route Caesar’s legions had found. Mounted offi
cers moved among them
and cavalry trotted to either side.
Now the other Druids were on their feet, peering through the
leaves. She looked up as a shadow flickered between her and the sun. A
raven’s wing flared white as it caught the light, then black again as it
circled and then settled onto a branch. It called, and others answered.
You can afford to be patient, Lhiannon thought bitterly. Whoever wins
this battle, you will have your reward. For the first time she wondered whether
the Lady of Ravens herself cared which side won.
Ardanos nodded to Bendeigid, who lifted the horn he carried and
blew one long call. A ripple of motion passed through the Britons gath-
ered below as their boar-headed trumpets blatted defiance and the
Roman trumpets responded with a brazen blare.
“Wait for them,” muttered Ardanos. “Caratac, you have the advan-
tage of the ground—let them come to you!”
Onward came the legions, inexorable as the tide, hobnailed sandals
crushing the young grain. The dun had been emptied, but the enemy
passed as if a barbarian capital were no temptation. Nor was the river, at
this point both broad and shallow, any barrier. But now the precise for-
mation was breaking up at last—no, it was shifting, in a movement as
disciplined as a dance, one legion moving forward as the others spread
out to support it, a spearhead aimed at the multicolored array of Celts on
the hill.
From the Celtic line first one naked warrior, then another, would
dash forward, shouting insults at the foe, but Caratac still had his men in
hand. Behind the champions waited the chariots, and behind them the
mass of shouting warriors. The air boomed hollowly as long swords
clashed against their shields.
Lhiannon trembled at the sight of that deadly beauty, but the time
for contemplation was past. The others were joining hands, setting feet
64
D i ana L . Pax s on
firmly in the loamy soil and drawing breath for their own part in this
fray.
“Oh mighty dead, I summon you!” Ardanos cried. “Ye who fought
the fathers of this foe, hear us now. Arise to aid us, ye whose lifeblood
fed these fields when Caesar led the legions here, for the old enemy as-
sails us once more. Rise up in wrath, rise up in fury, rise up and send the
Roman horde screaming back across the sea!”
From below came an answering clamor as the Celtic warriors, re-
leased at last, swirled forward in a shrieking mob. “Boud! Boud! ” they
shouted. “Victory!”
The chariots sped toward the foe, seated drivers reining the nimble-
footed ponies around obstacles, the warriors who stood behind them
by some miracle maintaining their balance as they hefted their javelins.
Closer they sped; they turned, Romans fell as javelins arced through
the air.
But the heavy Roman pilum, though it had a shorter range, was just
as deadly. As one chariot came too close Lhiannon saw a missile embed
itself in the body of the cart. The weight of the shaft bent the long neck
of the spear until it tangled in the wheels and in another moment the
light frame was smashed. Spearman and driver leaped free as the ponies
galloped wildly away, spreading panic among friend and foe.
On the hill a shiver that did not come from the wind stirred the
leaves. The prickle that pebbled Lhiannon’s skin was not caused by cold.
She did not know whether it was Ardanos’s invocation or the Celtic war
cries that had awakened them, but the spirits were here.
With doubled vision she saw the struggling masses of the living on
the field below and their ghostly counterparts above, locked in mortal
combat as they had been almost a century before. Beyond them, she
glimpsed other figures, so huge that she could only catch glimpses of a
plumed helm or a spear that struck like lightning, a cloak of raven wings
whose wearer fought someone with the head of an eagle that tore with
wicked beak at his foe.
She felt her throat open in a cry, doubled, quadrupled as the others
joined her in a screech of fury that resounded through both worlds. It
was not the scream of the Morrigan, but it was enough to make the fi rst
rank of legionaries waver. For a moment the Druids savored triumph,
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65
then the Roman trumpets blared once more, and the enemy surged for-
ward with renewed energy.
Lhiannon’s fists clenched with fury. If only she could be out there,
striking the foe! From the tree above her a raven called, but what Lhian-
non heard
were words: “You can, you can, fly free on my wings, fly
free . . .”
Vision blurred; dizzied, she swayed. She heard someone swear as she
fell, but that made no sense—she was rising, abandoning the weak fl esh
to soar above the battlefi eld.
In a moment she sensed another raven flying with her and in that
part of her mind that still possessed memory recognized Belina. But her
focus was on the men who struggled below, the flash of swords and the
splash of blood as flesh met steel. Where she swooped low, screaming,
men faltered and fell, but there were always more. Consciousness whirled
away on a red tide.
The ground was shaking, each jolt a hammer that stabbed through
her skull. Lhiannon whimpered and felt a strong arm lifting her, water
touched her lips and she swallowed, then swallowed again. The pain
eased a little and she struggled to see. Now it was the trees that were
moving. She closed her eyes once more.
