Shadow Lands Trilogy

by Simon Lister

  ‘Then they’re either already across or they’re not coming at all,’ Arthur said and turned his horse and began to head down to the Causeway.

  The others followed him with Ruadan and Ceinwen lingering briefly behind and facing the roadway east, back to the forests and the now dead villages. Eventually Ruadan turned their horse around and they rode past the others until he had caught up with Arthur. They rode in silence and studied the marshes that spread to either side. The whole valley was in shadow, untouched by the sun suspended above the horizon behind them. The first slither of the new moon was rising in the West to begin its slow fourteen-day journey across the skies. Over the next five days it would wax to its fullest, when it would shine down brightly on the land for a further four days before gradually waning once more as it sank to the eastern horizon.

  The marshes stretched out on either side as far as they could see with myriad small channels of salt water snaking between tall rushes and into stagnant, scum-lidded pools. The rushes grew up from waterlogged sand that looked solid enough to bear a horse and rider but which would suck both under within a minute. Wider channels of water looked navigable but they led nowhere except back on themselves or dissipated onto reaches of sand that would only bear the webbed footing of the birds that dwelt there in summer. High tides would swell the streams and create new waterways but they followed interminable courses and led only astray.

  They all turned at a growing sound behind them and watched as a flight of noisy geese approached them from the East in a straggling V formation. As they flew low overhead one broke away and circled them once before hurrying off to catch up with its departing family. Ethain looked around at the others to see if they thought it was as strange as he thought it was. ‘Perhaps it’s a blessing?’ he suggested.

  ‘It was just a goose, Ethain,’ Morgund said patiently.

  ‘Curious goose,’ Mar’h added as he passed Arthur and Ruadan.

  As Ethain rode ahead they heard him say to Balor, ‘Did he mean ‘inquisitive goose’ or ‘strange goose’? Some people would say it was bad sign it circled us like that.’

  Morgund turned and rolled his eyes to Ruadan and Arthur who were now bringing up the rear. Ruadan made a slapping motion to him and he duly slapped Ethain round the back of the head. Mar’h and Balor laughed as Ethain reeled in the saddle and they all began to talk again.

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen them laugh and talk lightly since Eald,’ Ruadan said.

  ‘It’s because they’re nearing home, or at least nearing Britain. Familiar and safe. But I don’t think we will be safe there for much longer,’ Arthur replied.

  ‘Perhaps we should have taken the whole war band to the villages,’ Ruadan ventured, at last saying what had been on his mind since the attack on Branque.

  ‘Had we known that for the first time in hundreds of years a thousand strong army was going to unleash a timed attack on the villages then we should have undoubtedly taken all the war bands. And even then we would have been outnumbered. Did you know this was going to happen?’

  ‘Of course not, Arthur...’

  ‘Nor did I, not until it was too late.’

  ‘Where did they come from?’ Ceinwen asked.

  ‘And why slaughter every man, woman and child? We’ll talk to Cei – he may be at the Causeway Gates, he sent some of his warriors across the sea in their longboats to bring in the Belgae villages. He may know more.’

  ‘What if...’ Ruadan left the question unfinished and it hung in the ensuing silence as they thought about the fate of the Belgae.

  The laughter up ahead seemed ill-timed and they slowed their pace to distance themselves from it. Ahead now they could see the Causeway Gates and behind them the chalk cliffs lit golden by the setting sun.

  Ethain turned and shouted to them, ‘We’ll go ahead and see if Tomas and Elowen are there yet!’

  Arthur raised a hand in acknowledgement and the others galloped off down the Causeway to the Gates.

  ‘Do you think they made it?’ Ruadan asked.

  ‘There only seemed to be their tracks back on the roadway,’ Arthur said and glanced at Ceinwen.

  ‘I think so. I haven’t had to look closely at those kind of tracks for some time,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, whether they made it not, we’ll bear grim tidings for the council at Caer Sulis,’ Ruadan added.

  ‘King Maldred will have more to ponder than the usual disputes and arguments,’ Arthur replied.

