Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  Spring unsheathed her sword, stood up and cut into the cage’s bars. The wicker woman lurched again.

  Dug heaved. He’d thought it would be impossible to pull the wicker woman over and it wasn’t far off that, but it was coming. He’d hoped that Spring might have given him the sort of strength she’d given him against Tadman; she had just disappeared, after all, so was clearly full of magic, but he didn’t seem to be any stronger than usual. It was going to be a close-run thing whether the Murkans got to him first. The big woman was coming fast as a charging hunting dog, and many more were close behind.

  The wicker woman dropped a pace and a cloud of sparks exploded from its base, but it was still upright. The real woman was almost on him, sword raised. She really was a big one. It must be Pomax, the queen of the Murkans, he thought – Spring had told him about the woman besting Lowa and throwing her off a cliff. Anyone who beat Lowa was probably a better fighter than him. Standing with a rope in two hands wasn’t the cleverest way to meet her attack.

  Badgershit! Did he give up pulling on the rope and save himself? But Lowa was in the wicker woman, in the head, and the flames were licking up the torso. Probably, on the inside, they were already in the head.

  Pomax was a pace away. Badger’s tits, he thought. He heaved. Pomax’s sword came down. He jinked to one side and tucked his chin into his chest. The sword clanged hard on the top of his helmet. He heaved and the rope came another half a pace. Pomax swung her sword round in a decapitation arc. Dug closed his eyes and hauled.

  The rope went slack and he stumbled backwards. Pomax’s sword swing cut hairs from his beard. Had Spring’s arrow pinged free or had he pulled the wicker woman over? He regained his footing. She was coming at him again, swinging down at his shoulder. Behind her, the wicker woman was falling.

  He launched himself backwards to dodge the blow, picking up his hammer as he hit the ground, and rolled. He came up on his feet as the wicker woman crashed to the ground ten paces away in an eruption of sparks. Burning figures ran and crawled from it. Was one of them Lowa? And where was Spring?

  He looked about for them frantically but realised that he’d forgotten about Pomax when there was a loud snap and his arms were pinned to his sides. Pomax’s whip. He strained, but it was no good. He was trapped. His hammer was still in his hand, but the only things he could do with it were hit himself on the shins or drop it on his own foot.

  Pomax walked towards him, gathering in her whip as she came. What could he do? He tried falling to the ground, but she held him up. Badger’s bollocks, she was strong.

  She lifted the sword to chop at his neck.

  There was a blur to his left. A nude blonde woman flew past his shoulder, feet first, and whacked into Pomax’s chest.

  The kick would have killed most people. It knocked Pomax two paces back. She smiled, seemingly uninjured, dropped the whip and pointed her sword at her new adversary. “I’ve got to beat you again, have I?”

  Lowa was unarmed, maybe a third of Pomax’s weight, and naked.

  Dug strained at the whip, but it held fast. He looked around. The burning wicker woman had fallen on the Murkans immediately behind Pomax, and the rest were having to skirt round it. For now they only had to beat Pomax. But she was enough, and Dug couldn’t help.

  The Murkan queen danced forwards, light-footed and speedy, sword flashing everywhere. Lowa dodged, ducked, flashed out her left fist and punched Pomax hard on the nose. The much bigger woman swung blindly with the sword. Lowa dropped under it easily and slammed in one, two, three, four stomach punches, then drove her arm like a spear into Pomax’s windpipe, crushing it.

  Pomax clutched at her neck and tottered on the spot. Lowa leapt, spun and whacked the sole of her foot into the side of her adversary’s head. Pomax eyes flew wide and she fell back.

  Dug felt someone behind him. It was Spring, freeing him from the whip.

  “My bow?” asked Lowa.

  Dug was so happy to see her that he just stood, smiling, until a slingstone whacked into his arm and brought him back into the real world. He ran over to where he’d left her bow. Another slingstone whizzed past his head and he heard the thrumming twang of Spring’s longbow. He handed Lowa her own bow. Spring was already slotting another arrow, one slingman down.

  As Spring carried on, Lowa plucked an arrow from her quiver, nocked, drew and shot. Two more Murkans went down. Dug looked from one to the other and beamed.

