by Angus Watson
All along the shore, Romans watched in silence, apart from where fights had broken out with spectating Gauls who had expressed opinions on how the battle was going.
“Not a perfect start,” said Caesar. “Felix, Caesar doesn’t like this wind.”
“I will see what I can do,” replied the druid, shaking his head like a builder assessing a task, “but I’ll need five children under the age of ten.”
“Children?” asked Ragnall. “Really?”
Felix looked at him with a mixture of disgust and pity in his eyes. “Make that ten children, all under the age of ten,” he said.
“Can you do it with five?” Caesar asked.
“Probably,” Felix admitted.
“Praetorians! Fetch five children. Quickly!” Caesar commanded.
Chapter 16
Atlas and Mal led four companies of infantry up Frogshold Hill, sending the rest to the coast to take up positions next to the Dumnonians. The Frogsholders capitulated and opened their gates the moment they saw four hundred well-armed Maidunites marching in good order up the hill. Over to the west, the Eroo fleet sailed ever closer.
With Tayden and her retinue dead, Atlas demanded to see the next in charge. There was some debate among the Frogsholders before an ironsmith named Glun was pushed forward. He was short, dark-haired but balding, with a head wider than it was tall. Glun’s looks, coupled with his furtive manner, put Mal in mind of a mole. The Frogsholders, guarded by Maidun swords, looked on in churlish silence, other than two babies who cried roaringly despite their mothers’ efforts to quieten them.
Glun was not a natural chief. “What do you want? What did I do? Leave us alone,” he said, looking at his feet.
Atlas loomed over him and growled. Glun seemed to shrink. “You have a choice, Glun,” the Kushite rumbled, “I kill you, or you tell us why you did not warn us about the Eroo fleet’s approach.”
“You can kill those babies if you like. My hut’s next to one of the brats and the nights that me and Shayla have lain awake, just hoping one day that some big African—”
Glun stopped talking as Atlas pulled his axe from its holster on his back. He seemed mesmerised by the weapon’s glinting edge.
“What I meant to say was that it was the Dumnonians that made us,” he stammered.
Atlas looked at Mal. That was not good news.
“Which Dumnonians?” Mal asked.
“What d’you mean, which Dumnonians? Dumnonian ones. From Dumnonia.” Glun was combative again, Atlas’ axe apparently forgotten.
“Was it Bruxon, their king?”
“No, definitely not him. I know what he looks like and it wasn’t him. It was about twenty of them. They spoke funny. Different from normal Dumnonians. More uppy and downy. They said if we warned you about any ships that came they’d kill everyone. So that’s why we didn’t. It was Tayden’s decision and nothing to do with any of us and you’ve already killed her. So you’d better leave us be.”
“What were you going to do if I’d still been in the hillfort when the Murkans appeared?” Mal asked.
“We were meant to stop you sending the shout.” Glun looked at his feet. “We would have tied you up or something…”
“You mean you would have killed me.”
“They said they’d kill everyone! And look how many are coming!” He pointed at the fleet. It was perhaps six thousand paces out to sea and Glun did have a point. It was terrifyingly numerous.
“All right,” said Atlas. “You and every other Frogsholder are to leave, now. Head north then turn west into Kimruk, but keep to the coast to avoid the Murkans and the Maidun army coming south. That’s the safest place for you. I daresay you’ll be able to come back at some point.”
“But we’ve got nothing ready! We don’t know anybody in—”
“You betrayed us,” said Mal, “and you planned to kill me. Most Warriors would torture you all to death for that. Atlas is giving you your freedom on the condition that you bugger off immediately. I suggest you take his offer, because his next one is going to be a lot more death-focused.”
“No,” said Glun, stiffening and staring up at them. “Frogsholders have been on Frogshold for thousands of years. We’re not going to—”
Before Mal realised that Atlas was moving, he’d swung his axe overhead and cleaved the angry little man from shoulder to hip. Glun’s two halves fell to the ground in a wash of blood.
There was a gasp from Frogsholders and Maidun troops alike. Everyone took a step back.
