When Death Birds Fly cma-3 Read online

  When Death Birds Fly

  ( Cormac Mac Art - 3 )

  Andrew J. Offutt

  Andrew J. Offutt

  When Death Birds Fly

  Kieth Taylor

  “The Roman empire is beheaded; in the one City, the whole world dies… All things are doomed to die… every work of man is destroyed by age… but who would have believed that Rome would crumble, at once the mother and tomb of her children. She who enslaved… is herself a slave.”

  – St. Jerome, A.D. 415

  “Gaul was lost to the Empire. If the ruling class of Auvergne held out against Euric the Visigoth… it was for the sake of the new-won independence rather than from loyalty to Rome. Further north, Syagrius, son of Aegidius, animated by the same spirit, became a de facto ‘king’ of Gaul between the Somme and the Loire.”

  -Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History

  Prologue:

  The Black Owl

  “For these are the birds of death; the Owl, a predator of the night, and the Raven, presider over battlefields.”

  -Alexandros of Chios

  Sorcerous evil swooped above Nantes on broad black wings. Hate and Evil slept fitfully in the nighted city below. Those two dark forces called to each other as land to restless sea. Black wings slanted downward, riding the wind. The warm summer’s night seemed to shiver around the ragged edges of swooping night-wings spreading broader than a man’s height.

  Sigebert of Metz, more lately called Sigebert One-ear, stirred in his bed and muttered. Much strong wine without water had gone down his throat earlier this evening, more than one cup drugged by his physician, a man tight-lipped against his patient’s cursing. The wine brought Sigebert no peace, him most men would have said deserved no peace.

  A recent sword cut had caught and torn one corner of his sensuous mouth, plowed messily along his cheek, and shorn off the ear on that side of his head. The raw pain of it came into his dreams even through the fiery fumes of drugs and drunkenness. Even so, in Sigebert the hate was stronger than the pain. Through his villainous brain burned visions of a sinewy, tigerish Gael of Eirrin and a huge ax-wielding Dane.

  “Death for them,” he mumbled, and he panted. “By Death itself-death, death for them! Death slow and awful! Death!”

  Sigebert awoke to the drumbeat of his pain.

  His skin was cold with fevered, nightmare-induced sweat. The coverings of his bed pressed suffocatingly on his limbs and athletic form. Was difficult for him to be certain whether he slept or woke, and in truth Sigebert hardly cared. He lay gasping and sweating, hating.

  Of a sudden he went rigidly still. Eyes invaded his chamber. Eyes-yellow as topaz, lambent, blazing-were fixed on him from the foot of his bed. Something-not someone-was there, staring.

  Am I awake? Surely this too is dream…

  His horror-stricken gaze could discern no more than a blocky and indistinct shape that was like a short thick log, or a man’s head and limbless torso. Black as the heart of midnight it was, indistinct in the darkness of Sigebert’s draped nightchamber. Yet it gave a strong, foul impression of deformity and, distortion; or perhaps that was in Sigebert One-ear’s mind, weighted by pain and alcohol.

  In his terror he thought that some goblin or hellish fiend had come for his soul, which was admittedly damned.

  The thing moved. Grotesquely, it seemed to shrug and expand. Vast wings flexed and their tips reached nigh from wall to wall. Their spread was more broad than the height of a tall man. Black feathers ruffled.

  The thing spoke… or did it speak? Sigebert heard words… or did he feel them?

  Do not cry out, Sigebert of Metz. An you do, I shall be gone, the which will be to your detriment. I bring news of your enemies.

  Night-spirit, Sigebert thought wildly. Some demon in the form of a gigantic bird…

  “Who are you?” he said, and heard his own voice croak.

  I am the soul of Lucanor Magus the Physician. Far-

  Something surged in Sigebert. Relief, preternaturally sent? Blinking and with sudden hope he said, “Physician?”

  Aye. And mage, Sigebert of Metz, and mage!

  “You-have you come to help me in my agony?”

  Sigebert received an impression of mirth, which angered him even while it despoiled his shaky foundation of hope. Against your enemies, he was told. Is not your hatred for them as much a part of your agony as your physical hurts?

