Pendragon, p.5
Pendragon, page 5
‘We are God’s people here. I tolerate Merlin because he is a druid, and ancient law demands it. But what are you, gwyllion, but a witch who would spread your pagan filth amongst my people and damn their souls to hell? Do not talk so of the Lord Jesus Christ in my presence again, or it will cost you your head. You are no druid, witch, and I abide you only because you are Merlin’s plaything.’
‘Filth? Plaything?’ gasped Nimue, and just as she turned and snarled at the king, Merlin slammed his black staff on the stone floor.
‘Enough!’ he bellowed, and his voice echoed around the hall. ‘I shall leave you dull-witted warriors to talk of marching and defence. I shall try to raise an army.’ Merlin turned on his heel, his white cloak billowing behind him as he strode from King Gwallog’s hall. Nimue hurried after him, and Gwallog’s men exhaled collectively, shoulders relaxing. Nimue had that effect on men. She was fearsome to behold, and her power made them uncomfortable.
‘Steward,’ Gwallog called over his shoulder. ‘Bring wine for Arthur and Balin.’ A man hurried from the shadows and offered Arthur and Balin small cups filled with wine the colour of blood.
Arthur sipped at the strong-tasting wine and Idnerth told them of the fighting on Elmet’s borders. The Saxons had first sent raiding parties deep into Elmet, striking into the valleys and dales, probing for any sign of armed resistance. Then, war bands came with war dogs, spears and shields, killing and foraging, leaving piles of food and ale for the hundreds of warriors who followed behind them. Idnerth himself had taken two hundred men to push the enemy back, but had become overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy warriors.
‘We cannot afford to lose our warriors,’ Idnerth said, ‘for we have so few. Two hundred of my legionaries can hold the walls of Loidis. But if we die fighting skirmishes in forests and riverbanks, then it falls to Elmet’s farmers to stand against Octha’s blood-mad warriors. So we must pick our time to fight and not commit our finest men until we can land the decisive blow.’
‘Keep your legionaries here, Idnerth,’ said Arthur. ‘Balin and I will take our men to your borders. We shall harry the enemy, destroy their stores of food, make them earn every step they take into Elmet.’
‘There are too many. How can you hope to stop so vast a force?’
‘They say my brother is with them,’ said Balin. ‘I shall hunt for him, and we shall kill as many of the enemy as we can. They shall fear our black cloaks and come to know what it means to fight against Britons.’
‘Gododdin will come,’ Arthur said. ‘Merlin will bring warriors, I am sure of it. We just need time, and I will buy us that time. Gather provisions inside your walls, lord king, and we shall join you here when we can fight no more. Then we shall stand together and fight them from your walls, and the Saxons will have to march over our corpses before Elmet falls.’
5
Three days after leaving Loidis, Arthur rode Llamrei through a creaking forest. The stallion picked his way amongst fallen bark and rotting leaf mulch, and Arthur ducked beneath sprawling branches of birch and elm. True to his word to King Gwallog, Arthur hunted the Saxon war bands who crept like a slithering plague across Elmet’s borders.
Octha’s army came split into small contingents, bands of one hundred warriors, as they swarmed through the forests and valleys, feeding themselves through raids and slaughter. To march fifteen hundred warriors from the heart of Lloegyr into Elmet required an immense amount of food, water and ale. Unless Octha had spent a vast sum of silver and a year gathering a mountain of supplies, his men needed to forage as they went. That meant scouts and foraging parties marching ahead of each war band, seeking farms, villages, places to camp and fresh water. Elmet was not their home. These were hard men from across the narrow sea striding out into an unknown land, where every hillside, river and wood provided both opportunity and challenge.
Arthur and Balin ambled their horses along a brook, its babbling waters splashing clear over moss-covered rocks. Lush, wild grass grew around shallow banks in a clearing blooming with primrose and violets. Arthur stroked Llamrei’s mane and patted his powerful neck. The horse dipped his head and took a drink from the cool water. Arthur wore his mail coat, Excalibur hung from his belt in her red scabbard, and King Ida’s sceptre nestled against his hip. Balin slid from the back of his horse and stroked his mare’s rump as she also took a long drink. Three magpies flew from the forest to Arthur’s east, and Balin watched their black wings beat across the clearing.
