Calgaich the Swordsman Read Online Free PDF Page B

Then she became Calgaich’s shadow as he felt his way within a passageway. The flagstones were cold against her bare feet. An indescribable odor drifted about them like the dank breath of an ancient tomb. Then this icy miasma settled about them as though welcoming them into the barrow. Welcoming them in to what? Cairenn thought. The aura was that of stale blood; lichened stone, damp with the moisture of many centuries; and above all, the odor of ancient evil from deep within the bowels of the earth itself.
    Calgaich paused. "Lugh of the Shining Spear,” he murmured again. Cold sweat dewed his forehead and trickled down his sides. He must move on. There was no other recourse. It was more than his fear of the unknown that he must overcome. He could not show fear in front of this slave woman. That was beneath the dignity of any warrior of the Novantae.
    Calgaich moved on through the clammy darkness, probing the shadows with the tip of his spear. Now and again the metal chimed musically as it struck stone.
    Calgaich squeezed past a pillar that divided the passageway in two. He moved on with the woman holding onto the tail of his tunic like a little child following its mother. He stopped. "This is like entering the pit of hell itself. We need light.” He fumbled at his waist and passed a sealed bladder back to Cairenn. She untied the bladder and took the firestones and some dry tinder from within it. Then she crouched on the cold, flagged floor and struck the firestones together until they shed sparks into the tinder. There was a faint glowing amidst the tinder, like a ruby on black velvet as the flame caught quickly. She snatched up the tinder and blew sharply on it until it was fully afire.
    They stood at the entrance to a wide circular room. The roof was just inches above Calgaich’s head. Dried reeds and twigs lay to one side. He motioned toward them. Cairenn placed the burning tinder among the reeds and fanned them into flame and warmth. A fitful flame rose.
    Calgaich sucked in his breath as the light grew. This was the Holy of Holies. The room was very large and roughly circular in shape. Rough-hewn pillars held up the wide stone slabs that formed the subroof on which lay the heaped earth that shaped the mound over the barrow. Beyond the circular room were dark cells, or galleries, from within which came the slow sound of dripping water. The walls were veined with dampness and textured with lichens. The shadows of Calgaich and Cairenn leaped and postured on the damp walls as they moved about.
    There was a low stone table or altar at the far end of the room. A ring of white stone was set into the flagstones before the altar. Several exquisitely shaped, fine-grained greenstone axe heads lay within the ring of white stone, mingled with two finely figured bronze axe heads, which had evidently been deliberately broken in half.
    Calgaich moved cautiously toward the altar. A cup beautifully shaped from amber was on the altar. The inside seemed to be coated with a dark material like pitch.
    A cold feeling crept through Calgaich, for he knew what the substance was, perhaps the blood of a deer or a black cock, or possibly that of another sacrifice—a human—a slave or a condemned criminal. A slave woman? Calgaich did not look back at the lovely face of Cairenn. He hoped she would not notice the amber cup.
    Cairenn fed the growing fire from a large pile ©f branches and pieces of log that lay to one side of the chamber. Steam arose from the damp wood and from the heavy woolen cloak to mist within the chamber. She watched Calgaich as he poked about with the tip of his ever-ready spear. He used it almost as if it were an extension of his arms.
    Calgaich leaned his spear against a pillar and then rummaged about within a pile of something heaped behind the pillar. “By Lugh!” he called out. “He has answered my prayers \” His hands had closed on the hilt of a sheathed sword. He held it out to the light. The sheath was of