Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  Chapter 1

  Bruxon pulled the fur tighter about his neck and pressed his chin into his chest. By Toutatis, he thought, it was never this cold in Dumnonia. The snow was coming horizontally now, upwards even. In Dumnonia, snow had the decency to fall from the sky. On the godless island of Eroo it seemed to come out of the very earth. The journey north-west across the sea from Dumnonia was hardly a long one, but Eroo was a different world. Since they’d landed the snow had let up for about ten heartbeats, but only to become a freezing, soaking rain in the interim. They called Eroo the Green Island, but so far Bruxon had only seen black, white and grey.

  The sled bumped down into a roadside ditch and lurched out again. Bruxon grabbed the edge.

  “Careful, man!” he cried.

  “You’ve got a careful man. Careful dogs is what you want,” replied Maggot. “Man can ask the questions, but the dogs answer how they will.”

  Yet another annoying, don’t-I-see-the-world-in-a-deeper-way comment from the druid. No surprise there. Maggot was full of sayings and advice, but Bruxon saw him for what he really was – a snob who thought he was wiser and better than everyone else. He dressed up his arrogance in woo-woo mysticism and a pretence that he cared for everyone, but Bruxon knew he was a conceited, self-interested charlatan.

  Annoyingly, despite being a smarmy egotist with the dress sense of a teenage show-off, Maggot was an undeniably capable man, not just as a healer, but as an organiser, motivator and negotiator. That was why Bruxon had installed Mearhold’s former druid as Dumnonia’s new chief druid to replace the one that Samalur had killed, and insisted that he come on this mission to Eroo.

  He’d already proved invaluable. When they’d landed on Eroo’s craggy shore it was Maggot who’d persuaded the murderous locals to spare their lives. When they’d put their clubs and slings away, Maggot had spoken privately to them at some length. The snarling savages had become genial hosts who’d fed them well, plied them with mugs of their strange alcohol while drinking more of it themselves, then shown them their absurd all-legs-and-no-arms dancing. If Maggot had landed on his shore unannounced and full of patronising platitudes, Bruxon would have gouged his eyes out and sent him back to sea in a burning boat.

  The hairy coast-dwellers had even lent them dogs and a sled, although they had insisted on keeping the rest of the delegation hostage as security on their loan. That wasn’t a problem, since Bruxon didn’t need anyone but Maggot for the embassy inland. If he were to fall ill or be injured, the druid would know what to do. If they met bandits, chances were Maggot would make friends with them, and Bruxon didn’t know anyone else who’d be able to drive a dog sled competently though a blizzard without losing their way.

  He glanced across at the druid. Infuriatingly, Maggot seemed impervious to cold. He was dressed only in tartan trousers, a tatty waistcoat and a ridiculous amount of jewellery. His eyes were half closed and the look of intense concentration on his face was clearly designed to suggest that he was directing the six Eroo wolfhounds with his mind. Bruxon shook his head. Infuriating.

  The sled’s skis creaked as the hounds strained up a hill. Up ahead the snow flurries parted for a moment, and Bruxon saw the craggy bulk of Manfrax’s fort looming high on the cliff top. He shuddered. The mission to Eroo and his proposal for Manfrax had seemed like a magnificent idea when he’d planned it, but now he was regretting his decision. He tried to remember what had sparked the scheme, but couldn’t. That was odd, given that he prided himself on his ordered mind. He put it down to the cold.

  The road veered away from the cliff and along a flat river valley. “You think you’re nearly there and the road swings away,” said Maggot, presumably impyling some tiresome philosophical point. Bruxon ignored him.

  The snow had let up a little, perhaps due to the lee of the cliff, so Bruxon pulled back his fur hood. The six horse-sized draft dogs shook their shaggy grey coats and picked up the pace.

  Snow-blanketed, large wooden structures lined both sides of the road. They weren’t huts and they were too big to be carts, although some of them had wheels. Could they be some kind of art, Bruxon wondered? Maggot would know, but he didn’t want to ask him.

  “War machines,” said Maggot. “These fellows on your left are catapults.”

  “Why are they so big?” Bruxon asked, stifling the unwelcome idea that the druid might be able to read his mind.

