Debt of Ages

by Steve White

  “Yes, I almost wish Faustina were here,” Ecdicius continued. “Nowhere is safe, and I’d have her with me. But of course the children need her in Rotne.”

  “At least, Augustus, you have Julia here where you can keep an eye on her.” Sarnac couldn’t resist remarking.

  “Yes, I certainly do! The young vixen!” Ecdicius’ daughter had managed to find some logically irrefutable objection to every villa and town they’d passed through, and was still traveling with them. Now, with Kai’s light horsemen roving far and wide, there was no alternative but to keep her with the army, which had adopted her as a mascot anyway. But Ecdicius’ scowl was still comical.

  “I’m sure she’ll be safe, Augustus,” Sarnac assured him. “Andronicus will guard her well.” Which, he reflected, was an understatement.

  “Yes… Andronicus.” Ecdicius’ expression softened. “A fine young man. Although there’s something about him—something that makes him hard to place as to his origins. Like you, Bedwyr.” The last was spoken casually, but the dark eyes grew disconcertingly shrewd.

  Alarm bells went off in Sarnac. Ecdicius had been content to accept the mysterious origins of Tylar and Artorius. But in keeping with Tylar’s rule of keeping mystery to a minimum, Sarnac and Andreas had stuck to their original cover stories, and Ecdicius had seemed to accept those too. “Why, he’s from Bithynia, Augustus…”

  “… and you’re from Armorica. Yes, I know. But there’s something I can’t quite put my finger on… Still, far be it from me to pry, Bedwyr!” He clapped Sarnac on the shoulder and dazzled him with a grin. “If, for your own reasons or Tertullian’s, you need to pose as a simple mercenary, then so be it. And now, I’ve got to go iron out some dispute between the Frankish and Burguncban troops.” And he was off, leaving Sarnac thinking: That’s two.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A stiff west wind, chilly with advancing autumn, was blowing in off the Bristol Channel, and the torch-flames whipped and spat showers of sparks as Gwenhwyvaer looked out over the massed troops. The torchlight melted away the ravages of fifty-six winters and ignited the last remaining embers of flame in her hair, and it was Boadicea who stood before them, it was Bellonathe goddess of horses and war.

  The priests had blessed them earlier for the morrows battle, but there was nothing Christian about this nights scene. No cross loomed behind Gwenhwyvaer and her captains; the blood-red dragon standard of Artorius streamed in the wind beneath the stars, and his widow spoke words fit to summon up the elemental spirits of the land.

  Tiraena, standing inconspicuously off to one side, knew where some of those words had come from.

  “… I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear!… I am come amongst you… being resolved, in the midst and heat of battle, to live or die amongst you all, and to lay down for my God and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of Britain too, and think foul scorn that Wilhelmus or Balor or any emperor or monster should dare to invade the borders of my realm. …”

  Tiraena grinned inside the hood of her cloak. Now where have I heard that before? Eat your heart out, Queen Bess!

  Good selection on Tylar’s part. This country’s always seemed to do best under female rulers: Elizabeth I, Victoria, Margaret Thatcher… She became aware that Gwenhwyvaer was telling them of…

  “… this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea… This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Britain…”

  Shakespeare, of course. No surprise, knowing Tylar. What next? Tiraena wondered. “We will fight them on the beaches” isn’t exactly appropriate; it’s a little late for that.

  But Gwenhwyvaer managed to speak of their finest hour before the cheering of the troops grew too thunderous for her to be heard.

  The wind was unabated at midmorning, and had begun to bring clouds scudding in off the Atlantic, sending waves of shadow sweeping across the hillsides of this rolling country near the source of the Thames.

  Standing atop the highest hill in the neighborhood and facing eastward toward the dark, distant masses of the imperial army, Tiraena gazed down to her right into the gap where the Saxons waited, their flanks secured by hills where light-armed archers and slingers waited among the trees. The valley to the east was like a funnel down which the invaders would pour, to meet the shield-wall. It must hold until the time was right to commit the cavalry that waited in the shelter of the hill, to Tiraenas left.

