The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Good man! Eremon thought with satisfaction, marvelling that after all his truculence, Lorn had obeyed at the last, when it mattered. Yet now Eremon’s attention was drawn down the length of his own sword, and bracing himself in the saddle he let loose the war cry of Dalriada. ‘The Boar! The Boar!’

  Instantly it was taken up by the remnants of his men around him, and the Epidii chant and the Caledonii cry rang out, as the tide of horsemen rushed across the plain. There, to the eastern side of battle, his men met the first wing of Roman cavalry in a turbulent crash of sword and shield that shook the very rocks from the peaks above.

  Nearly choking on stinging bile, Rori hacked about him and endeavoured to keep his head as his lord kept his. He must stay by Eremon’s side, as Conaire had asked him to do.

  Terror leaped and plunged in his heart with each thrust, and he was sure that every screaming Roman that came under his blade must surely be his last. Some of his blows went wide, and he had to twist and duck under the counter blow, relying on his fine horsemanship to swing him out of harm’s way. Some strokes met with a sickening crunch of splintered bone, the give of flesh when he cleaved it. Blood gushed hot down his hands, spattered in his eyes, yet somehow he lived.

  Suddenly there was a terrible ring of iron, and Rori clawed the blood from his eyes to see that Eremon had blocked a blow meant for him. With a wink that damped down the fire in his face, Eremon spun Dòrn again into the fray, whooping and whirling his sword above his head, and bringing it down in twisting blows that Rori had never seen a man make, or thought possible. Before Rori’s eyes, his prince was transformed into a glorious, blood-soaked, laughing god, corded arms brown under the sun, blade a blurred shaft of light in his hands. A hero from the old tales. A man to fight for.

  With a hoarse yell that barely made it past his cracked throat, Rori spurred his horse forward into the breach Eremon had torn, desperate to follow that god wherever he may lead. Son of the sun, the Epidii had once called Eremon. But it was not until this day that he had earned the name.

  In a far corner of his mind, Rori resolved to tell Aedan this as soon as he was able, to make a song fitting for his lord this day. A song to last a thousand years.

  Tearing her gaze away from the slaughter unfolding below, Caitlin rose from her crouch on the rock and glanced nervously over her shoulder, brushing her braids from her sweaty neck.

  ‘The guards have not returned,’ she said.

  Yet Rhiann barely heard her, for her own eyes were fixed on that horse charge, even though from this distance she could not discern any one man from the others. But she could feel Eremon’s heart clamouring in his chest, as her own echoed it, could sense the rasping breath, the sharp grunts behind each stab. It was almost as if she were there with him.

  ‘Rhiann!’ Caitlin barked, grasping her shoulders. ‘Where are those guards?’

  Rhiann blinked up at Caitlin as if waking, breathing hard. ‘They have most likely taken up position lower down, sister. Perhaps it is a better way to protect the hilltop. Do not worry.’

  ‘No.’ Caitlin frowned and shook her head. ‘I just don’t like the feel of it.’ She busied herself tightening the quiver across her back, leaving one white-fletched arrow lying at her feet. ‘I must go and see; that is what Conaire would want of me. It would be Eremon’s order.’

  Rhiann was suddenly chilled. ‘Then I will come with you.’

  Caitlin darted a meaningful look at Rhiann’s belly. ‘No. You will be safer here, not stumbling about on this uneven ground.’ She picked up her bow and the arrow, and wet her fingers to run them down the fletching. Then she nocked the arrow on the string and pointed upslope with her chin. ‘Go and stand among those hazel trees, right at the edge. At least there you are better hidden.’

  As Caitlin crept away, Rhiann pushed down the sudden prickling of fear at the base of her spine, and clambered back up the rocks to take refuge under the young trees as directed. Panting from the heat, she watched Caitlin until she merged with the hawthorn scrub further along, and then a great shout wrenched Rhiann’s attention back to the battlefield, so she was once more oblivious to her immediate surroundings.

  *

  The Roman cavalry was wavering around him; Eremon could feel it. Hemmed in by his charge, their horsemen stumbled back into the mass of their own infantry, who were being pushed into their rear by Conaire’s wedge. The Roman horses reacted instinctively, lashing out with rearing legs, crushing many infantry warriors under their hooves.

