Free Calgaich the Swordsman by Gordon D. Shirreffs

would she have found the strength to live beyond those terrible hours of labor? Head-bobbing ravens flew reluctantly away from the dead, and then circled close overhead watching the stranger with bright eyes. Tumbled, half-naked bodies lay like heaps of clothing on the trampled area of slush, manure and mud. The stiffening bodies were streaked with dark stripes and clots of coagulating blood. Somewhere beyond the rath and up the great dark glen a dog howled mournfully. Cairenn shivered. It sounded like a dog, but there was no dog to be seen.
    Calgaich lifted a half-burned door flap with the tip of his spear and stepped into the smoky interior of one of the huts that had not fully burned. A sprawled body lay to one side. Calgaich found the clothing of a boy—dirty trousers, red-dyed sheepskin tunic and worn hide buskins. The boy to whom the clothing might have belonged lay naked and dead in his bed of bracken with a small hunting spear driven through his belly, pinning him to the bed.
    Calgaich passed from one partially burned hut to another. He constantly watched the mouth of the great glen. It was still dark in shadows. Nothing seemed to move in there. He spread a tanned deer hide on the ground and placed his loot upon it—a dried boar’s haunch, some smoked venison, several loaves of fairly fresh bread, the boy’s clothing, several greasy bed skins and woolen cloaks and a small dirk about boy’s size.
    There was still something he badly wanted. He poked about in several of the unburned huts until the muted barking of distant dogs drove him back into the open. In the last hut he had found what he was looking for and grunted in satisfaction as he carried three large earthenware jugs of usquebaugh to his plunder. He pulled out one of the wooden stoppers and upended the jug. The strong barley spirits seemed to burn down his gullet and then exploded in a ball of fire within his guts. He drove the stopper back into the bottle and placed it on the hide. He bound the hide about the loot and then slung it over his back.
    The sound of the barking dogs was closer now—somewhere close within the mouth of the shadowed glen.
    Calgaich strode toward the hill-slope, then stopped short. A tiny girl-child lay sprawled beside a pup. Both of them had been pierced by Pictish blades. Her little dress was kilted high above her plump legs and rounded belly. Calgaich stood there for a moment looking down at her. The child’s blue, sightless eyes stared up at him. Her lovely golden hair was trampled into the mire and manure.
    The dogs were closer now. Some of them were baying.
    Calgaich put down his bundle and spear. He bent upon one knee and wiped as much of the mire and manure from the child’s golden hair as he could. He closed the staring eyes and composed the sprawled limbs. He pulled down the bloody dress and then covered her face with a square of woolen cloth that lay close to her. For a moment he looked down at her, then picked up his bundle and spear and ran lightly from the rath.
    “Walk!” he ordered Cairenn.
    “It's cold! I’m hungry!” she said defiantly.
    “Damn you! There isn’t any time. You hear those hounds? They’ll tear us to pieces if they catch up with us.” Calgaich pulled her to her feet. “Look!” he added, pointing toward the glen with his spear. Beyond the rath at the mouth of the glen men were riding shaggy ponies across the snow. Ahead of them was a loping crescent of huge hounds.
    She looked down the slope. The ravens had landed boldly right behind Calgaich as he had left the rath. They strutted about on the ground, a distinct jet black contrast to the white snow and the crimson stains of blood. They pecked at the bloodstained snow and hopped upon the chests of the corpses.
    “They will pick out the eyes first,” Calgaich said quietly.
    Cairenn followed him through the wet, clinging brush. Thorns tore at her cloak and exposed skin. Her face went taut when Calgaich waded into a rushing burn that