The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Agricola glanced at Samana now, curled in his bed asleep, shivering despite the glow of the brazier that brought sweat to his own brow. Anyone observing his utter stillness, as he sat on a stool, chin resting on fingertips, would think he had reached some place of cold acceptance. Yet they would be wrong. The more he commanded his muscles to immobility, so the anger only roared brighter.

  In another week, the Ninth Legion units he had taken south with him would return on foot. So far, Agricola’s wrathful eye had fallen on the north-east of Alba. There lay the richest lands, the flat plains his men could easily reach while being protected on one side by the sea. Most of Alba’s population also lived there, and if they’d only stayed to fight perhaps all this would have already ended, and he would be in possession of the entire nation.

  Yet the promised enemy had melted away into those hellish mountains, and all Agricola’s men got for their pains were cowardly raids that came out of the night, the rain and the woods. He could not afford to lose any more soldiers on such a fool’s chase, and the fort of the Caledonii king seemed, unfortunately, too far to reach after all. But there was another option, and it had been slowly taking shape all through these hours of darkness.

  Now there was a rustle and stirring among the bedclothes. Agricola brought his gaze back from the shadowed roof-beams to meet the black emptiness of Samana’s eyes. He had never seen her as she had been this last week; lifeless, the dark fire of her doused. Yet now she was at least fully awake, and in the glassy stare with which she fixed him he saw a spark of life, and knew somehow that she had sensed the drift of his thoughts. He’d always found it uncanny, that ability of hers.

  ‘You must strike at the den of the wolf himself,’ Samana whispered, her eyes suddenly hungry. ‘Take your revenge and mine, for the season of sun is fading. You have not far to go.’

  Mesmerized, Agricola stared at her, his chest stirring with a sudden, unnamed yearning.

  ‘Not far,’ she whispered again, and raised a finger to point west, white and crooked against her tangle of black hair. ‘Just over the mountains. Dunadd.’

  CHAPTER 52

  Leaf-fall, AD 82

  Far in the north, the season turned early. At a sacred pool in a remote glen, birch leaves torn free by early storms swirled across the surface of the water, as an evening wind crept up the back of Rhiann’s neck. The rowan boughs dipped and shivered, their scarlet berries bright splashes of colour in the dusk shadows. From a nearby valley over the hills floated the creaking boom of a stag in rut, and drifting from farther west, another.

  Their thoughts on the south and the harvest being undertaken even now at Dunadd, Fola and Rhiann watched the bronze finger-ring shimmer to the bottom of the stream-fed pool at which they knelt. After a silent moment they came to their feet and, as Rhiann pinned her cloak around her shoulders, she glimpsed Fola’s face in the last rays of the sinking sun, and saw how pale it was; as white as the birch trunks behind her.

  On the path, Rhiann slung her arm around her friend’s shoulders. ‘I have a surprise for you. We are turning back this very day. Nectan and I agreed this afternoon.’

  She glanced at Fola, and was pleased to see her tired mouth lift a little. ‘On the island, I dreamed sometimes of the life you led, Rhiann. I thought it exciting then … but now … I yearn only to be by the fire in Nerida’s house …’

  Rhiann heard how she bit off her words, and so she stopped and took Fola by both shoulders. There was pain in her friend’s face, yet Rhiann wasn’t afraid of it any more. She hadn’t been able to let it in for fear she herself would falter. Now she could give back to Fola what she had received. ‘And you will soon be by my fire. At least I can give you that.’

  Fola forced a smile, laying her fingers over Rhiann’s hand. ‘As you will soon be by his side.’

  She turned to hop over the stream on the mossy stepping stones, and Rhiann followed, hugging to her the knowledge that her own reunion with Eremon would come sooner than even Fola knew. For Rhiann had already made up her mind what she would do – send the others to Dunadd while she sought out Eremon in the east.

  A day later, Rhiann’s band was wending its way back down among the mountains to the west of Calgacus’s dun, when Nectan’s last scout found them. And with him was someone Rhiann knew immediately, for his hair flamed in the sun as he galloped towards them along the loch shore.