“What the Bel, Atlas?” Mal half drew his sword. “There was no need to—”
“We do not have time to fuck about,” said Atlas, then louder: “All Frogsholders: out, head north then west into Kimruk. I will not ask again. Any Frogsholders still within the hillfort walls in twenty heartbeats’ time will never leave.”
Mal was still staring at Glun’s ruined body. Glun’s twitching eyes looked back, his mouth still opening and closing.
“Come on, Mal,” said Atlas. “We need to garrison this place with one company and take the others to meet Eroo. Now.”
Mal shook his head. “But if the Dumnonians are with Eroo, we should retreat to Maidun or at least Gutrin Tor to meet Lowa with the rest of the army and hold there. There’s no way that the infantry alone can—”
“I don’t think the Dumnonians are in league with Eroo. Nobody could be that stupid.” Atlas wiped his axe on the grass.
“Apart from Glun said—”
“If you were an advance scout from Eroo, would you say you were from Eroo? No, you’d say you were from Dumnonia, so that when we found out we’d fly into a panic. If we believed your story. And Glun said their voices were ‘uppy downy’. That sounds to me more like an Eroo accent than a Dumnonian one.”
Mal nodded. Atlas was probably right, but Mal was far from convinced. Even if the heavies who’d threatened Frogshold had been from Eroo and not Dumnonia, it didn’t mean that Dumnonia wasn’t going to turn traitor. Mal had been cheated in a game of bone-dice by a Dumnonian once. He’d seemed like a decent fellow, convincingly and smilingly apologetic for his good fortune. It had been a moon later that Mal had suddenly realised how he’d been tricked. He hadn’t trusted a Dumnonian since. Nor played dice, for that matter.
“We’ll be wary of the Dumnonians,” the Kushite continued, seeing the look in Mal’s eye, “but let’s not believe that they’re the enemy yet.” He looked around. “Where’s Adler?”
“Here.” Adler strode forward. “You want me to ride to Lowa?”
“Yes. Tell her everything that’s happened here.”
Chapter 17
Chamanca tried to look on the positive side. The skill of the Fenn-Nodens sailors was pleasing. The crews operated like limbs of the helmsman of each ship, responding to commands almost before they were given, pulling and freeing ropes to shift the leather sails into positions that best harnessed the wind’s power. As a group, the Fenn-Nodens boats moved in wonderful synchronicity, like dancers from her homeland. That, objectively speaking, was a delight to see. More importantly, as Carden had put it, they were pissing all over the Romans. The Gaulish tactics were working and the Romans didn’t appear to have any. Each attack group killed so many rowers that the Romans were increasingly immobile, and, if things carried on like this, eventually the Fenn-Nodens would be able to close in, board and finish off individual ships without too much trouble.
The massive negative, which overrode all the positives, and which she was trying to ignore to prevent her from biting a passing sailor, was that so far she’d done nothing but watch and become increasingly hungry for blood. Not being fed, she could handle. Expecting to be fed and not being fed made her quiver.
“Buck up, Chamanca!” Carden clapped her on a shoulder, almost sending her into the sea.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
Carden laughed: “You look like a cat with a wasp up its arse.”
She felt her expression soften. Carden always cheered her up, Fenn knew why.
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“I know what you mean, though,” Carden looked at the Roman flotilla and shook his head. “It’s a bit like being a fairy sitting on the rim of someone’s helmet during a battle. You see everything just fine, but it would be great to get involved.”
“I agree.” Chamanca poked his chest. “You must know exactly how a fairy feels.”
As usual, the barbed comment didn’t stick in Carden. “Why don’t you use your sling on the next pass?” he said, gripping her arm and nodding like a boy encouraging others to play his favourite game. “It’s fun! I got five on the last one. Well, four and a half. One of them was on the arm, so I shouldn’t count him. But four was still more than everyone else. Bet you don’t get more than three.”
“Well done, but no thank you. I don’t like killing people from a distance. I’ll hold until we board them.”
