Cathal woke with a great weight crushing his head to see a stern man standing on the ceiling, disapproving of him.
‘The sot returns to us,’ said he.
Cathal blinked the booze sleep from his eyes; his leathery tongue told a familiar tale.
‘Blasius, why are you upside down?’
‘Because you are a sot, that’s why.’
Cathal scratched his head. Then he realised he was hanging backwards over the edge of a table and, very slowly, righted himself.
‘Still on Shambhala,’ he said to himself. ‘Not a bad dream after all. Ah well.’
The inn was busier than he remembered. Some time had passed between him getting inordinately drunk and waking up on the table. This inn was a stopping point on the road, and in this day and age when you found a stopping point you stopped, and gave thanks to whichever gods knew your name that you’d survived the journey. No one seemed displeased at his behaviour. It was that kind of place.
‘Cernunnos’ balls, that chhaang is strong stuff,’ he said, rubbing his eyes until lights appeared behind his eyelids. He sat down at the table Blasius had occupied near the foot of the stairs. The remains of a roast Cathal did not remember eating littered the table, along with much evidence of previous alcohol consumption. He shook several stone bottles speculatively, but was disappointed. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’
‘Inside you.’
‘Ah. Vajra and Yaegar?’
‘Upstairs with a woman.’
‘What, just one?’
‘Money is tight.’
‘I bet she’s n-’
‘I do not approve of jokes about wh- women like that,’ said Blasius, loudly cutting across him. ‘It’s improper and unmanly. She is earning a living, that is worthy of respect. The lady Venus knows it is a hard life.’
Cathal watched his friend grinding his teeth. ‘Apropos of nothing, what did your mother do for work, Blasius?’ he asked casually.
Blasius turned a dangerous stare on him. ‘Something honourable,’ he said.
‘Of course, of course, I meant nothing by it,’ said Cathal, smoothing his ratty moustache to hide his smile. His new life on this strange world had many privations and hardships, but the ease with which he could tease his invariably humourless friend definitely leavened his troubles. He scratched his head absently.
‘You know, Hibernian,’ said Blasius thoughtfully, and Cathal began saying the familiar words along with the Roman under his breath, ‘when a man saves another man from slavery, he expects more in thanks than jokes about his mother.’
‘I am eternally grateful,’ said Cathal, making a flowery bow from where he was sitting. ‘Once again though, you did only save me because you thought I was Roman. And when you found out I was not, what did you call me?’
‘Shite from a minotaur’s arse, was it not?’
‘It was.’
Blasius mused on it. ‘I was right. And I didn’t sell you back into slavery, so more gratitude, fewer mother jokes. Or I’ll change my mind.’
‘Duly noted. Every other day for the last two years, I have noted this.’
The inn door opened, and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare. A young man in a short red robe and sandals stood on the threshold. He looked slightly taken aback at the attention. Then he put his palms together and bowed sharply, smiling widely.
‘He looks likely,’ said the Roman quietly.
‘Eh? Are you mad? Look at him.’
‘I am. He’s a titch. A titch without a sword.’
‘Red robes, shaved head - he’s a monk from the Anvil.’
‘So?’
‘That means he’s a religious maniac trained in all sorts of mad violence to protect their living god,’ Cathal pointed out.
‘Oh, them. I’ve heard of them. I reckon that’s bollocks. They only come down when the big monk dies and they have to find the next one. Fighting well takes practice.’
‘Your religious scholarship does you great credit,’ Cathal said. He eyeballed the monk surreptitiously and was dissatisfied with what he saw. ‘Doesn’t look like he’s brought any money with him.’
‘Priests are rich,’ said Blasius, with an air of certainty. ‘Except for you,’ he sniffed, and recoiled slightly at the unpleasant smell coming from his friend.
‘I’m not a priest anymore,’ said Cathal. ‘You bastard,’ he added, in a companionly way.
‘You were poor when you were a priest, I bet. In Rome the priests are loaded.’ Blasius sniffed Cathal again. ‘The gods favour us. Not your lot. It’s because you’re a barbarian.’
‘I notice you don’t deny you’re a bas-’
‘Honourable, Hibernian. Honourable.’
They watched the monk amble cheerfully through the inn, acknowledging each greeting, occasionally putting his hand behind the ear of a child in some sort of blessing. Cathal noticed that some women were notably less enthusiastic than the men in their greetings - particularly young women, of an age to have babies.
‘You know, we could get jobs,’ he said to Blasius. ‘Honest work never killed a man.’
Blasius grunted. ‘I have a job. My job is killing people.’
‘For Gaius Caesar. He’s a long way away and it has been some time since he’s heard from you. He’s probably filled your position by now.’ He saw Blasius’ chest swell as he mentioned the famous name and groaned as he realised he’d set him off.
‘Three years, four months, ten days I’ve been in this underworld. Sent by Caesar himself. Spoke to me personally.’
‘I imagine the great bald elephant of Rome speaks to a lot of people.’
‘You’re lucky he’s not here to order me to kill you for that remark. Great man, Caesar. Noble. “An unknown gate to the underworld is a gap in Rome’s defences,” says he. Quite right. Sends me and my boys through to survey the terrain. And I will report back to him if it’s the last thing I do. The brothers of my tent may be dead, but a legionary never gives up.’
‘I know, Blasius,’ said Cathal wearily. ‘You’ve told me every other day for two years. And it’s not the underworld. We’ve talked about this. It’s called Shambhala.’
Blasius looked disdainfully at Cathal’s shabby robes, the thick layer of dirt covering his skin, and his yellow, broken teeth. ‘It’s the underworld,’ he declared. ‘I want to leave it. It’s against Roman law for me to use magic and barbarians who can cost more money than I’ll see in a lifetime of honest killing. You go be a farmer if you want to. I will get money the other way.’
‘I don’t want to be a farmer.’
‘Well then. Robbery it is. Priests are rich.’
Cathal gave up. ‘You’ll have to do it, Blasius, I don’t have the stomach.’
Blasius curled his lip. ‘Unmanly. You can do the talking bit then. I swear by Mars and Mercury, if you’d been born Roman your mother would have left you out for the crows the moment they cut your cord.’
‘Do they do that? Dagda preserve the little children. Friend! Come hither!’
The monk looked over at Cathal’s shouted welcome and pottered across.
‘Greetings to you,’ he said, giving them a brief once-over. ‘I am Tenzin. Who honours me with their attention?’
‘Blasius Erucius Fronto!’ said Blasius, smacking the thumb side of his flattened right hand against his chest in salute. ‘Decanus of Claudius' Eleventh Legion! I am at your service, so I may achieve the honours of my father!’
Cathal rolled his eyes. This is why I do the talking part.
Tenzin looked like he thought he’d misheard. ‘Your name is... thick forehead?’
Blasius’ whole body tensed slightly, no mean feat for someone as tightly wound as he already was. ‘Bloody translation magic,’ he muttered. ‘Fr-onto,’ he repeated, emphasising the first syllable so the magic recognised the word as a proper noun. ‘Fronto is a nickname. Distinguishes me from my father and grandfather, also Blasius Erucius. So, yes, literally thick forehead, but so named because I am iron-skulled and have survived many crushing blows in battle.’
He glared at Cathal, daring him to disagree. Cathal nodded supportively and then, when Blasius’ gaze left him, made a wanking gesture, which turned into a casual scratching of his scalp as the Roman’s beady eye turned back to him.
‘And I am Cathal, son of Aodh,’ said Cathal, saying his father’s name in Shambhalhai, not meeting Blasius’ eye.
‘Son of Fire is an impressive name,’ said the monk agreeably, absolutely not gently mocking the stiff-necked Roman in any way. Cathal rather warmed to the young man. ‘Blessings on you, brothers.’
‘May the gods save you, brother,’ said Cathal in return. He saw the monk staring at the last of the roast. ‘Please help yourself. You are from the Anvil?’
Tenzin nodded, his mouth suddenly otherwise occupied.
‘That is a long way away.’
‘Exactly two months journey on foot,’ said Tenzin, indistinctly.
‘Sure, sure. Have you found him?’
Tenzin paused in his mastication. ‘Not yet. But it has been only two months. Last time it was years. We will,’ he concluded cheerfully, and resumed chewing.
‘The devotion of your order to this task is legendary,’ said Blasius, unwinding slightly. ‘A noble deed. False, of course,’ he added. ‘Only Jupiter allows reincarnation.’
‘All faiths are aspects of the Faith,’ said Tenzin steadily, helping himself to a crust of bread with Cathal’s encouragement. ‘I judge no man.’ He cocked an eye at Cathal, taking in the tattoos on his face, his ragged robes, and the makeshift iron torc around his neck. ‘Druid, is it?’
‘Indeed. Well, I used to be. Learned at the feet of Diviciacus Aeduii himself.’
‘Isn’t he a Gaul?’ Blasius said. ‘I heard about him when I was there with Caesar. When were you in Gaul?’
‘Often,’ said Cathal breezily, trying not to look furtive.
‘A Roman and a druid. You fellows are far from home.’
‘No fucking joke we are,’ said Blasius, with feeling.
Cathal affected a plangent tone. ‘If you can spare us a moment brother, we will share our tale of woe, and perhaps -’
‘Ah, no thanks,’ Tenzin interrupted. ‘No offence, but I’m on business, and if I want tales of woe there are plenty of local ones to hear. Now, thanks for the leftovers, but if you’re planning to rob me I don’t have any money. I wouldn’t be eating your scraps if I did.’
‘Arse,’ said Blasius in disgust. He gave Cathal an evil glare. ‘I hate it when you’re right.’
‘I’ll refrain from saying I told you so. Except for then. No offence meant, brother,’ he added to Tenzin.
‘None taken. Times are hard.’
A series of loud thumps interrupted their conversation. A very large drunk rolled down the stairs, hitting his head on every step before skidding to a stop by their table.
‘All right, Yaegar?’ Cathal asked, reasonably unconcerned by his friend’s unseemly entrance. The blond Gotlander had taken a lot of blows to the head in the two years they’d travelled together, and always shrugged them off. He was very like Blasius in that respect. He was twenty, pretended he was older, but had the maturity of a five-year-old.
‘Oh, the dirtbag. Yah, fine,’ he said, trying and failing to focus on Cathal. ‘You stink like my piss after a week of herring gruel. Where’s the ballsack?’
‘Next to me. Like, right here.’
‘Oh, yah.’
‘Call me that again,’ said Blasius tightly. ‘See what -’
‘Shut it, ballsack. Was your mother split by a jötunn, to give you such a lumpy face? Bet she loved it. Where’s the chhaang?’
‘I drank it, apparently,’ said Cathal. ‘I’m sorry. Wait, wait, wait... Not. I meant, not sorry.’
‘Damn. Ballsack, you have money, go to the bar.’
‘Stop calling me that.’
Cathal tried not to smile. Although Blasius would never admit it, and in fact spent a great deal of energy trying to hide it, he cared deeply about the younger man - about all his friends, really, but Yaegar most of all. He had defended his life on many occasions, and spent a lot of his free time teaching him Roman combat technique, in which Cathal had to admit he was an absolute expert and brutally efficient.
Cathal sometimes wondered whether Blasius had a son; he’d never mentioned it, but he was older than the rest of them, and frequently acted as if Yaegar was a surrogate for his own offspring. It was less clear how Yaegar felt, as he was drunk all the time and really enjoyed insulting everyone he met, which is how most of his fights started. But he could easily have killed the Roman if he’d disliked him. He was well over six feet tall, heavily muscled, and absolutely terrifying in battle.
‘If you will go about with a cock around your neck, what do you expect?’ Cathal said to Blasius.
Blasius touched the little lead amulet he wore on a leather cord, as he always did when someone mentioned it. It depicted a sizeable erect phallus, clenched in a fist.
‘I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s a magic charm,’ he said, grinding his teeth. ‘Protects against the evil eye. All the legions wear them.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Cathal, the opposite of fascinated. ‘And as I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s quite funny.’
‘And as I have told you a thousand thousand times, you’re a ballsack,’ said Yaegar. ‘Go to the bar.’
Blasius clenched his fist and slid his thumb between index and middle fingers in an unmistakably obscene gesture. ‘Get your own,’ he growled.
‘Dirtbag, you go then.’
Cathal smiled easily and switched to his native tongue. ‘Kiss my arse, you simple-minded castrate,’ he said, nodding and grinning. Yaegar nodded with him, clearly not understanding a word.
