Once Every Never

  “It was my father’s,” she said.

  “I don’t think he’d mind you putting it to good use,” Clare replied.

  With the hood up, in the darkness of the forest, it would completely obscure the princess’s features. It would do nicely.

  Comorra wore a pair of fine, soft kid-leather riding gloves. Clare silently marvelled at the workmanship and clever stitching that rivalled any pair she’d ever tried on in a department store back home. She’d been so ignorant. How had she ever considered these people to be barbarians? Well—except for what they were about to do to Connal. That was pretty barbaric …

  Comorra still wasn’t entirely convinced that what they were about to attempt wasn’t some kind of dire affront to her deities. “This sounds like a dangerous path. What if Andrasta becomes truly angry?”

  “As opposed to just plain neglectful?” Clare muttered as she threaded a remarkably finely spun length of thread through the eye of a large bone needle. “Seriously, Comorra—what exactly has she done for you, lately?”

  The princess looked a bit shocked at that. “She is a goddess,” she protested, although it sounded a bit half-hearted. “Her will is inscrutable.”

  “Yours isn’t.” Clare motioned for her to hold the edges of the cloak out like wings and got to work with the needle and thread. And with the glowsticks pilfered by Al. “Maybe the goddess is waiting for you to take matters into your own hands and deal with the situation. Maybe she wants you to stand up for yourself and do what you think is right. Either way, Connal’s most likely going to die horribly if you do nothing. Call that the will of the goddess, or the disappointment of the goddess, or the ‘Oops, I just wasn’t paying attention’ of the goddess. But believe me, whatever Andrasta’s opinions on the matter, unless we stop it it’ll happen.”

  “You keep saying that, but how can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve seen it, Comorra. You have to trust me on this.”

  “But what if the sacrifice will help us win this war?”

  “It won’t.” Clare recalled Al’s bleak statistics on the Boudiccan rebellion. “Like I said, I’ve seen that, too. And I’m sorry. The Roman army will conquer the Iceni.”

  Comorra squeezed her eyes shut against a wave of emotion that swept over her.

  “Hey,” Clare said as gently as she could. “Look. Maybe it isn’t the greatest situation to be in, but maybe this way you can at least do something to help some of the Iceni survive. You and Connal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean run. Hide. Go into the west—go back to Connal’s tribe and help them fight.” Clare struggled to remember something Al had told her about the Roman conquest of Britain. About the fact that, in the western and northern reaches of the island, some of the Celtic tribes had remained free. “In the mountains, Comorra, the tribes of Britain might stand half a chance of avoiding total annihilation. But not here. Not anymore. I think your mom knows that. Standing and fighting is suicide. I think she’s just planning to take as many of them down with her as she can when she goes.”

  Comorra was silent for a long time. Finally, she looked Clare square in the eyes. “Tell me again what I must do.”

  19

  Connal stood on a rise of land, motionless as a statue. The bodies of twelve other men lay face down at the water’s edge.

  Clare felt her heart sink. Given the way Comorra had raced her little chariot she’d been sure they would arrive in time to save them all. But Boudicca had begun the ritual ahead of schedule—sacrificing the other men just before moonrise. All except Connal, who was to be their leader in death. That the baleful, unblinking moon-eye would bear witness seemed an honour to be reserved for him alone. The others had died in darkness.

  Comorra had pulled her chariot to a stop well away from the open space that stretched between the woods and the margins of the peat bog where Boudicca was performing her ritual murders. Ranks of blue-painted warriors, some of them with hair and moustaches stiffened to fearsome points, stood on either side of a wooden platform that had been built out over the brackish swamp for just such a purpose. Clare wondered fleetingly just how often they threw people into the oil-black, evil-looking bog. Were there more bodies down there, lying buried beneath the thirteen “Spectral Warriors” the archaeologists had already found? Maybe not. Maybe the sacrifices were made only when things got out-of-control desperate. Or maybe Boudicca had been the first one to do something that drastic.

  Clare surveyed the gathered Iceni. There were probably a hundred men and a handful of battle-hardened women at Boudicca’s side, all armed to the teeth. A field of swords and spears waved in the air like wheat.

