by Manda Scott
The tents of the cavalry were ahead, five lines with the officers’ tents closest to the mouth of the valley. The scouts believed that Braint was held in one of them, but none had seen which.
Valerius had dismounted before his mare had stopped running. His blade was already naked in his hand.
Warriors ran to join him, ready to kill the guards. There were none; Longinus rarely squandered the lives of his men. Valerius used his belt-knife to cut the side of the largest of the officers’ tents, slicing up and across so that a triangle of white fell inwards and he could step through. The inside was not lit; he stepped out of daylight into gloom. There were no guards here, either, which surprised him.
A figure lay prone against the far side, chained at wrist and ankle with the loops fixed to an oak log too heavy for two men to lift.
“Braint?”
Valerius ran to her, and knelt. She turned her head, stiffly. They had not beaten her as he had been beaten, but she had fought them and someone had used the flat edge of his blade on her face; the angry cut sliced up and across and would scar her for life, if she lived long enough for it to heal that far. Afterwards, they had knocked her unconscious at least once. An angry bruise grew from the side of her temple, and closed her left eye.
Unthinking, Valerius reached out to touch it. She jerked back out of his reach. Her open eye raked him, full of scorn. “You! I thought Tethis might come. I’m glad she has more sense. It’s a trap, do you not know that?”
Valerius nodded cheerfully. Here, in the heart of action, he was free and could carry the sting of her hate. “Of course. I would be disappointed if it weren’t. Longinus was always the best mind in the cavalry.”
He looked up. A smith of the Cornovii had followed him in, bearing a hammer and forged chisel with the point hardened in charcoal fires. To him, Valerius said, “Cut the staple at the log. The manacles will take too long.”
Any time was too long and waiting was torture. The sound of the hammer chimed over the more distant turmoil resounding from the mouth of the valley—and then changed, suddenly. The smith grunted satisfaction.
“Gone.”
He was a big man. He lifted Braint as if she were a child. Her chains clattered around her, still tying her wrists and ankles. She twisted her head to look back.
“Valerius, you can’t—” Never in the history of Mona had the Warrior been carried alive from the field of battle. Better to die than be so dishonoured.
Valerius said, “There’s no time to cut you free. You can go out across the horse. Nydd will take you to safety. If you have to go to Mona like this, at least you’re still alive.”
Nydd was outside, holding the reins of the bay cavalry mare alongside his own grey. These two were the best horses on Mona; solid and fast and able to take care of a rider. Without ceremony, the smith slung Braint across the bay’s saddle.
Valerius said, “Hold the girth strap if you have to. It’ll be a fast ride out.”
Braint spat at him. “If I die like this, unable to fight, I’ll wait for you for all time in the lands of the dead.”
“You won’t be alone.”
Valerius lifted his hand to slap the bay mare’s rump—and stopped, as a flash of sun on armour caught his eye.
He turned. South, the valley was a mass of several hundred cavalry riders who had suddenly found themselves alone on a battlefield that had once been thick with warriors. As fast as they had come, the warriors of Mona who had charged the valley’s mouth had melted back into the mist and the heather and the scrubby oak thickets. Fearful of ambush, the cavalry had not ridden out, but had turned back, to close for a second time the trap they thought secure. These were men who knew how to make a line and hold it, without being ordered. They rode slowly and steadily towards their own tents, a solid bank of horseflesh and metal.
“They’re coming.” Nydd said it quietly. His gaze flicked back and forth. “They’re blocking the valley all the way across.”
“I know. But they think you’re going to try to break through the line and go south and you’re not. Ride north and don’t look back. Your horse can make it back up that hill; most of theirs can’t. And whatever you do, don’t drop the standard. We need to know when you’re safe.”
Valerius slapped both horses and felt them start away from him, like the first strides in a race. On either side, two dozen warriors hesitated, watching the incoming cavalry; they were not used to being told to flee in the face of the enemy.