  And there, thought Tiraena with her newly stimulated recollections of Shakespeare, was the rub. Cerdic, who led the shield-wall, and Constantine, who would command the cavalry, were no more able to agree on when the time would be right than they were on anything else.

  “Will you wait, then, until all my carles are dead before beginning your charge?” Cerdic demanded.

  “The entire main body of the enemy must be locked in battle with you before the cavalry circles the hill and takes them in the rear. Otherwise, our plan’s for nought. Are you Saxons too cowardly to uphold your part of it?” The hell of it is, Tiraena reflected, Constantine is right. Too bad he has to be such a gigantic prick about it.

  Cerdic’s glare smoothed itself out into a mocking grin. “Who was given the pass to hold while your infantry take their ease behind?” He swept an arm out toward their rear, where beyond a defile at the base of this hill a ridge line curved away to the southwest. The Briton foot lined that ridge facing north, against the possible appearance of the Fomorians from that direction. Outriders had brought word of their advance, and the terror that spread before it.

  Constantine flushed. “It’s important that our rear be secured, lest we be caught between two foes.”

  “Aye, your footmen should be able to deal with naked Irish savages well enough,” Cerdic taunted. Tension didn’t bring out the best in him. “But have a care who you call cowards, Welshman!”

  Constantine’s flush grew scarlet and his hand dropped to the hilt of his spatha. The Britons didn’t like that word, and Tiraena could see their point. It was pretty raw, being called by the Saxon word for “foreigner” in your own country.

  “For that, Saxon half-breed, I’ll see the color of your guts…”

  “Have done!” Gwenhwyvaer stepped between them. “Will you madmen fall to fighting among yourselves within sight of the enemy? I forbid all personal quarrels until the battle is over. And I will give the signal for the cavalry to charge.”

  “Very well, Lady.” Constantine mounted his horse. “But we’ll take this up later, Saxon!” He descended the hill to put himself at the head of the cavalry that waited in its shadow to the north.

  “That we will,” Cerdic called after him. He looked at Cynric, where the latter stood guard with Peredur behind Tiraena, and gave a quick wink. Then he trotted off down the southern slope to join his men, who cheered him— he’d given them their own dose of edited Shakespeare last night.

  “Sweet Jesu!” Gwenhwyvaer fumed to Tiraena. “Why do the imperials even bother invading this island? Why don’t they just sit back and watch us kill each other off?”

  They grew silent as the enemy advanced in an ominous silence. That army included few heavy cavalry; they’d been deemed unnecessary, for Britain held only a small detachment of the Artoriani, whose main body was stationed in Germania whence Kai had now led them into Gaul. (Where Bob will be facing them, Tiraena ordered herself not to remember.) But this was a formidable force, the center composed of heavy infantry—Isaurians from Asia Minor for the most part, but also including many of the Franks that Kai didn’t want in Gaul for the same reason he hadn’t sent Britons here to face their own countrymen. On the flanks, light cavalry backed up the light-armed infantry. Behind the center were those cataphractarii Marcellus had.

  They came on with contemptuous directness—Marcellus had encountered little resistance so far except harrying by militia, and he mi
ght well be suffering from overconfidence by now. But this was no blundering onrush. As they reached the “neck” of the “funnel” the flanking elements began to advance up the hill slopes, skirmishing with the Britons whose arrows had begun to sprinkle the imperial formations. The center continued to advance and with a blare of trumpets, hurled itself forward.

  Tiraena imagined she could feel an earth-tremor as the first enemy wave crashed into the shield-wall. A hellish din, compounded of shouts, screams, weapon-impacts and shield-bosses grinding together, assaulted her. After an eternal interval, the enemy drew back, a retreating tide that left a wrack of corpses. The Saxons adjusted their line to fill the gaps left by their own dead. They hadn’t given an inch.

