The Iron Warrior: 4-Novel Box Set

He wondered how he looked to the other men. Had he shown his stricken emotions in any way to his traveling companions? His normally stern expression and his habit of shunning others had been well established. So perhaps no one had noticed his descent into moody despair. Good. He cringed from the thought of other people feeling any emotion at all for him. Let them respect him as a warrior and stay aloof from him for the same reason.

Gristle shook off his dark thoughts and walked outside to the Merrymore, the small stream that flowed near his hut. The night was young, and yet it was cold enough to make him begin to shudder involuntarily. Nevertheless, he stripped off his worn tunic and walked into the painfully cold water. 

He immersed himself, clenching his jaw against the icy teeth of the Merrymore. Tomorrow, he thought, he would wash his tunic in the light of day. More than anything else, right now he wanted, he needed, to be cleansed.

He walked naked back into the house, then turned and latched the door. He sank to his knees before the blazing fire pit and began to breathe very, very slowly. With every breath, he began to cleanse his mind, as the river had just cleansed his body.

He was on a rock that jutted over a swift, dangerous river, looking into the swirling currents below. Any false move, he knew, would send him headlong into the river and, after days, into the sea itself. He knew without conscious thought that he was on the edge of an important decision. One step in the wrong direction would send him hurtling into the icy shock of the river, from which even he would be unable to escape.

He felt a presence behind him on the rock. Without turning, he knew it was the young man who had been his companion and his lover. His voice, warm and full of humor, rose over the roar of the deadly currents. 

“Ye’ll not fall. I promise. I am here with ye. Trust me.”

Gristle thought that if he turned to look, in that moment he would lose his footing and fall. But if he ignored the voice, he may never hear it again. And so, between the fear of falling and the fear of loss, he simply cried. He let the tears and the long heaving sobs blend with the crashing waves and the hard spray of the river. And after a long time, the water slowed, his tears dried, and he was kneeling again in his little hut.

2...Warrior, Stand Tall (from Chapter 18, "Storm Clouds")

As soon as he laid eyes on the high scholar, Gristle could not take his eyes off the man. How could one so developed in his body have a mind so developed at the same time? The thought staggered him somewhat. He did not see himself as a rival to this ollamh, and yet the thought of competing on a level playing field made him uneasy. He might be able to stand up to the man if both held weapons. But if each were to hold a weapon in one hand and a scroll in the other, Gristle would have to slink away the loser.

Looking at Dubtach, Gristle realized in an instant that he represented the person he himself had always wanted to be, a man feared and respected not only as a warrior, but also as a man of wit and wisdom. Dubthach seemed to be the kind of person he could never be, for it was too late to begin to learn the lore of antiquity and to maintain his martial skills at the same time.

He saw a man about his age, even taller than himself, with unlined features on a smooth-shaven face. He wore his brown-and-russet hair flowing to his shoulders, and he kept his eyes expressionless, as Gristle had taught his own eyes to reflect a steely blankness. His mouth, like Gristle’s own, was wide with the suggestion of a deep sensuality.

By all the gods. He wants my Wynn. Gristle noticed Dubthach’s mouth moving but heard no sound for several moments.

“…closer, son. Let me greet you properly.”

He saw Wynn’s face out of the corner of his eye, suffused with pleasure. And then Wynn was walking rapidly down the length of the oak table to the front of the room where High King Leary sat in splendor.

He saw Dubthach extend his hand. The arm was resplendent with brushed leather trimmed in otter, and the hand was large as that of a Saxon mercenary. He watched as the two men grasped hands, then forearms, in the ancient gesture of comradeship. He wanted to hear their conversation, but he almost had to tear his eyes from the two men just so he could breathe loose the coil that bunched in his stomach.

For the first time, he shifted his attention to the two druids. The king had shifted his body, leaning to speak with another man seated next to him, and Loch and Lucet stood bared to scrutiny.

Even while wanting to see every movement of Wynn and the ollamh, Gristle caught the glittering eyes of the druids and held them. He saw a profound evil and even a certain oafish stupidity, like oxen maddened by a heifer they could never mount. He looked beneath hooded brows into pools of filth and now, just now as they caught his eyes, he saw into the depths of a manifold fear.

He captured and held their fear. He willed his eyes to tell a story of revenge and pain that would be theirs as soon as he could find them alone, away from the protection of the king. He did not even care that they knew it. Let them bubble and stew in the cauldron of my anger and the sureness of my retribution.

And then he turned his eyes from them, allowing them to see the slight sneer that lifted one corner of his mouth.

3...Warrior, Come Again (from Chapter 5, "Ursus")

Now, looking at Ursus, Gristle understood the man’s rage and pain.

