Stonehenge - Bernard Cornwell

Derrewyn was already across the hut. She went to the pile of furs that was Lengar's bed, hauled the pelts aside and began scraping at the soil with the bloody blade. She tore the earth open, delving down until the knife struck leather and then she scrabbled the soil clear and hauled the bag into the firelight.

Inside the bag was one of Sarmennyn's great lozenges and two of their small ones. She had hoped all the gold might be there, but Lengar must have divided the treasure and hidden the other pieces elsewhere in the hut. For a moment she considered tearing the hut apart, upsetting the pelts and scratching at the earth, but these three pieces, surely, would be enough.

She dressed in one of Lengar's tunics, tied leather shoes onto her feet and seized Lengar's precious bronze sword which hung from one of the hut's poles. She took the bag with the three gold pieces and went to the hut's door where she paused. It was still not quite dark, but she could see no one and so she gathered the folds of the tunic and ducked under the lintel.

There were spearmen guarding both the causeways that led through Ratharryn's great embankment, so Derrewyn ran to the ditch halfway between the entrances. There had been rain that summer and the bottom of the ditch was marshy, but she splashed through and then climbed the vast bank. She went slowly so she would meld with the shadows and either the gate guards did not see her or else Lahanna was looking after Derrewyn this night for she reached the embankment's crest undetected. She stopped there for a moment and turned to see that the sun was glinting brilliant through a slit in the dark clouds that otherwise obscured the south-western horizon. The tribe was dancing around the temple poles, while far off, up on the higher land, the new Sky Temple stood deserted again.

She hissed at the sun like a cat. Lengar worshipped Slaol, so Slaol was Derrewyn's enemy, and she crouched above the skulls that topped the embankment and spat at the sun that had turned all the bruised clouds red and gold. Then, quite suddenly, his brightness vanished.

And Derrewyn vanished with him. She slid down the outer bank and through the dark trees until she reached the river where she turned northwards, and as she passed the island where she had first lain with Saban she remembered him, but there was no trace of fondness in the memory. Fondness had been banished from her, along with kindness and laughter and pity, all washed from her by tears. She had become Cathallo's whore and now she would work Cathallo's revenge.

The short midsummer night fell and still she went north.

Later, much later, she heard the hounds baying behind her, but she had taken to the river and hounds cannot follow a spirit across water so Derrewyn knew she was free. She still had to slip past the spearmen who garrisoned Maden and cross the swamps, but she felt confident and strong because Lahanna was shining above her and in her hand she held some of the precious power of the sun god that she would give to Lahanna.

She had escaped, she carried Lengar's child, and now she would make war.

—«»—«»—«»—

In Sarmennyn it began to rain in the afternoon. The wind was rising, the rain fell heavier and beyond the trellis of branches Saban could see that the sky had become a turbulent grey shot through with black. The wind was flicking the thatch from the huts and the rain began to flood the pit.

When the first thunder sounded Saban put his head back and cried to the god of thunder and then he scrabbled at the dripping wet sides of the pit until he had prised out a sharp-edged stone that he used to make a step in the soil. He hacked a second step, a third, and then tried to climb the steps, but his bare feet slipped on the wet soil and he constantly fell back into the rising water.

He sobbed with frustration, found the stone again and tried to enlarge the steps. The water had risen to his ankles. Rain was thrashing on the trellis and dripping onto his face, the wind was a constant howl and the noise was so loud that he did not hear the splintering as the trellis was lifted clean away from the pit. He only knew he was rescued when a wet cloak was lowered to him and Haragg's voice shouted at him to take hold.

Saban saw Haragg and Cagan in the gloom above him. He gripped the cloak and Cagan lifted him like a child, swinging him up and out of the pit so that he sprawled on the grass. He lay there, wet and shaking, staring into the eye of the storm that had come from the sea to batter and thrash the coast. The trees tossed in the screeching gale while whole armloads of thatch were being torn from the huts and blown beyond the river. There was no sign of the men left to guard Saban.

'We must go,' Haragg said, lifting Saban from the grass, but Saban shook off the trader's hand. Instead he went to Kereval's hut and pushed past the curtain, half expecting to find his guards inside, but the hut was empty and he dried himself by rolling on a great pelt, then pulled on a deerskin tunic.

Haragg had followed him into the hut. 'We must go,' he said again.

'Go where?'

'Far off. There is madness here. We must get you away from Scathel.'

'This is Erek's madness,' Saban said as he helped himself to boots and a cloak and one of Kereval's bronze-bladed spears. 'We must go to the Sea Temple,' he told Haragg.

'To see her die?' Haragg asked.

