FALSE PROPHETS

by Kilmo

The fall takes the air from Caereni’s lungs as a feeling like hooks digging between his ribs digs makes him clamp his hand to his side.

He’s half expecting the breath that shoots from his lips to contain blood, and it’s so cold he can see it plume in the air. Even now, in the middle of the night, with the moon riding full and clear overhead.

‘Mind your feet,’ says the chieftain who looks like he’s been fighting the invaders from across the seas so long the winds that brought them from the old land have hollowed him out.

A splash and muffled yelp from his son reaches his ears and Caereni stops.

They must be nearly at the tarn his eldest had told the tribe’s Draoi about. The stream winding its way down the mountainside sounds like it’s right next to him.

‘Father?’

‘Come here, or it’ll happen again.’

The rattle of Cost’s teeth is audible even over the sound of rushing water. The lad was the runt of the litter, always weaker than the rest. That’s why he’d chosen him, thinks Caereni with a grimace.

‘I can’t feel my feet, Father.’

‘Keep moving, and you’ll warm up. It’s not far now.’

One more time Caereni’s thoughts returned to the decision he’d taken like he was picking a scab he couldn’t leave alone. The wave of migrants who’d stripped the moors bare of the clan’s sheep had grown so numerous there were only bad choices left now winter had begun to bite. He glanced at the kid. He needed Cost to stay compliant. He wasn’t going to be able to drag him all the way. But at least Mab swore this time the offering would work.

‘The Draoi thinks the gods of this land are angry with us; and that’s the reason they’ve allowed our kinsfolk to land,’ said his son.

‘When did he say that?’

‘When you left me with him. There’s frost forming in the upper valleys that never goes away now.’

‘It’ll melt. It always does.’

‘He says it won’t because we’ve let things get out of balance. All we do is farm. It’s not like the old days, and he should know. He’s been here longer than anyone. Some of the women say he was alive when there were animals as big as mountains living here. They were hairy and had teeth longer than your arm.’

‘The women are saying that to tease you. And you shouldn’t listen to the dung Mab talks.’

‘Why not? You do.’

Caereni shrugged.

‘He’s the clan Draoi.’

The chieftain stares into the night. It isn’t just their enemies he’s worried about.

‘Can we light a fire when we get there, Father?’

‘No.’

Caereni closes his eyes. He shouldn’t be doing this. But like every poor bastard who’s worn the blunt ended torc his clan used for their rulers he’s finding out what it means now their backs are against the wall. Caereni wants to pick up his son and run. He would do too. Except it was his turn for a year and a day; and Mab would make sure he’d pay even more for all the meals he’d taken at others’ expense while they went hungry. Besides, he doubts he’s strong enough anymore. Even for him there’s been more months with barely enough to take the gnawing from his stomach than he wants to think about.

He’d wondered what the look in the last man’s eyes had meant when he’d handed him the torc.

Now he knew.

‘Should never have accepted it.’

‘What are you talking about, Father?’

Caereni looks at the patch of darkness that holds Cost and puts his finger to his lips. There’s no point telling him what’s going to happen. It will only make things more difficult.

‘Quiet, remember?’

‘Is this the place, Father?’

Cost Na Cadr, Caereni’s seventh son, shines pale in the moonlight as he points, and steam rises from his sides like one of the clan’s cattle… or a ghost thinks his father with a shudder.

The slopes of the ravine they’d been travelling down have dropped away, and Caereni feels the wind strengthen.

‘Wait,’ says the chieftain as he creeps forward as slow as a mule when it wants to disobey.

But his son isn’t listening. Instead, his feet drum over the frozen ground around the tarn where the heather doesn’t reach. They sound like one of Mab’s war dances and the hairs on Caereni’s arms stand on end.

‘You should be more respectful.’

‘To who, Father? There’s nothing here. You told me there’d be something we could catch.’

But Caereni eyes are on the water.

‘You’ve brought the grain cake?’ he says and Cost nods. ‘Good, eat some. They like their gifts well fed.’

‘I don’t understand, Father. You said I shouldn’t touch it.’

‘Do what I say. They won’t be long.’

