The Flint Lord

by Richard Herley

  “Greetings,” Bubeck said, before the overseer had time to react, and thrust a spear into his heart. With all his strength Bubeck shoved him against the wall of the shelter.

  The slave stared in horror. He let go of his rope: the load fell with a rasping hiss, and from below came a cry of anger and dismay.

  Bubeck’s companions laid the overseer on the floor of the shelter.

  “Is there another one down there?” Bubeck asked the slave.

  He was unable to reply.

  “Is there another overseer in this shaft?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell your friends to come up. You’re free.”

  A second overseer was found in another shaft and killed; in a few minutes the whole of the night shift, forty-two men, had been brought to the surface and armed with spare weapons brought for the purpose. In the first light of dawn the whole force of seventy advanced on the slaves’ quarters.

  Bubeck and, in his planning, Tagart too, had underestimated the effect that sudden liberation would have on the slaves. Most of them seemed maddened, intoxicated. They smashed the palings of the slaves’ compound and breached the sleeping cage, freeing the day shift. One of the guards managed to escape; the rest were cut down in a frenzy of axes and hammers. Despite Bubeck’s shouts and the efforts of the other nomads, the miners pulled the cage to pieces and carried one of its sides to the palisade to serve as a scaling ladder.

  The fort, like all the outer forts, had been made with a single enclosure and a single gate. Its palisade resembled that of the Trundle: a high fence of oak trunks, sharpened at their tips, set firmly in the ground and surrounded by a ditch.

  The attackers were repulsed at the ramparts by soldiers with battle-hammers. Several were dragged over the spikes and clubbed to death. The soldiers’ forked siege-poles thrust aside the makeshift ladder and its burden of screaming men; marksmen started to shoot. By the time the slaves fled there were twelve bodies in the ditch.

  The survivors joined Bubeck’s men and the rest of the slaves, who had been positioned just out of bowshot in the thorn and tussock scrub on either side of the road, commanding the gate. None of the nomads had been hurt.

  Bubeck was watching the fort. A soldier had appeared on the platform at the top of the main building. He busied himself with bundles of wood and a firebrand and shortly a wisp of smoke appeared.

  Most of the slaves seemed undecided whether to run or stay. Several had been wounded in the skirmish at the palisade; one man, an arrow in his leg, was groaning as a woman, a kitchen-slave, tried to help him. Those who had not been wounded were arguing and shouting about the bodies in the ditch. After a while they chose a leader, a man of about fifty who had been prominent in the assault on the ramparts. He was sallow and swarthy, a foreigner. At his approach Bubeck stood up, rising to his full height. The slave was tall, but Bubeck was taller.

  “We want to get into the fort.”

  Bubeck returned his stare.

  “We’re going to kill them all.”

  “And end up like your friends in the ditch?”

  For support the slave looked over his shoulder. The others averted their eyes.

  “If you stay with us and do as you’re told,” Bubeck said, “you can have something better than killing a few soldiers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The wisp had become a stream of white smoke gushing into the sky, rising for thirty or forty feet before beginning to drift downwind. As they watched, it changed colour from white to blue.

  Bubeck turned and pointed to the Trundle and the east.

  * * *

  “My lord! My lord!”

  Gehan opened his eyes, woken by his body-slave pounding on the door of the bedchamber.

  “My lord!”

  “What is it?”

  “An urgent message from the signalmaster, my lord! Bow Hill has been attacked by brigands and the slaves are loose. General Larr has already stopped the departure, but he is awaiting your consent to answer Bow Hill’s request for aid.”

  “I’ll be with him as soon as I’m dressed.”

  “Shall I assist you, my lord?”

  “No.”

  To judge by the intensity of light at the shutters, it was almost sunrise. He had wanted to be up much earlier, to see off the first units, and at another time he would have been angry with his body-slave for letting him oversleep. However, Gehan told himself that his presence at first light had not been essential. All the preparations had been made.

