Song of the Centurion

by Steven A McKay

  “What is it, lad?” There was a hint of uncertainty, of anxiety, in the Dalriadan’s voice as he bent down to reassure his skittish dog. When he straightened again the moonlight reflected off his bald pate and revealed his face clearly. Bellicus had seen this man before, when he was training to become a druid in Iova.

  Loarn mac Eirc had sometimes visited the little island back then, as it wasn’t far from the Dalriadan King’s homeland, and widely renowned as a great centre of learning and healing. Although the hair was now gone, or turned to grey, Loarn’s light blue eyes and pinched features were unmistakeable in the gloom, as was his strange accent as he spoke again in clipped tones, this time to his human companion.

  “The dogs can sense something. Something they fear. Might be a bear or a wolf. We should be on our guard, Faelan.”

  “Always,” came the reply, and the second Dalriadan’s voice was strong and confident.

  They began to move again, although it seemed like the king had to drag on his dog’s leash to get it to move forward.

  The king was so close to Bellicus it would have been a simple matter to thrust his sword into the man’s back. That was what he should have done, but he was loath to send a warrior to the afterlife in such a cowardly, dishonourable way and besides, Coroticus and Narina both wanted the whoreson to know why he was dying – to regret the loathsome words he’d spoken about Princess Catia.

  “King Loarn.”

  The Dalriadans’ spun around, and their hunting dogs yelped in fear, straining at their leashes, although neither hound seemed to know whether to run towards this new person or away in the other direction.

  “Who the hell are you?” demanded the king, gazing up at the hooded apparition that had appeared from nowhere to stand here, in the moonlit woods, like something from a fireside tale.

  “I am Bellicus, Druid of Alt Clota. I believe my king, Coroticus, vowed to cut out your tongue and shove your balls in your mouth? Well, he couldn’t make it, so I’m here to do it for him. May Dis Pater take you, Loarn mac Eirc!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Get him!”

  King Loarn’s bodyguard, Faelan, was an experienced warrior – no superstitious fool to cower before the giant druid – and he reacted instantly to his king’s command. He let go of his dog’s leash, exhorting it to attack, and grasped his spear with both hands. The dog ran towards Bellicus, snarling, and Loarn set his animal loose too.

  The hounds weren’t the only problem though.

  “Shit. Stop him, Duro!” the druid shouted, swinging his sword in an arc to hold off the Dalriadan dogs which, thankfully, hadn’t been trained to bring down such large prey and were too frightened to really try anyway.

  Loarn mac Eirc raised a horn to his lips and, before the centurion – unnoticed in the gloom by the Dalriadans until now – could do anything, a loud, brash tone filled the night air.

  Bellicus stepped forward, but the terrified hunting dogs bared their teeth at him and, although they would be unlikely to injure him too badly, the last thing he wanted was to try and escape these lands while leaving an easily followed trail of fresh blood.

  “Cai! Here!”

  Loarn mac Eirc turned at the sound of the massive wardog bursting out from the undergrowth behind him, but before he knew what was happening, Cai had torn into the Dalriadan dogs like a battering ram, sending them flying, yelping in fright.

  Bellicus attempted to strike down the king but Faelan, side-stepping an attack from Duro, lunged at the druid, thrusting his spear forward and forcing Bel to parry it away desperately. Loarn blew another blast on his horn and the druid knew their chance to kill the king was slipping rapidly away. How had it all gone so wrong?

  “You bastards,” Faelan cried in anguish, as Cai silenced one of the hunting dogs for good and sent the other haring off into the night, tail between its legs. “That hound served me well over the years.”

  He attacked again, moving with lightning speed despite his powerful build, and Bellicus was lucky to escape injury again. Over the years he had trained himself to go into a trance during battles, but that was out of the question here, in the dark, with so much going on around him.

  “We need to end this, quickly,” Duro shouted. “Before more of his soldiers turn up.”

