Sword of Neamha

by Stephen England

  The town was silent. It was as the scouts had said. I came abreast of Aneirin as we rode toward the walls. Sweat was running down his forehead, icy streaks of perspiration criss-crossing his brow. He was afraid, I could see it in his eyes. As was I. But in that moment, I admired him. Despite his fear, despite his innate disposition toward the easy side of life, he was placing his life in jeopardy. And I admired him for it, even if in my heart I knew he was merely desperate to prove his manhood.

  We were within bow-shot of the kran. And yet nothing as we continued our slow advance.

  Bodies in various stages of decay were heaped around the gate, which swung loosely on its broken hinges. Only the cold kept the flies away.

  A shout went up from within the palisade, a cry of warning. Our presence had been detected.

  A man stepped from between the broken gates, a spear clutched tightly in his hands. His neck and right shoulder were swathed in bloody, dirty bandages. “Who are you?” he asked defiantly, more men emerging from the palisade behind him.

  “I am Aneirin moc Cunobelin, the heir of Tancogeistla,” Aneirin cried, bringing his horse up sharply.

  For a moment, the man just stared at him, at us, then his shoulders sagged in relief. “We had begun to think you would never come. I am Piso, the commander of the garrison. What remains of it.”

  “And the Casse?” Aneirin asked. “Are they still in the area?”

  Piso kicked savagely at a severed head lying near his foot. “All that remain,” he sneered, “ are like unto him. The rest ran like dogs.”

  His eyes scanned the horizon nervously. “I know not when they may return. Howbeit, as long as your army is here, that does not matter. The army is with you, is it not?”

  Aneirin nodded. “Tell us of your story.”

  Piso laid his spear to the side. “Come inside and I will…”

  Chapter XVIII: The Winding of the Road

  “For three months, they waited, constructing two mighty battering rams from the wood of the forest,” Captain Piso began, sitting down in front of a half-burned hovel. “And then early one morning about a week ago, they attacked.”

  “They outnumbered us heavily, possessing well over three hundred men more than my small garrison. Therefore they came forward without fear, pushing before them the rams. I ordered my slingers to bombard the enemy as they came close, then positioned the rest of my men close behind the walls. Nothing we did succeeded in stopping the rams, and by the time the sun had risen high into the sky of ogrosan, the gates were destroyed.”

  “Yea, mere moments later, the second ram broke open the wall alongside the gate and the Casse poured into the breach.”

  “My men fought with courage,” Piso stated proudly, looking around into their tired faces. “But the Casse steadily pushed us back. Their chieftain rode into battle in a chariot, surrounded by his retainers, and when he charged the gate, the cladaca broke, running for the center of town, followed by a few of the teceitos.”

  “The chieftain rode through the midst of our men and pursued the cladaca, coming upon them as they rallied near the foot of the hill.”

  “Summoning up their remaining courage, my men threw their javelins into his bodyguard and then charged, surrounding the chariots and hemming them in. The chieftain fought bravely, but it would do him no good. They hamstrung his horses and brought him to the ground, where they pulled off his armor and killed him.”

  “Word of his death spread through the army of the Casse like a flame, disheartening their warbands. I was standing with the slingers away from the carnage at the breach, and, sensing the panic beginning, I ordered the iaosatae into the fray with their knives. One by one, the Casse warbands broke before us, streaming back over the plain toward where you approached just now. The day was ours.”

  I looked over at Aneirin, who was drinking in the man’s words as a thirsty man drinks water. And indeed, the bodies still strewn over the ground indicated nothing less than a heroic fight. Tancogeistla would be sure to hear of this…

  We stayed in Yns-Mon for the next three months, biding our time and repairing the palisade. Though officially Tancogeistla was angry at Aneirin moc Cunobelin for his insubordination, I could tell the truth every time I met with the old general. He was proud of his heir’s performance, and it showed.

  He wasn’t fooling Aneirin either. The young man had carried himself differently ever since that day. Gone was at least a part of the languor that had characterized his bearing ever since the first day that I had known him. He supervised the rebuilding of the kran, acting like the second-in-command of Tancogeistla he was.

