“Meroweg demands our immediate return,” he announced. “He orders it as a father and as a king.”
“Did he explain why?” I asked.
“I can guess why,” he replied, downcast. “His rival, Hildebert, now controls Coln and the entire province between Rhenum and Charcoal Forest. Meanwhile, we’re still crammed on the scrap of land given us by the Romans — while his son is off on some fruitless adventure in Gaul. He must be planning some new conquest.”
“Why not just say so in the message?”
“He doesn’t trust me enough — I could always say I didn’t receive the messenger or find some other reason not to heed him. He will want to tell me his plans in person.”
“Will you go?”
He shrugged. “There is nothing that would hold me here anymore. I have fulfilled my promise to Pinnosa and made sure his people reached Trever safely. And I got nothing for it in return.”
“What about the siege?”
“I don’t see what we could do about it. There’re too few of us left. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if my father told me to ally myself with Odowakr and move against the walhas, to divide this province between us once Trever falls.”
“And would you do it?”
“I would advise him against it. But there’s only so far that I can go in my defiance. I’ve already stained his honour and reputation once. He wouldn’t forgive me the second time.”
“Then the next time we see each other, we might be on opposite sides,” I said.
This surprised him. “You’re not planning to stay here? With your handful of men? What could you possibly achieve by that?”
“I don’t know.” It was my turn to shrug. “But my friends are in that city, and I still want to help the Romans prevail over Odowakr. I’m not leaving until I can figure out how.”
“Then you’re a greater fool than I thought.” He shook his head. “I hope I will see you again, Iute — and that we won’t have to fight each other.”
He left us no men; but he did leave us some weapons and armour to replace those damaged in battle, and a little food, and Basina left me her Hunnish bow — something to remember her by, she said. I had no skill with the weapon, but I promised I would train with it as often as I could.
“Keep it well,” she said. “There’s no bow like it this side of Rhenum. I’ll be back for it.”
Hildrik was watching us as we bid farewell, so she just touched my forehead with her lips and turned away, leaving me alone with my beating heart.
“When you grow bored of watching the walhas get slaughtered, you and your men are always welcome back at Tornac,” said Hildrik as he departed. “If there are any of you left.”
Now, I tell the Roman soldier, “They have, but we stayed to hunt us some Saxons. You’re welcome to join our hunt. Are there any more of you out there?”
He shrugs. “There should be. Plenty of us got scattered when the bridge fell. Do you have anything to eat?” he asks eagerly.
“Not much, but we will share,” I say. “If you help us find the others.”
The woodsman’s axe is a fearsome weapon. If it cut through a man with the same strength as it now carves through the trunk of a mighty beech, it would hew a limb clean off. With each blow of the great blade, another inch of wood flies from inside the felling notch. Judging by the depth of the notch, the axeman had been working on it for several hours before our arrival — and is almost done with one side of the tree. A charcoal line marks another notch, still to be made on the opposite side.
Hidden in thick bramble at the edge of the glade, I watch the woodsman’s axe reach almost, but not quite, to the centre of the trunk, leaving a narrow wedge in the middle. He stands with his back to the tree and measures the depth with his own backside, then, satisfied, wipes the sweat from his brow and hands the axe to another man who immediately starts work on the other side, while the first one starts carving a wedge from a long piece of leftover wood. The notch here is lower and shallower, and the new woodsman is well rested, so the work goes quicker, but it will still take him more than an hour to carve out the hole marked by the lines of charcoal, so I leave my hiding place for now and go back to my warriors.
Apart from the Iute riders, I now have under my command ten of Pinnosa’s men. It was only confusion and weariness, at first, that made them obey my orders. I am younger than most of them, a heathen with no experience of leading the troops beyond the few weeks in Gaul; it would have made more sense if one of them had taken control of me and my warriors. But, finding themselves far from home and without their captains, facing an army of barbarians, and with no good idea of what they should do next, somehow they accepted my leadership without so much as a grumble — for which I am grateful. They grasped immediately the kind of war I wanted to wage on Odowakr, faster even than my own men. No wonder — it was the Romans who invented it, after all, or at least, it was their ancient general Fabius Cunctator who was the first to use it against Hannibal; that chapter of Livy’s history was always one of my favourites, more than the great battles.