Tenzin sat forward, suddenly interested. ‘Pog mahon?’ he attempted. ‘I didn’t understand that.’
‘Probably for the best.’
‘But I did understand you then. How did you come to be here, son of Fire?’ he asked politely.
‘Fell through an ungated rift,’ Cathal explained. ‘Lucky me. These buggers came through proper gates and learned Shambhalhai by magic, I had to do it the hard way. It is an incredibly difficult language, by the by. They all think they’re speaking their own speech, and everyone else is speaking theirs, but they’re really speaking yours. I was actually speaking mine. Blasius gets it. I’m not sure Yaegar is really a getting things kind of person.’
‘May your manhood shrivel like a dried-out carrot,’ said Yaegar aggressively. Cathal ignored him.
‘I have read about this,’ said the monk. ‘I didn’t know there were any rifts facing Shambhala still ungated.’
‘There’s one, at least. But it’s fine. I travelled a lot back on Earth, this is just another road.’ He hesitated, a painful memory scurrying behind his eyes, shooed out of its hiding place by their conversation. ‘The couple of years of slavery after I arrived weren’t great, but, eh, the past is past. I walk the path the gods have set me on.’
‘The Constant is the path, as he is the one who walks it,’ said Tenzin piously.
‘As you say, brother.’
‘I would be very interested to know where this rift is,’ Tenzin continued, leaning forward. ‘My brothers keep a record.’
Cathal felt a subtle change in the atmosphere. Part of his training as a druid had been how to tell what people meant beneath the words they spoke; druids were expected to be fair arbiters of disputes. The matter of the rift was much more important to the young monk than he was letting on. There was no threat to it, just a meaning Tenzin wasn’t sharing. That wasn’t necessarily bad. Cathal was fairly sure he liked the young man, and everyone had secrets. Cathal more than most, he reflected.
‘No idea,’ he said, glad to be telling the truth. ‘Somewhere with a lot of trees, which is everywhere on this world. I was grabbed by slavers pretty much straight away. They weren’t great guides to the local landmarks.’
Tenzin sat back, clearly disappointed. Then he sat forward again.
‘Do you remember where you were on the other side?’ he asked softly.
More thumps from the stairs interrupted them, this time more intentional ones. Two people descended, arm in arm. One was a short, bearded, brown-skinned man with flamboyantly long black hair, and a tunic and knee boots combination that made him look like a Vascone pirate. The other was a young woman in an ankle-length dress of bright scarlet wool, heavily embroidered in yellow and white in the Tsang style of the far north, although she appeared to be one of the Teutonic people the locals called All-men, big and blonde, her hair in tightly tied braids curled up on the back of her head. The dress was split up the front to her waist and swept away to each side; underneath she wore loose Bactrian-style riding trousers, which Cathal thought must be pretty racy by local standards.
Vajra was Vajra, which meant he was cocky and confident and extremely brave, and prone to rushing in without thinking. And genuinely nice, which wasn’t something Cathal could say about all his friends all the time, or himself.
The woman was... Cathal didn’t know for sure. She certainly wasn’t a meretrix, as Blasius would put it if he were still in command of his mother tongue. There was something about her that put Cathal slightly on guard. She looked like she liked to run toward danger.
‘I have an announcement,’ said Vajra loudly. He meant it for his friends, but the whole tavern paid attention.
On a whim, Cathal decided to test something. ‘You can’t marry a roadside whore you just met, you stupid Anuradhapuran bastard,’ he said, equally loudly. ‘Not until you sober up, anyway.’
Laughter from everyone. Almost everyone.
‘I’m not getting married,’ said Vajra, who looked like he’d like to.
‘And I’m not a whore,’ said the woman sharply, staring at Cathal as if mentally placing a dagger between his ribs. He nodded thoughtfully, and then covered it with a florid bow.
‘My apologies, both. What’s the announcement, O Vajra of the Lions?’
‘Prince Vajra,’ the Sinhalese corrected. ‘This is Maarika,’ he continued, his eyes shining as if he’d had a revelation. ‘She’s coming with us when we leave. She has important, valuable knowledge.’
‘Do I understand you to mean something other than the ways of drunken idiot pleasing?’ Cathal said.
Yaegar nodded fervently. ‘Money,’ he said. ‘Lots of it.’
Blasius start paying more attention. ‘Out with it,’ he said.
‘She told us -’
‘She can speak for herself,’ said Maarika, placing the back of her hand on Vajra’s chest to stop him. He shut up immediately, looking up at her with a gooey, infatuated smile. This would have worried Cathal had this reaction not characterised all of Vajra’s interactions with women who glanced at him more than once. The Sinhalese could be quite meditative when the mood took him, but when it came to the opposite sex he was as shallow as a puddle on a sunny day.
‘Some bandits have started kidnapping babies for ransom,’ she began.
‘The bastards,’ Cathal interjected.
‘Yes. They -’
‘Sound reasoning, though. People tend to want babies back. Adults, eh, it depends.’ Cathal cast a sidelong look at Yaegar. ‘Could go either way.’
The woman looked irritated at his interruption. ‘The bandits raided a staad to the south of here yesterday,’ she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I think they got two. They must be important, because instead of simply waiting to pay the ransom, the Ealdorman convened a thing and put up a reward for the babies’ safe return. And the heads of the bandits skewered on poles.’ She met Blasius’ and Cathal’s eyes in turn. ‘It’s a twelfhynde.’
Blasius thumped the table, while Cathal whistled in appreciation.
‘Twelve hundred aurei!’ the Roman said, his eyes shining. He looked at Cathal. ‘Jobs,’ he said contemptuously.
‘I’ve gone off the idea,’ said Cathal expansively. ‘Of course, we’d need to find them first.’
‘I know where they are,’ Maarika said.
‘Of course you do. Do tell.’
‘The bandits are based in caves two days march from here. Which you will never find without me,’ she added.
‘And which you can’t assault without us.’
‘Quite so. Or at least, without people like you,’ she continued. ‘Ones who can spot an opportunity.’
‘You see what I mean?’ said Vajra, unable to contain himself any longer. ‘I say we go there, kill them, steal their stuff, give the babies back, get the big reward!’
‘And go home,’ said Blasius, his voice ringing out with longing. ‘He looked at Cathal. ‘What do you think?’
That was the thing about Blasius, Cathal reflected. No matter how thickly he laid on the abuse, he always sought Cathal’s opinion before any major decision, and often deferred to him. Blasius wasn’t the brightest candle, but he was experienced in staying alive, and knew that meant listening to voices other than his own.
‘I think it’s a mad plan, ripe for catastrophe and death,’ said Cathal exuberantly. ‘We should leave at once!’ His eyes told Blasius what he really thought. The Roman gave him a partly disapproving look, but only for his flippancy; the other side of his expression shared Cathal’s scepticism. They both took care to hide the exchange from Maarika.
‘We’ve done stupider things for money,’ Blasius mused out loud. ‘We should do more thinking when we’re sober.’ He glanced at Yaegar. ‘When I’m sober.’
‘You have the balls of an infant,’ said the Gotlander, openly stealing a chhaang bottle from another table and daring them to start something. ‘How has Rome conquered the world when her soldiers have acorns under their tunics? Dirtbag is right for a change, we should leave at once!’ He pulled down his patchwork breeches and hefted his own prodigious equipment insultingly, to the general acclamation of the rest of the tavern patrons. ‘These are a real man’s balls,’ he said. ‘Can you match them, you Roman eunuch?’
To which there was nothing Blasius could say except, ‘We leave at once.’
‘Good! Maybe you have a full sack after all.’
‘Did you say babies?’ Tenzin piped up. ‘I’m looking for a baby, as it happens. I’ll come with you.’
‘We haven’t invited you,’ said Blasius, evidently glad to be off the subject of his testicles but still deeply suspicious of the whole business.
‘Then I’ll walk slightly behind you in coincidentally the same direction,’ said the monk, smiling again.
‘Oh, come with us, sure, why not?’ said Cathal, now certain he liked Tenzin. ‘Another mad bastard can’t do more damage than the current crop.’ He smiled ingratiatingly at Maarika. ‘And a mad bastardess, of course. Is that a word? I don’t care. A hundred thousand welcomes to the Legion of Irresponsibility! Although, how many are in a legion again, Blasius? Perhaps we’re the Irresponsibility Patrol. A hundred thousand welcomes nonetheless. Where are we going?’ he asked Maarika suddenly, but the about-face in subject didn’t faze her. She struck a heroic pose which emphasised her bosom, which had Vajra all but dribbling.
‘To the Cavern of Dragons!’ she declaimed.
‘Dragons?’ said Blasius, his eyes suddenly elsewhere.
‘Oh,’ said Cathal. ‘Great. That sounds like great fun.’
‘It’s just a name,’ Tenzin said again, working hard not to sound annoyed in Cathal’s estimation. ‘There are no dragons on Shambhala.’
‘Cavern of Dragons, must be dragons,’ said Blasius, forging ahead of them up the forest trail. ‘Stands to reason.’
Now in full red tunic and armour, which he’d meticulously maintained despite his three-year absence from his unit, Blasius looked like the absolute exemplar of the army of the Republic, the last sight seen by countless armies across Persia, Germania, Gaul and beyond. It was full armour - breastplate, greaves, sleeves of overlapping metal plates which ran from shoulders to wrists, and helmet with long cheek guards. Cathal sometimes wondered how he could walk in it all, let alone run at full tilt, as he often had, or move silently without so much as jingling, a skill he had also evidenced multiple times.
On top of his armour he wore a full leopard skin, tied by its front paws across his shoulders, the head of which gnawed on Blasius’ helmet as though it had just pounced on him from above. Blasius had explained this, at length, as an honour given to him for ferocity in battle. Cathal did not doubt it. The Roman’s gladius and pilum were well used. The pilum was particularly scary - taller than Cathal, with an iron head shaped like a diamond, which could punch through a solid oak door as though it was no tougher than mouldy cheese. Cathal fervently hoped never to see ranks of them facing him across a battlefield.
‘You won’t convince him,’ said Vajra ruefully. ‘He’ll have to see for himself.’
‘Because he’s a ballsack,’ said Yaegar thickly, taking a swig from a skin full of chhaang. ‘All sack, no brains.’
Blasius, now far ahead, shouted, ‘It’s in the bloody name!’
Tenzin smiled cheerfully, flipped up his hood, and folded his hands in silent prayer. That was proper religion of a kind Cathal could appreciate - not letting annoying idiots get to you was a core druidic skill. There’d be no druids left at all if they hadn’t mastered it.
‘You know,’ said Vajra, stroking his beard with one hand, while the other rested on the pommel of one of the five swords of varying length and utility he bristled with, ‘I have travelled far on my quest, on Earth and this other world, and while I love him dearly I do believe brother Blasius is the most pig-headed, obstinate, obdurate oaf I have ever come across.’
‘Big words,’ grunted Yaegar. ‘Say ballsack, it’s faster.’
‘You love him too, though,’ said Cathal, swiping the chhaang skin. Yaegar only laughed.
‘You know that stuff is poisonous, don’t you?’ Maarika asked, as Cathal took a big drink. ‘It has wolfsbane in it.’
‘Maybe the werewolves won’t bite me, then,’ Cathal laughed. ‘Yaegar’s drunk so much, if werewolves bite him they’ll turn into wereidiots.’
Yaegar snorted, and then said ‘Hey!’ as he realised he was being insulted.
Maarika’s side eye said ‘Please’ very clearly. ‘Fine. Don’t be told,’ she said out loud.
The way Maarika set them on led through dense woodland, off the beaten track. This was not abnormal for Cathal’s recent experience. As far as he knew, everywhere on Shambhala was either forest or mountains, differentiated only by names scrawled on sketchy maps by people who wanted to assert a dubious claim to land that steadfastly resisted claiming. He’d heard that the southern countries had rolling grain fields, and on their travels his party occasionally came across villages of farmers trying to claw back plots from the trees. But he’d never been south, and the farmers always looked to be losing the battle against an enemy which could simply outlast them. They never had anything worth stealing.
The patch of black firs they currently traversed was threatening even by Shambhala standards. Even the studiedly indifferent Gotlander was wide awake for signs of werewolves or bandits. At one point, Blasius made them take a wide detour around an obvious ambush spot, much to their female companion’s disgust. But to Cathal’s eye this seemed to be genuinely because of the lost time and wasted footsteps rather than a missed opportunity for hidden friends or werewolves to attack.