“Lhiannon—can you hear me?”
That was Ardanos’s voice. No one was screaming. Instead she heard
the creak of wood and the clop of hooves. Slowly it came to her that she
was in a wagon, lurching along a rutted road somewhere that was not
a battlefi eld.
“Ardanos . . .” she whispered. Her reaching fingers found his hand.
“Thank the gods!” The pain as he squeezed her fingers was a dis-
traction from the ache in her head.
“Roman sandals
.
.
.” she said, “are marching through my
skull . . .”
“No surprise there,” he growled. “They’ve chased us the length of
the Cantiaci lands.”
“We lost.” It was not a question.
“We’re still alive,” Ardanos answered with an attempt at cheer.
66 D i ana L . Pax s on
“Everything considered, I count that a victory. But we left half our
warriors on the field. They fought bravely, but the Romans had the
numbers . . . and the discipline,” he added bitterly. “We are in retreat.
We would not have gotten even this far if their general Plautus had not
stopped to loot and burn Durovernon and put up some kind of fortifi -
cation there. Caratac lost half his army, but more have joined us since
then. He means to make a stand beyond the Medu River. Please the
gods, we’re almost there, and thanks be that you are awake. I wasn’t
looking forward to carrying you across the river slung over my shoul-
der like a sack of meal.”
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“You have lain there moaning for three eternal days! Damn it,
woman, what possessed you to fl y off like that? I was afraid . . .” Arda-
nos swallowed, and added so softly she could hardly hear him. “I didn’t
know if you were going to come back to me . . .”
Lhiannon managed to get her eyes open and felt her heart lurch at
what she saw in his. In the next moment he looked away, but she felt
a warmth within that went far to ease her pain.
“Possessed . . . yes. I was a raven . . . I hated them so much—it was
the only thing I could do.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” he growled. “I’m sure you scared the wits
out of some of the enemy, but against such numbers?” He shook his
head. “You can do more good in your right mind.”
“I will try not to,” she agreed. “I don’t think I like ravens much
anymore.”
Ardanos sighed and cradled her more comfortably against his chest.
“The ravens are the real victors. They don’t care on whose fl esh they
feed.”
Pull back! The Batavians have crossed the river—pull back!”
Above the general clamor Lhiannon could scarcely hear the cry. She
stared at the broad gray flow of the Tamesa, trying to see.
“Damn them! Not again!” Cunitor swore.
Two weeks before, the Romans’ Batavian auxiliaries—men from
the delta of the Rhenus who were as water-wise as frogs—had forded
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67
the Medu, taking Caratac by surprise. They could only hope that the
Durotriges and Belgae under Tancoric and Maglorios had fared better
against the force the Romans had landed in Veric’s lands.
But the Medu had been a small river. The Tamesa was as wide as
a pastureland, a slowly winding pewter ribbon beneath a sky of gray. No
one had thought the Batavians could swim so far. It was like one of
those nightmares that repeat without end.
“Get the supplies back into the wagon!” snapped Ardanos. “They
will be bringing the wounded to the rear, wherever that may be!”
The strategy that had failed Caratac on the Medu ought to have
worked for him and Togodumnos at the Tamesa. To cross the river the
Romans must use great slow rafts and barges, easy to attack as they wal-
lowed toward the shore. As Lhiannon grabbed the piles of ban dages they
had laid ready she could see the barges beginning to put out now, shrunk
by distance to the size of trenchers, glittering with armed men.
But the combined force of Trinovantes and Catuvellauni and the
surviving Cantiaci could not attack them if their flank had already been
turned by the Germans, fi erce fighters whose tribes were close cousins to
the Belgae. Though that should have been no surprise—these days native
Italians were a minority in the Roman army. Most of the men on those
boats were the children of conquered peoples. If the Britons were de-
feated, one day their own children might wear that hated uniform.
Lhiannon threw the sack of bandages into the wagon and scooped the
pots of salves into another, glad that they had at least persuaded Bendeigid
to stay back with the supplies. Around her the tribes and clans were be-
coming a great confused mass as they tried to regroup to face the foe. The
first of the Roman barges was coming into range. Arrows thrummed
overhead, shot by the archers Togodumnos had placed where the ground
began to rise. A legionary toppled over the side of one of the barges and
was pulled under by the weight of his armor. His red shield, painted in
gold with paired wings to either side of the boss and wavy arrows extend-
ing up and down, bobbed downstream.
The pony’s ears fl icked nervously as the tumult grew louder. Belina
grabbed the halter and got the animal moving, murmuring in some
language horses knew. Grabbing the last bag, Lhiannon hurried after.