Valerius swung his arm forward as he had done so often, leading a cavalry charge. “Go! All of you. To the north and to Mona. Go!”
The two dozen warriors kicked their mounts from a standstill to a gallop. Circling Nydd, Braint and the smith, they raced north, to freedom, using their bodies as living shields. Their horses were not racing for honour and victory now, but for their lives, flat to the ground, as fast as blood and straining flesh could take them. They knew the route, having ridden it in; each warrior had marked a clear path out and was committed to ride it or die.
Two died, caught by thrown spears. Valerius heard them fall and chose to believe that neither was Nydd or Braint; he had no time to look. He was left with six warriors and they faced the advancing wall of Thracian cavalrymen.
Valerius watched them come, counting the heartbeats. Twenty for Nydd and Braint to reach the foothills of the mountain. A dozen more for the blood-red banner of the war hound to be high enough that Huw might see it and use his sling to signal once again. Less than that for the auxiliary to reach him. Braint was no longer their first concern. They were watching Valerius. He was unmounted, an easy target.
“Here. Valerius. Get up.”
He had asked for a loose horse to be caught without expecting it to happen. Nevertheless, someone passed him the reins of a roan gelding that had run from the carnage at the valley’s mouth. It was black with sweat and bleeding from a shallow wound to its chest, but still willing.
With his eyes on the oncoming riders, Valerius whistled to make it run and the six warriors who followed him and the hundreds of auxiliaries he had once commanded watched him make the cavalry mount from the ground onto a running horse and were reminded that here was something exceptional.
Then, doubting their senses, the horsemen of the Ala Prima Thracum saw their former commander swing his arm high and bring it down and heard the war cry of Mona howl from his throat as he led his handful of warriors directly towards them.
We will be the distraction that allows Braint to escape. If we make the arrow of Mona and ride hard, we may break through their line, but I make no promises. Those who remain with me are least likely of all to survive.
So Valerius had said before they left Mona and, against all expectation, four women and two men had offered to remain with him while Braint was taken to safety. They followed him now, as tightly disciplined as any Roman-trained cavalry, and he led them towards the only weak spot in the enemy line, a gap of less than a horse’s width between the standard-bearer and the armourer, whom he recognized of old: the man had never yet ridden sober into combat.
This one man’s inattention let them through. Horseflesh cannoned on horseflesh as the broad edge of Valerius’ living wedge met the line of the enemy. Blades struck blades and iron sang and sparks crested high above and two men died and neither a warrior of Mona. They burst into open ground and Valerius swung his arm and they moved into line abreast and raced south, for their lives, and the open mouth of the valley.
Which was no longer open, and perhaps had never been. Long before they reached it, Longinus was there, with the other half of his troop, closing the trap on the trap on the trap. A string of cavalry was lined up across the valley. They were more than a hundred with less than a spear’s length between them and each man was stone cold sober; not one of these was about to let him through.
“Halt!” Forgetting himself, Valerius flung up his arm. Responding to a cavalry command they had seen but never learned, six warriors pulled their sweating, blowing horses
to a halt.
“Valerius! Their officer is riding your horse!”
It was Madb who spoke, a wild Hibernian woman with slate-grey hair and the bright eyes of a jackdaw who fought for Mona because she chose to, not because her land was under threat. The spare horse had come from her, and the protection now at Valerius’ back. He had never fought at her side before and regretted it.
Valerius held his new mount steady and looked where her blade pointed. He had seen it already, had known it, possibly, for months, but it did no harm to look as if the news were fresh and welcome.
The other five warriors held their horses steady to watch. They were outnumbered hundreds to one and there was nowhere to go and, in any case, the notoriety of the pied horse that had been Valerius’ mount had reached far beyond the ranks of the cavalry. Its anger and ferocity in combat were legend, vented as much against its rider as against the enemy, except at the peak of battle when horse and rider fought as one. It emerged from the mass of the oncoming cavalry, running hard towards Valerius. Madb’s indrawn breath was only the closest, not the loudest or the most heartfelt.
