Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

Saban thought that for a man who had been reluctant to give gifts his brother had been remarkably generous. Scathel, for once, looked pleased — indeed he was beaming, for how could the new chief of Drewenna now obstruct the passage of the stones? And the sooner the stones were in Ratharryn the sooner Erek's gold would be returned to Sarmennyn. But Stakis, despite his gratitude for Lengar's gifts, wanted more. He wanted Ratharryn's help in hunting down the man who had been his rival for Drewenna's chieftainship. Melak's son was said to be an outcast in the woods, but he had taken three score of warriors with him, and those men constantly raided Stakis's holdings: 'Bring me Kellan's head in a basket,' Stakis said, 'and you may move every stone in Sarmennyn across my land.'

Haragg sidled across to Jegar and urged him to accept the offer, but Jegar seemed confused. He wanted to know where Kellan was, exactly how many men he had and what were their weapons? And why could Stakis not hunt his rival down?

Stakis explained that he had tried, but Kellan constantly retreated before him into southern Ratharryn. 'If your men come westwards,' he said, 'and mine go eastwards, we shall trap him.'

It seemed a simple enough proposition, yet still Jegar worried at it. How could Stakis be certain that Kellan had not gone south and west to the people of Duran? Had Stakis talked with Duran's chief?

'Of course,' Stakis said, 'and he has not seen Kellan.'

'We have not seen him either,' Jegar claimed. 'We could search for him, but if a man has no wish to be found, then the woods can hide him for ever. My friend, Saban' — here he offered Saban a mocking smile — 'wishes to move the stones soon. Maybe he can bring some this very summer! But if he must wait while we search every tree and beat every bush then the stones will never arrive. Besides, Kellan may be dead!'

'He lives,' Stakis said. 'But it is enough for me,' he conceded, 'that you will agree to hunt Kellan down. Give me that promise, Jegar, and I will allow the stones through my territory.'

'With no further payment?' Jegar asked, leaving the matter of Kellan undecided.

'A man deserves payment for the movement of goods across his land,' Stakis said, turning to Sarmennyn's emissaries. 'You must pay me a piece of bronze sufficient to make one spearhead for every stone you bring into Drewenna, and for every ten stones you will pay me one further spearhead.'

'We will give you a bronze spearhead for every ten stones,' Saban offered. He had no right to speak for Kereval, but he knew Stakis's price was exorbitant. He translated his words to Sarmennyn's chieftain, who nodded his approval.

'How many stones are there?' Stakis asked.

'Ten times seven,' Saban answered, 'and two.'

There were gasps from Drewenna's men. They had thought that perhaps Sarmennyn was giving two or three dozen stones, but not twice that many. 'I shall want a spearhead of bronze for every stone,' Stakis insisted.

'Let me talk to Kereval,' Saban said, then leaned over to the chief and changed to the Outfolk tongue. 'He wants too much.'

'I will give him ten spearheads,' Kereval said, 'no more.' He looked across the circle at the gifts. 'He already has a basket of spearheads! Will all his men be armed with metal spears?'

'For every ten stones,' Saban said to Stakis, 'we shall give you one spearhead. No more.'

Jegar was watching this altercation with amusement. Before Stakis could respond to Saban's offer a horn sounded in the wooded hills just to the north of the meeting place. Stakis frowned at the noise, but Jegar smiled soothingly. 'Lengar is hunting,' he explained.

'No aurochs will be this close to Sul,' Stakis said, staring at the trees.

'It has been driven, perhaps?' Jegar suggested. 'As you wish us to drive Kellan onto your bronze spears?'

'Which you will do?' Stakis asked eagerly. Just then the horn sounded a second time and Jegar leaned forward and plucked the hide cover from the fourth hurdle. This one did not have gifts, but weapons. Men always came to a meeting unarmed, but Ratharryn's warriors now ran forward and picked up spears and bows and suddenly a host of spearmen were running from the trees and the first arrows were whipping overhead to fall among Stakis's men.

'Back!' Jegar shouted at Saban. 'Back to your huts. We have no quarrel with Sarmennyn!' He had thrown off his cloak and Saban saw that a bronze sword was in his crippled right hand. It was lashed there with leather strips, explaining why he had sat so uncomfortably swathed in the otter skin cloak that had hidden the weapon. 'Go back!' Jegar shouted.

Lengar had not been hunting at all, but had met the rest of his spearmen in the forests north of Sul, and now he attacked the unarmed men of Drewenna, and with him was Kellan and his renegade warriors. Stakis had been betrayed, tricked and surprised, and now he would die.

Saban ran to the huts with the rest of Sarmennyn's unarmed warriors. He snatched up his bow and a quiver of arrows, but Kereval put a hand on Saban's arm. 'This is not our fight,' the chief said.

It was no fight at all, but a slaughter. Some of Stakis's men had fled to the river where they tried to launch boats, but a group of Lengar's archers assailed them from higher up the bank and those men only stopped loosing arrows when Ratharryn's spearmen reached the river and killed the few survivors. Dogs howled, women screamed and the dying moaned. Stakis himself, with most of his followers, had fled towards to the settlement of Sul with Jegar and Lengar hard on his heels. A few, very few, of Drewenna's men ran towards their assailants, slipping between the attacking parties to reach the trees and when Lengar saw those men escaping he shouted at Jegar to hunt them down. Lengar then jumped, caught the top of the palisade that ringed the settlement and lithely hauled himself over. A flood of his spearmen struggled to follow, then one thought to split the palisade with an axe and yet more men widened the gap and flooded through to the thatched huts surrounding the sacred spring. Kellan and his men joined the slaughter inside the broken wall.