“Well, you may have a while to wait. I can see Vastivias’ plan. If we can wear them down … hang on, look over there!”
Two relatively swift Roman ships were making a break for it, southwards and out to sea. One of them, a good deal larger than the rest with an eagle standard sticking up from the stern, was surely the command ship. Chamanca turned to shout to Vastivias, but he’d already seen them. He spoke to his whistler, who piped out a series of blasts. The helmsman leant on the tiller, the crew pulled ropes, the ship changed course and surged through the waves towards its quarry. The five other ships in their group had performed the same manoeuvre at the same time, and together they set off in pursuit of the two fleeing ships.
Soon she could hear shouted commands from the Roman boats, all on the theme of “row faster”. But the rowers were panicking, clashing oars and actually slowing the two ships. Chamanca fancied that she could smell their fear. She looked behind them, where another group of six Fenn-Nodens ships were following in their wake. The rest of the Roman fleet hadn’t moved. Very soon they’d be on the two bolters. She gripped Carden’s arm and he whooped in delighted pursuit. Her mouth filled with saliva.
Chapter 18
Murkan feet thundered closer. Murkan battle cries rang louder. Dug hunkered behind his shield, shoulder pressed into its centre, and resisted the urge to peek over the top. This new Maidun army relied on good order. In every other army he’d fought in, people just piled into battle. Young and stupid went first with no grouping other than that they’d usually charge alongside their mates, family or neighbours. Most times they got killed quickly. More cautious men like him stood back and looked for maximum impact, minimum danger areas of the battle to join; unless battle rage kicked in and sent them into a frenzy, and then who knew what the Bel happened?
Lowa’s army was different. Dug had been impressed by the Maidun army on Sarum Plain against the Dumnonians, but since then Lowa had lifted it to another level of coordination and order. She’d taken the more effective aspects of the British way of fighting – mainly the mobility of chariots and cavalry – and merged them with the unquestioning discipline and controlled fluidity of the Romans. Each person in this line had his or her own exact position, and knew how to respond to a whole range of events as an individual and as part of their unit.
Dug was the exception to this. He knew the theories, had devised a few of them himself, but his Badger infantry company had stayed south with Atlas and Mal and he’d been a late addition to this line of chariot passengers. Lowa had said Spring needed him as chariot crew and that had been that. Nita had put him in between a man and a woman whom he called Thingummy and Wotzit – he hadn’t listened when he’d been told their names and had then been embarrassed to ask. He could see that, even though he was a famed Warrior and theoretically a better fighter than any of the chariot-based infantry, Thingummy and Wotzit were pissed off that he was there. They’d probably have been even more annoyed if he’d had his way and brought his dogs with him. He was secretly glad that Atlas had put his foot down. It was good that they were guarding the farm, and that he wouldn’t have to worry about them when the fighting started. No, without them, he’d be more able to toe the battle line and try his best not to fuck things up.
He started by not looking over his shield. That wasn’t allowed. If there were problems he should know about – a hurled stone heading his way or similar – the line of spearpeople behind the shield holders would tell him. He remembered his first big-ish battle as a younger man, running at the enemy, keeping an eye on the more experienced soldiers to see—
Crump! A Murkan crashed into the Maidun line five shields down. The shield holder held firm, pulled back his sword and …
Whump! His own shield jolted as a Murkan whacked into it with an “oof!” A blade crashed down into its upper rim and lodged firm. The shield shook as the Murkan on the other side struggled to waggle his sword free. Dug looked askance at Wotzit. She nodded and they pulled their shields a finger’s breadth apart. Dug slotted his sword into the gap, and thrust in and out repeatedly at various angles. It struck several times, there were screams, pressure on his shield loosened for a moment, then came back again, harder. A Murkan woman jumped the shield wall and fell on him. He tried to ignore her and trust the spearpeople to kill her, while he carried on stabbing at foes he couldn’t see with his sword. It an odd sort of fighting. He knew it worked, but it didn’t feel right.
