“What is it?” asked the Waelisc warrior. He rode his bay mare effortlessly, and as always, when Beobrand watched the man ride, he marvelled at how one who had been so unsuited to horseback at first had gone on to become the best horseman of his warband, and arguably in the kingdom.
Beobrand was no great rider, but he had the finest of horses. Sceadugenga was no longer young, but the horse was still hale and strong and there was a deep understanding between horse and rider. Beobrand knew it was foolish to care for a beast, but the bond he shared with Sceadugenga was unlike anything he had felt with other animals. The stallion and he had been through much together and it often seemed to him that the animal knew what he was going to command before he even knew himself.
“Something is not right,” Beobrand said, raising his voice over the thunder of the horses’ hooves on the summer-dry ground.
“You think it a trap?” said Cynan.
Beobrand frowned. With his half-hand he swiped the sweat from his brow.
“I know not. But let us ride with caution. Keep your eyes open.” Looking over his shoulder at the column of riders, Beobrand noticed that a couple were straggling some way behind the rest. “Take the lead, Cynan. I would check on Brinin.”
Without waiting for a response, Beobrand pulled Sceadugenga’s head to one side and wheeled around. His warband cantered past in a rush of warm wind. Dust clouded the air, gritting his eyes and drying his throat. It had not rained for weeks and the earth was cracked and crumbling. He watched the faces of the warriors, ruddy and angular in the light of the setting sun. They were grim men, hardened by years of shieldwalls and border clashes. Warriors all, they had given their oaths to Beobrand and they served him well. In turn, he was generous and they were well equipped. All held spears, and sheathed swords hung from baldrics on most of them. A few wore helms, but most were bare-headed in the heat, their helmets bouncing where they were tied to saddles. Each man had a black-daubed shield strapped to his back. Years before, some of the men had asked Beobrand what his banner should be. Warriors needed a symbol to rally behind, they’d said. Beobrand cared nothing for pictures or banners made of the pelts of animals, such as those carried aloft by other warlords. His warband had but one purpose when they marched – to kill their lord’s enemies – and they should not need a standard to remind them of who they served. They had decided on the colour of death for their shields and thus the infamous Black Shields were born, feared and respected the length of Albion.
One of the riders who had fallen behind was the youngest member of Beobrand’s gesithas. The instant Beobrand rode close he knew the boy could not continue to keep up the pace of this pursuit. The puckered skin of a long raw scar stood out starkly against Brinin’s milk-pallid face and his eyes were dull and pinched with pain. Beobrand remembered clearly the tumult of crashing waves and the chaos of battle on a distant Wessex beach where the young man had received the wound that had so brutally marked his otherwise handsome face. The man who rode alongside Brinin was Halinard. The Frankish warrior offered Beobrand a sombre nod of welcome. Words were not needed. Beobrand could see immediately that Brinin would soon collapse if he was not allowed to rest.
Sceadugenga fell into step beside Brinin and Halinard’s horses. The grey mare Halinard rode nickered in greeting at Beobrand’s black stallion.
The strip of cloth that Fraomar had ripped from a kirtle and tied about Brinin’s right arm was soaked dark with blood. Brinin swayed in the saddle like a drunk. Halinard rode as nearby as he could, clearly meaning to catch the boy if he should topple.
Anger flared within Beobrand.
“I told you to only see what was causing the smoke, didn’t I?” he snarled. “Didn’t I give you an order not to attack any enemy you might come across; to ride back and tell us what you had found?”
Brinin did not reply, but the misery on his features was plain. Beobrand understood all too well the fire that burnt in young men, the fury that would not allow them to turn away from a challenge.