The men from Sarmennyn watched uneasily from their huts where Camaban had joined them. 'It is Lengar's business,' he said, 'not ours. Lengar has no quarrel with Sarmennyn.'

'It's shameful,' Saban said angrily. He could hear dying men calling on their gods, he could see women weeping over the dead and the river swirling with streamers of blood. Some of the attackers were dancing in glee while others stood guard over the gifts that Jegar had so treacherously given to Stakis. 'It's shameful!' Saban said again.

'If your folk break a truce,' Scathel said scornfully, 'then it is not our concern, though it is to our benefit. Kellan will doubtless let us carry stones through his land without any payment at all.'

Jegar had vanished into the trees with a dozen spearmen, pursuing the last of Drewenna's fugitives. Saban remembered the promise Derrewyn had made on his behalf and he remembered his own oaths of vengeance and so he picked up a spear. 'What are you doing?' Lewydd challenged him and, when Saban tried to pull away, Lewydd gripped his arm. 'It is not your fight,' Lewydd insisted.

'It is my fight!' Saban said.

'It isn't wise to pick a fight with wolves,' Camaban said.

'I made a promise,' Saban said and he threw Lewydd's hand off his arm to run towards the woods. Lewydd picked up his own spear and followed.

Dead and dying men lay among the trees. Like all those who had attended the meeting of the tribes, Stakis's warriors had worn their finery and Jegar's men were now stripping them of necklaces, amulets and clothes. They looked up in alarm as Saban and Lewydd appeared, but most recognised Saban and none feared Lewydd for the grey-tattooed Outfolk were not their enemy this day.

Saban climbed the hill, looking for Jegar, then heard a scream to his right and ran through the trees to see his enemy hacking with a sword at a dying man. The sword was strapped to Jegar's maimed hand, but he still wielded it with sickening force. 'Jegar!' Saban shouted, hefting his spear. It would have been easier to have loosed an arrow from the golden string of his bow, but that would have been the coward's way. 'Jegar!' he called again.

Jegar turned, his eyes bright with excitement, then he saw the hunting spear in Saban's hand and it dawned on him that Saban was not an ally here, but a foe. At first he looked astonished, then he laughed. He stooped, picked up his own heavy war spear and straightened to face Saban with both weapons. 'Sixty-three men have I slaughtered,' he said, 'and some had more killing scars than I did.'

'I have killed two that I know of,' Saban said, 'but now it will be three, and sixty-three spirits in the afterlife will be in my debt and Derrewyn will thank me.'

'Derrewyn!' Jegar said scornfully. 'A whore. You'd die for a whore?' He suddenly ran at Saban, lunging with the spear, and laughed as Saban stepped clumsily aside. 'Go home, Saban,' Jegar said, lowering his spear's blade. 'What pride could I take in killing a bullock like you?'

Saban thrust with his spear, but the blade was contemptuously knocked away. Then Jegar lunged again, almost casually; Saban hit the spear aside and saw the sword coming fast from his other side and had to leap back to escape the fast swing. Then the spear came again, then the sword, and he was scrambling desperately back through the leaf mould, mesmerised by the flashing blades that Jegar used with such confident skill. Fighting was Jegar's life and he practised with weapons every day so he had long learned to compensate for his crippled hand. Jegar stabbed the spear again, then abruptly checked his attack to shake his head. 'You're not worth killing,' he said scornfully. Some of his men had come up the hill to watch the fight, and Jegar waved them back. 'It's our argument,' he said, 'but it's over.'

'It isn't over,' Saban said, and he lunged with the spear, dragging it back as soon as Jegar began to parry and then ramming it forward again, aiming at Jegar's throat, but Jegar swayed to one side and struck the spear down with his sword.

'Do you really want to die, Saban?' Jegar asked. 'Because you won't. If you fight me, I won't kill you. Instead I shall make you kneel to me and I'll piss on your head as I did before.'

'I shall piss on your corpse,' Saban said.

'Fool,' Jegar said. He thrust the spear blade forward with a serpent's speed, driving Saban backwards, then he thrust again, and Saban leapt up onto a rock so he was higher than Jegar, but Jegar swung the sword at his legs, forcing Saban to retreat higher still. Jegar laughed when he saw the fear on Saban's face, stepped forward to stab with the spear, and Slaol struck him.

The beam of sunlight came down through a myriad shifting green leaves. It was a spear of light that slid through the branches to strike and dazzle Jegar's eyes. The brilliance lasted only for a heartbeat, but Jegar flinched and jerked his head away and in that heartbeat Saban jumped down from the rock and rammed his spear straight into Jegar's throat. He screamed as he did it, and the scream was for Derrewyn's torment and for his own victory and for the joy he felt as he saw his enemy's blood misting bright.

Jegar fell. He had dropped his spear and was clawing at his throat where his breath bubbled with dark blood. He twitched, and his knees came up to his belly and his eyes rolled as Saban twisted the bronze blade, then twisted it again, so that yet more blood ran into the leaves. He dragged the spear free and Jegar looked up at him with disbelief and Saban drove the blade down into his enemy's belly.

Jegar shivered, then was still. Saban, eyes wide and breath heaving, stared at his enemy, scarce daring to believe Jegar was dead. He had thought himself outmatched, and so he had been, but Slaol had intervened. He pulled the spear from Jegar's corpse, then turned to look at Ratharryn's shocked warriors. 'Go and tell Lengar that Derrewyn is avenged,' he told them. He spat on Jegar's corpse.