by Jack Whyte
There was some discussion of who would accompany me and who would remain, but I made short work of that, having no patience with the democratic process In time of extremity. Donuil would ride with me, as would Tressa and Shelagh; Ded would come, too, and Benedict, and Bedwyr, together with a score of our best troopers, selected by Dedalus. Philip would remain behind, in overall command, with Falvo and Rufio. Their orders were to bring our thousand home to Camulod as quickly as they could. Germanus and his party were close enough now to Verulamium to make it safely on their own.
I dismissed everyone then, and sought my bed, determined, if not to sleep, at least to seek some rest for my aching bones and body while I wrestled with my fears.
In spite of all my anxiety and the turmoil in my soul, I slept heavily, awakening with a cry of fear from some dark dream only when Dedalus came into my tent and shook me by the shoulder in the darkness before dawn. He had had people working through the night, preparing marching rations for our journey—enough to last us for ten days, at least, should we be forced to rely on them alone for sustenance—and our horses were saddled and ready, an extra mount for each of us. The score of troopers who would ride with us were waiting in the darkness, highlighted intermittently by flames from the high piled fires. I was fully dressed and tying the long, dark shaft of the Varrus bow securely beneath my saddle flaps when Germanus found me. He embraced me in silence, then held me by the shoulders, gazing into my eyes.
"Go with God, my Mend, " he said. "And I hope you will find it in your heart not to think badly of me for removing you from Camulod at this of all times. My prayers for your swift and safe homecoming will assail the ears of God Himself, beseeching Him to set His heavenly hosts to watch over you on the road. When you have dealt with this threat and come home safe, remember what we spoke of in my tent. Enos will stay in constant touch with you and will bring word from each of us to the other with no needless loss of time. I'll pray we meet again next year, at Eastertide, to share the celebration of our heavenly and earthly kings. Farewell, and journey safely. "
I sighed, and clasped his arms above the elbow. "Pray hard, old Mend, and often, for I fear we'll all need prayers. Arthur is in Cambria, alone with Llewellyn, and none know who he is, so he may yet be safe. If we emerge alive fro this travail, we'll see him crowned just as you described and Christian Britain will have a Christian King."
He turned away and kissed Tressa and Shelagh on either cheek, then blessed our party and stepped back.
I looked about me from my saddle. A throng of our me had gathered to see us leave, but they were silent, shroud still in the dark of night, black among the blackness. I saw Philip standing close by, flanked by Falvo and Rufio, an I raised my right hand to my helmet, acknowledging the' presence. All three snapped to attention and saluted me, an' I heard the metallic clatter of armguards against cuirasses as the throng about us did the same. I swallowed hard an nodded once again, abruptly, afraid to trust my voice speak without betraying me, then swung my horse around and led the way out from the firelight in search of the road home to Camulod.
Despite the Bishop's promised prayers for succour on our journey, it quickly became evident that God and His heavenly host had others matters on their minds while we were travelling, for our progress was a nightmare from the outset. More than a hundred miles of unknown territory lay between us and our destination, with dangers at every step of the way. We were beset with conflicting urgencies that kept us angry and frustrated: my overriding temptation, andmy prime imperative, was to move with the utmost speed,' but the paradox therein was that the utmost speed involved far too much slowness. Festina lente was the ancient watchword of the Romans, hurry slowly, and we were constrained to recognize the truth in the old warning. We could not put the spurs into our mounts and ride flat out; we had to conserve their strength and nurture their endurance lest we kill them on the road, leaving ourselves on foot. And so we chafed against the discipline of travel but endured it, changing gait each quarter hour, from walk to trot to canter, then galloping and reining in to canter, then to trot, and then to walk again.
