Clash of Iron (52 page)

To the south, the treacherous Dumnonian army stretched along the dry spur of land between the marshes and the sea. They showed no sign of attacking. It looked like Maggot had managed to stop them. Mal wondered what the druid’s role was in all this. Just a few moons before he’d happily lied to Lowa and the rest of them about Dumnonia and Eroo. Why spill the secret now? What was his game? Was there some new secret?

To the west, the Eroo ships were coming into general arrow range. They’d been within range of Spring and Lowa’s longbows for some time. So it was a shame that they had no archers, and that Spring and Lowa were miles away fighting the Murkans. A few fire arrows on to those boats might have produced some lovely results.

All the infantry had were slings and a few stones. The enemy would soon be in sling range, but very shortly after that a very large number of famously vicious and powerful Eroo troops would be charging up the beach and the Maidun infantry would have the first proper test of its hand-to-hand skills. Given the size of the Murkan fleet, Mal was pretty sure it would also be the last.

A
tlas cast an eye at the Dumnonians. They hadn’t moved, but … he couldn’t trust Maggot.

“Shield wall back a hundred paces! Three lines!” he shouted, jogging back himself.

He could feel questioning looks from the men and women but they were too disciplined to say anything. The looks were deserved. In terms of opposing the landing, moving fifty paces back was idiocy. However, if they stayed so far down the beach it left them horribly exposed if the Dumnonians did attack. Nearer the back of the beach they could, in theory, hold both Dumnonians and the Eroo.

Atlas climbed a dune to get a view. Thirty paces in front, his men and women wedged their shields into the sand to make the shield wall. Two rows formed behind, ready to reinforce and replace front-line troops. All readied their slings and their javelins. A pair of ponies pulled into place the two Roman-style scorpions that Elann had built based on Atlas’ descriptions. He was looking forward to seeing them in action, but he wished he had a few hundred more.

The first Eroo ship scraped on to sand. Fur-clad men and women jumped from its side and splashed into the shallows. They tarried, waiting for more ships to land. These were ones that they could have taken with slings, had Atlas not moved the line back. He glanced at the Dumnonians. They were brooding further along the coast, like spectators waiting for gladiators to stop arsing about and start killing each other.

Several Eroo ran forward, screaming battle frenzy. They were killed with slingstones. Atlas was pleased. Discipline was not strong with the Eroo. Maidun’s Romanised infantry wouldn’t give their lives so easily.

More and more ships beached. There were enough Eroo for an attack now, but still they held, milling about, analysing the Maidun line. A larger ship landed, a ramp dropped from it and a man and a woman were carried ashore. The man stood a head taller than everyone around him. That must be Manfrax, thought Atlas. A king who apparently made Caesar look like a benevolent grandfather. The woman danced a freaky jig, legs frantic, arms pinned to her side. Presumably she was cursing the Maidun army and calling support from Eroo’s gods.

Manfrax shouted and ran up the beach, towards the Maidun shield line. The Eroo army howled and followed. Manfrax’s running slowed to a walk and his soldiers overtook him as he shouted encouragement. Sensible man, thought Atlas.

The Dumnonians, over to Atlas’ left, hadn’t moved. Manfrax and his troops were ignoring them, heading towards the Maidun line only. So the Dumnonians were definitely in league with Eroo. Atlas wondered how Maggot was going to stop the Dumnonians joining the Eroo attack – if, indeed, he was.

The Eroo army closed. They were a savage looking rabble, armed with toothed swords, axes even bigger than Atlas’, gigantic curving scimitars, hammers with handles like small trees and heads like anvils. These were weapons designed to terrify, thought Atlas, and they’d be effective for a couple of hits perhaps, but after that even the mightiest warrior would weary wielding such weighty weaponry. And toothed swords? Good for cutting wood maybe, but they’d get stuck in armour or shields.

Atlas smiled. The Eroo army had clearly become too used to success and started worrying more about image than function. Carden would have said that they were all shell and no egg. Seeing this lot coming, perhaps the smaller tribes in Eroo had surrendered or fled. The Maidun army would not. They’d teach this horde a lesson in egg over shell.

