Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  Lowa looked down from the hundred and thirty pace-high mound of Frogshold. Well outside her own arrow range – she had no idea how Spring had made the shot – a Fassite was dragging Dug’s body away from the kings.

  “He saved us by going down the hill and dying?”

  “Yes,” said the druid. He walked away, jangling.

  Dug’s body was out of sight now. Lowa wanted to scream and rip her hair out, but she forced herself to ignore the pain for now. She had a hillfort to defend and an already much reduced number of Maidunites to save.

  It looked like she had a while before the Eroo army or the Fassites were going to move, so she jumped down off the wall, headed out of the gate and began a circuit of the ditch. It had been deepened overnight and they’d dismantled huts to make spikes for its base. She wanted to check that these were all still upright, and that no grass tuft handholds had been left in the fort’s wall. She knew it would be fine, but her real goal was to keep herself busy. As she came round to the north, she saw that the Murkans were preparing to attack as well. Was it too much to hope that the Murkan and the Eroo armies would clash and end up wiping each other out while they watched from the hillfort? Yes it was. But perhaps that was what Spring’s magic would do?

  “Lowa!” someone shouted. It was Maggot, calling from the wall nearby. “Come to me, there is a sight to see!” he yelled. Lowa jogged back into the fort and joined Maggot on the wall.

  “Look to the west, out to sea,” he said.

  She looked. The sea was calm. The only unusual thing were the hundreds of Eroo boats dragged on to the beach and moored off it.

  Then she saw it.

  On the horizon, stretched across the entire width of the Haffen Estuary, was a line of white, moving swiftly towards them and growing rapidly. Another line developed behind it, larger, then another, then another, each higher than the previous. They were waves, very big waves, moving at an astonishing speed, growing as they approached the shore.

  “What the Danu…” Lowa asked.

  “Fassent fell into the sea. These are the ripples,” said Maggot.

  The Maidunites teemed onto the wall to watch in silence as the giant waves approached. Lowa looked down. The enemy was carrying on as before, preparing the assault. They did not know what was coming.

  The first wave approached the beach, growing astonishingly, towering, breaking. It exploded onto an island near the shore then washed over it. It plucked ships from their anchors, drove them shorewards on a roaring wall of surf and smashed them into the beached boats. The people who’d been on the beach, who’d seen the wave and began to run, disappeared in an instant under the foaming, debris-filled surge. Another, taller wave broke on to the beach. That second one was awesomely, astonishingly huge, but a few waves behind it, perhaps a mile out, was a wall of water that dwarfed the others, overtaking the waves ahead of it and sucking them into itself. It was at least a hundred paces tall, nearly as high as their perch on Frogshold.

  “By Danu,” said Lowa. “What…?”

  “I think we’ll be calling it a Spring Tide,” said Maggot.

  Bruxon strode back to the Dumnonian camp, deeply unhappy. He didn’t believe for a moment that the Maidun army was going to slaughter them all, but what Dug had said about treachery had rung uncomfortably true. He’d been a fool and a coward. He should have attacked and conquered Maidun himself, and never even been to Eroo. Because then … He thought back to the night before and what he’d done with Manfrax. What he’d done to Manfrax, all while his harpy wife looked on. He’d been overcome by lust and unable to stop himself. He’d sucked his nipple like a starving calf, hands all over him, and then … He shook his head. He sickened himself.

  Deep in self-abusing thought, he didn’t hear the sound until it was a roar. He looked for the source, and saw a towering cliff of water rushing towards him across the flat farmland. He stood, open-mouthed, as it came at him, impossibly fast.

  Ragnall Sheeplord was standing with Julius Caesar on the cliff, looking over the Roman fleet, newly swelled by captured Armorican boats, and telling him all he knew about landing an army on the British coast. It wasn’t very much. The only coastline he knew well was the Island of Angels, which was on the wrong side of Britain. He’d seen part of the coast near Maidun when he and Drustan had sailed to Rome but he hadn’t been paying much attention.

