M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon

by M. K. Hume

  ‘What are you doing here, Arthur? You’re supposed to be on the front line.’

  Organised chaos reigned behind the mound as five small wooden machines were pushed into place halfway up the incline and wooden chocks placed against the wheels to ensure they remained stable.

  ‘What are they?’ Arthur asked, his face darkening.

  ‘Catapults – ballistas. They’ll throw the Marine Fire out at the enemy when they’re about halfway between here and the walls of Calleva.’ Arthur blinked. He’d been told that the liquid fire would be used in the ditch.

  ‘When will the trumpets sound to indicate that it’s time to begin our withdrawal from the line? I don’t much care for the idea of being burned alive.’

  ‘I’ve not heard about any trumpets. The front lines are expected to run when the catapults fire the first of the containers. They’ll allow for a count of fifty to give you time to escape before volunteers on the mound start to throw containers of Marine Fire into the ditch. The enemy will be caught between two fires. Don’t you know this? You’re volunteers, after all, and Bran says you are the pride of the army because you’ve chosen to risk yourselves for your homeland. You will be luring the Saxons into making a full frontal attack into the throat of our newly acquired weapons, and Bran will achieve a great victory at little cost. After your escape, all that will be needed is for the cavalry to mop up the survivors.’

  ‘It’s a pity, then, that no one told us. It seems odd that we weren’t actually given the opportunity to volunteer!’ Arthur’s voice rasped as if it belonged to a man twice his age.

  ‘What do you mean? Bran said that . . .’

  ‘I don’t care what Bran says. He lies! We were told to wait until the trumpets sound before we retreat, and now you tell me there are no trumpets. Six hundred good men are expected to get through one narrow escape route because the space at the northern end of the ditch is effectively blocked by Saxon corpses – put there on Bran’s instructions! We make very effective bait, and we’re expected to die for the sake of realism. Thank you for your honesty, Taliesin. I’ll go now and warn my troops that we’ve been deemed expendable.’

  Taliesin now looked thoroughly alarmed. ‘You’ll need to smear earth all over your bodies. It might stop some of the fire sticking to you. I swear I had no knowledge of any of the bad aspects of this plan. Take care, Arthur, because our men need you.’

  ‘I don’t think our leaders feel quite the same way,’ Arthur replied sardonically as he started to make his way back to the ditch and the forward line. To make matters worse, the Saxon and Jute troops were beginning to stir like a vast ant nest tormented by a giant child with a large stick. There was too little time left to avoid the annihilation of the entire front line.

  Arthur quickly outlined the real battle plan to Eanraig and his small corps of veterans. ‘Our departure from the field must look like a poorly disorganised retreat rather than a planned strategy, so don’t hold your breath waiting for that trumpet call. It won’t come. As soon as the catapults throw the containers into the air, move the back two rows of the northern defenders through the gap in the mound at a run. The southern contingent must run towards the far end of the ditch as if the Christian Satan was pursuing them, and the front rank of the defenders on the north side should make a rush round the pile of Jute corpses. They’ll probably have to fight their way out of the trap. But I have just been informed by Taliesin that Bran’s warriors on the mound intend to hurl the next containers directly into the ditch behind us – at a count of fifty after the catapults fire the first salvo! We will be caught between two lines of fire. You must be ready to run as soon as I give the order, for this treachery has already been arranged by our glorious masters. Taliesin believed that we knew of Bran’s intentions, and that we had volunteered to risk our lives for the greater good.’

  One sour-faced veteran, the senior officer of the southern contingent, raised a hand. ‘I’ve got nothing but green boys in my troop, including some who’ve been used for baggage train duties. The Jute charge will be pure bloody murder. They’ll do their best, because they’re good lads, but they’ll never keep their heads. One escape route isn’t enough.’

  Arthur thought hard. ‘Very well, count off the first fifteen men in each line out of those closest to the centre of the mound. That’s about ninety men, yes? They must be sent through the centre gap. The rest of your boys, inexperienced or not, will then have plenty of space to manoeuvre round the south end of the ditch, although I suspect that the men on the north side will be trapped between ditch, corpses and trees. We have to move the largest number of men through these three gaps as quickly as possible, so be prepared to begin the evacuation the moment the opportunity arises.’

