by Chris Page
Desmond looked at the tiny nut kernel in Twilight’s hand.
‘Clever,’ he said grudgingly.
‘It was and it completely fooled me. The aura glow this little nut was giving off was so small I never noticed it. They were searching for that glow from high in the night sky when we appeared over the forest and set up the ambush. Staying high they waited and watched until we moved. They then purposefully sacrificed the first small group of seven Viking to make us think the ambush was working. When we then committed Gode’s entire mounted force to the larger group, they released their thunderbolts, warriors, and bears for maximum damage.’
Gode, who was sitting with them in Alfred’s tent, a crude linen cloth around her head after Desmond had tenderly and overly bathed the gash with a potion suggested by Twilight, shuddered.
‘Thanks to you I was the only survivor.’ Desmond blew on his nails and put on his best heroic countenance. ‘It was nothing,’ he said dismissively. Twilight reached over to Desmond’s pigtail and pushed the small
nut kernel back into place. ‘What are you doing?’ he cried. ‘They will know where we are!’ ‘Precisely.’ The Wessex astounder smiled. ‘This might just be the opportunity we were looking for, the chance to separate the Dog Star Sirius from the side of Orion.’
Ove Thorsten’s group wasted no time getting to Lacock and mercilessly cutting down every one except five of the white-cloaked druids as they stood with a benign smile on their faces beside the laden tables of food. This time there were no bloodcurdling screams from the attackers, no charging horde, and no catatonic killing frenzy. There was no need. A Viking just walked up to each one and hacked the poor unfortunate to death with one mighty blow as he stood there with his arms out in a gesture of brotherly welcome. After the first few of their fellow druids died in front of them, those left didn’t bother to even try to run. It was pointless. The floor-length white cloaks and sandals made that an impossibility, and these savages would like nothing better than some undefended sport as the druids tripped and fell under the slashing axes. Accepting death when it was that certain and accompanied by a complete and utter lack of hope left only two things to ponder.
Will I be able to stand quietly as the axe falls?
Who did it matter to, anyway?
Like quiescent irenics coming to a calm inner bargain with themselves, the remaining druids set their faces to a grim-visaged inevitability, dropped their arms to their sides, put their chin on their chest, and began to wonder if all they had been taught about the afterlife was true. Knowing that time left on earth amounted to a few precious blinks of the eye gave a lucidity to the life lived that etched some past events in spectacular relief. The surprise was that the faces of those barging into subliminal focus during these brief moments of soliloquy were, for the most part, not the expected loved ones, but a series of random strangers who had played little or no part in that life.
Death was already proving a contrary master, and they hadn’t got to it yet.
Some druids even continued to smile a welcome at their killer as he raised his weapon, in a vain attempt to perhaps wrinkle out one decent shard of humanity that would stay his hand. Two of them began to sing, and one, deranged, perhaps, or ready to try anything, took his cloak off.
All in vain. A gasp from the nearest druid signalled the imminence of the end. The double-handed swords and axes hissed downward upon unprotected necks with the lethal precision and singularity of the executioner. Denied their individual carillon of bells, each bloodied, separated body slumped to the hard, compacted ground in a stream of carmine fluids outside the abbey gates where they had assembled for the greeting. The blood of eighty submissive druids, who had allowed themselves to believe their leader, ran in rivulets away from those gates.
As they should have done.
From King Alfred’s defensive positions upon the naturally eroded terracettes around the rolling hills of Chippingham, his men could see the smoke rising from the abbey at Lacock. Alfred, de Gaini, Gode, Desmond, and Twilight sat in Alfred’s tent. Twilight had just returned from an invisible transformation to the sky above the abbey.
‘I’m afraid they have captured Ebroin,’ he said. ‘With four other senior druids he has been buried in the ground, only their heads showing. They have been tortured, and in a macabre sport the Viking have made hard balls from the brains of the other dead druids by mixing them with lime and baking until hard over the blazing embers of the abbey. They are then rolling these balls at the exposed heads of the buried druids. Everyone else is dead, beheaded, then hacked to pieces. All the abbey buildings have been burned to the ground.’
Alfred sighed deeply. ‘Yet more despicable and barbaric acts. The brutality of these Viking knows no bounds, has no limits. Their only form of innovation is how to torture and kill with ever more ingenuity and pain. Although she was expecting it, Elswith will be devastated,’ he said . ‘I have sent her and Hild with an escort to her family in Wales. They will be safer there.’
He paused for a moment.
‘Elswith is with child. It will be our firstborn.’
They all considered this for a moment before Desmond blurted out, ‘Twilight can tell when women and animals are pregnant by looking into their bodies. He can even tell what sex the baby will be.’
The king looked at the Wessex astounder with raised eyebrows. Nothing about this remarkable young man surprised him anymore. ‘Is that true?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Did you know Elswith was with child?’ ‘Yes. I noticed when I first met the queen at Winchester Castle.’ ‘And you know if our firstborn will be a boy or girl?’
‘I do.’ Alfred looked into the distance for a while before turning back to Twilight.
‘Would you tell me if I asked?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘The question,’ said the king reflectively, ‘is if Elswith and I want
to know the sex of our first child. After all, there are issues of surprise and succession at stake.’