‘One for sorrow,’ Balin said, reciting the old rhyme, ‘two for mirth, three for death, and four for a birth.’
‘Are they coming?’ asked Arthur, trying not to look in the direction from which the magpies had flown, disturbed from their nests by hidden warriors tramping through the undergrowth. Arthur knew they were there, big men clad in fox and wolf fur, axes and spears in their fists and murder in their hearts.
‘They are coming.’
Balin smiled up at Arthur, and Arthur almost laughed, even though one hundred Saxons approached from the deep forest, weaving their way through the tangle of ancient woodland. Balin rarely smiled, but the chance to kill Saxons brought a lightness to the grim warrior and his levity took Arthur by surprise. Llamrei whickered and Arthur shushed him, patting the horse’s neck again. Balin’s horse also became skittish, and Balin stroked its ears to calm the beast. Arthur’s black cloaks had tracked the Saxon war band since morning, spying on them from high ground as the enemy advanced into the woodland on Elmet’s eastern border. They carried spears and shields, and led donkeys pulling wains filled with grain, cuts of meat, churns of milk and barrels of ale. If the Saxon war band marched a day further west, they would come upon a settlement of small houses set about a sprawling oak tree. Those people grew wheat and barley, paid their tithes to King Gwallog, worshipped the nailed god, and prayed for protection by both. The Saxons would take their lives and their food. They would slaughter the menfolk, rape the women and enslave the children. That was the war Octha brought to King Gwallog’s people, and only Arthur and his black cloaks stood in their way. Arthur had come upon three such villages since leaving Loidis, where folk had received word from the king to leave their dwellings and seek safety behind Loidis’ high walls, but still they tarried. They worried about their fields, crops, livestock, and how they would feed themselves through winter if they left their farmland untended. But better to be hungry than dead.
‘Remember, let them see us before we ride,’ Arthur said, allowing his mind to imagine the village aflame and its people screaming and dying.
A rotten branch broke underfoot as the Saxons came close, the crack sending unseen forest animals scurrying for cover in the undergrowth. Arthur and Balin had left their cloaks with the men, so that their mail coats and weapons would shine beneath the golden sun. Arthur’s warriors waited in silence, hidden by bough and leaf, by bracken and fern. He and Balin were just two wealthy men watering their horses, alone in a forest. Their armour and weapons would be irresistible to men hungry for wealth and plunder. Octha’s warriors were violent men bent on pillage and destruction, emboldened by their numbers and by the promise of war.
The first of them came striding from the trees with axes resting upon their shoulders and hungry looks on their bearded faces. A dozen of them, clad in leather and furs, with naalbinding cloth strips tied around their calves. Some wore helmets and others carried shields. More followed, coughing, sniffing and mumbling as they drifted from the trees towards the brook. Balin jumped lithely onto his mare, wheeling the horse about as her hooves splashed in the water.
Barking erupted behind the Saxons, and Arthur understood why the horses were so skittish. Saxon war dogs. He dug his heels into Llamrei’s flanks and turned just as an arrow whipped across the clearing to tear through the air between him and Balin. Six dogs followed the arrow. Monstrous, muscular beasts wearing iron-spiked collars. Arthur rode hard away from the Saxons, urging Llamrei into a gallop. The stallion reared and surged forwards as Balin’s mare splashed through the brook. More arrows whistled past Arthur and he clicked his tongue to urge the horse on, bending low, the wind whipping his hair as Llamrei raced away from the enemy.
The Saxons whooped for joy at the prospect of hunting two wealthy lords with gloriously expensive weapons, and Arthur ducked beneath a branch as Llamrei entered the woods. Vengeful black cloaks waited for him there, men who had seen the suffering of common folk too many times. They peered over the rims of their shields, hard eyes set upon the enemy. Dewi handed Arthur his helmet as he climbed off Llamrei, and he pulled it on, quickly fastening the chin strap. Anthun, a stocky warrior with bowlegs and barrel chest, took Llamrei’s reins and led the horse away from the front line. Becan handed Arthur a spear, and Balin came thundering through the trees, dogs snapping at his horse’s hind legs.
