Chapter Two

  The next day dawned bright and sunny, full of promises of the hot summer weather that lay in the not-too-distant future. Gryffin, as excited as always about a trip to the village, was out early harnessing the horse to the cart, while Dougal and Bronty finished their morning meal.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come today?” He asked his wife.

  “I really don’t feel up to it today. I might just go back to bed for a while and have an easy day.” She rubbed her distended stomach affectionately. “Carrying all this extra weight around seems to take more out of me day by day. You might even have to do your own cooking before too long.” Bronty laughed ruefully. “I don’t feel as though I’m being a very good wife to you at the moment. You must be very disappointed in me.”

  He reached over the table and squeezed her hand. “Never would I swap a single second with you for an entire lifetime with someone else. Doing cooking and cleaning are not important. What is important is that you take good care of yourself and our child. I’ll go out on my own early tomorrow and catch us a deer or a hog. I can continue Gryff’s training when I get back. Callun has promised to send one of the girls from the village to keep you company while I’m in the forest. With any luck she will be coming back with me tonight. That should make things a bit easier for you around the house.”

  “It will, thank you Dougal. And be sure to thank Callun before you get too drunk to remember.” Bronty smiled at his sheepish expression. “I know what is going on. I overheard him saying that he will buy you your ale. And don’t force Gryff to sit in that smoky tavern with you! Send him out with the other boys. I know that he is already worrying about the Night of Fires. It will do him good to see that the other lads are as worried as he is.”

  “I will.” He promised as he pushed the last of his breakfast into his mouth. He stood and gave her a hug. “I’d best be on my way. We’ll be back as soon as I’ve finished my talk with our good Eron.”

  She slapped him away with a snort of disbelief. “Then I will see you around sunset then. And if I’m asleep, please be so good as to not sing too loudly.”

  “Sing?”

  “You always end up singing when you’ve been drinking with Callun. He’s a bad influence on you.”

  “Only when I want him to be!” He said enigmatically.

  “Oh, be gone with you, you wicked man!”

  Dougal lay back on the bed of the wagon and let the horse follow the rutted track that ran westwards from the woods towards the village. The animal had travelled this way often enough for him to know where he was going without guidance. Although not heavily used, the track lead through the forest until it hit the river Asis at a particularly easy ford that allowed safe passage to wagons for most of the year. From there it continued in a generally northwest direction until it joined the larger trade route that lead to the City of the Priest Kings, a large city state that was ruled by two kings elected for life by the warrior priests that formed their ruling class and the backbone of their army. Now that the worst of the weather was over for the early part of the year, the merchants had started using the track to make the long journey to the city state and the still soft ground had reopened its old wounds making for a bumpy ride.

  Gryffin lay back beside his brother and stared absently at the cloud-speckled sky. “Look there!” He exclaimed, pointing out a cloud formation. “There is a dragon!”

  “Not this game again, Gryff.” Groaned Dougal. “You always beat me. You see so many different shapes in the sky that I never stand a chance to win.”

  “Maybe being a dreamer has got its uses after all.”

  “If all of life was just a game of shape spotting in the clouds then I have no doubt that you would be the Ard-Mal, High king of all the Six Tribes. But it isn’t, Gryffin. It’s much more than that. We are hunters, and if you can’t hunt for food then you will starve. If you marry, how will you be able to provide for your wife and children? It’s time for you to put away all your childish dreams and games and to become a man.” Dougal propped himself up on an elbow, trying to read his brother’s expression. “It’s the Night of Fires soon. You will be given your weapons and be counted as part of Callun’s war band. I’d rather that my only brother didn’t die in the first skirmish against brigands that he gets involved in because he was too busy looking for dragons in the mists to see the sword swinging for his throat.”

  “You may find this hard to believe, Dougal, but I would much prefer your younger brother didn’t die an untimely death as well.” He fell silent as he struggled with his swirling thoughts. “It’s just that sometimes, as hard as I try to stop it, my mind drifts off on its own path. At times these dreams seem more real to me than what I’m told to accept as reality.” A horrible thought occurred to him. “Do you think I’m going mad or something?”

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  “I don’t.” He surprised Gryffin by jumping on top of him, pinning his arms down with his knees. Gryffin’s yells of complaint grew louder as Dougal started to unlace his brother’s shirt.

  “What are you doing?” He shouted, wriggling for all he was worth in a futile attempt to through his bigger, heavier brother off.

  “Just seeing if you’ve grown a birth fetish while I’ve not been looking.” He laughed. “There must be some reason for you being as you are!”

  He gave an exaggerated sigh of feigned disappointment. Gryffin’s chest showed no signs of the strange purple birthmark, no bigger than a thumbnail, that announced the bearer’s affinity for magic. With a shrug Dougal sat back down again, allowing his brother to sit up with him.

  “Is it possible for a birth fetish to appear when it wasn’t there at birth?” Gryffin asked as he re-tied his shirt.

