Stones Of Power - The Last Sword Of Power Part 26

'I hope you will find I do not exaggerate, lord.' Ustread clapped his hands and two soldiers entered, holding a girl between them.

'A woman? What use is that here? I can ..." Wotan stopped as he recognised the princess.

'Andu-ine? How?' He walked forward, waving away the guards and she stood silently before him.

'What happened to you, princess?'

'Your men killed me. I was in the mountains of the Caledones and they stabbed me.'

'They will pay. Oh, how they will pay!'

'I do not wish them to pay. What I wish is to be released. I am no longer of value to you; there is nothing left to sacrifice.'

'You misunderstood me, Anduine. You were never for sacrifice. Come with me.'

'Where?'

'To a private place, where no harm will come to you.' He smiled. 'In fact, quite the reverse.'

The child screamed in the night and Galead awoke instantly. Rising from his blankets by the dying fire he went to her, lifting her to his arms. 'I am here, little one. Have no fear.'

'Mudder tod,' she said, repeating the words over and over. Asia's wife crossed the hall, a blanket round her shoulders. Kneeling by the bedside, she spoke to the child for some minutes in a language unknown to the Merovingian. The girl's face was bathed in sweat and the woman wiped it clear as Galead laid her down once more. Her tiny hands gripped the front of Galead's tunic, her eyes fearful. 'Voder! Vader!'

'I won't leave you,' he said. 'I promise.' Her eyes closed and she slept.

'You are a gentle man; very rare for a warrior,' said the woman. She stood and moved to the fire, adding wood and fanning the blaze to life. Galead joined her and they sat together in the new warmth.

'Children like me,' he said. 'It is a good feeling.'

'My name is Karyl.'

'Galead,' he replied. 'Have you lived here long?'

'I came from Raetia eight years ago when Asta paid my father. It is a good land, though I miss the mountains. What will you do with the child?'

'Do?' I thought to leave her here, where she will be looked after.'

Karyl gave a soft, sad smile. 'You told her you would not leave her. She believed you and she is much troubled. No child should suffer the torment she has endured.'

'But I cannot look after her. I am a warrior, in the midst of a war.'

Karyl ran her hands through her thick, dark hair; her face in profile was not pretty, but there was a strength that made her a handsome woman.

'You have the Sight, have you not, Galead?' she whispered, and a s.h.i.+ver touched him.

'Sometimes,' he admitted.

'As do I. The men here were going to join the Goths, but I bade Asta wait, for the signs were strange. Then you came; a man who wears a face that is not his own, but who cares for a Saxon child. I know you are an Uther-man, but I have not told Asta. Do you know why?'

'No.'

'Because Asta will also be an Uther-man before this is over. He is a good man, my husband; a strong man. And these Goths are seduced by evil. Asta will summon the Fyrrd when he learns that what you said is true. And the Saxon warriors will rise.'

"There are no swords,' said Galead. 'Uther forbade any Saxon to bear arms.'

'What is a sword? A cutting tool. We Saxons are an ingenious people and our warriors now are skilled in the use of the axe. They will rise - and aid the Blood King.'

'You think we can win?'

She shrugged. 'I do not know. But you, Galead, you have a part to play in the drama . . .

and it will not be with a sword.'

'Speak plainly, Karyl. I was never good at riddles.'

Take the child with you. There is a woman you must meet: a cold, hard woman. She is the gateway.'

"The gateway to what?'

'As to that, I can help you no further. The child's name is Lectra, though her mother called her Lekky.'

'Where can I take her? You must know somewhere.'

'Take her to your heart, warrior. She is now your daughter, and that is how she sees you - as her father. Her mother's husband went to Raetia to serve Wotan while she was still pregnant and Lekky has waited long years to see him. In her tortured mind you are that man, come home to look after her. Without you, I do not think she will survive.'

'How do you know all this?'

'I know because I touched her, and you know I do not lie.'

'What was she saying when she woke?'

'Mudder tod? Mother dead.'

'And Voder? Father?'

Karyl nodded. 'Give me your hand.'

'Then you would know all my secrets.'

'Does that frighten you?'

'No,' he said, stretching out his arm, 'but it will lessen me in your eyes.'

She took his hand, sat silently for several moments and then released it.

'Sleep well Galead,' she said, rising.

'And you, lady.'

'I will sleep better now,' she told him, smiling. He watched her walk back to the far end of the hall and vanish into the shadows of the rooms beyond. Lekky whimpered in her sleep and Galead took his blanket and lay down alongside her. She opened her eyes and cuddled into him.

'I am here, Lekky.'

'Vader?'

'Voder,' he agreed.