  -The imperials regrouped, and Tiraena could see a coming and going of couriers. A new attack wave, more massive than the first, formed itself and advanced with seemingly unstoppable momentum. Again, the contact of the fighting-fronts was like a palpable blow even where Tiraena stood, looking down from above the pain and blood. Surely, it seemed, the narrow steel band of the shield-wall must snap under the sheer weight of men bearing down on it and the impact of swords and axes that beat on it like blacksmith’s hammers. She could sense Cynric fidgeting behind her— his father was fighting in the front line as tradition demanded—but he made no sound.

  Finally, incredibly, the attack drew back over ground made treacherous by the heaped dead. The Saxons, their line thinner now, stood in what wasn’t really silence— there were too many wounded for that—but seemed like it after the abrupt cessation of the hideous cacophony that had gone before. They stood exactly where they had stood before, waiting. And all at once Tiraena knew, beyond any possibility of doubt, that if the day went against them there would be an unbroken shield-wall of the dead down there. They could be killed, but they could not be moved.

  I’ve heard the Saxons called dull, she thought in her awe. Maybe it’s true. That much sheer guts can’t possibly leave room for much else.

  “I can’t give the signal yet,” Gwenhwyvaer said to no one in particular. She had mounted her horse, the better to be seen by those below, and they had all followed suit. Now she sat in her saddle looking like a knife was twisting in her guts. “Marcellus is still holding his heavy cavalry in reserve. They’d be able to counter our own cavalry” Tiraena looked down the hill to the north where the British cavalry waited, the red cloaks of the Artoriani vivid among the tribal contingents. The riders’ impatience was infecting the horses, she could see even from here. But Gwenhwyvaer was right.

  She swept her eyes over the rest of the field. The imperial flanks had gotten bogged down in disorganized fighting on the wooded slopes. And within their main body, something was happening.

  Then, with a new note of trumpets, the imperial cataphractarii moved forward in all their armored ponderousness, and the infantry parted ranks to let them pass. Tiraena turned toward Gwenhwyvaer and started to open her mouth, but what she saw closed it. The queen was staring fixedly ahead, as though in communion with the ebb and flow of battle, awaiting some certain knowledge that the moment had come.

  The imperial cavalry built up to a charge and Tiraena silently pleaded with her to give the word. But her expression remained unchanged even as the armored riders smashed into the shield wall with a force that caused it to buckle, though not to break. Evidently someone thought it had broken, for a shout arose from the enemy infantry and they advanced to support the shock cavalry.

  At that instant, Gwenhwyvaer sprang from her motionlessness and flung up an arm. The trumpeters blared out the signal, and in the hidden area behind the hill to their left, a horse and rider—Tiraena was sure it was Constantine—sprang forward. The entire cavalry formation followed as one, riding like the Wild Hunt.

  They had a goodly way to go—any further would have tired the horses too much at such a gallop—as they rounded the hill. If the shield-wall could only hold until they appeared in the rear of the now fully engaged imperials, the enemy would be caught between the Saxon anvil and the Briton hammer…

  It was at that moment that the west wind brought to their ears the weird war-cries of the Fomorians.

  Tiraena twisted around in her saddle just in time to see the tribesmen appear at the crest of a lower ridge just to the northwest of the one topped by the British infantry line. It was too distant to make out details of the figures, but there was no mistaking the gigantic one in their midst.

  -In growing horror, she watched the British line begin to waver. Never mind what the mysterious wise-woman Lucasta had told them; they knew the supernatural when they saw it. A few men began to run, and it was like the first few drops of leaking water that presage the full torrent into the hold of a doomed ship, for more and more of their comrades joined them, then the whole line dissolved in panic.

  Oh, God, it’s the worst possible time. If the Fomorians hit the shield-wall from the rear while the situation is still fluid…. Without a word and without further thought, Tiraena turned her horse around and plunged down the hill’s western slope.

  “Lucasta, wait!” Gwenhwyvaer’s dwindling voice didn’t register on her, for her entire consciousness had narrowed to the task of controlling her horses wild career down the steep slope. She belatedly remembered that her implanted riding skills were only minimal, and supplemented by actual practice in only her last few subjective months, as she descended the hill at breakneck speed. Well, she found a fraction of a second to think, I finally know what that expression means. Breaking my neck is exactly what I’m going to do! Then she was in the defile, forcing her mount to scramble up the ridge. Soon she was among the fleeing troops.