  Clare suddenly had second thoughts about the wisdom of her plan. But it was too late to back out now. She couldn’t—not after everything she’d done to convince Comorra. The two girls were hidden on the far side of the gathering, near to the edge of the slough but far enough away to remain unseen, and Clare was trying to figure out a way for them to get close enough. But then Comorra tugged on her sleeve and drew her farther away still. Clare was about to ask her where she was going when the princess stopped and pointed to the bog’s edge. A fishing skiff—a small, flat-bottomed boat—bobbed gently on the scummy surface of the water. A long pole lay in it that it would suit their purposes nicely.

  Comorra motioned Clare to climb aboard and then cast off the single line, pointing in the direction they should go. Clare pushed the pole against the mushy bottom of the bog and the skiff glided silently into the marsh.

  In the darkness, with Comorra swathed head-to-toe in the black cloak and Clare invisible to the Iceni, they were able to get to within about twenty feet of the ritual stage without being seen. Boudicca’s back was to them and she was giving some kind of speech. Twelve pale bodies were slowly sinking into the murky bog. One of them was Boudicca’s chief, Macon—Clare could tell by the tattoo on his arm—and she felt her heart clench. In two thousand years that mark would still be visible on his skin.

  Comorra stiffened in front of her and Clare peeked around to see what she was looking at. Connal still stood on the shore beside the queen—and now two Iceni warriors stood behind him, holding the ends of a thin rope that circled his neck. One held a knife and the other a short, wicked-looking war club. And yet the young Druid prince stood serenely, facing directly toward where the girls silently guided their skiff. His hair was unbound and flowed over his shoulders in a rich red-brown wave. He was shirtless and barefoot, with a sword belt strapped to his waist and a fox-fur armband tied around one bicep. On his wrists he now wore a pair of ornate, matched silver cuffs—the same ones Clare had first seen on the withered, leathern arms of Claxton Man’s remains. Both the bracelets and the gold hoop in Connal’s ear gleamed in the torchlight that emphasized the sculpted contours of his chest and arms. Inappropriate as it may have been in that moment, Clare was hard-pressed to tear her eyes off him.

  When she did manage it, she saw that Llassar stood between Connal and Boudicca holding a wide, shallow bowl full of … Oh, man, Clare thought, feeling her stomach turn over, is that blood?

  She wrenched her gaze back to Connal. Swirling, bright blue designs had been painted on his naked torso and face. She looked closer and saw that his eyes were open and slightly glassy. Clare remembered vaguely what Al had said about the traces of ergot—the hallucinogenic compound—found in the digestive tracts of the spirit warriors. Boudicca must have had them drugged as part of the ritual. Or maybe to keep them from trying to run away. She probably hadn’t had to use much with Connal, though.

  Stupid macho “it’s my destiny” crap.

  Tough. He was going to have to find another destiny. And she was going to help him—whether he wanted her to or not.

  The princess motioned for Clare to stop poling. Standing straight and tall in the prow of the skiff, she reached back with her gloved hands. Clare crossed her fingers and pulled out the necessary items from her pockets for their insane stunt. She’d told Comorra that her “m
agic” would be frightening, and that she should prepare herself and not flinch or cry out.

  Comorra did her proud. When Clare lit the two magnesium emergency mini road flares and handed them off to her, she barely batted an eye as the swamp lit up suddenly like a fairground. Comorra flung her arms wide and held the blinding, spitting, hissing flares up for all the Iceni warriors to see. As she did she revealed the neon chemical glowsticks that Clare had hastily sewn into the inside of the cloak, casting Comorra’s shadowy hooded figure in a spooky red light. It was the cheapest of cheap theatrics, but the Iceni believed so thoroughly in the supernatural that the fiery spectacle worked an absolute charm.

  “Boudicca!” Comorra called out in a harsh, commanding voice.

  The queen’s eyes went wide.

  “Mighty Queen of the Iceni!” Comorra cried, “I am the Voice of the Raven. I am the Goddess of Battles. Mine is the fire and smoke, spear, and sword.”

  “Andrasta!” Boudicca whispered fiercely, triumphantly.