  “They must have some very big cats to pult,” Maggot grinned at him. “These smaller ones on your right are giant bows. You could kebab five horses on each of their arrows. See those towers up ahead?”

  Bruxon could see them.

  “They roll those right up to your town walls, and over come Manfrax and his horde like ants into a dead fox’s hole.”

  “There are so many…”

  “Manfrax hasn’t conquered all of Eroo with his charm now, has he?”

  Bruxon looked at the hundreds of war machines and a coldness that was nothing to do with the weather crept into his mind. “Maggot, stop the dogs.” Maggot pulled the reins, the dogs slowed and the sled slid to a halt.

  “Maggot, am I about to make a mistake?” he asked.

  “By doing what?”

  “By asking Manfrax to bring his army to Britain. What else could I mean?”

  “I thought you might be wondering whether to kiss me.”

  “Maggot!” The man was intolerable.

  “OK, let’s look at your trouble,” Maggot smiled. “Your shit king was beaten in a battle. You became king, but you immediately told Lowa that your army was hers to command, thereby making Dumnonia a vassal to Maidun and a slave to Lowa’s whims. You hate this. You’ve got used to being a king now, so you want to fly like an eagle, spear mice with your beak and crap on the world from lonely but magnificent heights. To achieve that, you have to crush Maidun and destroy Lowa.”

  Bruxon nodded. Maggot might be a fool, but he wasn’t stupid.

  “Now, a day’s sailing across the sea in Eroo, we have Manfrax, a nasty bastard who makes Zadar look like a puppy. He’s conquered everyone there is to conquer on his island, and is looking for other tribes to slaughter. So you ask him across the sea, you feed his army, point it in the direction of Lowa and let go. He smashes her army and takes her land. Your one condition for helping him is that he leaves you alone. Sounds like a good plan.”

  “It sounds like a reasonable plan. But what—”

  “If he attacks you? If he goes back on his word? You forget that the Romans, the only people who could beat Manfrax, are on their way. They’ll kick Manfrax back to Eroo. Then they’ll look about for someone strong to be client ruler of all of Britain, and who’s their only choice? Hello, Bruxon, head of the mighty and intact Dumnonian army.”

  “And the Murkans?”

  “We talk to them when we get back. Explain what’s going to happen and how it’s all roses for them. They join in. And if they don’t like it? Then you point Manfrax at them, too. They smash the crap out of each other. Rome comes over and mops up. Same result. Dumnonia rules.”

  “So you are certain that we shouldn’t turn back?”

  “No,” smiled Maggot. “Two reasons. One, right now, Dumnonians are the slaves of a smaller tribe. You can’t allow that to continue.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “Them.” Maggot pointed up the road.

  Emerging from the snow ahead of them were six horsemen, huge in their furs, faces invisible in dark hoods. Sticking out above each, silhouetted against the snow, were the unmistakable shapes of double-headed war axes.

  Manfrax’s longhouse was in fact a large cave, carved out by man or nature, or perhaps a mixture of the two, beneath his fort. To Bruxon, it looked like an Otherworld imagined by ignorant Warrior types who thought there was something noble about swilling back far too much beer, eating messily, shouting repetitive banalities at each other and playing games that often involved drinking each other’s urine.

  The rowdy crowd quickly quietened when Bruxon and Maggo
t walked in, followed by their escorts or captors. Bruxon was not sure which, since they had remained rudely silent on the way up from the valley.

  Smokey, log-thick torches protruding from sconces all along the cavern’s walls lit up two tables which ran the length of either side of the cave. From benches alongside each table, perhaps two hundred shaggy-haired, dirty fur-clad men and women stared at Bruxon and Maggot with aggressive insolence. The air was thick with the eye-watering stink of body odour, vomit and dog excrement.

  Hate-filled eyes followed them as they walked to the end of the hall, picking their way through an obstacle course of dropped bones and sleeping Eroo wolfhounds. The dogshit was impossible to avoid. Its mephitic underfoot squelch made Bruxon nauseous, partly because he guessed that it wasn’t just dogs’ dung. The only sounds, other than their excrement-muffled steps, were the crackle of the torches, the odd whine from a hound and the clacking of Maggot’s jewellery.

