Chapter 21. Blood and Ravens
The mist seemed like an extension of the leaden clouds huddled above the fort on the hill of Cruachan that morning. It entwined with the drizzle as if on purpose, casting a bleak veil over the entire settlement.
The inhabitants of the fort — a compact mass of emaciated bodies — were already gathered around the large stone platform erected near the palisade when the war heralds (scélaige) entered to the thundering hooves of their short, shaggy horses.
Anemo and Remi waited, simply overwhelmed by conflicting emotions, alongside Ri and his family. Mistral, with Aeolus firmly anchored in his black fur, was seated right in the front row before Anemo, with Arr, the Celtic cat, beside him, who in turn had taken Sirocco (once again a kitten) between her paws to protect him.
"Mon Dieu!" Mistral muttered for Aeolus's ears. "Look at them, how fierce they are! You'd think there was neither winter nor famine for them."
"There wasn't, for them," Arr replied in Aeolus's stead. "They hunted all winter and ate anything... even wolves. Meat was never missing from their table, and they are well used to the cold. Rain or wind, snow or frost, this is their natural environment."
Unlike the starving commoners, the war heralds emanated power and authority. On their muscular yet short horses, without saddles, with only brightly coloured blankets beneath them, these heralds wore long woollen cloaks in garish tartan patterns of red, blue-violet, and black. Beneath their cloaks, tunics tightened with wide, stud-studded leather belts could be glimpsed. On their brawny arms were spiral designs of a blue colour.
They looked like apparitions from the spirit world, blowing their raspy carnyx-nya — those oversized trumpets ending in angry wild boar heads, with movable metal tongues that rattled with every breath.
Their weapons were the weapons of the Iron Age: long spears with wide, serrated iron tips designed to tear flesh; short swords of bronze or early iron with anthropomorphic hilts. Their banner was a standard of Queen Medb made of coarse canvas, depicting the stylised silhouette of a woman and the bloody print of a palm.
Suddenly, a tattered silhouette detached itself from the numb crowd, like a phantom of hunger, and shouted, pointing a skeletal arm at Queen Medb's heralds:
"They are the plague! Do not let them take you! They bring death! The death of your children!"
The man's eyes looked like black chasms. It was plain to see his mind was unhinged.
"The poor man lost his entire family!" Arr whispered.
A choking cough seized the man's frail body, contorting it.
"Run! Run!" the poor, unhinged man cried, trying hard to regain his vertical stance when, suddenly, one of the riders hurled a small axe.
Its shiny blade whistled briefly through the drizzle and embedded itself directly into the chest of the one inciting revolt, felling him to the ground. The body collapsed into the mud but did not stiffen instantly in death; instead, it continued to cough while blood flowed from his mouth and his hollow chest.
"Run!..."
The guttural howl of the carnyx stopped abruptly and an army of ravens appeared in the sky, flying lower and lower, closer and closer to the bleeding body, completely undisturbed by the people or the rain. The ravens seemed part of the retinue.
"The plot thickens!" Remi whispered in Anemo's ear. "Now, more than ever, it's vital we don't lose our heads!"
The furry ones had turned to stone at their feet. Sirocco wept, swallowing his tears.
"Does truly no one react to murder?!" Mistral muttered through his teeth. "How is this even possible?"
The Grand Druid, who until then had stood motionless like a stone statue on the platform, enveloped in his white cloak, gestured with his hand to the group of bards accompanying him. They, accompanied by their harps with strings made of animal intestines, began to murmur a rhythmic, unintelligible incantation.
The atmosphere grew ever heavier. The smell of damp smoke blended now with the scent of warm blood and sweat. The druid's long beard seemed to vibrate as he began his own staccato, commanding declamation:
"The spring hunger brings a storm
And flashes
Thunders
It revolts within you
Weak and naked mortals
Where are the cattle preyed upon by wolves?
Where is the grain
Eaten long ago
The Queen calls us to battle
Soon let us march
For the infants
For life
A life we sacrifice
I am the downpour descended from the storm
I am the wave
And the wind is also I
I
Who knows the wisdom of the forest
Better than me
I!"
With the arrogant utterance of the Grand Druid's last word, two of his apprentices, dressed in coarse tunics of undyed wool, brought forth the victim to be sacrificed for victory in battle.
It was Leona... Boo, as they all knew her. Dressed in a sack, her hands bound behind her back, the little girl wept with whimpers.
Though she had expected this due to her premonitory dream of Maria Treben, Remi felt as if that anthropomorphic dagger in the druid's hand plunged straight into her own heart. Yet, she let no emotion surface and lightly touched Ri's hand.
The druid looked Remi straight in the eye, as if he had uncovered her true nature. He put a sneering rictus on his face and, with false humility, bowed, addressing the "goddess":
"Oh, thou wise Morrigan, bless our sacrifice of pure and innocent blood, and grant us victory in battle!"
From somewhere outside the walls, not very far away, the prolonged howl of a wolf was heard.
"In the end, it seems nature too helps me play my part," Remi said to herself in thought, raising her eyes to the circling ravens.
She gripped Ri's hand firmly and pulled him along a few steps, approaching the one holding the battle standard. In a rising voice, declaiming just as staccato as the Grand Druid, she began:
"People of Cruachan, sorely tried,
I give you my eyes to accompany you in battle!"
And with one hand, she pointed to the ravens circling above them.
"Fight with fierceness,
Like wolves with sharp fangs,
And for a blood sacrifice
I give you my blood
Blue and noble
Of a god!"
In a single movement, Remi snatched the anthropomorphic dagger from Ri's belt and slashed her left palm right across the middle, letting a dark, almost black blue blood flow.
The crowd stood agape. No one expected the ruthless Morrigan to offer her own deity's blood instead of a human sacrifice. Remi placed her bleeding hand upon the canvas of the standard, exactly where the stylised body of the woman was, and, with a defiant gesture, clothed in her blue blood the body of the woman.
"Return safely!" Remi added, and then gestured to the apprentices to bring Boo to her.
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