by Dan Davis
Herkuhlos was appalled by the sight of his people being hurt but he still hesitated, unwilling to flee in ignominy instead of dying like a warrior. The gods must have heard his thoughts for just then a huge warrior in a boar’s tusk helm rushed forward ahead of his men with a spear in hand which he raised above his head.
“I am Ghebol!” he cried in a voice loud enough to touch the roof of the world. “I challenge Herkuhlos.”
The rage filling him, Herkuhlos forgot his men, forgot the arrows falling around him, and saw only this warrior, this chief of chiefs calling him to challenge. Herkulos stepped toward Ghebol with his spear ready. Behind Ghebol came Torkos and behind Torkos came the other yotunan and Herkuhlos would kill them all, one after the other or he would fall in battle like a warrior, like his ancestors, with honour.
Pehur was suddenly before him, breathing heavily and his eyes wild and his spear up as if he meant to block Herkuhlos’ advance. “We are dying!”
“Go for the horses and flee,” Herkuhlos replied, not taking his eyes from Gehbol. Despite the chief’s great size, he moved with the grace of a lion and Herkuhlos knew he would have to fight with more skill than when he had defeated the son if he was to defeat the father.
An arrow whipped past his face so close it snatched the edge of the lion pelt over his shoulders.
“Herkuhlos, this is madness!” Pehur cried, standing right in front of him with his arms spread wide, his spear in hand. He was a tiny figure and had no hope of stopping Herkuhlos.
“Out of my way, slave,” Herkuhlos snarled.
Pehur stared but before he could speak or move a slinger’s stone whipped past his head, striking a glancing blow across his head with a sickening, hollow thump. Instantly, Pehur collapsed like a man struck dead.
“Pehur!” Herkuhlos looked between his fallen comrade and the battlefield ahead where Gehbol stalked forward, his face grim beneath his helm, and behind him Torkos came closer.
The yotunan’s face was hideously ugly, with a squashed, turned up nose and a great jutting jaw with enormous teeth showing from between his snarling lips. The warriors of his warband streamed forward on either side, some stopping to shoot or use their slings and one hurled a javelin that fell far short but it was clear they were aiming at him.
They were shooting arrows and throwing javelins to kill him.
Finally, Herkuhlos understood that he had failed.
There would be no honourable challenge between chiefs. Torkos would not face him in a fair fight. Instead, these warriors and boys would cut him down from afar and they would kill him like a hunted deer or worse they would take him as a captive. And all of his men would be killed or made into slaves.
There was no honourable death to be found here, he realised. His enemies would not allow it and he had been a fool for expecting honour amongst the evil of the yotunan.
With enemies advancing on all sides, Herkuhlos grabbed Pehur, flung him over one shoulder and turned and ran for his followers who were already fleeing for the only flank that was not blocked.
“No!” Herkuhlos shouted as he ran after them with Pehur on his shoulder. “To the horses!”
They ran then toward the village and so toward the warriors of Negwis.
Most had moved out of their village to cut off the pasture but there were some men and boys who had come closer to take shots at Herkuhlos and his remaining loyal warband and these few were surprised by the change in direction. The closest of them threw down their bows and instead drew knives or axes to stop their retreat while the more cowardly of them fled for the safety of the village. They had expected to shoot down a trapped enemy and to instead find themselves being charged by them, led by the terrible sight of Herkuhlos in his bronze armour and lion pelt, broke the spirit of some of them.
It was not until Herkuhlos had led his band almost to the fences of his frightened herd that Negwis understood what was happening and led a band of his men into an attack from their positions on the other side of the pasture. All the warriors were running for them now and they did not have long before they were trapped and so Herkuhlos kicked down the gate of hazel and stamped it flat.
The horses in the pen were agitated and moved away from him toward the corner of the enclosure but he closed on them quickly, pushing through some to find a big dark mare with a long coat. Some of the horses had harnesses and nose bands and a few were tethered and one or two sported riding blankets that were still tied around them with belly straps.
