May Earth Rise (16 page)

Eorl Peada stood quietly, his gray hair braided in hundreds of tiny braids, each braid tied off with a ring of bronze. Peada’s dark eyes glittered in the torchlight as the Godia, the Priestess, dressed in a robe of pure white, took her place behind the altar. Next to her stood the Hod, the Sacrificer, in a robe of black, his black hood secured over his face. On his arm he held an eagle, the bird of Wuotan. The bird strained against its bonds but could not break free. The Priestess picked up the string of bells and shook it. The delicate sound floated over the clearing and the crowd fell silent.

“The Dis are with us, the gods have come,” the Godia called.

“Wuotan and Donor, Fal and Fro and Logi, Dag and Mani, Saxnot and Tiw.”

“Hail to the Dis,” the Heiden responded.

“The Disir are with us, the goddesses have come. Nerthus and Freya, Holda and Nehalennia, Sunna and Sif, Natt and the Wyrd.”

“Hail to the Disir.”

“The Afliae are with us, the powerful ones have come. Hail to Narve, the One that Binds. Hail to Ostara, the Warrior Goddess. Hail to Erce, Gentle Mother. Hail to these, the Afliae.”

“Hail to the Afliae.”

“This is the night of Wuotan,” the Priestess continued. Her blond hair shimmered and her beautiful voice soothed as she effortlessly captured the magic and mystery of the night. “This is the night of Wuotan. Wielder of magic, Wearer of Masks, the Hanged Man.”

“Blessed be the Leader of the Hunt,” the Heiden called out. As they did so lightning flashed above them. A clap of thunder so huge that some of the people covered their ears boomed across the sky.

The Godia smiled and lifted the drinking horn. “Drink now, ye followers of the old ways. Drink now, ye hidden, ye faithful ones,” she called. She took a sip from the massive horn and then passed it around the clearing. When all had sipped and the horn was returned to the altar, she nodded to the black cloaked Sacrificer.

“All hail to Wuotan,” the Hod called out. “Lord of Magic, One-Eye, who hung nine days on Irminsul and gained wisdom. Accept our sacrifice.” He lifted the eagle high over his head then swiftly broke its neck. He then slit its throat with the ritual knife, catching the blood in the golden bowl and draining it from the still-warm body.

Carefully, reverently, he set the dead eagle down on the altar, then picked up the bowl of blood. He dipped a bundle of oak leaves into the bowl and, walking slowly around the clearing, he sprinkled the blood on the bowed heads of each of the Heiden. At last he returned to the altar and sprinkled blood on the long, silky hair of the priestess. He lifted the bowl and drank the remaining blood then set the bowl back on the altar.

The Priestess lifted her slim hands and called, “Lord of Magic, hear our plea. Give us a message, speak to us with magic.” From the cord around her waist she unhooked a white bag made of swan’s skin.

For some reason Penda began to feel cold and afraid. He knew this was a dream—how could it not be? And if only a dream, what harm could come to him? So why be afraid? But he was.

At the Priestess’ gesture the black-clad Hod reached into the bag and pulled out a rune made of gold. He held the rune high, then laid it on the altar. “He has chosen
Ansuz
,” the Godia called. “Choose another.”

Again the black figure reached into the bag and pulled out a rune. The Priestess named it. “He has chosen
Chalk.
Choose another.”

Something in the man’s movements, some dimly recognized pattern made Penda’s blood run cold. He did not fully understand why but it was enough to make it difficult to take a breath, enough to bathe him in the sheen of terror.

The shadowy figure chose another rune, which the Priestess then set on the altar. “He has chosen
Beorc.”

The Priestess studied the runes then lifted her head to the Heiden. “The message that the Sacrificer has chosen is not complete. See here. He has chosen
Ansuz.
A good rune, for it means a message from the gods. He has chosen
Chalk.
A difficult rune, for it means barrenness, poison. It is the dead man’s rune. The third is
Beorc,
the rune for growth, rebirth, and new life. What has been chosen tonight is a message from the gods. It speaks of a life of sorrow, a living death. Then, finally, of a new life. But how is the new life obtained? That is what is not clear. To determine this, he must chose another.”

Once again, the Sacrificer reached into the bag and pulled out a golden rune. As it glittered above his cowled head, the Priestess cried, “It is
Seid.
The rune for the magician, the sorceress. It is only through the witches that a new life will be given to the one who suffers. Through this alone!”