We would strike at night, or at dawn, in quick, harassing assaults. We were necessarily limited in our operations by the vicinity of the woods, but there was plenty to do for us here: disrupting a foraging party; intercepting a messenger with orders; overwhelming a patrol on the forest road; feigning an attack at a fortified camp, to keep the warriors awake. Once in a while, if we were fortunate, we’d even manage to burn down a supply store or two, but soon Odowakr noticed our attacks and doubled the guards around his granaries. This, too, was a success in a way — more warriors delegated to guard the supplies meant less of them on the battlefield.
It took time and effort, and great knowledge of the woods — fortunately for us, one of Pinnosa’s equites grew up in one of the wine-making villas around Trever and was familiar enough with the land to be at least a rough guide — but at length, I felt our force, as tiny as it is, was beginning to make a difference. The Saxons started to be wary of the forest and would only venture into it in large groups. The men we caught confessed that they thought us to be a vanguard of some greater army, coming to relieve the city. Fear and anxiety crept into their minds.
It was high time for our efforts to bring fruit. At the beginning of the siege, Odowakr’s warriors could do little to bother the city. The walls that bound it, despite the damage wrought by the Huns, were impenetrable to the barbarian horde. Daily assaults at the vulnerable points ended in failure and retreat. Running skirmishes with a sallying force, riding into the fields to gather some fodder or disrupt a half-hearted sapping effort, brought neither glory nor plunder. Sometimes, an attack from the river, archers and javelin-throwers approaching on hide-bound boats, would test the defences further, to no avail. If this was all that Odowakr could muster to threaten the city, he may as well have packed up and gone home. A siege like this — considering how well prepared and stocked Trever was to withstand it, even with the refugees from Coln to take care of — could last until winter, and no army away from home could have remained in the field for that long.
But Odowakr hadn’t come all this way just to curse, helplessly, at Trever’s walls. By the third week of the siege, one of the patrols I sent out daily to harass Odowakr’s foragers brought news of the Saxons clearing out a great swathe of meadow at the western end of the fallen bridge, and building what looked like a settlement at first, but turned out to be a cluster of smithies and iron forges. Some time after, we started noticing small groups of Odowakr’s men disappearing deep into the forest and returning after several hours with great trunks of oak and pine. Of course — I remembered then what the Saxon captives reported after we destroyed the foraging band at Ake; it seemed so long ago now… They told us Odowakr was bringing with him engineers, hired from what was left of Attila’s army after Maurica, men responsible for the speed with which the Huns razed city after city as they ravaged Gaul.
Siege engines.
Our stand at Tolbiac proved more import
ant to Trever’s fate than anyone realised. More than just the slight loss of men would indicate, the battle was nothing short of a disaster for Odowakr, who was forced to leave his wagons back at the muddy battlefield. I knew now what all the strange equipment carried on them was for — machine parts, ready to be assembled into engines, needing only the strong wood for the frames, of which there was plenty around Trever. It was the loss of the wagons that caused the many weeks of delay, during which Odowakr’s blacksmiths, rope-wrights and carpenters were forced to toil all over again to recreate the missing parts from whatever scraps they could scavenge around the city.
But that work was slowly coming to an end, and now the engineers could at last focus their efforts on what they had been planning to do from the beginning upon arriving at the city’s gates: gathering timber for the final phase of the construction of the machines.
I know next to nothing about these engines, other than reading some mentions in the Ancients. There was never any need for them in Britannia. Not even any of Pinnosa’s veterans had ever seen one — the Hun warband which passed Coln did not bother building any machines along their march, content with plundering smaller, easier to overrun towns like Tolbiac or Ake. But we all know that we can’t let Odowakr build even one. A single breach in Trever’s walls would be enough for the Saxon horde to pour through and end the siege in a single bloody strike.