  With a rush of exultation, Eremon sensed the order of Roman infantry and cavalry start to crumble around him, and he rallied his men with another war cry, torn from a throat hoarse with thirst. From the other side of the river of Roman auxiliaries, a Dalriada war cry answered him, and Eremon knew it came from Conaire.

  This was it: this was when the tide began to turn. Eremon could sense it in the minute slackening of the Roman charge, a subtle easing of the ferocity with which the horsemen had first plunged their way into Eremon’s carefully formed lines. He cried out for joy, for pride, because it had worked: melding the Alban fire of the sword arm with Roman order and discipline. He had done it. He, Eremon, had dared to take what was strong in both peoples, and hurl the combined force as one. And there it was again; he was sure now. The Romans were pulling back.

  ‘Hold!’ Eremon screamed, desperate for his men not to break their formation at this first sign of retreat. The heat was infernal, thick with the stink of horse and blood.

  To his surprise, the Romans nearest to him were rearing back, twisting in their saddles to turn their faces from Eremon’s men. Turning to the east. And Eremon realized dimly that he had heard a far blare of trumpets, and it was to this sound that the Romans were drawn, all their heads lifting as one.

  Do not forget the east, Rhiann had said. Do not forget the east.

  But he had. And with a knowledge like darkness dawning, Eremon turned also. On a long ridge that formed the horizon towards the sea, a fresh wave of Romans was pouring down on to the battlefield.

  They were horsemen, thousands of horsemen. And with them came an endless red tide of foot soldiers racing beneath proud eagle emblems, which spread dark wings against the hot sun.

  *

  The horror hit Rhiann like a felling blow, and she stumbled back from the edge of the rocks.

  Eremon’s charge had drawn her out of the shadow of the trees into the sun, yet she couldn’t feel any warmth, only something icy and dark that slithered over her skin. Instinctively, she curled her arms around her belly, but when a twig snapped in the undergrowth behind her she whirled, blinded by the harsh sun and her own tears.

  ‘Caitlin!’ she cried. ‘There are reserves! Agricola had reserves!’

  Yet Caitlin did not answer her.

  Beneath the rustling trees on the crest of the hill, a shadow detached itself from the others and stepped forward into the sunlight, moving slowly but with implacable will.

  ‘Yes,’ Gelert whispered. ‘They have come. And so have I.’

  CHAPTER 73

  With a speed belying his age, Gelert darted forward and made a grab for Rhiann’s wrist. She threw herself back, the instinct to get away clogging all rational pathways in her mind, then she felt the ground give beneath her feet. Before she could grasp anything, her arms were flailing. Crying out, Rhiann plunged over the hill to where the slope fell away to an old landslide of tumbled rock and dark earth pierced by tree roots. As she fell she twisted, trying desperately to cushion her slide down the slope on her haunches, yet the angle was steep, the scree loose and her heavy, awkward body increased the momentum of her rush. In terror she felt herself begin to tumble over, her arms flung out wildly, fingers scrabbling in the gravel and damp earth. Yet there was no stopping herself, not now, and just as she was tossed over on to her front she came up hard against a jutting rock, and was caught there, the impact tearing deep into her belly.

  Her cry became a scream of pain, and Rhiann curled herself around into a ball, her belly
pierced with fiery stabs of agony. Around the edges of her sight the sunlight darkened, and there was a terrible shrieking in her ears. Was it the baby crying? She must not lose consciousness, she must not. Rhiann bit down hard on her lip, tasting blood, and the world stopped spinning long enough to open her eyes, her scraped cheek pressed into the soil.

  From one eye, she watched Gelert crawling his way down to her sidewise, like an old, bleached crab on a rock. Desperately sucking in air, Rhiann dug her fingers into the soil, and managed to lever herself up against a large rock, one palm curling around a sharp, pointed stone.

  Gelert stopped a few paces from her and squatted down, and though Rhiann’s sight wavered with the pain, she followed his yellow eyes as they travelled eagerly over her scratched and bleeding legs, before coming to rest with fascination on her belly.

