The Dog and the Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

currachs, each with a pilot who had knowledge of these waters, picking a way among the reefs. The horns of land loomed ever more high and massive in view. Between their ruddy-dark cliffs there gleamed no longer the bulwark and the towers of Ys. Remnants thrust out of the bay, pieces of wall, heaps of stone, a few forlorn pillars. Waves chewed at them. The overturned carcass of a vessel swung about like a battering ram wielded by blind troops.
    With care the crew worked their way toward Cape Rach. They saw the pharos on top, as lonely a sight as they had ever seen, and lost it as they passed along the south side. Flotsam became frequent, timbers, spars, but no other sign of man apart from a fragment of quay. The storm had swept away the fisher hamlet under the cliffs.
    The beach was still Scot’s Landing, laughed the men. They could go ashore. Their ship was no war galley capable of being grounded and easily relaunched; in accordance with their guise of peaceful traders, she was a round-bottomed merchantman. But they could drop thehook, leave three or four guards aboard, and ferry themselves in the currachs.
    Niall led them up the path to the heights. It was slippery and had gaps, demanding care. Caution was also needful when foes not spied from the water might lurk above.
    None did. Only the wind and a mutter of surf had voice. Standing on the graveled road that ran the length of the cape, the men saw bleakness around, desolation below in the bay. Such homes as they glimpsed, tucked into the hills above the valley, seemed deserted. On their left were ancient tombs, beyond them the pharos, and beyond it nothing but sky. The air felt suddenly very cold.
    Niall raised his spear and shook it. “Onward for a close look and maybe a heap of plunder, boys!” he cried. “It’s glad the ghosts are of those who died here these many years agone.”
    That rallied their spirits. They cheered and trotted after him. His seven-colored cloak flapped in the wind like a battle banner.
    A paved road brought them down to the bayshore. Part of the southern gateway rose there, a single turret, an arch agape, a stretch of wall which had irregularly lost its upper courses. Inland, on their right, the amphitheater appeared undamaged, or nearly so; but an oakenshaw north of it had flamed away on the night Ys died, was blackness whence thrust a few charred trunks.
    No matter that Niall of the Nine Hostages was their chief, the awe of a doom fell upon the men.
    Waves rushed and growled above the remains. Amidst and beyond the wreckage above the waterline lay strewn and heaped incredible rubbish. Waterlogged silk and brocade draped broken furniture. Silver plates and goblets corroded in torn-up kelp. Tools and toys were tumbled together with smashed glass and shattered tiles. Copper sheathing lay green, crumpled, beside the debris of cranes and artillery. Paint or gilt clung to battered wood. Calmly smiling, a small image of the Goddess as Maiden nestled close to the headless, gelded statue of a man that might well have stood for the God. And skulls stared, bones gleamed yellowish in the damp, everywhere, everywhere.
    Smells were of salt and tang, little if any stench. In the past few days, gulls at low tide and crabs at high had well-nigh picked the corpses clean, aside from what hair and clothing clung. Many birds walked the sands yet, scavenging scraps. They were slow to flee men who shouted or threw things at them. When they did, they flapped awkwardly, stuffed fat.
    That was after the hush among the warriors broke. “Ho, see!” yelled one. He bent over, picked an object up, and flourished it: a pectoral of gold, amber, and garnets. Immediately his fellows were scrambling, scratching, casting bones away like offal, wild for treasure.
    Niall stood apart, leaning on his spear. Uail did likewise. Presently the King said, distaste in his tone and on his face, “You too think this is unseemly?”
    “It is that,” Uail replied.
    Niall seized his arm