by N. M. Browne
‘The men I brought through are not Ravens, but Eagles. They come from another world but they can fight like Ravens, they can kill Ravens and they will do it for us. For where they come from they have tribes like ours, speak languages like ours and feel like us that the Ravens are wrong. It is up to you, whether you fight with King Macsen or let this moment go. This is your last chance to make Britain free. But whatever you choose, I am Ursula Alavna ab Helen, the sorceress, and Boar Skull, warrior of the Combrogi, and I stand with Macsen and the Eagles for freedom.’ It was the longest speech Ursula had ever made in her life and the most eloquent. It was met by a stunned silence. Then the warriors of Alavna started to cheer, then Hane’s men joined in until the whole hall erupted. Rufinus sat down. He did not wish to put a foot wrong and jeopardise what was gained. Macsen raised his hand for silence.
‘Here is our power, in our magic, in our strong hearts, in our allies and in our swords. We will not bend our knees to the Ravens. On then into battle and as you go think both of your proud ancestors and your free descendants!’ The roaring and shield banging turned into the frenzied war cries of the Combrogi. Hane signalled and those he’d trained attempted to group themselves in battle order. Macsen’s plan was for them to follow the first onslaught of Combrogi warriors and finish off what they had started. The Ravens were not expecting attack from the besieged fortress. With luck, many would be sleeping. Combrogi warriors mad with the frenzy of blood-lust might keep them from remembering their discipline for a while and when they got it back they would be prey for Eagles. Ursula got in position next to Dan, her heart still thumping from her speech. They all greeted her with pride and affection, with much manly shoulder patting and arm grabbing. It felt very good. Then Macsen was there.
‘My thanks. You cut that very fine. I thought you would never wake.’
‘I was very weary after raising the Veil.’
‘I know it was so with Rhonwen, though she …’
‘You know what happened to her?’ Macsen nodded.
‘I’m sure she’s not dead. I think I’ve heard her calling me. She just went through the Veil. She could get back.’ Ursula’s words tumbled over one another in her effort to reassure Macsen.
‘I cannot talk of this now. I need you to stand on the battlements and act as priestess. The men expect it and it will help our cause. It would be good if you could wear Rhonwen’s robes and …’
Macsen’s iron will kept his voice calm and expressionless but Ursula could sense his anger and sorrow. He did not seem like either King or war leader at that moment. For some reason she found herself agreeing.
Dan intervened.
‘My King, I would not wish Ursula to be undefended – I …’
‘Bear Sark, I myself will stand by her side on the battlements to spur the men on. But only after I have led them in the first charge. If I do not return from it then it will be Kai who will stand duty at her right hand. Do not fear for your Boar Skull, my friend, she is precious to us. I need you in the field. A bear sark such as yourself brings pleasure to the gods.’
It was not the answer that Dan wanted but Ursula nodded firmly.
‘It’s OK, Dan. This is the day for keeping our oaths. When the Combrogi are free, then so are we.’
She switched dizzyingly back to Ursula and hugged him, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Keep safe, Dan,’ she whispered. ‘If we can survive this I know that I can get us home.’
With the dampness of Ursula’s kiss still on his cheek Dan took his place between Kai and Prys and readied himself for battle.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Ursula could see more than she wanted to. Her vantage point on the fortress walls gave her an unhindered view of the vast Raven army. The Raven army also had an unhindered view of her. There were no crenellations to hide behind, only a low wall, lower than waist height, that afforded minimal protection. She felt very exposed. She felt very uncomfortable. She’d never had much of a head for heights.
