Brethren, p.1
Brethren, page 1
BRETHREN
ROBB PRITCHARD
Brethren: Dragon Foundation Book 1 by Robb Pritchard
Published by Robb Pritchard
www.robbpritchard.co.uk
Copyright © 2022 Robb Pritchard
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: robbpritchard77@gmail.com
Cover by Sasa Juric www.sassch.com
Map by Edvardas Volingas
Dedicated, as is everything else, to
Jana Goetzova.
I write and think of many things that are just fantasies.
You came true
Names
Ordo-wik (plural: Ordo-wiki): is the possible Brythonic pronunciation of the Latin Ordovice
Dogs : Deceangli tribe
Locations
Crow Hill : Dinas Bran, Llangollen
Deva : Chester
Dinorwig : Dinorwig hillfort, near Caernarvon
White Walls: Caer Drewyn hillfort, near Corwen
Bastard’s Hill: Penycloddiau hillfort, near Denbigh
The mines: The Great Orme, Llandudno
Fort on the Chief River: Caerhun Roman fort, near Conwy
Chief River : River Conwy
Mona: Anglesey
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
Sir Terry Pratchett
ONE
U p on the hillfort ramparts, Cadwal tugged the rough wool cloak around his shoulders. His companions on sentry in the incessant wind were a pair of weathered skulls perched on posts. Old warriors of the Ordo-wik tribe, even in death they still protected the fort.
The larger of the two had been Rotri, a fierce fighter. The light of the towering mid-summer fire cast dancing shadows in the empty eye sockets. It was an unnerving sensation, and Cadwal had to shrug off the idea of there being some life in the bones.
The living worried him more, though.
He drew the knife from its patterned sheath. Ground on the whetstone for days in readiness for its purpose this night, the edge had never been sharper. It had been his father’s and his father’s before that. Old enough it was poured molten from the forge in the days when a tribe only had other tribes to fight before the land had known anything of Rome. His father had been killed half a year before Cadwal had been born so in honour of the man he’d never known, he’d carried and kept it oiled all his life. The precious metal had never been used to kill.
Until tonight.
With a coldness in his chest, he remembered that, come the next dawn, his own sons would likely be without a father.
He tasted blood. He’d bitten his lip too hard again.
As he felt the weight and balance of the blade, he told himself again that what he’d set himself to do was for the good of the Ordo-wik tribe. Killing his enemies might cost his own life, but if that was to be the price, he would pay it. Until the very last drop of his blood had been the words of his oath.
The boys would be brought up, and one day made into good, strong warriors, by his brother, Tamm. The thought helped harden his resolve for the killings to come.
With the urgent rhythm of the festival drums reverberating through the palisade planks and thumping in his chest, he turned to look inside the fort of Crow Hill. Under his breath, he cursed at how the wind-whipped flames blew sparks perilously close to the thatch of the nearest roundhouses. Swirling embers were the least cause of his gnawing unease, though.
Spinning in wild circles, blue spirals of woad paste daubed over cheeks and brows, the dancers seemed closer to the realm of spirit than that of man. But how they could wave their arms and toss their hair with abandon, as though the enemy wasn't already inside the walls with them, he had no idea.
He scanned through his dancing clans folk, trying to spot the newcomers. Outcasts from a nearby tribe, or so their story went. Cadwal hadn’t believed it since the day they’d prostrated themselves at the gates, begging for mercy. The teryn, the young daughter of the king who had absolute rule over the Clan of the Crows, believed them, though, and that had to be good enough for everyone else. But Cadwal’s bones told him the men were from the enemy tribe, the bastard Dogs, and nothing they’d done in the passage of a moon had changed his mind. And if they were Dogs then they hadn’t come to Crow Hill for sanctuary, they were here because they intended to kill everyone he held dear. How, he wasn’t sure, but he knew he had to kill them first. Whether they were the teryn’s guests, held under sacred protections, or not.