  So he was relieved when Caesar held up a hand to silence him. The general was looking down at the bay with a quizzical expression. Ragnall followed his gaze and saw that the tide had rushed out preternaturally quickly and far. Some boats that had been floating moments before were marooned, others were being washed out to sea along channels revealed in what had been seabed.

  “What a strange tide…” he said.

  “It’s not a tide,” said Caesar. “Finally the British gods are showing their hand. Quick, come with me to higher ground. All of you,” he said to everyone nearby, raising his voice but remaining totally calm, “there is a giant wave coming, more or less immediately. Warn everyone, get everyone to high ground.”

  Men ran off to do his bidding, shouting as they went. As Ragnall and Caesar strode up the hill, the sea returned. It was more like a strangely rapid rising tide initially, refloating the boats and slopping lazily ashore. Then came the waves, like a great swelling at first, then towering and breaking, smashing on the cliffs, rearing up into the bay and crashing down on to ships.

  “By Toutatis,” said Ragnall. The power was staggering. Luckily for the people on the shore the sides of the bay were steep, so almost all were able to run to safety. The few people who’d been on the ships were not so lucky. Debris from the previous day’s battle and the surviving boats was soon indistinguishable as the bay churned and rushed, crashing ships against each other and into the cliffs.

  When the sea level returned to normal, the ships were gone. The boatsheds around the edge of the bay – everything, in fact, lower than fifty paces up the cliff – was gone. Romans and Gauls alike were staring down at the destruction in slack-jawed wonder, all apart from Caesar. He was looking at his destroyed invasion fleet like a dice player calculating how to react to a good throw by his opponent.

  Chapter 42

  Dug Sealskinner’s feet sunk into sand as he walked up the dune.

  He paused when the view cleared over the summit. His broch stood firm by the burbling stream, peaceful as a sleeping dog. Its round stone wall was so solid, everything looked so quiet. But he couldn’t see Brinna, Kelsie or Terry anywhere. A knot of worry grew in his stomach. Where were his wife and children?

  He jumped down the dune in two huge leaps, sinking knee-deep in sand, like he’d done so many times with his wee girls whooping in his arms. He ran over springy estuarine turf and splashed across the burn’s stony ford. Geese scattered out of his way, honking angrily. Geese that should have been fenced into the broch’s stonewalled yard …

  His twin tots ran out to meet him, squealing with joy, sunlight shining in their beautiful red hair. He’d been ready to tell them off for leaving the gate open and letting the geese out, but he couldn’t be angry with his wonderful little girls. He crouched to hug them both and saw Brinna standing in the broch’s doorway, beaming.

  “Now where have you been all this time, Dug? Stop playing around and come in, you great lunk. It’s time for your tea.”

  Dug stood, a girl under each arm, both chattering away with some story about a naughty cow. So happy that tears welled in his eyes, Dug followed his wife into his home.

  Historical Note

  The reader should bear in mind that this is fantasy novel, not a history text book. If it sparks or adds to an interest in the period, that’s great, but you probably shouldn’t quote from it in a history exam.

  Having said that, the Roman stuff is pretty accurate. The descriptions of Rome, all the main Roman characters with the exception of Felix, all the politics and all the battles mentioned in Clash of Iron do tally with history books. Caesar really did have a comb-over, h
e and Clodius the Beautiful did have those adventures with pirates, Licinius Lucullus did have his slaves dig through a mountain to irrigate his fish tanks and people did call Clodia Metelli “Lady Copper Coin”, but only very carefully because the revenge I’ve described that she had on a man for leaving copper coins by her beside is also true. One thing I found researching the Romans is that there’s no need to make up stories about them.

  Caesar’s rampage through Gaul is accurate too – or at least the book more or less tallies with his own diaries. I haven’t made up any of the individual campaigns or battles, but I have shaped them a little to suit the story and omitted a couple in order to keep this trilogy to just three books. It’s estimated that out of five million or so Gauls alive at the beginning of Caesar’s campaign he killed a million of them and enslaved a million more – something to bear in mind if you feel I’ve been a bit unfair with my recreation of his character and portrayal of the Romans.

