Stonehenge Read Online Free PDF Page A

provoked sympathetic murmurs for many in Ratharryn resented the way Hengall hoarded treasures. In Drewenna or Cathallo the chief displayed his wealth, he rewarded his warriors with bronze, he hung his women with shining metal and he made great temples, but Hengall stored Ratharryn’s wealth in his hut.
    “What would you do with the gold?” Galeth intervened. He was standing now, and he had untied his tail of hair which hung black and ragged about his face so that he looked like a warrior on the edge of battle. His spear blade was leveled. “Tell us, nephew,” he challenged Lengar, “what will you do with the gold?”
    Jegar hefted his spear to meet Galeth’s challenge, but Lengar pushed his friend’s blade down. “With this gold,” he shouted, patting the lozenges on his chest, “we should raise warriors, spearmen, archers, and end Cathallo forever!” Now the voices that had first supported him shouted again, for there were many in Ratharryn who feared Cathallo’s growth. Only the previous summer the warriors of Cathallo had taken the settlement of Maden that lay between Ratharryn and Cathallo, and hardly a week passed without Cathallo’s warriors scouring Hengall’s land for cattle or pigs, and many in the tribe resented that Hengall appeared to be doing nothing to stop the taunting raids. “There was a time when Cathallo paid us tribute!” Lengar shouted, encouraged by the crowd’s support. “When their women came to dance at our temples! Now we cower whenever a warrior of Cathallo comes near! We grovel to that foul bitch, Sannas! And the gold and the bronze and the amber that could free us, where is it? And where will this gold go if I giveit up? There!” With that last word he turned and pointed the spear at his father. “And what will Hengall do with the gold?” Lengar asked. “He will bury it! Gold for the moles! Metal for the worms! Treasure for the grubs! We scratch for flint and all the while we have gold!”
    Hengall shook his head sadly. The crowd that had cheered Lengar’s last words fell silent and waited for the fight to start. Lengar’s men must have thought the moment was close for they summoned their courage and closed up behind their leader with leveled weapons. Jegar was dancing to and fro, his teeth bared and spear blade pointing at Hengall’s belly. Galeth edged closer to Hengall, ready to defend his brother, but Hengall waved Galeth away, then turned, stooped and fetched his war mace from where it had been hidden under the low thatch of his hut’s eave. The mace was a shaft of oak as thick as a warrior’s wrist topped with a misshapen lump of gray stone that could crush a grown man’s skull as if it were a wren’s egg. Hengall hefted the mace, then nodded at the cloak of bear fur. “All the treasure, boy,” he said, deliberately insulting his son, “all of it, in the cloak.”
    Lengar stared at him. The spear had a longer reach than the mace, but if his first lunge missed then he knew the stone head would break his skull. So Lengar hesitated, and Jegar pushed past him. Hengall pointed the mace at Jegar. “I killed your father, boy,” he snarled, “when he challenged me for the chiefdom, and I crushed his bones and fed his flesh to the pigs, but I kept his jawbone. Hirac!”
    The high priest, his skin mottled with dirt and chalk, bobbed at the edge of the crowd.
    “You know where the jawbone is hidden?” Hengall demanded.
    “I do,” Hirac said.
    “Then if this worm does not step back,” Hengall said, staring at Jegar, “make a curse on his blood. Curdle his loins. Fill his belly with black worms.”
    Jegar paused for a heartbeat. Although he did not fear Hengall’s mace, he did fear Hirac’s curse, so he stepped back. Hengall looked back at his son. “In the cloak, son,” he said softly, “and hurry! I want my breakfast!”
    Lengar’s defiance crumpled. For a second it seemed he wouldleap at his father, preferring death to dishonor, but then he just sagged