He could see only a couple of them in the crowd, but not their companions. One against two were odds he was happy with, and with a twist of his heart, knew the time had come. Knife sheathed, he made his way down the ladder.
Down in the half-maddened crowd, a couple of girls swirled around and reached out to interlock arms. Seeing it was him, though, they recoiled. Without realising it, he touched the jagged scar at the base of his skull. It was a curse to be knocked out by a slingshot stone before the fight had even begun, and not since that day had anyone listened to his concerns as nothing but bad luck could come of taking advice from a man the gods did not favour. Cadwal couldn’t disagree about that; as he’d lain on the ground his wife had been killed. There could be no greater curse in the world than that.
Deeper in, buffeted out of the way at almost every step by sweat-soaked bodies, he pressed through the heaving throng. In the haze of smoke and kicked-up dust, it was hard to see who was clan and who was foe. Then he saw the wide shoulders of a man moving a little stiffer than others, as though he was only pretending to lose himself in the beat of the drums, as though he was thinking other thoughts than dancing.
He crept closer. Tightening his fingers around the leather wrapped hilt, he drew the knife free and held it in such a way that the blade was covered by a fold of the cloak. So close to a kill, a familiar calm washed over him. The drums, and the people around him, seemed far away. One stab in the back of the first man, close to the spine but far enough away from bone that the blade wouldn’t be trapped. Then it would be embedded in the throat of the second man before he even wondered why his friend was crumpling to his knees. Two quick movements, two enemies dead. The thought was as natural to him as the farmer knowing how to sow seeds in the fields.
He was ready to strike, a single breath away, knife angled and aimed. He drew back his arm, muscles tensed but before he could thrust, a girl spun in front and pulled the nearest outsider away for a dance. The moment of hesitation was all the other Dog needed to spot the threat. A fighter just as well trained as any Ordo-wik, Dax didn’t miss the intent in his stance, but reacted with nothing but a challenging sneer. Blue circles over his face, eyes wide and tongue sticking out, he seemed like some maleficent creature risen from the Otherworld. Knowing it was a Dog inside the fort, Cadwal didn’t think that was too far off.
Cadwal’s chance of surprise was gone, but Dax was unarmed and, warrior or not, flesh against sharpened iron was an unequal match. He checked his grip on the knife again and took a step forward, but before he had a chance to stab, another girl rammed into him. By the time he’d pushed her out of the way, Dax had disappeared into the crowd. Cursing in frustration, he followed, moving like a fox slinking through the hedgerows between the dancers, ducking under raised arms and weaving around bodies in his own dance. But one of death, not celebration. Heartbeat now indistinguishable from the drums, he was lost in the blind panic of thinking that any of the men standing on his toes or swinging their arms around without a care was a Dog about to sink a blade between his ribs.
He stopped and forced himself to catch his breath and look around. But with nearly a hundred people all making exaggerated movements and the fire causing flashes of bright light and deep shadows, he couldn’t see either of the Dogs anywhere. And after coming so close not once but twice, he couldn’t help the unnerving feeling it was the action of some god that had stopped him. He dismissed the thought, because why wouldn’t the gods of his Ordo-wik tribe want their enemies dead? It made no sense.
He forced himself to loosen his white knuckled grip on the knife. It was the reaction to having something vitally important slip through his fingers. About to sulk dejectedly back up to the rampart to mull over what he could do next, a sharp pain on his shin made him stumble. Still seething from the missed kills, he was about to vent his rage at children being so careless to play-fight with toy hammers in the middle of a festival, but stopped when he saw whose children they were. Suddenly he was lost in the sense of relief of being with them again. With an overwhelming need to protect his sons, he was about to drop to a knee and wrap them in his arms, as secure as the fort gates closing at night… but something about how his eldest was fighting his little brother made him stop. Cadwal watched captivated as Owyn held the small hammer lightly with two hands; the best position to be able to quickly choose which way to strike. Feet planted firmly, knees slightly bent, Cadwal was amazed to see how he moved with a little flinch before he swung. Owyn wasn't simply trying to beat Arwel, he was indicating what was coming, so Arwel could offer a more confident block. Much more than merely an older brother, he'd taken on the role of teacher.
