Gemini Thunder

by Chris Page

  Bowmen who could pick them off from three hundred yards.

  It was strange that the rabid lowlanders didn’t utilize this most effective of long-range killing weapons, but they didn’t. Perhaps the bow and arrow in any form was considered too slight a weapon for the fighting pride of the warrior Viking; for some reason it just hadn’t figured in their fighting history. Being a static weapon, it also didn’t lend itself to the eyeballs-out charge. Loosening off arrows when running flat out was a skill they had never developed. They may have also thought that their gods and heavily blessed shields would protect them against the swarms of metal-tipped shafts. Either way they would have to get close to inflict any damage, and Alfred intended to exact a high body count this time before they did so and had increased his longbow squadrons by a factor of four since Chippingham.

  The tiny hamlet of Uffington, with no more than six hovels nestled under the large rolling hills of the Ridgeway range, was less than one hour’s march from the larger settlement of Wantage. On the very top of the largest hill was the circular earthen ramparts of the old Uffington fort. This is where Alfred had chosen to make his stand. The battlefield had been chosen well. Alfred and de Gaini wanted a planned set piece battle, nothing random. Randomness would play to the strengths of the marauding raiders, high-ground defensive order and lines of fire to the Celts.

  As a young boy, prince and younger brother of the king, Alfred had ridden all over this area and knew the hills well. He also knew that mounting an assault up their steep inclines drained the strength from legs and lungs, especially if taken flat out as the Viking were wont to do. At Chippingham the hills hadn’t been very steep, and the charging berserkers climbed them with ease using the natural terracettes as steps. Here the grass was smooth and slippery and a difficult climb. A heavily breathing, tired foe was a much easier proposition. With de Gaini coming up fast behind them, taking up any retreat positions at the bottom of the hill, and over two thousand longbow archers strategically placed along the hills at the centre and both sides, Alfred hoped to have them in a pincer grip that they couldn’t get out of.

  Twilight’s pica reported that Freyja had a large herd of wild boar leading the Viking army and that most of the warriors were mounted on sturdy local horses. He had guessed she would do that and had prepared for it.

  When it was estimated that the berserkers were within a day and a half of Wantage, Alfred, accompanied by de Gaini, Baron De Lyones, Jack Cat, Samuel Southee, Desmond, and Twilight, walked to the Blowing Stone. Taking a deep breath, the king lowered his head to the top hole and blew as hard as he could. The sound that emanated from the solid sarsen blasted out over the surrounding area with the pure bass of thunder, causing birds to take flight and cattle within a two-mile radius to scatter. As the echo rumbled and bounced around the area, every soldier in the king’s army reached for his weapons and headed for the assembly area.

  The king had called them to war. There was nothing more to be said.

  It was time to fight.

  ‘She will send in her large herd of wild boar first,’ said Twilight from their high vantage point at Uffington fort. ‘To gore, trample, and disrupt our soldiers’ rhythm and draw the bowmen’s shafts. They are a simple animal guided by a keen nose and without guile. I have prepared a surprise for them.’

  He pointed to an open stretch of grassland with a sharply pointed ridgeway below them just where the incline started.

  ‘All along that ridge of grass there are hundreds of rabbit warrens.

  As the boar approach, the rabbits will be startled by the noise and bolt from their holes.’ His arm described an arc. ‘They will run hither and thither all over that area.’

  He smiled at Desmond.

  ‘So the area will be full of rabbits running everywhere,’ said the puzzled companion. ‘Excuse my ignorance, but what difference to five hundred charging wild boar will that make?’

  ‘I am hoping it will make a great deal of difference because I have spent a great deal of time on it.’

  The smile turned to a beam.

  ‘Are you going to tell me or not?’ Desmond cried in exasperation.

  ‘Pheromones.’

  ‘Never heard of him. Another one of your Greeks, I suppose?’

