by N. M. Browne
‘Steady, Ursula. Not yet. Wait for the barrels to be fired. Arturus says don’t forget – raise the shield. Raise the shield!’
It was a good job Dan’s calming voice spoke to her mind. She was not sure she could have heard anything else over the loud drumming of her own pulse. She felt sick and faint and far too hot. She needed to shout to the men when she heard the signal, but she had no saliva left. The shield! She had nearly forgotten the shield. What the hell did she do with her spear if she had to hold the shield? Conscious of her role as hero/leader she tried to make her movements deliberate rather than panicky. She thought about the relaxed way that King Meirchion of Rheged had moved effortlessly in the saddle, thought about her old comrade Kai’s confident demeanour. She did her best to copy them, to look relaxed and in control as she casually transferred the kontos, the long, fragile-looking but lethal spear, to her left hand and balanced the shaft on her booted foot. It was a difficult task as the spear was of such a length that it could not easily be moved across the back of her mount. Then she unstrapped Arturus’s shield, which was hooked by a long leather thong over her right shoulder. That too was awkward as her movement was somewhat restricted by her armour and though the shield itself was light the heavy iron central shield boss made it unwieldy to manoeuvre. Her undershirt was damp with sweat. She was frightened that the slender shaft of the kontos would quiver with her nerves. That would not look good. She forced herself to breathe, she had forgotten about breathing. It helped.
There was another short single blast of the lituus. Someone ignited the barrels and kicked away the wooden chocks that kept them from rolling down the precipitous slope. There was the crackle of yellow flame as the barrels suddenly blazed. There was a stench of acrid fumes and burning pitch. Black smoke made Ursula’s eyes smart and stream so that for a moment her vision blurred and then she saw the barrels roll away from view through a distorting haze of smoke, tears, and rippling air. Men coughed behind her. Braveheart growled and she heard the standard bearer mutter a muffled oath.
‘Get ready, Ursula. You’re OK. Arturus says NOW! Raise the shield! GO!’
Dan’s voice was clear within her mind and Ursula raised the shield with its triumphant golden cross high over her head and yelled, ‘Ride!’
Suddenly, her fear was gone. She cried out a Combrogi war cry and rode. She could do this; she would do this. It did not matter that she could hardly see, what with the smoke, the burning heat and the limitations of the mask. She had five hundred men behind her and she would lead them well!
Dan watched Ursula closely. It was hard to recognise his schoolmate in the proud figure, gleaming with gold and silver mail. Her face was lost completely behind the bland serenity of her golden mask and only the odd stray blonde hair escaping the golden helmet identified her as Ursula. It was only when he saw her raise the shield, the gold cross on white ground, the shield of Arturus, that he realised that this anonymity was the point. Arturus had set her up. He wanted the Aenglisc to think Ursula was the High King and War Duke himself.
‘You bastard, Arturus, how could you? You want the Aenglisc to think Ursula is you. Don’t you?’
Arturus turned to look at Dan with a grim expression.
‘Without me the Combrogi will die, Gawain. I win battles – remember that. Ursula is good. I’m not too proud to admit she’s a better fighter and a better rider than I am. She stands a better chance of coming out of this alive than I would. She will inspire the troops with her heroism. I could not do a better job than she will. Meanwhile, if anything goes wrong, I’m still here, and no one else, Gawain, no one else, can save the Combrogi but me.’
Arturus did not even look shame faced. Dan was at a loss. He had to find out how the battle was progressing. He made a decision.
‘Bryn! I need to watch over Braveheart and Ursula. Watch over me, please.’
He thrust Bedewyr’s second sword at Bryn, the one Ursula insisted he should carry, then sat down among the foot soldiers still defending the battlements. He had made a decision and by will alone he succeeded where he and Taliesin together had once failed. He sent his consciousness out, like the avatar of a Hindu god he had learned about in Religious Studies. He was a bird – a dove flying above the Aenglisc, seeing from a higher vantage point what they saw, and it was truly terrifying.
The sides of the wooden hill fort had been all but destroyed and on three sides burning barrels streamed comet tails of fire through the unprepared Aenglisc camp. The Aenglisc were no cowards, and they gathered their wits and weapons faster than Dan would have thought possible. Their leaders pulled sick men from their beds as their possessions burned under the crackling flames. Ursula’s horse leapt the burning barrels. She was a golden goddess on an armoured horse, screaming fury, as her pale hair streamed behind her. She showed no fear as she charged, holding her long spear and stabbing at anyone who did not get out of her way. The standard bearer’s open-mouthed red draco whistled an eerie unearthly shriek. As the Sarmatian Cataphracts charged in their blood-red lacquered armour, their bronze and their silver mail, they either jumped the flaming barrels or charged between them, emerging through the flames like riders from hell. The thunderous thudding of their horses’ hooves on the charred grass was enough to terrify. They galloped forward in close formation, no more than a metre or two apart. No foot soldier could stand in their way. The Aenglisc were sick and taken by surprise – they did not have the training or the skills to make a defensive formation against such cavalry. Dan vividly remembered the shield wall demonstrated at the re-enactment he’d seen with Ursula before they entered the Veil for the first time. These Aenglisc had no time to make such a wall and he was sure it would have been futile anyway, the cavalry charge was a roaring tide of massed muscle-power pounding forward, crushing everything in its path.
