Ravens of Avalon (11 page)

eel the earth tremble,” said Cunitor. “I felt such a quake once in the mountains when I was a boy.”

Lhiannon set her palm to the soil. From the wood at the top of the hill where the Druids had been stationed they could see little, but a faint, regular tremor vibrated beneath her hand. To create such a rhythm how many feet must be striking the earth, and what kind of discipline kept them in such unison? For the first time she had a sense of the magnitude of the force that had come against them.

“It’s a drumbeat, not a quake,” said Belina quietly. “The drum of war.” A flicker of sunlight gleamed on new threads of silver in her brown hair.

“Are they coming?” asked Ambios. He was Caratac’s Druid, an older man grown portly with soft living, and until now, undecided whether to welcome or to resent the reinforcements who had come from the Druids’ Isle. With the enemy approaching, he seemed relieved to have their company.

Lhiannon got to her feet and lifted a branch to see. The slope fell away in a tangle of wood and meadow until it reached the river’s meandering blue gleam. Upriver at the ford, the thatched roofs of the dun shone in the sun. Below, Caratac’s forces were a patchwork of plaid, highlighted by a gleam of iron and bronze and gold. But to the east a dust cloud was rising, broken by the vicious sparkle of steel. She felt a warmth that was as much of the spirit as the flesh as Ardanos rose to stand beside her.

“They are coming …” she whispered. Instinctively she reached out and he took her hand.

As they watched, the dust began to resolve into four divisions of marching men divided into dozens of smaller squares, following the same route Caesar’s legions had found. Mounted officers moved among them and cavalry trotted to either side.

Now the other Druids were on their feet, peering through the leaves. She looked up as a shadow flickered between her and the sun. A raven’s wing flared white as it caught the light, then black again as it circled and then settled onto a branch. It called, and others answered.

You can afford to be patient,
Lhiannon thought bitterly.
Whoever wins this battle, you will have your reward.
For the first time she wondered whether the Lady of Ravens herself cared which side won.

Ardanos nodded to Bendeigid, who lifted the horn he carried and blew one long call. A ripple of motion passed through the Britons gathered below as their boar-headed trumpets blatted defiance and the Roman trumpets responded with a brazen blare.

“Wait for them,” muttered Ardanos. “Caratac, you have the advantage of the ground—let them come to you!”

Onward came the legions, inexorable as the tide, hobnailed sandals crushing the young grain. The dun had been emptied, but the enemy passed as if a barbarian capital were no temptation. Nor was the river, at this point both broad and shallow, any barrier. But now the precise formation was breaking up at last—no, it was shifting, in a movement as disciplined as a dance, one legion moving forward as the others spread out to support it, a spearhead aimed at the multicolored array of Celts on the hill.

From the Celtic line first one naked warrior, then another, would dash forward, shouting insults at the foe, but Caratac still had his men in hand. Behind the champions waited the chariots, and behind them the mass of shouting warriors. The air boomed hollowly as long swords clashed against their shields.

Lhiannon trembled at the sight of that deadly beauty, but the time for contemplation was past. The others were joining hands, setting feet firmly in the loamy soil and drawing breath for their own part in this fray.

“Oh mighty dead, I summon you!” Ardanos cried. “Ye who fought the fathers of this foe, hear us now. Arise to aid us, ye whose lifeblood fed these fields when Caesar led the legions here, for the old enemy assails us once more. Rise up in wrath, rise up in fury, rise up and send the Roman horde screaming back across the sea!”

From below came an answering clamor as the Celtic warriors, released at last, swirled forward in a shrieking mob.
“Boud! Boud!”
they shouted. “Victory!”

The chariots sped toward the foe, seated drivers reining the nimble-footed ponies around obstacles, the warriors who stood behind them by some miracle maintaining their balance as they hefted their javelins. Closer they sped; they turned, Romans fell as javelins arced through the air.