  ‘Sort of. It’s a combination of two Greek words: Pherein, meaning to bear, and hormone, meaning to stir up. In simple terms a pheromone is a substance secreted by an animal to attract another animal, a musk-like scent that drives the opposite sex mad with desire, usually applied during the mating season.’

  ‘So you’re going to use rabbit pheromones to attract the boar?’

  ‘I’m going to use very strong boar pheromones to drive the wild boar even wilder. The rabbits are just the carrier.’

  Desmond shook his head in amazement. ‘Such wonderful crinkum crankum, I just don’t know where you get it all from. Will these pheromones be strong enough to break the ligamen command?’

  ‘Probably not, but it will take up a great deal of her valuable time trying to decipher it. Remember, the most important things in battle are creativity and timing. Whilst the old hag is attending to this, she’s not concentrating upon the battle. Having spent the last two nights making friends with the rabbits, I have also made some other slight adjustments. I might add that rabbits are famous for the lustiness of their own pheromones. They certainly don’t need any encouragement when it comes to mating. Each one will have a slightly different pheromone so when Freyja tries to block the effect, she will have to block each furry little bobtail individually. One sweep of her ancient venefical arm with an antidote will not suffice, and with hundreds of intensely amorous boar chasing them with their pheromone receptors on maximum, she is going to have her work cut out to bring her pigs to heel. And don’t forget, all this is going on in and around the feet of a horde of charging berserkers.’

  He pointed down the hill again.

  ‘The mounted Viking will have to dismount before they get to the ridge containing the rabbit warrens because it’s too steep to ride up. The mighty berserker warriors’ eyeballs-out charge into battle will be severely hampered by tripping over scattering pigs and rabbits.’

  ‘It’s going to be chaos, absolute and utter chaos.’ It was Desmond’s turn to beam.

  ‘What is?’ The king walked over, having heard Desmond’s remark.

  ‘Pheromones, your highness,’ said the companion, taking Alfred’s arm conspiratorially. ‘Allow me to explain.’

  The other great advantage Uffington fort offered was vision. On a clear day the green Wessex sward below could be followed in every direction for as far as the eye could see. The dark green mass that was the mighty Savernake Forest ended in the spring haze some three hours’ march away to the southeast; a great covering that had stood the Celts in good stead on their many secretive group journeys here from Kernow. The approaching invaders would be seen long before they got anywhere near the battle area.

  Twilight and the king’s battle command knew that Freyja would have done her surveys of the site and would have reported its disadvantages and troop placements to Guthrum. Their hope was that in his haste to engage he would dismiss this as irrelevant on the basis that the Viking superiority in such battles was proven and would repeat itself no matter where the Celts chose to make their stand.

  From a long way out, the waiting Celtic soldiers watched the advancing Viking racing toward them; mostly on horseback, they took the shortest distance between two points, tearing over gates or fences or anything else that got in their way. The bloodlust must be satisfied; everything else was immaterial to that aim.

  Twilight estimated there were over nine thousand of them, which was less than the twelve thousand defenders plus the six thousand under the command of Edward de Gaini coming up behind the Viking. That gave odds of two Celts to every one Viking. Again, Guthrum would know those odds and would be very confident because the dead Celts
at Chippingham and Winchester were nearer five to one in his favour.

  But that was then.

  There was a short pause well outside longbow range in the approaches to the bottom of the hill as the leading Viking groups waited impatiently for others to catch up and Freyja’s wild boar herd to overtake them. Even at this distance the red hair of Olaf Tryggvason, now the leading chieftain and Guthrum’s number two, could be made out riding up and down the swelling ranks, exhorting them to a supreme effort. With five hundred liegeman controlled wild boars, their tusks and minds primed for contact with the flesh of Celts, leading the charge and in excess of five thousand rabid raiders ready in the leading group, Tryggvason raised his huge double-handed sword and pointed it high toward the top of the hill.

  The battle had begun.