  And then one day, a week after the finishing of the kran, a messenger came to us as Aneirin and I stood together on a sharp bluff overlooking the sea.

  “Tancogeistla wishes to see both of you. At once!”

  Without speaking, both Aneirin and I swung onto the backs of our horses and rode quickly back to the oppida.

  Tancogeistla was standing in the courtyard of Piso’s house, sketching something in the dirt with the pointed end of a stick. Several of the nobles of the Aedui were gathered round them. With a flash of alarm, I saw one of them, a man by the name of Eporedoros moc Estes, scowl at Aneirin as we entered. Clearly, there was trouble gathering.

  The old general looked up and smiled at our entrance. “Welcome, my son, Cadwalador. We are discussing preparations for a march.”

  “Against the Casse?” Aneirin, walking ‘round the sketch to stand beside his adoptive father.

  Tancogeistla smiled again, placing a hand on the shoulder of his young heir. “Nay, my son. Rather we march against the Dumnones, against the oppida of Ictis.” He didn’t wait for Aneirin’s reaction.

  “It has been many years,” he continued. “They attacked us without provocation, slaughtering many of the Aedui. You remember, Cadwalador. You were there.”

  I nodded. The battle was seared into my memory as though with a hot iron. The hopeless stand outside Ictis, the ambush later on. I remembered Tancogeistla’s drunken fury at the time, remembered that the Dumnones had not been entirely without provocation. Still, it would be a just fight.

  “We have recently received information from our spy in the south that the Dumnones have just repulsed a heavy attack by the Casse. They will be weakened. It is now time to strike.”

  One by one, the nobles nodded their assent. Tancogeistla looked round and smiled with satisfaction. “Then it is settled. By the time of the full moon, we will march on Ictis…”

  It was as he said. Within one month, our army had set out once again. With few exceptions, it was the same army that had marched to the relief of Yns-Mon. Apparently, Tancogeistla deemed Piso’s garrison sufficient to hold the oppida against any further attacks.

  And so we marched on as the days grew longer, the sun rising ever higher into the sky. Often, our route of march took us within sight of the sea. Tancogeistla still rode at the head of the column, but he seemed more tired with each passing day. Clearly, the journey was wearing on him. He reacted by forcing the men to march harder, seemingly angered at his own weakness.

  And then the rain started, pouring down upon the fertile valleys of the island in torrents. The paths we were following quickly turned into a quagmire, churned by hundreds of marching feet. It made lighting fires at night nearly impossible, and only the warmth of the season saved us.

  It was at the end of one of those long days of the march, after our meager rations had been consumed and our men had started to turn in for the night, that I stood under the shelter of a tree near the edge of camp, ducking my head against the relentless rain. And then I heard it.

  Hoofbeats. The rhythmic pounding of a horse’s hooves against hard ground. Coming ever closer. We had sent out no scouts.

  Whoever was coming was not of our army. I reached under my cloak and tugged a dagger from my girdle, crouching there by the roadway.

  The form of a galloping horse loomed out of the rain and fog and I sprang from my covert, waving my ha
nds and screaming. Startled, the horse reared up, its hooves pawing the air dangerously close to my face.

  “Halt!” I cried, clutching the dagger tightly in my hand.

  The cloaked rider struggled to calm his horse, cursing it and me bitterly as he fought the animal to a standstill. Taking the reins in one hand, he slid to the ground, tossing back his cowl and staring into my eyes. A man about my own age, his hair red-orange and matted with rain. “What do you think you are doing?” he hissed.

  I stared right back, never loosening my grip on the dagger. “Who are you?”

  “Galligos,” he replied proudly, as though the name would mean something to me. “Galligos moc Nammeios.”

  I had never heard it before. “I will take you into the camp,” I said finally.

  The warning was there, in his eyes, one moment before he struck. His left hand reached out with the rapidity of lightning and struck my wrist, sending the dagger spinning into the darkness. He stepped in close, under my guard, his blows knocking the breath from my body.

