I know not how long I knelt there. Well it was for me that no dearg-dul happened upon me, for I was in no fit state to defend myself. At length I gathered myself together, and stood, and went to find my sword.
My cloak had turned to dust along with Fynlo, and without it I had no way to wear the sword concealed, but I cared not. I replaced the sword in its scabbard and walked with it plain to the eye of any that might see; let them make of it what they would.
I had great need of comfort. I wanted to feel strong arms around me, and my thoughts turned to Egil. I went to the keeil of Brother Finán, and entered, but found it empty. I was hungry, and felt weak still, and I rested for a while. I made myself a meal of soda bread and salt herring, and drank some milk, and I felt a little stronger. There was a cloak of mine at the keeil and I donned it. I fastened it with the clasp that had been a gift from Fynlo, and I wept again as I did so, and I had to splash my face with water before I felt fit to go outside.
I wondered where the menfolk were. It was important that I find them, for I knew now where Halfdan had been and what he had been doing, and it was news that Brother Finán must have without delay. Halfdan had been to Ireland, I knew, and I doubted that Fynlo would have been the only new dearg-dul to return with him. Once more we would have to contend with Brodir and perhaps a score of the walking dead besides.
I gathered up my bow, and a sheaf of arrows, and went forth to look for the two men. I chose to go on foot, for their horses were in the field, and that meant that they had intended to go no great distance. I knew they had not gone towards my home, for that was the direction from which I had come, but that still left three choices. I decided on north, towards Keeill St Connaghyn, and I walked along that path.
I had gone perhaps a hundred paces when I heard distant cries, and a clash of steel on steel, and my heart leaped into my mouth. I knew at once that Egil and Brother Finán were in peril, and I turned my head this way and that, seeking for the source of the sounds. They came from the west. I turned from the path and ran in that direction, weaving between trees, looking ahead into the mist in vain hope of seeing my friends.
The sounds faded and I could hear them no more. I stopped in my tracks. Had I been running in the wrong direction? No, I was sure that the cries had indeed come from the west. They had ceased. The fight, if fight there had been, was over.
Who had won? I prayed that it had been Egil and my Watcher. I nocked an arrow to my bowstring and advanced once more; slowly, stealthily, alert for any noise or any figure moving in the mist.
They came. I heard voices first, and laughter, but it was not the sound of innocent joy. Rather it seemed to hold a note of relish in dark deeds and cruelty. I concealed myself behind a tree and waited, bow drawn, peering round the trunk. I felt the twist in my stomach and knew that dearg-dul were approaching.
They came into sight along the path. There were six of them, five men and a woman, and all were armed. At the rear walked two men armed with bows, and they were dark of hair and wore their beards in braids, and I guessed them to be Halfdan’s Wendish servants. The others bore swords, save one who carried an axe; and I felt great fear as I saw it, for I recognised it as the beard-axe that had struck my shoulder in the fight on the mound of Tynwald, and that had been carried by Egil since then.
I shouted no challenge but loosed without warning. My first targets were the men who carried bows; they were living men, but I cared not, and my first arrow took one in the chest and drove home up to the flights. His companion saw him fall, and looked around, and nocked his own arrow. He opened his mouth to cry a warning to the dearg-dul but I loosed before his shout could pass his lips. The shaft struck his throat and he fell without a sound.
My efforts to silence the Wends were wasted, for the dearg-dul saw the passage of my shaft through the mist, and brought their weapons to the ready and charged towards me. I had time for but one hasty shaft at the nearest and then was forced to cast aside my bow and draw sword.
I was weary, and wounded, and stricken with grief and fear, and they came upon me three at once. Yet they fell before me like ripe barley before the reaper, for they could not withstand my fury. I met one sword to sword, and at that same moment the female thrust at me with a long knife, but I caught her arm and pulled her into the path of the one who wielded the axe. They tumbled in a heap, and I struck the head from the first, and fell upon the others before they could rise. I clove the arm from the axe-wielder, pinned the woman to the ground with a thrust of my sword, and drew an arrow from the sheaf at my belt and plunged it into the heart of the one who had lost his arm. The woman screamed and writhed on my blade, but there was no pity in my heart, and I pulled it free and struck to her neck.