  Ceinwen heard the underlying scorn in Arthur’s tone and wondered just how badly the Wessex Warlord’s relationship with the king had deteriorated over the years. She hadn’t spent as much time with Ruadan as she would have wished but he had always made a point of seeing her at least once each summer and she had always looked forward to his visits, almost as much for hearing the news from Britain as the pleasure of her brother’s company.

  During the early years of her life in Branque, Ruadan had made a point of not mentioning Arthur at all to her but when he became the Wessex Warlord it had become impossible to talk of Britain without talking about Arthur. Besides, as the years passed and Ceinwen settled more and more into her new life, her past with Arthur became less painful and less relevant and Ruadan felt freer to talk about what Arthur was changing and how the king viewed the young warlord.

  The king had been a good friend of the previous Wessex Warlord and he had been outraged by the way that his tenure had ended when Arthur took control. Those events had sown the seeds of their enmity and when King Maldred had invited the raiders from the Green Isle to Britain, to aid him in his ongoing war with the Uathach of the North, Arthur had stood violently opposed to his decision and any remaining pretence at cordiality had been stripped away. It hadn’t comforted the king when Arthur had been proved entirely correct in his assessment of the raiders’ motives.

  Ceinwen decided she ought to find out more of what had happened directly from Arthur, when she could summon the energy to face anything other than her grief. Judging by Arthur’s tone he at least still viewed the king with distrust and antipathy and she had no doubt it would be mutual.

  Up ahead the others were nearing the Gates when they swung open and a horseman came out to meet them. They spoke briefly and the horseman rode on towards Arthur. It was Cei, Warlord of the Anglian spear riders. Like most of the Anglians, he wore his straw-coloured hair long and crowned with a bronze band that ran across the forehead to keep the flowing hair from his face. He was a tall man and his face was deeply and permanently etched by the alternating sun of summer and the cold of winter. His weather-tanned arms seemed as if they were carved from hard wood and his dark blue eyes rarely shifted from the person he was talking to.

  He cantered towards them at an easy pace and Arthur recalled the time when as children Cei had taught both himself and his sister, Trevenna, to ride ponies. Arthur never had been a good pupil and though he could ride well enough he had not been able to emulate Cei’s natural ease on horseback. Arthur had always maintained that it was because Cei’s parents were warriors and he had been born into the war band where he was carried on horseback before he could even walk. It had been the same with the sea; Cei had been too young to even remember the first time he had sailed the seas in the Anglian longboats. He was equally at home whether on horseback, galloping across the fens or fields of his home, or on the sea, with his longboat heeled-over close to the waves and running before the wind. Arthur was neither and suffered both only as a means of necessary transport, an attitude that Cei took great delight in mocking. They picked up their pace to meet him. As they got closer Arthur could see Cei was grim-faced, his usual cheerfulness replaced by a seriousness that spoke of bad news. Arthur leaned out of his saddle and clasped Cei’s hand.

  ‘Thank the gods you’re alive, Arthur.’

  ‘Thank this truculent bastard more like,’ Arthur replied slapping his horse’s neck. Cei grinned and the seriousness left his face momentarily. Arthur continued, ‘And thank Ceinwen for dragging
me to the truculent bastard.’

  Cei looked at Ceinwen and then back to Arthur; he seemed uncertain which of his many questions to ask first. Arthur saved Ceinwen from having to retell the ordeal by asking him about Tomas and Elowen and the villagers from Eald.

  ‘Yes, they came across the Causeway several hours ago. I was going to send people out to try to meet you but half of my spear riders are up the coast awaiting the longboats and I didn’t know if you’d take the road or go through the forests,’ Cei said.

  ‘We left the roadway and came through the forests,’ Arthur said.

  ‘So no one else made it out of Branque?’ Cei asked softly, addressing his question directly to Ceinwen.

  Ceinwen shook her head, unable to meet Cei’s eyes. Cei looked just as pained and he turned a worried look to the North, fearing for his men who had left in the longboats. Turning back he said, ‘It’s good to see you, Arthur.’

  ‘Likewise, Cei, likewise.’

  ‘And you Ceinwen. I’m sorry about your family, and the others...’