  I slipped on the muddy ground and fell, striking something hard on my way down. Lights seemed to flash inside my head and then everything faded, leaving only the dim sound of footsteps slogging through the mud on into the heart of camp. Then that too disappeared as I slipped into the realm of the unknown…

  Chapter XIX: Faces

  When I awoke, my head was aching, images swirling frantically through my brain. What had happened?

  And it all came rushing suddenly back. The cowled figure dismounting, pronouncing his name with the air of royalty, then disarming me and leaving me stretched senseless on the wet earth.

  Where had he gone? I rose, rubbing my jawbone. It still ached from his blows. I stared down at the ground, still cloaked in the blinding rain and dark of night.

  I could feel the outline of a footprint in the mud, the toe pointed toward the camp. He had gone in. Visitor or assassin, I knew not.

  There was nothing to do but go in and find out. I ran swiftly down the muddy road, pell-mell into the camp.

  One tent was pitched in the center of the camp, in the middle of hundreds of sleeping men wrapped in their cloaks on the rain-soaked ground. It was the tent of Tancogeistla and Aneirin moc Cunobelin. The most likely target for the shadowy rider, as well as the first place I had to go to organize a search.

  I knelt by one of my sleeping comrades in the darkness, plucking a spear from his armaments. My own weapons were too far away. Speed was of the essence.

  A single light burned from within the large tent, the flickering flame of an oil lamp. I could see men moving inside, their movements reflected by giant shadows against the wet fabric. Undoubtedly, our two leaders were still planning our next movements.

  Grasping my spear firmly in my right hand, I moved swiftly to the side of the tent, straining to hear voices over the thunder of the storm. Tancogeistla’s guards were nowhere to be seen.

  An involuntary shudder ran through me, and it wasn’t from the chill of the rain. Had Tancogeistla’s ever-loyal brihetin been taken out with the same dispatch as myself?

  And the assassin, where had he come from? Who was paying his hire? The Dumnones, the Casse, yea, even Praesutagos. My old general had made many enemies in his lifetime.

  Moving stealthily, I slipped to the door of the tent, throwing back the flap suddenly.

  Three figures were disclosed to my eyes, standing there around a small map drawn in the dirt, turning at my abrupt entrance. Three figures, where there should have been two.

  Tancogeistla, Aneirin—and my friend from the road. Galligos, I thought, the name flashing back through my memory. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of the Aedui as they looked down at the map in the earth.

  “Cadwalador!” Tancogeistla cried, looking with alarm at my uplifted spear. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “Who is he?” I demanded, glaring at the stranger. I didn’t lower my weapon. To my surprise, Tancogeistla’s face split into a wide smile, then he began chuckling. He glanced over at the stranger. “Tell me, Galligos, is this the man you disarmed and shoved into the mud out there?”

  The stranger nodded, smiling as though something was humorous. I looked from one to the other in confusion, then slowly lowered my spear.

  “Galligos,” Tancogiestla stated with a low chuckle, “you should not have done that. Cadwalador is one of my most trusted retainers—and an able warrior in his own right. Next time you trifle with him, he might have the incredible bad fortune to kill you.”

  He turned next to me. “This man,” he said, pointing to the stranger, “is Galligos moc Nammeios, the spy who has spent the last five years searching out the lands of the Casse for our forces.”

  “He has served me well, and gathered much useful information in the service of our cause.”

  The tall spy reached forward, extending his hand to me. I grasped it awkwardly, slow to accept this sinister figure as a friend. “Where are the brihetin?” I asked, shooting a sharp glance at Tancogeistla.

  “Galligos is a spy, Cadwalador. It is best that as few know his identity as possible. I ordered them away.”

  The spy looked over at me, an easy smile flitting across his face. “I regret that I had to hit you so hard,” he said, gesturing to my sore jaw. “But I dared not brook delay, or chance that you might not believe my story.”

  “Galligos,” Tancogeistla interrupted, “has brought us important news. It appears an army of the Casse is marching to intercept us.”

  “Indeed?” I heard myself asking.

  “Yes,” the general replied. “Tell us once again of your information, my friend.”