Thinking of function … “Scorpions!” Atlas shouted. Soldiers scurried aside to split the shield wall in front of each scorpion. The shooters whacked chocks with mallets. The scorpions bucked and giant arrows with pallisade-post shafts and ships’ anchor heads flew towards the enemy. One skimmed into the sand just in front of the Eroo line and cartwheeled, scattering men and women. The other did what it was meant to. Its laboriously sharpened, pace-wide head hit the throng of Eroo at waist height in an explosion of limbs and blood, punching a gory hole into the leading edge of the charge. The Eroo army faltered, then came on.

Slingshots took down a few and javelins many more before the Eroo army hit the shield wall. There were breaches in a couple of places where the oversized weapons crushed shields and a few Eroo soldiers battered their way through, but the second and third ranks did their work quickly, spitting the insurgents with spears. The Eroo warriors, as Atlas had predicted, swung their heavy weapons only once before the lighter, faster blades of the Maidun army slit throats, pierced stomachs and ruined faces. Breaches were closed in moments, the shield wall held nicely and the Eroo army began to die in large numbers against it.

More and more Eroo ships landed, more and more warriors screamed and shouted their way up the beach to perish on the immovable Maidun line. To the south, the Dumnonians were holding as Maggot had promised. Atlas looked for problems to deal with and saw none. It was going well.

He spotted Manfrax heading southwards and back to the sea. Was he fleeing already? The king stopped at the waterline to wave in a new type of ship, much longer than all the previous arrivals. A rare sense of foreboding filled the Kushite’s mind. He tried to shake it but couldn’t. He did not like the look of those ships.

C
hamanca stood shoulder to elbow with Carden, slinging stones at the approaching Roman ship. Annoyingly, the Romans had produced some shields, so their missiles weren’t having much effect.

“Yes!” said Carden, as a stoned Roman fell from the top of the flagship’s sail-free mast and landed on his packed-in fellows below. The lookout had thought he was safe up there. Carden searched for another target, saw none and deflated. “Toutatis’s tits,” he said.

The Roman boat was twenty paces away. Its oars slowed. A chink jinked open between two shields at the bow and a legionary’s eye peeped through. Carden and Chamanca and a few Fenn-Nodens shot for it, but the gap snapped shut and slingstones clacked off shields.

“Do you know what I’d do, given this battle again?” Carden said.

“Have it on land?” Chamanca replied.

“Well, obviously. But, if it had to be on sea – fire arrows.”

Chamanca pictured flaming arrows streaking towards the Roman boat. With no sails to set fire to and water all around to soak the wood, they probably wouldn’t have been much better than slingstones. “Hmmm,” she said.

“And…” Carden’s prominent brow was furrowed, “a small catapult with caskets of whale oil to fling at the Roman ships and give the arrows something to set fire to.”

“That might have worked,” said Chamanca.

“Should have thought of it.”

“On the bright side, they didn’t.”

“Ah yes,” Carden nodded, “there is that.”

In a surprise display of coordinated rowing, the Romans shipped oars on one side and pulled a long stroke on the other. Their ship came around. They meant to go broadside to broadside with the Fenn-Nodens’ command boat, to give as wide an area for boarding as possible, but when they came parallel the Roman ship was still ten paces away, its back end bobbing slowly towards the Fenn-Nodens’ boat and its bow floating away. They’d misjudged it and Chamanca’s assessment of their inept oarsmanship was reaffirmed.

Gaps opened in the Roman shield defence to reveal legionaries swinging grappling ropes. A swarm of slingstones found all but one. The one who did managed to chuck his hook didn’t throw far enough and the iron barb splashed into the sea.

“Ha ha!” shouted Carden. The rest of the Fenn-Nodens joined the jeering.

“They are a disgrace,” said Vastivias, appearing at Chamanca’s shoulder with his warriors Bran and Modaball. They were armed with two cutlasses each. The medium-length, curved blades should, Chamanca thought, be well suited to the tight fighting to come. “When their stern comes round to our gunwale, they will try to board. Instead, we will board them. Bran, Modaball and I will be first on to their boat. Will you honour me by following close on our heels?”

“It would be our pleasure, King Vastivias,” Carden bowed.

The Roman ship was around the same size as the Armorican boat, but it had about three times as many people aboard, ranging from fit, superbly trained young legionaries to knarl-faced veterans of a dozen campaigns. The Fenn-Nodens crew were mostly sailors whose closest thing to being in a battle had been seeing brawls in taverns. Most were young men and women, but there were also much older people and several children. Many of then were unarmed, save for their slings. Chamanca felt something like dread seeping into her stomach, not for herself, but for these innocents. Would they have been much worse off under the Romans? Was it fair that they should die in a failed attempt to preserve the freedom of their descendants?