Which was just as well for the putative friends or werewolves, Cathal thought. For all that his comrades were individually bloody idiots, together they were as savage a band of blade-wielders as he’d ever come across, utterly unmatched man for man. Werewolves would be more problematic, but he had confidence in them.
Then Yaegar walked into a tree, swore at it, and head-butted it, and Cathal had cause to reconsider.
As they circled the ambush spot, Cathal fell in with Maarika.
‘The bandits are at the cavern,’ she groused, before Cathal had the opportunity to speak. ‘I told you. And there aren’t any werewolves within a hundred leagues of here. The locals keep watch for them.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Cathal said, scratching his head thoughtfully. ‘Pays to be cautious, though.’
He looked her up and down. To her dress and trousers she had added thick leather over-armour on her arms and torso, and a pair of short swords, one on each hip. These were intriguing, but not as intriguing as the lack of any long-term supplies. Tenzin clearly survived on charity, but Shambhala was set up to be charitable to Anvil monks searching for their leader. The rest of them were well laden; Yaegar looked like a pack mule. But Maarika had almost nothing.
‘From where do you hail, Mistress?’ Cathal essayed.
She gave him a chilly stare. ‘What’s it to you, rat beard?’
‘Let me try that again,’ said Cathal, smiling widely. ‘From where do you hail, total stranger whose life has suddenly intersected with mine and who wants me to do something for them which I might decide not to do?’
Maarika considered this. ‘Fair enough. I’m from Kalsang’s Town.’
‘No one’s from Kalsang’s Town,’ Cathal pointed out. ‘It’s a waystation on the way to everywhere else.’
‘People are from there. It has a large Bod community.’
‘I hear they’re calling themselves Tubotan these days, or something like that.’
‘That’s what their enemies call them.’ She looked back at Tenzin, expecting him to chime in on the subject of his people, but he was still praying.
‘I don’t really care,’ she continued. ‘I don’t live there anymore. But I’m from there more than I’m from anywhere. My parents were All-men from somewhere near the Bastion, but if I ever lived there I don’t remember it. They died together when I was seven.’
‘Sorry to hear it. Fire? Plague?’
‘Bastards. Murdered by them. I’ve been alone since then.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that too.’ Cathal wondered whether it was a coincidence that Maarika had used his favourite epithet to describe her parents’ killers, and what it might mean if it wasn’t. ‘And what brings you from that distant outpost to this dismal forest?’
‘The same thing as you.’
‘Madness?’
‘Money.’
‘It’s probably madness really. Hey, Vajra, do you think it’s likely that someone who falls in with us is mad?’
‘Prince Vajra,’ said Vajra, who was staring off into the forest and not really paying attention. ‘Certain, I’d say.’ He looked around, put two and two together, and added hurriedly, ‘Present company excepted, of course.’
‘Thank you, Vajra,’ said Maarika, with obviously false sweetness.
‘Prince Vajra,’ said Vajra again, all but swooning. He went back to looking for enemies, sneaking a peak at Maarika every few seconds. Cathal rolled his eyes.
‘Your turn,’ said Maarika. ‘Since we’re sharing.’
‘Me? Oh, my story is long and boring...’
‘Make it shorter and more interesting. That name the Roman calls you, Hibernian. I’ve never heard of it. Where is that?’
‘Īweriū,’ said Cathal, in his own language. ‘A place of fair folk and rich soil, where the women are strong and fertile, and the men are brave and generally not too stupid. A green land, with its own magic, blessed with broad, majestic rivers, forests filled with -’
‘It is the land of winter,’ said Blasius, who had crept up on them unseen through the undergrowth, making everyone jump slightly, even Yaegar. ‘Full of crazed barbarians who live on freezing mud and bog water.’
‘You’ve never been,’ Cathal objected. ‘Our land is unknown to Rome, and long may it stay that way.’
‘So say the Greeks, I have no reason to doubt them.’
‘You once said all Greece was good for was olive-pressing and pederasty.’
‘Turns out spotting a barbarian shithole is also among their skills. And everyone except Vajra is dead, by the way, killed by the bandits who sneaked up on you while you were exercising your tongues. Less chatting, more watching the trees.’
He resumed his place at the head of the party, clearly pleased with himself. Cathal scratched his head, then returned to his conversation.
‘Beautiful, rich in milk and meat, no Roman headbangers to spoil anyone’s day. No werewolves either. You should visit.’
‘No thanks.’
‘I would be interested in doing so,’ said Tenzin amiably, appearing unexpectedly at Cathal’s elbow.
‘Would you? I thought your lot only came down from the mountain to find the Constant. I didn’t know you could go sightseeing.’
‘I would be interested in doing so, but won’t,’ the monk smiled. ‘You are correct. I walk a different path. We might though fund an expedition of the lay faithful who are not under the same restriction, so they could report back.’
‘Report?’
‘On druids, for example. On the Anvil we depend on writing to understand the world. My brothers believe that all faiths are aspects of the Faith, but we know little about druidism. Druids don’t write anything down.’
‘That is our - their - way. We - they - are privy to secret truths, brother, and writing things down is an excellent way for secret truths to become common misconceptions.’
‘I completely agree,’ said Tenzin. ‘I presume you cannot share them even though you have left your order?’
‘Quite so, brother. The gods would be displeased, and the next body my immortal soul inhabits would be of a very lowly state.’
‘You must have blabbed in your last life,’ said Yaegar, laughing uproariously at his own joke.
‘Thanks, Yaegar, you giant cock hole,’ Cathal said, switching to his own language at the end.
‘The wheel turns for us all,’ said Tenzin philosophically. ‘We can only live in the right way, and hope it turns forward.’
‘Well said, brother. You’d make a fine druid.’
‘Why did you leave the druids, Cathal?’ Vajra asked. ‘You’ve never said.’
‘Difference of opinion,’ said Cathal, lying briskly. ‘Doctrinal dispute. Very tedious. Faults on both sides. What is this, an interrogation?’
‘I only asked. Suit yourself.’
‘My apologies if I have caused disharmony,’ said Tenzin. ‘It is very interesting. If you could remember where the ungated rift is in - Éiru, did you say? - my people could go a long way around and then come back here that way. Talk faith to faith with your former brothers.’
‘Sorry, I was horribly drunk at the time,’ Cathal lied again. ‘Don’t recall a thing.’
‘That is a shame,’ said Tenzin pleasantly. He flipped up his hood once more, and folded his hands in contemplation.
Cathal was left with the strong sense that the young monk didn’t believe him, which was fair enough because he was in fact lying. But as a response to that, he was inviting his god to offer forgiveness to Cathal for lying, rather than, for example, calling Cathal a liar. That was quite generous, Cathal reflected. It will keep the Constant busy, at least. I’ve told a few.
Cathal turned back to talk to Maarika, to discover that she’d dropped back to walk with Vajra, who seemed ecstatic at the prospect. Cathal was left alone with his thoughts, none of which amounted to very much just yet.
After a day of hard walking and trivial banter, the party stopped to camp near a river. Yaegar and Vajra immediately disappeared into the trees with Maarika, while Blasius did the hard work of setting up the camp and Cathal did the hard work of watching him. Tenzin wandered off in quite explicitly the opposite direction to the lovers, and returned a short while later with a dead wild boar sow over his shoulders.
‘Moccus favours us,’ said Cathal approvingly. ‘I love boar.’
‘How did you kill that without a sword or bow?’ Blasius asked, professionally interested.
Tenzin looked at him like he’d asked the most obvious question in the world.
‘I punched it,’ he said.
Meat and chhaang did their usual work and when everyone was full and drunk - or drunker, in Yaegar’s case - they all relaxed a bit. This meant Blasius, outwardly stone-faced but inwardly delighted to have a new audience, started on his war stories. Maarika was only vaguely interested, but Tenzin, who seemed open to taking exaggerated tales at face value, or at least affecting to, was wide-eyed as Blasius described his mighty deeds in impenetrable detail - so impenetrable that the translation magic had a hard time keeping up with the jargon, which meant Blasius kept lapsing into Latin without knowing it. Cathal tried not to think about what that implied about magic, but the problem with being a druid, even a former one, was you thought about unpleasant implications quite a lot.
‘... obvious we’d have to fall back on the triarii, the field was littered with dead velites and the hastati and principes were having a rough time of it, poor sods. So the Optio screams “form a group!” and in seconds we’ve transformed from a phalanx to a wedge and are charging at the Gaulish swine, close formation all the while, scuta held perfectly straight. I loved my scutum, I’m still bloody sick that owl-bear had it away, Yaegar, do you remember? Anyway, then we’re in their ranks, wedge pushing them apart like it’s supposed to, and once divided they were easy pickings. I found myself one to one against this big fat bastard with pigtails. “Fear the wrath of Lukotorīx!” yells he, not knowing I speak Gaulish. “Mouse King? Mouse cock more like!” says I, and my sword is in his guts before he can squeak again. Anyway, that’s how I invaded Britannia. Never saw any Brittunculi while we were there, only bloody Gauls. Don’t ask me how I came to be there without my legion, that’s a long story...’
‘For another day,’ said Cathal firmly, helping himself to more pork.
‘As you say,’ said Blasius. ‘Of course, that was a proper battle back in the real world. It’s been skirmish fighting only since I arrived in the underworld. People keep making the mistake of attacking us,’ he added, not looking at Maarika but making sure Cathal was. She showed no sign of discomfort or awareness.
‘Underworld?’ Tenzin asked, confused.
‘Blasius,’ groaned Cathal, holding his head heavily. ‘We’ve talked. Not the underworld.’
Blasius spat into the fire. ‘It’s clearly the underworld, I don't know why you argue it. The hell of Lycaon, where he and his sons were condemned after death for their terrible crimes.’
‘Who’s that?’ asked Maarika, looking as though she’d become interested slightly against her will. ‘What crimes?’
‘Do you not know the story? Roman children learn it at their mother’s teat.’
‘Ooh, I know this one!’ Cathal said brightly, perking up. ’Let me tell it Blasius, you’re rubbish at stories and you’ve been rabbiting for ages.’
‘Go on, then.’
Cathal grinned, as pleased as Blasius to have his colleagues’ undivided attention.
‘In ancient days Lycaon ruled in Arcadia, in Greece, mostly with his cock it seems for he got fifty sons by as many women, and many daughters too. They didn’t get counted. Right bastards one and all were the sons, indolent, impure and impious, killing people hither and yon.’
‘I like this story,’ said Yaegar, drunkenly.
‘Of course you do. Lycaon’s daughter Callisto was famed for her beauty, and when that happens in Greece it means only one thing: Zeus, king of the gods - Jupiter, in Blasius’ tradition - hears of it, and comes to seduce her. And by seduce, I mean rape, because Zeus is king of the bastards, too.’
‘Don’t insult the gods,’ said Blasius. ‘Lightning follows.’
‘I’ll take my chances. Anyway, Zeus can hardly complain about being called a rapist. He’s bloody notorious for it.’
‘Move on quickly.’
‘Okay. So, Zeus is quite a creative rapist - sometimes as a bull, sometimes as a swan, once even as a shower of gold - but on this occasion he wants to be especially creepy, so he takes the form of Artemis, Callisto’s patron goddess and his own daughter and ‘seduces’ her as a woman.’
‘This is a great story,’ said Vajra enthusiastically.
‘Yeah, not for Callisto so much, what with the false pretences sapphism and then getting knocked up by Zeus - yes, still as a woman, Vajra - and then getting turned into a bear by Mrs Zeus, Hera, who always takes it out on the victim - but I’m getting off the story, which is about Lycaon, and the importance of not raising your children to be bastards.
‘So, your man Lycaon is not best pleased about his daughter being ‘seduced’, probably because he wanted to do it himself, but Zeus is Zeus and what are you going to do? But then Zeus hears about the sons’ impiety, and most unusually for Zeus comes to see for himself rather than just killing them and everyone near them from his mountaintop.
‘So up he rocks to Lycaon’s place, disguised as a peasant. Zeus being Zeus, his disguise is very much “look at me, Zeus, king of the gods, disguising myself as a peasant” and the sons spot him immediately. And quite rightly they think, if Zeus is so crap at disguises, how can he be the all-powerful, all-knowing god of gods we’ve been led to believe? So they decide to test him.’