A cold, fierce wind whipped through the pines, moaning and crying. The torches guttered fitfully, bent by the wind. Overhead another flash of white lightening almost blinded the Heiden. They raised their hands over their faces and bowed their heads to the storm—all but Penda, the Godia, and the Hod. These three lifted their faces to the night sky and watched as the storm clouds rushed in over the mountain.

A figure rode across the sky—a dark, hooded shape on a horse as pale as bone. The figure held a spear in its hand and as it raised the spear another flash of lightning tore the night. Following the figure was a woman on a gray horse, dressed in a gown of sea green. Her eyes flashed and changed to the gray of an angry sea. She raised a horn of mother of pearl to her lips and as she blew thunder boomed and rumbled.

Behind these two came a pack of slavering white dogs with eyes of blood red. They rode the sky on the wings of the lightening, baying hungrily. Behind them came skeletal figures, their bony hands gripping the reins as they rode pale horses, and they screamed of despair and madness.

The Wild Hunt has come to Mount Badon on Galdra Necht, Penda thought. And may the gods have mercy on us now. But he was not sure there would be any mercy. At least, not for him. For he knew now, he felt the horror of what he had done.

He had supported the Coranians, those who held his country in bondage. He had not tried to stop the hunting of the Heiden, the believers in the Old Gods, or of the Wiccan, those with psychic gifts akin to the Y Dawnus. Worse yet, he had journeyed to Kymru to crush that land as his own had been crushed, to crush the people, as his own had been, to crush their witches, as the Wiccan were.

The Heiden cried out as the Hunt circled the sky, coming ever closer to the clearing on the mountain. The figure with the spear raised it again and the lightning almost blinded Penda. The figure swooped over the clearing and slowed his horse, coming to rest before the altar. It threw back its hood. His hair and beard were long and gray. A scar twisted up one cheek to disappear into an empty eye socket. In that empty socket lightning brimmed.

The Priestess fell to her knees, her hands raised as she cried, “Wuotan has come, ye Heiden! He has come!”

The Sacrificer stood as though frozen before the one-eyed god. From the sky above the clearing the woman guided her horse to rest next to Wuotan’s. Her stormy eyes flashed as the Priestess cried out, “It is Holda, Goddess of the Waters, daughter of Fro and Freya. Ye Heiden, the Wild Hunt has come!”

Still the hooded Sacrificer did not move, standing before Wuotan and Holda as though transfixed. Penda took a step forward to stand next to the Priestess, but no one looked at him. Then Wuotan One-Eye took a step forward and yanked off the Sacrificer’s black hood.

And to Penda’s horror his own face was revealed. The people in the clearing melted away. The Priestess, the altar, Penda’s father and son, they were all gone. He stood alone in a clearing in a forest he did not recognize. He looked down and he was clothed in a black robe.

But Wuotan One-Eye had not disappeared. The God of Magic still sat his bone-white horse and held a black hood in his scarred hands. And Holda, too, had not gone, but sat her gray horse calmly, looking down at Penda.

“Wuotan, I—”

“You betrayed me,” the god said. “You betrayed them all.” Lightning flashed from Wuotan’s empty eye socket and burned the ground at Penda’s feet.

“Yes,” Penda whispered and bowed his head. “I did. You are right to have your dogs tear me limb from limb, to have your Hunt kill me. I ask only that you do not punish my father, my son, or my people for what I have done. Punish me alone, for I deserve it.”

“You knew what you were doing,” Holda accused as thunder pealed.

“I did,” Penda said.

“And did not stop it.”

“No. I did not. My oath—”

“Was no more binding for you than for Gwydion ap Awst.”

Penda’s head came up. “Gwydion took the Brotherhood Oath with Havgan. And he—”

“Broke it,” Wuotan said as lightening flashed. “Think you this was wrong?”

“He gave his word—”

“And you think it is more important to keep your word to a madman than to do what you know to be right?” Wuotan asked.

“I was wrong,” Penda whispered. “Wrong. And it is too late to mend it.”

“It is not too late,” Wuotan said. “Lift your head, Penda of Lindisfarne.”

Penda lifted his head and stared at Wuotan and Holda. The figures changed, melted into different figures, figures Penda recognized from the Kymric stories he had heard.