“Follow me.” Vastivias walked along his ship, followed by Bran and Modaball. He politely asked some of his people to move, then he leant on the ship’s side, and waited. Chamanca looked at Carden. He winked at her. They stood by the Gauls.

The rear end of the Roman ship swung around to the spot where they were standing. The Roman boat was a good pace lower along the hull than the Fenn-Nodens’ ship, but it had a raised stern almost level with the Gaulish gunwale. It was lined with shields, which were ready, no doubt, to part and unleash the boarding party.

It was three paces away. Two paces. One pace.

The shields opened. Vastivias roared and flung himself across the gap. The Romans had time only to register surprise before the chief was on them, his cutlasses a hacking whirl. Blood fountained and Romans fell.

Modaball and Bran leapt after him. Bran took a spear thrust to the shoulder and splashed down between the boats. Modaball landed next to his king. A flailing sword found his head and blood sprayed, but he screamed and piled into the Romans, cutlasses chopping in every direction. Legionaries tumbled into the sea. Others backed along the deck, away from the enraged Gauls.

Space opened up behind Vastivias and Modaball. Carden and Chamanca looked at each other then jumped. Chamanca came in on Vastivias’ left, mace whacking, blade stabbing. She was aware of Carden’s broadsword swinging over on the right and Romans falling. She was also aware of Modaball collapsing, presumably succumbing to his head wound.

Vastivias was next, a sword thrust to the guts.

“Kill them all,” he strained to say, “if not today, then—” Blood gushed from his mouth. He toppled.

An order was shouted. The front rank of legionaries tried to back away and regroup, but they were too packed on the boat, and their attempt to retreat made them easier targets. Chamanca and Carden pressed, stepping over bodies. Carden swapped his sword for Vastivias’ stout cutlasses. Chamanca’s blade pinpointed vital parts of Romans and sliced into them, her mace cracked skulls and blocked sword thrusts. While the Romans were slipping on the blood of their dying comrades, Chamanca was sliding about on the slick floor like a skater and opening more arteries.

She glanced behind. There was empty deck behind her, then sea, then a line of staring Fenn-Nodens faces. The boats had drifted apart and no more Gauls had been able to jump across. They were on their own.

A dagger flashed past her and lodged in Carden’s neck. He fell to one knee. Romans closed in and Chamanca flew at them in a fury. Several fell, others backed off and stood looking at her, swords held in defence. None of them wanted to be next to step forward and meet his end. She snarled back at them, panting.

Carden pulled the dagger from his neck and stood up. Blood flowed from the wound in thick pulses.

“Go,” he said.

“You go,” she replied.

“I’m dead already.” She glanced at his neck wound. He was right.

“We’ll die together.” Chamanca crouched, ready to leap.

“No,” said Carden. “Swim ashore. Stay alive. Then kill them all.” He raised his cutlasses and ran at the watching legionaries.

The world slowed for Chamanca. A legionary’s helmeted head somersaulted up into the air. A sword slid into Carden’s side. He gasped. Another blade was buried in his neck. He fell and the Romans charged in, swords stabbing.

Chamanca lifted sword and ball-mace. She feinted. The Romans backed away. She turned, ran to the edge of the boat, leapt the gunwale and dived into the sea.

B
ruxon swallowed. Manfrax’s mighty Murkan army, scourge of Eroo, was having as much effect on the Maidun line as a banished drunkard battering on the locked gates of a hillfort. Manfrax’s men filled the beach like a rising tide, but the Maidun army held it like a stone wharf. He could see the dark-skinned battle commander, Atlas, watching calmly from a sand dune. Maidun’s men and women knew what they were doing. Manfrax’s army charged the shields, the shields held, the Eroo died. That was that. Every now and then an attack did cleave the wall, but it was always repelled and the wall reformed like the surface of a pond behind a plunging stone.

Bruxon would have to read this situation well. Even if Manfrax’s famously effective army hadn’t had quite the swift victory it had expected, then surely its massive numerical superiority would tell and the Maidun shield wall would crumble. However, if Manfrax couldn’t break through, if he decided to return to his boats and Eroo, then Bruxon would need a magnificent excuse ready to explain why the Dumnonians had watched the battle rather than joining it.