Shadowland (7 page)

It wasn’t long before the Picts around the fire were
calling out to their missing friend, his absence finally noticed. The calls
quickly went from laughing taunts to cries of concern and as two warriors stood
up to investigate, Meryn bent to whisper,
‘Good
luck, my young friend, the game is about to commence.’ He then crept
soundlessly away to intercept
them. Now alone, Usher watched and waited for the scene to unfold as
the wind whistled through the branches above him and another shiver travelled
the length of his spine.

It had taken Cal
some time to work out how best to get the warriors angry enough to follow him.
He had skirted the path on either side, gathering moss and wet leaves until he
had a good armful, and then crept as close as he could to the camp. With a
silent prayer to the spirits of the forest, he ran towards the fire and,
dashing between two lounging Picts, dumped the soggy mass into the flames,
plunging the campsite into near darkness. He took a mighty leap, cleared a
sleeping warrior, and began hollering and screaming as he ran before stopping
at the edge of the path. Being drunk, the Picts were slow in reacting, but a
few well-aimed rocks brought four of them up on their feet, and they lurched
after him while two others spluttered and cursed as they tried to pull the moss
from the now heavily smoking fire.

Cal
set off, running as fast as
he could, with the moon making brief appearances from its cloak of clouds.
Behind him, he could hear the Picts shouting their challenges already close on
his heels. His heart was hammering as if it were trying to burst from his chest
and he had the insane wish to laugh out loud, which he did, hooting and calling
to urge the angry warriors on.

The first branch marker showed up briefly upon the
moonlit path, and then the clouds shrouded it in darkness once again. Judging
where it was, he took the biggest jump he could and prayed he would clear the
trip-line. He landed, and then ran on, thanking the spirits for providing the
cover of darkness. He was at the second trip-line when he heard the shouts and
curses of the Picts falling heavily over the first.

He gave a loud laugh and screamed out. ‘Come on, you
smelly blue donkeys, try and catch me!’ Their answer came to him as a renewed
chorus of angry yells and, using this noise to disguise his own flight, Cal made his way off the
path into the trees and doubled back towards the camp.

When Cal
came dashing into the camp to dump leaves on the fire, Usher let the arrow fly.
It was something he hadn’t wanted to think about too much beforehand, but when
he needed the shot, his instincts took over. The bow came up, the startled face
of the Pict warrior appeared along the arrow, and he let go. Time seemed to
slow down as he watched the arrow travel the short distance, spinning in the
air. He saw it connect with the Pict’s temple with a hollow
thunk,
collapsing him to the floor.

Part of Usher fell with him. He wanted to continue
standing in the shadows, staring at the fallen man surrounded by crying
youngsters, now up and screaming in fear and confusion. However, there was
another part of his mind that took over, stirring him into action, forcing him
out of the trees towards the now hysterical children. He deliberately didn’t
look at the fallen Pict, but concentrated on searching the grubby familiar
faces for Clarise.

Finding her at last, he held his hand out towards
her. ‘Clarise, it’s me, Usher. Come on, we have to leave here. All of you… come
on!’ He grabbed Clarise by the hand and herded them all towards the gap in the
trees and the path that lay beyond. As they got there Meryn emerged, blood
soaking the sleeve of his tunic and dripping from his sword. His appearance
brought renewed screaming from the children.

‘It’s all right, he’s with us, just keep going!’ insisted
Usher. With Meryn’s help, he began shepherding the children into the forest and
away from the madness of the camp.

‘There are more of them… we didn’t get them all,’
hissed Meryn, as they hurried on,
scanning the shadows around them. ‘Four went after Cal, I killed three, and you killed one.’ He
grabbed Usher’s arm and spun him around in the darkness. ‘You did kill the one
guarding this lot, didn’t you?’

‘Yes!’ said Usher, maybe a little more roughly than
he should have. The moment would live with him for the rest of his life. The
drawn bow, the flight of the arrow, the look on the man’s face as he…
 

Falling to his knees, Usher emptied the contents of
his stomach and fought to bring himself under control. He didn’t need Meryn to
tell him this wasn’t the time so he pushed himself up onto unsteady legs and
ran on to catch the others.

