Clash of Iron (50 page)

Arrows whizzed overhead, enemy-wards. All the heavy chariot drivers were now shooting over the shield wall, as were both drivers and passengers from the light chariots, pulled into a line behind the heavy ones. Both types of chariots would be turned, ready for the planned retreat.

Most would be shooting as far as they could, hoping to hit a charging Murkan. The more skilled ones, like Spring, would be shooting high to drop just in front of the Maidun shields, creating a mess of injured and dead there to hamper the Murkan attack.

By Toutatis, he did not like all this regularity. It felt like his hammer was burning on his back. He could feel battle energy humming through his limbs. He suppressed the urge to chuck his shield away, go badgershit crazy and kill everything that came his way. Instead he kept his head down and carried on stabbing between the shields, telling himself that there’d be plenty of time for hammer play when the next phase of the battle began.

L
owa hoicked and spat on to the splatter of oat-flecked vomit glistening in the grass. She wiped her mouth, straightened and felt a little better. Why they called it morning sickness when it was actually any time of the fucking day or night sickness, she did not know. As a mystery, it was right up there with how Dug had got her pregnant in the first place. Carrot flowers had always worked previously. Mind you, she had been having sex more than ever before. Dug had argued that they needed to make up for the lost years when they should have been together, and she was happy to go with it. It was fun, it helped her sleep and it put her in a better mood in the mornings. And after lunch. And in the early evenings. And quite often in the midmorning, round the back of whatever there was to go round the back of. With hindsight, she should have realised that pregnancy was inevitable.

There were other plants that could stop a baby from developing once conceived, and plenty of druids who knew where they were found and how to prepare them. Lowa had considered using them for about a tenth of a heartbeat. She was queen of a tribe under immediate threat from three armies, so, arguably, it was no time to have a baby and she should have poisoned her foetus. But fuck that, she thought. The little half-her, half-Dug growing in her womb was more important than everyone else put together, herself and Dug included. And if someone called her selfish and irresponsible, never mind. She’d been called worse. She’d been worse.

“Big night?” asked a horseman who must have heard her in the bushes. She bestowed him with her queenliest look, the smile fell from his face and his horse took a couple of paces back.

She rode over to Nita. The square-faced young woman was looking out over the valley. “All right?” Nita asked, a rare note of kindness in her voice. Lowa nodded. She hadn’t told her, but Nita knew. Many of the other women had worked it out, as had a few of the more sensitive men. She hadn’t told Dug yet. She’d tell him soon, she told herself. He probably knew anyway. He was more perceptive than he looked.

Below them, the Murkans had hit the Maidun line. She’d missed the start of the battle. She could not have picked a worse time to be sick, she thought, then thought, no, at least it was out now and unlikely to recur for a while. Better to chunder semi-privately up here than in front of everybody on the battlefield.

It was a sight. The Murkans were charging the thin shield line like storm waves hitting a beach. But the beach was holding. The Murkan dead were piling up in front of the shield wall and more were dying behind where the chariot archers’ arrows were striking home. Murkans were climbing over their fallen comrades’ bodies to hurdle the Maidun shields, but the spearpeople were stopping them with pointed efficiency. It was looking good for Maidun.

There were still many more Murkans, though, stretching back along the valley into the distance. With most of the Maidun army sent to meet the Eroo, they were massively outnumbered, twenty to one at least, but thank Danu the notion of battle strategy did not seem to have spread north yet. They still employed the traditional run-at-the-others-and-try-to-beat-the-fuck-out-of-them tactics. Right now, they were running through a rain of arrows to attack a shield wall that was holding. They were brave as mother badgers and no more intelligent. A more precise attack with shields held aloft might have done some damage. It was a relief and a joy that they hadn’t thought of that.

“Now?” asked Nita.

“Not quite.” She wanted more Murkans committed before she struck. She didn’t intend to destroy the Murkans here, indeed that would be difficult with her infantry still off to the south with Atlas and Mal, but she wanted to kill so many of them so quickly that their morale was destroyed. Either they’d head back north, or the force that followed her south to meet the infantry would be shaken to somewhere near its mental breaking point.

