The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Lorn blinked sweat from his eyes and peered in the direction Nectan indicated. His breath caught. Thousands of new reinforcements had flooded down the rise to the east into Eremon’s ranks. The cavalry originally engaged by Eremon now had a clear opening to plough into the waiting mass of Albans.

  Just then, released by the Caledonii king’s great sword, the Albans crashed over the Roman lines, and all order disintegrated before Lorn’s eyes. Conaire’s wedge was immediately lost in a surge of whirling swords, spears and screeches, and all demarcations between the two armies vanished.

  Then, as more trumpets blew, the waiting legions at last began their march forward in one deadly wall of men.

  ‘All the gods above,’ Lorn could only say, his dry throat closing over. ‘There must be above twenty thousand now,’ he croaked. ‘Eremon never knew there would be so many.’

  ‘There,’ Nectan said, and this time he paused to catch Lorn’s eye, pointing with his chin. Then Lorn saw that the little man was not as unmoved as he’d first thought. His dark eyes glinted with a sorrow that was not masked. ‘The banner of the Boar has gone down.’

  *

  Another surge, and Rhiann’s whole body was caught in one towering font of agony.

  For a moment, it ebbed just enough for her to pull herself over another handspan of earth, her eyes running with sweat and tears. Now there was more fluid soaking the soil between her legs, and from the sharp, copper scent she knew it was blood.

  ‘I come,’ Gelert’s voice rasped, and now there was no humanity in it. ‘And I take you with me, in fire and blood, and your whelp as well.’

  Rhiann tried to shut out the evil words, and instead forced every fibre of strength into her raw fingers and the muscles of her arms, screaming with cramp as she would like to scream if she had the breath. Vaguely, she felt the amber necklace snag on a stone and snap, and heard the clatter of beads rolling away.

  And there, in the cold shadow of a great, bulbous rock, Gelert’s hand at last closed over her ankle.

  The white face of the Roman foot soldier swam before Eremon’s vision as he ran him down, hacking into the man’s neck.

  Dark eyes lifted in terror, a snarl on the bloodied lips, but Eremon didn’t see the broken javelin clasped in the man’s hands. He only felt the lurch in Dòrn’s stride as the stallion’s desperate scream rose above the other cries that swirled in his ears. And then the world tilted, and Eremon’s only thought as his mount fell beneath him was to wrench himself away from the dead weight.

  He nearly succeeded.

  Jerking up his knee and pushing against Dòrn’s back flung Eremon wide, as the impact with the ground jarred all breath from his body, his sword falling from his grasp, his helmet rolling free. But the dying horse writhed and bucked in agony, and though Eremon clawed desperately in the soft earth to drag himself away, Dòrn gave one last roll and trapped Eremon’s ankle beneath his heaving flank, before collapsing into stillness.

  The pain was not great, nothing like the terror that flooded Eremon’s veins as he realized his helplessness. His fingers groped for his sword, lying a handspan away now, as a dark forest of legs trampled the ground all around him. In the chaos of ringing swords and grunts, screams of horses and thud of falling bodies, Eremon could see and hear nothing clearly. He glimpsed a flash of Rori’s hair, and Finan’s grey head, but they were pressed by enemy soldiers, and Eremon’s throat was so dry from the heat and screaming that when he tried to shout to his men nothing came out but a feeble croak.

  Then a wild yell suddenly sounded above Eremon, and the sun was darkened by a looming shadow that leaped up onto the stallion’s curved belly, laying about him with a sword that flashed dusty sunlight from its bloody blade. All around the shadow leaped other men, and squinting up at his attacker Eremon scrabbled at his waist for his dagger, tensing to stab at any flesh that presented itself.

  Suddenly there was a cleared space around him, as what he now recognized as Alban warriors pushed back the encroaching wall of Romans, guarding him from harm.

  ‘Away with the knife, man!’ Conaire rasped from above, his voice gravelly with exhaustion. ‘I nearly lost my balls to a boar already!’

  Going limp with relief, Eremon sank on to his back once more. ‘My ankle,’ he whispered, all traces of his voice broken.

  Conaire’s grin gleamed through the bloody grime on his face, and he sprang lightly to the ground on either side of Eremon’s head. Bending over, he began to push at Dòrn’s slack weight with one arm, while tugging at Eremon’s ankle with the other.