  He had changed. He was no longer the indecisive coward who had permitted himself doubts about the glory of the future. Ika had guided him to that summit, that vantage, from which all was visible and all attainable. She was beautiful. She had shown him, more clearly than he could have dreamed, the boundless territory that was their birthright. It was the legacy of a supreme and masterful genius, of Gehan First, a man who had transcended mortality to seize the very flower of the gods themselves.

  The body-slave’s knock at the door had woken her too. She was regarding him calmly, triumphantly, her head on the pillow. “Lord Brennis,” she whispered. He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. She responded at once, drawing him closer, pressing her body against his; Gehan felt her leg sliding across his own and she was on top of him.

  The bedcovers slipped down her back as he measured her waist in his hands. His thoughts returned to the night, marvelling at the softness of her skin and the lightness of her touch. Now at dawn she wanted unmistakably to begin again that rhythmic, mystical climb.

  “I must speak to Larr,” he said.

  “Soon.”

  Gently, reluctantly, he pushed her aside. “Now.”

  * * *

  The last group of soldiers had almost crossed the line traced by Tagart’s eye from tree to tree. He turned in his seat, held up his hand, and signalled to Fodich.

  Fodich was twelve yards behind him and to the left, astride a low fork. A harness was strapped to his chest and shoulders, attached to a rope. The rope led upward and was lashed to a branch, fifty feet above the ground, whose end had been carved into a hook-release for the suspended weight: a ton of hornbeam trunk, connected by two thick cables – one stretched tight and the other loose – to the two oak trees on either side of the road.

  A similar arrangement and a second man in harness were waiting two hundred yards farther on towards Bow Hill.

  The sun was rising among the trees. Here by the road the forest was still in blue shadow. The snow, crisp after the night’s frost, sounded icy under the soldiers’ marching feet.

  Tagart had counted a hundred men in armour, led by a young man in a fox fur cape and hat. Their arrival and their purposeful pace towards Bow Hill showed beyond doubt that Bubeck had been successful there.

  A hundred men. A tenth of all the Flint Lord’s army.

  Tagart brought down his hand: Fodich jumped.

  The great hornbeam trunk creaked and cracked and was set free. Smashing aside the few branches still in its way, it charged downwards and swept into the body of soldiers. At the far end of the trap the second hornbeam trunk was released.

  They had been penned in.

  Their commander, the man in the fur cape, was already dead. He had been hit by the second tree-trunk and crushed against the ground, but one of the three surviving unit leaders, a plume of ochre feathers on his helmet, took command, yelling orders. Each man unslung his axe.

  Before they could group properly the first volley of arrows whirred from the trees on the north side of the road. Many soldiers fell: another volley thinned those still standing. In the wake of the arrows a double rank of women and warriors stepped from the forest, spears held ready. For every soldier there were at least five nomads.

  “Give ground! Give ground and regroup!”

  They ran in terror across the verge, away from the oncoming spears, straight into the spikes concealed in the undergrowth.

  When it was over not a soldier remained alive. Two nomads had been kil
led and eighteen wounded. While the wounded were being cared for, a group of men removed the hornbeam trunks. The rest, working in pairs, quickly cleared the road of bodies.

  The commander had not yet been moved. Tagart put his toe under the man’s chin and turned his face to the light.

  “He’s young,” Fodich said.

  “He’s also dead.” Tagart let the blond-bearded face fall. “You can send the runner to Bubeck now.”

  * * *

  The distress signal from Bow Hill had been received simultaneously by Harting and the Trundle. From Harting no reinforcements could be spared, but from the Trundle four units, Gehan’s own men, were dispatched within a few minutes and their young commander, Chanvard, was given orders to investigate and render assistance.

  The departure of troops for the savages’ camp, already under way when the signal came, had been stopped. The eighteen units of Vuchten had left the Trundle long before dawn. Six had gone too far to be readily called back, and runners were sent to catch up with them. The other twelve returned to the Trundle.