She could see the whole second legion stretched out before her. Each century camped together in neat rows of ten-men tents. Cookfires flickered brightly in the paling darkness that was this dawn. She could see the half-constructed siege engines that would allow the Ravens to breach Craigwen’s stone walls. The ballista were already arrayed at the foot of the slope. The Combrogi were ready at the fortress gates. Macsen had silenced them for the time being. They wanted to give the Ravens as little notice of their intentions as possible. There was only the ominous quiet that precedes a storm. Taliesin, King Cadal’s bard, stood unarmed, next to Ursula on the dizzying heights. He was ready to immortalise the battle in song, the Combrogi’s own war reporter. Ursula found that she shivered in the finery of her borrowed cloak. Rhonwen’s thickest gold torque fitted too tightly round her own less fragile throat and the crown of mistletoe and holly that Macsen had given her prickled her scalp uncomfortably. She no longer heard the distant call of Rhonwen in her mind, but her influence was all too powerfully present in the scent of her robe and the sorrow in Macsen’s eyes.
‘Why don’t the Combrogi go?’ Ursula’s nerves were stretched too taut. The magic flowed through her so violently she was surprised that her silhouette was not outlined in neon against the still dark sky.
‘Macsen will be winding them up a notch more before they open the gates. It’s a pity there are no chariots, you can compose good stuff about chariots.’
Ursula glanced at the bard to see if he was joking, but then there was a boom as loud as thunder. The great gates opened and Macsen led the Celts in a wild screaming charge down the treacherous slope to the plain.
The first Raven soldiers the Combrogi came to were dead before they could find their weapons. The Combrogi slashed through tents with their great hacking meat cleavers of swords. They massacred their occupants. The Combrogi’s savage cries became whoops of triumph at a slaughter more like farming than battle. It did not last. Within minutes the legionaries had mustered into some kind of battle order and the real fighting began. The legionaries formed themselves into ordered ranks while the auxilia, wild men themselves, engaged in close combat with the Combrogi. Their shorter swords were better suited to fighting at close quarters and the sheer weight of their numbers hampered the Combrogi attack. The Combrogi needed room to swing their long swords. Men began to fall.
Many of the Combrogi carried slings. Those that avoided the onslaught of the auxilia managed to use them to good effect at a longer distance. They threw their spears too into the ranks of the legions but though almost every missile found a target it was because the targets were too numerous. There was a lot of shouting of orders, a lot of screaming, but the initial Combrogi advantage was being lost. There were too many enemies. Ursula looked for Macsen in the mêlée. All men were equally blood-spattered and his distinctive scarlet cloak did not distinguish him. She had not seen Dan at all.
‘Now would be a good time for a bit of magic,’ the bard prompted.
‘What do I do?’
‘Can you do dragons? Birds of prey go down well. Lightning would be good. Something to give the men heart and terrify the Ravens witless. Scream a bit! Invoke curses. Use your imagination!’
The bard appeared to have taken refuge in flippancy. He was sweating profusely. Ursula sensed that the sensitive bard was struggling to deal with the carnage below. Ursula understood what he meant. He was right. The men needed to be given heart. What would Rhonwen have done? Ursula was not by nature a dramatic person but she felt the electricity of the magic run through her. She willed it to emerge from her fingertips. She didn’t know of any curses but they had done Macbeth at school the previous year.
‘When shall we three meet again. In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’ she shrieked, in English. The magic amplified her voice so that it echoed round the battlements. Forked lightning sizzled from the end of her fingers. It illuminated the sky. A stray bolt unexpectedly ignited the wooden siege engines which burned like a beacon in the darkness. She had not intended the destructi
on but it heartened the Combrogi whose cheering almost drowned out the sound of thunder. How could they fail with the gods and Ursula on their side? A hail of arrows and slingshot showered in her direction, but the fortress was on so steep an incline that all of it fell short.
Hane’s men charged to assist the struggling warriors. Dan was among them. In the leaping firelight of the blazing siege engines Ursula saw the cold otherness in his face. He was bear sark again. He held a short dagger in his left hand, Bright Killer in his right. With his left hand he cleared enough space in front of him to enable him to swing Bright Killer in his right. A large gap appeared around him as he advanced. Braveheart snarled at his side. His fellow warriors gave him wide berth; the veteran enemy foot soldiers knew him for what he was. Only the young or the very unlucky tried to beat him in close combat. One of the unlucky was Huw. There was no mistaking their former comrade. He was with a small knot of Lud’s men who had been inspecting the troops when the Combrogi charged. Ursula did not think Dan recognised him, but Huw recognised Dan. To Ursula’s heightened perceptions it seemed that she could almost smell his fear from the battlements. She turned her head so she would not see Huw die.