Twilight remained silent. ‘No,’ said Alfred, coming to a decision. ‘I think we will leave the matter to nature . . . and your good silence.’
‘You can be assured of that,’ replied the veneficus. ‘Now, let’s get back to the captured druids. They will know now that Ebroin is your brother-in-law. That’s probably the only reason they kept him alive.’
‘Can you do anything to save him? Even though he is not much enamoured of venefici.’
The astounder shrugged.
‘It’s got nothing to do with Ebroin’s dislike of venefici. We’re used to that and never hold it against anyone, and yes, I could probably retrieve what’s left of him, but he won’t be very pretty and may even have lost his mind.’
‘The very position I was trying to save him and his fellow druids from the last time we had this conversation,’ said the pale-faced monarch softly.
‘Don’t hold it against yourself, my lord, you did all you could for him,’ said de Gaini.
‘If there’s one message that you must get out to all the religions, cults, orders, affectations, creeds, deities, beliefs, and myriad believers in their ivory towers throughout Wessex,’ said Twilight, ‘it’s this. Where the Viking are concerned, the lion will not lie with the lamb. They are not for entreating with or converting. The only thing they understand is killing. Greeting them with the offer of friendship or brotherhood brings an even swifter and bloodier end. Killing in battle or under quiescent acceptance is all the same to them.’
‘But I am a Christian. Does that make me responsible for all the other faiths?’
‘You are also a king,’ said Gode, ‘and surely that does.’
Alfred stood and walked around the tent stroking his wispy beard, pondering. He stopped, having reached a decision.
‘Leave Ebroin, God rest his soul. There are other more pressing matters that need attention. I will send emissaries out to the Wessex abbeys and monasteries to spread the word that no one s
hould attempt to treat with these barbarians. Leave, hide, anything, but keep out of their way. Now, let’s look at our options. There’s a battle approaching and I want to be victorious. Tell me more about these thunderbolts. As an instrument of war, they interest me and have much to commend them.’
The full-grown, four-year-old male eagle called Kani, son of Boma and Ran and recent newly forged life partner to Bebe, rode the high thermals off the coast of Kernow. With a magnificent wingspan longer than the average man, Kani patrolled his allotted sector over the ocean with his keen eyes and sense of smell on maximum. Suddenly he picked up the very faintest acid reek of wood smoke amid the offshore ozone. Banking into the headwind, he followed the reek; gradually it mingled with the slightly more acceptable aroma of charred fish. On the horizon appeared the smudge of islands known as the Scilly’s. Soon he could see the smoke of many fires rising into the early morning air, surrounded by men.
Kani had found the three thousand Viking force marooned by Twilight and led by Olaf Tryggvason.
Coming in low, the sea eagle made several screeching passes over the heads of the warriors until he had their attention and they began to point and shout at him. Then he climbed high on the wind coming off the islands, gave one last screech, and began the long flight back to his master. His liege-lord would be very pleased with his efforts, very pleased indeed.
On the island below, Olaf Tryggvason watched the great wingspan of the sea eagle fade to a shimmering dot, mouthing every prayer, rune, belief, rite, and fylgjur he could remember to the great Norse super-deities that the eagle was one of Go-ian’s. They had only been on this accursed island for a few days, but already his warriors were getting restless with boredom. Urged on by the kin-leaders, old grudges were beginning to surface; feuds were resurrected, and fistfights began to break out. So far no lives had been lost, but he would not be able to keep the lid on it for much longer. Three thousand fighting Viking warriors cooped up on an island with nothing to do but fish all day was not a recipe for a peaceful coexistence, as that whore-mother of a veneficus had known when he put them here and destroyed their boats. Civil war was about to erupt, albeit with wooden staves and rocks as Twilight had also destroyed their weapons. He looked long at the empty sky where the eagle had disappeared.
‘Non capit mora ad muscas, aquila, fugit hora,’ he muttered. ‘Do not stop to catch flies, eagle, the hour flies.’
As Kani had thought, Go-ian was especially pleased with the news his bird brought him and immediately promoted him to the position of eagle leader. Bebe, his female partner, had also returned with some good news, so it was a double celebration.
On a small, wooded island called Steep Holm in the Estuary of the Severn, a river not far from Chippingham, Bebe saw movement in a small clearing and went to investigate. She found a small menagerie consisting of two adult and two small bears and an old horse with a parrot on its head, all living quite happily together.
‘Those,’ said Go-ian gleefully, ‘must be the animals in the jester’s travelling show. We saw them in his mind when we had him. The moon-shiner has transformed them to that island out of our way, probably because we can command the bears.’
‘Mmmm . . . our Wessex friend likes his islands, eh?’ said his identical twin sister. ‘I wonder what he did with his wife and children . . . ‘
They both giggled.
‘They’ll be on an island somewhere. It’s only a matter of time before we have them as well, especially as we are beginning to understand the geography of this strange place called Wessex. We could have a lot of fun with young Eleanor and Harlo, and as for that northern witch-princess he calls his wife, her screams will be heard in Norgstal. As soon as we have won this battle I’ll get the birds up again to look for them. In the meantime we must figure out a way to move three thousand warriors from those islands out in the ocean to Chippingham without him and his pied-poly devil birds finding out. Those men will be needed in the coming battle.’