  “Stand, damn you!” she shouted as she rode among them. The British tongue was another subject on which she’d worked at improving “Lucastas” minimal knowledge, and few of these men understood Latin. “He’s mortal, I tell you! He can be killed!”

  “Listen to her, you cowardly sods!” She heard Peredur’s voice behind her and stole a glance over her shoulder. Yes, he and Cynric had followed her. He rode among the milling foot troops, beating at them with the flat of his spatha. “By God, do you need a woman to take you by the hands and lead you into battle? Well, here she is! Maybe she’ll wipe your bottoms for you too!” An angry growling arose, but the rout slowed. “Get back up to the crest of the ridge before the Irish gain it!”

  Good thought, Tiraena realized “Follow me,” she yelled, and urged her horse up the slope. She saw that Cynric was with her. Yes, there it was just ahead, the top of the ridge…

  They reached it just in time to come face to face with the Interrogator.

  Their horses reared uncontrollably, shrieking with panic at the sight and smell, and threw them. Tiraena managed a rolling landing that absorbed most of the impact. She shook her head violently to clear it and raised herself to a crouch. The Fomorians were scrambling up to the ridgeline, and the Interrogator was advancing toward her. He carried the great club she’d heard about in one hand; the other held a sword that must have been specially made for four mutually opposable digits, and was far too long and heavy for a human to wield anyway. It couldn’t be any good, forged as it was from the low-grade iron available in Ireland. But that didn’t help her much, for she had no weapons, nor any implanted skill at using them if she had.

  A Saxon war-cry rang out, and Cynric rushed past her and interposed himself between her and her attacker, holding aloft his shield and brandishing the spatha he used in lieu of his own people’s traditional weapons when on horseback. He shouted his defiance again, and the adolescent voice quavered and broke.

  With a force beyond that of human muscles, the Interrogator brought his club down. Cynric screamed and went to one knee as his iron-reinforced wooden shield, and the arm holding it, shattered. Then the Korvaasha thrust with his sword at the youth’s midriff. The Saxon ring-mail was surprisingly good, but the power behind that thrust sent the crude iron sword crashing through the rings. Cynric screamed again with the torment of a pierced liver
and dropped his spatha. The Interrogator pulled his sword free and raised it for a final slash.

  Tiraena was on her feet, moving through a world of horror. “No!” She shouted in Standard International English. “I’m the one you want, you Korvaash bastard!”

  Because she had spoken words his translator could handle, he heard her. He redirected his sword as it descended, slewing it toward her. It sliced through the flesh and muscle of her right thigh. The leg gave way under her and she crashed to the ground and rolled a few paces. Looking up through a crimson haze of agony, she saw the Interrogator advancing ponderously toward her. Idiotically, her foremost thought was: Bob will be so worried…

  There was a whinny and a shout, and Peredur, keeping his charging mount under control with the horsemanship for which the Artoriani were renowned, sideswiped the Interrogator and sent the Korvaasha staggering. The Briton brought his horse around and hauled on the reins, bringing the animal rearing up. The flailing hooves momentarily held the massive alien at bay. Then Peredur brought his spatha down. The Interrogator parried with his own sword and, with a metallic crack, the brittle iron gave way and the blade snapped But then the Korvaasha thrust his club at the horse’s exposed belly. Off-balance, the animal went over, crushing Peredur’s left leg. The Interrogator stood over the immobile Briton and pointed the remaining length of his broken sword downward. With the full mountainous weight of a Korvaasha behind it, it punched through the scale armor and the Briton’s chest. There was an obscene amount of blood.

  Yet even at that moment, Peredur brought up the spatha he’d somehow kept in his grip. The thrust lacked the force to pierce that thick hard integument, but it slid along a leg, bringing the distinctive Korvaash blood—like human blood mixed with clear syrup—welling up.

  The Interrogator made no audible sound, of course, but he was less than steady as he turned from the lifeless Briton and advanced on Tiraena, gripping his club in both hands.