Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  A moment later she spotted Pomax and shuddered. She was a hundred paces back from the front line, out of most arrows’ range, perhaps half a mile from Lowa. She was cased in helmet and ringmail, but that gait and bulk were unmistakable. By Danu, Lowa had never wanted to kill anyone so much. By the look of what she was up to, the Murkan queen was set to cause her further torment. She was arranging a large group of similarly armoured troops into a shield-protected wedge formation – the one thing that could really fuck up the Maidun shield wall.

  Eyes narrowed, Lowa dismounted. She took her longbow from its leather holster on the back of her horse. She chose a long-distance arrow from the quiver and slotted it on the string then drew, aimed and fired. Ten heartbeats later, a man next to Pomax fell. Lowa had missed. Very unlike her. She didn’t like to make excuses for herself, but the wind had dropped unnaturally quickly, immediately after she’d fired.

  Pomax lifted her arm, middle fingers splayed. Lowa notched another arrow, but Pomax lifted a shield above her head and disappeared among her people. A moment later, Pomax’s triangle of troops, perhaps five hundred of them, hoisted their own shields and jogged towards the Maidun line.

  “Toutatis’s arse!” said Nita. Lowa nodded. Pomax’s wedge hit the left of the Maidun line point first, faltered for a moment and burst through. The shield wall was breached.

  As was planned and trained for, the nearby light chariots swarmed in to pour arrows into the enemy and plug the hole. The Murkan shields and armour were effective, however, and only a few fell. The rest trampled through a breach that was widening with every heartbeat.

  “Sound the cavalry charge!” shouted Lowa.

  “Wait!”

  Lowa spun to see who’d dared to interrupt her order. It was Adler, Maidun’s best rider whom she’d left with Mal to bring messages, heaving her horse to a halt. “Eroo,” she panted. “About to land near Frogshold. May be that Dumnonians have turned traitor. Atlas says probably not, Mal thinks they have.”

  Makka’s tits, thought Lowa. The early arrival of the Eroo was a setback, although not necessarily a disaster, so long as they still had the Dumnonians on their side …

  Lowa looked at Pomax’s Murkan wedge, spreading and smashing apart Maidun’s shield wall, impervious to Maidun’s arrows. Dug was down there. So was Spring.

  “How many Eroo?” she asked.

  “Mal estimates five hundred ships, two hundred troops at least in each, which makes—”

  “A hundred thousand. How far away?”

  “If we go now, we might reach the infantry by the time Eroo lands.”

  “Is there a new reason to suspect the Dumnonians?”

  “Soldiers claiming to be Dumnonians threatened the Frogsholders with death if they alerted us to the arrival of the Eroo fleet. But Atlas thinks the soldiers were from Eroo, not Dumnonia.”

  “Bel’s turds.” Lowa looked down into the valley. Pomax’s wedge was doing well, and other Murkan troops were capitalising. If she pulled her shield wall away now, the majority of them would be routed before they got back to the chariots. Yet retreat they must. She’d wanted to do more damage to the Murkan army, but she couldn’t leave her infantry to face a hundred thousand-plus Eroo without archer support.

  “Trumpeter,” she said, “sound the cavalry charge. Adler, take a fresh horse and go back to Frogshold. Tell them to oppose the landing as far as possible, beware of the Dumnonians, and to retreat to Frogshold hillfort if necessary. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  Chapter 20

  Before the screams of the fifth child had died away, the wind stopped.

  For once, Ragnall had done the sensible thing and not been drawn to watch a nearby horror. He was glad he hadn’t. He still had nightmares about the poor Danu’s Child.

  Felix walked up, flicking blood off his hands, his face split by an even bigger smirk than usual. Unbidden, animal loathing spread from Ragnall’s stomach, through his body, along his limbs and into his fingers and toes. He shivered with horror and objection. It was difficult to justify killing children. Had he picked the right cause? Was he on the right side? Yes, yes, he told himself. Under Roman rule, life in Britain would improve immeasurably. It wasn’t the aqueducts, the underfloor heating, the waterproof buildings and all the other comfort-enhancing and labour-saving innovations, although those would all be very welcome. No, the main point was Roman law, order and stability. People like Zadar could not exist under Roman rule. In a generation’s time, when Roman rule was embedded, no young Britons would ever again have to see their parents, siblings and entire tribe murdered by a despot, as Ragnall had. They would be clean, educated, secure and they would live longer. Their leaders would be elected rather than murdering their way to power. It had to be worth anything to achieve that. He pictured Lowa all doe-eyed telling him that it was OK that she’d killed his family, and him believing her like a chump. That helped. He was on the right side.