‘That won’t end well,’ said Yaegar knowingly.
‘It doesn’t. They serve Zeus a meal, as honest men do for a peasant in need, but mixed with the meal are the entrails of a child they’d killed earlier.’
‘Oh, Great Fathers, that’s terrible,’ said Maarika. She clutched her bosom, which made Yaegar grin.
‘No kidding. Who has a dead child just lying around in case they need one? Bastards, that’s who. Obviously, it would be immensely wrong for the king of the gods to eat a child, although frankly in the panoply of awful things Zeus has done it would still be quite low down the list. But Zeus is in fact Zeus, so he knows full well what these bastards are up to. So instead of noshing down on child on toast, he turns over the tables and transforms everyone into wolves, Lycaon included, as punishment for their evil deeds. And that’s why Blasius thinks this is their hell. Because of all the werewolves.’
The silence that followed was broken by Vajra’s slightly shocked voice. ‘Your mother’s teat, Blasius? You Romans are weird.’
Blasius scowled. ‘I swear by Hercules, Vajra, your name will be on my next curse tablet.’
‘Prince Vajra,’ said Vajra, grinning.
‘The very next one.’
‘I’m no student of comparative religion,’ said Tenzin tentatively, ‘but are you sure the story is really quite that awful?’
Cathal laughed. ‘Are you kidding? I toned it down.’
‘He did,’ Blasius agreed. ‘The way my mother told it, the child they served up was Nyctimus, Lycaon’s youngest son.’
‘Their own brother. Great Fathers.’
‘If you like that, let me tell you about how Cronos the Titan castrated his father Uranus, god of the sky, on the say-so of his mother, the earth, and then married his sister...’ Cathal stopped, surveyed the looks of mild horror on every face but Blasius’, and changed his mind.
‘Maybe not then. That’s the end of story time. There are bad stories in every tradition, it matters not. And don’t worry about lightning, Blasius. We’ll be fighting tomorrow, which means tonight we sleep under the wing of Badb Catha, the crow of battle. Not even Zeus can penetrate that. Although he’d try. With his cock.’
‘Don’t insult the gods.’
Cathal slapped his thighs and stood up.
‘Someone keep watch. By which I mean Blasius. I’m going to the river for a wash.’
There was a collective gasp from the men. ‘What have you done with the real Cathal Aodhson, shapeshifter?’ Vajra accused.
‘Sod off, all of you bastards.’
He left his rusty longsword and his pack where they lay, and walked away.
The river was wide, slow moving, and deceptive. Cathal, who’d grown up by the water, could see where it suddenly deepened, and read where the currents pulled harder in the undertow than the surface pretended.
Contrary to the prevalent belief among his friends, Cathal didn’t revel in dirt, or slather it on in some religious fervour. It just didn’t bother him much when he was dirty. But here was an opportunity to get clean.
The near-full moon shone down brightly. Cathal considered this. Life on Shambhala had taught him many valuable things, but paying attention to the phases of the moon was absolutely top of the list.
‘Any werewolves out there?’ he yelled. ‘You might as well come out if you are. I’m not armed and I’m quite edible.’
No answer, and no werewolves. After a few moments, he gave a satisfied nod. ‘Sionna, watch over me.’
He pulled off his robe, and waded into the freezing water where it was slow, until he could plunge into a pool. The shock sent him gasping to the surface, but it felt great and took his mind off his problems. He held his greasy locks under the surface and gave his head a vigorous scratch. The water certainly cleaned it, and probably dislodged a few lifeforms, but didn’t help with his itch. As always while his head was underwater, he contemplated the effort necessary to lift its weight back out again. Today it was still worth it.
He had a sliver of soap, and set about applying it. His tattoos reappeared, blue spirals, lines and shapes that told his story to anyone with the wit to read it. It felt like he was becoming reacquainted with an old friend, younger and happier than he, who had yet to make any disastrous choices.
With a sigh, he twisted to wash his back. The lattice of scar tissue didn’t hurt these days; the lashes which had inflicted them were now distant memories. But touching them brought those memories forward. Cathal preferred to look to the future.
After a thorough rub down, he took hold of his rancid robe and gave it a good scrub with a likely looking rock. The dirt streamed off it, visible even in the moonlight.
‘Perhaps a little less time between washes,’ he said to himself. And then, ‘Oh! It’s green! I’d forgotten.’
After a while he became aware he wasn’t alone, but continued with his task without acknowledging his new companion.
‘I heard you calling out for werewolves. There aren’t any around here,’ said Maarika eventually. ‘I told you.’
‘You did,’ Cathal agreed. ‘It’s always wise to check, I’ve found. They move about.’
Silence for a while. Cathal kept scrubbing.
‘You’ve had harsh treatment,’ said Maarika.
‘I was a slave. It’s not an easy life.’
‘You’d think people would take better care of their property.’
Cathal stopped scrubbing. ‘You would, wouldn’t you? It was my fault really, what with me trying to escape and kill them all the time.’
‘I don’t think it was your fault.’
Cathal turned around. Maarika was naked, her clothes left on the river bank. She’d waded into the river up to her ankles and stopped, either waiting to get used to the cold or waiting for Cathal to pay attention. In the moonlight her pale skin appeared ghostly, as thought she was a nocturnal river spirit that might vanish when the night fled. Her unbraided hair reached her waist, and seemed to surround her in a golden halo. As he looked at her she spread her hands, inviting admiration, and raised an eyebrow.
‘Ah, thanks all the same, but I’m not in the mood,’ said Cathal.
This clearly wasn’t what Maarika was expecting. She frowned. ‘But I...’
‘Thought I’d be like the others? I expect men usually approach you in that way. That’s not me.’
‘You’re a priest. Are you celibate?’
‘I’m not, and I’m not a priest any longer. I just don’t want to.’
‘Boys?’
‘No again.’
‘Oh.’ Cathal watched with interest as Maarika visibly adjusted her worldview. ‘Well, I’m going to wash too. I’ll see if you change your mind.’
She moved further into the water, suggestively at first, then when she saw this really didn’t elicit a reaction, continuing in a more business-like manner. Soon she was beside him, cupping her hands and pouring water over her body.
After he’d sluiced his robe for a while longer Cathal said, ‘Don’t get me wrong though. You’re a fine figure of a woman. I like a large-breasted girl, myself. And your hair must take some work. I suppose my question is, how are you planning to kill us?’
Maarika froze mid scrub. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It seems likely, doesn’t it? A nubile wench appears from nowhere, tells an unlikely tale of even more unlikely riches just waiting to be scooped up, and bewitches yon idiots into trotting along after her. And now tries to seduce me, not in the Zeus sense of the word, when earlier all she could manage was a black look and an insult to my magnificent chin plumage... That’s not at all plausible. I’ve got to think there are some lads at the other end with sharp things and bad attitudes, and you, having correctly identified my scepticism, are trying to gull me into incaution.’
‘Bewitched? You think I magicked them?’
‘By the power of fanny.’
‘Oh, that,’ she said dismissively. ‘That doesn’t take much magic.’
‘Certainly not with Vajra. Did he tell you his story? The one he thinks works on the ladies?’
‘The one about him being a prince on a mystic quest to find his one true love? A quest he must complete to come into his immense and very rich kingdom? Is it true?’
Cathal laughed easily. ‘I prefer the world in which it is,’ he said. ‘At least his story is worth hearing. Yaegar’s just an animal.’
Maarika gave him a disapproving glare. ‘If you’re expecting a joke about the size of his parts I should tell you I have higher standards of humour.’
‘I have no standards, myself. Shall we run through the likely scenarios?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Number one would be, you’re guiding us to a grisly fate at the hands of your bandit friends, to steal our stuff.’
‘I already said no.’
‘You didn’t, as it happens. Number two would be the same, but you’re not friends and are being coerced in some way.’
‘No again.’
‘Number three, you’re not friends and want these bandits dead for some reason.’
‘Still no. Do you have a lot of these?’
‘Quite a few. Number four, one of the babies means something to you. Your own, perhaps.’
‘You’re looking right at me, do I look like I’ve had a child?’
‘No, but I’m no expert. Number five, there are no babies, and -’
‘Look, can’t I just want the money?’ Maarika said, exasperated by Cathal’s jovial but insistent interrogation. ‘Why must my motives be different to those I say?’
‘Because you’re unusual,’ said Cathal. ‘A woman adventuring alone in a world where girls get sold as brides when they’re ten, in a time when men venturing ten paces outside their holds get tortured and murdered, let alone women. You know, I go along with three of the most terrifying killers I’ve ever seen, their reputations widely known in this part of your world, and people regularly try to kill us. Admittedly we bring it on ourselves a lot, but still. You’re on your own. That’s cause for suspicion, especially when even the best-case scenario has us idiots fighting an unknown quantity of bandits for, admittedly, an attractive amount of money. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to know more about you than the expanse of your hips.’
‘I’m telling the truth,’ she said.
‘You said you weren’t a whore. I believe that. What kind of she-wolf are you, though?’
‘I’m not any kind of anything. I’m normal. I just don’t see why I should follow any rules which mean I can’t do what I want. If I want to fight and steal for a living, I will. If I want no Lord, that’s how it will be. If I want two men I’ll have them, and to the hells with anyone who says I can’t.’
‘A fine philosophy, to be sure. People must try to kill you for it all the time.’
‘Quite often. Men, of course, but more women than you’d think.’ She shifted in the water, which flowed gently around her as though she had stood there forever. ‘I’m freezing, so I’m going. You’ll see tomorrow that I’m not lying.’
‘If you are, Blasius will kill you. He won’t even warn you. Romans don’t hold back against women.’
‘Who does?’ Maarika turned to leave.
‘Not there!’ Cathal said, as she made to step behind a large boulder. She paused, foot in mid-air, looking askance at him.
‘Sharp rocks lie in the lee of a river boulder,’ he said. ‘They haven’t been worn down.’
‘Neither have I,’ Maarika said. ‘I’m not sure about you, though.’
The look Maarika gave him then was one Cathal had never seen before. At once penetrating, hard and strangely compassionate, he felt in that moment that she’d opened him up, just carved right into him, to see what really lay beneath his broken skin.
‘You’ve got a secret, Cathal,’ she said. ‘In my whole life I’ve only ever seen one man as scared as you. Shall I tell you what he could do?’
‘I don’t care what strangers do,’ said Cathal, a deep, aching weariness in his voice. He nodded back toward the camp. ‘I only care about them. If you think I have a secret, keep it. They’re all I have.’
He paused, and then said, ‘I hope to care about you, sister. Someone should.’
‘I’ll care for myself. I always have.’
‘Me too. It’s not enough.’
Cathal watched her leave until she was hidden by the trees. Then he put his head back under the water and held it there until it was numb.
From the outside at least, the Cavern of Dragons was quite impressive. A diagonal scar, several hundred feet wide split open the rock face. Garlands of vines and strange flowers clung to the rock and fell from the roof of the cave mouth, giving it an almost enticing aspect. There was only darkness beyond.
‘Where are the dragons, then?’ Blasius whispered. There was a collective stifled groan from the others.
‘No dragons, Blasius,’ said Cathal, just as quietly. ‘Only bastards.’
From their concealed position in the tree-line Cathal observed one bastard, lounging on a rock near the entrance to the cave, looking out for trouble. He didn’t look like he was enjoying it very much and wasn’t paying attention at all, which, given his apparent failure to spot the noonday sun reflected from Blasius’ breastplate, and the overall Yaegarness of Yaegar, not hiding very well in trees almost directly in front of him, was probably going to develop into a terminal indifference.
Blasius looked like he was struggling. ‘Maybe dragons once, though?’ he suggested. ‘Like, maybe some heroes killed them?’
‘No dragons, Blasius.’
‘It’s a cave system,’ said Maarika. ‘There’s another entrance, and when the wind blows hard it roars through the cavern. People imagine it sounds like a dragon. Hence the name.’
Blasius scowled. ‘I feel cheated.’
‘We did tell you.’ Cathal watched the lookout fidget idly. ‘Repeatedly. What’s the obsession with dragons, anyway?’
‘If I bring a dragon’s head back to Caesar I’ll get a prominent position in his next triumph. Maybe even carry the Julii standard. He likes trophies. It’d make my name.’
