by J A Cummings
The young king looked to Merlin. “Can you keep our horses from suffering?”
The druid nodded. “For a short while, yes.”
“Then we leave tonight.” He rose. “Sir Ector, Sir Bedivere, Sir Brastias and Merlin… come with me.”
They assembled in the king’s lodging, where he laid out the maps he had borrowed from Bedivere. “There are good Roman roads between here and the Glein, and we can take those as far as we’re able,” Arthur said. “They’re going to have to moor their boats when the river narrows and then strike out from there on foot. We won’t reach them in time to prevent them from landing, but we can remove their option for escape.”
“What’s your plan, sir?” Bedivere asked.
“The army will march north beginning at first light. We - the four of us, plus Kay and Ulfius - will ride tonight at full speed. Merlin will keep our horses from fatigue. We’ll go to the river bank and destroy their ships.”
“They’ll have guards set on them,” Bedivere warned.
“I’m counting on it. We need to keep one of them alive long enough to tell us where the Saxons are heading. After that, we pursue.”
“And if they’re laying siege on some poor bastard?” Brastias asked.
Arthur smiled. “Then we attack them from the rear and catch them between the walls of the defenders and our swords. We’ll smash them like flies.” He pointed to the map, and his voice turned hard. “The important thing is not to let them take these roads. There are Roman highways here and here. One links Londinium with Eburacum and points north. The other runs from Lindum straight through to Dumnonia. If they take these roads, they’ll split our country into quarters, and I will not have it.”
Merlin nodded. “A sound strategy, my lord.”
Arthur rolled up the map and tucked it back into its cylindrical case. “Then let’s go. We don’t have time to waste.”
They left as soon as they were armed and their horses were ready for the trip. Merlin touched each horse in turn, whispering words of magic in their ears that made the animals shiver. Soon they were eager for the run, stomping and dancing in place. For Kay, the druid applied a salve that would numb the pain of his ankle while he rode. It would have been better to leave him behind, but Kay wouldn’t hear of being left out. The knights mounted up, and Arthur led the way out of the gates of Verulamium, headed north.
It was dangerous to gallop in the darkness of the night, so they let the horses govern their own speeds. Each man stole a few minutes of sleep in the saddle, but it was a tired and anxious group that greeted the sunrise. Merlin, now clad in black-painted armor like a warrior, supplied them with conjured food that they ate as they rode, not taking the time to stop and cook a proper meal. Time was of the essence, and it was not on their side.
They spent two whole days in the saddle, stopping only when necessary, their mounts kept spry and healthy by the druidic magic that Merlin cast. The druid did his best to keep Kay from suffering, as well, but there was only so much that he could do to alleviate the pain of a broken ankle.
The countryside they passed through was gorgeous, but Arthur had no time to enjoy the scenery. He was preoccupied with how many boats they might find, and how many soldiers, and he worried that he and his companions might be too few to win the day.
There would be only one way to find out.
In her tower on the western coast, Vivienne watched the developing war with interest, her scrying mirror trained upon the person of the young High King. She liked that he showed fearlessness, no matter what he might be feeling in his heart. He was strong. The more she watched him, the more confident she was that he would be the tool she needed to reach her goals.
Her son had done a good job squelching his silly infatuation with the boy, and she was glad of that. The less emotion that Merlin felt, the easier he would find it to complete his tasks. Their kind lived too long to grow attached to the short-lived humans around them. It was useless pain, and she had learned that love was simply not a whim that a demon could indulge.
Still… if there was any human she could see an incubus or succubus loving, it would be the new High King. There was something about him, something that made him different from other humans. She could practically smell his energy when she watched him through the mirror, and it made her hungry. She resolved that when the time came, when he had obtained the things she needed him to obtain and done all that she needed him to do, then she would treat herself and take him. His soul would offer her great gifts, she could tell.
She only needed to be patient. For now, she would watch and wait while her son groomed the young king for his final fate. He would end his life in her embrace soon enough.
Arthur and Bedivere crept up through the brush over the river bank, keeping low to the ground. They moved as quietly as they could in the darkness of the early morning. Below them, tethered like horses at the side of the river, twelve Saxon longboats waited for their passengers to return. A group of Saxon soldiers stood with them, some on watch, the rest relaxing around small campfires. Arthur counted twenty-four in all.
“The odds are better than I’d hoped,” he whispered to Bedivere.
The knight nodded, then put a finger to his lips. Arthur fell silent. Slithering backward on his belly, Bedivere left their vantage point and led his king away from the river. Still signaling Arthur to stay still and quiet, he reconnoitered the forest approaches to the bank and returned. He beckoned Arthur to follow, and they returned to the rest of their group.
The waiting knights looked up expectantly as Bedivere and Arthur appeared from the wood. “Twenty-four of them,” Bedivere reported. “Mostly men at arms with seax and halberds. There are six archers.”
“Twelve boats,” Arthur added. “They must have brought quite an army with them.”
“Not that large,” Merlin said. “Each boat carries forty men, so they will have around four hundred and eighty total, counting those they left behind to guard the boats. Not a formidable force at all.”