But the heavy Roman pilum, though it had a shorter range, was just as deadly. As one chariot came too close Lhiannon saw a missile embed itself in the body of the cart. The weight of the shaft bent the long neck of the spear until it tangled in the wheels and in another moment the light frame was smashed. Spearman and driver leaped free as the ponies galloped wildly away, spreading panic among friend and foe.

On the hill a shiver that did not come from the wind stirred the leaves. The prickle that pebbled Lhiannon’s skin was not caused by cold. She did not know whether it was Ardanos’s invocation or the Celtic war cries that had awakened them, but the spirits were here.

With doubled vision she saw the struggling masses of the living on the field below and their ghostly counterparts above, locked in mortal combat as they had been almost a century before. Beyond them, she glimpsed other figures, so huge that she could only catch glimpses of a plumed helm or a spear that struck like lightning, a cloak of raven wings whose wearer fought someone with the head of an eagle that tore with wicked beak at his foe.

She felt her throat open in a cry, doubled, quadrupled as the others joined her in a screech of fury that resounded through both worlds. It was not the scream of the Morrigan, but it was enough to make the first rank of legionaries waver. For a moment the Druids savored triumph, then the Roman trumpets blared once more, and the enemy surged forward with renewed energy.

Lhiannon’s fists clenched with fury. If only she could be out there, striking the foe! From the tree above her a raven called, but what Lhian-non heard were words:
“You can, you can, fly free on my wings, fly free …”

Vision blurred; dizzied, she swayed. She heard someone swear as she fell, but that made no sense—she was rising, abandoning the weak flesh to soar above the battlefield.

In a moment she sensed another raven flying with her and in that part of her mind that still possessed memory recognized Belina. But her focus was on the men who struggled below, the flash of swords and the splash of blood as flesh met steel. Where she swooped low, screaming, men faltered and fell, but there were always more. Consciousness whirled away on a red tide.

he ground was shaking, each jolt a hammer that stabbed through her skull. Lhiannon whimpered and felt a strong arm lifting her, water touched her lips and she swallowed, then swallowed again. The pain eased a little and she struggled to see. Now it was the trees that were moving. She closed her eyes once more.

“Lhiannon—can you hear me?”

That was Ardanos’s voice. No one was screaming. Instead she heard the creak of wood and the clop of hooves. Slowly it came to her that she was in a wagon, lurching along a rutted road somewhere that was not a battlefield.

“Ardanos …” she whispered. Her reaching fingers found his hand.

“Thank the gods!” The pain as he squeezed her fingers was a distraction from the ache in her head.

“Roman sandals …” she said, “are marching through my skull …”

“No surprise there,” he growled. “They’ve chased us the length of the Cantiaci lands.”

“We lost.” It was not a question.

“We’re still alive,” Ardanos answered with an attempt at cheer.

“Everything considered, I count that a victory. But we left half our warriors on the field. They fought bravely, but the Romans had the numbers … and the discipline,” he added bitterly. “We are in retreat. We would not have gotten even this far if their general Plautus had not stopped to loot and burn Durovernon and put up some kind of fortification there. Caratac lost half his army, but more have joined us since then. He means to make a stand beyond the Medu River. Please the gods, we’re almost there, and thanks be that you are awake. I wasn’t looking forward to carrying you across the river slung over my shoulder like a sack of meal.”

“How long have I been unconscious?”

“You have lain there moaning for three eternal days! Damn it, woman, what possessed you to fly off like that? I was afraid …” Ardanos swallowed, and added so softly she could hardly hear him. “I didn’t know if you were going to come back to me …”

Lhiannon managed to get her eyes open and felt her heart lurch at what she saw in his. In the next moment he looked away, but she felt a warmth within that went far to ease her pain.

“Possessed … yes. I was a raven … I hated them so much—it was the only thing I could do.”

“Well, don’t do it again,” he growled. “I’m sure you scared the wits out of some of the enemy, but against such numbers?” He shook his head. “You can do more good in your right mind.”