A moment later she spotted Pomax and shuddered. She was a hundred paces back from the front line, out of most arrows’ range, perhaps half a mile from Lowa. She was cased in helmet and ringmail, but that gait and bulk were unmistakable. By Danu, Lowa had never wanted to kill anyone so much. By the look of what she was up to, the Murkan queen was set to cause her further torment. She was arranging a large group of similarly armoured troops into a shield-protected wedge formation – the one thing that could really fuck up the Maidun shield wall.

Eyes narrowed, Lowa dismounted. She took her longbow from its leather holster on the back of her horse. She chose a long-distance arrow from the quiver and slotted it on the string then drew, aimed and fired. Ten heartbeats later, a man next to Pomax fell. Lowa had missed. Very unlike her. She didn’t like to make excuses for herself, but the wind had dropped unnaturally quickly, immediately after she’d fired.

Pomax lifted her arm, middle fingers splayed. Lowa notched another arrow, but Pomax lifted a shield above her head and disappeared among her people. A moment later, Pomax’s triangle of troops, perhaps five hundred of them, hoisted their own shields and jogged towards the Maidun line.

“Toutatis’s arse!” said Nita. Lowa nodded. Pomax’s wedge hit the left of the Maidun line point first, faltered for a moment and burst through. The shield wall was breached.

As was planned and trained for, the nearby light chariots swarmed in to pour arrows into the enemy and plug the hole. The Murkan shields and armour were effective, however, and only a few fell. The rest trampled through a breach that was widening with every heartbeat.

“Sound the cavalry charge!” shouted Lowa.

“Wait!”

Lowa spun to see who’d dared to interrupt her order. It was Adler, Maidun’s best rider whom she’d left with Mal to bring messages, heaving her horse to a halt. “Eroo,” she panted. “About to land near Frogshold. May be that Dumnonians have turned traitor. Atlas says probably not, Mal thinks they have.”

Makka’s tits, thought Lowa. The early arrival of the Eroo was a setback, although not necessarily a disaster, so long as they still had the Dumnonians on their side …

Lowa looked at Pomax’s Murkan wedge, spreading and smashing apart Maidun’s shield wall, impervious to Maidun’s arrows. Dug was down there. So was Spring.

“How many Eroo?” she asked.

“Mal estimates five hundred ships, two hundred troops at least in each, which makes—”

“A hundred thousand. How far away?”

“If we go now, we might reach the infantry by the time Eroo lands.”

“Is there a new reason to suspect the Dumnonians?”

“Soldiers claiming to be Dumnonians threatened the Frogsholders with death if they alerted us to the arrival of the Eroo fleet. But Atlas thinks the soldiers were from Eroo, not Dumnonia.”

“Bel’s turds.” Lowa looked down into the valley. Pomax’s wedge was doing well, and other Murkan troops were capitalising. If she pulled her shield wall away now, the majority of them would be routed before they got back to the chariots. Yet retreat they must. She’d wanted to do more damage to the Murkan army, but she couldn’t leave her infantry to face a hundred thousand-plus Eroo without archer support.

“Trumpeter,” she said, “sound the cavalry charge. Adler, take a fresh horse and go back to Frogshold. Tell them to oppose the landing as far as possible, beware of the Dumnonians, and to retreat to Frogshold hillfort if necessary. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

B
efore the screams of the fifth child had died away, the wind stopped.

For once, Ragnall had done the sensible thing and not been drawn to watch a nearby horror. He was glad he hadn’t. He still had nightmares about the poor Danu’s Child.

Felix walked up, flicking blood off his hands, his face split by an even bigger smirk than usual. Unbidden, animal loathing spread from Ragnall’s stomach, through his body, along his limbs and into his fingers and toes. He shivered with horror and objection. It was difficult to justify killing children. Had he picked the right cause? Was he on the right side? Yes, yes, he told himself. Under Roman rule, life in Britain would improve immeasurably. It wasn’t the aqueducts, the underfloor heating, the waterproof buildings and all the other comfort-enhancing and labour-saving innovations, although those would all be very welcome. No, the main point was Roman law, order and stability. People like Zadar could not exist under Roman rule. In a generation’s time, when Roman rule was embedded, no young Britons would ever again have to see their parents, siblings and entire tribe murdered by a despot, as Ragnall had. They would be clean, educated, secure and they would live longer. Their leaders would be elected rather than murdering their way to power. It had to be worth anything to achieve that. He pictured Lowa all doe-eyed telling him that it was OK that she’d killed his family, and him believing her like a chump. That helped. He was on the right side.

