Valour

CHAPTER THIRTY

UTHAS

Uthas crawled through the long grass and wildflowers, up an incline. He stopped when he reached the top, gazing in silence.

Dun Taras stood in the distance, its smooth walls reflecting the morning sun. It had been one of the giants’ great fortresses once, alongside Dun Carreg and Dun Vaner, before the hordes of men had come to Benoth. Now Eremon sat upon its throne, ruling all he could see from its high tower. Uthas felt his blood stir, yearning for a lost time. He blinked tears, saw a memory superimposed on the landscape, of his kin gathered on green meadows, celebrating the Birth Moon. Bairns playing in the river, diving and plunging after salmon, the men gathering in contests of strength, throwing tree trunks or the hammer. He walked amongst them, laughing, smiling. .

The vision faded, shifting into something else: columns of the Benothi marching through empty fields, the landscape behind them black and charred, the walls of Dun Taras fading in the distance. They had walked away from Dun Taras, fled before the tide of mankind.

It will be ours again. A new order is coming. And I will do what needs to be done to make it so.

He glanced over his shoulder, saw Eisa and Struan crawling up the slope, the others standing still, almost invisible amongst the rocks and trees far below. Eisa and Struan settled either side of him.

After gazing for a long while on Dun Taras, Struan whispered, ‘What now?’

Uthas rolled onto his back and searched the sky. It was cloudy, the air humid, heavy. Rain was coming. Amongst the clouds a black dot moved. Uthas beckoned and the dot spiralled lower until Fech landed beside him.

‘We can go no closer,’ Uthas said. ‘Can you fly to Dun Taras, seek out Eremon, listen to his plans.’

‘Fech is good at listening and seeing,’ the bird said and flew away, winging towards Dun Taras.

Was that a threat? Uthas thought. What will he tell Nemain when we return to Murias? He watched Fech fade and disappear, then he made his way down the slope to his companions. A hundred and fifty leagues they had travelled since they had left Murias in the cold north. Over a moon had passed since they had raised a cairn over Aric’s body and placed the heads of their enemies about it. That will give Rath cause to fear us again, or whoever else discovers it. Too long we have been timid, fearful. They moved silently through the boulders and stunted trees that blanketed this rolling land of hill and vale. In time they came to a stream and followed it deeper into woodland until they eventually came to a great boulder, part of a cliff face that rose before them. Uthas found the cave entrance and passed through the glamour that had hidden it for over a hundred years. Fray struck a light with his flint and soon they had a small fire burning. Then they settled in for the wait. Fech would know where to come.

Eisa passed him a skin, more brot. He pulled a face but took it and drank some. It had kept them alive, fuelled their journey south, into the heartland of their enemy. Twice they had come close to being discovered, but Fech had given them good warning both times, and Uthas had been more interested in speed than battle. He had already blooded his followers, bound them closer to him through that act. They were more his than Nemain’s now.

Nemain.

The thought of her made him sad. Once great Queen of the Benothi, but fallen so far, her fear binding her, disabling her.

She should have fought for our lands, used the cauldron. She should have bargained with Asroth and ensured the survival of our clan. Instead she had done nothing, claiming the Benothi’s sole purpose now was to keep the cauldron from being used, thinking to avoid another war.

But war is coming, no matter what she does to evade it.

Ever since he had met with Asroth, in Rhin’s cell deep within the walls of Dun Vaner, he had felt like a blind man gifted with sight, as if scales had fallen from his eyes. The way forward is so clear, but Nemain refuses to see it.

He had tried to reason with her, to advocate a more active, aggressive policy, but she had refused to see sense. He still clung to the hope that she would change her stance before it was too late, but until then he would pay her lip service and continue to work with Rhin towards their greater purpose. At least he had managed to sway others within the Benothi, and he hoped more would side with him, before the end.