  This time Sigebert was unable to speak, and the bird continued, voicelessly.

  Far to the south, in a village of the seafaring Basques, my fleshly body sleeps. All of me that is significant has winged hither, to aid you to destroy those you hate whom I also hate-yea, and for greater reasons than yours! Yet it is known to me aforetime that you will not heed my advice… this time. On the morrow, in day’s bright light, you will believe this was merely a dream, gendered by your hate and pain. You will ignore it.

  Sigebert’s thoughts moved in slow, murky channels. Already he had gone from fear to disbelief to fear to hope to shattered hope and wonderment-and curiosity. Half drugged and but partly wakeful, he yet put a shrewd question.

  “You know this? Then why trouble to come to me, physician, mage… creature?”

  For reasons that you will learn from your folly, and heed me when again I come to you. You know those enemies I refer to; you well know them and their inhuman prowess and luck! They are Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere the Skull-splitter of the Danes-those bloody devils of the sea!

  At those names Sigebert came wide awake, and hatred pulsed in him more strongly than the pain that rode his heartbeat. “Ah.”

  They live, and thrive. They have taken refuge in the Suevic kingdom, ruled by Veremund the Tall, that whispery voice went on, that was not a voice. He now employs them. Even now they prepare to leave Hispania, those bloody pirates. They undertake a mission to the land of the Danes for this same Veremund. Once I served him. I, Lucanor Magus, served him, and served him well. Now he has exiled me and, could he lay hands on me, would have me die slowly. They are to thank for this-Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere the Dane of their ship Raven. May they be accursed and accursed to world’s end and Chaos to come, and the Black Gods of R’lyeh devour them!

  Sigebert One-ear laughed hoarsely. “I know not your gods, mage. But I share your wish!”

  Then attend. Three days from this, these pirates leave the port of Brigantium in Galicia, and will sail east. For a short time they will lie to in a sheltered bay below the Pyrenees. Though they know it not, I await them in that same region. I shall incite my… hosts to slaughter them, for these Basques are a folk who love outsiders not at all.

  An I am successful in this, you will not set eyes on me again, Sigebert One-ear, for I shall have no need of you. Should the Basques fail me, these pirate scum will doubtless run by night up the western coast of Gaul. Past Burdigala, past the Saxon settlements-and past your own city of Nantes. Beyond that lies Armorica, called Lesser Britain. There they two have friends and can find a measure of safety. An you are vigilant, you may entrap them ere they reach that haven. In your hands will it lie then, agent of Kings!

  Sigebert strained to pierce the darkness with his stare. It seemed to him that the creature crowding his bedchamber with its presence was an immense, malefic owl. God’s Death! The musty stench of its feathers was choking him!

  Yes, an owl. He could distinguish the bizarre shape of its evilly wise head, the blazing eyes and hooked beak. Though he saw them not, he sensed too the taloned feet, ready to drive inwardcurving claws with merciless power through live flesh. An owl; a black owl! The bird of Athena. Silent-winged predator of night. Terror of those more timid night-creatures it fed upon. Emblem of death and occult wisdom from anc
ient days. And vaster than an eagle, this one!

  So. A wizard’s soul gone out from the body in tangible form.

  In the dim Frankish forests, Sigebert’s people knew of such things, for despite his Latin education and manners, Sigebert One-ear of Metz was a German: a Frank. His own people called this sort of sorcerous messenger Sendings, or fylgja. He could not doubt that this owl was real; Lucanor’s fylgja.

  Lucanor.

  The name was strange to him. Greek, was it not? No matter; the names of Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere Skull-splitter were very, very familiar indeed. Pirates. Too recently, whilst they sought to dispose of their sword-won gains ashore, Sigebert had acted in his official capacity as representative of the king. He sought to take them into deserved custody. Was then that a sword in the hand of one of their men had butchered his face.

  “Be sure that I will act,” he promised, who had been called the Favoured, for his good looks, since he was first able to walk. No more.

  Laughter?

  I am sure that you will not! In the light of day you will believe that none of this occurred, and put it from your mind. You are not the Count of Nantes, nor will you go to him with a tale so doubtful. The more fool you!