‘I don’t know why you’d want to be part of such a misery display, but each to their own. Let’s worry about getting home first, okay?’
Cathal looked as deeply as he could into the cavern entrance. It was huge and rock strewn, but a wide path had been cleared leading into its depths. Approaching it would be easy, but if anyone inside had bows or magic the party would be dead before their eyes adjusted to the darkness. If they knew they were coming, that is.
‘Any reason this fellow should live to see tomorrow?’ he asked Maarika. ‘Redeeming qualities, children to support, superb anecdotes he could share for my amusement, vengeful relatives who might track me down?’
‘They’re all murderers and thieves. No one will miss them.’
‘That’s a shame. Right, here’s the plan,’ he said. ‘Blasius does his thing. We go in, quietly,’ and here he looked significantly at Yaegar, ‘kill anyone who is stupid enough to fight back, don’t kill the babies,’ he said with another hard stare at Yaegar, who threw up his hands petulantly and made an obscene gesture, ‘take them back, get the money, split it six ways. Okay?’
‘Five ways,’ said Tenzin. ‘Money means nothing to me.’
‘I’ve always liked you,’ said Vajra winningly.
‘I should say though that if one of the children turns out to be the Constant, I’m taking him,’ Tenzin continued. ‘Don’t stand against me, I’d just have to kill you, and I quite like you, so that would be a shame.’
The matter-of-factness in his voice, coupled with his cheerful smile, sent a chill down Cathal’s spine. It seemed he wasn’t the only one; even the normally oblivious Gotlander looked suddenly sober.
‘Never,’ said Vajra weakly. ‘Never is what I meant.’
‘Let us debate this peacefully should it come to it,’ said Cathal hurriedly. ‘Hey Blasius, bet you ten aurei you can’t get it in his eye.’
‘You don’t have ten aurei,’ said Blasius, shouldering his pilum.
‘I’m about to come into it though.’
‘Good, you can pay me all the money you owe me.’
‘Let’s not be silly. What is money between brothers?’
Blasius twisted his mouth into a wrinkle of contempt. ‘You know, in my grandfather’s time the punishment for welching on a debt was slavery,’ he said, crouching down and easing aside the branches which concealed them. ‘They should bring that back.’
‘I’m against the idea, myself.’
‘He can’t be that accurate from here, surely?’ Maarika said, as Blasius crept out of the tree line. ‘It’s a hundred cubits, at least.’
‘I’ll take side bets.’
Blasius jogged forward a few steps in his half crouch, then straightened and in the same motion threw the pilum with astonishing force. It described a graceful arc toward its unknowing target. While it was in the air Blasius whistled, not loud, just a one-two trill to attract attention. The lookout turned to see what made the noise and got the point of the pilum in his face, which exploded in blood as he was knocked off his feet.
There was a smattering of polite applause from the men.
‘Not bad,’ said Cathal.
‘That’s perfect, is that,’ said Blasius, with satisfied certainty.
‘Let’s see.’
‘I once saw him thread it through the handle of a wine jug from fifty feet away without spilling a drop,’ said Vajra in an aside to Maarika. She nodded without replying, looking at Blasius with what appeared to be genuine respect.
They waited for a moment to see if any unwise person inside the cavern would come rushing to the stricken man’s aid. Then they sauntered over to have a look at him.
‘Ten aurei please, Blasius,’ said Cathal, holding his hand out.
‘What? Look at him!’
‘I am. That’s clearly though his nose.’
‘Oh, come on!’ said Blasius, outraged that his skill wasn’t being properly recognised. He gesticulated at the corpse. ‘You try hitting a man in the peepers from that far away, let’s see how well you do!’
‘I’m seeing how well you did. And he’s seeing me back. From the next world admittedly, but he’s using two eyes to do it.’
‘You absolute hard-on,’ said Blasius, disgusted. He pulled his pilum from the dead man’s head, which squelched and sucked messily. He glared at Cathal, turned on his heel, and headed into the cavern.
‘What was the penalty for debt again, Blasius?’ Cathal called to his back.
‘Absolute. Hard-on.’
‘You’re all children,’ said Maarika, shaking her head. She followed Blasius into the cavern mouth.
‘You just noticed? Bel’s hair, I thought it was obvious. Oh, my aching head. Come, you bastards, let’s join the mad folk in Cailleach’s lair.’
The light from outside framed them for the first few steps. Beyond that they could see nothing.
‘Catch, ballsack,’ said Yaegar, extracting a short, smooth grey stick from his pack and throwing it at the back of Blasius’ head. Blasius twisted slightly and caught it without looking, impressing Cathal with his reflexes and awareness.
‘Stop calling me that, you baby-brained tosspot,’ he barked. He thumped the rod against a handy rock until it glowed dimly. ‘Give some to the others.’
Yaegar handed the lowlights around the party. Cathal scraped his along his sword until it gave up its light. Granted that he’d only had a few years of exposure to Shambhala culture, and the first two of those had been in front of a whip, but Cathal had noted that the lowlights were pretty much the only innovation originating from this benighted, tree smothered world. Shambhala was built on a hodgepodge of cultures transported wholesale from Earth and held together by the nebulous Shambhalhai Faith which Tenzin represented. But apart from religion it seemed that nothing new came from Shambhala. Even that was everyone else’s religion put together, or perhaps torn apart.
Maybe Blasius is right, he thought. Maybe this is the underworld.
No matter their provenance, the lowlights did their job. Tiny lizards scuttled away as the circle of faint radiance reached them, scrambling through rocks thrown into sharp relief by the glow. Blasius endured Cathal’s ‘Look! Dragons!’ silently, all business now a fight was in the offing.
The wide entrance soon narrowed, then descended into a tunnel. Crude steps had been cut into the cave floor. The roof of the tunnel rose and fell randomly; Cathal, third behind Maarika and Blasius, winced whenever Yaegar banged his head, fully expecting to be crushed under a pile of massive idiot when he lost his footing.
‘Smells of wet dog and sulphur,’ he said, wrinkling his nose as a steady breeze blew the unpleasant odour over him. ‘What is that, mold?’
‘Possibly,’ said Maarika. ‘If you see one crawling toward you, don’t stab it.’
‘I hate fighting molds,’ said Vajra cheerfully. ‘I always get bits in my beard, and then a week later I’m being mind-controlled by its spores or something.’
Cathal snorted in disbelief. ‘Does that happen a lot? Well done for giving them so little to work with.’
The steps led to a large open cave with many thousands of stalagmites and stalactites, standing, falling and joining in the middle, its reaches lost in darkness. They threaded through the beautiful formations, taking care now not to make any sound. Several tunnels opened at the other side; Maarika chose one immediately without even looking at the others. It was narrow and low; Yaegar bent almost double to go through. Other tunnels branched from it, and further tunnels from them, but Maarika chose or ignored them without hesitation. To Cathal, caught within the bubble of light they carried with them, it felt like he was in a golden vessel, burrowing through the earth into darkness, leaving only darkness behind them.
‘So, you clearly know where you’re going,’ he said, when they were in a wider tunnel.
‘I did tell you,’ said Maarika, not looking back. Blasius, who’d moved up to Maarika’s side the moment he was able, glanced sideways at her as Cathal spoke, and made side-eye contact with Cathal as he did so.
‘Ah, no, you didn’t quite, as it happens,’ Cathal said. ‘But why split hairs? Do you remember what we of spoke of last night?’
‘Last night?’ Vajra said immediately, skipping forward. ‘What’s this?’
‘I’m not lying,’ Maarika said, ignoring the anxious Sinhalese. ‘Bandits. Babies. Fight. Reward. I’m getting quite tired of repeating myself. You should start getting ready for the third bit, we’ll be there soon.’
‘There where?’ Cathal said, but Maarika ignored him and forged ahead. Cathal glanced at Blasius, who managed to convey eh-we’re here-now with his shoulders before plunging after her.
They began to walk upwards, and after a while daylight became visible at the end of the tunnel. Cathal thought they were coming back to the surface, but this turned out not to be the case.
They emerged into a narrow passage of limestone walls which extended dozens of cubits high before ending in needle sharp spikes on each side. The passage was open to the sky, and Cathal blinked to see the sun.
‘Don’t touch the walls,’ Maarika said.
‘Why not?’ Yaegar said.
‘Fuck me with a bucket of cocks!’ Yaegar said, as the incredibly sharp stone sliced through his fingers. He shoved them in his mouth and sucked on the cuts, and gave Blasius a look that Cathal thought he’d once seen on a puppy whose paw he’d accidentally trodden on.
‘You know, Yaegar,’ he said, ‘people say you’re heroically stupid, but I think you don’t get enough credit for your creativity. That was some superb swearing, there.’
‘Kiss my intestines, dirtbag.’
‘Just so. Keep up the good work! Everyone else, try not to get sliced up by the tunnel of murder rocks. And don’t ditch the lowlights. We’ll probably need them again.’
As Maarika led them on it became apparent that it wasn’t simply a tunnel of murder rocks but a maze of them, passages branching, twisting and turning without sign or ceasing. It proved impossible to get through without brushing the walls here and there, and soon they all had minor cuts on arms, hands and shoulders. All except Maarika. Cathal quickly realised the best way to navigate the lacerating formation was to turn as she turned and lean as she leaned.
‘This must make for a marvellous hideout,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t hope to find your way through this unless you’d spent a lot of time here. A lot of time.’
There was a grunted ‘Oh!’ from Yaegar, now bringing up the rear. Cathal imagined a very short candle flickering into life in his skull. Vajra by contrast looked as mooningly infatuated and unaware as ever.
‘Yes,’ said Maarika, with more than a degree of exasperation. ‘Not lying, Hibernian. Now we go back underground for a short while, then we’re there.’
‘There where?’ Cathal tried again, but Maarika ignored him again.
The passage through darkness was as brief as promised, but more difficult than Maarika had expected. Part of the tunnel had collapsed, and as they picked their way through the detritus it became clear that several other tunnels running off it had followed suit.
‘What have they done?’ Maarika whispered to herself. Before Cathal could ask what she meant, the tunnel came to an end.
It opened out into wonder.
The roof of a gigantic cave, just beneath the surface, had collapsed in ages past, leaving it open to the sky. Water had collected in a vast pool below, hundreds of feet across, water of such clarity that it almost perfectly reflected the sky above it, giving the illusion that its depths went on into the infinite blue. A single thick shaft of sunlight illuminated the pool as if the sun itself was pointing to its beauty. A sand beach surrounded it, rising gently to the cave walls, upon which paths and galleries were cut into the rock, seemingly naturally, riding in spirals up the high cave walls, intersecting here and there. Dozens of tunnels led from the galleries at irregular points, dark spots leading, Cathal presumed, further into the warren of tunnels they had just passed through.
The whole effect was intoxicatingly beautiful, and Cathal felt a sudden, intense connection to the numinous, as if the living universe had chosen this hidden place to reveal the best, most beautiful part of itself, just to him. It made him feel like a druid again, if only for a second, a second for which he was profoundly grateful.
‘This is unexpectedly magnificent,’ he said, drinking in the splendour of it all.
‘I see something better,’ said Yaegar.
Near the water's edge a small chest had been broken open, the splintered lid hanging from one hinge. Inside, gold coins gleamed in the sunlight as though they’d been minted from it. Many more were strewn across the sand.
‘Get to it, lads,’ said Cathal, but Vajra and Yaegar were already on their knees, scooping up the coins.
‘I don’t wish to be alarmist,’ said Tenzin, looking back down the tunnel they’d come through and rubbing his head thoughtfully, ‘but is it normal that a sizable quantity of money is just left lying around the place you are expecting to find bad people you intend to fight?’
‘No,’ said Blasius, looking around the galleries intently. ‘Normally I’d consider that bait.’ His sweeping gaze ended at Maarika.
‘Allow me to explain,’ said Maarika. She drew one of her swords and brought it up under Vajra’s chin. He froze mid-scrabble, and stared at her uncomprehendingly.
‘What’s this, my love?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Get your fingers off my gold,’ she said flatly. She looked at Yaegar. ‘You too, tree-trunk.’
Yaegar grinned.
‘She’s calling you thick,’ Cathal piped up helpfully.
Yaegar stopped grinning.
‘What’s yours is ours,’ said Blasius. ‘Or one fifth ours each. That was the deal. Unless you have lied to us.’