  Ceinwen nodded miserably, wondering how many times she would have to hear those words and wondering if she would ever hear them without wishing to abandon life herself.

  Cei had noticed Arthur’s injured leg and seen how fresh blood was staining the bandaging. He had also seen that Arthur carried no sword and wondered how desperate the fight at Branque must have been for Arthur to have left his sword behind.

  ‘Come. We’ll get that leg looked at, get some food in you all and then you can tell me why the gods have turned their backs on us,’ and with that Cei tugged on his reins and led the way back to the Causeway Gates.

  The gates were set into a wooden wall that was twenty-feet high and stretched across the breadth of the Causeway and then down the slopes on either side. The sidewalls were set into the marshes and paralleled the Causeway for two hundred yards before climbing back up the slopes to form a rectangular fortification with the Causeway running down its centre. A parapet eight-foot wide ran around the inside of the walls where defenders could stand with the top of the wall at shoulder height. Inside the Causeway Gates were two wooden buildings set either side of the Causeway, which provided shelter and living quarters for those stationed there.

  This was the Anglian tribe’s territory and as Cei was their warlord it was his men who garrisoned the Gates. The Anglians were a separate people from the other two southern tribes. Their tales and legends spoke of a homeland across the northern seas. A land bound in ice and snow where the sunlit summer was short and cold. A land where the gods of the earth fought to repel the onslaught of the ice giants from the furthest North. Their myths told of a time when the earth gods lost their battle against the giants and how their ancestors had been forced to take to their longboats in search of land still free from the grip of winter. Some had gone far into the West, others into the southern oceans, and no one had ever returned from either journey.

  Some of their people had settled in the lawless lands to the North but most had accepted the offer of the southern tribes to live in the East of Britain and they had become known as the Anglians.

  While they spoke the same language as the Britons their customs, accents and beliefs had all been distinctively different. As one generation followed another many of their old ways were diluted and eventually forgotten. Despite trading with the other tribes and living alongside them, there had been few inter-tribal marriages and the characteristic tallness, fair hair, fair skin and blue eyes of the original settlers remained to this day. So too did the accents and some of the traditions of their forebears. It was usually easy to see that someone was from Anglia and always obvious when they spoke.

  During the Gathering time and for the beginning of the journey west it was common for most of Cei’s spear riders to be collecting the various villages from further north in Eastern Britain and from the Belgae tribes across the sea. Half of Arthur’s warriors would be in Wessex gathering the villages there and taking them to Caer Sulis. This year the other half were divided between helping the Anglians further north, where the risk of an Uathach raid was always greater, and the Gathering of the villages of Eald and Branque from across the Channel Marshes. Arthur had taken twenty of his warriors across the Causeway and sent thirty further north to help protect the Gatherings from Uathach raids. Twelve had died at Eald under the Shadow Land army.

  There weren’t many villages near the marshes and the few that were relatively close were already empty, their peoples either already at Caer Sulis or on their way there, and those stationed at the Causeway Gates had been casually preparing for the onset of winter, the majority of their work already done. That had changed with Tomas’s arrival and his news of the attack on Eald and now the camp was busy with renewed activity. Weapons were being seen to and the superficial damage of neglect was being hastily repaired.

  There were about twenty-five of Cei’s warriors in the compound and on the walls. They had just heard from Mar’h and the others the news from Eald and of Arthur’s escape from Branque, and they all stopped to watch Arthur ride in. Ruadan had lost thirteen of twenty warriors in the flight from Eald whereas Arthur had been alone at Branque; still he had fought his way out.

  While much of the separate war bands’ campaigns against the Uathach were co-ordinated they rarely actually fought or worked side by side and for many of the younger Anglian warriors this was their first close look at the Wessex Warlord and they watched him in silence. Arthur ignored their scrutiny as he climbed painfully off his horse.

  Balor took the reins of his and Ruadan’s horses and Arthur asked him if the villagers from Eald were already on the Westway. The Westway was the main track-way that crossed the width of the country. It ran from the Causeway in the East, looped south of the great Winter Wood, followed the Isis Valley to the foot of the Downs then cut west to Caer Sulis and the head of the Estuary before finally running along the North side of the Estuary until it reached the Haven in the West.