  Sigebert gritted his teeth and his nostrils flared in an angry breath. He’d like to meet this Lucanor as a man, and see how sneery he was then!

  His visitor saw. Despite its haughty tone, the thing that was Lucanor knew well that it might need this Frank for an ally. As chief customs assessor of Nantes, Sigebert held some power, and was well informed of all goings and comings within the city. More, he hated the huge Danish pirate and his dark henchman even as Lucanor did. Yet Lucanor’s physical body lay far indeed from northward Nantes. It had not been possible for him to travel so far, swiftly enow to give Sigebert this warning in the flesh. Nor would he place himself physically in the power of this clever villain until he had shown the Frank his value.

  Besides, his spirit double, his Sending or fylgja as the barbarians called it, must return to his body ere dawn, for the sun’s direct light could destroy it. They were no friends, Sendings and sunlight.

  You will remember, the black owl said, or whispered, or thought harshly. You will not believe, Sigebert One-ear, Frank, of Metz and now of Nantes… but you will remember, and in my time I will come to you again.

  With a horripilating rustle the great fell bird hopped to the window and was gone on spectral wings. Sigebert felt the air stir. The thing’s shadow was an evil splotch that flowed over buildings and dark streets of Nantes. Watchdogs and alley curs across the city cringed and whimpered softly at its passing. None dared bark.

  1

  The Raven

  “The temporary rescue of Italy entailed the permanent ruin of Gaul. A vast horde of Vandals, Suebi and Alanas, escaping from the central European domination of the Huns, crossed the ill-defended Rhine, and fanned out across the interior provinces, threatening to invade Britain. Italy was powerless to help, and the British proclaimed a native emperor… He crossed to Gaul, and expelled the invaders; but they withdrew the wrong way, not back across the Rhine, but across the Pyrenees into Spain. There most of them stayed. The (Suevi)… descendants still inhabit northwestern Spain; the Vandals passed on, to leave their name in Andalusia, ultimately to found a stable kingdom in what had been Roman Africa.”

  – John Morris, The Age of Arthur

  That same purple night of summer lay on another coast far to the south and west; on Brigantium in the Suevic kingdom. Here in northern Hispania the night was graciously warm and all but cloudless. The spacious harbour with its triple bays sighed and surged with the tide.

  In a richly tapestried chamber, five men conferred ’neath the beams of a low ceiling. At the head of the smooth-topped oaken table sat Veremund the Tall, king of this land. Though his long legs were stretched out he was not the tallest of this extraordinary gathering. At his right hand sat his kinsman and advisor, tawny-moustached Irnic Break-ax in his tunic of blue with its crossed sets of yellow stripes; Zarabdas the mage, once a priest of Bel in Syria and now among the Suevic king’s most valued servants, was at his left. His dusky skin, forked jet-black beard and expressive dark eyes, no less than his eastern robes among the fair, Germanic Suevi, gave him an air of strangeness and alien mystery that Zarabdas was not ashamed to exploit. No charlatan, this dark mage among people whose hair ranged in hue from nigh white to a medium brown, and seldom that dark. His powers and learning were real. So too were the theatrical instincts he had cultivated, along with his impressive robes.

  “Wisdom alone,” Zarabdas had told his king, “will not gain one a hearing.”

  They three dominated and ruled the Sueves who dominated northwestern Spain. They three sat at table’s head, and did not dominate that gathering.

  The other men at the stained and battered table were more memorable still. Neither Germans nor Easterners nor even Celts were these twain, neither members of royal family nor wizards-in the usual sense. They did possess a certain wizardry at tactics, and at relieving laden ships of their cargoes. And at the bloody work of sharpened steel. Indeed one of them combined dark hair and dusky skin with pale Celtish eyes, though they were so deeply set in their slits as frequently to appear darker.

  The one was an immense Dane with an immense red beard. His physique seemed to crowd the low room, compressing the others into corners. When he lowered his voice others were put in mind of distant thunder; when he raised it, of thunder bursting directly above their heads. Was a voice that had long led men, had competed with sea-storm and battle-din to be heard, and never could accommodate itself long to more polite indoor tones. The chest whence it emanated bulged like twin shields and gold armlets and ornaments flashed on the giant.