The clamor swelled to a roar as the Batavians plowed into their
68 D i ana L . Pax s on
flank. The slingers had time for one volley, the fi re- hardened clay pel-
lets snicking past like maddened bees, before friend and foe melded into
a confused mass. To watch a battle from above had been a horror; to be
in the midst of it was a terror that only a lifetime of mental discipline
enabled her to endure.
The faces of the men who ran past her were set in a rictus of rage.
Lhiannon could feel the Lady of Ravens taking shape above the battle-
field, summoned by the fury that beat like black wings in her own soul.
But her promise to Ardanos kept it at bay. Armoring her spirit, she
grabbed for the side of the wagon and clung as it lumbered up the hill.
To the west, the southern Dobunni were locked in the struggle with
the Batavians. Their northern clans should have been fi ghting beside
them, but King Bodovoc had turned traitor, allying himself to the Ro-
mans before the battle at the Medu. Now the first barges were sliding up
the slick mud at the river’s edge. A volley of pilums pierced Celtic fl esh
and stuck in shields, buying space for the first rank of Romans to leap to
the shore, where they locked their own shields to form a line behind
which their fellows could disembark.
More boats drew in behind them, disgorging ever more legionaries
to strengthen that line of steel. Moment by moment it extended and
thickened, pushing forward like a moving rampart against which the
long spears and slashing blades of the tribesmen beat in vain. But a more
orderly movement was emerging on the hill as the distinctive growling
blare of the king’s trumpeters rallied his houseguard.
Men began to draw aside as the swirl of movement resolved into
rank upon rank of warriors. Above, the clouds were parting as if to fl ee
from the clamor below. Sunlight blazed suddenly on golden torques and
bracelets, on manes of stiffened hair bleached brighter than its normal
red or gold, on the milky skin of sleekly muscled bodies that were bared
only to make love or war.
Heedless of the turmoil around her, Lhiannon stared. Surely this
was how the war band of the gods must have looked when they marched
out with Lugos of the shining spear to confront the armies of darkness.
Above their heads she could see the king himself, balancing easily on
the tenuous wicker platform of his war chariot with his driver squatting
at his feet, heels braced against the curving sides.
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69
As the champions spread out to either side Togodumnos came fully
into view. The cloak that flowed from his shoulders was woven in the
Catuvellauni’s favorite blues and greens. Golden plates glittered from
his belt and the leather corselet that covered his broad torso, his neck
was circled by a torque of twisted gold cords as thick as a spear shaft, and
his thinning hair covered by a helm of gilded and enameled bronze sur-
mounted by the image of a
bird with hinged wings.
Caratac came close behind him, his battered gear an ominous con-
trast to his brother’s majesty. But any deficiencies in his outfi t were
more than compensated by the fury that shimmered around him. Other
chariots followed, and if none bore so much splendor, still the eye was
dazzled by cloaks striped and checkered in red and purple and green
and gold.
More warriors thronged to either side, stripped down for ease in
movement to their trews or no clothing at all, woad-painted sigils spi-
raling across the fair skin of torso and back. By tribe and clan the war-
riors of the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni, with the surviving Cantiaci
scattered among them, hurried past on their way to death or glory. The
Iceni contingent trotted by with Prasutagos’s older brother Cunomaglos
in the lead. Like a spear to the heart came the certainty that win or lose,
the world Lhiannon had known was changing. They would never see
such a riding again.
Like a herd of wild ponies stampeding toward the water the war-
riors swept past; she heard the roar as they met the Roman line. Now
all she could see was a confusion of tossing spears. Presently the chari-
ots forced their way back to the rear. It would be foot fighting now in
the mud and the blood by the waterside. Sound beat against her hear-
ing as the emotions of the fi ghters buffeted her spirit; the clangor of
blade on blade beat out a rhythm for the dreadful music of battle cries
and screams.
Now the wounded began to come to them, carried by their com-
rades or leaning on broken spears. The Druids were kept busy sewing
and binding wounds. Some stayed only long enough to drink a little
water, and then limped back into the fray. Some they laid in the wagon
or sent off the field. For others, the most they could do was to numb the
pain as lifeblood soaked the soil.
70
D i ana L . Pax s on
Lhiannon had promised to keep her spirit tethered, but nothing
could prevent her from drawing power from the earth and projecting it
outward to support the fighting men. Presently she realized that the
shape of the battle was changing, the eye of the sword-storm moving
gradually up the hill. Stamping feet churned the drier ground to billow-
ing clouds of dust through which flocks of screaming ravens fl ew. She
wondered if Togodumnos had been wrong to catch the Romans be-
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