by Simon Lister
Arthur overtook him and took another narrow alleyway between the stone houses that were still billowing out smoke. After another few twists and turns they were racing across the Great Hall, which was still empty of the Adren soldiers. They sprinted up the spiral stairway without being pursued by the Adren; either they had lost them in the sideways and smoke or their pursuers had been distracted by easier and softer targets.
As they came out into the smoke-tinged air of the ruined Winter Garden the ground beneath them trembled. Arthur’s instinctive reaction was to look for horsemen but he discounted it immediately; they were in the middle of woodland. The ground beneath them shuddered again and some of the warriors lost their balance.
‘What’s happening, Arthur?’ Hengest shouted with a trace of panic in his voice.
One of the huge stone walls cracked and began to fall in on itself.
‘Quick! Get away from here!’ Arthur shouted at them and ran for the gap where the wall had stood.
They ran westwards as hard as they could and for as long as could. Each tremor only served to hasten their pace and lengthen their endurance. It took them four hours but eventually they reached the more open woodland on the western fringes where they stopped to rest and to drink from a stream that flowed into the woods.
The ground shuddered one last time and many of the warriors looked to Arthur.
‘The Veiled City is gone. I want these woods burned.’
‘What about the other bands? Gereint’s and the Uathach?’ Hengest asked.
‘None of them would have gone into the Veiled City so if they could have got away then they would have done so by now.’
‘There may still be Cithol in the woods,’ Morgund pointed out.
‘Burn it,’ Arthur replied.
They set fires every hundred yards along a two-mile stretch of the western edge and left them to burn. From a distance they watched as the westerly wind carried the fires into the heart of the Winter Wood and they watched as the raging flames cut huge swathes through the forest.
The remnants of the Wessex and Anglian war bands watched until all that was left were the charred skeletons of ancient trees standing among the exposed bones of an ancient city.
Arthur turned away and began the journey back to Caer Cadarn.
Chapter Three
Morveren stumbled through the clawing undergrowth that grew in sprawling thickets beneath the close packed trees. She gritted her teeth against the pain in her side as she tugged her clothing free from the clutching thorns and briars. Her hands and forearms were scratched and bleeding from the constant struggle but she forced herself onwards. She had not seen or heard any sign of the Adren for many hours now but still she kept pushing herself northwards. It was no longer the Adren that she was trying to escape.
The tangled ivy and barbed briars snared her again and she groaned in frustration and despair as she tugged her leg free leaving newly latticed lines of blood beneath her shredded trousers. She rested briefly with her back against a tree and taking her hand away from her side she inspected the bloody mess that the Adren arrow had made in her flesh. She thought back to when she had been hit in the first few seconds of the Adren ambush and winced at the memory of the glancing force of the arrow that had spun her around and sent her crashing to the ground. She thought that she must have taken a blow to her head as she fell because the next thing she could remember was awakening to the deafening drone of the nearby flies that were already busy on the bodies of the dead around her. There had been no Adren soldiers and no warriors in the clearing, at least none that were alive, and she had slowly sat up amazed that the chaos of the ambush had given way to such calm.
Her head nodded violently and she realised she had almost slipped into sleep. She pushed herself away from the tree and wished fervently that she had some water to drink; her throat was parched dry and she was beginning to feel faint. She inspected the wound in her side again and was relieved to see that her hurried bandaging seemed to have stopped the bleeding.
Suddenly the woodland erupted into life and she dropped to one knee cringing against the tree for cover as hundreds of crows flew overhead in dense squadrons screaming out their panic. She instinctively reached for her sword but realised for the first time that she must have left it back in the clearing when they had been ambushed. All around her deer were weaving through the trees and springing effortlessly over the trailing traps that had dogged her progress.
Just as suddenly the wood was silent again and Morveren peered around the trunk she was hiding behind already knowing what she would see. She had first seen it many hours ago when she had tried to make her way westwards through the Winter Wood in an effort to get to the point where the war band had left their horses. She guessed that Arthur and some of the others had managed to get away from the trap for two reasons; they were not among the dead and the Adren must have given pursuit. The latter was the only reason she could think of to explain why she was still alive. But her progress had been checked by the same thing she saw now; smoke was spreading across the forest floor and reaching out to her. She could hear the distant low roar of the forest fire as the wood smoke curled about her, stinging her eyes and parching her dry throat further.
With a grunt of effort she forced herself to her feet and once again began to fight her way northwards through the undergrowth. With growing panic she realised the woodland to her left was becoming more and more obscured by the thickening smoke and the occasional glowing ember was now drifting across her path. It was becoming harder to breath and she veered ever more eastward in an effort to outdistance the fires.
After an hour of frantic struggling, and as she was beginning to feel the race could only be lost, she found herself abruptly free of the clamping undergrowth and into more open woodland. Resisting the urge to rest she began to run hoping that the wound in her side would not open again.