  The fifth man of that gathering went cleanshaven as if to flaunt his scars of past combats. He was without ornaments though his black tunic was bordered with gold. His square-cut black hair and dark, somber face made a setting of startling contrast for the cold, narrow eyes in their slitted niches. His rangy body bespoke and radiated a different sort of power from the massive Dane’s; swifter and more compact. His hands, one of which gave pensive support to his chin while the other lay relaxed on the table before him, were long-fingered and sinewy with tendons prominent on their backs. The right had been scarred; as had his face, more than twice. With weapons or unaided, those hands knew all there was to know about the business of killing.

  King Veremund, and his brother Irnic, and his mage Zarabdas. And their two… guests. At this moment dreams of these latter two troubled the sleep of a Frank named Sigebert One-ear. Only days agone, they and their crew of reivers, searaiders, had done the Suevic king a high service. Now they spoke of matters more mundane, though of little less import.

  They were Wulfhere Hausakluifr and Cormac mac Art of Connacht in Eirrin.

  “Trade!” King Veremund said, nigh exploding the word from under his droopy yellow-white moustache. “Shipping! I said once that it has been worse than poor these thirty years, and this supernatural terror that has haunted our shores all but destroyed it. Because of you, my friends, the terror is now destroyed… and yet that is only a beginning. There are other dangers.”

  “Pirates,” Cormac said, without the sign of a smile.

  “Foul bloody seagoing dogs who cannot be countenanced,” Wulfhere added, and when he grinned his full beard moved like a fiery broom on his barrel of a chest.

  Zarabdas the mage muttered, “Set a thief…”

  “True, you and your reivers have done well,” Veremund the Sueve went on. “You have also had your losses. Are there more than twoscore able men left to work your ship Raven-and to fight?” The question was rhetorical; Veremund knew there were not. “I would copy the Vandals. I would make my nation powerful on the sea, though we began as a race of horsemen far to the east-as they did. Meseems the best course were to employ renegade Vandals to make up your numbers, and shipwrights from the same source. Do you agree?”

  Cormac mac Art
frowned while Wulfhere impetuously answered at once, though with a brave effort to be tactful in a king’s presence and conceal his disgust with such a suggestion.

  “It’s in no way the same, lord King. Look you: these Vandals did begin as an inland horsefolk, like you Suevi. But they did not end their travels in this Hispania, as your own Sueves are doing. The Vandals crossed into Africa generations since, lest they be trapped and destroyed. At that they had to be given sea transport by some Romish lord in Carthage… What was the fool’s name, Cormac?”

  “Bonifacius,” the Gael answered. “It was their aid he was wanting, against a Roman rival. Fool, indeed! He might as well have imported plague. There was another such fool, in Britain. It’s Jutes and Saxons he is after inviting over his threshold. His name was Vortigern. Jutes and Saxons rule many gobbets of Britain now, men without the price of twenty cows calling themselves ‘kings’ and gaining land, followers-and more than twenty cows.”

  The latter words were spoken for the benefit of Irnic, Zarabdas and the king, to whom Britannia was only a word, same’s Eirrin its neighbour, which they knew of as Hivernia or Hibernia, these Suevi. Wulfhere knew the story of Vortigern and his importation of Hengist; knew it as well as his Gaelic blood-brother. He should have done. Hengist the Jute was Wulfhere’s greatest enemy. The Dane’s blue eyes glittered coldly at thought of that burly Jutish tiger, but Hengist was far away in northern waters-the lying treacherous triple-dealing bastard.

  But it was the Vandals that mattered, this far south.

  “Aye, Bonifacius,” Wulfhere said in his resonant rumble. “Well, he’s dead now and no matter his name save on Loki’s list of Great Fools. The Vandals took Carthage for themselves. Now they’ve made themselves the greatest sea power on the Mediterranean.” He lurched forward, and his elbow jarred down onto the table as he pointed. “But what worth be there in that? The Mediterranean is enclosed and tideless as a washtub. Once it was Rome’s lake and now it’s the Vandals’! Fine for children to go swimming in… but lord King, it’s a man’s ocean ye have to deal with here!”