A grateful smile curved the half of Godtan’s mouth that was left, and his eye drifted shut as if the effort of keeping it open were too great.
Grinding his teeth, Eldran stalked from the building, slapping the door open so that it banged against the wallstones. His eyes were the gray of forged iron, hard and cold from the quenching, and when he confronted Boudanecea his fists were clenched till the nails dug into his palms in an effort to control his anger.
“Will you tell me now?” he grated.
“The beast of fire,” she began, but he cut her off.
“A tale for children! Tell me what happened!”
She shook a fist under his nose, and her fury blazed back at him as strongly as his own. “How think you Godtan took his burns? Think, man! A tale for children, you call it. Ha! For all the breadth of your shoulders I’ve alway had trouble thinking of you as a man grown, for I helped your mother birth you, and wrapped your first swaddling cloths about you with these hands. Now you bring my doubts home again. I know you have the fierce heart of a man. Have you the brain as well?”
Despite his chill rage Eldran was taken aback. He had known Boudanecea since his childhood, and never had he seen her lose her temper. “But, Godtan … I thought … he’s mad.”
“Aye, he’s mad, and as well he is. All the way from the Kezankians he came, like that, seeking to tell us the fate of his companions, seeking the help of his people. Seeking my help. But none of my spells or potions can help him. The greenrot had set in too deeply by the time I saw him. Only a necromancer could help him now.” She touched the golden sickle at her belt to ward off the evil of the thought, and he made the sign of the sickle.
“So the … the devil beast came,” Eldran said.
Her long hair swayed as she nodded. ‘‘While you were in the west. First one farmstead was burned, all of the building, and only gnawed fragments of people or cattle left. Men made up stories to settle their minds, of a fire that killed the family and the animals, of wolves getting at the remains when the fire burned down. But then a second farmstead was destroyed, and a third, and a fourth, and … .” She to
ok a long breath. “Twenty-three, in all, and all at night. Seven on the last night alone. After that the hotheads took matters into their own hands. Aelfric. Godtan. Your brother. A score of others. They talked like you when I spoke of the beast of fire after the first farmstead. A tale for children. Then they found spoor, tracks. But they still would not believe me when I said no weapon forged by the hands of ordinary men could harm the creature. They made their plans in secret, and sneaked from the village before dawn to avoid my eye.”
“If no weapon forged by man … .” Eldran’s hands worked futilely.”Boudanecea, I will not let it rest. The hillmen must pay for my brother, and the beast must be slain. Wiccana aid me, it must! Not only for revenge, but to stop it coming again.”
“Aye.” The priestess breathed the word. “Wait here.” In what would have been hurry for one without her stately dignity, she disappeared into her house. When she returned she was followed by a plump acolyte with merry brown eyes. The acolyte carried a flat, red-lacquered chest atop which were neatly folded white cloths and a pitcher of white-glazed pottery. “From this moment,” Boudanecea told him, “you must do exactly as you are told, and no more. For your life, Eldran, and your sanity, heed. Now, come.”
They formed a procession then, the priestess leading and the acolyte following behind Eldran. The women marched with a measured tread, and he found himself falling into it as if an invisible drum beat the steps.
The hair of the back of his neck stirred as he realized where they were taking him. The Sacred Grove of Wiccana, eldest of the sacred groves of Brythunia, where the boles of the youngest oaks were as thick and as tall as the largest elsewhere in the forest. Only the priestesses and acolytes went to the sacred groves now, though once, countless centuries in the past, men had made that journey. As sacrifices to the goddess. The thought did not comfort Eldran.
Limbs as thick as a man’s body wove a canopy above their heads, and the decaying leaves of the past season rustled beneath their feet. Abruptly a clearing appeared before them, where a broad, low grassy mound lay bare to the sky. A rough slab of granite, as long and as wide as the height of a man, lay partially buried in the side of the mound before them.
“Attempt to move the stone,” Boudanecea commanded.
