Clash of Iron (53 page)

He looked around. The Dumnonian sub-chiefs looked as worried as he did. There was no point asking that cluster of fools for ideas. Where the Bel was Maggot? He’d know what to do, at least he’d have an opinion. But he was nowhere to be seen. Had he slipped off now he could see that all was lost? Probably. Bruxon had never liked the weasly druid.

The Dumnonian king watched Manfrax. He was at the water’s edge, well away from the fighting, shouting at a ship that was nearing shore. Was he planning an escape?

The ship slid on to the sand in between two other Eroo boats. It was an odd craft, longer and slimmer than the other Eroo ships, and there was something wrong with his perspective, because from where he was it looked like it was crewed by just a few absurdly massive people.

The newly arrived ship rocked over on its side as the crew clambered out. A gasp and several curses went up around Bruxon.

They
were
massive people. Each of them was the height of Manfrax, himself a very large man, then at least half that height again. Despite their height, however, it was their breadth that was so surprising. Relatively, despite their tallness, they were squat. Their limbs were like oak trunks. Bruxon looked about himself. Jaws hung open. He closed his own. Manfrax was gesticulating and five giant figures were following him up the beach. Even from here Bruxon could see that each was thickly armoured, although none of them wore helmets, and each was armed with weapons that made the already oversized swords and axes of the Eroo army look like children’s toys. One had a hammer with an iron head the size of a small cart that he – or she, judging by the prominent chest – was carrying with apparent ease. Another had a sword that must have been three paces long and half a pace wide, held casually over one shoulder as if it were made of hollow wood.

What were they? Humans could not be so big, surely? Were they a type of giant bear? Shaved bears with armour and weapons who could sail ships?

“That’s just the start,” said Maggot. “There are a lot more of them coming.”

“What? Where have you been?” Bruxon was partly annoyed with him for sneaking off, but more angry that the druid didn’t have the decency to be surprised by the walking phenomena that had the rest of them flabbergasted. The sub-chiefs gathered around Maggot, clamouring questions.

Bruxon held his hand up for silence. “Quiet, everyone quiet.” He tried to hide his amazement and eagerness to know where on Danu’s earth these … people? had come from. He glanced down to the beach. The giants were lumbering towards the Maidun line, Manfrax jogging to keep up. “Maggot, do you know what these … arrivals are, and where they are from?”

“They are Fassites, from the island of Fassent.”

Various cries of “no!” and “Fassites are a myth!” came from the Dumnonians. Maggot grinned around at all of them in turn, clearly pleased with the attention, and knowing something that nobody else did.

“No,” said Maggot, “not a myth. As you can see, they are real. Real, and even nastier than the legends will have you believe.”

A
tlas’ eyes narrowed.

He wasn’t surprised. As a child in Africa he’d seen creatures that would have made the average Briton soil his tartan trousers, so he’d always believed that there were plenty of monsters outside the realms of accepted knowledge that might rear their bizarre heads at any moment.

Shame, though, that such monsters should appear right now, apparently about to fight for the enemy. They were giants. Two-eyed, so not the race of Cyclops who’d built the temples he’d visited on the island of Melita. They could, he thought, be Fassites, a supposedly mythical island-based tribe of giants. Whoever or whatever they were, if they were as effective as they looked, Maidun was in trouble. However, one thing he’d learnt in Africa about giant beasts was that they could be killed if you put your mind, a lot of people and the right weapons to it.

“Scorpions! With me!” he shouted, bounding down the dune. “You lot,” he indicated a section of the third rank, “follow me with spears!”

He ran to the place where the giants would hit the shield wall, followed by a couple of dozen men and women, the scorpion crews and their pony-pulled weapons. He slotted his axe into the holster on his back and set about digging a hole in the sand under the tail of one scorpion, to give it a lofted projection. He shouted at the other crew to copy him.

The shield wall and the two ranks behind it stood its ground as the giants thundered closer, running now, fast as horses, trampling the few Eroo who got in their way.

“Spears ready!” shouted Atlas. Spears went up. “Keep clear of the scorpions!” he shouted to two idiot spearwomen who’d planted themselves directly in front of one of the massive siege weapons.