  “Did you bring a quiver for me?” Lowa asked.

  “We hadn’t planned on a battle,” Dug said, gathering his rope. “Come on.” So far she’d asked for her bow and her arrows. He wondered when she was going to remember to ask for clothes. He was in no hurry to remind her.

  They headed east, back to the waterfall, Spring and a naked Lowa keeping the Murkan pursuers at bay with well-placed shots.

  As they crested the hill, Dug looked over his shoulder. The Murkans were following hesitantly, nobody keen to be the next to take an arrow. Among them, he saw the large figure of Pomax climb to her feet and shake her head. Tough girl that, he thought.

  Chapter 53

  They rode south, hard, swapping horses regularly. After a few miles they turned west and employed the old walk-along-a-stream evasion trick.

  The gentle rising sun sharpened the edges of the soft night, and Dug could see by Lowa’s lolling head that she was in danger of falling asleep and tumbling from her mount. Spring had said something about Lowa taking a little time to recover from her injuries. Dug hadn’t seen any wounds on her, but she certainly hadn’t been her usual self. He wasn’t much more awake himself.

  “We’ll stop up ahead,” he said, his voice loud in the damp morning.

  “Why?” Lowa sounded as tired as she looked. But she still looked amazing, thought Dug, despite being dressed in clothes far too large for her, stripped from the guard that Spring had mouth-shot at the top of the waterfall.

  “Because you look worn out. If you fall off your horse and knock your brains out on a tree stump, nobody will ever believe that we rescued you.”

  “Hmmmm,” she replied.

  He was pretty sure they’d shaken any pursuit, but they did the stream trick again once more before finding a deserted forester’s hut deep in the trees.

  “It’s used in autumn only,” said Spring, “for chestnut gathering, by the spikey husks around it.”

  “Right,” said Dug, yawning. “You two get some rest. I’ll take first watch.”

  “No you won’t,” said Spring. “I feel like I’ve just woken after a thousand sleeps. Must be the magic. You two sleep, I’ll guard. I’ll sing if anybody comes.”

  Dug ducked into the hut after Lowa. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the only furniture in the hut was one broad wooden bed with neither bedding nor blanket. Lowa lay on the bed. Dug crouched on the floor to sweep clean a man-sized area with his hand.

  “Come on, Dug,” said Lowa, “the bed’s more than big enough.”

  He lay next to her. She turned away from him. He turned in the same direction and put his hand on her arm. She didn’t flinch, but her breathing quickened and deepened. He let his hand fall so his arm was around her. Her scent was flowers, musk and dried earth, exactly as it had been that day they’d met and slept in the clearing. Here they were again, in the same situation, fleeing from pursuers and sleeping while Spring kept watch. Surely that was a sign that they could start anew?

  “Lowa?” he whispered, gently pulling her into him.

  She gave a little gasp, shifted backwards towards his embrace, breathed in a long, rasping breath, and began to snore.

  Dug chuckled, then lay awake for a long while.

  Chapter 54

  Ten days after Caesar had wiped out the Nervee, Atlas, Carden and Chamanca were by the rocky Gaulish coast. They’d escaped the battleground by heading up through the trees, in the path of Felix’s mysterious warriors. They’d found no trace of a dark legion, only hundreds of dead Nervee, some killed cleanly, some chopped in
to pieces, some ripped apart and some crushed.

  Late one morning, they walked past more ancient standing stones than Chamanca had ever seen in one place and into the coastal town of Karnac, in the land of the Fenn-Nodens tribe. The Fenn-Nodens, Atlas told them, were a collection of clans and tribes, part of a larger agglomeration called the Armoricans. They occupied a broad peninsula which did much trade with the Dumnonians, a short sail across the Channel in Britain. The Armorican tribes’ territory stretched further north, along the coast opposite Maidun’s lands and south-east Britain.

  Atlas had insisted that the famously indomitable Armoricans were their best hope for preventing an invasion of Britain. They were also, Chamanca had pointed out, the last. Annoyingly, though, the Armoricans had rolled over in front of the Romans like a puppy snarled at by a war dog. They hadn’t capitulated officially, but Caesar had insisted that a couple of the offspring of each tribal leader should visit him and stay for a while, and the children had been sent. So the Romans had hostages.