  ‘And what are you doing all the way over here?’ Eremon muttered. ‘You, of all people, breaking ranks on me?’ His pulse had resumed now, though it was still erratic, and to take the sting from his words he clasped Conaire’s thick arm, wrist to wrist, as his brother released his foot and bent over him upside down.

  ‘I decided’, Conaire said firmly, ‘that I belonged by your side, Polybius or no.’

  Eremon was still holding him, their arms pressed together along their lengths, when there was a great Roman shout, and the Alban line close by suddenly collapsed on top of them, a tide of Romans surging past the fallen Albans. Conaire half turned, but before Eremon could free his hand he felt a sickening thud, which jolted through Conaire’s arm and travelled in an instant of knowing to Eremon’s heart.

  Conaire’s eyes widened in surprise, and only then did Eremon see over his brother’s shoulder the maddened face of a Roman soldier, both hands grasped around his short sword, all his weight behind the thrust.

  Eremon sensed the tight springs of his brother’s great muscles falling slack as the sword entered his upper back just above the mailshirt. Then Conaire slowly collapsed over to one side, the light in his blue eyes already starting to fade.

  Eremon did not feel his own voiceless scream, for all noise and pain and even light was extinguished in the shock, as he desperately grasped the moment and held it still, unwilling for time to continue. He only vaguely noticed Rori and Fergus leap screaming onto the Roman, bearing him down beneath their shields, and the other Albans rally with hoarse yells, desperately forcing the Romans back once more.

  Then Eremon’s attention narrowed down to one tiny detail: the blood pooling at the edge of Conaire’s mouth. He rolled Conaire to his back, his shaking fingers pressing his brother’s mouth closed. If the blood cannot come he can’t leave … can’t leave me … ‘Don’t,’ Eremon found himself whispering. ‘I won’t allow it.’ He tried to lift Conaire upright, but his weight was too great and Conaire’s head only fell back, his helmet tumbling off to spill golden, bloodied hair over Eremon’s arm.

  There was a choking gurgle, then a soft rasp of escaping air, and Conaire’s eyes flickered open, glassy with fear. ‘I can’t … I can’t feel my legs …’

  Barely conscious of what he did, Eremon dropped Conaire to the ground and straddled his chest, gripping the neck of his tunic with both hands as he screamed into his face with a torn voice. ‘No! I order you to stay here, I order you! I won’t allow this.’ Eremon’s shoulders slumped, and in a whispered sob he repeated, ‘I won’t …’

  Yet Conaire was already looking beyond Eremon, the racing clouds reflected in the blue veil of his eyes. And the light that was him at last darkened, and there was nothing left then but empty pupils staring up from a bloodied face.

  Eremon blinked once and gazed down at the old scar below his eye that Conaire gained in a fight on Erin long ago. The lines of battle hardness seemed to have melted away, leaving only the bewildered, soft face of a boy he had once known.

  Without a word, Eremon curled his body around Conaire’s head and waited, calm and eager, for the same killing blow in his own back.

  Gelert hauled with surprising strength on Rhiann’s ankle, and though she dug in her broken nails, still he pulled her closer, scraping her belly against the pebbles and gravel beneath. With a choked sob she braced herself for the cold blade, the pain that at least would release the rest of her body. All along
her limbs her skin tightened, the muscles quivering as if desperate to be free.

  Yet suddenly there was a curious thud, and Gelert’s hand tensed into a claw on her ankle and then fell slack. Rhiann rolled to one side, wrenching her skin away from those clammy fingers, before peering back at the druid through her tears.

  He lay with arm outstretched, pinned to the ground by a white-fletched arrow that swayed and fluttered in the middle of his back. His eyes were flickering and, as Rhiann watched, they guttered out, leaving only an old man. His wrinkled face collapsed into deep folds, his lips still drawn back in the same rictus of rage, slick with spittle. And from the rock above, Caitlin came leaping, her face grim beneath the smeared dirt and pale tracks of weeping.

  Without a word she laid down her bow, gathering Rhiann’s head on her chest. ‘I walked in dark dreams,’ Caitlin whispered, ‘yet came as soon as I woke. I am sorry, my sister, that I was no swifter.’