  “Done and done,” said the druid.

  “Excellent,” said Caesar.

  Out in the bay, like a blanket pulled tight, the ripples disappeared all across the water’s surface. The proud leather sails of the Fenn-Nodens collapsed and hung like empty scrotums. Their ships fizzed to a halt and bobbed like turds in the baths. Crews ran about, shouting at each other and hauling ropes. All to no avail. There wasn’t much you could do in a sailing boat without any wind, other than wait to die.

  Chapter 21

  “Their sails have lost the wind,” said Mal.

  “And it’s calm behind them,” said Atlas.

  Stretching back from a line in front of the lifelessly floating Eroo ships to the horizon, the sea was indeed a different colour. Did that mean the wind had died? Mal didn’t know. Seafaring wasn’t his thing. Atlas, on the other hand, appeared to know more or less all there was to know about pretty much everything.

  The change in shade rushed towards them across the water. It hit the shore. Moments afterwards the wind on the hill, previously a stiff westerly, fell so quickly it felt like it was sucked up into the sky above. With the wind gone, there was an eerie, pulsating silence. It reminded Mal of when he’d run a wheel yard next to a busy blacksmith’s. He’d not notice the noise, but when it stopped at the end of each working day, the sudden silence was, to him, louder than the day-long beat of the hammers.

  “Good,” said Atlas. “Unusual, but good. All we need now is for the wind to start up again in the other direction and…”

  There was movement all along the Eroo fleet. It looked like a swarm of beetles waking and extending their legs as oars bristled from each ship and dipped into the water. The Eroo boats advanced anew, more slowly than before, but they were still coming.

  “Bel’s beard!” said Mal.

  “They are delayed,” said Atlas. “That is some blessing, although the tide will be higher when they arrive and they will be exposed on the beach for less time. Mal, stay here to brief Lowa. I’ll talk to Dumnonia, then join the infantry. Tell Lowa that her cavalry and chariot archers will have a clear run to the beach. I’m also going to arrange the lines to defend and retreat if the Dumnonians have changed sides. Assuming that is, that Bruxon doesn’t kill me when I see him.”

  “Well, that’s a great plan!” said a chirpy, familiar voice.

  Mal spun. It was Maggot, marching into the Frogshold hillfort, ornaments rattling. “But I’d skip the bit about talking to the Dumnonians, because change sides they have. It’s not one, but three armies you’ll face today.”

  “Explain,” said Atlas.

  “Bruxon asked Eroo to invade, you see. Why wouldn’t he? Wanted revenge for the defeat at Sarum. He heard that this King Manfrax was a bloodthirsty bastard who’d killed everyone he didn’t like the look of on Eroo, so he asked him over here to finish the Maidun maidens and the Maidun menfolk, too.”

  “The fool.” Atlas shook his head. “Manfrax will turn on him the moment he’s finished with us.”

  “Not according to Bruxon,” said Maggot, putting a fi
nger to his chin, “because the moment that Manfrax is sitting happy in Maidun, the Romans will arrive. Dumnonia will help the Romans against Manfrax – and those nasty Murkans – and then the Romans will leave the Dumnonians alone. Well, I say alone. They’ll sell them cut-price wine and build lovely baths all over Dumnonia, but they won’t hassle your day-to-day Dumnonian at all. That’s how Bruxon’s got it all worked out, anyway.”

  Maggot’s bardish exaggeration aside, Mal could see the Dumnonian logic. He was surprised that Lowa or Atlas hadn’t worked out what was happening; or Nita, for that matter. All of these sharp people and none of them had seen the obvious. “Makes some sense,” he said.

  “It doesn’t,” said Atlas. “Helping the Romans has one outcome. They enslave you or kill you.”