What could be said of the Crow-horse but that it was perfection on four legs? Splashed white on black, it was as if the gods had poured liquid snow onto the blanket of the night and both were perfect in their purity. Cleaned now for battle, it ran for Longinus with the same bloody-minded dedication as it had for Valerius, and for the first time the man who had thought himself its only master saw how it must have looked to others, and was left silent and unwatchful in the heart of the enemy, disabled by the pain of its loss.
Aloud, he said, “I have your mother. She is on Mona, in foal one last time to a sire who might be the match of yours. She would be proud of you.”
“Move!”
Madb pushed him, and so saved his life. The spear that had been aimed for his throat clattered spent on the ground and skidded into a tent.
“Hold!” Longinus, too, threw up his arm and the singularius who had hurled the spear lowered his second weapon, slowly.
“Valerius! I wasn’t sure you’d come.” Longinus clicked his tongue and the Crow-horse trotted forward, as if on parade. It had always loathed parades. Brought neatly to a halt, it stood squarely between the cavalry and the warriors of Mona, facing Valerius. Foam dripped from its bit and its white-rimmed eyes were full of hate, but they had been like that since it was a weanling. Valerius had no idea if it knew who he was.
Longinus, of all men, knew exactly who he was, all the many layers that made him. He himself was unchanged; still the reckless, god-blessed officer who had risked his life to free his soul-friend from the inquisitors, the man who had ridden alongside Valerius in battle for ten years, the man with whom he had bet and won and lost too often to count, the man who rode helmetless into battle with his tawny hair flying free to his shoulders, russet as a rutting stag. His eyes were the striking amber of a hawk and as piercing. There was warmth in them still, amongst the disappointment and impending loss.
Once, when their friendship was new, Valerius had bet this man that he could not stand on rotting ice for fifty heartbeats. They had counted by Longinus’ heart, which had beat faster, and so he had won. Valerius’ heart beat the faster now. His borrowed horse, quivering, felt it and was ready.
Sixty heartbeats had passed since Nydd had reached the summit of the ridge and dipped the standard towards the setting sun. Nothing had come of it yet, and may never do.
“Congratulations. I never thought you’d find the courage to ride my horse. Has he ever bitten your shoulder?” Valerius eased his own mount forward, close enough almost to touch. On either side, eight auxiliaries unsheathed their blades and made it clear that a further step towards their decurion would be Valerius’ last on this earth.
The remaining warriors of Mona grouped together, except for Madb who kept at Valerius’ side, grinning. He felt safe in her presence. She had an instinct for danger that kept more than just herself alive in battle.
She pressed close to Valerius’ left shoulder and, as his heart beat for the hundredth time since Nydd had spun the standard, he felt her stiffen and turn her head a fraction to the left. Too low for anyone else to hear, she said, “They’re here. Well done. I thought they’d leave you.”
“They might yet. Don’t look up.” Valerius took care not to raise his eyes. Louder, to Longinus, he said, “You are about to ask for our surrender?”
“I would if I didn’t think I’d be wasting my breath. Would you give it?”
“Six of us against five hundred is not encouraging odds, but then certain death in battle might be preferable to imprisonment at the hands of Rome, particularly for a traitor who is known to have spent the winter on Mona.”
“It certainly would. You should have escaped with the woman you freed.”
“Possibly, but then I would not have seen you ride the Crow-horse and my life would be the poorer for it. What would you do in my place?”
Longinus grinned. Always, in his smile, there had been challenge and invitation. He reached for his sword and held it out flat. The weapon was Gaulish, made for his reach and his weight, with the crescent moon of the Thracian god embedded in silver in the hilt and the blade worked in the old style, with sinuous lines of blued iron weaving down its length. In the haze of the evening, it glimmered like flat water under moonlight.
Raising his brows, Longinus said, “I would fight—what else are we for?” His blade was his invitation. “We have never truly tested each other and it seems to me that you are no longer the mess I believed you to be last summer. My men won’t interfere if you want to test your blade against mine this one last time. You never know, you might win.”
