Chapter 20 #2
He did not think it would ever be his now.
He was still too far from his men to do more than scream when the calvary crashed into the front lines of the soldiers of éire, to watch in horror and grief as they fell beneath the flashing swords, like sheaves of wheat under the silver arc of the scythe, men he had known, with whom he had talked and laughed and sang, who had hours before stood with their fists over their hearts and pledged their faith in him, their loyalty to him, and here he stood, helpless to stop them dying before him in droves, in waves of endless blood and unimagined pain.
The Albion foot-soldiers streamed past him in a cataract of blue-and-gold, ignoring him completely, their long legs overtaking his shorter, weaker ones, and he stumbled to his knees as they shoved at his back, pushing him to the ground in their frenzied rush past him, and he cried out again, hoarse and strident, as the second wave of Albion swords sliced through his friends and his companions, all the souls he had sworn to protect and to save, slaughtered right in front of his wretched, helpless eyes.
Through the white-hot tears in his eyes, he saw them fall, one by one – Aden first, cut down by two soldiers on horseback, a stab to his chest and a slash to his face, and then Deaglan too, a spear imbedded deep in his gut, his face ravaged with agony and blood, and then –
Niall screamed again, shrill and drawn-out, as an Albion soldier twisted his fist into the long black hair of his older sister, dragging her forward, her heels thudding against the blood-soaked earth, stabbing at him furiously, blindly with the hunting knife in her hand.
Eilis, who had taught him how to write his name, how to sound out, slow and sure, the words on a page, how to whistle with his fingers.
Eilis, who now fell, limp and lifeless, to the earth, a deep gash of scarlet and black blooming across her throat.
Somehow, he was on his feet again, pushing and shoving through the tangle of sweating, fighting bodies, gagging on the scent of blood and gore, the stink of corruption, of death rising from all corners of the battlefield.
He remembered, as he sliced and chopped haphazardly with his sword, at anything clad in blue-and-gold, desperate to be of some use, any use before he died, a story he’d read as a boy – demonic shadow-creatures who fed upon the despair and the pain of battlefields, shrieking and swooping through the skies, twisted, goatish beasts with an ear-piercing squeal that brought any who heard it to their knees, racked with an unseen, unbearable pain.
The bocánach, the blood-goblins, he thought wildly as he parried a backhanded stroke from a gore-splattered soldier before cutting him off at the knees, confined long ago to the sídhe, never to mingle with mortals again.
He wished for them now, wished for any manner of monster that might lurk in the unseen realms of the gone gods, to die at the fangs and the claws of some supernatural beast like a hero of yore – anything other than this death, bleeding out from half-a-dozen ignominious wounds, trampled in the mud, the doom of his motherland weighing heavy and unforgiving on his shoulders.
He saw a familiar set of shoulders, a flash of scarlet – Mac Duinn, the king of Ulaid. “Mac,” he yelled, fighting his way through the teeming, screaming bodies towards where the king wielded his battle-axes, one in each hand, spittle flying as he roared. “Mac Duinn –”
A spearhead splintered through the great warrior-king’s right thigh just as an arrow pierced his shoulder, and with a thunderous bellow, Mac Duinn tumbled forward, crashing face-down into the mud, still and unmoving, his bloodied axes beneath his body.
Niall sucked in a panicked breath, spinning around wildly, sword gripped in his shaking hands, his palms slick with sweat underneath the thick leather of his gloves.
“Little prince.”
It was a taunting whisper against the back of his neck, the lilting, venomous voice of the witch, and he spun again, stumbling forward over a whimpering soldier, his torso severed almost in two.
Behind him, a stone’s throw apart, stood two men – one clad in bright green, a bloodied cutlass clutched in each of his hands, with flinty hazel eyes and the other, ruddy-cheeked and grinning sickeningly, viciously, a metal-mace dangling his from meaty arm.
“Niall ó Flannagáin,” said the green-clad man. “I shall enjoy this, very much.”
Niall stepped backwards, tripping again over the no-longer moaning man, gone motionless and quiet on the blood-soaked earth beneath them. “MacMurchada,” he said, stomach churning. “The traitor-king.”
“Better than a stupid king,” said MacMurchada, his crimson-smeared cutlasses gleaming in the light of the still rising sun. “A dead king.”
“That's my specialty,” said the other man. He grinned again, his pointed yellow teeth glinting. “We haven’t met, king of Connacht.”
“You are the Albion general,” said Niall flatly. “Ironstring.”
“You’ve heard of me,” he said. “Good. That makes things more exciting for me. Do you know how I came to lead these armies, boy?”
“I am a king,” Niall said, gripping his sword hilt a little tighter with both hands. “You should address me as such.”
“Not the king of much at all right now,” said Ironstring, circling closer, the lethal points of his mace dangling from the thick chain.
“Have you wondered where the rest of our force might be, oh great and wise king? Sailing into Baile átha Cliath – that’s what she told you, wasn’t it?
” His grin widened, greedy for pain, for grief.
“Do you still believe that, king of fools?”
Niall’s stomach plummeted. He looked so gleeful, the general did, so pleased – it could only mean something terrible for him. “What have you done?”
“Oh, I’ve done nothing – but my dear friend, Arnaud Montrose, well.
That’s another story.” A step closer, the obsidian black mace glinting, a malevolent promise.
“He set sail a few days ago, that much was true – but not for Baile átha Cliath.” His eyes gleamed.
“For Connacht – the port of Loch Lurgain.”