I find my warriors where I left them, in an abandoned settlement of wood cutters and charcoal burners, on top of a bald hill. We have been moving from one farm like this to another, from hamlet to empty hamlet, avoiding Odowakr’s patrols, in search of food and shelter. Most of the villagers in the vicinity of Trever either managed to flee to the city before the gates were shut, or hid themselves even deeper into the hills, leaving all their belongings behind. All the woodsmen in Arduenna have been recruited to assist Odowakr’s engineers as they venture deep into the dark forests, seeking the best, tallest, oldest trees for the construction of his infernal machines. I make sure that for every pot of grain or sackful of turnips we take, we leave a handful of bronze coins, in case the owners choose to return one day; there is nothing else that we can spend the money on in our exile, and we happen to have plenty of it, ever since we discovered the remains of the upturned wagon in the ravine it fell into during the flight of the Coln refugees; it was filled with silver and gold, no doubt belonging to the unfortunate family we found in the wreck. We buried most of it with them and took only as much as each of us could carry without hindering our movements in battle.
We’ve been staying in this particular settlement for two nights now, knowing that the woodsmen would be employed nearby. The handful of hacked bronze still lies on the bedding in the corner of the main hut, in exchange for two smoked haunches of deer we consumed for supper last night.
“They will be ready with the tree before the sun is high,” I tell the men. “Looks like they’ll be taking it down past the three beeches. An auspicious sign — Wodan, Donar and Frige will be with us.”
“What’s the guard like?” asks Wirtus. He’s the man I first spoke to at the cherry farm — the most senior of the Roman soldiers, chosen by the others as their officer and representative while they remain under my command. As a Christian, he doesn’t care much for pagan auguries, putting his hopes in preparation and strategy instead.
“Heavy,” I reply. “A troop of Alemannic axemen — and at least three of Haesta’s riders.”
Wirtus and the others wince. The Alemanns came with the great warband from the East; since then, they traversed Mosella on their hide-bound boats to protect Odowakr’s camp and the meadow upon which the siege engines are being built; lately, we’ve been seeing more of them. We haven’t had a chance to fight them yet — but they look dangerous in their thick leather tunics studded with metal plates, helmets painted black, and great, two-handed axes on their backs. Even if we manage to ambush them in the dense forest, they’re bound to put up a fierce fight — and we can hardly afford to lose any more men as it is.
“If only Hildrik had left us a few of his warriors before he left,” says Seawine, and we all murmur in annoyed agreement.
With the wedges inserted deep into the spine of the trunk, the two woodsmen cry a warning and pull on the ends of a rope tied around the top of the tree. Like the piers of the Trever Bridge, the giant oak first leans, then snaps, and finally flies down, slowly, majestically, before shattering the ground with its tremendous fall.
All the labourers gather around the fallen trunk and make short work of lopping enough branches to make easy the work of dragging the tree down the slope to the broad path below, leading to the Coln road. Past the heath-spattered glade marked with the three beeches, where we raised our memorial to the fallen, the path runs along one of the many folds that divide this stretch of the Arduenna slopes. Most of my men are waiting there, in ambush, praying to their gods and the brave spirits of our dead for help in the coming battle. As the woodsmen begin to heave the tree behind them, grunting with effort, I send a messenger, letting the warriors know they need to prepare themselves.