“Help me,” Herkuhlos said as Amra came running up, forgetting that she could not understand him. “Hold this horse. No, hold it!” He lay Pehur over one and picked up Amra and put her behind him. “Hurry!” he shouted at his men who came rushing into the mass of panicking horses trying to find one for themselves.
Out in the pasture behind them, Negwis was shouting at his men to stop for fear of killing their own precious horses.
Keen to solidify their betrayal, Helek’s warriors were still shooting, however, and Gehbol’s men were running down the pasture to stop their escape.
His followers leapt onto horses and Herkuhlos kicked down a section of fence and drove his mounted people out through it. All the horses, keen to escape, trotted out and started into a run toward the welcoming tranquillity of the trees.
Herkuhlos leapt astride the big mare he had chosen, his feet brushing the tops of the long grass, and looked around.
Wetelos was clinging to a horse that took him away north and Amra, with Pehur before her, was not far behind him.
Herkuhlos rode into the edge of the woodland where the undergrowth was clear but the coppiced trunks provided some cover from the missiles cutting toward him. From within the trees he turned and looked around for the rest of his men.
“Mardoc!” Herkuhlos shouted.
The old warrior knelt beside the broken gate, an arrow jutting from his back. Crying in pain, Mardoc nocked one of his own arrows and shot it, killing one of Negwis’ warriors and sending Negwis himself leaping to the ground in fear. Still, dozens of warriors were now converging on the pen and there was no chance that his people who had not yet mounted would get away.
“Mardoc!” Herkuhlos shouted again as he rode deeper into the trees as arrows and stones clattered around him as they crashed against trunks and branches.
“I die!” Mardoc shouted without turning.
Enemy warriors were closer now and they had riders amongst them charging toward him and he had to go before all was lost. His last sight was of Gelbus and Desgen being hacked down inside the enclosure and a fallen Mardoc was lost beneath the wave of warriors that flooded by him.
“Go, lord,” Sunhus said, turning his horse against the flow of the herd and raising his axe. “I will slow them.”
“No,” Herkuhlos said as he urged his mare into flight. “You will not. Come on!”
With the last of the frightened horses, they followed the others deeper into the woodland. They had avoided disaster by moments but there were hundreds of warriors that would not give up their pursuit.
20. Feast
“You brought me here for this?” Hrungna asked, watching the warriors whooping as they charged into the trees after the fleeing half-breed and his slaves. “This hardly required the strength of thirty sacrifices, Torkos. I could have stayed home.”
Torkos scowled. “Because my plan worked.”
Hrungna chuckled. “You lie, Torkos. You meant to catch the half-breed but see he flees like a deer. You were afraid of a weakling boy. A coward!”
“He will be caught,” Torkos said.
Hrungna’s laugh grew until he was shaking with mirth.
“Your amusement offends me,” Torkos said.
Wiping his eye, Hrungna slapped Torkos on the shoulder. “You were so afraid of that scrawny thing, brother.” He leaned in. “And he ran like a coward.”
Whipping around, Torkos grabbed Hrungna, grasping his hair in one hand and his throat in the other and held him as Hrungna tried to pull away. Torkos leaned
in, his face so close his protruding bottom teeth almost touched Hrungna’s quivering cheek. “You are no brother of mine,” Torkos growled. “You will show me respect before the mortals, kinsman. Or I shall open this disgusting great belly of yours and spill your rancid guts on the earth for the dogs to lap up. Do you understand?”
There was hatred in Hrungna’s dark eyes but he grunted. “Yes.”
Releasing him, Torkos turned to the warrior before him. “What is it?” he said in a voice that would have sent most warriors to their knees in fear.
It was Gehbol, however, and the chief of chiefs did not fall to his knees. “My men will chase them down, lord.”
Torkos raised a massive finger and touched the point on Ghebol’s chest. “You will lead them yourself. You will not return until you have him.”