He was glad Nemain had sent him on this mission, scouting into Domhain to learn Eremon’s plans. He had counted on it, even, for it kept him within Nemain’s good graces whilst allowing him to further Rhin’s plans. The journey south had told him that Eremon was paying little attention to the events in the east, to Rhin’s attacks on Narvon and Ardan. No warriors were mustering, no crops were being stored. Eremon sat idly by and sank deeper into his dotage. Rhin would be pleased. She will be here soon. Rhin. He felt a smile twitch his features at the thought of seeing her. His captor, his saviour. They had a bond he could not deny, complex and deep, its waters murky. But our goal is clear, and I will see it through or die in the trying; we are united in that. Soon the Black Sun will appear, will come for the cauldron. And I will help him claim it.

The next part in that task would be to grab Eremon’s attention and direct it north. Uthas would slaughter and burn on his way home, make such a noise as Domhain had never heard. He would lead Domhain’s strength in warriors north, fix Eremon’s attention on Benoth, then when Rhin had finished with Narvon and Ardan and finally came west she would find Domhain open and unprepared.

He rolled up his cloak and laid his head upon it. Looking at Dun Taras had stirred a melancholy within him as deep as bones. He searched for sleep to erase the ache. Besides, Fech would not be back today.

Uthas woke with a start. Salach was sitting with his back to the cold rock, running a whetstone along his axe-blade.

‘You were dreaming,’ his shieldman said.

Uthas touched his brow, his fingers coming away damp with sweat.

‘How long have I slept?’

‘A day. They are amazed at you,’ Salach said, glancing at the other giants in the cave. Some were standing, restless, others huddled in conversation.

‘How can you sleep now?’ Fray asked him. ‘When we are here, amongst our enemy, in the heart of our homeland.’

‘I’ve been here before,’ Uthas said, ‘and besides, when you have lived as long as I, sitting in a cave, no matter where it is, is not very exciting.’

Salach chuckled.

‘How long have you lived?’ Eisa asked then.

‘I forget. It has been a long time. I was a bairn, not yet grown my whiskers when the Scourging changed our world.’ He tugged at the white hair on his face, bound with thin strips of leather.

‘It is true, then. You drank from the cup.’ Kai this time.

‘I did,’ Uthas said. Since the slaying of Skald, the first king, immortality had been stripped from giants and men. But then the cup had been forged from the starstone. The cup was one of the Seven Treasures, and drinking from it gave health and long life. Not immortality, but close enough.

‘How long will the cup sustain you?’ Struan asked. They had all gathered about Uthas now, regarding him with a new emotion in their eyes. Awe.

‘I do not know,’ Uthas shrugged. ‘Nemain drank from it before I, and she is still here.’ Though she squanders her time, choosing to sit on the cauldron like some skeletal chicken.

The Benothi giants had emerged from the War of Treasures the clear victors, possessing three of the Seven Treasures. The cauldron, Nemain’s necklace and the cup. Two had been lost now, which went some way to explaining Nemain’s obsessive protection of the cauldron. The necklace had been hidden in Dun Carreg as the walls had been breached and overrun, the giants holding the stronghold had been slaughtered to the last warrior. The cup had been lost in Domhain. Somewhere out there.

Uthas hung his head in shame. He had lost the cup, or at least had been in charge of the column in possession of the cup as it had been evacuating from Dun Taras. They had been ambushed in the marshlands further north; the wain the cup had been kept in sank into the swamp. He had returned so many times, his shame driving him, sending him hunting for the lost Treasure, but never with any success.

A flapping echoed about the cave and Fech appeared through the glamour that sealed the entrance. The bird searched out Uthas and alighted before him. It walked in a small circle, then ran its beak through the feathers of one wing, regarding Uthas with its shiny eyes.

‘Well?’ Uthas said.

‘Eremon is old, he is scared of change.’

‘So what are his plans?’

‘He did not say. He is idle. He did little more than watch women.’

‘Good news, then,’ Uthas said.

‘Not all good. Rath is coming.’

‘What do you mean, coming?’

‘He found the dead, in the north. He is on your trail. He is hunting you.’