The Defiler by Steven Savile Page A

construction was slipshod - as though it wasn't expected, or needed, to last. There was no pride in any of the workmanship. The daub had cracked and flaked away from the wattle, exposing the dried reeds on some of the chattel houses. He couldn't imagine his own people living so close to squalor. But for all its ugliness there was order to it, and logic. The builders exhibited far more foresight in that department than the founders of Murias had.
    The fortress was divided into five unequal parts, four quarters separated by the path of the sun and the seasons and the central core where the Drune priests themselves resided in a domed temple adorned with more of the vile fetishes they'd seen coming through the forest. It reflected the arrogance of the priests, placing themselves at the heart of all things. For all his vanities Cathbad at least had the humility to understand his role as teacher; he was set apart from the people, a guide, a source of knowledge, a repository of history and tradition. He was not king, he did not marry the Goddess. He lived to serve. And like the druid himself, the nemeton was set outside the realm of everyday life.
    It was not the only difference he saw within Cor Havas.
    The quarters themselves were physically divided by low interior walls, making the fortress feel like an elaborate labyrinth; the Drunes at its centre, and Sláine nothing more a mouse let loose to run in it - only "loose" was of course an illusion, his tormentor had him by the tail and was gleefully about to snap a metal trap shut on his skull while he scrambled about madly.
    Sláine slumped back into the cart. He had seen enough.
    The rain continued to fall.
     
    The vile stench preceeded Maug by a dozen paces.
    The rancid aroma told Sláine all he needed to know about the Drune: he had attained the rank of Slough, shedding his mortal skin. His body now was a corruption of the flesh held together only by the strength of the priest's dark magic. The strength needed to defy nature so boldly was immense. For all the slaughter of the Sourlands Sláine and Ukko had encountered only two others who had accomplished the same shedding of mortality - Slough Throt, the thief of Feg's Ragnarok book, and the Lord Weird himself.
    Taranis grabbed hold of the rope binding Sláine's feet together and dragged him bodily off the cart. Without his hands to break the fall, Sláine fell hard, cracking his skull off the side of the wagon and landing on his shoulder and face at the foot of the wretched priest. Without the skin to bind his bones and muscle Maug moved with a clumsy lopsided gait, his joints bending too far in one direction and overcompensating in the other. He relied upon a staff of bone for balance. The staff itself was carved with some quite sophisticated renditions of tribal art not dissimilar to the countless fetishes that adorned the branches of Dardun. The effect would have been comical if the young Sessair warrior did not know what he was - and what he was capable of.
    But it was not Sláine that interested the Drune.
    Maug stood over Myrrdin, a curious look of contempt on his rotten lips. A fat-bellied maggot wriggled out through the Drune's gum, crawled down what remained of his neck and disappeared beneath the rotten strip of flesh behind his clavicle.
    The Slough priest poked and prodded the tattooed man with his staff as though inspecting a piece of meat. "Turn him over," Maug rasped a moment later, continuing the inspection after two skull swords had manhandled Myrrdin onto his stomach. The Drune circled the tattooed man three times sunwise, shaking his head and muttering to himself. The rain streamed down his ruined features. "My, my, my. What do we have here, Murrough? Visitors? And such a motley rabble. A barbarian, a dwarf and this painted freak." He circled Myrrdin, cackling at some unheard mirth. "Could it be? Do you think? No. No. This wretched creature cannot be the druid. Can it?" He peered down at Myrrdin, the flayed