We seldom took time to rest in daylight, and then we always stopped beside a running stream, tending to our ablutions hastily, splashing ourselves with water and shocking ourselves back to reality with its cold kiss. We were filthy, and we soon began to stink of sweat, human and equine, and of other, less pleasant things. The women suffered far more than the men, as it transpired, for I discovered that both were going through their menses, and the discomfort and inconvenience that entailed must have been almost more than they could bear, atop the agonies of all else. We rode long into the night when the skies were clear and the moon bright enough to light our way" and therein we were fortunate; the first three nights were clear and cloudless and the moon was almost full. Only when the moon went down and darkness thickened sufficiently to hamper us did we unsaddle our horses and fall down to sleep for a few hours, rolled in our blankets on the open ground.
Twice in the first two days we encountered bands of alien looters and marauders, but we were fortunate enough to see them before they could see us and so avoided detection. But the knowledge that such bands were abroad along our route took its toll on us, so that by the end of the fourth day, somewhere amid gentle, rolling hills long miles from anywhere, we were all reeling from exhaustion and I realized that this was folly. Festina lente, I reminded myself, more haste, less speed! We found a dense copse of low trees and made a camp that night, pitching our leather, one man legionary tents and posting guards on two hour watches, and although we did not dare to ignite a fire, we all slept soundly for the first time since leaving our companion.
Some time in the middle of that night, I awoke to sound of rain striking my tent, and as I listened, it quickly to a solid downpour. All the world was wet when we broke camp, cursing the slimy wetness of our tents we sought to roll and secure them, and we rode that day in a huddle of misery, eating from our rations of roast grain and nuts in the saddle as we went and wishing our woollen travelling cloaks were denser, warmer and more heavily waxed. Early in the afternoon, one horse slipped heavily the mud of an incline and went down, breaking a foreleg Fortunately, its rider was unhurt, merely winded by his fall but we had to kill the screaming horse quickly, for fear that unfriendly ears might hear its agony. The trooper change to his spare horse after distributing its load among his mates and we moved on, beginning now to penetrate a heavily forested region of low hills where an occasional bare cliff face reared above the trees.
I remember my face being chilled from the rain that streamed down from my helmet to spill sideways from the hinges of its face protecting cheek flaps and flow down my jaws on either side, and I remember comparing our current journey to the progress we had made on our outward expedition. Then, we had ridden slowly, the air about us filled with the sound of laughing voices and the squeaks, groans clinks and rattles of saddle harness, wagon springs and turning wheels. Now we pressed forward grimly, silently, each rider struggling with his or her own discomfort and worst fears, the world about us blocked by the sound of hurrying horses' hooves and the steady, constant hiss of driving rain. From time to time in the early stages Tress or one of the others would try to speak to me, hoping to comfort me or to take my mind off the troubles that beset me, but eventually all conversation ceased and we drove forward in bleak, miserable silence.
Then, around midafternoon, the rain stopped falling and the clouds began to break apart, allowing beams of sunlight to illuminate the landscape around us and lifting our spirits for a brief time. Too brief, alas, because even though we felt no breeze, the skies were soon fouled again by enormous banks of fast moving storm clouds that changed shape visibly as they were torn by high, turbulent winds, As they swept overhead they seemed to distort the light until it took on a yellowish, threatening colour, and thunder rolled ominously in the far distance.
It was shortly after this last change began that I saw horsemen flanking us, galloping swiftly away along
the upper reaches of a hillside on our right. I had been deep in thought, watching the scudding clouds and paying little attention to where I was, and I had only a fleeting glimpse of these riders among the trees before they vanished. My first thought was that they had been our own, ours being the only horsemen I had seen since leaving Camulod, but a swift glance about me verified that all our party rode together. I felt alarm flaring in me. I called to Dedalus then, pointing to where the riders had disappeared, but there was nothing there for him to see, and I could tell that he was sceptical. Angry at being doubted, yet at the same time doubting my own eyes, I sank my spurs into my horse's sides and bounded away, uphill, to where I thought I had seen the phantom riders, and I could plainly hear Ded following me.