‘The deal was to split the reward,’ Maarika said. ‘This is mine. My, ah, savings.’
Cathal grinned to cover his disbelief. ‘A rich, single woman. When I said no at the river, what I meant was, marry me?’
‘Why has no one drawn their sword to demand she releases me?’ Vajra asked, trying to raise his head away from the blade. Maarika raised her sword with him.
‘Honestly? It’s quite funny,’ said Cathal.
‘You lied to us,’ said Blasius. Cathal caught the blank look in his eye. The difference between humourless buffoon Blasius and merciless killer Blasius was quite difficult for an untrained observer to spot, but Cathal knew it well and realised Maarika was moments from a death which would probably take out Vajra in the heat of it.
‘Blasius...’ he began.
‘I did not lie,’ said Maarika flatly.
‘Maarika...’
‘Is it Maarika?’ said a voice from... somewhere. Cathal couldn’t work out where, the sound echoed around the walls until it seemed to come from everywhere. ‘It is, isn’t it?’
Maarika lowered her sword, much to Vajra’s relief, and turned her back on Blasius, a monumentally unwise act in Cathal’s opinion. But Blasius was looking around too, trying to pinpoint the speaker’s position.
‘Kosmas? Is that you?’ Maarika said. ‘Show yourself, you arrogant little weasel. I’ve brought some heroes to give your ugly rabble a proper beating.’
‘All true so far,’ said Cathal to Blasius, hopefully. ‘Apart from the heroes bit, obviously.’
‘I want my cavern back,’ Maarika continued.
Cathal snapped his fingers. ‘See, I never thought of that one. I mean, I knew she’d been here -’
‘And I want you crucified for trying to steal my gang from me.’
‘That would have been number six,’ said Cathal to Blasius knowingly. ‘Well, it’s kind of three-A, really, so I did think of that.’
‘You lied,’ said Blasius again. His grip tightened on his pilum.
Maarika rounded on him. ‘Stop saying that. I may have omitted some relevant information, but I did not lie. The deal is still the deal. Get the babies, kill the bandits that took them if they put up a fight,’ she said loudly, ‘get the reward.’
‘Not telling us you were one of the bandits who stole the babies in the first place is quite like lying,’ Cathal pointed out, subtly shifting position so he was mostly between Maarika and Blasius.
‘I wasn’t,’ she said. ‘Kosmas talked them into their little mutiny before they came up with that particular plan. I just knew who’d done it, because it was so stupid. And I knew where they’d be afterwards. I decided I’d make the money from it, and talked the thing into putting up a reward rather than paying a ransom.’
‘And here we are,’ said Cathal, offering his most charming smile. ‘And I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson. Which is, if you’re in a tavern, stay there.’
Maarika curled her lip. ‘Must everything be a joke, Hibernian?’
‘Yes. That’s life’s fault, not mine.’
‘Knob. Come out Kosmas, you bastard,’ Maarika shouted, turning around so she could see the whole extent of the cave. ‘Let me show you the price of turning my men against me.’
The voice of Kosmas echoed from the walls. ‘They were never loyal to you,’ he said. ‘They thought it was funny that a woman tried to boss them around. And they all wanted to open your legs. They never did anything without my say so.’
‘Then you’re all bastards. Let me open my legs so you can kiss my arse. Come out so I can kill you.’
The man laughed, and halfway through it turned into a strange gurgle that Cathal recognised immediately. He wasn’t the only one. Vajra and Yaegar had their swords out instantly, and Blasius took guard with his spear, his eyes searching the walls of the cavern and the many tunnels leading from it.
‘It’s a bit late for that, Maarika,’ said Kosmas. ‘Hey, you see that huge rockfall by the way in? I’m behind there. And a bit under there. Dig me out, will you?’
No one holding a weapon moved. Cathal shrugged and started heaving boulders. After a moment Tenzin joined him, expertly scooping away dust and rubble as if he’d spent his whole life digging.
Eventually they revealed a pair of shattered legs, broken beyond repair and covered in blood. A few more moments uncovered the body they were notionally attached to. He was face down, in the entrance to a tunnel. The rocks that had crushed his limbs had opened a shaft above his head into more tunnels above, which had allowed his voice to be heard.
‘Greetings,’ said Kosmas, coughing violently as Tenzin cleared the dust and rubble. ‘Roll me over, gently please.’
‘That will hurt,’ Tenzin cautioned.
‘Nah, the feeling’s gone. You’re going to want what’s under me.’
Cathal and Tenzin looked at each other, then carefully lifted the man. His face was torn, and one eye looked like it had died. Cathal got a whiff of something horrible.
‘Brother, you smell rank,’ he said.
‘Not me,’ said the man.
Underneath him, fast asleep in a deep hole in the rock, were two baby girls lying in blankets, blonde and chubby, no more than a month old.
‘Are the babies alive?’ said Maarika.
‘Most pungently alive. Either of them your man?’ Cathal asked Tenzin. ‘Woman?’ he corrected.
‘No, they’re just babies,’ said Tenzin. He stroked a tiny face with a finger, and smiled as the infant wrapped her own fingers around his. ‘I like babies.’
‘Great, you’re on baby duty,’ said Blasius.
‘My pleasure,’ said Tenzin. Very gently, he lifted the infants out of their hiding place. ‘They look unharmed, other than quite immediately needing cleaning.’ He pulled out a cloth from inside his robe and quickly took care of them, cooing over them in a language Cathal didn’t speak.
When he was done he looked back to the stricken man. ‘How did they survive the rocks?’
‘I saw the roof crumble,’ he said, speaking easily despite his mortal wounds. ‘The hole had, ah, just been made. The Constant smiled on them. As it should, they’re innocents. No smile for me though. Again, that’s fair.’
He coughed and spat out more blood. It was obvious he was dying, but he didn’t seem distressed by that.
‘Are you in pain?’ Cathal said.
‘No, I’m not.’ Kosmas looked down at his destroyed limbs. ‘You’d think I would be. I feel like I’m dreaming.’ He smiled hazily.
‘How long have you been like this?’ Blasius asked, peeling his eyes away from the tunnels momentarily.
‘Oh, a few hours, I think. We only just got back ourselves. Did you see Randúlfr at the cave mouth? We left him to keep watch in case you came back, Maarika. Did you speak to him?’
‘Not speak, no.’
‘Ah. Sorry to hear that. Still, he got off lightly.’
‘This tunnel was stable when I left,’ said Maarika. ‘What happened here? Where is everyone else?’
‘I expect they’re dead,’ said Kosmas. ‘Or at least having a very bad time just before they die. The roof collapsed because we set off those Han fire pots we stole last year. They blew up.’ He broke off suddenly, coughing violently. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘Why did you set off the fire pots, Kosmas?’ Cathal said, a very bad feeling creeping upward from the pit of his stomach.
The bandit rolled his good eye up to focus on Cathal.
‘Because of the werewolves,’ he said.
Everyone fell still, as if Kosmas saying the word had struck them momentarily dumb. Then Maarika said, ‘There aren’t any -’
‘- werewolves within a hundred leagues,’ finished Kosmas. ‘In fact, it turns out this wonderful cave we’ve been using as a hideout is a holy place for werewolves.’
‘What? What?’
‘You know how you liked that the moon reflected in the pool at night? Guess who really likes bathing in the moon?’
‘Hold on,’ said Maarika incredulously. ‘We’ve used this cave as a hideout for almost two years.’
‘Once a year they come,’ he said, coughing blood again. ‘We must have been out last time. Lucky us.’
‘A festival of werewolves,’ said Cathal. ‘Who is the Roman god of luck, Blasius? I’m going to piss on their altar.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Blasius sharply, his eyes narrowing. ‘How do you know this?’
Kosmas sighed heavily. Death rattled in his lungs.
‘They told me,’ he said.
Cathal was first to see the eyes. Yellow dots, blazing through the darkness of each tunnel; lamps lit by an evil fire, burning to consume them. Then the eyes resolved into faces as the werewolves began to emerge, like the fomoire of Cathal’s imagination; monstrous demons of the underworld, snarling and clawing the earth, born for chaos.
In the daylight they were men-like-wolves. Cathal had seen werewolves before, in ones and twos; once under moonlight, when the wolf was high in their blood. Somehow their closeness to humanity now made them even more frightening. Both male and female, some with swords and armour, some as naked as wild wolves in the forest. Most had pelts of grey and black, some were touched here and there with red and brown. Some were crimson with fresh blood.
As each reached its tunnel mouth it stopped. Others crowded behind the leader. They stopped and waited.
‘Great Vijaya, there are hundreds of them,’ said Vajra, awestruck. Yaegar stood slack-jawed. Tenzin, his face impassive, cradled a child in the crook of each arm, ready to run.
‘Oh, that’s terrifying,’ said Cathal. ‘We should go, Blasius, we should go right now. Right now, right now!’
‘We go when we’re ready to go,’ Blasius said calmly. ‘We have time to plan. That will save us, not fear. Put your fear away to savour after we’ve survived.’ He turned his martial glare on the young Sinhalese. ‘Vajra, you’re up.’
‘Prince Vajra,’ said Vajra. He sheathed his longsword and drew a rapier instead. It gleamed silver along one edge and at the point.
‘Why aren’t they attacking?’ Maarika said.
‘They will,’ said Blasius, ignoring Vajra’s continued claim to royalty. He turned to his friends. ‘You know the drill, men,’ he continued. ‘I hold them off. Yaegar, you hack them up. Vajra, you kill them.’
‘Blasius, look how many there are!’ Cathal cried.
‘Numbers don’t matter. It just means we kill more of them. Discipline beats numbers every time. Right, Yaegar?’
‘No problem,’ grunted the Gotlander. Vajra nodded sharply, his eyes wide with excitement.
The werewolves watched them, and did not move.
‘We’re going to move to a better position,’ Blasius continued, in a much quieter voice. ‘This spot is not defensible; Kosmas and his crew proved that. But our aim is not to escape. The open approach to the cavern means death for us, we’d be swarmed. Our mission is to find a defensible passage where the rest of us can hold them back while Vajra picks them off, and where they can’t get over us. It needs to be narrow enough to restrict their numbers, two at a time at most. It can’t be a dead end, they’d stop attacking and wait for us to collapse from exhaustion or thirst. They must think we’re getting away. That will draw them on. Ideally, there will be no access from here to anywhere ahead of us there, otherwise they’ll just go around us. Somewhere we can draw them forward a little at a time into a killing ground we control. Where we can make them feel they can win, but they can’t. Know anywhere like that, Maarika?’
‘That’s a lot to ask,’ she said, turning her head this way and that as she imagined the maze of tunnels extending from where they stood into the caverns beyond. ‘Maybe. It’s going to be hell to get to from here though.’
‘It will be hell,’ said Blasius implacably. ‘But not ours.’
He stopped for moment. Cathal could see him playing out the coming battle in his mind, and not for the first time in his life felt incredibly grateful to have fallen in with a professional soldier.
‘Everyone, lash the lowlights to your blades near the hilt. We’ll need the light and we won’t be able to carry them. Cathal, we will be backing away, you have the front door. If they get ahead of us, use your sword as a lance until Vajra can switch position. I know you fear battle,’ he added, seeking Cathal’s eye. ‘So do I. So do we all. You are equal to this, Fear not. Your gods protect you.’
‘Yeah, about that,’ Cathal began, but Blasius had moved on. He raised his chin toward Maarika’s short swords. ‘You any good with them?’
‘The best.’
‘That is good to hear. I take it you don’t have silver?’
‘Regrettably, no.’
‘You’re on the front door too. If you have to fight, continual slashes to carve them up. You’ll need to guide us. Call out the directions, remember we are going backwards.’ He turned to the monk, who had gone pale but stood resolute. ‘Tenzin, you’re in the middle with the kids. Keep your head down when Yaegar starts swinging.’
‘I will,’ said the monk.
Kosmas coughed violently then, and Blasius looked down at him. ‘You’re dying,’ he said. ‘We can’t carry you.’
‘I know,’ said Kosmas, his head lurching wildly. Cathal was no longer sure he could see them. ‘I feel the ice. I’ve felt it since the rockfall. I only held on in the hope that someone would rescue the children. I’m not a monster. And my prayers were answered.’ He took a ragged breath. ‘Do me a favour, brother?’
‘Of course, brother.’ Blasius unsheathed his gladius and rested the point over Kosmas’ heart.