“Yes, lord.” Gehbol gestured. “I have prisoners, lord.” He indicated the wounded warriors held captive behind him. “That one is Helek, and those are his sons. He is the one who sent a rider to warn us of the coming of Herkuhlos.”
Torkos gestured and the aging warrior Helek was dragged forward. His face was bloody but he stood with his shoulders back and his head up, as if he were not afraid. A proud man who was not afraid to die, Torkos noted.
“You betrayed the half-breed,” Torkos said. “Why?”
Helek answered at once, speaking plainly and without grovelling. “We never wanted him for a chief. He defeated Kapol in a challenge that was properly accepted and so we obeyed him for a time. But when he marched against you, we could follow him no longer.”
Torkos smiled and lifted a hand to stroke Helek’s bloody cheek. “Is your love for me so strong, Helek?” He caressed his face and lifted his bloodied fingers to his lips and licked them clean. Strong blood.
The old warrior was stiff with fear now or perhaps outrage but he answered well. “Only a madman would challenge the gods, lord.”
Behind him, Hrungna grunted. “Clever little man.”
Torkos ignored him. “What do you desire for your reward, Helek?”
“A man asks nothing of the gods, lord. He does what is right and accepts whatever blessings the gods may or may not bestow.”
A great snort escaped Torkos and he laughed. “You would make a fine chief. Return to your village, continue the sacrifices, and obey your chief and your god and you will do well.”
“Yes, lord,” Helek said, his relief obvious. “With gratitude, lord.”
Already dismissing him, Torkos turned to the other captives. They had been followers of Herkuhlos and both were wounded and on their knees with Gehbol’s warriors behind them.
“You captured only two, Ghebol?” Hrungna asked, rubbing his throat. “Hundreds of warriors, you with the power of the gods in your belly, and yet you let them escape and captured only two?”
Gehbol was filled with the fire of the gods and he appeared to feel a powerful rage at the accusation though he fought it down. That rage amused Torkos. Truly Ghebol and his wife still retained an inhuman ambition. But the warrior controlled his anger and answered. “There are four more of their number dead, lord. The rest, Herkuhlos and his warband, I will find as soon as we are done here.”
Torkos grunted. “You are delaying him, Hrungna, and you have insulted him. I wonder how long he would survive if I ordered him to kill you now.”
Gehbol’s eyes darted between the two gods but Hrungna only laughed. “He would survive for as long as it takes for me to strike a single blow.”
“Bring me that one,” Torkos commanded, pointing at the closest captive, and they held up a young man and carried him closer. “This warrior is a slave of the half-breed?”
“Lord, this is Desgen,” Ghebol said. “He was one of my son’s men but he was fighting for Herkuhlos.”
Surprised, Torkos lifted the warrior’s head. His face was thick with drying blood and there was a gash in his hair still leaking blood. One arm hung broken at his side and one knee had been broken with an axe.
“A betrayer.”
“Yes, lord,” said Ghebol.
“Desgen, you betrayed your god and for that you shall die badly.” He glanced at Gehbol. “Have your men flay him. He will not last long but make it as slow as you can. You can feed the pieces to Hrungna.”
“Yes, lord.”
“And this one?”
“An old man, lord. Furun. He killed three of Negwis’ warriors with his bow before we got to him and then he killed two of mine.”
Torkos snorted. “This broken old thing? How?”
“He feigned weakness but he was hiding an axe and a knife.”
Smiling, Torkos waved him closer. It was rare to find one of the Furun with such a warrior spirit and so he would eat his flesh and take some of the man’s power into himself.
“Ask him why he served the half-breed?”
“I speak the tongue of the Heryos,” the wounded Furun said, his head hanging down.
That brought a bark of laughter from Hrungna but Torkos ignored him. “So answer me.”
The old man lifted his head and his eyes struggled to focus on the god standing over him. “Because he was worthy of my service.” He turned his head to look at Helek, standing off to the side. “Betrayer!” he snarled and spat a mouthful of blood toward him.