Wuotan’s face elongated and darkened. Antlers sprang from his forehead and his eye sockets filled with the gleam of topaz as both eyes changed into the eyes of an owl. The spear in his hand changed to a hunting horn and his muscular, bare chest gleamed in the now-still night as calm starlight bathed the clearing.

Holda’s outlines changed and flowed into the figure of a woman with amethyst eyes. Her dark, silky hair hung down to her waist. Her white, knee-length tunic glowed as her horse’s hide darkened to black. At her feet white dogs with blood-red eyes gamboled and panted, sniffing at Penda and at the leaves on the forest floor.

“You know what
Seid
means,” the woman said, her purple gaze glittering. “You know the way to a new life.”

“You know how to find that life,” the man said, his topaz eyes flashing. “You know what you must do. Do it, and the new life you were promised becomes true.”

“But Wuotan, Holda, where did they—”

“It is all one,” said the goddess Cerridwen, Queen of the Wood.

“We are all one,” said the god Cerrunnos, Master of the Wild Hunt. “Did you not know?”

“I—” Penda began. But he did not finish. For perhaps he had known. Perhaps he had always known. In any case, he now understood what he must do. He had not known the true meaning of honor. He had not known that it did not always mean keeping one’s word. Yes, now he knew the truth.

And the truth set him free.

H
E WOKE WITH
a start to pounding on his door. “Stop that noise,” he shouted as he sprang from his bed. He knew what he would see when he opened the door. Nor was he wrong.

“You were right, lord,” the captain of his guard said, grinning. “The witch tried to rescue the captives. And she had another witch with her. We have captured them both.”

“Then,” Penda said as he shrugged into a fur-lined cloak and pulled on his boots, “take me to them.”

And as he walked down the hallways of Caer Tir he walked confidently and proudly. For the time for indecision had passed. Now he knew what he must do.

For he was free, indeed.

T
HE CELL WHERE
the prisoners were being held was on the first floor of the northwest watchtower. This tower was on the side of Caer Tir directly over the cliffs leading to the sea. When he had first determined to put the prisoners there his captain had protested, saying that there was surely a passageway from the cells leading to the cliffs. And Penda had agreed that was no doubt true, and his steely gaze had dared his captain to reply. But his captain had known better and had done as he was told.

He entered the tower and turned to face the cells, where the three families that he had detained stood against the bars. The chamber was cold and clammy, the only light coming from a brazier set in the middle of the room, well away from the cells themselves.

In front of the cells Ellywen stood with her hands tied behind her back and two guards on either side of her, her manner icy and calm, but a telltale pulse beat wildly at her slim throat.

A stranger stood next to her, his hands also bound behind him. The man had sandy brown hair and his brown eyes were wide with fear. Penda thought he might know who the man was and, when King Erfin came stumbling in, followed by Efa, he was proved right.

“Cadell!” Erfin cried. “General Penda, it’s Cadell, Rhoram’s Dewin! How did he come to be here?”

“No doubt, Erfin,” Penda said in bored tones, “he came here through one of the secret passages that run through the cliffs.” Penda nodded to a gaping hole in the wall. “They meant to rescue the prisoners and take them out through here.”

“You knew that this would happen?” Erfin asked, bewildered.

Penda sighed. Erfin had always been immensely stupid. “Of course.”

“So, Ellywen,” Efa said gleefully as she came to stand before the bound Druid, “I see you must have had a change of heart. And how did my husband persuade you to join him?”

“He didn’t, Efa,” Ellywen said with contempt. “He didn’t even have to try. I simply realized what I was doing was wrong.”

“Ha! Wrong!” Efa sneered.

“Yes, wrong. I knew it when I helped to capture Rhoram’s Bard. Cian and I had known each other a long time, yet I delivered him into the hands of the Golden Man just the same. The night I heard the death song of the Master Bard was when I knew I could not go on as I had been. That was when I was sickened by my own behavior. That was when I knew that the teachings of the Archdruid were false—false to Kymru, and false to the Mother herself. False to anyone who had the wit to see it. Which I finally did.”

“And so you began to help the Cerddorian,” Penda said.

Ellywen nodded, for she knew it would be useless to deny it. “I helped Aidan, Rhoram’s lieutenant, and Cadell escape from Arberth some months ago and it was then that I truly began to help the Cerddorian. Though I must admit,” she went on with a wry look at Cadell, “it took them a while to trust me.”