  An unearthly light seemed to gleam in the druid’s pupils, and he smiled, his thin lips parting to reveal stained teeth. His once-white robe was torn, mud-brown and blood-spattered, and over it he had slung a fresh wolf-skin, the stench making her gag. His straggling beard covered his chest, and the bare remnants of his hair sprouted in weedy tufts to each side of his mottled scalp.

  ‘All this way,’ he muttered under his breath, his voice a perverse sing-song. ‘All this way, all these leagues, all the patience … yes, patience. And then you get what you want, if you have been true.’

  Rhiann struggled to breathe through the agony in her belly, which was spreading now in cramping waves, encircling her whole torso and lower back in bands of tightening iron. She could not move, for her legs were numb and weak, and all her strength was seeping away into her pain.

  ‘Where … have you been?’ she gasped, hoping desperately, if she kept him talking, that Caitlin might find her. Caitlin may already be dead, she thought then with sickening fear.

  Gelert smiled, cocking his head as if listening to some voice, his bony knees sticking out to either side, his long fingers kneading restlessly at the earth in front of him. ‘She dares to ask me questions. She, the daughter of a whore, and … ah!’ One eye lit up, the white brow arching. ‘My gods tell me that another daughter comes. Another daughter of the Great Whore, another daughter to darken the world of men.’ Gelert shook his head. ‘Not to be borne. Not to be born … ha!’

  Rhiann’s fingers tightened over her pulsing abdomen. Her insides felt as if they were being stabbed. And then the pain crested, there was a tightening and a rush of warmth from between Rhiann’s legs. She bit her lip again to stop herself from crying out, though she knew immediately that her waters had broken. But he must not know, he cannot know. Oh, my child, do not come now, not so early, not now.

  Painfully, Rhiann shifted her buttocks so that the dress between her legs would not darken with the rush of fluid. Yet despite the strength of her will, tears of agony and grief welled in her half-closed eyes.

  Seeing them, Gelert smiled again. ‘Always so proud,’ he murmured, ‘so scornful. Yet I knew that all would be taken from you and that mewling prince of yours. I knew if I found patience that you would weep before me, one day.’

  ‘You gain nothing from harming me,’ Rhiann managed. ‘Caitlin is here, and she is looking for me.’ She tensed, her breath freezing in her throat as a pain ripped through her again. ‘She will kill you.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the other one,’ Gelert mused. ‘But why do you think she is not here? The powers of my gods are greater than that. It is a little thing, see, to set the traps of vision, of strange sounds that draw her away. She hears you crying, yes? She hears the clash of swords, like the men did. But she goes the wrong way; they all do, for the forest is my realm, and there my magic holds sway.’ He laughed, a wheezing, wet sound. ‘You think she will find her way through my mists and dreams back to you? Ha! You always thought too much of the Sisterhood. Women’s hearts are as weak as their bodies.’ He smiled again and shook his head. ‘Nay, pretty, there is only me and you and the little new one – a fine sacrifice to my lord gods, indeed!’

  Icy fear drenched Rhiann’s pain. ‘No gods demand such blood,’ she gasped out. ‘You are a travesty of the Brotherhood! Your gods will turn their faces from you after death, if you commit such a deed!’

  Yet the words fell as droplets of rain on parched earth, and drifted away into dust. For from beneath the wolf-skin, Gelert produced an unsheathed dagger, and started over the ground towards her.

  Eremon had only one option: to force away the knowledge that Agricola had held back thousands of men, perhaps as many as 10,000 – doubling his initial forces. To give the Albans false confidence; to make them believe they could win; to draw them here to battle.

  To draw me. I did it. It was my decision.

  No! Eremon would not give in to these thoughts yet, not now! He must wheel his flagging men instead, rally those who had frozen in terror, and meet the challenge coming at him head on. He tore the Boar standard from Rori’s numb grasp, and clenching his knees, rose up in his saddle and waved the banner in great, sweeping arcs. ‘To me!’ he cried. ‘The Boar, the Boar!’

  His men did not hesitate.

  Wheeling their horses on the spot, they screeched their war cries and hefted their blades with as much vigour as when they were fresh. Eremon flung the standard back at Rori, and leaned down to pluck a spear from a dead horse’s belly, before digging his heels into Dòrn. The rest of his horsemen streamed away after him, merging swiftly back into formation as they ate up the ground that separated them from the onrushing Roman reserves.