Eldran stared at her. He was head and shoulders taller than most men of the village, well muscled and with broad shoulders, but he knew the weight was beyond him. Then, remembering her first instructions, he obeyed. Squatting beside the great stone, he tried to dig down with his hands to find the lower edge. The first handfuls moved easily, but abruptly the dirt took on the consistency of rock. It looked no different than before, yet his nails could not scratch it. Giving up on that, he threw his weight against the side of the slab, attempting to lever it over. Every sinew of him strained, and sweat ran in rivulets down his face and body, but the granite seemed a fixed part of the mound. It did not stir.
“Enough,” Boudanecea said. “Come and kneel here.” She indicated a spot before the slab.
The acolyte had laid open the top of the chest, revealing stoppered vials and bowls of a glaze that seemed the exact green of mistletoe. Boudanecea firmly turned Eldran’s back to the plump woman and made him kneel. From the white pitcher she poured clear water over his hands, and wiped them with soft white cloths. Other cloths were dampened and used to wipe sweat from his face.
As she cleansed his face and hands the graying priestess spoke. “No man or woman can move that stone, nor enter that mound save with Wiccana’s aid. With her aid … .”
The acolyte appeared at her side, holding a small green bowl. With her golden sickle Boudacenea cut a lock of Eldran’s hair. He shivered as she dropped it into the bowl. Taking each of his hands in turn, she pricked the balls of his thumbs with the point of the sickle and squeezed a few drops of his blood on top of the hair. The acolyte and bowl hurried from his view again.
Boudanecea’s eyes held his. He could hear the plump woman clinking vials, murmuring incantations, but he could not look away from the priestess’ face. Then the acolyte was back, and Boudanecea took from her the bowl and a long sprig of mistletoe, which she dipped into the bowl.
Head back, the priestess began to chant. The words she spoke were no words Eldran had ever heard before, but the power of them chilled him to the bone. The air about him became icy and still. A thrill of terror went through him as he held out his hands, palms up, without instruction. It was as if he suddenly had known that he must do it. Mistletoe slapped his hands, and terror was replaced by a feeling of wholeness and wellbeing greater than any he had ever known before. Boudanecea chanted on, her paean rising in tone. The dampened sprig of mistletoe struck one cheek, then the other. Abruptly his body seemed to have no weight; he felt as if he might drift on the lightest breeze.
Boudanecea’s voice stilled. Eldran wavered, then staggered to his feet. The peculiar sense of lightness remained with him.
‘‘Go to the stone.” Boudanecea’s voice hung like chimes in the crystallized air.”Move the stone aside.”
Silently Eldran moved to the slab. It had not changed that he could see, and rather than feeling stronger, he seemed to have no strength at all. Still the compulsion of her words was on him. Bending beside the stone, he fitted his hands to it, heaved … and his mouth fell open as the stone rose like a feather, pivoted on its further edge, and fell soundlessly. He stared at the stone, at his hands, at the sloping passage revealed in the side of the mound, at Boudanecea.
‘‘Go down,” she told him. Tension froze her face, and insistence made her words ring more loudly. ‘‘Go down, and bring back what you find.”
Taking a deep breath, Eldran stumbled down the slanting, dirt-floored passage. No dust rose beneath his feet. Broad, long slabs of stone had been carefully laid for walls and roof to the passage, their crude work showing their age. Quickly the passage widened into a round chamber, some ten paces across, walled and roofed in the same gray stone as the way down. There were no lamps, but a soft light permeated the room. Nor were there the cobwebs and dust he had expected. A smell of freshly grown green things hung in the air, a smell of spring.
There could be no doubt as to what he was to bring up, for the chamber was bare save for a simple pedestal of pale stone, atop which rested a sword of ancient design. Its broad blade gleamed brightly, as if it had just come, newly made and freshly oiled, from the smith’s hand. The bronze hilt was wrapped with leather that could have have been tanned that season. Its quillons ended in claws that seemed designed to hold something, but they were empty now.