Valerius made a half-salute. “I would accept, but if you lift your blade further, you will die, which would be a pity. The warriors behind you on the mountain are the best slingers of Mona and you are easily within range. I’m sorry; their orders were clear and I have no way to change them from here. If you surrender now, you will not be harmed. Otherwise they will target the first to raise a blade against us.”
He spoke in Latin, loud enough for at least the front ranks of the cavalry to hear. Men who had been relaxed, awaiting the ritual of single combat, looked up and to both sides. Coarse curses in Latin and Thracian scattered through the first ranks and then those behind until, abandoning discipline, the whole wing had spun to face the valley walls.
Valerius raised his arm in one final signal and a glittering wave of sunlit armour appeared on either side as warrior after warrior moved their mounts to the crests of the mountains. They were the greater mass of Valerius’ warriors, less only those who had died in the first clash at the valley’s mouth. Melting back from the battle, they had taken new positions, awaiting the small signal of a slung pebble to say that Braint was free. Receiving it, they followed the last of their orders so that, like crows on a tree, silently, they lined the ridges from north to south on both sides of the valley without a break. Across the valley’s mouth, ranks of waiting warriors made a wall as solid as any rock.
Longinus alone did not look up. The yellow hawk’s eyes fixed pensively on Valerius. “How many?” he asked.
“Six hundred. We outnumber you by one hundred horse. I thought it enough. They command the valley; there is no way out. you’re surrounded and outnumbered. In such circumstances, there’s no dishonour in surrender and we have no inquisitors on Mona. You will be given the option to fight for us if you wish. Already, we have a handful of Batavians and a Gaul who ride at our side. If you do not wish to join them, your deaths will be clean and fast.”
Longinus had never lacked courage. Grinning, he said, “So you are really not the mess we both thought. I’m glad.”
“Longinus, that’s not the point, you have to choose. Your men will do as you do, you know that. If you—No!”
Lightning fast, the moon-marked blade struck for Valerius’ head. By instinct alone, he blocked it, and felt the shock run through him to his horse. Iron sang on iron as
he ripped his own blade sideways. Sparks flew, lighting the air. A dozen slingstones showered around him and two auxiliaries fell. “Longinus! Don’t be a fool. You can’t run from a sling—Ah, gods, why did I ever leave you my horse? Let’s go.”
He spoke above a hammering of running horses. The Crow-horse had never allowed its rider to be bested in battle. With or without Longinus’ command, it had spun on its hocks, high out of danger, and sprung away, heading south. True to their training, the men and mounts of the Ala Prima Thracum followed it.
Valerius followed, on a horse that was slower and already wounded, but still gave him its heart. Madb urged her mount alongside his, making of herself the shield at his shoulder, and together they hurtled south, following the fleeing Longinus who was heading directly for a solid wall of Mona’s warriors, led by Nydd, who had remembered everything he had been told.
CHAPTER 31
THE CLASH OF IRON AND HORSEFLESH AND HUMAN BLOOD and bone shook the earth to the nape of the valley. Valerius of the Eceni, once decurion of the Ala Prima Thracum, had lived through many nightmares and found each to be less than the fear he had built. Fighting hand to hand, blade to blade, against men he had led and for whom he had cared, was not the least of these, but also not the greatest. As ever, the exhilaration of battle fired him; the power of the moment and the overwhelming need to survive did not allow time for regret. As never before, he rode understanding the gods who filled him; Nemain’s clarity joined with Mithras’ savage power and he loved them both and his life within them and knew that if he died now, he could be at peace.
He fought, too, with Madb, a shield-mate who kept him safe and for whose life he cared and that was something he had missed for so long he had forgotten how it felt. He raised his borrowed blade and pushed his borrowed horse forward and the war hound ran at his side as it was born to do and he remembered that he, who would be a dreamer, was nevertheless a warrior and that life would not be complete without both.