I picked up the axe, retrieved the bow from where I had cast it aside, and moved on.
I walked along the path with all the stealth that I could muster, and thus it was that I came unsuspected upon them; two of the dearg-dul, and my fallen menfolk.
Brother Finán lay face down, motionless, and I feared that he was dead. His staff lay beside him, snapped in twain. Over him stood a tall dearg-dul in a short mail jerkin, a large round shield on one arm, a beard-axe held in the other hand.
Egil’s plight was yet worse, and my blood ran cold as I saw him. The shaft of an arrow stood out from his side, so little showing that I knew that it had pierced him deeply, and he was held in the grip of the dearg-dul from the Danelaw. A trickle of blood ran down the side of Egil’s neck, for he had been bitten by one of the creatures, and his captor was holding an arm to Egil’s mouth and forcing my love to drink from a punctured vein.
I could not help myself. I cried out in horror and my chance to take them by surprise was lost.
The closest stepped away from Brother Finán, raised his shield to protect himself, and advanced towards me with axe raised. The other raised his eyes to me and relaxed his grip upon Egil. My love, for such I now acknowledged to myself he was, pulled back his head and spat out the blood from his mouth upon the dearg-dul. The creature reacted with anger, seized the shaft of the arrow that was embedded in Egil, and tore it from his body. Egil cried out in anguish as his blood gushed forth from the wound, and he fell upon his face.
I felt my lips draw back from my teeth in a snarl more savage yet than any on the face of a dearg-dul. I let the bow fall, for it would be of small use against the foe with armour and shield, and held aloft the beard-axe. I ran to meet the closest of the foe, my axe and sword against axe and shield, and struck at him with renewed fury.
My sword was not best suited to meet the blow of his axe, and it might have shattered even my Rhenish blade, and so I took the blow at an angle, intending only to deflect his axe from its course. He met my axe blow with his shield, and the axe blade bit into the wood and stuck fast. I twisted my body away from the downfall of his axe, and ran my sword along the haft until it reached his hands. No guard had the axe to protect his fingers, and my sharp blade severed them one by one.
I released my axe, held fast in the shield, and kicked him in the stomach as his weapon fell to the ground. He staggered away with his shield weighted down by my imprisoned axe and impossible to wield, his right hand a ruin, and I turned to face the other.
That one was old and cunning. He threw the arrow at me like a javelin, and so great was his strength that it flew almost as true and fast as if loosed from a bow. Barely did I manage to avoid it; but avoid it I did. He bared his fangs at me and snatched up a sword from the ground.
“Your time is at an end, Slayer,” he growled. “I am no new risen fledgling, but a veteran of sixty years as a draugr.”
I wasted no time with replies, but fell on him with a flurry of blows.
His skill was great, and his sword was as fine as my own. We struck at each other, and parried, and neither could gain an advantage. I did not forget about the other dearg-dul; he had withdrawn a short distance and removed his shield, and he stood on it and took hold of the axe with his unwounded hand, no doubt meaning to draw it forth and then fall upon me from behind.
Egil, my brave and true Egil, was likewise attempting to come to my aid. He crawled to Brother Finán’s broken staff, and tried to rise with it and strike, but he was too sore hurt and fell back to the ground.
I knew that I must win this combat on my own, and quickly. Again my sword clashed against that of my opponent, and our blades were locked together. I kicked out, hard and low, and my foot drove into his knee. He howled, and his leg went out from under him, and he staggered sideways.
I whirled round and ran like the wind. From behind me I heard a roar of triumph, but I paid it no need. I fell upon the one with the maimed hand, even as he pulled free the axe, and slashed the arm from his body before he could raise it to defend himself. I kicked him aside and snatched up the axe myself. With axe and sword I turned back to my other foe.
Such a kick to the knee would have long disabled a human, but already he was standing straight once more. Yet now the advantage was mine. He faltered for a moment, and then saw another sword upon the ground, and seized upon the chance to once more set us on equal terms. He threw himself in a dive towards the sword. In so doing he brought himself close to where Egil lay, and my Icelander thrust out with the broken staff. There was no power in the thrust at all, for Egil was greatly weakened, but the forward motion of the dearg-dul drove him onto the splintered wood. It drove deep into his face, and he howled again, and his hand missed the hilt of the sword and closed upon the blade instead. He got no chance to change his grip, for I was on him in an instant. I smote him with the axe as he rose, and felled him, and pierced him with my sword, and struck one final time with the axe and that was an end to him.