“Gods, boy,” he yelled, his anger yielding to exasperation, “I should never have let you ride with us. If you should die, how will I be able to return to Ubbanford? I will not be able to face Ardith with tidings of your death.” Beobrand was known as a brave man and had no qualms facing armed men in combat to the death. And yet he could not stomach the thought of having to give his daughter the news of her husband’s death. She had begged him not to allow Brinin to go with the warband on their annual patrol of the frontier to the south. Ardith had pointed out that Brinin was Ubbanford’s smith and so could not be spared. But Beobrand liked the boy and could see in him a need to prove himself that he recognised. It would do the lad no good to be forced to remain at home with the womenfolk, children and greybeards. And so he had allowed him to come. And how had Brinin repaid him? By ignoring his command and riding in recklessly to attack a party of Mercian raiders. In doing so, he had not only picked up a bad slash to his arm, which could yet become elf-shot and diseased, but he had held them up in the pursuit of the marauders. They had needed to wait while Fraomar had done his best to staunch the bleeding and to bandage the wound. Now, weak and pale, and on the verge of tumbling from his horse, he was slowing them down again.
Beobrand sighed.
“Halt!” he shouted, so that his voice carried to the front of the column.
A moment later, he saw Cynan rein in his mare. The rest of the warband pulled up.
Tugging his reins, Beobrand slowed Sceadugenga and brought him to a stop. Brinin rode on, seemingly oblivious of Beobrand’s command. Halinard spurred close, catching the young man’s reins. The horse whinnied, shying away, but Halinard held firm and soon had both his horse and Brinin’s under control.
Beobrand jumped to the ground. He grunted at the tightness in his right side. The wound he had received the previous year in Eoferwic had healed well. Coenred had sewn up the gash with horsehair and applied a poultice of bread, honey and mead to it. It no longer hurt, but the skin around the scar was tight and pulled uncomfortably when he stretched.
Halinard dismounted and together they lifted Brinin down from his saddle. They laid him on the dry grass beside the dusty road. Brinin’s face was awash with sweat and his eyes were unfocused. His head lolled and his limbs were as weak as a babe’s.
“Halinard, stay with him. Fetch water from the stream we passed not long since. Keep him warm and his wound clean.” Fumbling in his saddlebags, Beobrand brought out a kirtle and threw it at the Frank, who snatched it from the air. “Use this to bind the cut. It’s clean.” Udela had told him to carry extra clothing. He knew he would not need clean kirtles on the patrol and had told her as much. She had insisted, and in the end, he had stuffed the things into his bags, content to be done with the woman’s nagging. He was glad he had allowed her to win that argument now. He knew little of healing, but he had heard Coenred say many times that clean cloths were vital if injuries were not to become poisoned.
With a clatter of hooves, Cynan pulled his mount to a halt beside them.
“We’re leaving Brinin behind?” he asked. His tone was flat, with no hint of emotion, but Beobrand sensed his disapproval.
“It is either that, or we lose the bastards that killed Leofing and burnt his hall.”
Cynan nodded.
Beobrand swung himself up onto Sceadugenga’s back, careful this time not to stretch the skin over his ribs.
“We will return as soon as we can,” he said to Halinard. “Keep him safe and we should be back on the morrow.”
Halinard looked up at him with a thin smile.
“You will stay safe too, lord,” he said in his strangely accented voice.
Beobrand did not answer. He hoped Halinard was right and they would be safe. But as he turned away from the pale, feverish face of his son-in-law and pulled Sceadugenga’s huge head around to face once more the red fire of the setting sun, he shuddered. Something was not right here. Why were Mercians attacking so deep within Bernicia? How had they pass
ed through Deira without being apprehended?
Cynan kicked his horse into a canter, calling out to the waiting warriors that they were to ride again. Beobrand followed him, allowing Sceadugenga to carry him without guidance. His gesithas were seasoned warriors, well-drilled and disciplined, and they did not grumble as the column began to move once more.
Beobrand peered into the distance. Thickets of beech stood out starkly against the molten iron glow of the sky, deep shadows puddling beneath them. Soon, they had settled back into the rhythm of pursuit. The thrum of hooves, the jangle of harnesses and the slap of linden boards against broad backs.
When Halinard and Brinin had galloped back from Leofing’s hall, they had told of no more than ten men, Mercians by their account. After a brief skirmish, in which Brinin had slain one of them, the Mercians had fled westward.
