by Manda Scott
Bán bit back on his knuckles. Pride and terror warred within him. “They’re still losing. The Eceni will not be beaten. The last of the Ninth to hold the bank will die as the Batavians did. Plautius will lose five hundred more men to no purpose.”
“I don’t think so. He has half a legion yet that are not committed to the fight. Watch. They’re going in now.”
The standard swung again and the remaining five cohorts crossed in the wake of their comrades to take the Trinovantes once again from behind. This time, half of the mounted warriors turned to face them and give battle.
“Gods, has Togodubnos lost his mind? They should run as they did before.”
“Where to? They’re surrounded. Hosidius Geta is the centurion of the first cohort. He’s been fighting against mounted warriors for years. He won’t let them go.”
The moves had been practised often. The two lines of the IXth met at the ends, enclosing the knot of yellow cloaks as an oyster round a seething pearl. The yellow cloaks spun their mounts, seeking an exit that did not exist. Togodubnos yelled above the noise of battle and the sounds of killing changed as the Trinovantes made a circle facing outwards and began their death-songs, knowing they were doomed.
Corvus tapped a single finger tautly on the pommel of his saddle. “Now if Caradoc has a mind to try to save his brother, we may have just turned the battle.”
Sickly, Bán said, “Here he comes.”
On the edge of their vision, as if ordered by his words, a spear-head of white with a corn-gold tip hurled itself towards the IXth. The legion saw them coming and their commanders had time to prepare their orders. The Ordovices met no resistance. Like a doorway, two blocks of men swung apart to let the galloping warriors through and, like an iron gate, they closed smoothly behind them.
Pandemonium reigned amongst the trapped warriors as yellow cloaks mixed with white and a single multicoloured patchwork worn by a man on a shining bay cavalry horse. The ranks of the IXth closed tightly and did not give them time to form into fighting packs. The warriors abandoned their fighting formation and faced about in ones and twos, each taking care for a shield-mate but no more. The sound of the death-songs grew louder.
“That’s it.” Corvus bounced his closed fist on his pommel. “We’ve got them.”
“Ardacos! There!”
Breaca forced the bear-horse forward, slashing at the white, unprotected face of the legionary who threatened Ardacos. The small man threw up his shield and the stabbing gladius slewed sideways even as the one who had thrust it died. The body was held upright for a while, caught between two others, living, until they too died and the three toppled together, leaking blood and body fluids, onto the churned and ruined turf. Their existence was forgotten long before their bodies fell; it was not a battle that gave time to the individual, to honour the courage of the foe, or the endless acts of selfless valour of those who fought side by side, saving, again and again, the lives of their shield-mates. It was a battle in which one killed, endlessly, on foot and on horseback, using spear and blade and shield-edge and bare hands if necessary. All day Breaca kept her knot of honour guard around her and they threw themselves into the thickest part of the fighting, at times on horseback, cutting off islands of legionaries to circle them, killing, as otters kill salmon, working from the outer rim inwards; at other times they dismounted and held a line on foot, leaving their horses with the best of the children, oath-sworn to mount and ride to safety if the battle overwhelmed the warriors.
Through it all, the battle anger raged in Breaca, spreading out over her warriors and those of the Eceni as it had done since morning, since the first clash at the ford when the two legions had surged forward and the warriors of the defending side had ridden to meet them. It had held through noon when the two armies parted under the high sun and the river had run with blood in the space between them, but only lightly so that it was possible still to see the green-brown weed and the shoals of silvery fish that flashed beneath the surface. It had held after that when the hard-ridden horse from the south had been seen to join the legions, its rider borne forward on a wave of enthusiasm to reach the commander, and the news of reinforcements, of the two missing legions, spread down from him to the ranks. Even then the fire of Mona had held and had carried them into a new charge and another so that still the warriors of the right flank believed in ultimate victory.
The certainty lived in Breaca as a thing apart, sustained, she believed, by the dreamers. She could feel Airmid, as if she fought at her shoulder, with Macha and Maroc behind, two bears linked in defence of their land. Luain mac Calma was everywhere, adding the sharpness of vision that was the heron’s, and Efnís circled above, a grey broad-arrowed falcon seeking the kill. All of them kindled the blaze of the gods’ fire and kept it burning in the souls of those who fought, that they might not know fear or desperation in the face of overwhelming numbers.