By now the Raven general had worked out what was happening. He organised men into wide ranks to fill the valley floor. They marched forward one hundred and fifty men at a time, each man’s shield ready to defend his neighbour. As they advanced they stabbed with their short swords. Their advance had the mechanical precision of a machine and there was nowhere for the Combrogi to go. They retreated and were herded backwards towards the fortress gates. The ground was littered with bodies and many were Combrogi. What was Macsen doing? Had Rufinus let him down?
Macsen was suddenly at her side, blood-stained and sweating.
‘We need some kind of signal. I thought Rufinus would have charged by now. What’s keeping him?’ The sun was fully up by now, under the blood-stains his face was ashen and his jaw set.
‘Ursula?’
What was he looking at her for? Surely he and Rufinus had arranged some signal?
‘I was going to torch the siege engines when we needed him, but he will have seen the lightning do that.’
‘He must be able to see what’s going on?’ Ursula fought to keep the impatience from her voice. Surely after all they had done they could not lose the battle for the want of a signal?
‘Not necessarily – they’re keeping well back so as not to be seen. He must be waiting for some other signal.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Ursula’s voice trembled. She was suddenly very scared.
Macsen looked at her in anguish.
Below her she could see that even Dan had been driven back by the disciplined advance. They needed the Eagles.
It happened so effortlessly that even afterwards Ursula was unable to describe how she did it. She jumped down from the exposure of the battlements, ripped off Rhonwen’s cloak, golden torque and woollen robe. Macsen and Taliesin stared at her wide-eyed. They feared that the risk to Dan had unhinged her. Then suddenly, there was a ripple in the morning air and Ursula was gone. In her place there stood a six-foot Golden Eagle, crowned with mistletoe. It hopped with little grace onto the battlements and spread its immense wings and took to the air. It flew over the steep wooded sides of the valley calling. One by one the Raven soldiers looked up to see the giant bird and then all hell broke loose. The eagle was all the signal Rufinus needed.
Combrogi chariots and Eagle cavalry charged down the valley’s slopes into the tightly packed ranks of the Raven infantry. It was the Ravens who now had nowhere to go. They were trapped by their own tight order. Their own cavalry was too far back to assist in any way. The second legion was doomed.
Macsen’s Combrogi chariots gained momentum as they hurtled down the incline. They attacked from both slopes simultaneously. The impact when they finally reached the Raven ranks was serious. The second legion was well disciplined. The centurions had their men raise their shields in a double-shield wall, but none could hold against the force of charging horses. Their nerve broke. Once the Eagles’ heavy cavalry followed through, there were gaps in the lines and a panic that the infantry could exploit. They followed hard behind. They did not charge like the Celts but marched from both sides in disciplined order. If any hope had remained in Raven hearts it must have died then. The Eagles marched at a steady pace with inexorable rhythm. The Combrogi backed against the fortress took advantage of the confusion wrought by the chariots. They hurled missiles and spears and curses into the legion’s ranks. The Ravens fell over each other in an effort to get away from the heavy hooves of the war-horses, to escape the cavalry swords and spears of their riders. The silver tide of the Eagles’ infantry surged forward through the struggling ranks of Ravens. They dealt death the Roman way with the quick sharp thrust of the gladius. The Eagles worked their way through the chaos. Eagle warp cut through Raven weft. Small groups of Ravens managed to take up defensive positions, crouching under their shields, but the Ravens had never expected to fight others as disciplined as themselves. The sight of the gleaming ranks of Roman Eagles ravaged their morale. There was carnage. Some centuries tried a controlled retreat but the chariots and heavy cavalry, having destroyed the order of the ranks, contented themselves with cutting off the retreat and hunting down survivors like game for the table.
The cries of the injured and dying were terrible. It was a scene of horrific ugliness. Dan clung to his madness for sanity was too painful. There no longer was a second legion.