  Arthur’s voice dropped and his eyes turned opaque, almost white. ‘This will be cold-blooded murder, my friends. Shite, I’d have volunteered if I had been asked. But to be tricked into being used as the bait in a nasty and dishonourable trap . . . I feel sick to be a British warrior on this wicked day.’

  ‘I’d never have believed that Lord Ector could be false,’ Eanraig said dourly. Arthur’s information had come as a shock to the veteran, who was used to cleaner tactics in the time of the Dragon King.

  ‘I’ll swear that Ector didn’t know. He is my kinsman, and I saw no lies on his face. It showed no deception at all. He believes what he told us.’ Arthur’s face showed new lines between the eyes, and Germanus swore inwardly to see his charge’s loss of faith in the men who should have earned his trust. ‘In the meantime, cover yourself with raw earth. Taliesin swears it will help to control the burning. We have a bag of sand here and I’d recommend that every man tries to find something similar to protect them against the flames.’ He looked toward the Saxon lines. ‘If the enemy gives us the luxury of time.’

  Havar had been given his extra men and was chafing at the bit to begin his attack, confident that this new force would drive the pitiful defenders back into their own camp. All he needed now was the order from Cerdic. He watched closely as Cynric rode like the wind to reach the southern reserves before dismounting and calling the captains together. With his thousand men and the thousand reserves near the south gate, he knew that Bran’s pitiful defence would be turned into bloody shreds of meat within the hour.

  Pacing and swearing, while praying to Odin for the strength and resilience of the god’s hammer, Havar waited with his whole mind set on exacting his revenge. He had heard the unspeakable details of the carnage that had routed the baggage train from his reserves, but his mind rejected the concept of such a weapon. He refused to believe that his warriors could be terrified into hiding behind their defences.

  The battle call came with a scream from an ancient ram’s horn used to rally the Saxon troops from time immemorial. Cerdic wore the instrument on his belt, even though he no longer had the lung power to blow it, for the horn was plated with precious beaten gold. A grandson, come to his first battle, blew on it lustily and the sound echoed along the walls, even carrying as far as the waiting Britons.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Arthur yelled. ‘Pass the word along to your brothers. You must fight as single warriors . . . hear me? No lines, because it will be too hard to disengage when the time comes to run. Be ready to move on my order, or when the first catapults fly. Give the bastards hell, so they’ll think twice before they try to steal our lands again.’

  Dirty, muddy and reminiscent of earth golems, the Britons waited in front of their ditch. For ease of retreat, the front row had moved forward and given themselves room to manoeuvre. Even with their hurried preparations, Arthur knew that many British warriors would die as collateral damage in the butchery that Bran intended to inflict on the Saxons. In the depths of his mind, he was aware that this carnage was designed to ensure a period of peace for the towns of the south-west, to give them time to consolidate their fortifications, but the betrayal hurt him nevertheless.

  ‘Good Britons should be prepared to die for the greater good,’ Gareth murmured a
t his side. ‘Like you, I would have volunteered willingly if I had known what was to happen, but Bran would have been wise to be frank with his warriors and then ask for volunteers. He’ll have difficulty regaining our trust after this treachery.’ The young warrior’s voice was calm and emotionless, although he must have felt some anger at being used so ruthlessly. ‘War’s a dirty game, but it should still be played as honestly as possible. I’ve never had any real illusions, because my father told me that Artor was as noble as was possible during his reign, but still accepted that men must sometimes be sacrificed for the sake of the rest.’

  ‘Steady!’ Arthur howled, interrupting him. ‘Now! On your guard! They’re on the move!’

  Sword and knife raised, Artor’s son stepped forward to meet the approaching Jutes who were loping towards the British line, their faces crudely painted to represent devils and beasts out of legend. He barely had time to glance towards the southern defenders, who were so thoroughly outnumbered and demoralised, when the first of the Jutes reached him and tried to decapitate him with a looping swing of his single-bladed axe, exposing his own torso in the process. Arthur evaded the overhand blow with ease and the Jute was caught off balance. A quick manoeuvre with the Dragon Knife and the warrior fell, neatly disembowelled. Battle had been joined.