Only once had Breaca lost the feel of that. She had been on foot, braced against the onslaught of the IInd legion, when the unborn foal had been raised by the Batavian murderers on the far side of the battlefield and word had passed, like fire in ripe corn, of the sacrilege. She was caught at the edge of the river and could not reach the Batavians but she had killed instead their Roman allies, alone and recklessly, lacking the surety of Mona’s fire but consumed only with a desperate grief that had pushed her far into the enemy lines, until Ardacos and Gwyddhien and Braint had dragged her back out to the safe place where the children brought water and had made her stop and drink and take thought for Mona and the greater good. But the IInd legion had crossed the river and for a while it was all any of them could do to survive. Later, word had come from the water-children that the slaughtered mare had been a bay, not a grey, and the knowledge had burned in Breaca; a small thing to be treasured through the carnage, adding to the greater exultation when the IInd were forced into retreat.
That had been an age away, part of her distant past. In between lay the red haze of slaughter. In the battle lines, she knew only the killing, the watch and strike at bared heads or limbs, the wrench of the bear-horse beneath her as it fought with her and for her, killing as she killed, to live, to make a space in front of her that Ardacos and Braint, Gwyddhien and Dubornos might also live, to keep the stabbing blades away from Gunovic, who fought now on her right, his grey horse made russet with drying blood, his hammer breaking helmets as a stone breaks eggs and his sword severing limbs from the living. It was good, when she had time to think of it, to fight with Gunovic. He had slowed in the past years, but he still fought as savagely as he had ever done. Since the Roman reinforcements had come, he had taken to wielding his smith’s hammer in his left hand instead of a shield, saying he could kill twice as many that way. Both of them knew he would die for it. Neither had said so; the choice was his own. Breaca killed that he might live and trusted him to kill for her in return, and for Ardacos who rode on her left, her shield side, fighting to protect her from thrown javelins and unseen blades. He had claimed and lost three shields and was fighting now with a legionary scutum, square-edged and curved for infantry, not cavalry. A gladius flashed up towards him and he beat it down with his own blade, leaving the kill for Braint, who gasped thanks and set up another for him in return. In a craziness of changing patterns, in a whirl of improvisation and invention that went beyond all of Mona’s training, beyond even the battle against Berikos, the honour guard of Mona killed for each other, and for those beyond; and in the back of her mind, in the threads of her soul, Breaca killed also for Caradoc, who was bound to her by the bright weave of Mona and who, somewhere on the battlefield, was facing his death, or believed it so. In her mind, he grinned and became a grinning skull and the wrench in her gut set fresh fire to the anger and the loathing and the blaze of it burned more fiercely through her and those around her so that, after a moment, there was space to breathe and to look.
Breaca killed the man in front of her and let the bear-horse rise to smash the face of his shield-mate. In that momen
t, lifted high above the fray, she could see the greater plan of battle. She knew the Roman standards; their images were carved on her soul. The IInd legion was gone, called back beyond the safety of the river. The fresh men of the IXth held firm, fighting on two fronts, and, in their centre, a sea of iron encased a clustered bud of yellow. A dark head showed, towering above the others, and another harvest-pale with a multicoloured cloak beneath.
Caradoc.
The bear-horse dropped to the ground again and already the battle had passed them by; Venutios had led his Brigantes in a charge that cut across the warriors of Mona, pushing the legion back. A child of ten came running with water, risking bare feet on naked blades and the hacking spite of the dying. He was not Cunomar, but he was as strong and as agile and he had the sense to keep clear of the worst danger. With a smile that shone pride, he handed Breaca the jug. Remembering to smile back, she drank and passed the jug to Gwyddhien. The tide of battle swept onward, allowing those who had fought to rest and those who had rested to rejoin the fighting. It had been so since morning, but now Caradoc was trapped.
“The legions have taken Togodubnos and Caradoc.” Breaca stood on her saddle to see.