  ‘Yes,’ Balor answered, ‘Tomas decided to take them on to the Westway and make for the Haven.’

  ‘Won’t see them for years then,’ Cei said, and Balor laughed in agreement; Tomas had got lost on more than one previous journey.

  ‘Elowen too?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘She’s inside with the others,’ Balor hitched his thumb over his shoulder pointing towards one of the huts, ‘stuffing down all of Cei’s supplies and running her eye over his men.’ Balor led their horses away chuckling to himself, partly at the thought of Tomas losing himself on the Westway, partly at the chaos that Elowen could cause among the Anglians but mostly in relief; he had feared the Anglians would blame them for the deaths at Eald.

  The fact that Arthur too had fled from the attackers had assuaged the sense of shame Balor felt in front of these Anglians. His pride and sense of honour had been punctured by their hasty retreat from Eald and their inability to protect most of the villagers, and it only made matters worse that it was usually the Anglians who escorted the Eald villages. He felt, to some extent, that the Wessex warriors had failed and had thought that the Anglians might well have felt the same way but having seen the way they had looked at Arthur, and the way he had nonchalantly ignored the stares, he knew that no one would be accusing anyone of having failed in their duty.

  He need not have worried as none of the Anglians thought him anything less than courageous and even if they had, few would have dared tell him so. To the Anglians he looked like a man who was equally short on both height and temper and few would be prepared to risk enraging him or goading him into using the heavy, single-bladed axe that he still carried from his days as a woodsman.

  Balor was not known to shy away from casual trouble, although most of the fights he got involved in were usually instigated by Morgund, and he was more often than not in the forefront of any battle. Some put his eagerness in battle down to his wanting to justify Arthur’s faith in accepting him, others felt it was just because he was short and that he wanted to prove to the t
aller warriors around him that he was every bit as good as they were. Both opinions held some truth but it was Morgund who got closer to the real reason when he pointed out that Balor just had a vicious temper.

  Cei led them to the central building where there were about fifteen people gathered around a table piled with food. The lively conversation between Arthur and Cei’s warriors stopped as Arthur entered. Twelve years previously, before Cei became the Anglian Warlord, there had been a fierce argument between Arthur and the Anglian Warlord over some captured Uathach. That same night two of the Anglian warriors had ambushed the weaponless Arthur on his way to the sleeping quarters. He had killed them both bare handed and then, taking one of the swords, killed the eight Uathach prisoners.

  Some of Cei’s current spear riders had witnessed what followed: Arthur had walked back into the feasting hall and emptied the ten decapitated heads from a sack at the feet of the Anglian Warlord and said, ‘If you have a message for me, bring it yourself. I’ve settled the dispute over the Uathach.’ Then he turned to the Anglians, who had all jumped to their feet and drawn weapons, and stared them down saying, ‘Choose a leader more fitting for you.’ He had gestured to Ruadan and those of his own war band there to leave the hall. Ruadan had hesitated but with one look from Arthur he had hurriedly joined the others filing from the hall. Laying the sword on the table in front of the Anglian Warlord and turning to the stunned warriors he had added, ‘And do it tonight,’ before walking out of the silent hall.

  None had dared to challenge Arthur, least of all the Anglian Warlord, and so they had thrown him out and chosen Cei as their new warlord. Over the years any ill-feeling between the war bands had been put to rest but many of the Anglians still remembered that night and they had no love for Arthur.

  Hengest stood and poured a mug of beer and offered it to Arthur. Hengest, the son of Aelfhelm, was Cei’s second-in-command and although he was many years younger than Cei and Arthur, he too had been in the hall twelve years ago. He had been seventeen then and if it had not been for his father’s steadying hand he would have rushed at the Wessex Warlord and the Arthur would have killed him. Arthur recognised the narrow face and thought how much he looked like his father. Like Hengest he was remembering the night twelve years ago and he stepped forward and accepted the brimming mug.