‘Looks like some diversionary work is needed,’ said Go-uan.
They both giggled again.
‘We are beginning to get the measure of the task before us, eh?’ they said to one another simultaneously. ‘Our dear mother, Freyja, will be very proud of her clever twins.’
Desmond sat with Gode and Twilight overlooking the area that would be the battlefield when the Viking decided to attack. Both armies were lined up at either end of a long, undulating valley with various forces spaced up each side of the surrounding hills. The middle of the valley formed a natural gully along which the main battle would be fought. By virtue of being the first there, Alfred’s red-and gold-attired soldiers held the slightly higher ground and had dug in behind some rudimentary earthen defences. As evening fell the Viking showed no inclination to attack; after their headlong rush from Winchester they were taking a little time to recover, alongside the ever-present activity of sharpening their blades to the keenness of flames. Sentries were on maximum alert with their carnyx horns held to steeled lips ready to blast attack warnings. Behind Alfred’s army the settlement of Chippingham was deserted. Apart from an occasional distant wolf call echoing around the rolling hills, angrily answered by the howl of an abandoned, hungry dog, the area was completely silent. It was, for the Celtic soldiers, a time for reflection and peace-making with inner demons, the lull before the catatonic lowlander storm brought its berserker message of hatred and death sweeping down the valley.
‘Give us a tune, Desmond,’ said Twilight. ‘Something to cheer the soldiers up for the coming battle.’
Desmond produced his battered old long wooden whistle and took a couple of tuning toots followed by a rising scale. It was also a chance to impress the beautiful and heroic Gode with his musicianship.
He started with a slow, undulating melody of breathy notes. When he repeated the melody, Gode joined in with a higher register humming that pitched perfectly alongside the slightly mournful whistle. By the time they repeated the melody for the third time, many of the Celtic soldiers nearby were humming along. The fourth time around saw everyone give in to the rising waves of the simple melody as the pent-up emotions of an impromptu army choir released its wordless fears into the night sky. Weapons were discarded as each man freed his arms to give full rein to the ululation and sheer joy of contributing to the melody. The final time saw the rolling sound reach a crescendo of basso humming as if performed by the very bees of Hades itself.
All Viking activity stopped as the hummed melody, driven by more than five thousand Celtic males, rippled down the valley like rising thunder. Blade-sharpening stones halted in midair, drinking horns paused halfway to bearded lips, and warriors stood and gaped as the tune rolled over their heads and rumbled into the distance. As if on cue every one of the Celtic voices humming the melody suddenly stopped. As the last vestiges of the tune disappeared into the Wessex ether, it was followed by an eerie, perfect silence.
In the Viking lines many hardened warriors fidgeted with unease.
‘It’s a requiem,’ scoffed Go-uan.
‘A funeral march,’ cried her twin brother.
‘A death chant,’ they said together.
The Viking warriors were not so sure. In all their battles they had never heard anything like it before.
Was it another sign from the gods?
From his command point high on a hill, King Alfred turned to Edward de Gaini with a look of sheer amazement tinged with hope on his pale face.
‘Can a choir win a battle, Edward?’
‘No, my liege, but it can sure win the hearts of those who have to fight it.’
Daylight saw the first attack on the Celtic positions.
With twenty bears and no warriors.
The glossy-furred ursa rumbled down the centre of the valley straight for the most heavily defended part of the Celtic lines. Two hundred longbow men stepped forward and, drawing their metal arrow tips back to the maximum a
gainst the straining thornwood bows, waited for the command to fire. Behind them stood the serried ranks of soldiers with spears raised. On the command to fire, two hundred bow strings twanged and a black swarm of arrows arced into the rumbling bears. Three of them took so many arrows they fell to the ground and rolled over. Several others stumbled under direct hits but kept on coming. Reloading, the longbow men released another black swarm, and another eight bears hit the ground. The remaining nine bears, all festooned with impaled arrows, kept coming, albeit slower and with a great deal of hesitation. Their deep attack roars had now given way to squeals of pain and rage. At this point the soldiers with spears were ordered to rush the wounded bears and charged out from the lines to finish them off.
It was all over in a matter of minutes, and twenty glossily furred bodies with many arrows protruding from them lay dead in front of the Celtic lines.
Desmond had tears streaming down his face.
‘It wasn’t necessary for them to sacrifice those poor animals. They had no chance against the archers and spearmen and were sent to a certain death.’
Gode soothed him and held his hand.
Perhaps, Desmond thought, squeezing Gode’s hand, it wasn’t so bad after all.
Then another twenty bears were released along the hill to the right of the Celtic lines, then to the left, then the remainder down the middle again. Each time they met the same response from the Celtic bowmen and spear throwers. Soon there were dead bears festooned with arrows along the entire front between the two armies.
Despite the heartening feel of Gode’s hand, Desmond was beside himself with grief. Which increased even more with the final charge as two large bears followed by two small ones suddenly appeared running down the centre of the valley toward the Celtic lines.