“I saw it. Come down.” Ardacos pulled at her sleeve, wary of hurled javelins or slingers amongst the enemy. “If they can’t fight out, we can’t get in. If they’re hit, we’ll hear soon enough.”
They heard it immediately. Togodubnos is down! The word flew through the ranks ahead in half a dozen tongues, cheering the Romans and devastating the Brigantes who battled against them. Togodubnos is injured by the river and Caradoc is trapped with him.
Among the warriors of Mona, Gwyddhien shouted it first, as a question, and then others in confirmation. In her mind, Breaca re-drew the pattern of the battlefield: the solid block of Romans retreating now in the face of the Brigantes, and the ring of legionaries by the river, eight deep in places, that encircled the beleaguered Trinovantes. They were in a dip, at a place where the ground sloped unevenly towards the water. Bushes and uncleared scrub disrupted the Roman encirclement and there was a place on the far western edge where the ranks of the legion thinned to barely two men deep. Behind that, the land sloped up into a small hill. Breaca prayed to Briga, whose presence filled the air around her. In answer, she remembered Airmid’s dream.
The Warrior’s horn sprang to her hand and bellowed above the noise of battle. Breaca rose in her saddle and held her shield above her head where the serpent-spear could be clearly seen. Her voice carried high above the rest. “Mona and the serpent-spear, to me!” Her honour guard massed around her, then the loose warriors not caught in the thick of the fighting. Others backed away, still killing. She had fifty, a hundred, two hundred, enough. She turned the bear-horse to her right, to the north, away from the thick of the fighting. At her back, the pulse of battle shifted and quickened.
They were five hundred at most, riding against two thousand. Breaca led them at a gallop round the back of the small hillock west of the main battleground. The fighting had not passed this way before; on the cold northern side, their hooves printed tracks on undamaged turf. At the far side they paused, taking breath out of sight of the battle, and Ardacos squirmed to the top of the hillock, returning in moments to report that the ring of the legions was the same, but that more Trinovantes had died. He had not seen Caradoc.
Breaca gave her commands. The five hundred were of Mona; they trusted their Warrior and they had practised together for this. Briga was with them, and the dreamers. The battle rage burned, encasing them all, as it had at the first. With quiet efficiency, they made a long, waiting line, two and three abreast, and their horses tensed, prick-eared, as they might at the start of a race. Along the full length, warriors regripped their shields and brought their blades to the level. At the fore, Breaca raised the serpent-blade and put the bullhorn to her lips. It was not the first time since Mona that she had blown it, but it was the first with the fire raging pure and undimmed inside her. Her whole body shook to the beat of her heart, with pride and with passionate hatred of the enemy, with the fierce exultation of battle. She took a breath and gave everything to the sounding of the horn. In deafening purity, the blast rang the length of the battlefield and beyond, to the realms of the gods. The bear-horse leaped like a deer from standing start to racing gallop and the horses of Mona thundered behind, following the banner of radiant copper that marked their Warrior above all those in the field. As they rounded the hill, they made a writhing snake with the bear-horse racing in front, an ugly, perfect, lethal serpent’s head—Airmid’s dream, made real by Nemain’s will, to send all of Rome to Briga.
Breaca set her blade in a perfect line with her arm and, this once, freed by the gods from the burden of the greater conflict, made by them their willing hammer of retribution, she howled the battle cry that was her brother’s name.
From nowhere, screaming, red-haired, flaming death fell on the men of the IXth legion and those closest turned in terror, exposing their backs to the warriors trapped in the circle. In the moment of impact, the Trinovantes threw themselves on the inner ring of men as the snake-head of Mona smashed in from the outside. Caught between, the shell of iron shattered, pouring yellow cloaks like pus from a fresh-lanced wound. Romans died in their hundreds and lay as broken toys.
Breaca found Caradoc near the centre, surrounded by his knot of Ordovices. The multicoloured cloak lay on the ground at his horse’s feet, covering a body. The battle had moved away from them, forced down to the water by Venutios’s Brigantes and the greater mass of Mona, pursuing victory to its certain end. The Romans were running for the river with the warriors riding them down from behind. Those who died in the last moment of the battle did so with spears in their backs or sword-cuts to the spine. Of the ring that had surrounded the Trinovantes, none were left alive.