'To see what sign Erek is sending,' Saban said, and he pushed past the leather curtain into the howling rain. One of the spearmen was now out in the settlement's centre where he was peering into the empty pit. As he turned to shout to his fellow guard he saw Saban and ran at him with his spear levelled. 'You must go into the hole!' he shouted, though his words were snatched away in the wind's fury.

Saban hefted his spear. The guard shook his head, as though to indicate that he had no intention of stabbing Saban, but merely wanted him to go voluntarily to Scathel's pit. Instead Saban began walking to the gate and the guard lunged to head him off and Saban knocked the spear aside. Suddenly he was overcome by all the frustrations of the last few weeks, by the helplessness of watching Aurenna go so placidly to her death, and he drove his own spear back at the guard like a swinging axe so that the blade sliced across the guard's face. Blood started into the wind and was whipped away in a red spray, and Saban, screaming hate, plunged the spear into the man's belly and went on thrusting so that the guard fell back into the mud and Saban had to put his booted foot onto the dying man's belly to tug the blade free.

Then he ran, and Haragg and Cagan followed him.

Saban was not running for fear of the dying man's spirit, but because the long day was already close to dark, though he guessed that darkness was brought by the storm clouds rather than by Slaol's setting. And this, he reckoned, was a storm like that which had brought the gold to Ratharryn, a storm caused by a war among the gods. Saban staggered in the wind's hard blast. The cloak was almost torn from him, flapping at his shoulders like a monstrous bat's wing and he untied the lace at his throat and watched the leather whip away across a land running with water. He struggled on into the rain, near blinded and deafened by the wind.

He came to the hills above the sea and he watched in awe as the ocean tried to break the land to pieces. The waves were ragged, white-crested and large as hills, and their spray burst on rocks then leapt to the black clouds before flying inland on the gale. On Saban went with his head down, stung by salt, buffeting into the wind, and the sky seemed darker than ever. Haragg and Cagan walked with him. There would surely be no last sight of Slaol this day, and perhaps, Saban thought, there would be no sight of Slaol ever again. Perhaps this was the world's ending, and he cried aloud for that thought.

A stab of lightning hissed to the far sea, making all the world white and black, and then a crash of thunder sounded overhead and Saban whimpered in fear of the gods. He was climbing a low hill and another jagged bolt tore from the sky as he reached the crest and in its wicked light he saw the Sea Temple beneath him. At first he thought it was deserted, but then he saw that the crowd of folk had scattered into the fields where they huddled for shelter in tumbled rocks. Only a few men were still in the temple circle and their presence drove Saban on. Haragg and Cagan stayed on the hill crest, sheltering among its boulders.

A great sea tore itself into oblivion at the foot of the cliff and the spray whipped over the cliff's summit to drench the temple stones. On the ledge just below the cliff top, where there should have been a raging fire, there was nothing but wisps of steam or smoke. Priests and spearmen crouched in the stone ring and, as Saban ran closer, he saw Aurenna's white robe among them.

She still lived.

Spearmen carried wood to the cliff's edge and dropped the damp timber on to the failing fire. Scathel was standing and shouting, his robe stripped of its feathers by the wind's rage, and if he saw Saban's arrival he took no notice. Kereval looked aghast, fearing what this omen meant.

Camaban saw Saban, and it was then that Camaban performed the rites. He dragged Aurenna to the beginning of the avenue that led to the fire and he drew a knife from his belt and cut off the pieces of gold that Kereval had bought to replace the lost treasures of Erek. Aurenna seemed in a trance. Scathel pushed against the wind to bellow a protest at Camaban, but Camaban shouted back and it was Scathel who stepped away, and then Saban was beside his brother. 'She must go to the fire!' Camaban shouted.

'There is no fire!'

'She must go to the fire, fool!' Camaban shouted, and he seized the neck of Aurenna's drenched white robe and slashed at it with his knife.

Saban grabbed his brother's hand to stop him, but Camaban shook him off. 'This is how it is done!' Camaban called above the seething fury of the gale. 'And it must be done properly! Don't you understand? It must be done properly!'

And suddenly Saban did understand. Aurenna must do her duty and walk to the fire, and if there was no fire then that was not of her doing. So Saban stepped away and watched as his brother slit down Aurenna's long robe. The heavy wool flapped wildly as it was cut away and then Camaban tugged at the soaking cloth and tugged again so that it fell to Aurenna's feet and she was naked.

She was naked because that was how a bride went to her husband and now was the time for Aurenna to go to Slaol. Camaban shrieked at her, 'Walk! Walk!' And Aurenna did walk, though it was hard because the elements were fighting against her slender body, but still, and still as if in a trance, she forced herself forward, and Camaban followed a pace behind, urging her on as the horrified priests watched from the temple's stone ring.