“And we are how many?” Arthur asked Brastias.
“Currently? Six. When we rejoin the army, we will be a little more than three hundred. The numbers are theirs, but surprise can make up for some of that.”
“Dawn will come in less than an hour,” Ector said. “If we are going to attack this detachment, now is the time, while some of them are still in their beds.”
“I agree.” Arthur nodded. “Sir Bedivere, did you find a good approach for the horses?”
“I did. There’s a flatter part down the river from them. We can ride at speed along the water’s edge and take them unaware.”
The young king nodded and swung up into his saddle. “Then let’s do it.”
Mist was rising from the river in dense white clouds, obscuring the banks and suffusing the entire Glein with an otherworldly quiet. In the silence, the snort of a horse seemed far away, but the mist could make sound do strange things. A metallic click, the stomp of a hoof… it was all explainable, all safe, nothing that might cause the guards to be alarmed.
Then Arthur and his knights emerged from the mist at full speed, the young king shouting a war cry that jolted the Saxons from their morning complacency. With thundering hooves and slashing swords, they made their way through the camp, cutting down the men who were standing guard and trampling those unable to get out of the way fast enough.
They hurtled through, then wheeled around for another pass. The Saxons hastened to form their shield wall, and Arthur sheathed his sword.
“Spears!” he shouted.
All of the knights made the switch from one weapon to another. When they were arrayed behind him in a wedge formation, he leveled his spear at the center of the Saxon line.
“Charge!”
They galloped forward. Spears protruded from the shield wall, but Arthur did not slow. His mount bore him bravely forward, two thousand pounds of horse and man racing at top speed. His lance struck a Saxon shield and threw it aside, the force of his charge sha
ttering their defenses. The men in the middle of the wall fell sprawling, and he rode over the top of them. Their bones crunched beneath his horse’s hooves, and he skewered another man with his spear as he passed by. He bent backward in the saddle to keep hold of his weapon as his victim fell, and he managed to keep his grip as the horse’s momentum pulled the spear free of the falling man. He straightened, and his wounded abdomen decried the motion with vigor, leaving him momentarily breathless.
Behind him, Kay and Bedivere trampled over the Saxon shield wall, widening the hole that Arthur had made. The screams of dying men filled the air, and the Saxons’ horses shrilled in terror. Ector, Ulfius, Brastias and Merlin rode through them next. Their spears found more targets, and their chargers flattened more men.
When the shield wall collapsed, the knights switched to their swords, using the advantage of being on horseback to its fullest extent. They all rode back into the thick of the Saxon throng, their swords cutting the invaders down like scythes in a wheat field until blood stood in puddles on the muddy ground. When there were only four Saxons left alive, the invaders threw down their arms and surrendered.
Ulfius bound the four men hand and foot and sat them on a fallen log beside the water. Arthur stood before them. “Where is your army going?” he asked.
They stared at him blankly. One of them glanced anxiously at Arthur’s companions, who were grim-faced and spattered in blood.
“Where is your army going?” He realized the problem and turned to Ulfius. “They don’t understand me. Can you speak their tongue?”
The knight nodded. “Of course.” He stepped forward, his sword in his hand but the point in the dirt. They eyed it nervously. He spoke to them in their language, and one of the four spoke back in hurried, panicked tones. Ulfius replied in a growl, and the man spoke again, even quicker than before. One of his compatriots glared at the speaker in seething rage, but the Norse-born knight was satisfied.
“They march on Lindum, and thence to Eburacum. One of their spies poisoned the king of Ebruac, and they’re trying to take his castle and his kingdom before he’s replaced. They hope that Lindum will be the first to fall.”
“How many do they have?”
Ulfius relayed the king’s question, and the prisoner answered readily enough. “They have had forces here on the Glein since Yuletide, and the ones who came on these ships joined up with them. They are one thousand strong.”
Merlin nodded in answer to Arthur’s unspoken question. “It is true.”
“That bodes ill for us,” Ector said.
“Don’t concern yourself with numbers,” the druid advised. “They are a trick of the mind and rarely take into account other factors that will make or break a fight.”
“Easy for you to say,” Kay groused. “You don’t have to face them.”
“Did I not fight here?”
“Enough. How long ago did they leave?” Arthur asked.
Ulfius again translated. He turned back with the answer. “Two days ago.”
“As we expected.” The king nodded. “Who is their commander?”
“A jarl named Colgren.”
Arthur stored the name away inside his mind. “Let’s go back to meet up with the army and march on to Lindum.”
“Not so fast,” Bedivere said. “What do we do with this lot?”
Ulfius snorted. “I say we kill them.”
“No,” Arthur said quickly. “Absolutely not. We will never stoop so low as to kill a prisoner. There’s no honor in that.”
“Fuck honor,” Ulfius said. “I want to live, and with these four at our backs…”
Bedivere silenced him with a wave of his hand. “My lord, if we leave them bound, they will be unable to eat or drink and they will die slowly. If we slay them quickly, they do not suffer.”
He stared at his knight in horror. “I can’t believe you are actually advocating this course of action. We are not butchers.”