Standing on either side of the four girls and two
young boys, they walked further away towards the edge of the forest. They were
quieter now, but were still sobbing enough to draw attention.

‘There are still two around here, someplace,’ said
Meryn nervously, ‘I don’t like it when we can’t see them. They have the element
of surprise and that’s not good.’ Without warning, the sound of someone or
something crashing through the trees came from their right and they dropped,
pulling the children down with them.

‘
Shh
,’ hissed Meryn. ‘Be
silent now or they’ll find us.’ The sobbing became quieter as the noise got
nearer. When the clouds parted, the moon shone down into the wood to reveal Cal standing in front of
them
gazing about with a look of fear and
panic on his face.

‘
Whaaa
!’ he shrieked as he
saw them and fell back into a bush.

‘
Shh
,’ cautioned Meryn.
‘They’re still here.’ Cal
nodded and clambered to his feet, then smiled as Clarise came running into his
arms. As the clouds once more cloaked their progress, Meryn led them through
the trees and
away, the sounds of the
Picts searching behind them fading into the night.

****

‘Weren’t
the bad men following you?’ Usher stopped his line of thought and looked down
at the boy sitting cross-legged on the floor with two of his friends. All three
had the rapt expression of complete belief in his story that he so often craved
when spinning a tale. He smiled.

‘Oh, they came after us. We had a good start, thanks
to Calvador here, but they weren’t happy and they wanted the children back.
What they wanted them for, we didn’t know at the time, but we knew it was for
some reason bad enough to burn villages to get them.’ He took the opportunity
to have a drink of ale and filled his pipe afresh.

‘I remember being scared of the Picts as they hunted
us, but I also remember being mighty scared of the one who hadn’t been there
that night, the rider… the man in black.’

‘Horsa,’ muttered Calvador, scowling into the fire.

‘Now, Cal,
don’t go spoiling my tale. Yes, it was Horsa. We learnt his name later, but he
wasn’t in the camp that night, thank the spirits, just the Picts, and now six
of them were hunting us. It was around dawn that we heard them coming… calling
out and shrieking they were, trying to scare us into running and giving
ourselves away.

Chapter Four – The sound of falling leaves

Meryn
spun towards Cal.
‘Keep the girls quiet, the Picts are getting close.’ The four girls cast tear-filled
eyes towards the old archer and stifled their sobs as Cal whispered quietly to them. The two boys
were also scared, but were trying their best to be brave and follow Cal’s example.

Meryn shook his head and sighed. ‘I’m going to try
and lead them in another direction, maybe pick a few off if we’re lucky.’ He
pulled Usher away a few steps, and then lowered his voice even further.
‘Listen, lad, we have to put some distance between those Picts and us. Hide
here for a while until you hear them going after me, then I’ll swing back and
join you later.’ His grip on Usher’s shoulders became tighter. ‘We’ve now
entered the tribal land of the Trinovante. Keep to this path and don’t leave
it. You’ll come to a settlement called Witney before sunset, rest there. Egan
Dale is the local reeve. You can trust him. He’s an old friend and the
Trinovante are fine people if you don’t mind their ways.’ Meryn looked up as a
long drawn-out call echoed through the still forest. Another cry answered it,
much closer than the first. ‘Stay low until they’re gone.’ With that, he was
away, darting through the undergrowth, already notching an arrow as he ran.

Usher glanced across at the tangle of bushes where Cal crouched with the
others. The children all looked scared and he offered a smile of encouragement
before creeping over to them.

‘Don’t worry; everything will be fine as long as we
can stay as quiet as mice. Meryn will lead them away and then we can get
moving.’
 
He glanced round as a sharp scream
of pain sounded close by; a moment later it was followed by the sound of a body
falling to the leafy forest floor. A low moan came from somewhere through the
bushes about twenty paces away. Usher glanced at the girls and held a finger to
his lips to make sure they remained silent, large eyes stared back at him. They
huddled together, shivering with fear. Cal
held his arms protectively around his sister, and then nodded for Usher to go
and see what was happening.

