by Hume, M. K.
‘Be prepared! I can smell Picts in the forest,’ Thorketil hissed to the man next to him on the ridge. A gnarled forefinger pointed to a spot several hundred yards to the north where several low shrubs seemed to be moving without the benefit of a breeze. Suddenly, the woods were full of hundreds of stealthy men.
‘Pray God they break cover! And pray God that Bran has no archers here. The Picts will charge soon enough, according to what Master Arthur instructed us to do. They hate us too much to sit and wait prudently. Our men know what’s required, but send the word down the line again anyway. We don’t fire until Bran’s army is out of the woods and committed to attacking Eoppa’s warriors.’
Arthur saw the movement in the forest from his position on a ridge that ran diagonally towards the sea. It was little more than a fold in the earth, but the terrain gave him a perch on higher ground that provided a clear view of the forest, the sloping ground and the narrow road leading into the north.
As he watched, the movement among Eoppa’s contingent became more pronounced, so the watching Dene cavalry on the ridge could see that one edge of the wooded tree line had suddenly become alive with men.
A warning horn sounded from within Eoppa’s force and the Anglii warriors scrambled into the shield wall position; Arthur felt a thrill of pleasure as those figures that had appeared to be camp followers were revealed to be reinforcements who rapidly joined the front line.
As they waited for Bran’s forces to attack the shield wall, the reinforcements took the opportunity to release the horses which were then frightened clear of the defensive area. Then, at a command from one of the thanes, a number of defenders lifted one side of each of the wagons to roll them onto their sides to make a barricade of sorts in case Bran had access to archers.
The time for subterfuge was over now. Out of necessity, Eoppa’s troops faced the expected attack by the Pict and British warriors with a side of the shield wall containing six elongated rows of defenders. The side of the square that faced the sea was less likely to face the full brunt of a charge, so the line required fewer troops.
Even so, the other sides of the fighting square seemed to possess significant depth, giving Arthur confidence in the Anglii ability to hold the line against overwhelming odds.
‘Eoppa’s jarls are showing that they have cool heads,’ Arthur said over his shoulder. ‘Here they come! Bran has unleashed his army, and the Picts are in the vanguard.’
The forest erupted as Picts began to run wildly towards Eoppa’s position, screaming shrilly, the blue tattoos on their faces and bared arms giving them a fearsome corpse-like appearance.
‘They scream and wave their weapons to engender fear in the hearts of their enemies,’ Arthur explained to Snorri. ‘Don’t allow your men to be afraid of them. Picts die as easily as any other men, and I’ve never commanded a Dene who’d be frightened of screaming savages.’
The Picts had reached the Anglii lines by now and the defenders used their shields to brace for the shock. But the British cavalry had emerged from the forest and was moving in the same formations that Arthur remembered so well from skirmishes he had seen when he was a very young man.
‘Bran still uses the same tactics he always adopted in the past. He really has become old and tired,’ Arthur went on.
When the Britons finally broke cover, Arthur could see from the rag-tag mixture of tartans and dress that warriors from a number of the British tribes had been brought together under Bran’s banner. Bran was personally leading the charge. He recognised the armour from Bedwyr’s descriptions and he felt doubly ill. Bran had donned Artor’s distinctive battledress and was sitting atop a black stallion, hoping to spark a memory of the Dragon King. Even his standard was a direct copy of the Dragon Banner. The disciplined British cavalry carried banners that spoke of old conflicts, including ragged flags that fluttered in the wind to remind the horsemen of past glories. They charged past the Pict infantry towards Eoppa’s lines at full gallop so, when the two lines collided, the noise from the impact was deafening.
For one short moment, Arthur thought Eoppa’s resolution would fail and the line would break, but the Angles were fighting for survival, so they swung back into position as soon as the lines of defenders had absorbed the force of the charge. Any Briton unlucky enough to break through the first line, horse or not, was immediately despatched to the shades.