  Gehan slammed his fist on the window ledge. The distress signal had thrown the campaign into turmoil. While the trouble at Bow Hill was probably purely local, it was essential to halt everything until the matter had been dealt with.

  Any rebellion by slaves had to be quickly suppressed: to have them at large, in a position to reach Valdoe, would be very dangerous. The ratio of guards to slaves, not only here but at all the mines and works, had been carefully calculated. If the balance were upset by an onrush of insurgents the whole force of slaves might be set free, with formidable results.

  But the signal had also mentioned brigands. This was the first time they had dared to attack a fort. That such an attack had occurred in winter, and only three miles from the Trundle, was deeply worrying. And then – were they brigands, or were they more primitive savages? Were they perhaps the nomads whose clans Valdoe had begun to destroy the previous summer? Gehan recalled the spies who had been found at Apuldram.

  Larr was doubtful. “We must not overestimate the savages, my lord. More pressing is the news from Bow Hill. Chanvard should have reported by now.”

  “I agree,” Gehan said. “I’m going up.”

  They climbed the staircase and threw open the door to the roof. The signalmaster and his boy were at the smoke station; the fires were burning.

  The signalmaster did not salute them. He was staring continuously westward to Bow Hill. Gehan looked and could discern little but the shape of the fort: his eyesight could not match that of the signalmaster.

  “Was that a double white, boy?”

  “Single, master.”

  The smoke station consisted of three shallow stone hearths, each about two yards square, and a wooden shelter for fuel: wood chips, dried dung, leather scraps, wet leaves, and the like. Plank covers, operated by pulleys, could be raised or lowered over the hearths. For complex messages three fires were lit, generating pure white, blue-grey, and dark smoke. Over the years, using combinations of colour and interval, a large and subtle vocabulary had been amassed.

  “What are they saying?” Gehan demanded.

  “They want to know if we have sent the reinforcements yet, my lord.”

  He looked at Larr. This should have been a matter for Hewzane: it involved one of his forts. But Hewzane was at Eartham and there had not yet been time to summon him.

  “What do you suggest?” Gehan said.

  “We sent a hundred men,” Larr said. “There are already twenty-five in the fort, not counting the slave-guards. That should have been enough to deal with thirty brigands and a rabble of slaves.”

  “But if Chanvard has not yet arrived, he must have been waylaid.”

  “My conclusion.”

  “Then we must send more units. Five more. And this time we’ll send Vuchten.”

  “That is the best plan, my lord. But before committing more men and upsetting the departure further, we should have confirmation of Bow Hill’s message.”

  “Get it,” Gehan told the signalmaster.

  The reply came, slowly and painstakingly pieced together.

  “Repeat … No … units … arrived … Enemy … laying … siege … We … are … alone … and … urgently … repeat … urgently … request … aid.”

  8

  From the site of the ambush to the Trundle, by road, was a little over a mile and a half. The two routes that Tagart had chosen to convey his forces to Valdoe were longer, curving through the forest. One turned north-east, skirting the rise of the hill to emerge at the base of Levin Down, at Valdoe Village. This was to be the destination of two hundred and thirty-four of the nomads, who, together with the slaves from Bow Hill, were to be led by Bubeck in a raid on the village.

  The other route, the one that Tagart and the rest of the nomads were now following, struck out south-eastwards and approached Valdoe from the seaward side, by means of the flint workings.

  They were nearly there. Behind him, coming through the woods, were people from twenty or thirty different tribes, from every winter camp. Compared with the Flint Lord’s soldiers they were ragged and undisciplined. The men and most of the women were armed with spears, axes, and bows. Some were carrying coils of rope and grappling hooks. All were laden with back-packs of food, clothing, bedding, and spare weapons.