In the space where they had been, Caradoc slid down from his horse. Clotting blood glued his hands to the reins so that he had to struggle to free them. Blood crusted the left half of his face from a wound on the scalp. His eyes were rawly bloodshot, full of dust and the debris of other men’s dying. Stiffly, as if everything ached, he knelt by his cloak and the body beneath it. Breaca dropped to the ground beside him. The blaze of battle had died, leaving her lightheaded and hollow. To think required an effort of will, like walking through snow, but she had known before they ever stopped fighting that Caradoc was alive, that he had dropped his cloak to the ground and for whom. Reaching out, she touched the corner of the coloured weave.
“Togodubnos?” she asked.
“Yes.” Caradoc nodded, pain and exhaustion plain in his face. He let her draw back the corner of his cloak. Beneath it, his brother lay still, his face white and pinched with pain, lacking the peace of the newly dead. Breaca put a hand to his neck and felt the faintest flutter of a pulse.
“He’s still alive.”
“I know. But he will die soon. See…” He drew the cloak further down, past the shoulder, so that she could see what he had already known. The haft of the javelin that had hit him had been broken off. The head lived in the space between Togodubnos’s right armpit and his breastbone. It was a miracle that he had survived so long.
“Here.” Ardacos was there, leading a spare horse. He had fought at her side all day. She owed him her life too many times to count, and he owed her likewise. He, too, knelt on the smashed turf and laid a hand on Togodubnos’s neck. “We should get him to the dreamers. If he’s to die, it should not be here. The Romans think they have lost and we have won. It will be good if they think our victory unmarred by death.”
“They are right. Don’t let this change it.” The wounded man opened his eyes. He set his teeth and pushed himself half to sitting. “I can ride. Get me on a horse. I must be seen to leave the field alive. After that, you can give me to the dreamers.”
“They’ve done it, they’ve routed the Ninth. And Caradoc lives. I think his brother also. He’s riding from the field. It’s over for now. It’s too close to night to try
again. They have won, at least for today.”
Bán found he had not taken a breath and did so, heavily. For a moment, all about him did the same. Then the roar from the defending warriors reached them, as deafening as any in the battle. It began as inchoate cheering and resolved, presently, into a chant, a single word repeated over and over in triumph, in celebration, in challenge.
“What are they saying?” Vespasian was closest to them, the legate of the IInd, who had seen his men forced into humiliating retreat at the river. “You, Corvus, you know their language. What are they saying?”
Corvus’s hands, gripping the pommel of his saddle, were bone white. With his eyes still on the enemy, he said, “Boudeg, I think. It means ‘Bringer of Victory.’ It is an accolade reserved for the greatest of warriors. It will be Caradoc, or Togodubnos. Or both; it could be for them both.”
“No.” Bán stared unseeing at the heaving mass of blue and grey that had been his people. The noise broke over him in oceanic waves and he wished himself drowned. “It’s not Caradoc. He was lost. They’re celebrating the warrior who rescued him.” He turned to Vespasian, who was watching him keenly. “The charge from the west was led by a woman, the Warrior of Mona. The name they are calling is Boudica. She Who Brings Victory.”
CHAPTER 29
The hut in which they laid Togodubnos was little more than a windbreak with a roof, set far behind the battle lines. Pyres burned at all quarters; their light flickering through the wall slats cast more shadows than the torches within. Sage-smoke sweetened the air, smothering the twin corruptions of battle-sweat and impending death. Togodubnos lay stripped to the waist, sweating in the cool air. The javelin head remained in place, black against the livid skin. It was clear even to those without skill in healing that to remove it would kill him faster than anything and that, while he lived, his pain would not be less with it gone. Cunomar stood beside the bier, holding his father’s hand. The child had been near the horse lines when the Batavians attacked and had seen his father’s second mount maimed and slain. He had not spoken since, except once to confirm that he knew his mother was dead.