was now underwater, but even with the spring river in flood it wasn’t so deep that an approach couldn’t be made.
“She” tugged at my hand and I followed. Just then the moon shone briefly and I saw that where I felt the pull on my fingers there was nothing to be seen, even though the flesh on my hand crimped at her grip. A chill brushed me, and I knew it came from the cold water at the bottom of the channel that tumbled her bones. I felt a sickening sense of grief for her. She hadn’t been very smart and had been a person of few attainments, but she had loved her own and she wanted to live. I have never known anyone who truly wanted to die—but instead of life, she received cruelty, pain, madness, and, finally, darkness.
So I followed her touch down into the fetid water. Fetid because those inside used the broken wall as a latrine and garbage dump. The stones of the drowned quay were slimy and the water was at best most of the time up above my knees. But she pulled me along with a power greater than that of the river current that battered me and tried to suck me away into deeper water until at length I reached a point where I could begin to scramble up a sloping pile of stone to the top. From there I could look down into the fortress.
It wasn’t an easy climb, and the next day I found a myriad of cuts and bruises on my hands, feet, arms, and legs caused by the vile detritus I had crawled through. But just then I felt none of them, only a sense of unholy triumph that belonged not only to my two unseen companions but to me as well. I cannot say if they had infected me with their hate or if it arose from what I had seen these vicious expert predators do to my own Picts, the Painted People. There was a lot of wood in that fortress, and would it ever burn?
The Saxons had repaired the Roman walkways around the parapet. Beneath them were shacks where their loot, human and otherwise, was stored. The whole center of the fortress was taken up by a drinking hall, the all-purpose gathering place of the war band.
Then the moon returned, summoned, I think, when the eternal denizen of the marsh called out to his patroness. And in the cold light that flickered as the density of the moving clouds changed, I saw my path down from the wall top to where each post supporting the walkways was lodged. I smelled the stench created by the slaves crowded together in the squalid quarters beneath them, and my stomach cramped at the aroma of roast meat and spilled ale in the drinking hall.
Now something that was created by myself and my three companions, an utterly different entity than any one of the three of us, cried out, “Burn it, Priestess! Burn it now!”
So I did.
I never remembered how I got down from that wall top. The next thing I can remember clearly is pressing my right hand against the first post. Fury raged in my brain—it wouldn’t catch but hissed like a nest of serpents and sent out billows of scalding steam and thick, fire-damp smoke. Someone or something gave a yell of rage and fire raced away from my fingers up the post, streaking like an arrow to the top, where the planks that formed the walkway exploded into flame. I knew I could do it, that in fact it was as good as done, I thought as I raced to the next. They were the devil to ignite, those posts, but I knew the devil rode with me.
I went from one to the other as quickly as possible. I can’t think I had a plan, but in the back of my mind I knew the posts supporting the installation at the parapet would be the most difficult to deal with. I had to get to them first and make it impossible for any surviving pirates to defend the fortress.
I was at the eighth post when the screams began. Above, the walkways were crumbling, raining down flaming embers and burning brands on the slaves inside. My whole soul thrilled with horror when I realized they were chained inside. I turned, stumbling back toward the first shed.
But “they” stopped me, sending me down into
“She” tugged at my hand and I followed. Just then the moon shone briefly and I saw that where I felt the pull on my fingers there was nothing to be seen, even though the flesh on my hand crimped at her grip. A chill brushed me, and I knew it came from the cold water at the bottom of the channel that tumbled her bones. I felt a sickening sense of grief for her. She hadn’t been very smart and had been a person of few attainments, but she had loved her own and she wanted to live. I have never known anyone who truly wanted to die—but instead of life, she received cruelty, pain, madness, and, finally, darkness.
So I followed her touch down into the fetid water. Fetid because those inside used the broken wall as a latrine and garbage dump. The stones of the drowned quay were slimy and the water was at best most of the time up above my knees. But she pulled me along with a power greater than that of the river current that battered me and tried to suck me away into deeper water until at length I reached a point where I could begin to scramble up a sloping pile of stone to the top. From there I could look down into the fortress.
It wasn’t an easy climb, and the next day I found a myriad of cuts and bruises on my hands, feet, arms, and legs caused by the vile detritus I had crawled through. But just then I felt none of them, only a sense of unholy triumph that belonged not only to my two unseen companions but to me as well. I cannot say if they had infected me with their hate or if it arose from what I had seen these vicious expert predators do to my own Picts, the Painted People. There was a lot of wood in that fortress, and would it ever burn?
The Saxons had repaired the Roman walkways around the parapet. Beneath them were shacks where their loot, human and otherwise, was stored. The whole center of the fortress was taken up by a drinking hall, the all-purpose gathering place of the war band.
Then the moon returned, summoned, I think, when the eternal denizen of the marsh called out to his patroness. And in the cold light that flickered as the density of the moving clouds changed, I saw my path down from the wall top to where each post supporting the walkways was lodged. I smelled the stench created by the slaves crowded together in the squalid quarters beneath them, and my stomach cramped at the aroma of roast meat and spilled ale in the drinking hall.
Now something that was created by myself and my three companions, an utterly different entity than any one of the three of us, cried out, “Burn it, Priestess! Burn it now!”
So I did.
I never remembered how I got down from that wall top. The next thing I can remember clearly is pressing my right hand against the first post. Fury raged in my brain—it wouldn’t catch but hissed like a nest of serpents and sent out billows of scalding steam and thick, fire-damp smoke. Someone or something gave a yell of rage and fire raced away from my fingers up the post, streaking like an arrow to the top, where the planks that formed the walkway exploded into flame. I knew I could do it, that in fact it was as good as done, I thought as I raced to the next. They were the devil to ignite, those posts, but I knew the devil rode with me.
I went from one to the other as quickly as possible. I can’t think I had a plan, but in the back of my mind I knew the posts supporting the installation at the parapet would be the most difficult to deal with. I had to get to them first and make it impossible for any surviving pirates to defend the fortress.
I was at the eighth post when the screams began. Above, the walkways were crumbling, raining down flaming embers and burning brands on the slaves inside. My whole soul thrilled with horror when I realized they were chained inside. I turned, stumbling back toward the first shed.
But “they” stopped me, sending me down into
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