Eoppa’s men, though, had no idea if Arthur was close and their hearts were weakening from fear at the numbers aligned against them. Then, just when they began to imagine the shame of surrender, Thorketil brought hell down on the Britons with a rain of arrows.
Armed men are difficult to kill as individuals, but arrows seek out the softest parts of horses and can bring them down with relative ease. Thorketil concentrated his waves of arrows on the vulnerability of the beasts and the sound of screaming battle-steeds, high and shrill, came to Arthur on the breeze like the keening of frightened women.
‘On my mark, Snorri!’ Arthur’s roar rose over the stir of his eager warriors. ‘Attack! Let’s kill the bastards!’
The Dene cavalry rode over the crest of the low ridge like a breaking wave of bronze, iron and scarlet. Arthur’s warriors had chosen a red item to wear, in acknowledgement of the Last Dragon, the legend who was their leader.
Bran’s forces were surprised to see an unexpected wave of giant mounted warriors bearing down on them from a totally unexpected quarter. Their murderous intent was obvious.
Bran mustered his own horsemen around him, convinced that an extra two hundred barbarians would have little effect, for Eoppa’s fighting square was being driven steadily back and was on the verge of disintegration under the pressure exerted by the combined British and Pict foot soldiers. But the front rows of Eoppa’s fighting square were unable to retreat, for the supply carts provided an unyielding bulwark at their backs. It was time now for Eoppa to unleash the remaining archers who had been waiting behind the wagons for a time when the battle had reached a critical point. The archers were ordered to fire indiscriminately towards the rear of the mad melee, even at the risk of killing or wounding some of their own men. And so, at point blank range, they relieved the Anglii warriors from impending defeat.
‘For Arthur: For the Last Dragon!’ Hundreds of Dene throats had begun to shout the battle cry.
At the same time, a glance to his rear let Bran see Arthur’s cavalry charge approaching. He screamed obscenely in a high treble, as if his lifeblood was contained in that shrill exhalation. The British warriors around him stared at their lord and master with superstitious horror.
For Bran had seen and recognised the long-dead Arthur who was riding at the forefront of the charging cavalry. He had no need to hear the battle cry, for he remembered that hair, those shoulders and the set of the man’s head. The true heir had come!
‘It can’t be! The bastard’s dead!’ Bran screamed his frustration out to the noon sun, which was awash with the beginnings of autumn cloud patterns. ‘Artor is worm food! Not even Arthur can return from his grave!’
Were the names of father and son already one and the same within his age-soaked brain?
Arthur could see Bran’s screaming mouth, but made no move to acknowledge the king’s superstitious fears.
His cavalry charged directly at the British horsemen and he had no further time for thought or tactical considerations.
Arthur’s cavalry charge hit the rear of the British lines like a thunderbolt. He had wondered if he had the strength of mind to raise his sword against his own countrymen, but when one angry man tried to gut Arthur’s horse, he instantly became an avowed enemy and was unhesitatingly struck down.
Conscious of the infantry fighting in the press around him, Arthur dismounted and sent his horse running with a slap to its rump, then turned to face the press of warriors who were fighting so closely that they had difficulty lifting their arms. Unli
ke his father, who had always been comfortable when conducting a battle on horseback, Arthur had spent too many years balancing on heaving decks or standing toe to toe with implacable enemies in hand-to-hand combat. Once the effects of an initial charge had been absorbed, horses became a liability, easily gutted and just as likely to strike out with hooves and teeth at friends as at foes.
Once on foot, he set about the deadly business of killing. Bran was being forced to fight on two fronts now, so Arthur’s eyes scanned the edges of the forest. The whole plan would be in peril if Ragnar failed to initiate his attack. Then Snorri and his warriors hit the rearguard with a savagery honed through generations of warfare. The added height and reach of the Dene warriors made their skills difficult to counter, and their ferocity terrified the British foot soldiers.