“Done and done,” said the druid.

“Excellent,” said Caesar.

Out in the bay, like a blanket pulled tight, the ripples disappeared all across the water’s surface. The proud leather sails of the Fenn-Nodens collapsed and hung like empty scrotums. Their ships fizzed to a halt and bobbed like turds in the baths. Crews ran about, shouting at each other and hauling ropes. All to no avail. There wasn’t much you could do in a sailing boat without any wind, other than wait to die.

“T
heir sails have lost the wind,” said Mal.

“And it’s calm behind them,” said Atlas.

Stretching back from a line in front of the lifelessly floating Eroo ships to the horizon, the sea was indeed a different colour. Did that mean the wind had died? Mal didn’t know. Seafaring wasn’t his thing. Atlas, on the other hand, appeared to know more or less all there was to know about pretty much everything.

The change in shade rushed towards them across the water. It hit the shore. Moments afterwards the wind on the hill, previously a stiff westerly, fell so quickly it felt like it was sucked up into the sky above. With the wind gone, there was an eerie, pulsating silence. It reminded Mal of when he’d run a wheel yard next to a busy blacksmith’s. He’d not notice the noise, but when it stopped at the end of each working day, the sudden silence was, to him, louder than the day-long beat of the hammers.

“Good,” said Atlas. “Unusual, but good. All we need now is for the wind to start up again in the other direction and…”

There was movement all along the Eroo fleet. It looked like a swarm of beetles waking and extending their legs as oars bristled from each ship and dipped into the water. The Eroo boats advanced anew, more slowly than before, but they were still coming.

“Bel’s beard!” said Mal.

“They are delayed,” said Atlas. “That is some blessing, although the tide will be higher when they arrive and they will be exposed on the beach for less time. Mal, stay here to brief Lowa. I’ll talk to Dumnonia, then join the infantry. Tell Lowa that her cavalry and chariot archers will have a clear run to the beach. I’m also going to arrange the lines to defend and retreat if the Dumnonians have changed sides. Assuming that is, that Bruxon doesn’t kill me when I see him.”

“Well, that’s a great plan!” said a chirpy, familiar voice.

Mal spun. It was Maggot, marching into the Frogshold hillfort, ornaments rattling. “But I’d skip the bit about talking to the Dumnonians, because change sides they have. It’s not one, but three armies you’ll face today.”

“Explain,” said Atlas.

“Bruxon asked Eroo to invade, you see. Why wouldn’t he? Wanted revenge for the defeat at Sarum. He heard that this King Manfrax was a bloodthirsty bastard who’d killed everyone he didn’t like the look of on Eroo, so he asked him over here to finish the Maidun maidens and the Maidun menfolk, too.”

“The fool.” Atlas shook his head. “Manfrax will turn on him the moment he’s finished with us.”

“Not according to Bruxon,” said Maggot, putting a finger to his chin, “because the moment that Manfrax is sitting happy in Maidun, the Romans will arrive. Dumnonia will help the Romans against Manfrax – and those nasty Murkans – and then the Romans will leave the Dumnonians alone. Well, I say alone. They’ll sell them cut-price wine and build lovely baths all over Dumnonia, but they won’t hassle your day-to-day Dumnonian at all. That’s how Bruxon’s got it all worked out, anyway.”

Maggot’s bardish exaggeration aside, Mal could see the Dumnonian logic. He was surprised that Lowa or Atlas hadn’t worked out what was happening; or Nita, for that matter. All of these sharp people and none of them had seen the obvious. “Makes some sense,” he said.

“It doesn’t,” said Atlas. “Helping the Romans has one outcome. They enslave you or kill you.”

“That’s two outcomes,” said Maggot. Atlas glowered. “But you are right,” the druid continued, “it’s almost like Bruxon has been blinded by some kind of magic. Now, who could have done that?”

“What?” said Atlas, grabbing Maggot by his leather jerkin.

Maggot looked at Atlas’ big hand, then back up at the Kushite. “Let me go,” he said, serious for once. To Mal’s surprise, Atlas did.

Maggot straightened his clothes, picked up a bauble that Atlas had torn free and put it in a pocket. “I will go back to the Dumnonians and stop them from attacking.”