“I will try not to,” she agreed. “I don’t think I like ravens much anymore.”

Ardanos sighed and cradled her more comfortably against his chest. “The ravens are the real victors. They don’t care on whose flesh they feed.”

ull back! The Batavians have crossed the river—pull back!”

Above the general clamor Lhiannon could scarcely hear the cry. She stared at the broad gray flow of the Tamesa, trying to see.

“Damn them! Not again!” Cunitor swore.

Two weeks before, the Romans’ Batavian auxiliaries—men from the delta of the Rhenus who were as water-wise as frogs—had forded the Medu, taking Caratac by surprise. They could only hope that the Durotriges and Belgae under Tancoric and Maglorios had fared better against the force the Romans had landed in Veric’s lands.

But the Medu had been a small river. The Tamesa was as wide as a pastureland, a slowly winding pewter ribbon beneath a sky of gray. No one had thought the Batavians could swim so far. It was like one of those nightmares that repeat without end.

“Get the supplies back into the wagon!” snapped Ardanos. “They will be bringing the wounded to the rear, wherever that may be!”

The strategy that had failed Caratac on the Medu ought to have worked for him and Togodumnos at the Tamesa. To cross the river the Romans must use great slow rafts and barges, easy to attack as they wallowed toward the shore. As Lhiannon grabbed the piles of bandages they had laid ready she could see the barges beginning to put out now, shrunk by distance to the size of trenchers, glittering with armed men.

But the combined force of Trinovantes and Catuvellauni and the surviving Cantiaci could not attack them if their flank had already been turned by the Germans, fierce fighters whose tribes were close cousins to the Belgae. Though that should have been no surprise—these days native Italians were a minority in the Roman army. Most of the men on those boats were the children of conquered peoples. If the Britons were defeated, one day their own children might wear that hated uniform.

Lhiannon threw the sack of bandages into the wagon and scooped the pots of salves into another, glad that they had at least persuaded Bendeigid to stay back with the supplies. Around her the tribes and clans were becoming a great confused mass as they tried to regroup to face the foe. The first of the Roman barges was coming into range. Arrows thrummed overhead, shot by the archers Togodumnos had placed where the ground began to rise. A legionary toppled over the side of one of the barges and was pulled under by the weight of his armor. His red shield, painted in gold with paired wings to either side of the boss and wavy arrows extending up and down, bobbed downstream.

The pony’s ears flicked nervously as the tumult grew louder. Belina grabbed the halter and got the animal moving, murmuring in some language horses knew. Grabbing the last bag, Lhiannon hurried after.

The clamor swelled to a roar as the Batavians plowed into their flank. The slingers had time for one volley, the fire-hardened clay pellets snicking past like maddened bees, before friend and foe melded into a confused mass. To watch a battle from above had been a horror; to be in the midst of it was a terror that only a lifetime of mental discipline enabled her to endure.

The faces of the men who ran past her were set in a rictus of rage. Lhiannon could feel the Lady of Ravens taking shape above the battlefield, summoned by the fury that beat like black wings in her own soul. But her promise to Ardanos kept it at bay. Armoring her spirit, she grabbed for the side of the wagon and clung as it lumbered up the hill.

To the west, the southern Dobunni were locked in the struggle with the Batavians. Their northern clans should have been fighting beside them, but King Bodovoc had turned traitor, allying himself to the Romans before the battle at the Medu. Now the first barges were sliding up the slick mud at the river’s edge. A volley of pilums pierced Celtic flesh and stuck in shields, buying space for the first rank of Romans to leap to the shore, where they locked their own shields to form a line behind which their fellows could disembark.

More boats drew in behind them, disgorging ever more legionaries to strengthen that line of steel. Moment by moment it extended and thickened, pushing forward like a moving rampart against which the long spears and slashing blades of the tribesmen beat in vain. But a more orderly movement was emerging on the hill as the distinctive growling blare of the king’s trumpeters rallied his houseguard.