Having just been a moment away from killing two men, Cadwal’s heart was still racing, but now it was gripped in anguish because in the void she'd left, he saw they were reshaping themselves to fill in the space that had been hers. Hunting Dogs around the mid-summer fire suddenly not so important, he watched their beaming and carefree smiles whi
He caught sight of Trenus striding purposely towards him and realised too late he was still holding the knife. He tried to cover it with his cloak and step to the side but Trenus barred his way with his barrel chest. “What are you doing?” he snarled. “A knife ! At the festival? When everyone thinks you are cursed? Give it to me!”
Cadwal hesitated but couldn’t argue that he needed it to kill the guests. The teryn’s counsellor was no man to argue with. He also he knew Trenus was doing him a real favour as he could have simply called the guards, and that would have been that. Reluctantly, he turned it around and handle first, handed it over.
“If your father hadn’t been my blood-brother...” he said, shaking his head. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
Allowed to go, Cadwal hustled the boys over to the nearest roundhouse. With the wall at his back he could more easily watch for anyone coming up on them.
“Da!” little Arwel exclaimed excitedly. “I killed Owyn five times!”
“What did I tell you about fighting in the middle of the festival?” Cadwal shouted loud enough to be heard over the drums.
His victory denied, Arwel looked crestfallen. He had his mother’s sky-blue eyes, and Cadwal saw her in them sometimes, especially when he was daydreaming. He also had her radiant smile, and it was a cruel bitterness that whenever his son was happy, Cadwal was stabbed with the agony of losing her again.
Owyn, two summers older and a head taller, wasn't too impressed though. “I killed you twenty times!”
“No, Da!” Arwel wailed. “No, he didn't!” In a quick fit of anger, his youngest ducked down and swung his hammer in a short arc. Off guard, Owyn couldn't react in time to stop it whacking into the side of his leg.
Cadwal had a momentary pang of fatherly concern. But in Owyn he saw a clear image of how a child trying his best to look tough in front of his father would one day be a man defending the tribe. It would take years of training, of being knocked down as easily as Arwel, until, as he got a little stronger each time, one day it would be a warrior who stood back up.
As Owyn readied his hammer, he wondered if he’d now get to experience the greatest honour; that of bringing his boys up as warriors. The Dogs still needed to die tonight, though. One way or another.
With gritted teeth, Owyn looked for permission to strike back. Cadwal nodded and with two deft and hard strokes to open Arwel's shield, Owyn jabbed him in the chest with the head of his hammer. Only a lump of unseasoned wood, it was still substantial enough to knock Arwel to his backside at Cadwal's feet. “Ow!” he cried, clutching where the bruise would come. “Not fair!” But he scrambled back to his feet and, staring up with his big innocent eyes, asked, “Da? How long will it be before I am brave?”
“Brave? I don't need you to be brave,” Cadwal said. “All I need is for you to learn how to stay alive.”
“Why?” he asked, rubbing his chest in a way he hoped wouldn’t show how much it hurt.
“Well,” Cadwal started, but realised it was going to be a hard answer for a six-year-old. He would speak no lie though, especially on a festival day when the gods were watching. “Beyond the borders of our lands, we have enemies. People who want to kill us.”
“Like they did with Ma?”
Words suddenly failing him, Cadwal could only nod.
“But why?”
He sighed. “Because they are not us. Not Ordo-wiki. They’re a different tribe and they want our land for themselves. And our sheep.”
“They want to kill us for our sheep ?”
Having the words to calm a child had been Gwen’s gift. Before he could mumble an inadequate reply, Arwel asked, “Can I only fight enemies who are little like me? Ones with only wooden swords?”