  ‘Rori!’ Rhiann exclaimed, as the Erin youth drew rein before her horse. Her legs tightened unconsciously on Liath’s back. ‘Is he hurt?’ she blurted, heedless of anything but the sudden, over-whelming panic that gripped her.

  Panting, Rori shook his head. ‘No, lady, no, my lord is well.’ His freckles were veiled by ingrained dirt, his hair lank with grease, his clothes unrecognizable from those in which he had so proudly ridden from Dunadd moons before.

  Rhiann’s heart threw itself against her ribs. He lives. He is safe. Yet Rori had not finished, and it took another moment for his words to penetrate Rhiann’s ears.

  ‘I have both fortunate and ill news, nevertheless, lady,’ he continued, and wiped sweat from his upper lip, tawny with unshaven fuzz. ‘It is a tale I must tell you from the start,’ he added significantly.

  Despite her renewed dread, Rhiann at last remembered her manners. ‘Come, you will be hungry and tired. We have some cold hare from last night; some ale.’

  In moments they unpacked the horses, and Rhiann, Rori, Fola and Nectan settled themselves in the sun on a tumble of grey boulders on the loch shore, cloaks pulled around their knees against the keen wind. Rori gulped a few mouthfuls of meat and drank deeply from a flask that Nectan handed him, took a breath, and straightened his shoulders. ‘My prince had a visitor a week past. A man came in to camp after being taken by the southern scouts. He was travel-weary, for he had come a very long way – he is of the Damnonii people.’

  Rhiann frowned with confusion. All the Damnonii leaders had been killed, she thought; the people scattered.

  ‘This man was among the warriors who fought beside my prince two years ago. Somehow he escaped Agricola’s revenge, then a year ago he was taken to be a Roman scout, for he knows the lands that border your own.’

  ‘Go on.’ Rhiann drew up her knees and leaned forward on them.

  Rori took another breath, his hand tight around the ale flask. ‘He has deserted the Romans, lady, because he found out something that made him remember us and how my lord helped his people. The Romans forced him to become a scout by virtually holding his wife prisoner, but then she died in childbirth, and their hold over him was broken.’

  ‘So why did he seek out Eremon?’

  Rori shook his head in agitation. ‘He found out what they were planning, that’s why, and he couldn’t let what happened to his own people happen again.’

  ‘Slow down, lad,’ Nectan interrupted, his hand on Rori’s shoulder. ‘What did this man come to tell the prince of Erin?’

  Rori glanced at Rhiann, his blue eyes tight with anxiety. ‘Another army is massing at the Roman camp on the Forth. Yet this man says he knows their target is due west, this time, not north.

  Rhiann’s heart plunged. ‘West?’ There was nothing west of the Forth; no great duns, no tribal centres, only mountains, and on the other side …

  ‘Dunadd,’ Nectan announced, the gruffness of his voice betraying his emotion. ‘They seek Dunadd.’

  Rhiann’s belly dropped to her toes. ‘But what if this man is a spy? What if he is wrong?’ The dying sun on the water glittered harshly in her eyes, and she blinked to clear them.

  Rori was unhappily shaking his head, peeling wind-blown hair from his face. ‘My lord and the lord Conaire and King Calgacus and King Lorn spoke to this man all night. He is broken by his wife’s death and what he’s done, and greatly shamed. They all believe him, and my prince says it is a sign of the gods’ favour that he came to us in time.’

  Rhiann barely realized she was on her feet, balancing precariously on the rock, the wind whipping her cloak back. ‘Where
is Eremon? I must go to him now.’

  ‘Lady.’ Rori propped the flask beside him and rose, not meeting her eyes. ‘He is gone south already, with most of the warband. He says the scouts must learn the truth of this immediately, and if it is true he aims to reach the pass to Dunadd before the Romans do.’ Rori bit his lip, at last glancing up at her from under his pale lashes. ‘And he wants you to stay in the north. That’s why he sent me, so you would know how seriously he asks you, nay, begs you, to heed him.’

  ‘Hide away?’ Rhiann’s fear made her voice rise. ‘Caitlin, Gabran, Linnet and Eithne are in Dunadd! Does he think I will abandon them?’

  Rori now appealed to Nectan with his eyes, and Rhiann turned her indignation on the Caereni chieftain. ‘You know I must go straight back to Dunadd. No one is ordered to come with me, but no one can stop me, either.’ She stared Nectan down, folding her arms.