  Rhiann’s shoulders shuddered, and for a moment she forgot her agony in the relief of being held somewhere safe, and rocked.

  ‘Hush,’ Caitlin murmured, her tears falling on to Rhiann’s upturned face. ‘For all is well now. All is well.’

  CHAPTER 74

  Lorn identified Eremon and his men not by the trampled Boar banner, but by Rori’s hair, bright among the dark ranks of Roman fighters.

  Rallying his own warriors with the Epidii war cry, Lorn found himself urging them into the formations he had learned on the plain before his own dun, enabling them to swiftly hack their way through to the remnant of Erin and Epidii men defending Eremon from attack.

  Rori snarled like a maddened wolf when Lorn at last made it to his side, ducking the boy’s wild sword slash and grasping him by the shoulders. ‘Where is the prince?’ Lorn screamed, shaking him until a flicker of sense came back into the boy’s eyes. Rori tried to speak, but only managed to squeeze out a cracked, exhausted sob, and then Lorn followed the direction of his pained gaze.

  Fergus was straddling Dòrn’s body, leaping at anyone who came near, and on the ground beneath him Eremon was curled around Conaire, the big man’s ankles falling slack on either side. Around them was a cleared space, the cut and thrust and screams of war and death held at bay by the boundaries of its stillness.

  Lorn paused on his way to Eremon to step carefully over Colum’s body, his belly sliced open by more than one manic slash. Half-trapped beneath him was old Finan, lying where he had fallen defending his prince, his grizzled head nearly severed from its neck.

  Bending down, Lorn saw immediately that Eremon still breathed, and though he was drenched in blood none of it seemed to be his. ‘Prince.’ He pulled on Eremon’s shoulder. ‘Come away now.’

  Eremon did not respond, however, and Lorn yanked at his arm until at last he tore the prince’s hands away from where they were folded on his brother’s face. Underneath his palm, Lorn saw the pooled blood and empty eyes, and closed his own lids for the briefest of moments. Fare thee well, son of Lugaid.

  ‘Eremon,’ Lorn said aloud then, urgently. ‘Calgacus and the others have been overcome … all of them …’ His throat closed over for a moment. ‘They are beginning to flee, and so we must, or die here.’

  Yet Eremon only stared up at Lorn dumbly, blinking as if he could not understand the words. His fine helmet was gone, his hair plastered to his forehead with drying blood that had run down his face, encasing it in an unrecognizable mask.

  ‘Calgacus is lost,’ Lorn repeated hoarsely. ‘The battle is lost. They were too many for us …’ There was no reaction from Eremon, and it was then, as he looked into the empty void of the war leader’s eyes, that Lorn knew he himself must take charge.

  He straightened and drew a deep breath, trying to marshal his spinning thoughts into some sort of order. ‘You there!’ he barked to the remnants of Eremon’s men. ‘Get him to his feet now, or you will lose him. And bring his sword, and that of his brother!’

  Leaving Fergus and Rori to carry out his order, Lorn urged the rest of the Epidii who were with him to form their version of the testudo, the Roman tortoise formation, their shields a protective circle around their war leader and king. Then with shouted encouragement, Lorn got the cluster of warriors moving, painstakingly fighting their way to the west of the field, driving forward in another wedge to break through the Roman cavalry lines. All around them was chaos, with desperate Albans having abandoned all order, throwing themselves into the knots of hard-faced Romans. Behind them, Conaire’s body fell away from view, his golden hair soon merging with the shattered reflections of sun on broken weapons, and the armoured forms of the others tangled in death.

  Lorn forced himself to ignore the mayhem around him, the screams of dying men and horses, the dirt beneath that was now a slick field of blood-soaked mud, the burning heat. The earlier, exultant fire in his soul had flickered out, and all that remained was an icy calm.

  He had to concentrate on saving them, his people. There was only him left to do it now.

  ‘The gold-haired sword king and his guard have fallen. The Caledonii and their allies are shattered.’

  It was an Alban scout who spoke, in halting, guttural Latin, a Votadini man Agricola had kept by him to comment on the battle. They stood as they had for the past few hours, on the little rise to the west and rear of the new Roman camp, in a patch of cool shade thrown by an oak tree.