The giants hit the shield wall like bulls hitting a haystack. Men, women, shields and weapons exploded in all directions. A female-looking giant with a hammer took out a dozen Maidun troops with one swing. Atlas pulled the end of the scorpion round to face her.

“Shoot!”

The shooter knocked the chock. The recoil knocked Atlas off his feet, but he saw the giant arrow smash into the giant’s chest as he fell. He scrambled up.

The hammer giant was down. The other scorpion had severed another giant’s arm at the elbow. The creature bellowed and ran away down the beach. Spears were pressing in on the other three, poking for gaps in their plate iron armour, but the giants were fast. They danced away from spear thrusts and swathed down whole groups of Maidun soldiers with their swords and axes. They were bare-headed, but they avoided all the spear thrusts that managed to come that high, and dodged the hurled javelins.

Atlas remembered a story from a tribe of desert dwellers whom he’d met on a journey around the east of the central sea. They were a sulky, juvenile lot, whose men resented and subjugated women because their creation story said that the first ever woman had spoiled everything for all men for ever. One of their many legends had stuck in his head, though, about a boy who’d fought a giant.

“Slings!” he shouted. “Aim for the heads!”

T
he Murkans were held behind the shield wall again, so it was time to head south and help the infantry against the Eroo. Under archer cover from their drivers and the cavalry, the foot soldiers jumped back into their chariots and the Maidun army left the field. The Murkan soldiers jeered and followed. Maidun arrows thudded into several hundred of them. The jeers stopped, the pursuit petered out and the Maidun army was clear, galloping for Frogshold.

Dug kept asking Spring if she was OK, and she kept nodding that she was. Her throat wasn’t so sore that she couldn’t talk, but her voice sounded so weird when she did that she didn’t want to, and besides, she was too sad. Seeing her tears, Dug droned on as the chariot bounced at a lick along the road, saying that Nita was in a better place, happy in the Otherworld with all her loved ones around, feasting on her favourite foods, probably being provided with a constant stream of idiots to complain about then beat into shape. In fact, Dug said, he wouldn’t be surprised if the Otherworld had arranged a whole new rebellion for Nita to …

“Oh, shut up!” Spring shouted.

Dug went silent and Spring felt terrible for shouting at him. But he just didn’t get it. It wasn’t Nita she felt sad for. Nita was dead and that was that. Spring was crying for Mal.

Parents died and it was expected, even, in the case of Spring’s father, something of a blessing. Children died and it was a tragedy, a reason to rage against the gods, to do something useful like make improvements in cart safety so the accident didn’t happen again, and to lavish more love and protection on remaining children and new babies.

But, she thought, what about someone you’d chosen to be with, like a wife or a husband dying early? Surely you could never be happy again? There was no succour in the idea that it was their time to go, because it wasn’t. There was no one to replace them, nothing you could do to prevent similar deaths because there was nobody else similar. When you love someone because you love them, rather than because they’re family, and they are killed, surely the only sane response is to go mad? To hate the gods, everyone else, and yourself?

And surely if, as Dug seemed to, you believed that all those you loved were in the Otherworld, living lives of joy in perpetual happiness and waiting for you to appear and get the party started, then the only sensible course of action must be to kill yourself immediately and join them?

She thought about what Mal would be doing right then, as they were driving towards him. Perhaps he’d be watching the Eroo fleet approach, trying not to worry about his wife in the cavalry. She’ll be fine, he’d be telling himself. She’s with Lowa and Lowa will deal with any trouble. Nita is capable and wise and wouldn’t put herself in unnecessary danger and I mustn’t worry about her. That’s what he’d be saying. Right then, at that moment, Mal thought that Nita was alive. She pictured his friendly face, smiling in welcome when they returned, looking about for Nita, concern overwhelming his happy features when he couldn’t spot her. Then hearing the news … his face crumpling, collapsing, the happiness gone, never to return. Spring sobbed.