Arrows whizzed overhead, enemy-wards. All the heavy chariot drivers were now shooting over the shield wall, as were both drivers and passengers from the light chariots, pulled into a line behind the heavy ones. Both types of chariots would be turned, ready for the planned retreat.
Most would be shooting as far as they could, hoping to hit a charging Murkan. The more skilled ones, like Spring, would be shooting high to drop just in front of the Maidun shields, creating a mess of injured and dead there to hamper the Murkan attack.
By Toutatis, he did not like all this regularity. It felt like his hammer was burning on his back. He could feel battle energy humming through his limbs. He suppressed the urge to chuck his shield away, go badgershit crazy and kill everything that came his way. Instead he kept his head down and carried on stabbing between the shields, telling himself that there’d be plenty of time for hammer play when the next phase of the battle began.
Chapter 19
Lowa hoicked and spat on to the splatter of oat-flecked vomit glistening in the grass. She wiped her mouth, straightened and felt a little better. Why they called it morning sickness when it was actually any time of the fucking day or night sickness, she did not know. As a mystery, it was right up there with how Dug had got her pregnant in the first place. Carrot flowers had always worked previously. Mind you, she had been having sex more than ever before. Dug had argued that they needed to make up for the lost years when they should have been together, and she was happy to go with it. It was fun, it helped her sleep and it put her in a better mood in the mornings. And after lunch. And in the early evenings. And quite often in the midmorning, round the back of whatever there was to go round the back of. With hindsight, she should have realised that pregnancy was inevitable.
There were other plants that could stop a baby from developing once conceived, and plenty of druids who knew where they were found and how to prepare them. Lowa had considered using them for about a tenth of a heartbeat. She was queen of a tribe under immediate threat from three armies, so, arguably, it was no time to have a baby and she should have poisoned her foetus. But fuck that, she thought. The little half-her, half-Dug growing in her womb was more important than everyone else put together, herself and Dug included. And if someone called her selfish and irresponsible, never mind. She’d been called worse. She’d been worse.
“Big night?” asked a horseman who must have heard her in the bushes. She bestowed him with her queenliest look, the smile fell from his face and his horse took a couple of paces back.
She rode over to Nita. The square-faced young woman was looking out over the valley. “All right?” Nita asked, a rare note of kindness in her voice. Lowa nodded. She hadn’t told her, but Nita knew. Many of t
he other women had worked it out, as had a few of the more sensitive men. She hadn’t told Dug yet. She’d tell him soon, she told herself. He probably knew anyway. He was more perceptive than he looked.
Below them, the Murkans had hit the Maidun line. She’d missed the start of the battle. She could not have picked a worse time to be sick, she thought, then thought, no, at least it was out now and unlikely to recur for a while. Better to chunder semi-privately up here than in front of everybody on the battlefield.
It was a sight. The Murkans were charging the thin shield line like storm waves hitting a beach. But the beach was holding. The Murkan dead were piling up in front of the shield wall and more were dying behind where the chariot archers’ arrows were striking home. Murkans were climbing over their fallen comrades’ bodies to hurdle the Maidun shields, but the spearpeople were stopping them with pointed efficiency. It was looking good for Maidun.
There were still many more Murkans, though, stretching back along the valley into the distance. With most of the Maidun army sent to meet the Eroo, they were massively outnumbered, twenty to one at least, but thank Danu the notion of battle strategy did not seem to have spread north yet. They still employed the traditional run-at-the-others-and-try-to-beat-the-fuck-out-of-them tactics. Right now, they were running through a rain of arrows to attack a shield wall that was holding. They were brave as mother badgers and no more intelligent. A more precise attack with shields held aloft might have done some damage. It was a relief and a joy that they hadn’t thought of that.
“Now?” asked Nita.
“Not quite.” She wanted more Murkans committed before she struck. She didn’t intend to destroy the Murkans here, indeed that would be difficult with her infantry still off to the south with Atlas and Mal, but she wanted to kill so many of them so quickly that their morale was destroyed. Either they’d head back north, or the force that followed her south to meet the infantry would be shaken to somewhere near its mental breaking point.