One monstrous war dog leapt and sunk its teeth into the mare’s rump and the horse screamed in pain. Balin leapt from her, pulling a sword from his back in one fluid motion. He landed and brought the sword down hard, hacking into the war dog’s neck. The beast fell dead and five more of the monsters circled Balin, slathering and baying with their great teeth bared. He backed away, moving towards the safety of the front line, slowly drawing his second sword from across his right shoulder.
Another war dog snarled and leapt at Balin, jumping, jaws open, ready to tear out Balin’s throat until a dozen arrows flew from Arthur’s men and peppered its muscled body with goose-feathered shafts. The rest of the dogs charged at Arthur’s line, more arrows twanged from bowstrings, but the archers aimed too high and the shafts sailed above the running dogs to disappear into the trees. Black cloaks cried out in terror as the dogs tore into them, barking, snarling, jaws rending shields and sinking into flesh. The shield wall sagged as men fell away from the enormous beasts, each one as tall as a man’s waist.
‘Kill the monsters!’ a warrior shouted.
More cries of pain. The dogs whined and shrieked as Arthur’s men stabbed them with spears and knives. Two of the beasts peeled away from the battle line. They whimpered and ran about the trees in confusion, limping, hides matted with dark blood. The dogs’ ferocious attack had jolted the line, and Dewi barked orders, urging the men back into formation. Four injured warriors shuffled to the rear, their legs savaged by the marauding war dogs. The dogs struck horror into the men. The animals would never be enough to crush a shield wall, but they were terrifying, and Arthur worried what a score of the beasts would do to an advancing shield wall.
‘Reform and advance,’ Arthur shouted to his men. ‘The dogs are gone, before us are just men. They come in ragged formation. Kill as many as you can and take the food carts. Don’t follow those who flee. Stop when you hear the carnyx.’
His men clashed spears on shields to show they understood Arthur’s command. The carnyx was a war horn. A long, curved bronze tube the size and shape of a spear shaft, topped by a magnificent bronze wolf’s head with its mouth agape and snarling.
‘No mercy. Strike hard, strike fast. These men are killers, slavers and murderers. These are the Saxons who come to take all we have. On me!’
Arthur strode out of his line of men, and Balin went beside him. The first dozen Saxons came running into the clearing, chasing the sound of their war dogs. Arthur tested the weight of his spear and drew the weapon back. He used his left hand for balance, took three quick steps and hurled the spear with all of his might. The leaf-shaped blade soared through the trees and slammed into a Saxon’s chest, hurling the man from his feet to die writhing and choking in the rotten leaf mulch. The charging Saxons paused, stunned to see their comrade dying so brutally. Arthur drew Excalibur and held the sword aloft so his men could see the gleaming blade. He let the war-rage flow through him, embracing it, becoming one with it. Then went to kill the enemy.
The Saxons came on too quickly, too eager for the kill to notice the Britons waiting for them in the dense forest. They believed they chased two warlords into the trees and came howling after their prey. The Saxons raced into the trees, leaping over low branches, axes held in their fists, teeth bared, believing their dogs had brought down the two wealthy riders and that an easy kill and rich mail coats and weapons awaited. By the time the dozen Saxons noticed three ranks of iron-shod shields, held by growling, helmeted Britons, it was too late. Balin killed a man with lethal slashes of his swords, the blades flashing in the half-light beneath the leaf canopy and blood-spattered crimson on dark tree bark. Arthur came from behind a thick trunk with Excalibur levelled and a bushy-bearded Saxon ran onto the blade, and Arthur drove it home. He gaped at Arthur, his breath stinking of garlic, staring down at the sword stuck through his midriff. Arthur yanked the sword free and waited for his warriors to envelop him. Ten more Saxons died quickly, crashing into an implacable line of shields and spears.
