mud.
Tabiti’s gaze narrowed. “Shall I stop him if he tries to ride his horse over the bridge?”
“Definitely,” Scáthach said.
But Cuchulainn did not retreat to where the horses grazed. He pulled off his tunic top, exposing his naked chest.
“He is nice to look at,” said Uathach.
Tabiti snorted. “And I would wager he knows it.”
He carried the crop with him to the entrance of the bridge where he paced, back and forth, and as he paced, he lifted the crop and brought it down on his chest, his ribs and stomach, his thick biceps and his back.
Cuchulainn flogged himself mercilessly. Even from the sentry platform, Scáthach could hear the terrible crack of whip against flesh and see the long strips of welts he raised on his skin, which soon split and wept blood.
In addition to the self-flagellation, Cuchulainn growled and shouted, snarled and shrieked.
The only word that could be understood was when he called out to the God of the Sun, Lugh, over and over, between snarling animalistic, subhuman noises.
“Has he gone mad?” asked Tabiti.
“I do not understand this at all,” said Uathach.
“I do.” Scáthach’s voice was sharp. “I need a spear. Quickly!”
Tabiti sprinted down the stone stairs and raced across the practice field to the armory.
“Are you going to put him out of his misery?” her daughter asked as they stared at the snarling warrior whose body was dripping with blood, though he still paced and flogged himself.
“I hope I don’t have to kill him. I would rather not explain to the king of Ulster why I ended the life of his hero instead of training him,” said Scáthach.
Tabiti returned, handing Scáthach a spear. “He’s still at it? Are you going to kill him?”
Scáthach was so focused on watching the warrior that she said nothing, so Uathach responded. “She said she doesn’t want to, but . . .” Uathach shrugged.
“Well, he does appear out of his mind,” said Tabiti. “Better to put a mad dog down than to—”
She went silent as Cuchulainn stopped pacing and stalked to the bridge.
He was a scarlet nightmare. His body dripped with fresh blood from countless long, angry welts.
His face, which had been so beautiful only moments before, had turned a horrid purple-red and was wet with sweat, spittle, and snot.
His golden eyes were awash in red and bulged from his florid face.
His hair was matted with sweat and blood.
He’d grown several inches. His muscles bulged and flexed.
He more closely resembled a monster than a man.
Facing the Bridge of Leaps, he roared and then, head down like a charging bull, Cuchulainn attacked the bridge.
He climbed it with such speed and force that he caused it to quake, sending stone and mortar into the seething water below.
It did not matter that the bridge bucked and shook.
Cuchulainn utterly defeated it. He thundered from the center arch down, landing on the opposite side without so much as a misstep.
But he didn’t stop with that victory. Still roaring, he raced up the stone stairs that led to Dunscáith’s thick door, where he pounded his fists against the wood and shouted in a voice that was barely human.
“Bridge conquered! Demand enter! Scáthach! Queen of Shadow! Bridge conquered!”
“He attacks us!” Tabiti said, unsheathing the sword at her side.
Scáthach put her hand on her gatekeeper’s shoulder. “He has conjured a berserker rage.”
“That young fool! What was he thinking?” Tabiti’s lip curled in disgust as she shook her head.
The berserker pounded on the door again with such force he split the wood as he thundered her name, “Scáthach! Scáthach!” It was obvious that with his next strike he would shatter the door, and his red rage would be loosed upon the castle.
Scáthach didn’t have to look to know the sounds of booted feet rushing down from the battlements were her Shadow Guard as they hurried to meet the threat to Dunscáith.
“Tabiti, Uathach, keep everyone back. I’ll deal with Cuchulainn.” Holding the spear tightly in one hand, Scáthach leaped from the sentry platform and landed just a few feet from the snarling warrior.
At first Cuchulainn didn’t notice her. He lifted his hammer-like fists to pound through the wood.
“Do not break my door.” Scáthach didn’t raise her voice, but she punctuated her command by using the blunt end of her spear to whack him on his ass.
Cuchulainn spun around, roaring his anger at her. He moved so fast that any warrior but the Queen of Shadow would have been easily caught by him and broken by his superhuman strength.
As if made of shadow, Scáthach glided aside, and when he charged past her, she whacked him on the ass again.
Then, matching his speed, she pursued Cuchulainn.
“I said, do not break my door.” With every word, Scáthach spun and used the blunted spear end to strike him.
She did not raise her voice. She didn’t even seem angry.
Her breath was steady—her body relaxed. The grace and speed with which she moved made it appear as if she danced with a madman.
She was ice to his fire. Each time the blunted spear hit him, Cuchulainn deflated, and Scáthach kept talking to him, speaking in a voice that was soft and calm.
“You’re being impolite and that is something I do not tolerate in my students. ”
“Scáthach!” He roared and charged her again.
Scáthach ducked and spun as she whirled her spear in a low arch.
It collided with the back of Cuchulainn’s knees with such force the warrior was knocked off balance and fell forward.
Scáthach pressed her attack. She stood on his back, pinned him to the ground, and twirled the spear so that the deadly iron point rested against the base of his neck where it would only take one simple thrust to end Cuchulainn.
“Do not move,” Scáthach said softly.
Cuchulainn’s body went rigid, but still he growled and snarled his rage.
“You should breathe with me, Cuchulainn,” Scáthach said. “I would rather not return your body to Ulster lifeless and untrained, though I will if you do not regain control over yourself.”
“Get off ! Fight me!” he snarled, but held himself very still.