Goroien was alone in her mirrorless room, her mind floating back to the days of love and glory. Culain had been more than a lover, more than a friend. She remembered her father forbidding her to see the young warrior, and how she had trembled when he told her he had ordered his young men to hunt him down and kill him. Thirty of her father's finest trackers had set off into the mountains in the Autumn. Only eighteen returned; they said they had cornered him in a deep canyon, and then the snows had blocked the pa.s.ses - and no man could live in that icy wilderness for long.

Believing her lover dead, Goroien had refused all food. Her father had threatened her, whipped her, but he could not defeat her. Slowly she lost her strength and death was very close on that midwinter night.

Semi-delirious and bed-ridden, she had not seen the drama that followed.

During the Feast of Midwinter the great door had opened and Culain lach Feragh had strode down the centre of the hall to stand before the Thane.

'I have come for your daughter,' he said, ice clinging to his dark beard.

Several men had leapt to their feet with swords ready, but the Thane waved them back.

'What makes you believe you can leave here alive?' the Thane asked.

Culain had stared around the long tables at the fighting men; then he laughed, and his contempt stung them all.

'What makes you think I could not?' he countered. An angry roar greeted the challenge, but once more the Thane quelled it.

'Follow me,' he said, leading the warrior to where Goroien lay. Culain knelt by the bedside, taking her hand, and she had heard his voice.

'Do not leave me, Goroien. I am here; I will always be here.'

And she had recovered, and they were wed. But that was in the days before the Fall of Atlantis, before the Sipstra.s.si made them G.o.ds. And in the centuries that followed each had taken many lovers, though always returning at the last to the sanctuary of each other's arms.

What had changed them, she wondered? Was it the power, or the immortality? She had borne Culain a son, though he never knew it, and Gilgamesh had inherited almost all of his father's skill with weapons. Unfortunately, he also inherited his mother's arrogance and amorality.

Now Goroien's thoughts turned to the last years. Of all obscenities, she had brought Gilgamesh back from the dead and taken him for her lover. In doing so she had doomed herself, for Gilgamesh suffered a rare disease of the blood that even Sipstra.s.si could not cure. And her immortality could no longer be a.s.sured by Sipstra.s.si alone. Blood and death kept her in the world of the flesh. In that period, as she had told Cormac, she had grown to hate Culain, killing his second wife and his daughter.

But at the very end, when Culain lay dying after his battle with Gilgamesh, she had given her own life to save him - dooming herself to this limitless h.e.l.l.

Now her choice was simple. Did she aid Cormac or destroy him? All that formed the intellect of the former Witch Queen screamed at her to destroy this boy who was the seed of Uther who in turn was the seed of Culain through his daughter Alaida. The seed of her destruction! But her heart went out to the young man who had walked into the Void for the woman he loved. Culain would have done that.

For Goroien . . .

What had the boy said? A chance to return to the flesh? Did he think that would attract her? How could he know it was the last gift she would consider?

Gilgamesh entered and removed his helm. His face was scaled and reptilian; gone was the beauty he had known in life.

'Let me have the boy,' he said. 'I yearn for his life.'

'No. You will not have him, Gilgamesh. We will journey together to the Keep and then we will storm it. You will fight alongside Cormac and, regardless of the danger to yourself, you will keep him alive.'

'No!'

'If you love me - if you ever loved me - you will obey me now.'

'Why, Mother?'

She shrugged and turned away. 'There are no answers.'

'And when we have taken the Keep? If indeed we can.'

'Then we will free Uther also.'

'In return for what?'

'In return for nothing. That is the prize, Gilga-mesh: Nothing. And I cannot think of anything I would rather have.'

'You make no sense/ 'Did you ever love me?'

He lifted his helm, his head bowing. 'I loved nothing else,' he said simply. 'Not life, not combat.

'And will you do this for me?'

'You know I will do whatever you ask.'

'Once I was a queen among the G.o.ds,' she said. 'I was beautiful and men thought me wise. I stood with Culain at Babel and we brought down Molech and believed we had defeated a great evil, and men said they would sing of me throughout the ages. I wonder if they still do.'

Gilgamesh replaced his helm and backed from the room.

Goroien did not see him go. She was remembering that fine Spring day when she and Culain had wed by the Great Oak, when the world was young and the future limited.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

For five days the dwindling force of Germinus Cato's two legions had withstood the ferocious charges of the Goths, retreating under cover of darkness and taking up fresh positions further back along the road to Eborac.u.m. The men were weary to the point of exhaustion and Cato called his commanders to a meeting on the fifth night.

'Now,' he told them, 'is the time for courage. Now we attack.'

'Insanity!' said Decius, his disbelief total. 'Now is the time to retreat. We have less than six thousand men, some of whom are too tired to lift their s.h.i.+elds.'

'And to where shall we retreat? Eborac.u.m? It is indefensible. Further north to Vinovia?

There we will meet a second army of Goths. No. Tonight we strike!'

'I will not be party to this!' said Decius.