  At the end of the hall, perched on a vast leather cushion, was Manfrax. He was a big man, unsurprisingly, since combat was how one became king in Eroo, and Manfrax was king of all the kings. He did, however, look unexpectedly refined. His eyes were clear, and his hair and beard cut short and neat. Bruxon guessed that he was about thirty, around five years younger than Bruxon himself.

  Next to him on his cushion was a woman who must have been his queen, Reena. Her long black hair was tied back to reveal a face with skin so pale that Bruxon thought he could see the bone beneath it. Her thin lips were twisted in sourness and her thin, bumpy nose was topped with eyes so close together that she was practically a Cyclops. She was no beauty.

  Either side of the cushion, chained, dirty and naked, were skinny young men and women. They glanced at the newcomers with terror-filled eyes. They all had wounds of some kind, some of which were fresh enough that they oozed glistening blood.

  “King Manfrax,” began Bruxon.

  Manfrax held up a finger, bidding silence. With the other hand, he flicked a small dagger at one of the chained prisoners. It stuck in the man’s shoulder. The man reached for the knife. He pulled it out without making a sound, and tossed it on to a pile of daggers in front of Manfrax’s cushion. The drinkers gave a single, shouting cheer and were quiet again.

  “You see,” said Manfrax, in the sing-song accent of Eroo, “he knows what’ll happen to him if he makes a peep. Those are all his friends who didn’t manage to stay so quiet.” The king gestured with his head to a large heap of gore beside the platform. The mound shone black and red in the torchlight, its slimy surface punctuated by the odd recognisably human protuberance – a foot here, a hand there, and a young man’s face with open, staring eyes. “Now, what can I do you for you two?” Manfrax continued, sounding like a happy baker greeting the first customer of the day.

  Bruxon told him about Lowa’s victory over Samalur, and explained what he wanted Manfrax to do.

  The king of Eroo listened politely, then said: “And what’s to stop me killing you both slowly and invading Britain without your help?”

  “There’s nothing to stop you,” said Bruxon. He’d expected this posturing. “If you kill us, you can still invade, but as well as Lowa’s forces and her powerful druid, you’ll be facing a hundred thousand-strong Dumnonian army, all in a strange land with no supplies. If you don’t kill us, we will show you safe harbours. We will feed and shelter your troops and you will have to fight only the Maidun army.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad,” said Manfrax, “but are you not worried that when I’m done with Lowa I’ll turn and bite the hand that fed me?”

  “That is a concern, but I think you are a man of your word and—”

  He was cut off by a roar of laughter from Manfrax, which spread through the whole hall and lasted a good deal longer than Bruxon felt was necessary. When it finally petered out, he wasn’t sure what to say next. Maggot spoke up instead: “We were thinking, that to guarantee Dumnonia’s help on t’other side of the sea, that we might do one of your blood shakes?”

  Manfrax, for the first time, looked impressed. “What do you know about our blood shakes, you strange looking wee man?”

  “It’s an ancient Eroo tradition. Some might say that a people with such a disgusting, cruel tradition must be the most evil creatures that ever crawled from the belly of the earth and that they deserved to be wiped out like a plague of shit-covered rats in a grain store.” Bruxon couldn’t believe Maggot was talking to Manfrax like this, but the king of Eroo smiled through it as if he was hearing something else. “Me though, I reckon, it’s useful, because it cannot be broken, even by a king. If you do break the blood-shake’s oath, your own men and women would be obliged to kill you with the long-loved, time-honoured tradition of ramming a red-hot sword up your arse.”

  “You are more than you look,” said Manfrax to Maggot.

  “Yeah, and I look amazing.” Maggot danced a quick Eroo legs-only jig, his jewellery and adornments clacking and jingling. He finished by spreading his arms wide. Manfrax let out a massive laugh, which was again taken up by the hall. Bruxon felt a little redundant.

  “All right, all right, a blood shake it will be. I’ll have … you.” Manfrax pointed at one of his chained slaves. The skinny man’s eyes flew wide. He fell to his knees, arched back and then slammed forward, smashing his head on the stone floor. A puddle spread, shining blackly in the torchlight. He quivered, then lay still.

  “Oh, for Bel’s sake, what a weed. It’s not that bad,” said Manfrax.