  “Why would we need more soldiers?” Loarn laughed, glorying in the joy of his enemy’s failed ambush. “Faelan is the greatest swordsman in my retinue—”

  “He’s not wielding a sword,” Bellicus broke in, parrying another lunge from the bodyguard’s spear and stepping forward to grab the weapon’s shaft beneath his arm. Then, using all his considerable strength, he twisted his body around. The speed, and power, of his unexpected movement caught Faelan by surprise and the spear was wrenched from his hands and he was thrown to the ground.

  Before the Dalriadan could get up, Cai’s crimson maw clamped down on his forearm. Faelan was wearing leather bracers which took some of the force out of the bite, stopping the teeth from fully penetrating his skin, but the dog’s jaws were so powerful that Faelan roared in pain.

  His cry broke off as Bellicus’s sword tore through his breastplate and out through his back in a spray of blood.

  “Leave him, Cai!” the druid commanded, turning to see how the centurion fared.

  Duro had engaged the Dalriadan king, but he was finding it impossible to get inside the spear’s reach for the moon was now hidden by clouds, making it almost impossible to see anything. Both combatants were warily dodging backwards and forwards, side to side, feinting, beginning an attack, only to draw back again for fear they would be caught off guard.

  Bellicus moved forward to help his friend but the sound of drumming hooves could be heard, or, more accurately perhaps, felt, heading in their direction.

  “Dotha warned me this might be some trap,” Loarn mac Eirc growled, answering the question in the druid’s mind. “You might remember him. He was once a druid himself, although he’s converted and now follows the One True God.”

  “He was no druid,” Bellicus spat, desperately trying to avoid the deadly spear-point that suddenly came at him in the near-impenetrable gloom. “He never completed his training – it was too difficult for him. He’s a weak fool, and always has been.”

  “What’s more important to you, boy?” Loarn grinned, batting aside Duro’s sword before turning back to Bel. “Killing me, or escaping these lands alive? You see, I wanted badly to bring down the mythical white stag so I followed the advice of the stories we were hearing, and came hunting with only one companion, but—” He jumped backwards, out of the swords’ range, and then swung his spear in an arc, the shaft catching Duro on the side of the head. As the centurion stumbled back and fell onto his knees, Loarn went on.

  “I commanded ten of my warband to follow us at a distance and listen for my hunting horn. Dotha’s idea. He was suspicious when we heard a druid was abroad in our lands. He’s a cantankerous old sot, but very clever at times, despite what you might think.”

  Bellicus eyed the Dalriadan king bitterly. He was loath to order Cai to attack, for fear the faithful dog would be caught like Duro, by the spear which Loarn wielded surprisingly well. Yet the longer they tarried here, trying to get inside the king’s defences, the closer his warriors came. Aye, the reinforcements would have to leave their horses and come through the night-shrouded woods on foot, but it wouldn’t be long before they arrived, and then…

  “You know Dun Breatann will soon be mine?” Loarn spoke again, plainly buying time for his soldiers to arrive. “Drest and Cunneda will march soon enough, but I’ve also been in contact with the Saxon warlord, Hengist. Coroticus will be nothing more than a memory come the spring, and your lands will all belong to me.”

  Bellicus was stunned by the Dalriadan’s news. The Saxons were coming to help Loarn invade Alt Clota? He shook his head – he had more pressing matters to deal with right now. “Are you all right, Duro?”

  “Aye, I’m fine,” the centurion grunted. Thankfully he was on
his feet again, but a large bruise was forming on his face, to go with the angry expression at their inability to kill the king they’d come all this way to find.

  Bellicus nodded in relief and, as the moon broke through the rolling clouds, launched another attack, and this time he did manage to get inside the spear’s reach, raking the edge of his blade down Loarn’s hand, leaving a line of crimson and drawing a curse from the injured king before they broke apart again.

  “Let’s go, Duro.”

  “Go?”

  “Aye,” Bellicus said, backing away from Loarn who grinned, not bothering to come after the giant druid. Why should he, when his warband could hunt these interlopers down at their leisure? “Come on, Centurion. We can’t take on all those approaching warriors, it would be suicide.”

  “But…we’re so close to completing our mission…!”