Ursula flew high above the battlefield to escape the stench of death. Birds are not intelligent creatures and Ursula had truly become a bird. She soared high above the carnage, the victory and the tragedy on golden wings. As night fell, a vague memory of something else, a nest maybe, or an egg halted her flight. Something was calling to her. She dived down through the chilly air to land on the battlements. That sparked some memory. Something was waiting for her there. She heard a name being called, ‘Ursula’. What did it mean? The name rang in the great bird’s thoughts as if, from far away, someone was calling to her.
Dan had watched as the giant bird descended to land on the high stone battlements of the fortress. His own madness was gone. His arms ached with the death he’d dealt. Men were still looting and disposing of the Raven dead on the red-stained plain. He was pleased for the Combrogi. He’d kept his vows. He’d survived. Not even that meant much if Ursula was gone. He looked aghast at the beautiful giant eagle. No spark of intelligence glinted in the shining eyes. Dan’s voice cracked with desperate emotion.
‘Taliesin, play! You got to her before. It’s got to work.’
Macsen, Kai and Rufinus joined him on the battlements.
‘We saw her land.’ Kai’s face was grave as he touched Dan’s shoulder with his left hand, his right had been badly injured. He should not have been there.
‘It may not work, Dan, it is what sometimes happens with shape shifters they …’
‘Play, Taliesin!’ Dan could not bear Kai’s kindness.
Taliesin played. Dan moved cautiously forward, the giant bird’s talons were on the same scale as the rest of her.
‘Ursula?’ He could not prevent the word coming out as a kind of a sob.
‘Ursula.’ The giant bird swayed as if she had lost her balance, there was a shimmering and then Ursula was there. Dan leaped forward to catch her as she fell.
‘Get her to the bathhouse! We have to get her warm.’
All that long night Dan kept vigil. Macsen, Kai and Rufinus took turns to leave the victory feast and stay with him. The bard’s duties kept him away but Kai told Dan how the song of Ursula the Golden Eagle who led the Eagles into battle was the highlight of the saga. They brought Dan mead and the champion’s portion. He was given the finest cuts of pork and beef the fortress had to offer. His name was lauded in the highest terms as one of the heroes of Craigwen: The Bear Sark with his bright killing sword who reaped a harvest of Raven heads unmatched by any man alive.
&nb
sp; Dan tried to smile but he felt terrible. He found it impossible to join in the joy at what had been a terrible slaughter. Caradoc had joined Gwyn in the ranks of the dead, Prys was seriously injured, and Kai might well lose his arm but was too drunk to feel the pain. There were around eight hundred Combrogi dead and not a Raven breathed. It was a victory, but when his madness had gone, his ecstasy at killing went with it.
Ursula still breathed and her skin felt warm to the touch. They had wrapped her in layers of cloth. Rufinus brought her a silk shift from a far country and then they had wrapped her in layers of wool and fur. She had not yet spoken. Dan was secretly terrified that she had lost her mind.
It was dawn of the second day after the battle when she finally opened her eyes. Their emerald colour was now so deep it was nearly black, the colour of the deepest waters.
‘Dan? Are you OK? Was there a battle? Did we win?’
‘Ursula! Yes we won. You’ve been sleeping, how do you feel?’
‘Weird. My arms are aching like I’ve been carrying a ton of shopping around for days and my shoulders are stiff.’
Dan’s grin threatened to split his face in two.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Don’t you remember?’
‘Oh, no, did I do something embarrassing?’
‘Only if you consider turning into a Golden Eagle and turning the battle into a rout embarrassing.’
‘I thought that was a dream.’
‘Nope, you really did it – hence the sore arms.’
Ursula groaned. ‘I could murder a cup of tea.’
Dan was suddenly serious. ‘You said that you knew how to get us out of here now. Do you want to go home and get one?’
Ursula sat up.
‘Can you find me some clothes? Not one of those awful shift dresses – trews and a tunic. If we’ve won and Macsen gives us leave, we will have fulfilled our oaths.’
Chapter Twenty-nine