  “It is that bad,” Maggot whispered to Bruxon.

  “Grab her!” Manfrax shouted to one of the hooded men who’d escorted them from the valley, pointing at one of the woozier captives.

  The man gripped the skinny, naked girl by the arms and shuffled her over to Manfrax.

  “Right, Bruxon. Get yourself up here, man, and we’ll get this blood shake shook. Then you just need to suck my nipple and we’ll be done.”

  Bruxon turned to Maggot, his mouth falling open.

  “Did I not mention the nipple-sucking?” whispered the druid with a grin. “It’s an ancient Eroo custom, older than the blood shake. Quite unavoidable, I’m afraid.”

  “And the blood shake?”

  “It’ll be the nastiest thing you ever do. But it is binding.”

  “Come over here, my guest king, I’ll show you the blood shake. Couldn’t be simpler. Get yourself a knife off the pile there, yes that’s it, one of the fatter, pointy ones. Now I’ll hold the front of her neck, you hold the back. When I nod, stab her in the lower middle back, off to the side a little. Wiggle your knife about a bit, then put your hand in. Avoid her spine and you’ll find my hand in there. Take a firm, firm grip, then we shake hands, hard as we can, until she’d dead. Got it?”

  Bruxon almost gibbered, but he managed to control himself and simply nodded. He was glad the girl was facing away from him.

  Chapter 2

  Lowa spotted the messenger when she was still a good way off along the valley. By the way she sat on her horse as stiffly as a haughty virgin princess passing a tavern late on a summer feast day, it was Adler, one of her staff from Maidun. Adler must have ridden several hours to find her a good thirty miles east of Maidun Castle, so something interesting must have happened. Lowa shuddered with excitement at the idea that the Romans had landed. But they probably hadn’t, if three years’ experience was anything to go by. Much more likely, somebody had overreacted to some trifling event or was covering their arse or had just wanted to show off that they were able to send a messenger to the queen.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the knot of tribal leaders and farmers, and walked off to meet the rider. She was happy to leave their agrarian discussion. She’d managed to squeeze more tribute from the south-eastern farming tribes with flattery, generosity and gentle menace, and now her standing army numbered thirty thousand men and women, but, by Danu’s tits, the careful negotiation was boring. There were days that she was seriously tempted to return to Zadar’s more direct murder-a
nd-enslavement methods of tax collection. That she didn’t do so, that in fact she was doing her best to ensure everyone under her rule had the food, shelter and warmth that they needed, gave her a bit of a kick. She hoped it also went some way towards making up for the misery that she’d caused on Zadar’s orders.

  She walked along the track, high up on the valley side, looking down over the fertile fields that fed her army. She wore leather iron-heeled riding boots, as always these days, with a pale cotton skirt and a light leather jerkin. She’d taken off her tartan woollen poncho and left it draped over her horse, since the day was unseasonably warm. Her bow and quiver were on her back, and one of Elann Nancarrow’s finest thin swords scabbarded on her waist. Since she’d been beaten twice by Chamanca in mêlée fights, she’d taken to training with the sword most days, and now she was at least a match for the strongest and most skilled men, like Atlas and Carden. Annoyingly, Chamanca still whipped her every time with her unnatural speed.

  Adler swung off the horse and stood, all sinews taut, a muscle twitching on her handsome face, as if awaiting inspection. A bit too formal this one, perhaps, but she’d lose that with age.

  “What’s up?” asked Lowa.

  “The Romans have burst from their territory, massacred tens of thousands of Helvans and are moving north through Gaul.”

  So, thought Lowa, here they come. Finally.

  “Have Ragnall and Drustan returned?”

  “No. The news comes from the Helvans themselves. They’ve sent messengers, I presume in all directions.”

  Lowa nodded. It was more than two years since Ragnall and Drustan had left for Rome. She heard nothing from them since and suspected that they were dead.

  “Any other details?”

  “Sure.” Adler nodded. “The Helvans have long planned a migration from their lands in the Alps to western Gaul. The Helvan king Ogotor had arranged it all with the Gaulish tribes. They were to have safe passage to a new territory on Gaul’s west coast. A moon or so ago, a huge number of them – half a million, the messenger claims – set off, burning their towns behind them to prove their resolve.”