  “We are,” Bellicus agreed unhappily. “But the gods have chosen to thwart us tonight, and it’s time to retreat while we still can. Come on, we should put as much distance between ourselves and his men as we can. Cai! To me.”

  “That’s right,” the king laughed. “Make your escape now, my lads. Quick, run! I’m sure I’ll see you again soon enough.” His voice faded away as Bellicus and Duro began to run, but righteous fury filled every word that came behind them.

  “You’ll never leave my lands alive, druid. I swear it by Christ!”

  * * *

  “That didn’t go very well,” said Duro, glancing back towards the hill they’d left behind at last.

  “It went terribly,” Bellicus replied, a mixture of emotions plain in his voice: exhaustion, excitement, fear, but, most of all, anger. Anger at himself for the failure of their mission. “I should have just stabbed Loarn mac Eirc in the back. It would have been so easy.”

  Duro nodded, wishing that was exactly what his friend had done. He knew better than to say so though. “That’s not the way of a true warrior,” he said. “I fear the gods would frown on anyone, even a druid, killing a king in such a cowardly manner. Besides, I might have used my hunting bow to do the same thing – we’re both much too honourable.”

  Bellicus spat on the frost-rimed ground and glanced to his side, making sure Cai still kept pace with them. “Loarn is a Christian now,” he said. “He deserves no respect from me, or you, or the gods. I should have gutted him. All our preparations…wasted.”

  “That’s enough of the self-pity,” Duro barked, using his parade-ground voice, as if he were back in the legions and disciplining some unruly young recruit. “What’s done is done – we move on and try to get out of these lands before Loarn makes good on his promise to hunt us down. This whole thing was a fool’s errand from the start – it’s testament to your talents that we came so close to pulling it off.”

  Bellicus didn’t reply for a long time, taking the rebuke in the manner it was intended, his long strides eating up the miles back towards their campsite near Carngheal.

  “Their dogs won’t be able to follow our scent thanks to the marshes,” he said eventually. Like Duro, he would periodically look back over his shoulder, fearing pursuit. Thus far, there was no sign, although it was now the deepest part of the night and, for all they knew, the Dalriadan king’s men had ridden past them on another path, unknown to the druid.

  Neither man would fully relax until they were back in Alt Clota, and that seemed a long way off just then.

  “What’s our next move?” Duro asked and Bellicus, shrugged, unsure of himself for once.

  “Our priority is to reach the camp, catch our breath, and tend to any wounds we have. Then…” He shrugged. “What would you suggest, my friend? Without horses I don’t really know how we stay ahead of Loarn’s riders, and the whole land will be aflame with news of us. We’re marked men, and the marshes will only hide us for a day or two, if even that.”

  Duro thought about their predicament for a long time, until Bellicus started to think the centurion hadn’t heard his question, but then the reply came, and it was quite unexpected.

  “What’s the point in going back to the camp? The dogs might not be able to track us through the marshes, but they’ll lead Loarn’s men to the general area. And then it’ll just be a matter of time before they close in on us.” He looked at Bellicus and, although he was obviously fatigued, and possibly still groggy from the blow to the head, a fire lit his eyes – a determination that had seen him rise so high within the Roman ranks as a young man. “I say we must get out of Dalriadan lands as soon as possible. We must find horses and keep moving all through the night. Our injuries are minor anyway – they’ll keep until we’re on safer ground.”

  The very idea of travelling when they’d already spent so much energy over the past few hours wasn’t a pleasing one for Bellicus, whose first thought was to reject the plan. Most of their provisions were back at the camp, along with their tent, their extra clothes, even Duro’s flute. Thinking about it seriously though, he could see the merits in Duro’s suggestion.

  Returning to the marshes would only buy time until the final battle, and the druid knew they could not win against the warband, and entire population, of Dalriada.

  A flute could be replaced.