Of course, that was if they liked what he’d brought. Mab had said they needed more – that the last two times weren’t enough. But he wouldn’t know unless they bit, would he? He brought his eyes up from the tarn’s depths long enough to meet his son’s.

‘I don’t like it, Father,’ says Cost making a face as he chews. ‘It tastes like cinders.’

‘You’ll eat it. It’s the last we have left.’

They sit and watch the tarn suck at the light as his son chokes down the crap that was all Caereni had managed to scrape from the depleted store pits. Down there in the water, somewhere deep amongst the muck Caereni imagines he can see what it’s hiding, see the squirm and flicker of so many tales he doubts you could count them all in a lifetime.

Caereni flexes his fingers. He’ll try and make this quick because the tarn’s surface is rippling as something moves through its depths.

‘You understand how few of us there are left?’  Caereni doubts the boy’s really listening. But he thinks his son deserves an explanation.

‘I need to do this Cost. I have to do this. The women’s babies are stillborn, and we buried the last of the old yesterday.’

He stares into the distance: as if that was going to help.

‘If what the Draoi says is true, and he obviously thinks it is. ‘We must appease what lives in there. It’s the only chance we’ve got.’

‘Yes Father. But things will get better.’

The moon comes out from behind the clouds to bathe the tarn in silver and Caereni sees his shadow in the water.

‘Our kinsfolk will only grow in number,’ Caereni’s voice is low as he thinks of how many have fallen in battle since the fighting started. ‘The harvests have been bad where they come from for years.’

Caereni pauses. It had to be now. Waiting any longer was only going to make it worse. At least it was just his youngest this time. As if that was any consolation.

‘Come here, Cost.’ In the distance there are fires in the lands his clan had won. ‘More of them every day.’ Caereni mutters bringing his eyes back to his son and reaching out to tousle the boy’s hair.

It doesn’t help.

‘See if you can find anything in there,’ says his father. ‘Not scared of a little cold, are you?’

Cost splashes further into the pool without another word. He’s brave like that, always has been despite being the weakest of the litter.

Soon he’s up to his shoulders.

‘Father?’

Caereni isn’t listening. He doesn’t want to hear his son talk anymore. Instead, he thinks about what it will be like with one less mouth to feed and steps behind him.

‘No more fear Cost. Just like I promised.’

The noose bites deep into the boy’s neck as Caereni wrenches it back until bone snaps loud in the night air. He doesn’t cry, at least not yet. He has no tears left to give.

‘I’m sorry, son. There’s no other way.’

The child’s body thrashes trying to fight the death stealing over it, and his murderer’s lips thin into a tight line. The clan Draoi better have done something for once besides spout empty promises.

When life finally leaves the rapidly cooling corpse the chieftain saws his knife through its neck letting blood spread through the tarn until the roaring in his ear’s calms. There’s blood on Caereni’s cheeks, and on his hands as the clan leader lifts Cost’s head and flings it further in. It bobs for a second before the water swirls and sucks it into its embrace.

The chieftain looks at the mess on his hands and brings them to his lips.

‘Ah.’

He winces as he wipes his knife on his jacket. The blood tastes good. He tries not to think about it as he swallows. Besides, after Pwyll and Tadhg it’s getting familiar.

The chieftain mutters a prayer. Under normal circumstances, there’d be punishment in plenty for his crime. But not today, not with the next wave of migrants from the old land so close. He doesn’t have to wait long. The water’s moving, and Cost’s blood’s drowning, spiraling into the depths as it follows the moonlight down until it glitters like silver.

‘What is this?’ Caereni breathes. It’s not the goddess’ who’d told him where to find the sheep that had gotten his clan through the last two winters. Instead a salmon has emerged near his feet.

‘Hail, King. I am Bradán Feasa: The Salmon of Knowledge.’

Its voice makes his skin crawl.

‘You are here to ask for help for your clan,’ says the fish and its cold black eyes glitter for a moment as the moonlight catches them. ‘I can do that for you, King Caereni. I know everything in this world and the next.’

Behind it Cost’s amputated torso sinks further into the water.

‘And I can make you reign for a lot longer than a year and a day.’

Caereni’s breath hisses between his teeth. It’s sacrilege. But it’s a tempting offer. What happened to the ruler on his anniversary if the year had been a bad one made even the bravest warrior shudder.