  Dougal considered all that he had heard on the strange, magical markings. He had to admit that his knowledge was scant in this area. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. You are either born with one or you are not. You are like me – born ordinary and with our own normal talents to rely on.”

  They lapsed into a comfortable silence as they looked around at newly reborn countryside. The sights and smells of spring were everywhere, from the freshly blooming wild flowers that contrasted the verdant greens of the grass with blues, yellows and reds, to the herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. Many of the animals were showing signs of being close to giving birth and some were already caring for new-born offspring. Soon herders would come along and move them to land closer to the village where a better watch could be kept on them at this vulnerable time. It was Gryffin who first broke the silence.

  “Callun is fetish marked, isn’t he?”

  Dougal pictured his close friend, so quiet and thoughtful most of the time unless he was in the company of one of his small circle of friends of which Dougal was proud to be a member. “He is, although he tries not to make an issue of it. I think he is embarrassed about being marked out as being different.”

  “What is he marked with?” Gryffin knew that the shape of the birthmarks could vary and each variation brought with it an affinity with a different aspect of magic. It seemed that some shapes were more common than others. For example, it the Six Tribes, all the Druids were marked with the same fetish that denoted god, and enough men were marked with this that every village had their own associated Druid, while Time dancers, a type of fortune teller, bore a much rarer form of the communication fetish.

  “Callun is marked with the warrior rune, although he has learned to use others. He knows some of the fire fetish, of that I am certain. He has it built into the hilt of his sword.”

  Gryffin went back to looking at the clouds as he pondered what his brother had said. “His sword seems a funny place to keep the rune.” He finally said. “Why did he place it there? Why not just paint or tattoo it on his chest like his birth mark?”

  “He doesn’t really like to speak of it much, even to me, but from what little he has said it has something to do with how the magic works. All fetishes, apart from the birth fetish, need some physical representation in order for the person to summon its powers. While Callun holds his sword he can command certain types of fire energy but if he isn’t holding it, he has as little power over that element as you or I”

  “It must be fine thing to have such extraordinary powers!” Said Gryffin wistfully.

  His older brother shrugged noncommittally. “Callun doesn’t seem to think so. If he had the choice, I’m sure that he would rather be a normal man.” He looked at his brother’s disbelieving face. “Whatever deeds he accomplishes in this life people will say that he was only able to do them because he has such powers. He will get little credit for any of his achievements and yet so much more will be expected of him because there are so few fetishists in the Six Tribes that are not Druids. There are very few of the Erons that have been so touched and only Ard-Mal Amren of the six kings of the tribes.”

  “So why does he use them then?” Asked a puzzled Gryffin. “Why not just……not?”

  “This comes down to who Callun is. He is driven by a strong sense of duty. The goddess has bestowed on him a great gift and to not use the powers would be as bad in his eyes as using them to promote himself in the eyes of others. It is a fine line our Eron tries to walk and sometimes I think he wishes for his deeds to be his own and to not always have to strive for the greater good.”

  In spite of all his brother had just said Gryffin found it difficult to look upon such a gift as anything other than a wonderful bonus to life. He certainly felt that if he had been fetish marked, he would not feel that he was struggling to swim against the stream of life as did at the moment. That Callun would wish to trade places with him he found impossible to comprehend. His mind drifted way into adventures and quests, of saving beautiful princesses and slaying monstrous dragons. Images of the rescued maidens showering him with their gratitude began to make him grow hot in the face. He tried to banish the thoughts by asking a question. “Have you ever witnessed Callun use his powers?”

  “Just once.” He admitted, a grimness entering his voice. He looked away from his brother, his eyes resting on the flocks of sheep but not really seeing them. “But that was a long time ago.”

  Gryffin detected the strangeness of the tone and knew that his brother was hiding something from him. Something important. “Well?” He pressed when it became obvious that Dougal wasn’t going to volunteer anything unprompted.

  “I don’t think that you want to hear that story today.” His brother answered with the same coldness present.

  “Something in my head disagrees with you very much on that point, big brother. I don’t know how, but I know you are keeping something from me here.”

  Dougal spent a long few seconds still gazing across the pastureland debating silently with himself. Eventually, he sighed and turned to face his brother with a look of deep sorrow on his face. “I suppose it is time for you to know the truth. In all honesty, I am surprised that you have had no one from the village tell you some tails but maybe the full story is known to just a few, and Callun asked them to respect my wishes and keep the events of that night quiet. Maybe no one has found the opportunity to talk to you and spread stories – we don’t spend that much time in the village after all.” He focussed on the horizon, absently aware of the stand of trees to the left and the lonely homestead couched against the edge of a lake to the right. As he continued to speak his voice was a monotone that lacked any emotion. “It all happened a long time ago. You were no more than two or three summers old so I would be surprised if you could remember any of the details.”