  As the squealing, grunting boars neared the ridge holding the warrens, the rabbits began to pop up out of their holes and run, their zigzag flight taking them in all directions. More joined them and soon there were hundreds of white bobtails flashing around the bottom of the hill. At first the leading boars ignored them, but gradually the heavily scented musk of the boar pheromones wafting around kicked in, and they faltered. Finally the urge to follow overtook everything else in the simple boar mind, and they gave in to the single-minded power of its compulsive rapture, their keen noses twitching at the possibilities of the rough caress of boar union. Meantime the leading Viking had dismounted and were beginning to swarm across the ridge where the rabbit warrens were spewing forth bobtails like agitated fountains. The hoped-for chaos foretold by Desmond played out under the watching Celtic eyes as weapon-brandishing raiders on foot, terrified rabbits, and amorous wild boar all competed for the same space at the foot of the hill. Cursing and slashing out wildly at the rabbits and boars as they got under their feet, the raiders began to trip and fall, bringing others down on top of them. Those who got through the frenzied melee began to climb the hill.

  The distraction caused by all this gave Twilight the few minutes he’d been hoping for. He nodded at the king, who gave a signal to Samuel Southee that was passed all along the Celtic lines around the top of the great amphitheatre. Every one of the Celtic soldiers bent down, removed a covering of turf by their feet, and working in small groups of four and five heaved a big boulder out of its burial place up onto the natural earthen parapet and held it there. As Freyja began to get her boars under control and the berserkers were joined by others coming up behind, the assault on the hill began in earnest.

  Then Alfred gave the next signal.

  And two thousand large, heavy boulders of the three thousand placed there by Twilight and carefully hidden from Freyja’s prying eyes under turf over four weeks ago were rolled over the edge.

  Creativity and timing.

  The bouncing, colliding, flying wall of rocks gathered speed and smashed into the climbing invaders like an avalanche. Many of them dived aside to dodge one rock only to get caught by another in midair. Those who turned back down the hill were smashed in the back and driven with the rocks into comrades. Shards from colliding rocks sliced through chests and limbs, and bodies were flung around like rags, with many of the dead falling and sliding all the way to the bottom. The lower part of the hill ran with the slippery blood and guts of dead lowlanders, colouring many of the boulders in slashes of carmine.

  In the meantime the defenders prepared to let the next and last one thousand rocks go on the king’s next signal.

  It never came. Guthrum, using Freyja’s power, sounded the retreat. A huge blast on a horn blared across the area and those Viking who could still move got off that hill and out of the area as fast as possible, leaving the agonized screams of smashed and dying comrades behind them. At the bottom of the hill and lower slopes, amid a huge pile of broken boulders, scattered weapons, and flung horned helmets, lay almost one thousand dead and twitching Viking fighters.

  A Viking retreat, now there’s an event. The longbow men released the tension on their bowstrings. Not an arrow fired nor a scratch to a single Celt.

  They could hear the twelve thousand Celtic soldiers cheering in Wantage. It was their first victory.

  Surveying the scene of devastation from his lofty perch, Twilight muttered his elegy to the dead caused by his own actions.

  ‘The moment of your savage destiny has just arrived, brutal lowlanders. Good-bye.’

  He smiled as the Celtic soldiers danced and cheered in victory all around him.

  ‘Now, foul old hag, talk to my mind if you dare.’

  The retreating Viking made camp further down the valley and collected their dead. They’d died properly by Norse standards, facing the enemy, and, even though they lost the battle, a source of great shame, the dead warriors would be accorded full honours. Two miles further back from the Viking camp, Edward de Gaini, together with Gode, and Arrow and Bullwhip as his commanders, and six thousand eager soldiers also made camp.

  The next move would be the Viking’s.