Scores of Saxons charged into the fray, rushing to the chase, hurrying to see what had become of their quarry in the forest. They paused, faced with five ranks of Britons marching in step, boots crunching through the undergrowth, spears pointing, a wall of iron and wood, solid and deadly. The Saxons charged into the shield wall with howling ferocity and Arthur’s men struck with practised efficiency. Saxons hammered into shields and died as spear points tore out their throats and jabbed at their eyes. They screamed as they fell, and Arthur felt no pity, for every scream reminded him of a slave captured or a family slaughtered. More Saxons burst into the clearing, and Arthur’s men kept up the steady march, pushing them back with shield bosses and stabbing with their spears. Two score Saxons fell by the time their leaders called to them to halt and form up, and as they tried to bring shields from their rear, Arthur ordered his men to attack.
The forest filled with the roar of Arthur’s black cloaks as they broke ranks and charged at the enemy. Arthur went with them, as did Balin, and they thundered into the Saxons with vengeful fury. Arthur killed two men with sweeps of Excalibur’s blade, chaos sweeping the Saxons asunder before they could form themselves into a defensive line. Balin battered into them, his two swords driving into the centre with astonishing skill.
An enormous man with a scarred face and long, greasy hair came at Arthur with an axe in one hand and a seax in the other. Arthur parried an axe blow and swayed away from a vicious seax lunge aimed at his groin. The axeman came on, furiously swinging his axe and seax in savage sweeps, all the time roaring at Arthur, spittle flying from his maw in wild fury. Arthur parried and backed away from the onslaught until the big man tired. When the axe swings lost their strength and the Saxon had spent his power, Arthur struck. He let a tired axe-slash sing past his shoulder and grabbed the hair at the back of the Saxon’s skull with his left hand. He stamped his left foot into the crook of the Saxon’s knee, driving him to the ground. The Saxon tried desperately to stab at Arthur with his seax, but he had spent his strength in the wild attack, and Arthur drove Excalibur down into his throat and pierced his murderous heart.
Balin fought beyond the shield wall, whirling his two swords about him, deep amongst the enemy. They shrank back from him, unable to match his skill and ferocity. Balin fought like a man possessed by a demon, pure hate driving him on. He slashed open men’s throats, smashed their knees to ruin, driving the point of his sword into their chests and stomachs. These were Saxons, men who had taken everything from Balin. He fought like each man he faced was one who had slaughtered his wife and children, as though every Saxon who raised a weapon against him was a man who lived upon land once owned by Balin and his lost people.
The Saxons retreated before Arthur’s shield wall; a bald man with a bulbous nose and bare, muscled arms fought at their centre. He struck at Arthur’s shield wall with his axe, roaring at his men to fall back. He was their leader, their captain, and once he was dead, the Saxons would break and flee. Arthur bullied his way through his men, shouldering through their shields and spear points until he came to the front rank. The Saxon leader’s axe hammered into a black cloak’s shield and the muscled enemy reached over the shield rim and punched the black cloak hard in the face. The Briton shuddered, nose broken and blood sheeting down his face, and the Saxon dragged his axe free and the black cloak tottered forward. Arthur leapt into the space and brought Excalibur up just as the Saxon brought his axe down in the killing stroke. The axe haft struck Excalibur’s blade, jarring up Arthur’s arm. Arthur grabbed the falling black cloak with his left hand and hauled him back amongst the shield wall and barged his shoulder into the Saxon, driving him backwards.
Battle is a ferocious clash at full force, and Arthur punched Excalibur’s hilt into the Saxon’s face, but he swayed away from the blow and brought his axe haft up to clatter into Arthur’s cheek. The blow thudded against Arthur’s helmet and rung his head like a bell. Men jostled him as they fought against the Saxons, shoulders barging him, boots stamping on his feet, war cries filling his ears. Arthur struck out with Excalibur but found only air. A heavy Saxon hand grabbed the neck of his chain-mail and dragged Arthur away from his men. He stumbled, the heat of terror burning his gut. A killing blow came for his neck before Arthur could react, but a black cloak caught it on his shield. The shield rim banged into Arthur’s back and he fell to one knee. To fall was to die beneath the crush of blades, shields and boots. So Arthur roared like a beast and grabbed Excalibur in two hands. He slashed it about him, connecting with flesh and bone, and a Saxon cried out in pain. Arthur drove himself to his feet and, just as the muscled Saxon was about to drag his axe blade across Arthur’s throat, he plunged Excalibur’s point into the man’s stomach.