Building walls, digging ditches and teaching their children how to kill, such was the way of the world. As he tried to find the words to explain why they fought the Roman invaders and neighbouring tribes, ash from the fire fell around them like snow. The drums slowing to a double beat of a slowly pounding heart saved him from needing to answer. He looked up nervously to see what had caused the sudden change. The sight of two druids, white clay painted on their faces and smudged dark circles of charcoal powder around their eyes, made it feel as though things normally found in a month-old grave were crawling over his skin. Druids and bad news often travelled together, so the saying went. And the fact their arrival had been a secret was far from a good sign.
Any chance of killing the Dogs this night was gone, but had his plan to kill the teryn’s guests been found out? Was he about to be ripped from the boys’ arms? The fear of being betrayed by magics unknown felt like a cold hand crushing his chest.
Minura walked out, as aloof as only a teryn could be, and blew the horn. For those always poised to fight from the fort of Crow Hill, right on the edge of Ordo-wik lands, the bitter note was as effective for getting their attention as a slap in the face. The sound stopped the drummers in mid-beat and brought an abrupt pause to the festival. People stopped dancing and patted their friends on the back to get their attention. The last ones, having spent so long lost in the beat of the drums, came back to the world and unsteady on their feet, looked around slightly embarrassed. More than a few were slumped against walls of the closest roundhouses. Not too unusual in such a festival, but the horn should have roused them.
In the respectful silence, Minura called, “Clansmen!” Her hair, the colour of summer morning sunshine, was braided and tied up in knots as complicated as any artisan could paint, carve, or cast. With a pair of fox skins draped over her shoulders, positioned so that the two fists of the torc at her throat glinted in the firelight, she was dressed to impress the gods, never mind the clan.
With a wave of a delicate hand, her muscled guards dragged a trussed and hooded man to her feet.
“What’s happening, Da?” Arwel asked as a strange silence descended.
“A sacrifice,” Owyn said in awe.
“What's that ?” Arwel piped.
Most men wouldn’t dare make eye contact with a druid, never mind fight in their presence, so with no threat of an outsider brandishing a weapon in retaliation, Cadwal deemed it safe enough to lift Arwel up to sit on a shoulder. “It's when we offer a life to the gods. To give our thanks or to ask for something.”
“They're going to kill him,” Owyn smiled.
“Kill?” Arwel whined.
“For the gods,” Cadwal nodded.
Another big man bounding over gave Cadwal a fright again, but it was Tamm. “Here, take this!” he said, slightly breathless and ruddy-faced from dancing. He held out a battered old ram's horn of ale.
Cadwal's hand was halfway to it before he checked himself. “I'm on sentry duty!” He left unspoken the punishment for a guard found inebriated.
Tamm scoffed. “You really think any bastard Dogs would come out for a raid tonight? On Alban Hefin? This is a sacred day!”
With his blood-shot eyes and fool’s grin, his brother Tamm looked far too drunk to bother arguing with. “For us it is,” Cadwal agreed. “But who knows what gods the Dogs follow now.”
“Roman gods, you mean?” He coughed up a weighty ball of phlegm, and to demonstrate his disdain, hawked it an impressive distance. He tipped his head back to finish the ale and trails of it ran down both sides of his unkempt moustache. “A man can't just choose what gods he honours! That's just not right! Or...” he asked with a playful smile, “you still think they're all in here with us?”
Cadwal ran a finger through the long hairs that flowed from his upper lip down over the sides of his chin. In the glow of the firelight, Tamm’s long locks looked even redder than usual, and he felt the familiar jealousy over his lousy mouse-coloured moustache. “I don't trust them,” he shrugged.
Tamm tried to stifle a laugh, but it came out through his nose in a snort. “Still? They've been with us near enough a full cycle of the moon! Tell me, how do you see enemies in men who spend their days fixing fences and go hunting deer to give us fresh meat?”