Sure enough, there on the soil of the hillside was a double set of tracks, made by unshod hooves. Dedalus cursed and led the way as we rejoined the others, and from then on we rode with straining vigilance, drawing together into the wedge formation we used for both attack and defence. We had no idea who these people might be, but the fact that they were horsed had shaken us. I rode at the point, flanked by Ded on my left and Tress on my right. I removed my heavy cloak and rolled it up, securing it behind my saddle with my sleeping roll, and unsheathed my sword, lodging the point of it securely in the wooden stirrup with my right foot and gripping the hilt as though it were the shaft of a spear. Tress, on my right, rode with her spear held in the same fashion.
The depression through which we were riding was almost too shallow to be called a valley. We were riding upward along its length, and the crest of it lay half a mile ahead of us. Then, when we were less than a hundred paces from that point, a sudden shout from one of our troopers brought my head around and I could see that the bushy hillside on our right was alive with running men, bounding towards us, A second warning cry, from my left, announced the same message: we were under simultaneous attack from both sides. I rose in my stirrups, swinging my sword around my head, and led my people in a charge towards the top of the rise, the only exit open to us. We were trapped in a funnel, and I cursed myself uselessly for not having sent outriders ahead of us.
The terrain changed abruptly on the far side of the gentle crest. We came thundering to the top to find the surface falling in a chute away from us between thick banks of tall, thin evergreens. The narrow aisle we had been following was blocked a short way beneath us by a rearing crag of stone around which men were clustered, with long, sharpened spikes, cut from those same straight evergreens, stretching to meet us, their butts pressed against the base of the crag. I saw the entire entrapment at a glance, as did Dedalus, who was already turning towards me, waving me away to his right as he pulled his horse's head hard to the left. We split apart, and as we did, I saw that Tress had understood and was already veering outwards to my right. Behind us, the others followed at the full gallop, wrenching their mounts away from the certain death ahead of them, to follow right or left depending on their position in the wedge. And then I was among the densely packed, tall, narrow trees, my full attention concentrated upon staying in the saddle and preventing my mount from killing himself or me by colliding with some obstacle.
In mere moments, we were reduced almost to a standstill, faced with the impossibility of moving quickly through such dense growth. The ground underfoot sloped steeply downward and was littered with dead and fallen trees, many of them caught between the boles of their living neighbours. All of these fallen obstacles were small, but any of them was capable of piercing a horse's gut. I heard much crashing and cursing behind me, and the occasional clang of iron, but I had no time or opportunity to look back. Tressa was safe, that I knew, for I could see her just ahead of me. And then the trees began to thin slightly, and I kicked my horse forward faster. Soon we were able to gain momentum, and I broke free again to find myself in the treeless central aisle we had followed to the crest above. I swung my horse around then to look behind me, and the pathway above me was thick with men, leaping down towards me. More of my own men were beginning to emerge from the trees on the hillside now, but the enemy was closing quickly. I saw little point in approaching them up the steep path, so I decided to stand my ground and fight where I was.
The long sword felt almost weightless in my hand, and I used it efficiently, killing the first three men who came within my range before any of them had a chance to aim his weapon at me. The fourth thrust upward at me with a long, heavy spear, but my arcing blade cut it as though it were a hollow reed, and my next swing, backhanded, caught my attacker clean across the eyes with the blade's tip. An arrow clanged against my cuirass and knocked me backward, reeling, and while I was unbalanced someone grasped my leg and tried to pull me down. I clutched my saddle horn with my left hand and stabbed downward, but my assailant had already released me, staggering back and scrabbling to reach between his shoulder blades where Tressa's spear had pierced him. Another fell beside him, transfixed by a thrown spear, and a third man fell on top of him, spewing blood from his throat. I felt a hand tugging at my bridle and heard Ded's voice shouting in my ear, yelling at me to fall back. I did, swinging my mount around, and moments later we were descending again, our horses' hooves slithering on the steep, rain slick surface.