  Worse, as if he were an imperious guest taking the elder of the house’s seat nearest the hearth while the householders watched in meek acquiescence, they’d let Caesar commandeer every boatyard and dock along the entire Armorican coast, and more on the broad river that led inland from Fenn-Nodens territory. The general had set them all to building the ships that would carry his forces across the Channel.

  As they walked along Karnac’s industrious wharf, all around was the busy sawing, banging and shouting of people who were being paid more than they’d ever been paid before, assembling ships at an unprecedented rate.

  “Nobody would ever work this hard in Britain,” said Carden.

  “Indeed,” said Atlas.

  Atlas had insisted that they come to Karnac to find the leader of the Fenn-Nodens, but, seeing that the leader was already kissing the hem of the Roman toga, he’d decided not to rush straight in and start advising on war tactics. So right now they were, according to Atlas, on reconnaissance, judging what their next move should be. Chamanca reckoned they were wandering about like clueless idiots.

  They came to the end of the dock. Here was an area that had once sprouted with well-placed trees, for fishers and workers to relax in the shade. Now it was a grassy area of freshly cut tree stumps, the wood taken for boat building. A couple of entrepreneurs had inevitably spotted a market, and were selling mugs of beer. The Fenn-Nodens who were too old, infirm or laid back to work on the boats were here, sprawled about on the grass, drinking in the sun.

  “Might as well have a beer,” said Atlas.

  “Best plan yet,” Carden nodded.

  A short while later, a musician came wandering along, lyre in hand. He was an unlikely looking bard. He was old, perhaps fifty, but still with a full head of grey-black, curly hair. He wore the tight leather trousers and figure-gripping jerkin of a younger man, which seemed an odd choice to Chamanca, given that he was skinny to the point of feebleness, but with a belly like an eight-moons’ pregnant women. If she’d had his figure, she’d have worn an ankle-length frock smock.

  Despite his appearance, Chamanca saw that he was respected. As people noticed him they stopped their own conversations to watch him pass. When he arrived at the beer table, two men squabbled over who would buy him a drink until he magnanimously agreed to accept one from each of them.

  He stood, surveying his potential audience.

  “What’s the news, Cathbad?” someone shouted.

  “Tell us what’s happening!” cried another.

  Cathbad looked over his listeners. He had a long, pudgy face and an irreverent glint in his eye.

  “I’ve ridden all night, from the seat of the Haddatookey tribe. Or, what was once the Haddatookey tribe. Because the Haddatookey tribe are no more. I have just witnessed…” He paused. His audience were silent. “…the biggest disaster in the world.”

  “What happened? Were there survivors? Are the Romans coming here?” people shouted.

  Cathbad waited until they were quiet. “Julius Caesar is not a man to cross,” he said in a low voice to draw his audience in; then, louder: “as the Haddatookey found out, to a dreadful, dreadful cost.”

  He took a long draught of beer and burped. “King Thaldor agreed to help the Romans against the Nervee. But Thaldor is a man who’s always had trouble differentiating his arse from his elbow.” Cathbad waited for the laugher and calls of “Too right!” to subside. “So he didn’t manage to send his army in time, and he missed the battle. Caesar won anyway and this terrified simple Thaldor. He was convinced the Romans would think that he’d planned to help the Nervee and be out to get him. But what could he do?”

  Cathbad rolled his eyes bardishly. Everyone was gripped by the story.

  “I’ll tell you what he did. He made a terrible mistake. The Haddatookey capital is the most impenetrable town in the world. Cliffs guard three sides and a high double wall protects the other. Thaldor and the Haddatookey must have felt safe there, because when Caesar and his army arrived they stood on the walls, showed the Romans their arses, and mocked them for…” – Cathbad looked around as if checking for something – “…being such ugly dwarfs!” Chamanca realised he’d been making sure there were no legionaries about.

  This got more cheers. The Romans were generally shorter than the Gauls, and the Gauls loved to tease them about it, although rarely to their faces.