  Tagart felt physically sick with dread. He was trying to walk confidently, Fodich beside him, Segle just behind, but with each step the illusion became harder to maintain. The slaughter of the soldiers had left them all subdued; Tagart knew that he was not the only one who was afraid. He knew he should try to break the mood; but he was too gravely occupied in thought, for now, too late, he feared that he had placed too much reliance on exact timing, exact coordination, and that it would all fail. And if it failed, he alone would be responsible for the destruction and death of the largest and best part of his own nation. If it failed, the nomad tribes might never recover.

  The final plan had been settled the previous night, when his scouts had brought word that there were still a thousand men in the Trundle and that they were showing no signs of leaving.

  The essence of the plan was the diversion of soldiers from the Trundle. While Bubeck’s force attacked the village and drew most of the soldiers down from the fort, Tagart would advance on the flint workings and set the miners free. By that time the beacon on Levin Down would – if Klay had done his work – have signalled the start of the rebellion inside the fort itself. If all went to plan, the gates would be opened from within, Tagart’s force would find and kill the Flint Lord, set fire to the Trundle, and escape before the soldiers could get back from the village.

  A thousand men in the Trundle. A hundred had already been killed. When Bow Hill reported to the Trundle that these reinforcements had not yet arrived, more would presumably be sent, perhaps as many as two hundred, which would leave seven hundred or so in the fort. The second group of reinforcements would be well along the road to Bow Hill when Bubeck’s force, almost three hundred strong, attacked the village. It seemed likely that the Flint Lord would send most or all of the remaining seven hundred to its defence.

  Valdoe Village was over a mile from the Trundle, reached by a track which zigzagged at least half that distance again. In altitude the village was four hundred and fifty feet below the fort – a long and steep return climb for men who had not only already run down the hill in full armour, but who had chased an exasperating crowd of attackers from the village compound and into the trees: for Bubeck had orders to offer no resistance to the soldiers, but to retreat into the forest and try to lure them on, wasting as much time as possible before they realized the Trundle itself was under threat.

  The timing of the raid would be controlled by the beacon on Levin Down. Its smoke would signal both the start of the slaves’ revolt and Tagart’s advance on the mines and Trundle. The man in charge of the beacon, who was already in position, had instructions to light it only when the soldiers from the fort had descended two-thi
rds of the way to the village. This would give Tagart a margin of some minutes to allow for unexpected difficulties – but now, as he led the way out of the forest and into the aspen break at the bottom of Valdoe Hill, the nature and number of those difficulties had swollen and multiplied in his mind with terrifying speed.

  They prepared to wait.

  Nobody spoke. The Trundle could not be seen from here, but through the branches the terraced diggings and heaps of the mines, half a mile up the hill, were easily visible. The shelters and spoil-heaps were being patrolled in a bored manner by ten or twelve soldiers, who occasionally paused to chat with each other, stamping their feet, before resuming their walk. The soldiers could be told by their helmets and fur capes. The other figures on the hill, scurrying back and forth, could not be so readily identified. Tagart knew that most of them would be slaves, hauling stone up from the shafts, moving timber about, running errands for the overseers.

  The sight of the mines brought a quick and repulsive vividness to his memory. The ground had been green then, it had been summer, but the rest of it was the same, the servitude, the grinding labour and hopelessness of the slaves, and, worst of all, the confinement in dark holes and galleries of men who worked drenched in sweat, breathing foul air and chalk dust. Sometimes he had coughed until he had seen bursts of light under his lids, and always he had felt trapped by the closeness of the rock and the weight of earth above him. At this very moment there were men down there, labouring by the light of smouldering wicks, digging with deerhorn picks, with scraps of wood, with their fingers, to extract from the depths of the hill the flint that gave strength to their master, their owner, the man who lived in the Trundle, the man who was planning to exterminate all of Tagart’s race.

  “There!” cried Fodich, pointing through the trees.

  On the eastern edge of the hill, among the thorn scrub, there was the movement of a leather flag being waved. Orick had been waiting there, watching for the smoke on Levin Down.