The last of the dearg-dul sat on the ground and wailed, for he had but one arm, and that one had but one remaining finger. He did not resist as I went to strike off his head.
At last I could tend to my menfolk. I gave Brother Finán but a glance. He was still, and either he was dead or he was not. In either case he did not need my attention as urgently as did Egil.
His struggle to assist me in my fight had used up the last of his strength and he lay on his face on the ground. I turned him over and he groaned in pain, and coughed, and blood ran from his mouth. Not the blood of the dearg-dul but his own blood. I looked at the wound in his side, and I felt ice run through my own veins, for the barbs of the arrow had done terrible damage when it was torn out. I did what I could to stop his bleeding but knew in my heart that it would be of no avail.
“I die, Bahey,” he said, and his voice was so soft I could but barely make out his words.
“Do not say such a thing, Egil,” I urged him. “I will not let you die, for I love you. Fynlo is dead, and my heart is free, and I give it to you. I love you. Do not leave me.”
He spoke again, but I could not make out his words. I held him to me, and told him words of love, and prayed aloud for his life to be spared. His eyes closed, and I thought he had breathed his last, but then he opened his eyes once more and spoke with greater strength. “I shall die happy knowing that you love me. Grant me a last wish, Bahey. Show me your breasts, for I never …” His voice lost its strength again, but his eyes remained open.
“I was a fool not to give myself to you before now,” I told him, and I stood up. I took off my clothes, all of them, and stood before him entirely naked.
He smiled up at me. “I die happy,” he said. “You are beautiful, Bahey Dhone. I shall wait for you in Valhalla.”
I knelt beside him, and bent over him, and he raised a hand to my breast. I kissed him deeply. There was blood in his mouth but I paid it no heed. It mattered only that I proved to him that I loved him. His hand fell away from my breast. I broke off the kiss and looked into his eyes.
“Bahey,” he gasped. “I cannot see. It grows dark. I am cold.”
“Do not die!” I commanded him, and took his hand in mine. “Egil! I love you!”
“Bahey? Where are you?” he asked, and his words were but the barest whisper. “Do …” Blood ran from his mouth in a stream, and his words became only a gurgle. The flow of blood stopped and he breathed no more.
“Egil!” I sobbed. “Egil! I love you!” He did not stir. I knelt over him and wept.
“He is dead, Bahey,” Brother Finán’s voice reached my ears.
I stood up and looked to my Watcher. I was naked before him, but I cared not, for I was beyond thoughts of modesty. “Yes, he is dead. Not an hour ago Fynlo came to me as a dearg-dul and I slew him. Now Egil is dead also. I am weary, Brother Finán, and my grief is so great that I cannot bear it. Would that someone else had been Chosen, for I have not protected those that I love, and I am shamed.”
He sat up and clutched his hands to his leg, and I noticed for the first time that it was bent in no natural manner. There was a dark red mark on his pate, in the place where the bruise he had received at Cronk Keeill Eoin had but lately faded. “You need feel no shame, Bahey Dhone. Surely no Watcher in all of the world has ever had a Slayer with so true a heart. The odds against you were fearful indeed, and yet your courage has endured, and you are gentle and loving and kind. You are as a daughter to me, Bahey, and you make me proud.”
“And you are like a father unto me, Brother Finán,” I told him, for his words had indeed brought ease to my heart. I was still filled with great grief but no longer did I feel as if I was sinking into despair. “I must dress.” Even as I said those words I felt the knot in my stomach that warned of the presence of dearg-dul and I turned away from my clothes to pick up my sword instead.
I had dropped my bow some distance back along the path and I did not dare go back to retrieve it, for Brother Finán’s leg was useless and I could not leave him helpless and alone. I looked about for weapons to use at a distance, and saw the beard-axe and also arrows without a bow. I picked up the axe, and a handful of arrows, and I stuck my sword point in the soil so that it stood up with hilt ready to my hand. I did the same with the fine sword that had been wielded by the dearg-dul, and also with the sword that he had tried to snatch up, which I now saw to be Brother Finán’s sword. My preparations were hardly complete when my new foes came upon me.