He was large, certainly. Taller than himself, and larded with a girth that prison food had not seemed to diminish. The way his grizzled hair flowed all the way to his chest… the craggy brows, the whiskered face, his rounded shoulders…his immense nose and snarl of a mouth… Yes, his cognomen “Ursus” was inevitable.

And the eyes… Feral and desperate, brimming with a cunning that no animal could possibly possess.

A year or so ago, in a stirring adventure with Wynn, he had met another bear of a man—a huge Saxon war lord called Bern. One of Gristle’s band of men…was it Klaus or Konrad? One of them had described him as “a mountain bear looking to smear his muzzle with the honey of human blood.” Now, with his guise stripped away, this man Ursus no longer tried to conceal his nature under a mantle of piety and civic honor.

He marveled at how Caylith and a handful of small women had brought this beast down. A tribute to my training, no doubt. But he knew it had been more than martial prowess. It had taken courage and wit. Not for the first time, Gristle felt a grudging admiration for the troublesome redhead.

When the bear spoke, Gristle saw the intelligence and shrewdness in his eyes.

“I know you. The almighty governor. What in thunder do you want from me? More blood? Just leave me to my own thoughts.”

“And yet you speak to the guards…or so I have heard. I’m sure they have spat at you often enough. But do you see spittle dripping from my chin? I am here not for blood, but for information.”

The man stood with folded arms, his legs akimbo. “Then speak, and I will listen.”

“You have been heard ranting about a criminal more dangerous than yourself. Tell me about the one called Cervus.”

A yellow-toothed smile cracked the big man’s cheeks. “Ah. You have begun to track the real criminal.”

By Apollo’s balls, this man is a schemer. With an effort, Gristle kept his voice even and low, so that only the three of them could hear.

“A mere stratagem to buy your freedom, I think. No such being exists…not in this mortal world.”

Without changing his voice or his belligerent stance, Ursus continued to glare at them. “Not a stratagem but an offer. My freedom for his capture.”

“Who is this creature, that his imprisonment would pay for your release?”

“A mighty god, some say. A bringer of dread disease and scourge. Yet the very embodiment of virile strength and power to those who believe on him. The god Cernunnos made of flesh and blood.”

“A Christ with horns?”

Ursus smiled again, a nasty red smear in a tangled beard. “Exactly.”

4... Stag Heart (from Chapter 5, "The Path")

Oisean waited inside a circle of small stones on his brother’s green hill. Across from him, three paces away, the guest Fergus stood with his leg apart, his arms crossed, and a smile on his mouth.

He fears me not. This one named Strong Man shows his heritage. And his swollen horn. 

He tried to take his eyes from the lump under the colorful triús, but the harder he tried, the larger and more menacing it seemed to grow. Dub’s voice seemed to come from a long distance.

“…face a stranger. It could happen in the throb of a heart, an chuisle. So you must be ready. Not just for an attack…but for a victory.

“You will have exactly three minutes to fashion a weapon from what your eyes see. And then the battle will begin.”

As Dub spoke, Oisean’s eyes began to seek a weapon. He wore his bone-handled flint knife, but his brother had bid him to forsake his bow and quiver.

Could he attack this opponent with his knife alone? He always used it to remove the pelt of wild game, after felling them with an arrow. Its blade was short and sharp, but not the kind of weapon he would use to protect his life.

About ten paces away he saw a stand of blackthorns, and he knew what his weapon would be.

“Now!”

At his brother’s shout, he leapt for the cluster of small trees, ones he knew well. They shared roots the same way his blood shared the veins under his skin. Their glossy branches, black as night, bore sharp thorns. This was a weapon the forest offered to every man who lived there.

Within two minutes, he had used his knife to cut a stout branch and to cut the thorns along its length, leaving lumpy ridges. They would not kill a man…but they would hurt.

He stepped back into the circle and lifted his eyes to those of his opponent.

Fergus had not moved, even a finger’s breadth, from where he had stood. But now his arms were loose at his sides.

Again came Dub’s even voice. “One man uses a bata. The other relies on his hands alone…and, I presume, his wits. So, my students—defend today, attack tomorrow.

“Go!”

Oisean was puzzled by his brother’s words, but he put them away for another time. He kept his eyes fastened on those of the man across from him.

He deeply knew…the eyes spoke the soul. He could read a story there, the way his sister once told stories of the Birth of Man. He forgot his uneven heart beat and looked into the river-stones of Fergus’ eyes.

Fergus was speaking to him, even louder than the thump of his heart against his ribs. “I want to run with you. To hunt with you. To lie with you.”

Confused, his gaze faltered. The next sensation he had was lying among the ground ivies, the wrist of his weapon-hand in Fergus’ grip. His opponent was sitting astride him, his face close.

“Will you?”

“Yes,” he answered, and Fergus stood, waiting for their teacher Dub to step into the circle of life.