  “Surely some of the people in these lands – most perhaps – are still loyal to the old gods,” Duro mused. “Isn’t that how it usually goes? The king converts to a new religion and everyone else follows suit, but it takes time for it to reach those at the bottom of the social scale.” He rubbed at his side, as if a stitch was developing. His pace didn’t slacken though, as he continued. “Mochan and some of the others referred to Taranis or the Dagda, not Christ.”

  “You think they might help us, on account of me being a druid?”

  “Aye,” Duro said. “I’ve seen you in action. You can tell them the gods will punish them if they don’t help us, and I know they’ll believe it.”

  Bellicus thought about it but shook his head. “I suspect the threat of their own king’s retribution will outweigh any fear of the gods for the likes of Mochan. Besides, you know what Loarn mac Eirc would do to anyone helping us.”

  Duro frowned. Did he value his own life over that of the kindly old craftsman in Carngheal? Loarn would certainly kill anyone helping the fugitives escape his wrath. At best he might spare Mochan, but the sentence for his crimes would likely be banishment – cast out from his kith and kin, to wander alone for the rest of his days. It was as good as a death sentence for a man of that age anyway.

  “What, then?” the centurion demanded. “It’s not even as if we could rig up traps and fortifications at the camp. Even if we could, there’s only two—” He paused and smiled at Cai. “Three of us. We can’t fight this time, Bel. We have to run. Or sail. Or ride, or whatever!”

  The druid stopped jogging and Duro pulled up as well, eyeing his friend inquisitively.

  “You’re right,” Bellicus conceded, looking around at the land, trying to get his bearings. “We’ve had a head start because Loarn’s men had no idea where we came from, or where we were heading. But it’s time we changed course. If my knowledge of the area is accurate, I believe there’s a settlement not too far to the south.” He shrugged and met Duro’s eyes. “We’ll head there and hope there’s a couple of horses we can steal without getting into another fight.”

  The centurion smiled. “Oh, I ‘m not too bothered about that. I wouldn’t mind a fight – didn’t get to do much in the last one, and I’m still pretty angry.”

  The druid laughed at that, and they began running again, this time towards the village in the south, rather than to their camp near Carngheal.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Bellicus said. “I have a feeling we’ll see more than our fair share of battle soon enough.”

  They covered the miles in silence after that, conserving their breath and wishing the settlement Bellicus had spoken of would soon appear. They were close to dropping now, particularly Duro who, although much fitter than he’d been at any time in the past ten years, was not as
young as the druid, and their night’s exertions had taken a lot out of him.

  Bellicus prayed silently to Cernunnos to let them find horses soon. If Loarn mac Eirc’s men were to catch up with them there wouldn’t be much of a fight, despite Duro’s earlier suggestion.

  He watched Cai as they ran, relieved to see the huge dog still moving freely. He felt guilty at the thought of riding throughout the night to escape their pursuers, while Cai would have to remain on his own four paws.

  What would they do if the dog’s stamina gave out? It wasn’t even a question: Bellicus would never leave Cai behind, even if Loarn’s spearmen were almost upon them. The dog had been a loyal companion to him for years and, besides, Bellicus valued Cai’s life over most humans.

  He turned away and noticed Duro also looking at the dog. He too was questioning Cai’s ability to keep going until they’d left their pursuers safely behind.

  All they could do for now was find mounts and try to steal them without the alarm being raised.

  The fragility of their existence struck the druid at that moment. All it would take was for one of them to turn their ankle in a pothole and that would be it for all of them. Yet they couldn’t afford to slow their pace, despite the blackness of the night and the uneven terrain, for that would certainly mean capture and death.

  “Praise be to Mithras,” Duro huffed in relief, as the whitewashed silhouettes of low buildings finally appeared in the gloom. They had reached the settlement.

  They slowed their pace to a walk, fearing the sound of their footsteps would be heard by any guards or light sleepers within the Dalriadan roundhouses.

  “You were here the other day,” Bellicus said very softly. “Do you remember? Did you take note of any of the buildings?”

  Duro looked at the black shapes in the darkness, trying to think back. In truth, he hadn’t even recognised the place yet. It was just a jumble of shadows to him thus far, and he peered around, trying to find a landmark that might jog his memory.