  Although Guthrum was, even for him, just about as mad as he could get without exploding, his megalomania was beginning to be tethered by events. It’s fine when everything goes your way, but megalomania of the sort that dominated his psyche required great succour, blame, and plausible excuses when matters are going against you. Included in the huge death count on the hill at Uffington had been five more of his chieftains, the clan leaders who were so important to the solidarity of his fighters. As usual the veins stood out on his arms and neck like knotted blue cords, and most of his anger was directed at Freyja. He jabbed a big, blunt, dirty finger at her face. Why hadn’t she discovered the boulders? Why had those pigs of hers chased off after rabbits? Why hadn’t she loosed off a few thunderbolts? Why hadn’t he been told that the hill holding the defenders was practically impregnable? Why couldn’t she, once again, deal with that cursed Wessex astounder? Why was he saddled with another useless wizard?

  Why? Why? Why?

  Freyja wanted to say that the big, arrogant, and furiously tempered jarl would not have listened if she’d told him those things and that any fool with eyes could see how difficult it was to attack a hill like Uffington. The lost battle had been conditioned by the fact that Guthrum had followed his usual eyeballs-out attack policy without regard to the terrain and positions of the enemy. Letting off thunderbolts needlessly only drew the same incoming response. There was no gain in a straight swap of explosions or lives, especially as the Viking were down on numbers compared to the Celts. And as for the Wessex back-slayer and his avalanche of rocks, it was, quite frankly, yet another stroke of genius. If she didn’t hate him so much she could almost admire his innovative tactics. But she did hate him with a poisonous vitriol such that she could never accept, however grudgingly, any admiration for his deeds. The venefical worm would turn; her time would come, and it would come soon. The venefical fight to the death was fast approaching; the brotherhood of the enchantments was about to lose another one of its august members.

  Olaf Tryggvason wondered if they could set fire to the spring grass that grew around the hill but quickly acquiesced when Freyja pointed out that Twilight would immediately douse the fires with a rain storm. Likewise she could blanket the place with a thick fog, under the cover of which the Viking fighters could climb the hill, but again the back-slayer would blow it away with a strong wind, and the climbing fighters would be exposed to more killer rock avalanches.

  ‘Fighting,’ snarled a frustrated Tryggvason, ‘was much easier before you venefici got involved.’

  Guthrum glowered at Freyja.

  ‘If we manage to run a sword through this Wessex rune-slayer, will he die like everyone else?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘We are just as susceptible to such wounds as any mortal. The problem is getting close enough to do it.

  The venefical senses are much magnified. He will be able to see, smell, and hear far, far better than any normal human, added to which he can m
ove with incredible speed and transform himself instantly to another place. ‘

  ‘But so can you,’ said Tryggvason. ‘As I understand it you are at least his match?’

  Freyja stuck out her wrinkled chin.

  ‘I am,’ she said defiantly. ‘Better if anything.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you managed to gainsay him?’

  ‘Although he is far younger than I am, he’s had more experience of war,’ she said softly. ‘He learned well alongside his mentor, Merlin, who was a battle-hardened veteran with King Arthur. That’s why he killed my twins. Like me, they have only officiated at minor skirmishes where the opposition wasn’t up to much, so against the battle experience of this mesmerist they didn’t stand a chance. And I didn’t make it my business to find out about him before they came over here. Had I done so, I would have come myself at the outset instead of them, and they would still be alive to protect our lands in the future. In another ten years my one hundred years are up. After that there will be no veneficus to protect our lands, and this foul back-slayer knows it. My poor little darlings were killed like lambs to the slaughter. They were easy meat for him. It’s all about experience and creativity, and he’s got both. Our thinking wasn’t sharp or inventive enough because we don’t have his experience of handling big conflicts.’

  ‘But many years ago, you and I smashed various defenders without any trouble on trell raids in Gaul and Saxony,’ growled Guthrum, who had cooled down somewhat. ‘So why not this country pipsqueak?’ He raised his great bushy eyebrows.

  ‘There is a big difference in putting away a handful of untrained rebels without a veneficus to protect them and dealing with this one. He is clever, innovative, and very quick on his feet and backed by a king who believes in him.’

  The last reference was lost on Guthrum.

  ‘Then we have to come up with a plan that traps him. Before we are all doomed,’ said Tryggvason. ‘We must find a way of using his own cleverness against him.’