  On either side of her, battle-hardened warriors gasped and went pale beneath the swirling blue designs of their Celtic war paint. One or two of them looked as though they might actually drop to their knees in fear and reverence. At Boudicca’s elbow, Llassar almost dropped his bowl full of crimson liquid as he threw one hand in front of his eyes to shield them from the blinding light of the flares. The theatrics were working better than Clare had dared hope. Just as long as the Iceni queen continued to buy the ruse …

  “Hear me, Boudicca, beloved of the Goddess.” Comorra pitched her voice lower and much louder than her normal speaking tones. It echoed in the darkness, ringing out over the heads of those gathered there. She gave a virtuoso performance. “Hear my commands and obey! It is my dearest wish that you spill no more blood this night. I have received your spirit warriors into the ranks of my own and I myself shall lead them. Leave this last alive so that he may redden his sword with the lives of the Roman interlopers.”

  Boudicca cried out, aghast. “But the sacrifice is incomplete—”

  “I am sated with the blood of mine own, Queen of the Iceni!” Comorra cried out harshly and raised the blazing silver-white flares higher. “I crave the blood of the enemy! Do not deny my wishes, Mighty Queen. Let this one’s life serve to carry my doom to the field of battle. It is my wish!”

  With that, Comorra swung around and—just as she’d rehearsed with Clare—handed off the flares and closed her cloak, dousing the light of the glowsticks. The Iceni warriors gasped. Once back in Clare’s possession, the flares were just as invisible as she was. In the utter darkness that followed such a blinding light it would appear as if Andrasta had vanished into thin air. Clare quickly doused the flares in the swamp and poled the skiff away, steering it behind an obscuring stand of trees in the middle of the bog. Stunned silence followed in their wake.

  “ARE YOU SURE it worked?” Clare asked as Comorra snapped the reins, urging her ponies to a trot. They had made solid ground south of the gathering and circled back around to retrieve her chariot. Clare held the sides of the little wicker cart as it jounced over the uneven ground. Al’s pilfered glowsticks and extinguished flares were back in her pockets and Comorra had ditched the cloak over the side of the skiff where it had swiftly sunk without a trace. Now they just had to get out of there—before moonrise drew back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and exposed the two girls for the goddess-impersonating fakes they were.

  “You’re sure Boudicca won’t kill him? Connal’s safe?” Comorra glanced over her shoulder, a grim smile on her pale face. “Did you not see them? Her warriors? Even if my mother was still bent on completing the sacrifice, they would never have let her. They will not risk angering the goddess. Connal will live to fight another—”

  She broke off abruptly and hauled the ponies to a halt, peering into the darkness of the forest far ahead.

  “Comorra, what—”

  “Shh!” She held up a hand to silence Clare. Then she pointed. Clare looked over the princess’s shoulder, straining to see. At first she could make out nothing in the gloom. But then, under the light of the now fully risen moon, she saw it. The glint of metal. Armour and shields. Spear heads.

  Romans.

  “We have to go back,” Clare whispered.

  Boudicca was gathered together with her warrior elite, their backs to a swamp in a place that was tailor-made for an ambush. They would be caught totally unprepared. The Romans were intending to end Boudicca’s war before she’d even begun to fight it.

  “We have to warn them.”

  Comorra nodded, and guided the chariot ponies toward a wider stretch of track where she could turn them around. The next thing Clare knew they were hurtling back whence they’d come, bent low in the cart to avoid whipping branches.

  “How did they know?” Clare asked as they careened through the trees. “How did the Romans know about the gathering?”

  Comorra shook her head. “Who can say? Paid off a disgruntled slave, maybe. It doesn’t matter. They know.” She shot a brief glance back over her shoulder. “Clare … I’m sorry. About before. About attacking you.”

  “Uh … okay.” Clare held on tight as Comorra expertly steered the chariot between two towering oaks. “No hard feelings. Believe me, I wouldn’t be here if there were. Is there a reason you’re bringing this up now?”

  “Things are about to get very dangerous, I think.”

  Oh? Clare thought. Like it’s been a stroll in the park so far tonight?