‘Uh, what are you going to do?’ said Tenzin sharply. He carefully put down the babies and moved toward the pair of them. Yaegar put a warning hand on his shoulder, holding him back. Cathal half expected to see the big man thrown on his back, or otherwise incapacitated by some ancient monk fighting skill. In fact, Tenzin just stopped.
‘I don’t want to be ripped to shreds,’ said Kosmas. ‘And I don’t want to come back. I’ve had a good go at life. It’s fine.’ His eyes rolled in his head. ‘Hey, are you a monk? You looked like a monk. You can do me a favour too.’ He took another breath, and exhaled blood. 'For any hurt I have caused, for any fault or sorrow, I ask forgiveness. My soul is yours.'
'I forgive you,’ said Tenzin immediately, ‘and your soul is your own. Go now, and know that you are loved.'
‘That’s grand. Now, let him do his work.’
‘Any other requests?’ Blasius asked, his eyes on the werewolves. They still hadn’t moved, and appeared to be watching the scene unfold below them with something approaching understanding.
The dying man laughed his last laugh. ‘Show us your breasts, Maarika, they’re spectacular.’
‘Goodbye, Kosmas,’ she said. ‘You weren’t a bastard all the time.’
‘Who can ask for a better eulogy? May you all live to sing my name.’ He nodded at Blasius, who lent his full weight onto the sword without hesitation. It slid in easily.
‘May Father Dīs welcome you,’ Blasius said, pulling back the blade. He took up two coins from those lying on the sand, and placed them on the dead man’s eyes.
‘That was terrible,’ said Tenzin quietly.
‘It was honourable,’ said Blasius.
This seemed to be the werewolves’ view of the matter; as Blasius spoke one of them raised its muzzle-like jaw and howled. As the dreadful sound echoed through the cave the werewolf’s voice was joined by another, and another, until a deafening pandemonium obliterated all other sound. The effect was excruciating. The humans clutched their ears; all except Tenzin, who dived on the babies and smothered their ears between his chest and each hand. They screamed, he endured.
The howl cut through Cathal’s waning confidence like a hot knife through butter. The layers of humour, false indifference and madness he used to shield his soul from the stark consequences of his brutal life were instantly sliced away, exposing the abject fear that writhed like a serpent in his quaking heart. He fell to his knees, tears streaming, and bent double, willing himself not to faint. The others faced their own demons, winning or losing in their own minds, as the cataclysmic din built, peaked and finally died away.
Only Blasius was unperturbed. ‘They’ll come now,’ he said, when they could hear him again. ‘Form up in the tunnel mouth. Obey my orders without question. Maintain formation. Protect each other. This is what I do for a living, I will see you through it.’
He turned and set his pilum. Vajra took a low position behind him to his right, able to strike up and through his guard. Yaegar took high guard at Blasius’ left shoulder, ready to hack downward and use his long reach to impale their attackers. The other took their stations facing the other way.
‘I think I have gone deaf,’ said Tenzin, bundling the bawling children in his arms.
Blasius surveyed the werewolves with contempt. ‘HEAR ME!’ he yelled, in a colossal battlefield roar, which reverberated from the walls like a crack of thunder, a human-scale riposte to the werewolf tumult. ‘I CLAIM THIS EARTH FOR THE SENATE AND THE PEOPLE OF ROME! ALL WHO WALK HERE WILL DIE! HAVE YOUR LUPERCALIA ANOTHER DAY! RETURN WHENCE YOU CAME AND LIVE TO SEE THE MOON!’
‘Ah, I heard that,’ said Tenzin happily.
‘I don’t think they care about Rome, Blasius,’ said Cathal weakly.
‘I care,’ said Blasius. ‘Here they come. Back away now.’
The werewolves poured from the cave sides, yelping, barking and snarling ferociously, a dreadful cacophony which somehow lacked the soul-clenching terror their long howl had induced. They came around each side of the pool and crashed together; then they were upon the defenders.
The tunnel held them back, only two or three could enter at a time, but their wild-eyed eagerness and snapping, slavering fangs made it seem as if twice that came to tear out human throats.
As the first surged forward Blasius braced his pilum and stepped toward it; the leading werewolf bent double over the spear to avoid taking it in the belly. Yaegar struck immediately, cutting down and to his right, taking the werewolf in the head; as his longsword knocked the beast sideways Vajra nipped in to skewer it, a fierce darting strike that was in and out of the werewolf’s heart before it knew it was dead. Meanwhile, Blasius had transferred his defence to the werewolf to his left; holding it off while Yaegar and Vajra stepped back, then stepping back himself only to set another defence against the next werewolf foolish enough to attack. The whole party moved up the tunnel two or three steps at a time, killing werewolves in each advance.
And so it went. Sometime Vajra missed his mark and they couldn’t move. Sometimes a werewolf evaded Blasius’ pilum only to be knocked down by Yaegar, using his sword as a club or sometimes simply punching it. Werewolves fell, and when each werewolf fell its successors stepped over it and on it without caring that their pack mate lay dead under its feet. From behind it looked as though Blasius was a leopard, a wild beast defending men against monsters. And slowly, so slowly, the party moved through the tunnels.
‘Gods of my fathers, it’s working!’ Cathal cried, trying to look up the tunnel ahead of him and still see the battle behind. At that moment Vajra slipped and fell to one knee; without hesitation Cathal thrust his sword over Tenzin’s head as hard has he could, taking a werewolf in the eye just as it looked to fall on the Sinhalese. He yanked his blade back; the werewolf overbalanced and took the rising Vajra’s sword point in the chest.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ said Vajra, grinning like a maniac.
‘My pleasure, brother.’
‘We’re turning right!’ Maarika shouted. ‘Your left hand, Blasius! Four more paces then start to wheel!’
Blasius speared a werewolf in the chest; Yaegar hacked down hard and split it from skull to breastbone.
‘This is not the way we came,’ warned Cathal.
‘Shortcut!’
‘Right!’
‘Maarika, protect Yaegar as we turn,’ Blasius said. ‘Vajra will be too far away.’
‘Got it.’ She moved past Tenzin, leaving Cathal alone at the front, and slipped between Yaegar and Blasius. Stabbing forward quickly with both her weapons.
‘Vajra, take four steps to our two or you’ll be exposed,’ Blasius commanded. Vajra obeyed, and the line reformed in the new direction. Maarika rejoined Cathal, pretty reluctantly in Cathal’s view. He eyes were shining; her face sprayed red with wolf blood.
They proceeded like this, turning several more times, each time covering each other; only werewolves died.
‘Moving back into the razor rocks!’ Cathal yelled.
‘Great!’ Yaegar replied. ‘Room to swing! I’m going to cut you in half, hairy boys! I chop you from nostrils to nuts!’ He stepped smartly back as a werewolf dipped under his guard, letting Vajra thrust at right angles across Blasius’ legs to impale the slavering wolf-man. Blasius swung his pilum like a stave to fend off the rest. The howling of the outraged pack intensified. More werewolves appeared to fill the gap left by the fallen.
‘Morrigan goddess, these bastards never stop!’ Cathal cried.
‘Do it!’ shouted Maarika.
‘What?’
‘You know! Use it!’
Cathal went white. ‘No!’
‘We need it!’
‘No! Never! Never!’
‘Pay attention, please,’ Tenzin said, over the screams of his tiny charges. ‘There is a crossroads ahead.’
Maarika looked searchingly up the tunnel. The way ahead widened slightly. ‘Where the hell do we... we turn left! Left! Come on!’
She pushed Cathal ahead and moved quickly up the tunnel. Tenzin stepped up to match her pace, leaving a gap between them and the three warriors backing up behind them.
Yaegar was the first to notice. With an enormous yell he swung his sword right back over his head and brought it back over and down with all his immense strength, slicing a werewolf completely in two.
‘I told you!’ he exulted. ‘I told you! Did you see that? Did you see that, Blas-’
‘Step back!’ Blasius shouted. ‘Step back, step back!
Yaegar and Vajra immediately obeyed, but just as they did, the werewolves surged. One grabbed Blasius’ pilum behind the point and pulled. Blasius held on and staggered forward. Instantly Yaegar grabbed him and yanked him back by the shoulder, sending him flying back toward Cathal, leaving his pilum behind in the throng. The druid fielded him bodily and pushed him into the left-hand tunnel. The werewolves kept attacking Yaegar and Vajra, pushing them back. The two men closed ranks to fill the gap left by Blasius, Yaegar holding them off, Vajra skewering one when it got to bold. They fought like heroes of legend, joyfully eviscerating monsters from the nightmare realms.
But when they got to the junction, they chose wrongly. They went to their left.
‘No!’ Blasius shouted, as werewolves surged into each tunnel, cutting the companions off. He drew his gladius and stabbed a werewolf in the chest. Cathal opened the guts of another. Ahead of them Maarika dragged Tenzin and the screaming babies down the tunnel.
Cathal could just see Vajra through the throng of beasts. ‘Yaegar!’ he shouted. ‘Vajra! We’ll find you! Just stay alive!’
‘Prince Vajra!’ shouted Vajra, grinning madly as the werewolves closed in. He yelled the words at the top of his voice, lengthening and breaking it apart as he did so, so at the last the magic failed to translate it.
‘Prince Vajra! Prince Vajra! Ku-mā-ray-ā Vaj-ra!’
Then they were gone behind a wall of matted fur, Yaegar screaming epithets, Vajra screaming his name.
‘Yaegar!’ Blasius howled. He slashed wildly across the faces of the leading werewolves, blinding one and bleeding the rest, trying to force his way back to the crossroads. Cathal stabbed forward, his sword point scraping off a scrap of plate armour and clashing against a rising sword. He circled the blade and roughly forced it up into its owner’s jaw.
‘We’ll find them!’ Cathal shouted desperately. ‘Blasius! Blasius, listen to me!’
Blasius, half crazed with fear for his surrogate son, ignored him.
‘Blasius, please!’ Cathal struck down another wolf and took a slash on the shoulder for his trouble. As he reeled away inspiration struck, and he raised his voice in a military roar.
‘Decanus! Fall back! Maintain formation!’
Decades of following orders without question moved Blasius’ feet before his brain realised what he was doing. It snapped him out of his panic and he fell in next to his friend.
Together, Cathal and Blasius fought their way backwards through the alley of knife-sharp rock walls. Cathal barely noticed the scrapes and cuts the rocks opened on his arms. Then they were back underground, going down, fending off the werewolves as they moved with increasing speed. Down, down, the passage narrowed. When it became single file only Cathal let Blasius bear the brunt of the assault as he stepped behind him, thrusting over and around the Roman at opportune moments.
‘Come on!’ Maarika said, from further up the tunnel. ‘We’re almost there! We’re almost there! We’re - oh no! No!’
Cathal emerged onto a narrow platform hanging over the edge of an impossibly huge chasm, its depths lost to sight in the gloom below. Across from the ledge was a cliff with more tunnel holes in it, but they might as well have been on the moon. From the shattered rock on each side, Cathal surmised a natural rock bridge joining the platform to the opposite wall had collapsed, stranding the party. No way on, no way back.
Maarika looked around wildly, horrified by the dead end she had inadvertently led them to. Tenzin, looking left and right and finding no way out, promptly sat down near the edge, back to the tunnel, crossing his legs and holding the children in his lap, bending forward as far as he could to shield them from the violence above him.
‘What do we do?’ Maarika cried.
‘I don’t know!’ Cathal yelled.
‘Help me,’ said Blasius grimly, forcing back a werewolf with a double handed chop to the throat, while stamping on one who had tried to get underneath. Maarika nailed it to floor with a sword through the top of its skull. She dragged the blade out in time to catch another werewolf on the upswing.
‘Push forward!’ cried Blasius. ‘Hold the tunnel! Make the bodies pile up! Make them climb over the dead! Fight on!’
‘We’re fucked, Blasius, there’s no way on!’
‘Fight on! Fight on!’
Cathal and Maarika took up station to Blasius’ right and left. Between hacking at werewolves, Maarika risked a glance at the Hibernian.
‘Do it, Cathal, please, you must!’
‘No!’
‘We’ll die!’
‘Oh gods! I can’t!’
‘Whatever you’re doing, do it now!’ said Blasius. ‘Oh no you don’t, you fucker,’ he added, as a werewolf closed its almost-muzzle on his plate sleeve. It fell back with half its face sliced off.