  “That’s two outcomes,” said Maggot. Atlas glowered. “But you are right,” the druid continued, “it’s almost like Bruxon has been blinded by some kind of magic. Now, who could have done that?”

  “What?” said Atlas, grabbing Maggot by his leather jerkin.

  Maggot looked at Atlas’ big hand, then back up at the Kushite. “Let me go,” he said, serious for once. To Mal’s surprise, Atlas did.

  Maggot straightened his clothes, picked up a bauble that Atlas had torn free and put it in a pocket. “I will go back to the Dumnonians and stop them from attacking.”

  “How will that help?” Mal asked.

  “It will give you time to retreat from there on the beach to here on the hill,” Maggot waved his jingling arms, pointing out to the coast, then back to the ground at their feet, “with both Eroo and Dumnonian armies following. By then, Lowa will be on her way with the Murkans in tow.”

  “How will that help?” Mal repeated

  “Why, then you’ll all be on a hill surrounded by three armies, each of which would destroy Maidun and deliver Britain to the Romans. Could there be a lovelier place to be?”

  “And how does that help?” Mal repeated.

  “I never said it would help.” Maggot turned on his heel with a jingle of jewellery and jangled out of the hillfort. He was gone before either of them thought to stop him.

  Chapter 22

  Pomax powered her way through Maidun troops like a short-tempered fisherwoman wading ashore through surf after being told told that her husband is making love to another woman in their hut. She splintered shields with her blade, broke legs with heavy-booted kicks and slashed throats to ribbons with her claw nailed hand. Maidun troops, including some Warriors, took her on solo and in groups. All were left broken in her wake. A few managed to slow her briefly, but none could stop her from her goal, which seemed to be, worryingly for the goal concerned, a young chariot driver named Spring.

  She fired arrow after arrow at the giant woman, but all missed. You’d think, she thought, with someone the size of Pomax, that it would be harder to fire an arrow and not hit her. But all her arrows, which would usually skewer a squirrel at a hundred paces, flew wide. So Pomax must be protected by some kind of magic, Spring thought. Annoying. She tried to draw on her own powers to send an arrow through Pomax’s magic shield, but none came. She tried to imbue some energy into the Maidun troops who were falling around Pomax by the dozen. No good. She tried aiming slightly off, to see if the arrow-disrupting magic might correct the course, but her shot sailed exactly where she’d aimed it and through the neck of a nearby Murkan.

  Pomax kept coming, too fast and too strong to be stopped. Spring finally hit her, on the head, but the arrow ricocheted up off her helmet. The queen of the Murkans ripped off the last of her attackers’ faces and ran straight at Spring, light on her feet despite the weight of her ringmail.

  Spring chose an armour-piercing arrow and aimed it for her chest. At the last moment, it swerved away from Pomax as if hit by an invisible hand, soared across the battlefield and into the arm a Maidun man who’d had his other arm sliced off by Pomax.

  Big badger’s shits, thought Spring. She looked for Dug. He was forty paces away, hammer out now, smashing away at Murkan troops in an attempt to re-establish the shield wall. He was needed there. She’d have to deal with Pomax herself or die trying. She put her bow back in its holder on the chariot, screwed her face up, clenched her fists and concentrated on the image of Pomax exploding in a shower of blood and guts.

  She opened her eyes. Pomax was walking towards her, smiling. No other living people, Maidun or Murkan, were immediately to hand. Spring breathed out and took her sword from its scabbard. Pomax jammed her own sword into the side of a dead horse, took her whip from her waist and flexed her talons.

  Chapter 23

  Chamanca spat. “What do you mean ‘no oars’?”

  “We can read the wind,” said Vastivias. “We’ve been doing it for millennia. We are always back in port before a breeze fails or becomes too great for our boats. We have neither the need nor the space for oars.”

  Chamanca pictured herself flying at him and sinking her teeth into his neck. “And today?” she asked.

  “Something dark is afoot. This wind comes every year at this time and it lasts. It’s called Faithful Blow. An ungodly ritual has caused this calm.” Vastivias shook his head.

  “Or a godly one?” Chamanca suggested.

  “You’re right. It must be the work of some foul Roman deity. Toutatis would never favour such an indecent scheme. I shall ask him to smite this unwelcome Roman god and bring the wind back to his domain.”