Dug put a hand on her shoulder. She took the reins in one hand and put the other on his.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Mal, though. Why do we have to touch each other’s lives like this, she thought, when so many unfair and unplanned things happen all the time? The lambs in the field near Maidun didn’t appear to give much of a crap when other lambs were taken to be killed and eaten. Why couldn’t people be more like that? Why was everything so poignant? She thought back five years, to when she’d skipped into Mal’s yard and he’d been so kind, and his wife had helped with – not helped with, ran – the rebellion without which Zadar would never have been toppled. They’d taken Spring in and they’d given her everything and Spring had repaid them by getting Nita killed. If she hadn’t gone there, if she’d approached the tavern keeper instead, like she nearly had, then Mal and Nita would probably still be happy together somewhere. They’d probably have left Maidun and started a family somewhere …

But no.

Horrible chance had struck. A good woman was dead and a good man’s life was ruined. They hadn’t beaten the Murkans yet and there was still Dumnonia and Eroo to deal with, and then, if any of them were still alive, the Romans. How many more horrible, unbearable deaths were there going to be?

T
he slingstones didn’t kill the giants, but they distracted them enough for the Maidun spears to find the gaps in their armour. Two more giants went down, falling on to the corpses of the Maidun men and women who’d died killing them.

The last was the largest, armed with a sword the size of a couple of hut doors placed end on end. One would expect, thought Atlas, that giants would be shaggy and wild, but, this one had neatly cut hair and beardless, smiling face.

If he was smiling now, it was impossible to tell because of the swelling and bleeding from the ongoing barrage of slingstones. He was ignoring the onslaught, though, swiping with his sword, dispatching three Maidun soldiers with almost every swing, hopping about like a barefoot child on an ant’s nest to avoid the spear thrusts. He was doing well. There weren’t many left to thrust spears.

Atlas took his axe from its holster and appraised the situation. To the south Dumnonians had held. If they were in cahoots with Eroo, why hadn’t they attacked? The giants had destroyed a major section of the shield wall, but elsewhere it was holding. Thankfully, few Eroo had come through the raging giants’ breach since being anywhere near them was dangerous for all. A giant had smashed one of his scorpions. The crew had reloaded the other one, but were still winding back the twine to prime it. It was taking far too long. He resolved to improve that, or at least ask Elann to find a way.

He grabbed one of the scorpion crew. “When this giant goes down, close the gap in the shield wall.”

The man looked at him, his face locked in confusion and shock, but he nodded.

Atlas turned to the giant, who was roaring and looking around for the next person to kill. The Kushite hefted his axe in his hand. It felt light. He charged.

The giant spotted the threat, and lunged with his sword. Dulled by the slingshots, with blood in his eyes, the lunge came too early and thudded into the sand. Atlas checked, leapt on to the giant’s blade and used it as a springboard to launch himself. As he flew, he swung his axe two handed, and chopped it with all his might into the side of the giant’s exposed head.

The big Kushite stood on the giant that he’d slain and shouted orders. A scorpion arrow blasted back a horde of Eroo charging through the giants’ breach. Maidun warriors flowed around the other giants’ bodies and the corpses of their comrades to reform the shield wall. When the Eroo army saw the Maidun general standing on the corpse of their fifth giant you could almost see the morale evaporating from them. Atlas wondered if he could give the order to begin shoving the Eroo army back to their boats. If Lowa arrived with the cavalry and chariots, they would start the counter-attack immediately. If she didn’t come, assuming the Dumnonians stayed back, the infantry might well be able to do it on their own. He had not expected it to be so easy.

He looked to the Dumnonians again. Maggot, it seemed, had managed to hold them in place. If Eroo retreated, it was very likely that they’d join and help the Maidun army. That would be the clever thing to do … he was getting ahead of himself. He had not won yet, far from it.

There were still more ships to land, and only counting the Eroo force already on the beach he was still hugely outnumbered. Although not, he told himself, looking at the dead giants, his holding shield wall and the bank of Eroo corpses in front of it, outgeneralled. Now, thinking of that, where was Manfrax?

Atlas spotted Manfrax at the water’s edge, welcoming in a dozen more ships. Ships which looked similar in size and shape to the one the giants had come in.