We were close to the bottom by then, and soon there was level earth beneath our hooves. I looked back yet again, attempting to count our numbers, and was surprised to see that almost all of us had survived the trap. Shelagh was close beside me, Donuil at her side. Benedict was bleeding from a shallow cut across his nose but seemed strong otherwise. Our pursuers had fallen behind, outdistanced by our horses' longer gait. I lost count of our people at nigh on a score, confused by the moving bodies, but I felt my heart lighten within me. I would not have been surprised to discover we had lost half our number. I heard someone ask how many men had attacked us, and another answer that it must have been more than a hundred, since he had seen at least two score of them on our right before the left attacked.
I heard Dedalus yell again and looked ahead to see a group of mounted men in the distance, watching us. They were making no attempt to come towards us, it appeared, merely waiting for us to arrive. I estimated the distance separating us at somewhere near two hundred paces.
"Eight, " Donuil shouted, and Ded answered, "Aye, eight that we can see... The good Christ only knows how many more there are in hiding. But we've little else to do and nowhere else to do it! We can't go back, so let's keep moving forward. To me!" He stood upright in his stirrups, brandishing his sword, and then sat back and spurred his animal forward.
We had neither the time nor the space to form a wedge for this attack, so we had to rely on individual speed and impetus, and we were clawing for both when disaster struck. Dedalus was ahead of all of us, closely followed by three troopers riding hard on his heels and four others more widely spread. Then came Tressa, Shelagh and Donuil in a row, barely ahead of where I rode half a length behind them. I checked over my shoulder, and seeing that all our men were still with us, I set myself to catching up with the others, crouching forward over Germanicus's ears and slapping him with the flat of my blade. And then I saw Dedalus hurled backward from the saddle as though he had hit a. wall. His feet flew up, high above his head and completely over, so that he spun in a backward somersault and crashed to the earth face first. Immediately, the three men riding close behind him were hurled from their horses in the same manner, snapping backwards from their saddles and crashing to the ground. So violently were they unseated that I thought they had been hit by Pendragon longbow fire, and I was looking for the arrows in their chests when two more men went down. It was then I saw the rope that killed them, stretched taut between two trees, at the shoulder height of a mounted man. One more man threw himself sideways in his saddle, vainly trying to avoid the deadly tiling, but it caught the crest of his helmet and I heard the snap of his spine clearly, above the thumping of our horses' hooves.
Donuil and Shelagh and Tressa were almost upon it, headed for certain death and completely unawar
e. I screamed, I believe, and spurred my big black savagely, sending him leaping forward with a scream of his own, trying to overtake my companions as I stood in the stirrups and swung my sword high above my head. I leaned far out over my horse's ears and brought the long blade whistling down, afraid I had misjudged the distance and my stroke would miss, yet knowing that I might already be too late to save my friends.
I barely felt the contact as the tip of the sword's razor sharp edge cut through the rigid rope, but I heard the thrumming twang as the strands parted and the ends flicked away. Then I heard another, double scream. The rope's end, recoiling with the sudden release of tension, had struck Tressa's horse full in the muzzle, and the animal had thrown itself violently backward, rearing erect, forelegs flailing. I had a glimpse of Tress herself, her feet free of the stirrups, pushing away from the animal, and then I was beyond her, my chest filling up with murderous rage as I saw the eight observers, the architects of this slaughter, preparing to scatter.
They were much too slow. I was among them before they could recover from their shock at seeing me cut through their rope. Two of them died on my first charge, one on my left, the other to my right as I swung my blade with the strength of dementia. I pulled my horse around hard, veering to my left, and swung directly back to attack again, cleaving one fleeing craven from behind so that his right arm fell away, severed cleanly by the blow. Then another, more brave than his fellows, came charging towards me, his arm bent backwards to hurl a short, heavy spear from a close distance. He threw, and I swung and caught the heavy missile just behind the head with the centre of my blade, smashing it from the air. The sudden, jarring weight of the spear caught my sword's edge and pulled me sharply and uncontrollably to my left, out of balance. My right foot slipped out of my stirrup and I felt myself falling.