  Chamanca left Vastivias shouting at the sky and walked back along the deck to Carden. They watched as the crew from two Roman craft climbed into two others. These two overloaded ships rowed either side of the nearest Fenn-Nodens boat, clamped on to it with hooked ropes and boarded. There was shouting, the clash of iron and screaming. Gravely outnumbered and outskilled, the Armoricans didn’t stand a chance. Soon the Gaulish crew were all dead or swimming and the Romans were on their way to the next. Similar mini-massacres were taking place all over the bay. The Romans waited until one Gaulish ship drifted away from the rest, then rowed in for the kill. By concentrating their complements into fewer vessels, the Roman boats had become overloaded, gunwales a hand’s breadth from the water, but on the dead calm sea it didn’t matter.

  Chamanca pulled Carden away from the watching Gauls and said quietly: “Two options. Stay here, wait for the Romans and kill as many as we can before they kill us, or swim to shore and live.” Several crews on the Gaulish boats nearer to shore were already abandoning ship. Romans with swords were rushing down cliffs and along the beach to meet them.

  Carden smiled. “I can’t swim. So I’ve got one option. Or is that no options? If you’ve got two options and take away one, you’re left with zero options. But two minus one is one … That’s always confused me.”

  “You can’t swim at all? Or do you mean you haven’t swum in a while? You don’t forget. And it isn’t difficult. Maybe you can learn now?”

  “Nope. Used to go in the sea as a kid, but never swam. Tried it a couple of times since and sank. Heavy bones, I guess. And heavy penis, of course. Not to mention massive balls.”

  “I see…” said Chamanca.

  The Roman flagship and another ship almost as large, both overladen with legionaries, were heading for theirs.

  “Well, I guess I don’t have any options either.” Chamanca took her sling out of her pocket and looked for the nearest bag of stones.

  Chapter 24

  Spring dropped on to her stomach under the whip’s lash. She felt it rip the air over her head. She popped up into a crouch, sword flashing at Pomax’s knee. Go low, that’s how you deal with the big, top-armoured ones.

  Pomax whacked the sword away. Her whip hand shot up in a fist, caught Spring’s chin and flung her staggering backwards.

  Magic! shouted Spring internally. She needed magic. Why couldn’t she find any magic? Dug was just over there! Why couldn’t he see what was happening?

  The whip cracked again and snapped around her sword arm. She tossed the sword to her other hand, but Pomax je
rked the whip at the same moment. Spring’s hand clasped air and the sword fell. Pomax pulled. The girl tried to pull back, but the best she could do was stay on her feet as the huge Warrior reeled her in.

  “Hello again,” said Pomax in her abrasive accent, closing her clawed fist around Spring’s neck and lifting her off the ground. Her feet kicked air and her head clouded. Pomax started to squeeze. “I’m going to kill you up close this time, make sure of the job.”

  Spring wanted to tell her what a silly voice she had, but she couldn’t talk. It felt like her eyes were trying to bulge out of her head and everything was very bright all of a sudden.

  They closed the gap in the shield wall, but not before many Murkans had swept through it, so Dug was ensnarled in the constant attack and defence of a thick mêlée. A slingstone bounced off his helmet. He ducked a sword swipe, thrust his hammer-point two-handed into a Murkan’s face, smashed a shoulder blade with the return stroke. He was glad to have his hammer.

  As he dodged, tripped and dispatched another Murkan, something made Dug turn as surely as if someone had shouted his name. In between clashing weapons and roaring fighters, a hundred paces away Pomax had Spring by the neck, holding her a pace off the ground.

  Dug roared and ran, shouldering someone, Maidun or Murkan he had no idea, out of the way. Something gripped his legs and he tripped, landing on a dying man who choked out a weakly protesting “ooof”. The Murkan who’d brought him down had his legs pinned. His hammer was caught underneath him. As he struggled to free it, another Murkan rushed out of the confusion, sword flashing towards his exposed neck. Dug rolled. The sword smashed into his helmet. The shouts and clangs of battle became suddenly louder, then quieter and his vision fuzzed. He knew the next sword strike could be only heartbeats away. He shook his head, tensing all the muscles he could tense, as if that would help.