*
We stayed on the hill for three more days. Each day Vart changed my dressing, laughing when I screamed at his clumsy nursing. One day he found some honey and smeared that on it. It seemed a terrible waste and as far as I could tell it did nothing but attract flies and wasps. But magically, on the fourth day the wound looked cleaner and dryer. It was still too sore to stand on, but I knew it was getting better. My worries about gangrene and lockjaw faded.
Vart tried on my shoes, fell over, took them off and ranted at me for wearing them. I didn’t care. I was not dumping perfectly good trainers no matter what he said, nor the socks. He made a crutch for me out of crab apple wood and watched disdainfully as I hobbled around getting the hang of it.
Suddenly, he dropped to the ground and reached out a staying hand to silence me. His whole demeanour changed in an instant. He was tense, alert, and almost wolf like as he sifted the sounds and smells on the air. He slithered back to his bed space and got his spear, his eyes wide and questioning. Miming silently, he indicated I should hide. I still could not see or hear any possible threat. I gaped around me like an idiot trying to assess the danger. I grabbed my rucksack and flung it high into a tree, hoping it would catch on a branch. If the threat was human I didn’t want them getting that.
We crouched listening. I hardly dared breath as I scanned the scrub around us. There was an indistinct sound, then the snapping of a twig. We drew back into the gorse.
An arrow whipped in. It glanced off the shaft of Vart’s spear, and bounced harmlessly onto my leg. Another missed me as I rolled into cover. Vart tried to help me. He was flat on the ground, but reached out and pulled me into the thick bushes. With his fingers he made little walking movements, pointing to show that we must make a dash for the denser woodland on the steep hillside below us. He rose up readying himself, but kept his head down around his knees. He set off and I followed. He moved like a deer in flight, swerving and leaping effortlessly. I blundered after him, falling, rolling, scrambling and stumbling. I felt nothing as bloody welts from brambles and thorn bushes appeared on my face and hands. Vart leapt down the slope like a mountain deer. I saw him lift off, arms raised like great antlers above his head, feet outstretched to find a landing somewhere in the scrub below.
A weight thudded into me, knocking the wind out of me. Two men had me. One had grabbed my legs in a rugby tackle and I was heading for the ground. The other grabbed me in a bear hug. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even inhale. They had me helpless and winded, painfully trapped.
I was rolled onto my face, held down and punched around the head. My arms were forced behind me and I felt my wrists being bound. A loop of coarse, lime-bast rope was passed over my head and tightened around my throat. They dragged me to my feet. I thought they were going to hang me right there, but they pushed and dragged me between them back into the clearing. A bunch of men were loosing arrows into the scrub after Vart.
Somebody lashed a spear shaft to the loop around my neck and tied it to my wrists. I had to bend forward to walk otherwise the spear shaft dragged on the ground behind me and tightened the rope around my throat, strangling me. Flame haired warriors, armed to teeth, were all around. More were emerging from the bushes or climbing back up the hill that Vart had escaped down. I counted eleven, but knew others were still chasing Vart. Inquisitive fingers pecked at my clothing and hair. Men pressed close, touching me, sniffing my hair, mouth and shoulders.
My guts were churning and I vomited over their feet and legs. Some lashed out at me with fists, others laughed. One kicked me hard on the backside, making me fall on to my forehead. When I eventually struggled to my feet, it was their leader I faced. I recognised my torch dangling around his neck on a strip of leather.
Pain started all over me, switched on by the end of flight and panic. My blistered foot and the bruises on my shins and forehead were the first to make their presence felt, then the bloody scratches on my face and hands. My ribs hurt and my arms, but worst of all were the bindings digging into my wrists. They made my fingers throb. The bark rope choked me when I tried to straighten up, but I was determined to face the brute in front of me, so I gritted my teeth and met his arrogant gaze.
He laughed softly, nodding his head. His face was painted with a wolf mask design. Wolfish and vicious is how he looked as he folded his muscled arms across his chest. Barking commands to the warriors he made them step back from me. They crowded eagerly at his shoulder as he faced me. One was a tall, thin man, completely naked. Clearly their prisoner too, he was hunched and cowed like a whipped dog. A lime-bast rope was knotted around his throat, a mean looking warrior had its other end tied to his wrist.
The prisoner gazed about like a trapped fox. When he saw me and my jeans and modern combat jacket his eyes widened briefly. He seemed about to speak, but then stopped himself and turned away. The leader shoved him aside. I watched him, his eyes lowered, his head turned aside, cowed by his captors. Even so, I could see much in his haunted, feral gaze that was familiar. Under the grime and blood, I could see he was a modern man, quite unlike the short, wiry, red headed warriors milling around us. Was this pathetic wretch the man who had buried the time wand? I was sure he had recognised my modern clothing. Perhaps he had assumed I had come from his time to help him. Maybe that was why he had controlled his reactions. Perhaps he wanted to keep our presumed connection secret.
Again we briefly exchanged glances, but this time I found his hostile expression puzzling. It was not the hope filled look of one expecting to be rescued. It was fury, pent up behind his eyes. Perhaps he had buried the time wand expecting it to be found by a particular comrade, someone he would recognise. Clearly I was not that person. On the contrary, I was an unknown. Had he worked out that I had accidentally found the time wand and ruined his escape plan? Maybe he was thinking that my arrival condemned us both to remain here until we died; his last chance of rescue gone forever.
The leader spoke to me, an arrogant smirk on his lips. ‘Name – Blaith - me.’ He patted his chest proudly. ‘Blaith,’ he repeated, and then put back his head and howled like a wolf. I gaped at him. Obviously his prisoner had been teaching him English, but what bothered me was that he had not hesitated to use English to make a connection between the prisoner and me. Clearly he believed I was the same as the dog man on the leash.
‘Ti?’ he snapped angrily. It was one of the few words I had picked up from Vart. It means, You.
‘Fy Jack,’ I told him. Me Jack.
My name did not impress him and he turned away scornfully, leaving me to the tender mercies of his men. The dog-man on the leash shot me a venomous glare as Blaith’s men moved in on me again to pick at my clothes and hair and sniff at me like animals.
‘Boo!’ I yelled at them suddenly, scattering them like frightened children. I laughed at them and tried to look tough, but being bent over like a little old lady is not the most threatening of postures. Nevertheless, a few did seem wary of me and I wondered why. It seemed strange, I thought. I didn’t understand that at all. There I was trussed up like a Sunday roast, how could I hurt them? What did they see in me that was scary?
The leader studied me for a moment and then reached out and gently patted my face. It was a totally unexpected gesture, seeming both paternal and possessive. It was probably the most frightening thing I experienced that day. It made me feel like some sort of valuable catch. I began to wonder if I was to be eaten. Were they cannibals? Or perhaps I was to be sacrificed to their gods?
Skulking and hostile, the naked dog-man watched every move, perhaps assessing its effects on his own situation. I guessed he probably didn’t want anything to happen to me until he knew if I had a time wand or not. It was probably seeing me under such close scrutiny that made him nervous.
What was my future? I wondered, looking at the dog-man. Would I have to live out my life as he did, skulking, naked, cowed as a kicked cur, forever leashed, or would I be sacrificed to some ancient gods? Worse still, were these people cannibals?
Was I tonight’s special? And what of Vart’s future? Had he escaped, or would the trackers Blaith had sent after him succeed? I prayed not, and not just for his sake. Without Vart I was really stuffed. I had no means of getting back to my own time. And even if I could escape being Blaith’s dish of the day, I couldn’t survive alone in this harsh and unforgiving era. On top of that, I had found a psycho on a dog leash who clearly wanted to jolt my jellies for his own special reasons.
……….