Dan heard one of the Aenglisc cry, ‘Waelcyrige!’ as they saw Ursula riding through the flames and smoke, and ran. Though running would have been the rational thing to do, few of the Aenglisc did it. They flung spears and throwing axes at their enemies and when that failed they tried to attack with sword and seax, but the advantage lay with the mounted men, with the heavy hooves of the horses who trampled men underfoot, with the spear thrusts of the experienced cavalry, and the arrows of the Sarmatian rearguard. Dan wanted to flee from the pain, the fear, and the horror that gathered all around him like the green mist of Rhonwen’s conjuring. He had to see that Ursula was safe. The battle scene was chaotic and Dan struggled to identify Ursula below him. Then he found her stabbing and thrusting with her sword, attacked from several directions at once. She had discarded her face-mask, somehow she’d slid it up so that it rested over the top of her helmet like an impassive second face. Her own face formed another mask – of determined aggression, stained with soot and splattered with gore. She was in danger of being unhorsed as her trained mount reared and stamped, cracking limbs and shattering bones, while by her side Braveheart leapt and tore, wild-eyed and blood-crazed. Dan did not dare distract her as she fought for her life. Then Cynfach, having successfully led the western charge, joined the main battle and fought his way to Ursula’s side. He dispatched her chief attacker with a spear through the spine and she was out of danger, surrounded now by more of the Cataphracts. She raised the now sullied, bloodied shield in the air to let her men know that she lived still, and then the killing continued. There had been well over one thousand Aenglisc in the field and yet though Dan flew high and wide over the whole area he saw scarcely any still standing. Elsewhere the light cavalry under Cerdic finished off what the Sarmatians had begun. Behind them the infantry killed any survivors with brutal efficiency, slashing throats and plundering the dead. Arturus’s war machine had done its work.
Dan turned away from the carnage, grateful that his avatar bird did not perceive emotion with the same intensity as his true self. Overhead he saw a merlin fly, a frail and insubstantial form – and knew it to be Taliesin. He was probably searching for Rhonwen. It was time Dan returned to himself, t
o his own body, his own perceptions and the horror of the aftermath of battle, the losses, and the stink of death.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Ursula became gradually aware that there was no one left to kill. The battleground was strewn with the bleeding, the dying and the dead. She turned to Cynfach.
‘I think we’ve won.’
He nodded grimly, exhaustion vying with triumph in his face.
Ursula thought someone should say something. As far as she could tell the Sarmatians were unhurt. There must be casualties but when she looked back there were still several hundred mounted men behind her, still broadly in a column formation.
‘Help me up!’
She could not stand in her stirrups – neither the Celts nor the Sarmatians knew of them. Her only recourse was to stand on her mount and wave Arturus’s shield high in the air as a signal of their triumph. It was still very early. Ursula estimated that the whole battle had taken less than an hour. Battle seemed too grand a word for it; it had been more like a massacre.
Arturus’s force cheered wildly at the raised shield, but Ursula had no words of triumph or praise that she could add – that was for Arturus. She dismounted and hung the stained shield over the pommel of the saddle. She ripped off the heavy, golden helmet and face-mask and secured them to her saddle too. They were splattered with soot and flecks of things she’d rather not identify. Her heart was still pounding and she felt breathless. She stuck the bloodied kontos into the ground with such force that it quivered. There were things under her horse’s hooves she did not want to see.
‘Cynfach, take control till the High King comes, I need some clean air. Oh, and thank you.’ She managed a weak smile, ‘I would have had it, if you hadn’t ridden to rescue me.’
Cynfach still looked stunned, though whether by the ease of the victory or the carnage all round them, she did not want to know. His smile was warm and genuine.
‘Your courage inspired us all, Lady Ursa, if I had not been prepared to lay down my life to save yours, my men would never have forgiven me.’
She could not think of a suitable reply to that, so merely nodded and began to walk away. She had to get away from the smell, the charred, burnt smell that was the fire’s last endowment; the smell of blood and slaughter and the lingering scent of sickness.
‘Dan?’ She sought him out, knowing that he would understand.
‘Ursula, you are safe!’
Dan’s mental voice sounded weary and strained, what it must have been like to experience the suffering of all those dying Aenglisc did not bear thinking about.
‘Ursula, wait for me. Taliesin saw Rhonwen leave the battlefield. There’s a chance that she might—’ He dare not even finish the thought. He dare not hope that Rhonwen might try to escape the best way she knew how.
Ursula did as she was told and stopped walking. Everything felt unreal. She recalled the soft jolt of impact as her spear had skewered an Aengliscman. She could still feel the reverberation of it up her arm and in her memory. Such things were better not remembered. Braveheart bounded to her side and butted her affectionately with his head. She patted the matted hair of his skull absently. It was far worse than she could have imagined. She wanted to go home.
It was not long before Dan rode towards her, his dark robes flowing. He did not pause to explain. ‘Get up! I think she’s about a mile from here. Taliesin thinks she’ll try to get away.’