Halfdan was there, and Brodir also, with five dearg-dul of lesser stature and two more of Halfdan’s Wendish warriors. “It seems my trap for you has not yet succeeded,” Halfdan said, his face grim. “You have cost me much, and greatly delayed my plans. You have slain my ally Ragnar who was Sire to my army. But it ends now. You are wounded, and naked, and alone, and cannot hope to prevail. Surrender now and I will spare your life and give you passage to another land. Orkney, perhaps.”
I trusted him not, and neither did I trust his men, for I could see lust in their eyes as they stared upon my naked body. “Why should I not prevail, Halfdan? I have bested all that you have sent at me thus far.”
Halfdan began to speak in reply but Brodir interrupted him and drowned out his words. “Foolish girl! When we fought before I was but newly come into my strength, and you escaped, but that shall not happen again. I felt the death of my Sire at your hands and I shall have my vengeance upon you. I wear the armour of Manannan and cannot be overcome.”
“Yet Wolf the Quarrelsome overcame you; not just once, but twice,” I reminded him.
Brodir’s face twisted with rage. He raised high his axe; not a beard-axe, but a great-axe, the length of a man and wielded with two hands. “I shall take your head, insolent wench!” he roared. “Kneel down before me, for I am your king.”
I was not cowed, for I felt new strength filling me from some source unknown. I knelt as Brodir commanded, and heard Brother Finán groan in dismay behind me, but then I spoke out. I uttered the dread words of the Skeab Lome. The most potent by far of all the curses of the Manx, from long before St Maughold brought us the True Faith; the curse of the bare broom. Destruction absolute.
I had no broom, but I was bare, and my hair fell uncovered to my shoulders. I held the arrows in my hand and gestured with them as I chanted the curse, as if I were sweeping, all as the ritual required; and my grandmother had told me that by ancient tradition the potency of the curse was magnified tenfold if spoken when kneeling.
“Skeab Lome, chiollagh gyn chloan, as follym faase gyn cass gyn rass, er Halfdan, er Brodir.”
(The besom of destruction upon Halfdan and Brodir. A fireside without offspring, and an empty desolation with neither root nor seed.)
Halfdan looked merely puzzled, for I think he had never learned to speak Manx; but Brodir knew my words, and his axe shook, and he stepped back fear-stricken. “Kill her!” he cried. “Kill the witch!”
I was no witch, in truth, and I knew not if the curse would have had effect. I had aimed but to strike fear into my enemies, and it seemed that I had succeeded. In stepping back Brodir had put himself between me and one of the Wendish archers. I came to my feet and at once threw an arrow at the other bowman, emulating the trick of the veteran dearg-dul Ragnar, and my strength was just as great as his. The point pierced the man’s eye before he could loose his own arrow and he reeled away clutching at his face. A second arrow I threw at the nearest of the dearg-dul, and then I turned to Halfdan.
He wore a jerkin closely sewn with iron rings, and on his head was an iron cap with a nose-guard, and I judged that a thrown arrow might strike metal and be deflected. Therefore I flung the beard-axe. It was not balanced for a throw yet I managed well enough. The blade struck him full in the face and his helmet could not withstand a blow of such force. He fell backwards with the axe buried in his head.
I snatched up my sword, and also that of Brother Finán, and met the onrush of the dearg-dul. Brodir hung back still, and the others had no such deadly a weapon, and their bodies shielded me from the remaining archer. I slashed, and blocked, and thrust, and they fell. When but two remained I threw Brother Finán’s sword at the Wendish bowman, and it drove deep into his chest. I picked up the last sword, that of the late Ragnar, and faced my foes with a sword of quality in each hand.
One of them gave way in fear, and turned, and fled off into the trees. I struck at the other twice, once with each sword, driving him back and wounding him in the body; but then Brodir stepped into the fray, swinging his great axe, and it was my turn to be driven back. I avoided two mighty swings, and then I ducked under his axe and smote him in the body. My blade glanced off the armour, and when I tried to use my knee to his groin it did no harm either, for the mail coat fell to mid-thigh and protected him from my blow. Brodir kicked in his turn. There was no great force to his kick, for the mail hampered him in that regard, but it was enough to knock me back to where his axe could strike once more.