‘My people will have my hide if I don’t return with something they can eat now their sheep are gone. I was told if I gave the tarn another son it wouldn’t be just eels I found here. How can you rid our lands of our kinsfolk when even we can’t strong and well fed?’

A flicker of distaste crosses the salmon’s face.

‘You eat them? How disgusting.’

For a moment Caereni thinks of the taste of blood in his mouth, and the look in his wife’s eyes as she watched the invader’s cooking fires spread.

‘I’ll do it.’

‘A wise choice, King. Spawn are so small, and you can always make more. You’ll hardly miss them, and if you don’t how long before Mab makes you bring me something bigger. The child’s mother maybe?

‘My clan still needs the eels first. Or we’ll starve,’ says Caereni.

When the salmon answers there’s something in its voice he doesn’t like to think about too hard.

‘As you wish, King.’

Caereni bows low to hide the look on his face. Maybe the tarn will overflow – slip its shackles and drown his clan’s enemies.

…

Decades pass filled with more wars than he can count until Caereni’s an old man – some whisper unnaturally so. Although only he knows the truth. He’s ten times older than Mab had been when his blade slit his throat in revenge for his son’s deaths.

He watches the fighting in the valley below as the red-haired Queen raises her arms as if to embrace the carnage. But he knows the smile on her face is just for show as the Roman’s carapaces gleam before they cut through her warriors.

‘I never thought I’d live to see this day,’ he says to a priestess whose straightening from her task. Skinning their captives needed experienced fingers doing it, and there were none more experienced than theirs. The salmon that had appeared in the tarn he filled with the bodies of people with eyes emptier than their bellies had explained many times that it liked its gifts raw; and there was no shortage of lives to give it. Many of the clan would rather die than suffer the fate closing in around them and he supposed they were easier to eat when they were below water.

Caereni glances at the mountain of heads runners are depositing at the Queen’s feet. The salmon was going to be well sated. Except this time – it’s different. It’s not victory he’s watching. It’s slaughter, and not the enemies, but their own.

He frowns. There’s no reason it should be like this. The omens had been good. The birds had flown the right way and the stones had sung their song of victory.

When three herons appear from the marshes he knows he’s going to get his answer. He’s seen the birds that guide his clan’s dead to the otherworld before. But these creature’s feet are red with blood. The priestess moves closer and says into his ear, ‘Just like we foretold. You should let us deal with them.’

Her eyes glare at them through her black war paint like the wild animals whose skins she uses as clothes.

A heron’s bill takes the life from a warrior as if it’s dipping water from a well and Caereni raises his knife.

‘What are you?’ says the chieftain as they approach and change into the shape of women whose wings hide their faces.

The tallest begins to speak and frost forms beneath her.

‘Predators, Caereni. Humans rarely realise that.’

‘I’ve never seen you before. Where have you come from?’

‘The marshes,’ she says.

‘Like all the best things do,’ says one of her sisters – and the third laughs.

‘What do you want?’

‘Only what’s ours.’

For a moment Caereni catches a glimpse of what’s really hiding behind their stolen feathers.

He turns away with a wince, the light’s that bright.

The chieftain gestures at the carnage, ‘You’ve come to stop this?’

Bills scissor open, ‘Why should we care? The newcomers will be better at the work. They eye the advancing Romans… and they do what they’re told.’

‘What will replace us once we’re gone?’ says Caereni.

The herons turn to the carnage.

‘Something ravenous.’

The legionaries swords rise and fall as one.

‘You shouldn’t worry. We’ll teach what’s left of you.’

‘My people?’

Caereni’s nod takes in the host’s remnants. He can’t keep the sadness from his voice.

‘Songs will be sung of them till the skies blacken.’

‘It will be a better world, chieftain. You have our word on that.’

Caereni doesn’t hear their quiet laughter as the redcrests mop up. But they’ll find it more difficult than they thought he thinks as he watches the priestesses place eels in the gaping stomachs of the Romans they’re toying with. Besides, it’s been a long life, and he can feel the earth opening its arms to embrace him as he removes the crown the salmon gave him.

Caereni lets his lungs fill with the wet smell of earth as he lies back and lets the grass grow over him.

He’s going home.

END