  As he engaged the enemy, Arthur felt no vagueness or lack of concentration. His mind was crystal clear, probably because he was so blazingly angry at Bran’s treachery. Once again, Germanus’s painstaking lessons with sword and knife bore fruit, and he found himself able to watch other aspects of the battle while he fought. As he downed another Jute warrior, whose impetuous forward rush came to an abrupt halt when Oakheart spitted him, Arthur saw the line of Britons holding the southern ditch begin to waver and break apart. They were so cruelly outnumbered and outreached that Arthur’s anger grew even hotter as he watched the thin line of troops chopped to ribbons. He also registered that half of the southern Saxons had stopped short of the fire-pits and seemed to be awaiting instructions. Then he saw the vicious load from the first catapult hurtle over the defender’s heads and land within the mass of charging Saxons.

  ‘Retreat!’ Arthur roared as loudly as he could, even as he despatched a Jute warrior who was attempting to pin Germanus down. ‘Retreat! Pass the order! Retreat!’ Then, with pumping legs, the two men ran towards the end of the ditch.

  The ground shook as a second container of Marine Fire exploded as it struck the ground. Some enterprising engineer, with a mind honed to gruesome efficiency by his long-distance view of war, had added small shards of iron, lead and glass . . . anything that would melt in the extreme heat. What was already a devastating weapon was rendered hideous by molten glass and metal that stuck to unprotected skin. Arthur could barely imagine the agony of it. He ran, making sure that Germanus and Gareth were with him, cutting down any Saxon or Jute who tried to engage them with a ruthless efficiency that he had never known he possessed. Other Britons ran with them, trusting to the young lord’s luck to save them, while confusion reigned in the Jute ranks from one end of the ditch to the other. Where could they run? Back into the hell fire? Or should they follow the Britons who were fleeing before them into the heart of the enemy camp? Milling and thoroughly confused, they had no chance of escape. In the chaos of fire that rained down from above, the Saxon and Jute commanders lost all control of their warriors.

  Eanraig was directing his troops through their single gap with admirable speed. He raised one hand in salute and disappeared as Arthur reached the pile of dead bodies at the northern end of the ditch, a gruesome memorial to all lost causes. Men were fleeing in single file between the bodies and the ditch, their eyes wide and horrified at how close they were to the innocuous, gravel-bottomed ditch with its harmless pools of water that would become deadly the moment the Marine Fire began to rain down on them.

  ‘Go round the corpses. It’ll take longer, but it’s better than being too close when the fire starts.’ Arthur’s voice was clearly audible as the sudden whizzing sound of a catapulted container passed directly over his head. He ducked instinctively.

  One after another the catapults fired a second volley, a little closer to the ditch, and were immediately reloaded. As the spreading fire cut through the rearguard of the Saxon attack, panicking warriors ran forward, away from the ugly, writhing death that burned men into shapeless lumps of charcoal and carbon.

  Bran is a cold and clever bastard, Arthur thought, as he turned to block a wicked sword thrust that would have parted his spine if it had landed. The Saxons and Jutes were following Arthur’s line of retreat out of an instinctive belief that the Britons knew a way to survive the hell that had set the air on fire. Even Havar had belatedly accepted that these Britons would not run, and knew the retreat was not cowardice.

  Breathlessly, and with his heart pounding in his chest, Arthur reached the end of the mound. Disregarding his heavy armour, he gave one last burst of speed and plunged forward just as a wall of fire, taller than the tallest Jute, raced down the dyke like a wall of flood water. Arthur would have continued to run had Germanus not tackled him round the knees and brought him crashing to the ground.

  Spluttering and protesting, Arthur found himself suddenly dowsed in sand and mud as he belatedly discovered that he was on fire. The Saxon at his heels was also on the ground and Gareth was dousing him in sand and dirt as well, patting down smouldering cloth and pulling off the man’s armour as the buckles sizzled and parted company. Germanus checked Arthur for burns and discovered that only a small section of his leather trews had caught fire, leaving only minor lesions that would soon heal.