  Fola was also on her feet. ‘I will come with you, Sister,’ she offered. ‘I promised to stay by you, and I will.’

  At that Nectan sighed and spread his hands. ‘As did I, lady,’ he conceded. ‘Though, if I aid you in this, it may be the end of my friendship with your prince.’

  He sounded so mournful that Rhiann was suddenly flooded with a fierce, energetic resolve. ‘If Dunadd is threatened, rest assured I will save my people and then abandon it. I am not mad, whatever you may think of me!’

  Rori’s wide eyes darted from Rhiann to Nectan. ‘But … my lord charged me with this task!’ he sputtered. ‘I cannot fail him, I cannot!’

  Biting her lip, Rhiann considered him with pity, wondering how to handle his pride. ‘Rori, you swore to your lord, and I am your lord’s mistress,’ she said slowly. ‘I am also the highest-ranking member of the Epidii present, your adopted tribe. In the absence of both Lorn and Eremon, I assume I am in command.’

  Rori frowned, searching for an argument that did not exist.

  Rhiann smiled. ‘And if I am in command, then I am very lucky to have such loyal friends by my side.’

  Rori blinked at her, and his shoulders finally lowered. ‘I am here to serve,’ he said stiffly, his hand leaving his sword hilt.

  Nectan jerked his head to the west, where the sun had already been swallowed by the hills. The vale in which they stood was now steeped in purple shadows, and the deep waters of the loch were nearly black, the surface faintly silver with the last light. ‘The coast is only two days away, in Caereni lands,’ he said. ‘I can easily find us a boat to take us south. That will be the quickest route. Now, let us make camp higher, away from the water.’

  Despite her thwarting him, Rori leaped forward to help Rhiann mount, cupping his hand for her foot. ‘Lady,’ he murmured, ‘there was another message from my lord, but he told me to deliver it to you in private.’

  Rhiann settled in the saddle and took the reins from him, noticing that the youth’s ears had flushed the same colour as his hair. ‘What was it?’

  Rori ducked so his fringe fell over his eyes. ‘Ah … that he sends his … love.’

  Silence fell between them.

  ‘That’s all,’ Rori added awkwardly, patting Liath’s neck, and when he at last looked up into Rhiann’s face he immediately dropped his hand and hurried to his own horse.

  Eremon blinked rain from his eyes and fixed them on his boots, caked in mud, scraped raw by rocks, the leather cracking around the toes. Those boots reflected what had been done to his body these last moons, but now he needed to ignore how tired they made him feel, and focus on keeping them moving, to the exclusion of all else.

  He was utterly exhausted, they all were, but he would let nothing slow the rhythm of those feet, eating up the leagues of boggy ground between him and the pass to Dunadd.

  And because he forced his iron will to shore up his muscles, every single man in his warband kept up the same pace, through the rain, sleet and fierce winds that drove down the mountain sides. No one flagged, not when their war leader drove them on as he had never driven them before.

  Beside Eremon, Conaire loped with long, fluid strides, and in the rare moments that Eremon’s screaming muscles and clenched chest threatened to betray him, one look at Conaire drove all physical pain from his mind. For Conaire’s wife and son were at Dunadd.

  His brother had sent an urgent message by horse warning Caitlin to take to the hills, but they could not guarantee her safety. And even if they could, neither Conaire nor Eremon had any intention of allowing the Romans to destroy those others who remained behind and who had, after three years, become their people.

  Eremon cast a glance back over his shoulder. Calgacus and the other kings had returned north to defend against sudden Roman counter-moves, but despite their season’s losses, Eremon still led nearly a thousand men, strung out behind him down a long glen. Mud splattered up with every step and men slipped and stumbled, pulling themselves up before they fell behind.

  Eremon leaped around a jutting rock almost blocking the path, and beside him Dórn lurched over it, the warrior on his back gripping the stallion’s neck tightly. Under Eremon’s orders, the foot soldiers were all taking turns at riding the stock of 200 horses. Using such a system of rotation, Eremon hoped to keep them all going longer and faster.