Ursula did not argue but mounted up behind Dan, hoping his pony, which would not have been used in the charge for a good reason, was up to carrying the additional weight. Neither of them spoke. Braveheart loped beside them, his long legs easily keeping pace with the pony. Ursula knew that Dan was aware of her mixed emotions and her revulsion for the horror she had helped perpetrate. She was grateful that he did not say, ‘I told you so.’
The battle stench did not abate perceptibly as they rode. So powerful did the vile stink remain that Ursula began to wonder if it was herself she could smell. Would she ever be able to smell anything else?
Dan saw Rhonwen first, kneeling by a grove of trees. She had put to one side her cloak of skulls and wore only a thin, stained, silk shift. Her luxuriant, dark hair fell to her waist. She was singing, crooning almost, in a low voice and Ursula felt her nerves tingle and jangle at the magic. Rhonwen was raising the Veil.
Ursula and Dan dismounted as quietly as possible, much to the relief of the pony. Rhonwen showed no sign of having heard them. She was deeply involved in the ritual of her own technique for calling the yellow mist, dissolving the barrier between worlds. Ursula closed her eyes against a sudden attack of dizziness. She could feel the Veil pulling at her at some deep level, calling to her, and she had not the power to answer. Dan obviously perceived her distress. He did not speak for fear of alerting Rhonwen but reached for her hand and held it. She fought to stay calm. Something began to be visible, metres from Rhonwen’s kneeling form. It began as a small yellowish blur, like nicotine-tainted air, and then grew until the area of swirling yellow was perhaps two or three metres wide.
‘Where do you think she will go? Back to her brother, to King Macsen?’ Ursula asked.
‘I don’t know, but I can’t stay here. Taliesin thinks swapping worlds changes your abilities. I would do almost anything to be rid of this bloody empathy.’ Dan’s mental voice sounded desperate. Ursula sneaked a glance at his shadowed face and was shocked by the pallor and the tension there. She thought about what he said. If, say, they followed Rhonwen back to Macsen’s world there was a chance that Ursula would once more be able to wield the magic. Once she had the magic back she could raise the Veil herself and steer them both home.
‘What do you think?’ Dan was responding to her close scrutiny of him with a hard look of his own.
‘I want to risk it,’ Ursula said firmly.
‘What have we got to lose?’
‘Well, we could die.’ Honesty required that Ursula did not spare him the truth. Bryn managed to follow them successfully through the Veil, but he might have been exceptionally lucky. Ursula knew that in Macsen’s world she had wielded more power than Rhonwen commanded even here. What if Rhonwen’s way through the gate was more unstable, not strong enough to allow the passage of two more people?
‘What about Bryn?’ Their responsibility for the young Combrogi struck Ursula forcibly and she spoke out loud.
‘Taliesin would care for him, I’m sure. He is very gifted. He might be the bard’s apprentice Frontalis thinks he’s looking for.’
‘Would he want that?’
Ursula knew that Bryn would not want that but she hoped by asking the question, Dan would realise it for himself.
‘If I go back for him – we’ll miss our only chance to get home.’
Dan’s face was growing paler by the minute.
‘Ursula, I swear, if I stay here I’ll die. I cannot endure all this pain. I can show you what it feels like if you want.’
Ursula shook her head. She believed him. She did not need the kind of proof he had in mind.
‘Dan, how can we leave a message for Bryn?’
‘He can’t read.’
‘But Arturus can.’
They both looked around wildly for something to write on as the power building in the Veil grew towards a climax. Ursula thought her head might burst with the intensity of it. The mist’s power was like an impending storm and they would need to be ready to enter into the eye of it. Braveheart wore a heavy, leather collar that one of the grooms had fashioned from a damaged leather belt. Ursula grabbed and removed it with trembling, eager hands and scratched a message with her belt knife into the soft leather.
‘HAD TO GO, BRYN, OR DAN DIES. SORRY.’
‘I feel terrible – it will be the third time I have let him down.’
Ursula closed her eyes against the pull of the Veil. Rhonwen was standing and beginning to step through. Ursula could bear it no longer; grabbing Braveheart by the scruff of his neck and Dan by his arm she dragged both of them towards the
swirling yellow mist and walked through to its heart. She recoiled from the oiliness of the yellow droplets of mist, from the coldness and the strange way it made her feel. It was wrong to leave Bryn behind. She knew it was wrong and she had no excuse. She wanted the magic again and she wanted Dan to live. That was all there was to it. She was sure, even as the mist engulfed her, that those were not good enough reasons to abandon an eight-year-old boy in an alien world.
Chapter Twenty-nine
It was all too familiar. They emerged from the Veil into the unknown, their hands locked. Braveheart sneezed and whined; it must have seemed very strange to a dog. He hung his head and dropped his tail dejectedly between his legs. They emerged sometime in a summer afternoon. Birds sang and trees rustled. They were in a forest glade with dappled golden sunlight dancing around them as a light breeze tossed the leafy branches overhead. There was no sign of Rhonwen. They had no way of knowing when or where she might be and they could have been in their own time or in any other.