  “I will warn my mother and do what I can to help. I just wanted you to know … if something bad happens … that I think of you as a friend. A true friend.” She pulled the ponies to a halt where the trees began to thin at the edges of the bog. Then she turned and gripped Clare by her shoulders. “Find somewhere safe to hide now, Clare. Unless you have any extra magic this night, you must promise me that you will stay safe and let the warriors make war.”

  “That’s a promise you don’t have to ask me for twice, Comorra.”

  The girls hugged briefly and Clare jumped down from the chariot platform. Comorra slapped the reins and the ponies surged forward. The chariot broke through the cover of the trees and, at the princess’s shouted warning, the gathering of Iceni devolved into ordered chaos. Now they were preparing to fight.

  THE SKY LIT UP with what looked like dozens of miniature meteors—trails of fire arcing through the velvet black. Flaming arrows.

  Damn it, Al! Clare cursed silently. Why do you have to be right about everything?

  The battle was spilling out past the edges of the clearing now, coming ever closer to where Clare crouched, hidden behind a large yew tree. From beneath a rain of fiery Roman missiles and under the glare of a full, baleful harvest moon the Iceni rushed to meet their fate.

  Clare kept glancing upward into the night, but in a sky full of fiery death there was no raven to call her home.

  Suddenly the tide of battle shifted. Almost too late Clare saw the line of Roman soldiers driving a clotted knot of thrashing Celts straight toward her tree. In an instant they were almost on top of her. Clare had to move. Now!

  She ducked frantically as the blade of an Iceni pike whistled over her head and then dodged to avoid being skewered by a Roman gladius. Then she turned and sprinted for all she was worth. A flaming arrow grazed her pumping arm and slammed into the ground beside her as she ran.

  “Stop aiming at me!” she screamed, as terrified and indignant as only a semi-super-powered seventeen-year-old girl could be. “I’m invisible, goddammit!”

  What she was not, however, was incorporeal. She looked down to see that the arrow had left a black burn mark and a smear of sticky, smoking pitch on the sleeve of Al’s jacket. Terrified, Clare poured on a burst of speed. A sheltering stand of elm trees was near—about thirty yards. Maybe twenty … She probably shouldn’t have glanced back over her shoulder.

  Because when she turned her gaze forward again, it was only to find herself without sufficient time or space to avoid running
headlong into a hard-eyed, scar-faced Roman soldier stepping out from behind a tree. A soldier who seemed surprised to discover himself jolted into the air by the touch of a girl appearing as if by sorcery right in front of his eyes. The shock-contact with Clare knocked him back a good couple of steps before he could recover himself—which he did with alarming alacrity.

  Hooray for all that Legion training, thought Clare as the soldier swung his wicked-looking short sword back in a prelude to removing her head. He would have done it, too—if not for the absolutely timely, gloriously painful tackle that knocked the wind out of Clare—and Clare out of reach of that deadly swing.

  She rolled to a stop some feet away and looked up just in time to see Connal, his teeth bared in a terrifying grimace, spring to his feet after sending her flying. He was still shirtless, and the swirling blue designs of the war paint on his limbs and torso seemed to slide and dance over his skin as he moved. Clare wondered briefly why on earth the Iceni eschewed armour. The Romans had armour—shouldn’t they?

  And then she realized: Connal didn’t need any armour. She watched dumbfounded as he dispatched the veteran soldier with a darting feint and a quick, short thrust of his sword. The blade slid between the buckles of the legionnaire’s armoured breastplate and sunk in almost to the hilt, as if the man inside were made of butter. The soldier toppled over with barely a grunt, and before he even hit the ground Connal had freed his weapon with a casual kick, the blade making a black and silver arc in the moonlight. In a profound state of shock, Clare absurdly found herself thinking about how graceful the young Druid made the act of killing look.

  And then, just for fun, she fainted.

  CLARE AWOKE in a dark, leaf-filled hollow, tucked under a mossy outcrop somewhere deep in the forest. She opened her eyes to see Connal crouched motionless in front of her, watching her. A sense of relief washed over her at the sight of him. She was safe. But then she remembered how he’d looked when he’d dispatched that legionnaire—a wide-eyed, wild-haired, whirling tangle of limbs and iron and deadly grace. Suddenly she didn’t know what to feel.