Slowly, ever so slowly, they were being pushed back, and Blasius knew it.
‘Death to you all!’ he screamed, his voice full of fury and despair. ‘Rome destroys her enemies! We are never defeated! I’m coming! I’m coming, Yaegar! I’m coming, my son! I’m coming!’
That was when Cathal changed his mind.
‘Hey, Blasius, did I ever tell you why I got kicked out of the druids?’ he said.
‘What? Is now the time?’ said Blasius, wildly stabbing a werewolf through the mouth.
‘It’s probably apposite,’ said Cathal, smashing another werewolf’s head in with a handy rock, and kicking one down the cliff at the same time.
‘Just do it!’ Maarika screamed, slicing her way into a wolf body.
‘Thing is, Druids have their own idea of what magic is,’ said Cathal. ‘Fake gates and so on. They get upset when you point out it doesn’t work.’
‘Quickly, Hibernian.’
‘I really upset the druí of the Ros.’
Three werewolves tumbled out of the tunnel and leapt on Maarika, fangs flashing, claws tearing into her. She staggered backward under their weight, tripped, twisted and fell backwards over from the lip of the cliff edge, screaming obscenities and slashing at the werewolves as she toppled into the blackness below. More werewolves followed, pushing Cathal and Blasius back to where Tenzin sat.
‘Maarika!’ Blasius shouted, swinging his blade in a savage low sweep which made his attackers stagger back. But Cathal barely noticed, utter misery and terror carved into his face, deeper than any wound a blade could make. He dropped his guard, and only Blasius’ wild lunge stopped him being eviscerated.
As he defended his friend, Blasius left himself unguarded. A werewolf darted in and slashed at Blasius’ leg with a broken blade; he went down on one knee, grunted in pain, and caught the werewolf on the backswing, sending bits of it into the pit as the rest collapsed.
‘I really upset him,’ Cathal repeated, seeing another world in his mind now, oblivious to the mortal danger around him.
‘Hibernian!’
‘Really upset him.’
‘Cathal!’
‘Upset him like this,’ said Cathal, and thrust out a hand.
A wave of force ripped violently through the air. Where it met a werewolf it shredded it completely, in a burst of blood which sprayed the tunnels crimson with its ichor. The wave continued through the tunnel, killing the monsters, one after the other, until the turn of the tunnel hid the dying werewolves from sight. But Cathal felt it go on, following the path they had walked to get there, exploding werewolves into red mist wherever it touched them. The blood splattered Cathal and Blasius until there was no part of them not dripping with it, and covered the still bent Tenzin like a thick, wet shroud which matched his robe. The leopard skin that Blasius wore looked like it had been slaughtered all over again. A red river flowed toward them from the tunnel, lapped at their ankles, and dripped from the cliff edge like a waterfall.
Cathal clutched his head as if he’d taken an axe in the skull, and let out a long keen of suffering, an abject cry of distress that no one could answer. His face twisted in agonised despair as glittering lines of rust descend from his scalp line down his face, growing into his skin, the magic burning him like a brand, tearing through his fading tattoos, the savage present mocking his past.
‘It’s worse!’ he wailed. ‘It’s worse, it’s worse! Balor’s eye, how can it be worse?’
Blasius, blood-drenched and half-crazed, panting as though he’d just lost a marathon, stared wild-eyed as the magic serrated his friend. Then he turned his gaze on the lumps of werewolf meat that covered the path.
‘Stir my mother’s ashes, what just happened?’
‘I destroyed them,’ Cathal said, his face in his hands. ‘I destroyed them all.’ He sobbed for all he was worth.
‘Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, protect me,’ Blasius breathed. Still kneeling, he surveyed the obliterated bodies, little more left of them than the scrapings from a butcher’s floor. He stared at his despairing friend, awestruck by his sudden display of power.
‘How did you kill all those werewolves, Cathal? Do your gods work through you?’
‘Magic,’ said Cathal weakly. ‘Just magic. Bastard bloody magic. But they’re not dead, Blasius. They’ll come back.’
‘What? They’re in bits! Don’t be stupid, they’re bloody dead,’ he asserted firmly, his tone brooking no argument.
This display of archetypal Blasian intransigence stirred something in Cathal. He wiped his eyes and brought himself to look at his friend with something approximating his normal flippancy. It felt forced, it was forced, but he wanted to force it, as if by acting like his old self he could bring that dead man back to life.
‘How have you lived for so long in a place you call their underworld and you still don’t actually know anything about werewolves? Blasius, I love you dearly, but you are colossally thickheaded.’
‘And you are a colossal clitoris.’
That one took even the congenitally profane Hibernian by surprise. ‘That was quite blunt,’ he said.
‘I’m Roman. We're a straightforward people. What do you mean, they’ll come back?’
‘Only silver kills werewolves.’
‘I know that,’ said Blasius, with the deliberate diction of a man used to speaking to uniformed imbeciles. ‘But that’s swordplay. You turned them into meat scraps. Surely that does too?’
‘No,’ said Cathal. ‘Eventually these bits will grow back into the wolves they were. They’ll be absolutely mad afterwards, but they’ll be alive.’
‘Forged anew. Vulcan, work slowly,’ Blasius prayed. ‘We should leave,’ he added.
‘You don’t have to tell me twice,’ said Cathal, desperate to be anywhere else. ‘Get up then.’
‘One of those hairy arseholes slashed my tendon. I don’t think it’s severed but it hurts like hell. I need a hand.’
‘I can spare a finger,’ said Cathal, raising a middle one, then scratching his head with it.
‘Very funny, you total fucker. Seriously though, help.’
‘Ah, go on then.’
Cathal helped Blasius to his feet. Gingerly, the Roman put weight on his damaged leg, and nodded cautiously. Satisfied, Cathal let him go and turned to the monk, still sitting facing the chasm, arms surrounding his precious burdens.
‘Up you get, Tenzin.’
Tenzin didn’t move. His bowed head hung heavily on his shoulders.
‘Ah,’ said Cathal, sighing with recognition. His self-pity and self-loathing drained away, replaced by deep compassion. ‘Ah, well.’
He lifted the dead monk’s chin gently, and caught his head as it lolled sideways. He saw the claw wound across his neck. He looked down. Two tiny mouths smiled up at him.
‘Thank you, brother,’ he whispered. ‘May your next turn of the wheel be gentle and filled with love.’
‘Father Dīs, welcome him,’ said Blasius. ‘May his shade find his ancestors and rest with them.’ He took out another two coins, limped over, and placed them in Tenzin’s hand. He closed the monk’s fingers over the money, and squeezed his hand.
‘You can do magic,’ he said to Cathal, when he straightened up.
I can. I met a man who taught me. It’s not hard. It’s just a bad idea. Never do it.’
‘How long have you been able to do magic?’
‘Since before we met. Before I came to this world.’
Blasius sucked in his breath sharply, and frowned as though he couldn’t quite understand what he was hearing.
‘You endured two years of the kind of slavery I wouldn’t wish on the sons of Mithridates. You were a ruin when I found you. Why didn’t you use magic to get out of it?’
‘It’s worse,’ said Cathal simply. ‘What happens to you...’ He felt the glittering lines of rust snaking down his face and choked back another sob. ‘It’s absolutely worse than slavery, worse than death. If I’d been alone I would have let the wolves kill me before I used magic again. I almost did anyway.’ He scratched his face, and uttered a deep moan of irritation. ‘It never stops. Never.’ He scratched his head. ‘Gods, Blasius, the weight of it. It’s like being pressed to death under stone while pepper is ground into your flesh. Always.’
‘I had no idea,’ said Blasius quietly.
Cathal looked away to hide the tears which had appeared in his eyes once more.
‘My brothers cast me out. Literally threw me into the rift in the hidden depths of the cave of Cruachan. They said I’d offended the gods and they would no longer answer my supplication. It was supposed to kill me. It brought me here. Death would have been better.’
‘I had no idea,’ said Blasius again.
Something broke inside Cathal. The bitterness and resentment that he disguised with humour and drowned in alcohol revealed itself at last as a snarl awash with tears.
‘Do you know the worst thing? The worst fucking thing, Blasius? The magician didn’t warn me. If I’d known and made a choice, that would be one thing. He kept that from me. What offence had I committed that he would curse me so? I’d hurt no man. What did I do?’
‘Nothing that deserved this fate,’ said Blasius.
‘Nothing at all. Nothing at all.’
Blasius looked away. The kind of pain Cathal felt was not one he knew how to heal.
‘You know, with the jokes and insults, how we get along with each other... no idea. You should have told me. You can lean on me, brother. I will help you carry this weight.’
‘You can’t. No one can.’
‘I can.’
They were quiet until Cathal composed himself.
‘Well, crying about it doesn’t help,’ he said eventually. ‘Drinking helps. Let’s find Yaegar and steal the chhaang. If he hasn’t drunk it while fighting the werewolves. I can just see him, sword in one hand, aleskin in the other, trying to drink his blade by mistake.’
Blasius barked a laugh.
‘Jokes. You hide behind them. You should have said how you feel. I wouldn’t have been so angry.’
‘You were born angry. You probably popped out of your mother screaming for the blood of Rome’s enemies.’
‘Arse.’ Blasius glared at his friend, then grabbed him roughly and hugged him. Cathal returned it without hesitation.
‘No wonder you’re mad,’ said Blasius.
‘Aye. What’s your excuse?’
‘I got left behind. I got trapped in the underworld and no-one came to find me.’
‘Ah, well now. You were found after all, brother.’
‘I know, brother. I know.’
After a moment there was a tiny wah of discontent from floor level. They released each other.
‘Do you think they’re dead?’ Blasius asked, hoisting a baby into his arms. Cathal took up the other one, holding her at arm's length, unsure what to do. Blasius popped his one in the crook of his arm with total assurance. Cathal copied him, rather awkwardly.
‘I don’t know. Maybe not, they’re the best fighters I’ve ever seen.’
‘My sons are dead,’ said Blasius. His tone was straightforward, even conversational. ‘They were legionaries, like me. Blasius was marked for Centurion. He gave me this.’ He touched the little phallic fascinus at his neck. ‘And Sextus would have been chosen as Optio by now. I was so proud. Sons should surpass their father.’
‘How did they die?’ Cathal said, gently.
Blasius looked down. ‘They fought for Rome.’
Cathal didn’t know what to say. A man had never opened his heart to him before, a heart with a wound that could never be mended. They were very alike in that respect.
So he said, ‘He’ll be alive, brother. It’ll take more than a few mad dogs to do for Yaegar. And Prince Vajra can’t die yet, he’s on a quest, probably. The gods take quests seriou-’
‘Hey, dickheads, are you still there?’
Cathal and Blasius looked at each other. Then they peered over the edge of the cliff.
‘Maarika?’
‘Well, obviously,’ Maarika shouted, from far below. She wasn’t visible from where Cathal stood.
‘Um, are you well, sister?’ Cathal asked.
‘Not in the best shape, no,’ came the reply. ‘Some werewolves broke my fall, but they got a bit... bitey, before I killed them.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I’m already healing, but the next full moon is going to be an interesting time for me.’
‘Ah,’ said Cathal. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sister. That’s tonight, is it not?’
‘Yes. I might stay in.’
‘Good plan.’
‘It appears to be raining blood, by the way. I take it that’s your doing?’
‘Yes, sister.’
‘Maybe work on your timing, next time. Like, before I fall off a massive subterranean cliff?’
‘There won’t be a next time.’
‘There’s always a next time. Anyway, I’m chopping werewolves into bits now, that should buy some time, but they are going to come back. Come and find me.’
‘We will,’ said Blasius. ‘Stay there. We won’t leave you behind.’
‘Get a move on or I’ll leave you behind, you pair of clueless knobs.’
‘Righto,’ said Cathal. ‘I’ve always liked you,’ he added.
‘Good for you.’
Knowing Maarika was alive made Cathal feel better, in a way he hadn’t expected but was very pleased about. ‘See?’ he said to Blasius, grinning. ‘She made it. So will the others.’
Blasius shifted slightly. Cathal noticed he was still looking down, but now he was looking at something else.
‘Cathal,’ he said, his voice carefully neutral, ‘what’s that on your leg?’
Cathal looked down. He saw the bite. The one he hadn’t felt because the weight in his head crushed all feeling.
‘Oh, you absolute bastard.’