I was filled with resolve, and my attacks slackened not, yet it was a hard fight and it was going against me. Brodir was vulnerable only at the neck, and at the lower parts of his limbs, and he was a warrior of great skill and gave me no opening to strike such a blow. The wounded dearg-dul was recovering his strength and I knew that soon I would be hard pressed indeed.
At that moment Brother Finán took a hand. The movement of the fight took Brodir close to where my Watcher lay, and Brother Finán had taken out a pot from a pouch at his belt. He removed the seal and threw the contents over the king, shouting as he did so “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!”
It was Holy Water. Where the liquid struck Brodir his flesh burned. His scream was terrible to hear. He released the axe with his right hand, and clutched at his eyes. I did not fail to seize the advantage thus presented to me. I struck once at Brodir’s left wrist, and severed it from his arm, and the axe fell to the earth. I swung again at his neck, hard, and this time he could do nothing to resist.
My first strike was not clean, for part of the blade was in contact with the mail shirt and my blow was slowed somewhat, but my second blow was true. His head sprang from his shoulders, and turned to dust, and his body likewise; and the armour of Manannan glowed with a bright light for an instant, and broke apart, and turned in the air into flakes of ancient rust.
A wind sprang up in that moment and the mist was whirled away. It faded and grew thin, and the sun broke through, and the wounded dearg-dul cried out in despair and died in fire. From far away in the trees I heard the screams of the one who had fled; it had availed him naught, for he still perished.
The dearg-dul were cleansed from Mann.
I carried Brother Finán to his keeil house and took him home from there on horseback. At my home I demanded that my family tend to him. They besieged me with questions, for my clothing was soaked with blood, and telling them that it was not mine but Egil’s brought me no respite.
I was stricken with lethargy, and cast myself upon my bed, and I lay there without speaking other than to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This left Brother Finán to make all explanations, and there was little that he could do but to tell the truth; for there were dead bodies to account for, and I did not deny having slain all but one of them.
At length the Carls and Thingmen decided that our tale must be true, for the graves of the dead brought back from Ireland by Halfdan proved indeed to be empty. Also, Ospak returned from Ireland at last. He told of Halfdan buying up the Manx captives from the Irish, and he revealed that several of those brought back as dead bodies had been ransomed by Halfdan as living and unwounded. Although Ospak refused to take the crown his words were yet given great weight; and it was determined that I had acted properly, and that I had freed the island from a dire curse.
Egil was given a hero’s burial befitting his religion; and the beard-axe and the sword that had been Ragnar’s I laid in his grave.
I spoke afterwards to Brother Finán, being troubled. “Egil was not a follower of the True Faith. He said he would wait for me in Valhalla, but I know that there is no such place. He died an unbeliever, unshriven. Will he then go to Hell?”
“Our Lord is merciful and just,” Brother Finán assured me. “Egil strove mightily against evil, and kept his word, and died to protect the innocent. I am sure that if we pray that he be admitted to Heaven our words will be heeded. You shall be reunited there; although I hope that it will not be until many years hence.”
“Slayers die young,” I reminded him. “You hid that from me, but you have taught me to read, and I have come upon that for myself.”
“There is no law that it must be so,” he said, his expression becoming one of sadness. “It is only that they must fight again and again, and one day they will lose. I did not lie to you when I told you that there was no rule that said that you could not marry and have a family; but if you do so the demons and dearg-dul will not then cease from their attacks. It is a most unlikely chance that you shall have a long life.”
“That does not cause me grief overmuch,” I told him, and I smiled. “I will not lightly cast my life away, but the day that I see Egil once more in Heaven is not a day that I dread. Willingly will I do battle once more.”
“I doubt that such battle will be required in Mann, for a while at least, until word of your presence spreads and demons travel to this place to challenge you,” he said.
“In that circumstance I would be bringing peril upon my people and my friends,” I said. “I must leave my home.”
“You must indeed, Bahey Dhone. Come with me to Tara of the Kings, to the Council of the Watchers, and there we shall determine the place that most needs a Slayer; and we shall travel there together.”
“We shall,” I agreed. I smiled once more. “I hope only that it is a place with much sun, for I have had enough of rain and mist.”