Once the entire procession — the Alemannic axemen in front, the three Haestingas at the back, a couple of engineers and a dozen woodsmen hauling the great oak between them — moves out of sight, Seawine, Wirtus and I ride out onto the path. A narrow forest road is no place for a cavalry battle, but I hope we can distract Haesta’s men long enough for the rest of the ambush to succeed. It’s not going to be an easy task, and not just because the axemen are a fearsome enemy to face. I aim to bring as little harm to the woodsmen as possible, knowing they were recruited into this work by the enemy against their will, though I’m not yet sure how we can possibly achieve this in such close combat…
The party slows down as they approach the narrowing in the path, but we don’t. We ride out into full view of the three horsemen. It takes them a while to notice us, so concerned they are with an ambush coming from the sides; even when they do, they’re yet uncertain of what to make of three pony riders, one of them in the crimson cloak of a Roman officer, following them at a distance. I draw Basina’s bow. My pony snorts and shakes its head, sensing the unease with which I sit in the saddle while trying to aim the arrow. I shoot — the missile flies over the heads of the three riders and disappears into the trees above. It’s enough to get their attention. Two of the riders charge towards us, lances drawn. The third one shouts at the axemen in front to make ready for battle.
He’s too late. The Iutes and the Romans leap out of their hideouts under the scrub. The Romans rush at the axemen, while the Iutes head for the tree itself. While the axemen push back against their attackers, the Iutes chase away the panicked woodsmen, grab the ropes and haul the trunk off the path. The tree rolls off down the steep slope, bouncing on the roots and shrubs along the way, until it hits the bottom of the ravine; it would take a whole army of woodsmen to bring it back up.
The two riders halt, uncertain which way they should turn. There’s no overall commander on this expedition — the engineers have been directing the wood-cutting, and the Alemannic guards have their chieftain, but there’s nobody to coordinate the defence effort. I shoot another arrow — at this distance it’s hard to miss, but I still only manage to hit one of them on the shoulder. He cries out, more in anger than in pain, breaks the arrow off, and charges at us again. His companion rides after him.
As Seawine and Wirtus face the two mercenaries, I notice that a few of the woodsmen pick up their axes and join the Romans in their fight against the Alemanns. Others run off into the woods. The Iutes are now fighting the engineers, who are proving to be skilled in more than just building machines of war. I’m surprised at how long they’re managing to defend themselves, before I remember they would have taken part in Attila’s entire war trail — and they wouldn’t have survived this long without gaining some experience in combat.
I join the mounted battle from the side; once again, Haesta’s riders can’t make good use of their horsemanship o
n the narrow path. Under the low tree canopy, our short ponies have advantage over the tall Thuringian war horses. The riders’ movements are hindered as they struggle to keep their lances from getting entangled in the branches above. I duck under the lance blade and pierce the side of the man I shot earlier. Seawine takes a sword blow on the shield, while Wirtus cuts from the back. The two mercenaries fall almost as one.
The third rider glances back and, noticing what happened, blows retreat on his horn. The only men who can still heed his call are the Alemanns and one of the engineers — the other one finally succumbs to the Iute swords. The rider picks up the surviving engineer and charges through the Iute line, past the Romans, the woodsmen, and the Alemanns, and doesn’t stop until he disappears into the wood. Now, I also call a retreat; there’s no point losing any more men fighting the sturdy axemen. The Alemanns wait a moment yet, to make sure we’re not just regrouping for a renewed assault, and when they see us depart for good, they pick up their dead companions, turn around and march off in an orderly column, humming a mournful dirge.
A short time later, when all is quiet, I send men to get all the other fallen back for the burial — our own and the enemy’s. Though I insisted on being careful, three of Pinnosa’s soldiers gave their lives in the fight. I don’t know how many Alemanns they took with them, but it doesn’t matter; we got what we came for, and more — I didn’t count on us ridding Odowakr of one of his precious machine makers. Nor did I expect any of the woodsmen to join our ranks. They’re no replacement for the Romans — but their great axes might prove useful yet.
We throw the bodies of the enemy dead onto a pile under the three beeches. I notice an unusual bulge under the cloak of the dead engineer. I stoop down to investigate. The engineer is an odd-looking man, an Easterner, short and squat, with swarthy skin, small eyes and an unnaturally long forehead, not unlike Basina’s. His cloak is trimmed with fur, and hidden underneath it is a leather bag, full of papers and parchments, scribbled all over with schematics and geometric formulas.
The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4) Page 24