  The characters and tribes in Britain and Ireland are pretty much entirely fabricated because the ancient Brits didn’t write and any oral histories were obliterated by four hundred years of Roman occupation which began a hundred years after Dug and Lowa’s time. There are descriptions of tribal groups from the time in history books, and even some names of individual people, but as these are uncertain I have taken the liberty of completely ignoring them. The technology – weapons, wheels, towns and so on – tallies more or less with what historians say but, again, I have taken liberties because the history is so uncertain.

  The books and sources I used are too numerous to list in full, but here are the books which were most useful, and which I’d recommend to anybody who wants to learn more about the period.

  Baker, Simon. Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. London: BBC Books; reprint edition, 2007.

  Caesar, Julius. The Conquest of Gaul. London: Penguin Classics; Rev. Ed., 1982.

  Carey, Brian Todd, Allfree, Joshua B. and Cairns, John. Warfare in the Ancient World. Barnsley: Leo Cooper Ltd, 2005.

  Cunliffe, Barry. Iron Age Communities in Britain: An account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC until the Roman Conquest. London: Routledge; 4th edition, 2009.

  Goldsworthy, Adrian. Caesar. London: Phoenix; New ed., 2007.

  Holland, Tom. Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic. London: Abacus; New Ed., 2004.

  Jiménez, Ramon L. Caesar against the Celts. Boston: Da Capo Press; reprint edition, 1996.

  Pryor, Francis. Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans. London: Harper Perennial; New Ed., 2004.

  Sage, Michael M. Roman Conquests – Gaul. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2011.

  Acknowledgements

  While I was writing this book, my wife Nicola had a baby. So while she was going through the later stages of pregnancy, then staying awake most of the night to nurse our son, I was whinging about things like the difficulty of finding yet another way to say “he hit him with his hammer”. So massive, colossal, on-my-knees-and-waving-my-hands-above-my-head thanks to her for putting up with me and supporting me. Thanks also to my excellent editor Jenni Hill for being so spot on with edits and encouraging me through my pathetic bouts of insecurity, to all at Orbit for putting together such good-looking books and marketing them so well, and to Richard Collins for a diligent copy-edit. Much gratitude to my agent Angharad Kowal at Writers’ House, without whom none of this would have been possible, and a huge thanks to my brother Tim for his invaluable plot suggestions. Finally thanks to our son, Charlie, who hasn’t done much yet other than surprise me (a) by being such a happy little boy and (b) by making my heart burst with love.

  Look out for

  REIGN OF IRON

  Age of Iron: Book Three

  by

  Angus Watson

  Caesar’s soldiers have murdered, massacred and pillaged their way through Gaul and loom on the far side of the sea, ready to descend upon Britain – with them are an unstoppable legion of men twisted by dark magic. Somehow Queen Lowa must repel the invasion, although her best general is dead and her young druid powerless. She faces impossible odds, but when the alternative is death or slavery, a warrior queen will do whatever it takes to save her people.

  EVERY EMPIRE HAS ITS DOWNFALL.

  www.orbitbooks.net

  extras

  www.orbitbooks.net

  if you enjoyed

  CLASH OF IRON

  look out for

  A DANCE OF CLOAKS

  Shadowdance: Book One

  by

  David Dalglish

  PROLOGUE

  For the past two weeks the simple building had been his safe house, but now Thren Felhorn distrusted its protection as he limped through the door. He clutched his right arm to his body, fighting to halt its trembling. Blood ran from his shoulder to his elbow, the arm cut by a poisoned blade.

  “Damn you, Leon,” he said as he staggered across the wood floor, through a sparsely decorated room, and up to a wall made of plaster and oak. Even with his blurred vision he located the slight groove with his fingers. He pressed down, detaching an iron lock on the other side of the wall. A small door swung inward.