She almost tripped over the first corpse and if she had then she would have landed on the second. All around her lay the jetsam of battle; bloodied bodies, cast aside weapons and spent arrows. Most of the bodies were Adren soldiers but as she followed the line of battle she began to find Uathach warriors among the dead. The strewn bodies seemed to show the tidemark of a familiar sequence where the dead marked each successive rearguard of the Uathach’s fighting retreat through the Winter Wood.
Morveren wondered whether it was Gwyna’s or Ruraidh’s band she was following but in either case she knew the trail could only end in one of two ways, either she would meet up with the surviving Uathach or come across the last stand where the Adren tide had finally overwhelmed them. She did not lessen her pace but ran on as cautiously as she could while constantly scanning the trees ahead of her and listening for any sounds of battle.
She saw that one of the dead warriors had a water skin attached to his belt and she stooped down praying that it was full with clean water. It was not full but it contained enough to swill the taste of the smoke from the back of her throat and she drank it greedily and gratefully.
She put the empty skin back down beside the dead man and closed his eyes with a brush of her hand then scanned the trees to her left to gauge if the smoke was getting any thicker. She was about to get up and continue when her eyes were drawn back to the haze between the trees. There was someone there.
She crouched down by the dead warrior and stared into the shifting strands of smoke. Just when she thought she must have been mistaken she caught another glimpse of the figure moving through the trees. She watched as the indistinct outline faded into the spiralling smoke, heading in the same direction she had been previously taking. Without taking her eyes from the place where the figure had disappeared she felt on the ground for the dead warrior’s sword that she had absently noted when she had taken his water flask. Gradually she got to her feet and, with a swift look around her to make sure the advancing fire was not outflanking her, she set off after the lone figure.
The climbing sun sent broad shafts of opaque light slanting th
rough the drifting smoke and Morveren hurried between the tall birch and oak trees that dominated this part of the woodland. She moved over the forest floor as quietly as she could with one hand pressed to the wound in her side and the other gripping her newly acquired sword.
A stronger gust of wind cleared some of the smoke ahead of her and she saw the figure once again. She stopped abruptly and swept aside her long hair that had fallen across her face, not daring to hope that the figure seventy or so yards ahead of her was who she thought it to be. Her heart raced as she watched the old man wrap his dark cloak around himself and pick his way through the woodland with the aid of a long staff clutched in his right hand.
It had to be Merdynn and she was drawing breath to cry out his name when suddenly more figures emerged from the haze beyond him. They were warriors and they were heading straight towards him but Morveren knew immediately that they were not Uathach or warriors from the southern tribes; no warrior she had ever seen carried two swords. She stared through the haze and realised with a shock that the warriors were Cithol. Somehow Merdynn had arrived with Cithol warriors.
More of them were appearing from out of the smoke and it dawned on Morveren that she had never heard any mention that the Cithol had warriors, in fact quite the opposite; she was sure the Veiled City had no warriors to defend it. Filled with contradicting certainties she dropped to the ground and crawled towards a nearby ditch. When she felt she was safely concealed from those ahead of her she risked a look. There were fifty or more of the strange warriors and they were kneeling before the old man who was beckoning with his staff for them to stand once more. One of them approached him and pointed back the way they had come clearly reporting something to him.
Morveren’s previous conviction that it had been Merdynn was rapidly evaporating. He looked like Merdynn from where she was positioned but something felt very wrong to her. Indeed everything felt wrong and her heart was beating faster for a very different reason now. She resisted the almost overwhelming urge to crawl away and steadied herself to continue watching.
The warrior had finished his report and the old man was now giving him his instructions. When he had finished the Cithol bowed and turned away leading his men back into the haze of the forest. The old man moved off at his own pace and as he walked through a sunlit shaft of smoke Morveren saw that the dark cloak he was wearing was of a deep blue and not the brown she had imagined only moments before.
Just as she was thinking that she had only ever seen Merdynn wearing his worn brown cloak the old man stopped and turned around. He seemed to be staring straight at her and she stopped breathing and remained absolutely still, sure that the slightest movement would give her away. She shut her eyes and willed herself to resist the urge to squirm deeper into the debris of the forest floor. In an effort to deflect her fear she forced herself to remember her brothers and their families and started to reel off the names of the children from her village in Wessex. After long minutes she opened her eyes, terrified she might find the old man standing over her, but there was no one in sight just the thickening smoke and the surrounding haze.
She lay there for several minutes steadying her breathing and trying to convince herself that the only thing to fear was the fire, and that could only be getting nearer. She got to her feet slowly, continually checking to make sure that there was no one else in sight. When she was sure that she was quite alone she took stock of her position trying to decide what she should do next. The fire was somewhere to her west so she could not go that way and the way east was just as suicidal as that led back to the main body of the Adren army. She could not face going back the way she had come and she felt that even if she tried then the fires would surely trap her. Which left the path she been following; the way the battling Uathach had retreated and the same way that the old man and his Cithol warriors had taken.
Morveren looked around in desperation as if seeking an inspirational alternative to the option she must take but she knew there was none and with a sense of deep foreboding she headed once more for the northern fringes of the Winter Wood.
