Two Tribes

Hengist Journey #8

Avebury Henge

The fourth book takes the concept of time-travel and goes large. No less than the story of how Stonehenge and Avebury Henge were built. Nothing to do with Frankie Goes to Hollywood (although it is on my playlist), but the idea that two tribes – the Durren (Durrington Walls, where the people who built Stonehenge lived) and the Kenit (from the river Kennett near Avebury) were at war. Each built massive temples to their Gods, competing to make it bigger, better and more imposing than their rivals’ efforts. “Slater,” goes back in time to these places, connecting with the powerful shamen in charge of these complex creations which boasted so much more than the normal bank and ditch (the henge itself), enclosing a circle of stones.

Stonehenge

Just in case that wasn't enough scope for a story, poor old Slater has to find himself in proper pickles as the tribes' powerful shamen seem set on outdoing each other when it comes to who can create the scariest way for him to die. Whether it's ritual sacrifice with the beautiful Sun Princess, being buried alive in a tomb with the rightful prince or being burned alive atop a massive beacon bonfire, Slater has to tap into levels of ingenuity he never knew he had. Luckily, he is aided by some delightfully spunky females along the way. But it takes the aid of Albion himself to settle the age-old rivalry as the two tribes go head-to-head in the final battle for supremacy.

The main challenge of this book had nothing to do with all the technical stuff I found out about building these monuments or the complicated math in the alignments. Nor having authentic descriptions of the mechanics of dowsing, having done Maria Wheatley’s amazing course and gotten to grips with it.
The hardest bit was most definitely getting credible speech for my stone-age characters. I read a bunch of stories where people had written about this period and most of them barely even made a nod to it. I tried my best, and am still looking for any kind of language expert prepared to read it through and critique. Believe me, in the interests of accuracy, I have tried. But to no avail. I hope my compromise does not detract too much from your enjoyment of the story.
And who knows – some of the stuff in my version, could be right.