  Just behind him, Lorn led his horse with a grim determination, his pale hair stuck to his forehead under the leather hood, the coldness in his eyes that of single-minded will. He glanced up now and met Eremon’s gaze, and though no emotion softened his features, some mutual strength was passed between them, one to the other. They could not, would not let Agricola get ahead of them to Dunadd, for they had both sworn to protect it before the eyes of the gods.

  Yet it was an immense gamble. The Romans only had a three-day march across from east to west coasts, whereas Eremon must bring his men diagonally down a rougher, more mountainous route – some four or five days. But the Damnonii scout said the Romans were taking their time to prepare. It was no small task to provision such an army late in the season, especially as the Romans themselves had rid the lands they would cross of food-producing farmers.

  Eremon was also relying heavily on the lie of the land, the Mother Goddess. Because of the broken western coastline, carved out by lochs, and the spine of high mountains, it was extraordinarily difficult to bring a large army to Dunadd from the east. There was only one main pass – a steep and winding pass – and if that was ignored, an army must travel far north before being able to cross the mountains anywhere else.

  Eremon grasped at this, repeated it as a prayer to power his steps. If they could just get there ahead of the Romans, and somehow hold or block that pass, they had a chance. And if that chance was lost, then all would fail – for the Damnonii scout had also reported that Agricola was massing a force of 4,000 men. Eremon looked back again, at the steaming horses running with mingled sweat and rain, at the white faces of his frozen, exhausted men, visible beneath their hoods.

  One thousand worn-out men, against a fresh army four times the size.

  ‘Hawen,’ Eremon muttered under his breath, nearly stumbling over another up-thrust rock, ‘give us this victory so we know you walk by our sides. Your people need you as they never have before.’

  Then he gritted his teeth and kept running.

  Agricola had provisioned his army as quickly as possible, though the preparations and march had not been as swift as he would have liked, due to the depletion of the land so late in the season.

  And this first night, as the wind tore at the flap of his tent, setting the poles shuddering, the towering will driving this whole expedition was already faltering. Here, marooned somewhere on the dark, windy Clutha plain between the east and west coasts, Agricola’s morbid thoughts wrenched themselves free and leaped about like the shadows thrown from the oil lamps. He had sought no company tonight, for he was waging a war with himself, and he must win it in isolation.

  The task facing him was daunting. The intelligence amassed about Dunadd made one thing abundantly clear: it was difficult to advance on it
by foot, for the land itself was a fortress that could rebuff them. And he had seen all this mirrored in the eyes of his officers, damn them. They thought him foolhardy to send men this way so late in the campaigning season, though they endeavoured to hide their disapproval. But he had fewer choices than even they realized, and this lightning strike was, in reality, his most desperate throw of the dice.

  The odds were slim. He couldn’t use his fleet for support, since it was now in the east, and would have to sail north around the entire hostile coastline of Alba in uncertain seas, and he had heard nothing from the Orcadian king, Maelchon for moons. Nor could he bring his entire land force with him, out of the necessity of protecting his eastern and northern flanks. And the leaves were already turning, the mists seeping out of the ground as the cold air crept south, heralding the coming of snow.

  Yet could I really have done nothing? Agricola asked himself again, pacing his tent. Should he have retreated to winter quarters, left the field to the wolves? No, and no!

  For he knew now that he had underestimated the Erin exile. Eremon mac Ferdiad wielded a much wider influence than Agricola had ever suspected. Now the prince was caught far in the north, according to Samana, and this gave Agricola a unique chance that may never come again. With the bulk of the unsuspecting Alban forces still far away, he could strike at their undefended flank and cut the prince off from his power base, decimating his source of provisions, felling him at his knees.

  This was the reasoning Agricola had used when his officers protested.

  Of course, they didn’t really know the rest: that the attacks on Lucius’s legion were more crushing than the loss of men; that the emperor always kept one beady eye on his provincial leaders.

  And what the last year had shown Agricola, all too clearly, was that to take all of Alba from coast to coast, he would need to muster an enormous army. If the news of his recent defeats were not followed by a significant success, the emperor might think again about those men he had recalled. Then the conquest would surely falter, along with Agricola’s standing, which he had worked for twenty years to gain, in extremes of heat and cold, in the face of constant danger.