“Worthy?” Torkos asked quietly. “If he was worthy he would not have abandoned you to this fate.” He grabbed the Furun and lifted him from the grasp of his men. The old man struggled, as they all struggled, against his fists and he scratched and thrashed and cried out but Torkos ignored his struggles. “No, he was not worthy. As all those who follow him will soon discover.” Catching a thrashing arm he fed the man’s hand into his mouth and bit down, crunching the bones and tasting the sudden burst of blood on his tongue. The Furun screamed as his hand was severed at the wrist.
Before finishing his feast, he turned to Gehbol. “Bring me the half-breed.”
“Yes, lord.”
Torkos brought the side of the old man’s screaming face up to his gaping mouth and bit down, tearing away his cheek and ripping off half of his face in a single bite.
I will do the same to you, half-breed, he thought with satisfaction. I will do the same to you.
21. Flight
It was a young wood with trees just ten or twenty years old and with little undergrowth. The cattle of Negwis were grazed here and the trees coppiced for poles and firewood and so the going was easy for the herd of panicking horses.
The horses seemed to know where they were going or perhaps they were simply following one another or the lead mare but they ran on without hesitation through the trees with the sunlight flashing through the leaves overhead.
Even so the warriors chasing them ran hard on their tracks in furious pursuit. Herkuhlos knew that their chance of escape depended entirely on what the gods put ahead of them. If they came to an impassable river or a gorge or a cliff or merely dense woodland that slowed or stopped the horses then the scores of warriors behind would catch them.
Of course if it came to a fight then Herkuhlos could kill some but he knew he could never defeat even half so many and their angry shouts echoed between the trees and they seemed to be growing in number.
Herkuhlos burned with shame. He had led these people into disaster and defeat. He had been betrayed. And he had fled like a coward instead of dying like a warrior.
Behind, the warriors ran after them in determined pursuit and he doubted that the gods would treat him favourably by laying good fortune in his path. Surely this pursuit could only end in bloody defeat.
After all, where could they go? The horses seemed strong and well-fed but they could not run at this mad pace for long, certainly not all day. Perhaps they would find a place where they could make a stand, somewhere he could defend against many times his number without being shot down from a distance. But he could scarcely imagine such a place. If it existed it would have to be a cave or a narrow gorge and there was nothing like that in these low rolling hills and wide valleys an
d so he put that thought from his mind.
All they could do was to ride until the horses collapsed and then run until they could run no more and then they would have to turn and fight. And then they would die.
So be it, he thought bitterly. I led us to this with my foolishness and so death is the consequence. No one will remember my name and my deeds will soon be forgotten and I will bring shame to my forefathers and to the gods themselves.
“Lord!” a voice called from ahead. Sunhus was directing his attention to the edge of the woodland there where the foremost of their running herd had burst forth into a land of devastation beyond the forest.
The trees here were gone and the earth was covered with thick ash that flew into clouds as the fleeing herd thundered across it. The land had been cleared, cut down and burned so that it could be ploughed or grazed. There was a village in the distance to the west and the horses turned toward it, galloping through the burned ground and Herkuhlos allowed his horse to follow them.
“Stay together,” he called grimly to his people.
Most of them hardly seemed able to control their horses anyway and were clinging on to the manes and bouncing. Pehur, gravely wounded and completely unconscious, seemed about to fall headfirst from his horse but Amra was sprawled across him, pinning him with her body as she held on to her horse’s mane. It was impossible to see how close the pursuit was as the cloud of ash kicked up by the herd obscured the tree line behind.
Soon they rode out of the burned land and onto the dark earth of wheat fields with long strips with green shoots poking through the soil. The horses pounded through the neat lines, throwing clods and the precious wheat shoots into the air, though the beasts did not like running on the soft ground and they were already growing tired from their mad flight and so they slowed, tossing their heads and complaining.
Herkuhlos urged his mare on and she obeyed, overtaking the riderless horses and taking the lead. Ahead, the men of the distant village were running out and shouting in fury at the destruction they were making of their wheat fields and warning them to keep away but Herkuhlos paid them no mind.