They could not be very far ahead and Beobrand’s warband’s mounts were fresh, only recently having left Ubbanford. They had been on their way south to the borderlands, where they’d expected to lend their numbers to those of Deiran warbands, acting as a deterrent to summer raids for cattle from Mercia.
He pushed the worries about Brinin from his mind. Halinard would tend to him and there was nothing more that Beobrand could do for him now. He should be pleased that they had stumbled on these Mercians. They were on familiar territory, on fresh horses, and they outnumbered their foe.
So why was he unable to shake the unnerving feeling that despite all this, and the comforting warmth of the sun on his face, he was leading his men towards darkness and death?
Chapter 2
Beobrand trudged over to where Fraomar was guarding the horses. The dew from the long grass soaked his leg bindings. The horses were tethered and calm, dipping their heads to tear at the lush grass.
He peered toward the western horizon where the land climbed to a rocky outcrop. A buzzard soared above the hill, circling with languid grace on the warm air that rose from the sun-drenched earth below.
“Where are they?” Beobrand whispered to himself.
Before dawn, fearing an ambush and trusting to his instincts, he had sent Attor and Cynan to scout ahead. It shouldn’t be difficult to follow the Mercians, as they seemed to have decided to stick to the old track that led into the south and west. But should they deviate from the path, Attor could track any creature over all types of terrain. He would not lose them. Beobrand had given them strict instructions not to approach their quarry. He sensed that the enemy was near and he did not want to ride recklessly into a trap.
They had made camp in a gully where they were sheltered from the path by a stand of alder. They had ridden long into the gathering dusk before eventually accepting, when the last light had bled out of the sky, that they would not catch their quarry that night. They had lit no fire and the men had whispered in the darkness, chewing on their dried beef and sipping water from their leather flasks. There had been no clouds and the night was still and cold. Beobrand had been unable to sleep. Wrapping himself in his cloak, he had closed his eyes, but his mind had been in turmoil.
There was much about this Mercian raid that unnerved him. It was unusual for their enemies to strike this far into Bernicia. The borderlands of Deira, where the barren peaks of the Pecsætna rose, windswept and forbidding – that was where the Mercians would risk a foray to steal cattle. Not north of the Wall.
Bitter memories of another Mercian incursion beat like bat wings in his mind. He remembered the destruction and death left after Halga’s raid. In the wake of that attack many of Beobrand’s folk had been slain. Reaghan had been one of those who had lost her life, struck down by a treacherous Mercian blade. Beobrand sighed in the darkness to think of her. Reaghan had been a good woman, and what had he given her? In the end, like so many others in his life, she had died blood-soaked and in agony.
She had been dead for years now and as always when he thought of her, he felt a gnawing sense of guilt. He did not miss her; could barely conjure up the image of her, apart from a vague recollection of thick auburn hair and her pale fragile form. She had cared for him and warmed his bed for years and yet all he had given her was her freedom from thralldom. Could he have provided more?
Pushing thoughts of Reaghan from his mind, he scanned the land to the west, shielding his eyes with his hand. The sun was high in the sky already. They had been waiting a long time and the uncertainty of what might be happening over those hills was stretching Beobrand’s nerves to the limit.
“Gods,” he said, “where are they?” He had not expected Attor and Cynan to take so long, and with each passing moment he felt the chance ebbing away of catching the Mercians who had injured Brinin and razed Leofing’s hall.
“I am sure they will be back soon,” said Fraomar.
Beobrand started. He had not expected an answer to his question and he smiled ruefully at the young warrior.
“The horses are all saddled and ready?” he asked, in an attempt to hide his nervousness. This waiting, relying on others to put themselves at risk for him, this was the worst part of leading men. Bassus always told him, “You can’t do everything yourself. And the men need their hlaford alive. If you go running into every fray, you will sooner or later get yourself killed and warriors without lords are not happy men.” Beobrand spat. Bassus’ words were true, but he would never be content to command his men to fight for him, if he were not willing to take up shield and sword himself.