Moving with all the silence he had learnt from the
hunters of his village, Usher crept through the thick forest growth in the
direction of the sounds. It didn’t take long to find him. A Pict warrior, lying
eyes closed with his face wracked in pain. One of Meryn’s arrows protruded from
his chest and the Pict was clutching it, blood oozing between his fingers. From
the noises the man was making, Usher guessed he wasn’t going to live much
longer. That would leave only five, as long as others hadn’t joined them.

S
ounds of
approach broke the silence. Someone was pushing cautiously through the bushes,
each footstep a soft rustle in the dead leaves.
Usher shrank back, trying to lose himself in
the shadows beneath a large blackthorn bush.
He held his breath, not daring to move. The dying Pict’s eyes fluttered
open as he realised someone was coming. Usher
was surprised to see that, as one of the
other Picts came into view, the dying man appeared to be more fearful than
relieved. The reason soon became apparent. Instead of helping him in any way,
the newcomer ignored him and carefully scanned the area, then roughly pulled
off the fallen warrior’s pack and, without any ceremony or kindness, searched
him, paying no heed to the grunts of pain or words of appeal spat out in the
rough Pict tongue. Taking a knife and a few coins, the newcomer threw the pack
to the side, muttered something that Usher couldn’t understand, and then
swiftly severed the dying man’s throat with a sharp, violent cut. Without
another thought, he turned his back upon his fallen companion and began
studying the forest floor. Usher wanted to scream and run, but willed himself
to lie quiet and not breathe. He couldn’t take his eyes from the Pict.

Dark intense eyes stared out from a face that
glistened wet with patches of blue mud. Usher had heard tales of the Picts and
their blue-painted faces. Indeed, he knew that some of the tribes painted
designs on their skin with the same type of mud made from crushed woad plants,
but nobody did it in Usher’s village, and to be near this one was terrifying.
The smell of the man reached out towards Usher. It was stale and musky,
reminding him more of the smell of an animal, mixed together with something
altogether more acrid. Usher covered his nose. The Pict was squatting down no
more than five paces away. The warrior’s hair hung in thick greasy clumps, like
so many lamb’s tails hanging from his scalp, held back from his face by a band
of rough hide. A heavy
beard caked his
cheeks with the mud making his face appear twisted and misshapen, Usher
shuddered and forced back an overwhelming impulse to simply turn and flee.

Snorting
noisily, t
he
Pict continued to study the ground and then moved closer; following something
only he could see in the fallen leaves. Usher listened to his heart hammering
in his chest and offered up a silent prayer to the spirits of the woods.

A shout and then a scream from some way off made the
Pict look up, but he didn’t run, or turn away as Usher had prayed. Instead he
looked into Usher’s eyes and smiled.

****

Driven
by a stiff easterly wind, rain was falling in a constant misery from a thick
covering of cloud. Unseen in the early evening light, eight Saxon longboats,
each holding over sixty warriors, cautiously approached the coast of Britain.
The laboured rowing of the oars, dipping to each low beat of a drum, the sound
that had held them together, and brought them so far.

Their journey had taken many days of battling
through rough seas and bad weather without any luxury of shelter or rest.
Hugging the continental coastline, their passage had led them south from their
home, lured by tales of a rich land deserted by its Roman masters. An
invitation they could not resist.

Once far enough south, and at a point that they
judged was the narrowest divide, they had gathered their courage and turned
away from the security of the coast. The sight of land was gradually lost
behind them, and they ventured across an open, hostile sea, in search of the
fabled kingdom hidden behind curtains of cloud. Floating above deep water,
their superstitions and beliefs set fear in their hearts but gave strength to
their arms, for they faced far more than mere stormy weather. Every hardened
warrior amongst them had set out from land with the sure and certain knowledge
that below their small boat when they ventured into deep water, was an ocean filled
with giant sea creatures intent on devouring them, and that they sailed at the
mercy of angry gods given to unleashing their wrath at the slightest of whims.