  The master of the Spider Guild collapsed in a chair and removed his gray hood and cloak. He sat in a much larger room painted silver and decorated with pictures of mountains and fields. Removing his shirt, he gritted his teeth while pulling it over his wounded arm. The toxin had been meant to paralyze him, not kill him, but the fact was little comfort. Most likely Leon Connington had wanted him alive so he could sit in his padded chair and watch his “gentle toucher” bleed Thren drop by drop. The fat man’s treacherous words from their meeting ignited a fire in his gut that refused to die.

  “We will not cower to rats that live off our shit,” Leon had said while brushing his thin mustache. “Do you really think you stand a chance against the wealth of the Trifect? We could buy your soul from the gods.”

  Such arrogance. Such pride. Thren had fought down his initial impulse to bury a short sword in the fat man’s throat upon hearing such mockery. For centuries the three families of the Trifect, the Conningtons, the Keenans, and the Gemcrofts, had ruled in the shadows. Over that time they’d certainly bought enough priests and kings to believe that the gods wouldn’t be beyond the reach of their gilded fingers either.

  It had been a mistake to deny his original impulse, Thren knew. Leon should have bled out then and there, his guards be damned. They’d met inside Leon’s extravagant mansion, another mistake. Thren vowed to correct his carelessness in the coming months. For three years he’d done his best to stop the war from erupting, but it appeared everyone in the city of Veldaren desired chaos.

  If the city wants blood, it can have it, Thren thought. But it won’t be mine.

  “Is that you, Father?” he heard his elder son ask from an adjacent room.

  “It is,” Thren said, holding his anger in check. “But if it were not, what would you do, having given away your presence?”

  His son Randith entered from the other room. He looked much like his father, having the same sharp features, thin nose, and grim smile. His hair was brown like his mother’s, and that alone endeared him to Thren. They both wore the gray trousers of their guild, and from Randith’s shoulders hung a gray cloak similar to Thren’s. A long rapier hung from one side of Randith’s belt, a dagger from the other. His blue eyes met his father’s.

  “I’d kill you,” Randith said, a cocky grin pulling up the left side of his face. “As if I need surprise to do it.”

  “Shut the damn door,” Thren said, ignoring the bravado. “Where’s our mage? Connington’s men cut me with a toxin, and its effect is … troublesome.”

  Troublesome hardly described it, but Thren wouldn’t let his son know that. His flight from the mansion was a blur in his memory. The toxin had numbed his arm and made his entire side sting with pain. His neck muscles had fired off at random, and one of his knees kept locking up during his run. Li
ke a cripple he’d fled through the alleyways of Veldaren, but the moon was waning and the streets empty, so none had seen his pathetic stumbling.

  “Not here,” Randith said as he leaned toward his father’s exposed shoulder and examined the cut.

  “Then go find him,” Thren said. “How did events go at the Gemcroft mansion?”

  “Maynard Gemcroft’s men fired arrows from their windows as we approached,” Randith said. He turned his back to his father and opened a few cupboards until he found a small black bottle. He popped the cork, but when he moved to pour the liquid on his father’s cut, Thren yanked the bottle out of his hand. Dripping the brown liquid across the cut, he let out a hiss through clenched teeth. It burned like fire, but already he felt the tingle of the toxin beginning to fade. When finished, he accepted some strips of cloth from his son and tied them tight around the wound.

  “Where is Aaron?” Thren asked when the pain subsided. “If you won’t fetch the mage, at least he will.”

  “Lurking as always,” Randith said. “Reading too. I tell him mercenaries may soon storm in with orders to eradicate all thief guilds, and he looks at me like I’m a lowly fishmonger mumbling about the weather.”

  Thren held in a grimace.

  “You’re too impatient with him,” he said. “Aaron understands more than you think.”

  “He’s soft, and a coward. This life will never suit him.”

  Thren reached out with his good hand, grabbed Randith by the front of his shirt, and yanked him close so they might stare face-to-face.