“Would you prefer that we take them as hostages, then? Add them to the army’s burden?” Bedivere folded his arms. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, they are a hindrance.”
“They are human beings.” Arthur took a deep breath. The wound in his abdomen stabbed in protest, and he winced. “They’re clever enough to find a way to free themselves before they die of hunger or thirst. There are blades all around that they can use to cut their bonds. They’ll be delayed, though, and will be unable to tell the weight of the Saxon army that we’re coming.”
“Are you sure?”
Arthur sighed. “Tell them that we will not slay them if they agree to lay down their weapons, and to follow the road back to Ceint. Tell them that if they go to warn their master that we’re coming, we will find them and they’ll wish they’d never been born.”
Ulfius nodded. He delivered the king’s message, illustrating it with flared nostrils and a few shakes of his sword. The four of them readily agreed, if their bobbing heads were any clue to their intentions, and he turned back to Arthur.
“They accept your terms. But I really think we ought to kill them.”
“I know.” The king turned his back and walked to his mount. When he was in the saddle, he faced Ulfius. “This is the last time you will ever question my orders, Sir Ulfius. Do you understand?”
The steel in his voice left no room for discussion. The knight nodded, but his face burned red with resentment. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Arthur turned his horse back toward the road. Merlin rode beside him, and when they were far enough away, he whispered, “Well done.”
The king nodded and remained silent. There was nothing more to be said.
Lindum had been built on the site of the capital of the Corieltauvi tribe, taken by the Romans in the bloody aftermath of Boudicca’s rebellion. It was defensively well situated, its water needs supplied by a series of aqueducts and all of its citizenry protected within its massive walls. The Romans who had built the town had learned from the Iceni queen’s destructive campaign, and they had put those lessons to good use.
Colgren hated the Romans.
His father and grandfather had fallen fighting the legions who had attempted to invade his country, and he had cultivated sincere hatred for the Empire and all of its minions, cronies and lapdogs. Since arriving in Britannia, he had seen their accursed stone fingerprints everywhere, and it set his teeth on edge. As he stood outside the walls of the old colony now, he wanted to tear it down brick by brick.
Ganile, sent by Hengist, stood beside him in her leathers, a sword at her waist. He had never seen her use it, but he was certain that it was no affectation. She was muscled like a warrior, and she balanced on her feet like a person who was familiar with a fight. After spending most of his life in battle, he could recognize another soldier when he saw one. He was not entirely displeased that she had been sent to oversee his operations.
“Well, the aqueduct will certainly make this take longer,” she said. “And they have ballista on the walls, so get ready to dodge from time to time. This will be a long siege.”
“Is their gate made of wood?”
“Reinforced with iron,” she nodded, “and probably with an iron grate behind it. This place was built to stand.”
He sighed. “That’s what I think, too.” He looked at her, taking in her clean profile and the golden braids at her temples that kept her hair out of her face. Facetiously, he asked, “Can you use your magic to go inside and open the door?”
“I can try.” She sounded calm, as if he hadn’t just asked what seemed to him to be the most ridiculous thing in the world. “If they have any sort of ward on their walls, or any sacrifice beneath the masonry, I won’t be able to get through.”
“Who puts sacrifices in masonry?” he scoffed.
“Romans.”
“Fucking Romans.”
“Exactly.” She drew a small pinch of something from a belt pouch and held it up in the air. She whispered to it, and the substance turned from green to black. She dropped her hand. “Warded
.”
He understood magic almost as well as he understood women, which was not at all, so he only shook his head and accepted what she said. “Fine. We’ll do this the hard way.”
Arthur and his companions rejoined the army the next day. As they rode into view, Griflet spurred his mount forward to greet them.
“My lords,” he said. “I’m relieved to see you well. Is anyone injured?”
“No, thankfully,” Arthur replied, “at least no more than we were when we left. How fare the men?”
“No complaints apart from the usual sore feet and empty bellies.”
“Empty bellies? Are there no rations?”
“There are, but nobody’s ever satisfied.” He turned his horse to escort the king back to the soldiers, who were marching in a disciplined block formation. When the men saw Arthur, they sent up a cheer, and he acknowledged them with an upraised hand.
He rode to the commander, Sir Egien. “We are marching to lift a siege on Lindum. We follow this road north.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Arthur went back to the head of the column, and Griflet followed him closely. “You look tired,” the young knight said.
“I am.”
“Is your wound paining you?”
He shook his head and lied. “Not much.”
“Should we stop so you can rest?”
The king smiled. “Dedicated chamberlain, aren’t you?”
“I suppose. Mostly, I’m your friend, if that’s not too bold.”
He looked into Griflet’s honest green eyes and said, “No. Not too bold at all.”
“Good.” The newest knight in Arthur’s company looked at the men who had returned with Arthur. “Jesus, you all look horrible.”
“I suppose we do, at that. But we’re not stopping until nightfall.”
They rode on for several miles, the rhythmic tramping of the army’s feet sounding like a drum that pushed him onward. Arthur was weary to his bones, but he would not allow himself to sleep until his men were resting, too. He promised himself that there was no hardship he would ask his men to endure that he would not share.