  “The Romans, efficient people that they are, ignored the gibes, walked back to their camp and started to assemble siege engines. Now, can anybody guess how many they’d built before Thaldor crapped in his red woollen trousers and surrendered?”

  “Ten?”

  “A hundred?”

  “A thousand?”

  Cathbad smiled and shook his head. “One. One siege engine went up, and Thaldor crawled from the town like a worm. Now, as your rulers have had the sense to see, Julius Caesar is a reasonable man. I’ve met him and he’s a good chap, some interesting views. But you don’t want to cross him.

  “Caesar ordered the Haddatookey to surrender all their weapons, and that was all. Such a decent guy. He even told them to lock their gates again, so that his own soldiers couldn’t come in and trouble their young women or silversmiths.

  “That should have been the end of it. But Thaldor, a man who makes seagulls look bright, kept some of his weapons. That night, he guessed that the Romans would throw a party then sleep the sleep of the drunk, because that’s what he and the Haddatookey would have done after another tribe’s surrender. So he armed as many as he could and led an attack from the gates.”

  Chamanca knew what was coming next. She looked at Atlas, who shook his head in disappointment.

  “The Romans, being Romans, were waiting for them. They let Thaldor and his force walk into their apparently sleeping camp, poured from their tents, slaughtered the lot, then marched through the unarmed town’s open gates.”

  Cathbad set down his beer mug and looked serious.

  “Any children might want to block their ears. This is where it gets nasty.”

  Chamanca looked about. The few children there were bouncing with excitement. One man tried to put his hands over a young girl’s ears, but she squirmed from his grasp.

  Cathbad shook his head. “All the remaining weapons had gone out with the assault, so there was no resistance. The Romans got to raping. They’re not a particular lot and they raped everyone in the town. Everyone.”

  The drinkers were quiet. Cathbad nodded and continued: “When they’d finished, they slapped all of them in chains. The next afternoon I spoke to a slave trader. She reckoned that Caesar had taken seventy thousand Haddatookey captive. I think it was more.”

  Cathbad smiled, ruefully. “And that, my dear Fenn-Nodens people, is why you do not fight Rome. And you never, ever tease them about their height. The little men don’t like it!”

  There was a hubbub of agreement.

  “Come on,” said Atlas, “there’s no point staying here. Let’s go.”

  “Home?�
� asked Carden.

  “Not yet. First we’ll tour the Armorican chiefs and see if we can find anyone with the courage to face the Romans.”

  Chapter 55

  Dug woke on the bed in the hut to find Lowa’s snores had been replaced by Spring’s.

  They waited for night to move, then kept to woodland tracks. They were certain that Grummog would have sent patrols looking for them, but they saw nobody. Initially Dug was awkward talking to Lowa and she didn’t seem overly happy talking to him either. After trying and failing to convince himself that their silence was comfortable he fell back to ride alongside Spring. The girl, however, insisted that he and Lowa should ride ahead to bear the brunt of an ambush, and that she should ride behind, listening with her better ears for followers.

  Slowly, a few observations here and a joke there turned into a conversation. By dawn, they were talking like old friends after the third drink. It was mostly about Lowa’s rule of Maidun, preparing for the Romans, and this new threat from Eroo. Dug was surprised to hear Lowa asking for his council and listening intently while he gave it. He was more surprised to hear himself coming up with sensible sounding plans and logical solutions for logistical problems. When they finally got on to the subject of Dug’s farm, Lowa seemed genuinely interested, and had some great ideas for what to do with all his surplus honey.

  When he rode next to her, his jarringly bony mount became a bouncing cushion of air. Despite Dug looking for one, they didn’t find a handily abandoned one-bed hut again, so when they rested behind thickets and banks, Dug couldn’t find an excuse to repeat the curled-up sleeping arrangement. However, Spring kept herself busy making camp, foraging and scouting while Dug spent all his time with Lowa, feeling as happy as a drowning sailor who’s been hoicked from the sea, lain on a warm feather mattress and is being massaged dry by the breasts of beautiful, busty mermaids. Nothing physical happened between them – nothing sexual anyway – but every time they touched – passing a waterskin or just brushing along – that part of Dug fizzed as if tickled by tiny bolts of lightning.