For hours she hurried on through the woods intensely aware of both the fire burning in the West and the less definable but just as real fear of what may lay ahead of her. Her thirst returned and grew worse with each passing hour but none of the corpses she occasionally came across had been carrying any water and it was with an immense sense of relief that she saw a stream cutting across her path a little way ahead of her.
The stream ran quickly between narrow banks and she knelt by its side scooping up handfuls of water to her dry lips. She realised she had made a mistake in not taking the dead Uathach’s water flask and in an effort to compensate she drank long after her immediate thirst was slaked. She drank until her head ached from the coldness of the icy water and when she felt it was impossible to drink any more she rinsed the blood from her bandages and sat back on a tumble of moss-covered masonry to inspect her wound. The arrow had scoured a groove through her flesh but as much as it hurt and as ugly as it looked she knew she had been fortunate. She knelt by the stream again feeling the sodden earth through the knees of her tattered trousers and gingerly dabbed the wet bandages against the raw gash in her side.
When she had washed the wound as best as she could she scraped some moss from the stone blocks around her and after a brief hesitation packed it around her side and covered it with the tightly strapped bandages. She had seen Ceinwen use moss on deep cuts before but she still felt unsure if she had done the right thing.
She shrugged her uncertainty aside and took stock once more of her surroundings. The woods were still hazed by the smoke from the fires but there did not seem to be any signs of immediate danger and her thoughts drifted to Morgund and the others and she wondered anxiously if they had got to safety yet or if they were somewhere underground attempting to defend the Veiled City. She thought the latter was unlikely; at best they might have escaped the Adren trap and got to where the horses were picketed and thence to safety.
Her musings were interrupted by her stomach loudly protesting the long absence of any food and she added the need to find something to eat to her growing list of urgent requirements. She got to her feet and absently brushed away the grit and moss from the damp seat of her trousers. As she bent to retrieve her sword her skin prickled and she shot a glance to the North where the unmistakable sound of battle drifted through the woodland.
She grabbed the sword and set off at a steady run with one hand pressed firmly against her bandaged side and her eyes scanning the trees ahead of her. She gauged the battle to be no more than a mile or two ahead but it was difficult to be sure as the woods alternatively dampened and echoed the sound of clashing steel.
The trees rapidly thinned to either side of her and she realised she must have reached the very northern fringes of the Winter Wood. The ground started to rise and suddenly she could see the battle taking place on the slopes of the hillside ahead of her.
Her first impulse was to rush towards the group of Uathach warriors who were about halfway up the gentle slope of the sparsely wooded hill but they were already surrounded by several hundred Adren. Instead she ran towards a straggling clutch of young sycamore trees that were growing around a head-high pile of the ubiquitous rubble that littered the expanse of the Winter Wood.
She scrambled through the ancient masonry until she had an unobstructed view of the unfolding battle. The fifty or so Uathach had gathered into a tight group but the encircling Adren seemed to be keeping their distance content to deny their enemy any escape. Morveren guessed that the Uathach bowmen must have spent their arrows sometime during the long retreat through the Winter Wood as none were now flying from their ranks.
She felt a surge of guilt and had to check herself once again from leaving her cover and racing towards the Uathach. Her guilt was deepened by the knowledge that without the northern warriors’ intervention at the Causeway her own people would never have escaped from the Adren trap but she knew there was nothin
g she could do other than throw away her life in a futile gesture, and she had no stomach for heroic suicide. She cursed in self-reproach and scanned the fringes of the wood in the wild and desperate hope that some help might be at hand. It was then that she noticed the old man and his strange warriors making their way towards the stalemate on the hillside. They must have passed within a few hundred yards of her position and she squirmed deeper into the gap between the crumbling blocks and the leaning trunk of the tree where she was hiding.
She reflected bitterly that if she had her short bow and just one arrow she might well be able to bring down the impostor who so closely resembled Merdynn but even as the thought crossed her mind it was chased by the doubt that she would be able to hold her aim steady on the figure who had so scared her.
She watched as the old man covered the ground to the penned Uathach. His warriors followed behind him in a loose phalanx and as they approached their trapped enemy the Adren soldiers parted before them. Morveren shifted her position and looked on, puzzled by what was happening on the hillside. The Adren still remained on three sides of the Uathach but they had drawn away to make room for the strange warriors who had halted and were now standing only thirty yards from the Uathach line.
The old man advanced a few paces and seemed to be addressing the Uathach. Even at this distance Morveren could see and sense the unsettling effect that his words were having on the northern warriors. Their line was wavering and many of them kept casting glances behind them as if they were looking for reassurance from their own leader. Finally a figure emerged from the Uathach line to face the old man and Morveren instantly recognised the red-haired Gwyna.
She groaned in frustration and despair. The Uathach were heavily outnumbered and had nowhere left to retreat to; they were doomed and it would fall to her to bring the news of Gwyna’s death to Arthur. She cursed the Adren for taunting the Uathach before falling upon them.