Where is he? Where is that damned rearguard? The voice pounded away in the back of Arthur’s skull, leaving lances of pain in its wake. This battle was still evenly poised and, without Ragnar, the outcome was uncertain. Eoppa’s men were nearly done and, as Arthur had advised, the Anglii king had been forced to bring the last of his troops guarding the flanks into the front line, where they could give new heart to exhausted men.
Bran rode through his own men with the manic energy of a younger man, although his eyes were growing increasingly wild as he sought out the tall figure of his nemesis. But, on a battlefield filled with very tall men, Arthur had concealed himself effectively so that he appeared to be just another barbarian among many. Bran could feel hope draining from his body; in his crazed state, he began to wonder if he had imagined that brief glimpse of a feared and loathed face. He shook his head with an old man’s awkwardness.
‘For Gilchrist!’ Snorri’s barbarians called at the top of their voices. ‘For Gawayne!’
More cries rose up and Bran shivered as he imagined doom galloping towards him on a skeletal horse. He could almost see the ghostly rider that wore Gawayne’s careless grin like a mask, but Bran’s ambition still fought to sustain his aging body. Then as he gazed around the whole battlefield, the old king suddenly saw smoke rising from the margins of the forest behind him. He watched in horror as Ragnar led out the last contingent of two hundred and fifty Dene warriors.
The battle continued to rage around Arthur, while the tidal ebb and flow of death was as seductive and compelling as wicked, unholy lusts. Biting his lip, he managed to avoid the wild swing of one Otadini warrior that would have removed his head if he hadn’t been totally alert.
‘Flee, you young fool!’ Arthur yelled across at his opponent. ‘You can’t win this contest because I’m the Last Dragon, King Artor’s bastard son, and Fortuna is on my side. Uther Pendragon was my grandsire, and I’m not fated to be defeated by any Otadini.’
Even as he spoke so vaingloriously, Arthur regretted his words. The gaining of a throne required a strong stomach at times, so he dashed down the Otadini’s sword until it embedded itself in the soft ground, still held by the shaking hands of the exhausted young warrior. The terrified youth looked dumbly at Arthur, for he supposed that Arthur would take his life. Instead, Arthur stamped on the blade and smashed it into two pieces with a well-timed blow.
‘Go, boy! Leave! Run for your life! And tell your friends that you lived today because King Ida himself gave you leave to depart from the field of battle.’ The sound of that strange name on his tongue made Arthur feel a little odd, but such was the bargain he had struck with Eoppa.
The young Otadini warrior took to his heels, so Arthur roared from deep inside his chest, a sound of such destructive force that several other warriors flinched backward from the pale glitter of his eyes. After that, it was almost as if the Otadini boy had initiated a general retreat, for several other warriors seized the opportunity to extricate themselves from the battle and move towards the rear. The Dene warriors howled with triumph and derision, and then redoubled their efforts. The ring that had originally been surrounded by Picts and Britons began to swell, constrict and then change shape, forcing Bran’s infantry to fall back against their comrades who were tightly pressed behind them.
Once the retreat began, nothing could stop the panicking British tribes. Without a uniting leader of their own, they had no strong hand to hold them steady when the moments of testing came upon them. Bran had won the field on countless occasions in the past, but that was in the south, conflicts that were close to home. He was an outsider here, who hadn’t shared the history of the north, or the suffering these people had endured at the hands of the all-conquering Saxons, Angles and Jutes. Although he shouted encouragement, only those men of the Ordovice and some of the bitter Picts were prepared to hold their ground when the pressure was applied. Like smoke, the disillusioned troops were soon swallowed by the forest.
Before the battle began, Arthur had given specific instructions to all his men, including Eoppa and the Anglii warriors, of the actions they should take if Bran’s army showed any signs of disintegration.