“No,” said Niall through stiff lips. “No, there’s no one there – all the clans, their soldiers – they’re here –”
“Well,” said Ironstring, stalking closer, while MacMurchada moved in from the left. “There’s someone still there, king of fools. Women, children, the feeble and the frail.” He grinned. “I imagine Arnaud and his men will find some use for them. Some sport, rather.”
A primal, helpless rage roared through Niall’s chest, and he flung himself forward, sword raised, straight at the Albion general.
Ironstring glided backwards, surprisingly lithe and graceful on his feet for such a ponderous, older man, whirling his metal-mace in a swift circle, preparing to strike. “Come on then, boy,” he said. “Let me have a bit of fun with you before you die.”
The mace swung out, whistling in the wind, and Niall dropped to one knee and rolled, the spiked metal ball passing a hair’s breadth away from the top of his skull.
He rolled to his feet, breathing unevenly, then flung up his blade to deflect the slashing twin cutlasses of MacMurchada, charging in from the right.
The clash of steel echoed in the crisp morning air, a dull, deadened thwang, the force of the blow reverberating down Niall’s arm.
He ducked away from the vicious swipe of the left cutlass, spinning just in time to avoid the fall of Ironstring’s metal-mace from the right, slicing down his back, shredding the thick wool of his doublet.
He staggered away, panting heavily, frantically adjusting his grip on his sword, as the two men regrouped and recircled him, their steps calculating and slow, two wolves stalking down an injured deer by the mountain stream.
A feral screech, and he looked up to see his kestrel, loyal to the end, descending from the sky in a furious swoop, talons bared, orange eyes wheeling.
“Molly,” he managed to gasp, just once, before she attacked, slashing and clawing at Ironstring’s face, her talons ripping at his skin.
He bellowed once, then let his mace fly, and Niall screamed once more as he watched the metal spikes slam into the soft feathered body of his bird, her wings crumpling in on herself, as she tumbled to the ground, orange eyes glassy and unseeing as she lay broken and bloody in the mud.
“Molly,” he said again, sobs rising in his chest. His falcon, his friend, this last remaining link to his father and his sister and his home –
Ironstring wiped the blood from his face with a vicious swipe of his hand. “I’ll make you pay for that, boy,” and then as one, the two men converged on him with death in their eyes.
They were too much, Niall thought wildly. Too much for him to take on, to defeat – far too mighty together, and even perhaps, a treacherous voice whispered in his ear, too powerful for him to defeat, even if parted, even if he faced them one-on-one, as individuals rather than as a team.
But it didn’t matter.
Rory. Rory would come, any minute now.
Rory would save him.
Tears stung at his eyes, burned at the back of his throat. Stupid, foolish thought, that – a cowardly wish, unworthy of a true king.
The Lia Fáil had been right to ignore him, after all.
“Is it full of despair yet, little prince?” Out of the chaos of the battle still raging all around them, the cailleach appeared before him, startling him, those pale, spider-like hands folded over her distended belly, watching him with ravenously bright eyes.
“Your heart – is it full of despair?” She showed her teeth in the most terrible of smiles.
“It tastes better, you know, when it is void of hope.”
Something green and swift moved to his right, and Niall spun around to fend off the renewed attack from MacMurchada, his vision swamped with tears and dried blood, and on an impulse born of years of sororal sparring, he stepped back, and then feinted left.
He barely registered the sensation of the unforgiving steel as it sliced across his shoulder, almost an afterthought to the other pain radiating through him, the missing of that remembered voice.
It’ll get you killed one day, little brother.
She’d known. Of course she had, She’d always known – that this would be his ending.
Dimly, he realized that he had stumbled to his knees, the rust-red edge of his once-silver blade clattering against the stone-strewn earth beneath him, and it was almost another person, some ethereal entity who lifted his hand and raised it to feel vacantly at the wet stump that once was his other arm.
It came away empty, slick and soaked with blood – the same blood, he realized distantly, pooling all around him.
His gaze flickered for a moment to the sight of his sword, lying forlorn and useless beside him, still clutched in the hand of his severed arm.
Like Cúchulainn, he thought hazily.
Rory had never believed that part of the tale. He wished he could tell her, that it could’ve happened the way it was told in the story, that even after his arm had been cut off, his fingers still gripped the hilt of his great sword, loyal even unto death.
There were so many things that he wanted to tell Rory.
That he missed her, that he was sorry, that he was glad, in spite of everything, to have found her.
That she needed to come home.
He tugged once, a weary resignation enfeebling the fingers that still remained to him, then closed his eyes and wished that he could tell her all those things, and to assure that it was all right, that it didn’t even hurt that much, that it wasn’t her fault, because despite of the years of silence and the distance of resentment that she had put between them, he knew his sister, and the guilt of not being here would crush her.
But nothing happened – no answering call, no swoop of a gray-feathered falcon, no rising of fog and ice and inexorable death for any who had dared threaten him with harm.
As though from a great distance, he felt the sting of a knife-sharp finger underneath his chin, digging into the soft flesh of his jaw, until he had no choice but to let his head fall back and stare up, hazy and pain-ridden, into the sea-swept eyes of the triumphant witch.
“Little prince,” she whispered. “I shall be taking your heart now.”
He closed his eyes as the tip of her knife brushed aside his torn and tattered shirt, pressing against the skin of his chest.
Rory, he thought. Come home.
Then his chest exploded in an inferno of pain, and the sky wheeled above him, blue and bright and endless, and he was gone.