  ‘And what of the Erin prince?’ Agricola demanded, still on horseback. He swilled wine in his dry throat and spat it out on the ground in a stream of dark red.

  The scout shrugged, and shifted his weight to lean on his spear. ‘I cannot see, but all order is lost. There are no groups holding steady ground any more.’

  Agricola grunted. So, he thought. I catch up with them at last.

  ‘It worked then,’ his youngest tribune Marcus remarked.

  Agricola glanced at him. ‘We needed a small enough land force to draw them into the open. The master stroke, though, was bringing the other ten thousand by sea. It taxed the horses – and the ships! – but it was worth it, eh? Remember that, Marcus; you may need it some day.’ Marcus returned a tight smile, and Agricola’s gaze swept back over the field.

  Even he was surprised at the scene of utter desolation that stretched before him now. For the famed ferocity of the Alban warriors had been no exaggeration. So desperately did they throw themselves at his soldiers, so foolhardy were their charges, so reckless the men who waded into the fray single-handed, swinging swords around their heads, that they had done his soldiers’ work for them.

  Of the thousands of Albans who had been ground into the bloody dirt, mere hundreds of Romans appeared to have met the same fate. The barbarians had no chance, not against a machine as perfect as Agricola’s army. It should not have taken them so long to understand, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter now.

  ‘Scour the plain and the woods,’ Agricola ordered, turning his horse away towards the camp. Even now, his tent was being assembled; the lamps lit, the wine poured. He would not gloat over the carnage he left behind him – the stink of blood and entrails, the weakening calls of the dying. Yes, he had wavered often in his assault on Alba, but in the end he had discharged his true duty with dignity.

  For the rest of the day, his men would despatch the wounded and hunt down those who fled. And sometime, perhaps tonight, perhaps at dawn tomorrow, what was left of the Alban force would no doubt surrender. Then the emperor would have his victory.

  Without another glance, Agricola rode away, looking forward to the best sleep he had enjoyed in four years.

  The swirling dust thrown up by the battle covered the low sun, turning its light a dreary red. Then, well before true dark, it slipped behind the high mountains to the west, and the hilltop on which Caitlin and Rhiann waited was abruptly eclipsed by shadow.

  Yet they barely noticed the darkening of the light, for they were engaged in their own battle.

  Caitlin recognized now, with desperate eyes, the destruction wrought on the plain
below; realized from the rent banners and methodical movements of the Roman troops that the day was indeed lost. Yet Rhiann’s moans soon brought her back from the edge of the rocks on which she stood, and her sister’s twisted face pierced Caitlin’s heart with fear.

  Tenderly, Caitlin wiped Rhiann’s sweat-soaked brow with the edge of her tunic, wet with ale from her flask. ‘Sister, we must move from here. It is not safe.’ Caitlin tried to keep her voice from trembling, to blot out what she had seen on the plain below. Yet Rhiann only moaned again and shook her head, her hands clenching on Caitlin’s arm.

  Because of the fall, and the rock, the child was coming – they both knew it.

  Swallowing her tears, Caitlin studied the hilltop above, her eyes alighting on the copse of hazel trees to which she had directed Rhiann before. Behind it, a skirt of tangled hawthorn branches swept almost to the ground. ‘There,’ she said, pointing. ‘We must get to those trees, to the scrub behind them. We can hide there.’

  Her voice sounded certain, but inside Caitlin was reeling. Where is he? her heart screamed. Where have they gone?

  Rhiann arched her back now, her belly rigid, her breaths squeezing out in pained gasps. Caitlin bore the fingers clawing her arm for as long as the pang lasted, holding Rhiann’s head to her breast. Then as her sister fell back in her arms she tried again. ‘We must get you up there,’ she coaxed. ‘We may die if we don’t. The baby will die.’

  Immediately, Rhiann’s eyes flickered open, the lids red and drawn, the pupils glazed. ‘I did it before,’ she whispered. ‘I can do it again.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Caitlin looped Rhiann’s arm around her neck and managed to haul her to her feet, half carrying her to the screen of thorns. They crawled their way beneath the bushes, the thorns tearing their hands and faces, but in the centre they broke free into a space carpeted with soft grasses, the branches meeting just above Caitlin’s head where she squatted over Rhiann.