  Galligos looked uneasily in my direction, but Tancogeistla reprimanded him. “Anything you say to me, the same can be shared with Cadwalador. He has proved himself in my service, defending my life more times than I can remember to count.”

  “Very well,” the spy said with evident reluctance. “I have come just this night from the camp of a sub-chieftain of the Casse, a man by the name of Orgetoros. He marches with nigh eighteen score of men.”

  “A mere handful,” Aneirin asserted confidently.

  “ ‘Tis true,” Galligos stated, “you outnumber him heavily. However, do not let overconfidence be your doom. He is not a day’s journey from this camp. And he intends to strike. Do not let him catch you by surprise.”

  The spy moved quickly past me and lifted the tent flap, disappearing into the storm, into the tomb-like black of night. And he was gone…

  What Galligos had told us was true. With his information in hand, we stayed where we were, drawing up in defensive positions on the edge of the forest. The sun rose the next morning and continued on its journey ever higher into the sky. Towards noontime, one of Berdic’s scouts came running back into camp, out of breath. “The Casse!” he cried. “The Casse are approaching. They advance to meet our line!”

  We were deployed in what amounted to a single line, the Ebherni elite anchoring the left flank, with the lugoae standing to arms beside them, the cwmyr of Yns-Mon to their right, then Lugort’s small contingent of ordmalica, the levy spearmen of the Goidils, and the nobles of Erain holding the position of honor on the right. Berdic’s two contingents of iaosatae provided a missile screen to the right flank.

  Tancogeistla’s brihetin were positioned directly behind the main line, while I hid in the woods with Aneirin and his bodyguards.

  The plan, as Tancogeistla had explained to us earlier, was to use our shock cavalry to its best limited effect in the woods, essentially as a surprise for the enemy. An enemy that would not be long in coming.

  Our line stood just on top of a low knoll that swelled suddenly from the ground behind us. The forest made it difficult to see the enemy, but we could hear the sound of marching feet and defiantly chanted warcries as they advanced.

  The lugoae were the first to be struck, a thin line of Britonic warriors sweeping down through the brush and trees. The dubosaverlicica rose from the grass and toss
ed their javelins into the Casse line, causing great confusion.

  Then they too were struck, a fierce contingent of botroas sweeping down upon the Ebherni.

  Aneirin spoke to me quickly and our column swung into motion, sweeping from our covert around the back to the left flank of the line, where the battle was at its hottest.

  We rode around the end of our line and turned, riding down into the rear of the Casse warbands. We were unable to build much momentum in the woods, and I was continually forced to duck low in my saddle lest a low-hanging branch dismount me. We smashed into the backs of a unit of spearmen, knocking them to the ground.

  I saw a man disappear beneath the hooves of my steed, his eyes wide with fear, a scream dying on his lips. Blood flecked the bright blue woad that adorned his bare chest. I saw Aneirin not five paces away, cheerfully hacking at the sea of warriors with his sword.

  Another warrior went down, his neck pierced by my spear. Howbeit, his fall jerked the weapon from my hand.

  I reached down and pulled a small war hammer from my belt, a smaller copy of the hammers the ordmalica used—one which I had crafted in the gobacrado back in Attuaca.

  As Lugort had testified so many years ago, it was a useful weapon in melee. I brought it down upon many a shoulder, many a head, breaking bone and fracturing skull, bodies falling beneath my horse.

  It was the chaos I had told Aneirin of. Kill or be killed. Shed the blood of your fellow man, or have your own blood drench the grass in an offering.

  The Casse began to break, pressed in front and behind. Turning to meet our charge, they were in turn charged by the Cwmyr, the midlander champions from Yns-Mon. They started running.

  ‘Neath the spreading shadow of a mighty oak stood the remnant of the Casse botroas, surrounded and fighting to the death. Similar to the mercenaries who had once marched with Cavarillos, these men’s chests were painted with sacred patterns of woad. I rode closer, together with Aneirin and the brihetin, into their midst. They were the last. I saw the fierce determination, the defiance in their eyes.