“The horses are ready, lord,” Fraomar said, with a twisted smile. “Just as they were the last time you asked.”
Beobrand snorted. He knew he made the men nervous with his pacing, but he could not shift the feeling that something was amiss. He wondered how Brinin and Halinard fared. And were Cynan and Attor even now engaged in a fight with the Mercians they had pursued?
“Good,” he said, “you have done well.”
He gazed up at the bright sky. The morning haze had burnt away and the sun would soon be at its zenith. Unable to contain his anxiety any longer, Beobrand raised his voice and shouted, “Time to mount up, men. I had expected Cynan and Attor to return before now. Let us ride and see what we can find.”
His gesithas, evidently as anxious as he to find out what had befallen their comrades, jumped to their feet. They quickly slung rolled blankets and bags behind saddles, and pulled themselves up onto their waiting mounts. Beobrand took Sceadugenga’s reins from Fraomar and swung himself up onto the stallion’s back.
“We ride with caution,” he said, surveying the sombre faces of the men around him. “Something is wrong here. If evil has betided Cynan and Attor, we will avenge them.” There was a grumble of anger at the thought and Beobrand felt a sudden stab of fear, as if having said the words gave them heft, made the possibility more real. He reached for the Thunor’s hammer amulet at his throat and spat into the dew-sparkled grass.
It felt good to be moving and Beobrand welcomed the breeze on his face as he led the horsemen out from the shadow of the alders and up the steep bank to the track and its cracked and crumbling earth and pebbles.
They had ridden for only a matter of moments when relief flooded through him.
Two riders crested the hill to the west. They were riding hard and they were too distant for him to make out their faces, but he recognised Cynan’s bay mare. He spurred Sceadugenga forward, his gesithas in his wake. The warband and the two outriders met in a cloud of dust beneath the searing summer sun at the foot of the slope.
“I thought you told us to return before midday,” Cynan said, grinning. “The sun is not at its zenith and yet we find you on the move.”
“We were getting bored waiting,” Beobrand said, returning Cynan’s smile with a levity he did not feel. “So, what have you seen? Did you catch up with the Mercians?”
“You could say that,” Attor said, reining in his steed. The flanks of both horses were lathered in sweat. Cynan unstoppered a flask and drank deeply.
“Tell me,” Beobrand said.
“We picked up their tracks e
asily when they left the path,” Attor replied. “They were riding fast and made no attempt to hide their sign. What we found in the vale of the Irthin explained why.”
“What did you find in the valley?”
“This was no mere raiding party, lord,” Cynan said, taking up the story from Attor and handing the slim scout the flask of water. “We were warned of their presence by the smoke of many fires. We saw them from far afield and at first we thought perhaps they had put more steadings to the flames, but there are no halls or farms thereabouts.”
“What made the smoke?”
“A warhost,” Cynan said, all trace of humour gone from his voice now. “We left the horses and climbed the bluff where we could look down into the valley and there we saw a great company of warriors.”
“Mercians?”
Cynan nodded. His face was grim.
“Hundreds of them.”
Beobrand grew cold despite the heat of the day. Such a horde of warriors would have amassed for only one reason: to invade Bernicia.
“And it’s worse than that,” said Attor.
Beobrand frowned. What could be worse than a host of Mercian warriors on Bernician soil?
“Tell me.”
“Men of Powys and Gwynedd are with them.”
“You are sure of this?”
“I am certain. We saw the black lion of Powys and the white eagle of Gwynedd alongside Penda’s wolf pelt banner.”
“So,” said Beobrand slowly, trying to make sense of what he was hearing, “the Mercians we have chased from Leofing’s hall…”
“Outriders,” said Attor. “From what we could see, the host was not on the move. Perhaps the attack on Leofing’s hall was not planned. I do not think Penda would welcome his presence here being made known to Oswiu or his thegns.”
Beobrand’s head was spinning. Again he cursed Brinin for a fool. Still, perhaps it was his very impetuosity that had led them to discover this host.
Fortress of Fury Page 3