Some smoke or steam still came over the cliff top to be snatched into instant nothingness. Saban walked alongside Aurenna, but keeping outside the stones marking the sacred avenue, and the wind seemed fiercer still as she neared the edge. Her feet slipped on the wet turf, her soaked hair streamed behind her, but she obediently bent forward and thrust into the storm. 'Go on!' Camaban screamed at her. 'Go on!'

At the cliff's edge Saban saw that there was still a remnant of fire lurking in the timber. The pile of wood had been huge, and it would have been lit at midday and fed with fuel so that the heat grew ever more intense, but the wind and spray and rain had cowed the fire, had beaten it down and reduced it to wet, black and charred logs, but at its heart, deep down, some embers still fought against the tempest.

'There!' Camaban shouted exultantly. 'There!' And Saban and Aurenna both lifted their heads to see that the south-western horizon was not all black, but was slit with one small wound of red. The sun god was there. He was watching and his blood was showing against the clouds. 'Now jump!' Camaban screamed at Aurenna.

A hammer of thunder deafened the world. Lightning flickered along the cliffs. 'Jump!' Camaban shouted again, and Aurenna screamed with fear or perhaps with triumph as she stepped off the cliff's edge to fall among the rain-and sea-soaked remnants of the fire. She staggered as she landed, her balance upset by the gale and the black timbers that shattered under her feet, and then she fell against the cliff face and Saban saw a last eddy of smoke and suddenly there was no fire. Aurenna had done as she was supposed to do, and the god had rejected her.

Saban jumped down to the ledge. He pulled off his tunic and forced it over Aurenna's head. She seemed incapable of raising her arms and so he dragged the tunic down her body to cover her from the rain. It was then she looked up into his face and he put his bare arms around her and held her tight, and she, exhausted, sobbed on his shoulder above the storm-flayed sea.

But she lived. She had done what she was supposed to do, and disaster had come to Sarmennyn.

—«»—«»—«»—

The tempest began to lose its force. The sea still pounded on the cliffs and shattered white into the darkening air, but the storm settled into mere gusts, and the rain fell instead of flew.

Saban helped Aurenna to the cliff top. She had pushed her arms into the tunic's sleeves and now clung to him as if in a dream. 'She walked!' Camaban was shouting at the priests.

Haragg had come down from the hill and he added his voice to Camaban's. 'She walked!'

Kereval looked heartbroken. The fate of the sun bride was reckoned to foretell the tribe's fortune in the coming year and no one had ever seen a bride walk to the fire, then walk away.

Scathel shrieked in agony and in his fury he seized a spear from one of the warriors and advanced on Camaban. 'It was you!' he shouted. 'It was your doing! You brought the storm! You were seen in Malkin's shrine last night! You brought the storm!' With that a dozen of the warriors joined the high priest and advanced on Camaban with murder in their faces.

Saban had dropped his spear to help Aurenna and now she clung to him so he could do nothing to save his brother — but Camaban needed no help.

He simply lifted one hand.

In the hand was a golden lozenge. The large lozenge that had come from Sannas's hut.

Scathel stopped. He stared at the scrap of gold, then held up a hand to stop the spearmen.

'You want me to throw the treasure into the sea?' Camaban asked. He opened his other hand to show eleven of the small lozenges. 'I don't mind!' He laughed suddenly, a mad laughter. 'What is Erek's gold to me? What is it to you?' he asked in a shriek. 'You let it go, Scathel! You could not even guard your treasures! So let it go again! Give it back to the sea.' And he turned and made as if to hurl the treasures into the lessening wind.

'No!' Scathel pleaded.

Camaban turned back. 'Why not? You lost it, Scathel! You miserable piece of dried-up lizard dung, you lost Erek's gold! And I have brought some back.' He held the scraps of gold high in the air. 'I am a sorcerer, Scathel of Sarmennyn,' he said in a strong voice, 'I am a sorcerer and you are dirt beneath my feet. I made the spirits of the air and the spirits of the wind travel to Cathallo to rescue this gold, gold which has come to Sarmennyn even though you would break the agreement your chief made with my brother. You, Scathel of Sarmennyn, you have defied Erek! He wants his temple moved and his glory restored, and what does Scathel of Sarmennyn do? He stands in the god's way like a drooling hog before a stag. You oppose Erek! So why should I give you this gold that Erek took from you? It will go to the sea.' He stood on the cliff above the broken fire and once again threatened to hurl the gold into the seething waves.