  Behind them, the Roman cavalry who had now been released from Eremon’s onslaught saw their chance. Pouring through the breach that opened between Eremon’s men and Conaire’s infantry, they charged up the slope at the greater mass of Albans who had been holding back under Calgacus.

  And finally, answered by a howl that shook the entire hillside, the golden king slashed down his sword and gave the Albans leave to attack, and the whole flank of the hill seemed to slide down on to the plain.

  Save them, Eremon thought desperately, as his horsemen and the Roman reserves crashed into each other like storm-tossed waves. Save us all.

  Rhiann’s palm grew still around the stone, hidden under a fold of her dress.

  Then, as Gelert raised the knife higher, his fingers trembling, she flung scattered dirt at him with one hand and stabbed upwards with the other. The sharp rock caught Gelert in the soft flesh under his arm, and with a screech he dropped the blade and fell onto one knee, teetering off balance.

  Ignoring the tearing pain in her belly, Rhiann kicked out with a flailing foot and managed to connect with Gelert’s other shin, sending him tumbling down the slope. He was old, and his leg caught in an arching tree root and twisted. There was a loud snap of bone and a terrible scream.

  Blinking the tears and dust from her eyes, Rhiann desperately tried to haul herself up the rock to her feet. Yet the pain felled her with one blow, wrenching open her vitals, and her legs buckled again, her sight laced with stabs of flame. Sobbing, Rhiann began to crawl instead, dragging herself over the stony earth, up the path between the rocks, anywhere, so long as it was away from him. Her legs and hands scrabbled for purchase, her overwhelming fear for the child her only strength.

  ‘Don’t come now,’ she whispered to it. ‘Stay inside, stay safe and warm, and I will hold you. I will hold you …’

  The pain had resolved itself into waves now, each one bearing her up to a bright place of agony that verged on unconsciousness, followed by a trough of darkness that promised another kind of oblivion. And each time, Rhiann fought the urge to let herself go into that shadowed place, to escape from the pain. For if she did let herself sink into it she was lost, and so was her child.

  Her daughter.

  From behind came an inhuman moaning, and after a moment of silence a rhythmic scrabble and rasping slide, punctuated by harsh grunts of effort.

  Lorn’s chariot had immediately become hemmed about with Roman horsemen, and a cool part of him realized, even as he hacked
about him, that a chariot could not stand up to such an attack. One horse was manoeuvrable, where a chariot was not.

  With careless grace he danced along the yoke, cut the harnesses with two swipes, and slapped one stallion away from the fighting while he leaped on to the other’s bare back. Behind him, the chariot stumbled and rolled, and was lost among the ranks of trampling hooves. His men began to do the same, and many of the Romans fell as their own horses ran into the careering, tipping chariots.

  Then, in the midst of the desperate fighting, Lorn sensed a slackening of the onslaught, and realized that a troop of Roman cavalry had managed to form up on the Alban side of his men and were racing up the slope to barrel into the waiting warriors under Calgacus.

  Lorn wondered how these Romans had got past Conaire’s walls, and it was then that he heard the Roman trumpets and the wild cheers of their infantry. Desperate to see, Lorn shouted to his men and wheeled his stallion, fighting his way back up the slope with a thrusting spear, unable to swing his sword bareback without a saddle.

  Pressed by the Romans on all sides, Lorn was relieved when he heard the sudden hiss of arrows overhead, and looked up to see Nectan and his archers covering their retreat, calmly despatching all the Romans who surged at their rear. In response to curt commands, the foreign horsemen and foot soldiers immediately gave up, returning their attentions to the Epidii infantry.

  Lorn halted his horse before Nectan, clutching at the cut remains of his chariot harness as his reins. ‘A thousand thanks,’ he gasped out, pulling off his crested helmet to wipe sweat from his brow. The sun beat down as the swords had beat on the shields, and Lorn’s dry throat was sticky with thirst.

  Nectan did not take his eyes off the Roman lines below as he continued shooting in a measured rhythm, a forest of arrows stuck into the ground at his feet. ‘Look there,’ he said evenly, ‘where the prince took the eastern flank.’