‘I’ve always believed that the ordinary farmer who is forced to fight will take to his heels if he sees defeat staring him in the face. Any man who flees should not be hunted down! There must be a place for people of all races in the society that we hope to create in the north; we must all become Britons if we hope to create a new and prosperous kingdom. Without putting yourself or the man beside you at risk, show a modicum of mercy towards our enemies. It’s true that the man to whom we show mercy today might live to wield a sword against us tomorrow. But I believe that there is enough land for everyone. so I’m prepared to give succour to any warrior or farmer who lives within the borders that we carve out. I’m tired of fighting to avenge the old wrongs, and chasing repayments on debts that have been paid again and again in blood.’
‘Your enemies will think you’re weak,’ Eoppa had stated with finality.
‘What do we gain by killing everyone who runs? Sooner or later, the same men we defeat will be forced to trade in our towns and come to us to have their conflicts arbitrated. We can win enormous ground with all our people by being reasonable during the peace and strong when situations demand strength.’
Several of the jarls and thanes had nodded then, for they could see the advantages in what Arthur proposed. But peace had eluded Eoppa for most of his life, so he could scarcely imagine a world where men of different tribes and nations could live in peace together.
Eventually Arthur had wrung an unwilling agreement from his advisers. The wisdom of that decision would soon be tested, so Arthur prayed that he had been right in his assertions.
The Picts redoubled their efforts as the Britons began to disappear from the front ranks, for they were mad to be revenged for sins committed against them by earlier generations. In the confined space of this battleground where the Anglii defenders were pressed backwards against the barricades formed by the supply wagons, the blue-dyed warriors died in bloody droves. The earth had been churned into a grassless and bloody mud where the most nimble warriors were hard pressed to maintain their balance. Meanwhile, the piled bodies of the dead and wounded threatened to topple those few horses that were still alive, and spill their riders into the slurry.
Arthur saw the reality of the battlefield through a haze of blood. His sword had carved its way through so much human flesh that his skin and clothing felt saturated. Fine mists of that same blood had penetrated the protective coverings of his helmet, mailed shirt and greaves, while his boots squelched as he walked. Sickened by the stench and the stickiness that made his skin itch, Arthur disengaged his mind and climbed onto a section of one of the wagons where he could stand with Eoppa’s bowmen and view what remained of the battlefield.
From atop his horse, Bran could see that the battle was effectively over. A quick calculation revealed that only two hundred or so of his force remained on their feet while the Dene and Angles were reaping lives with the grim heartlessness of butchers in an abattoir. The Picts alone were holding their positi
ons to the very end, despite their losses, but Bran knew he had suffered a major defeat. His instinct for self-preservation convinced him that he must survive this conflict, so as soon as he saw a break in the press around him, he drove his injured horse into the gap and fought his way through to freedom, careless of any warriors who were trampled in his path, whether they were friend or foe.
‘Bran’s running!’ Arthur screamed, but none of the combatants heard him above the din of battle. Impeded by his armour, Arthur tried to find an abandoned horse, cursing the fates that would leave Bran alive to be a perpetual thorn in his side until the day the old king died. Eventually, Arthur stumbled along on foot in a vain attempt to reach Bran’s flagging horse before it escaped into the forest.
Bran must have angered the gods, or else Arthur was still their darling. Thorketil had seen the mounted figure cutting across the battlefield in a long diagonal that would bring him to the forest where he would be safe from Ragnar’s forces. Without hesitation, he drew his powerful bow and brought down the already-wounded steed. Horse and rider fell in a tangle of limbs, so when Arthur reached the twisted figures, panting and near spent from his exertions, he found Bran trapped under the dying animal’s weight.
Arthur’s first task was to kill the suffering horse before its thrashing hooves caused more damage.
Then, exhausted, Arthur sank down on his haunches into the deep grass, taking care to stay beyond the reach of Bran’s sword blade. When his breathing eased, he gazed directly at his kinsman and realised that Bran’s internal organs had been crushed during the fall. The King of the Ordovice would never again plague Arthur’s life.