Druids by Morgan Llywelyn

together later on, when you are old enough to mate.
    “Sex takes practice, Ainvar. And appreciation. It is like the channel of a river, directing the life force lhat flows from the Source of All Being. Think of it. A man and woman join their bodies together, life flows through them, and a child is born. What greater magic? ” There was a sense of awe in his voice, awe that had not faded with the passing of the years.
    “Our winterweary warriors are going to need a strength they do not have, something the Greeks call ‘energy.’ The energy of bulls fighting, of rams rutting, of young men hot with passion.
    52 Morgan Llywelyn
    Energy is the life force and it flows through everything created by the Source, even through stone. The trees, always our teachers, sink their roots into the soil and draw out energy. Life. Take off your boots as we walk and feel the earth with your bare feet. Feel, as you have learned to hear.”
    I did as he commanded, drawing off the soft leather boots that covered my feet and were tied around my shins with thongs. When I stepped barefoot onto the ground at first, I felt only pebbles and hard-packed dirt. Then there was … a flicker like a whisper running through the earth.
    Only a flicker, but it startled me into awareness and I stopped walking.
    Menua stopped with me. “You felt it?”
    “I think so. It was like putting my fingers to my throat and feeling the blood hum inside.”
    “Very good, Ainvar. Some druids have such a feeling for the life force as it courses through the earth that they can follow it like a pathway. Its paths intersect in certain, special places, where the life force gathers so strongly that-—”
    “The grove!” I interrupted with a flash of intuition.
    “The grove.” Menua’s voice rumbled deep in his chest. “Yes. There, more than any other place in Gaul, the paths of power meet. The great grove of the Camutes is sacred not only to Man, but to the earth. You sense it; all who go there sense it.
    “There are other places with similar properties. Some are forceful and invigorating, others are peaceful and contemplative. Men are drawn to them; they become holy sites. Some places excrete noxious forces from the earth as your bowels excrete waste, and they are to be avoided. If you listen, your spirit will warn you of them.
    “As for this grove, we druids discovered long ago that me life force here is so intense it heightens our own abilities many times over. Therefore we hold our most powerful rituals in me grove - . . like the sex magic in which you will take part tonight. Ainvar.”
    We were walking again. My forgotten boots dangled from my fingers. My eyes were fixed on the ridge rising before us with its crown of trees dark against the sky.
    Menua said, “In the grove we will add your young male energy to the power of the sacred place and hud the combined force after our warriors like a spear. When it reaches them they will have strength they did not know they possessed. They will win their battle against the Senones and come back to us free persons.”
    We were climbing toward the grove. My feet found their way
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    along the path of brown earth, studded with occasional sharp-edged stones of mottled reddish-brown. My lips moved of their own volition, silently imploring That Which Watched to make me capable of the task before me.
    The druids had brought torches; the one Sulis carried was lighted. From this the other torches were now set ablaze and then positioned at intervals around the glade in the heart of the grove. Beyond the forest the setting sun still shone, but among the trees was twilight.
    Menua had me stand in the center of the clearing. Narlos led a chant and the druids circled me, sunwise. A wind rose and sang with them, movement and movement and flowing.
    I saw Sutis looking at me from beneath her hood.
    The chanting stopped. Menua stepped forward and took a handful of leather thongs from a pouch tied to his waist. He motioned me to