  ‘Did all our men escape?’ Arthur asked later. His own burns dressed, he was watching the Saxon warrior being led away. ‘I think I was one of the last through the gap.’

  ‘Our Saxon friend was the last one through and he’s being taken to the healers on the orders of Taliesin himself. He’s swearing and cursing us in his heathen tongue, and he describes us as monsters from hell and devoid of all honour. Us, would you believe! After Spinis?’ Gareth sounded mortally insulted, but Arthur’s sympathies were with the Saxon, especially when, having climbed to the top of the mound, he surveyed the chaos that remained on the battlefield.

  The southern contingent of Celts had been forced to leave their wounded behind, and those who had tried to carry their friends to safety had been caught by the wall of flame. Already outnumbered and hacked to ribbons by Cynric’s Saxons, they died horribly as they tried to reach their own lines.

  The range of the catapults had been readjusted so that the last of the enemy fleeing back to the relative safety of Calleva still remained under fire. With unimaginable and hideous death both before and behind them, Saxons and Jutes ran in all directions, desperate to do anything to escape the missiles that rained down on them. Bran had ordered the reserves into the field in the south to block any escape from the leaping flames, and burning men were running crazily among their fellows, spreading the fire until they fell to the ground. Only Cynric’s men, the ones he had ordered to halt before they reached the fire-pits, remained a viable force, and Arthur watched as a single mounted man, probably Cynric, called all the survivors to form around him. Grouped into compact squares, they began to lope away in the distinctive Saxon run that could cover miles with ease.

  Arthur turned to Germanus and Gareth, who had joined him on top of the mound. ‘May their gods be with them. Mithras will take his revenge on us for what we have done today. I’m ashamed to have been a part of it.’

  At the northern end of the battlefield, the British cavalry waited. Once Bedwyr would have been desperate to pursue the invaders, for he held an unquenchable desire to blot out the memory of his early dealings with the monsters of Caer Fyrddin, but even Bedwyr’s long enmity towards the Saxons had weakened and now, in the wake of such hideous suffering, he found that he had no stomach for the murder of frantic men, reduced to flight by mindless, unimaginable panic.

  Amazed, Arthur watched as the sc
ene unfolded before him. He saw Havar die in a suicidal charge, but the White Dragon perished for nothing. Of Cerdic and Cynric there was no obvious sign as the Saxon warriors retreated into the distance, but after an hour of watching the slaughter Arthur’s keen young eyes made out a second contingent of Saxons riding hard and fast towards the south.

  ‘There goes Cerdic and his son,’ Arthur hissed with disgust. ‘At least Cynric raised his sword against the enemy. But Bran and Cerdic contrived to stay safely behind the action while watching worthier men die.’ Arthur was so bitter that Germanus felt a worm of concern twist in his mind. ‘When I heard that Havar was responsible for what I saw at Spinis I thought he was the cruellest, most barbaric creature alive, but at least he was prepared to get his own hands dirty. This . . . this abomination is an affront against our noble forebears and against the gods themselves . . . and we will pay dearly for it.’

  Germanus laid his large, calloused hands on Arthur’s shoulder and pressed gently. The warmth of the older warrior’s body was a comfort, but Arthur was weary of pretences. He was certain now that his existence was an embarrassment to many of the people who had professed love for him. He acquitted Bedwyr of any sin, for not by word or deed had his foster-father ever shown himself to be false. But Bran? Even Taliesin, who wanted the best for him, saw Arthur as a pawn in a greater game.

  ‘The Dragon King would cower in shame at what we have done today. Any justification we invent for our actions will consist of convenient lies. It’s like Lorcan’s story of the two mothers claiming one baby, so the child was ordered to be cut in half: we don’t deserve to possess this land if we’re prepared to turn it into ashes rather than relinquish it.’

  ‘You are speaking treason, Arthur,’ Gareth interrupted, his eyes jerking towards the temporary platform where Bran was surrounded by his captains. ‘So be silent.’