Sword at Sunset (21 page)

I turned to look at Bedwyr beside me, remembering what had passed between us a few nights ago. ‘No, Bedwyr, I do not love the Saxons.’

Our little dark guide, who in the first moments had seemed more frozen than any of us, made the first move. He began to go from one to another of the bodies. He checked beside that of an oldish
man with amber pins in his hair, who had been run through the belly, and stooping, drew the long slender knife from his belt.

I said quickly, ‘Irach, what are you going to do?’

And he looked up at me with the air of someone explaining a tiling, simply, to a child, his knife point already at the still breast. ‘I do the thing that must be done. I eat my
father’s courage, that it may not be lost.’

‘Your father? Then this place—’

‘This was my home, and my people,’ he said, and cut deeply and gently into the breast over the heart.

I looked away. My mouth was dry and my stomach crawled within me. I heard him say crooningly, ‘It is warm – it is still a little warm; that is good, my father,’ and was aware
of a dark shadow that flitted away into the heather, with something in his hands.

No one moved for a long moment. Then someone said, ‘My God! The little savage!’ and somebody else made the Sign of the Horns quickly, to avert evil, for it was not wise to speak so
of the Dark People in their own place. I swung around on my armor-bearer and bade him go and bring up some of the others. He was greenish white, and in the act of hurrying to do my bidding,
crouched suddenly and vomited, then went on again.

By the time he returned with the others, we had begun to topple the poor mutilated bodies into the smoke-hazed pits that had been their homes. I laid the sheep dog myself at his old
master’s feet, for the sake of Cabal, whom I would lief have had in like case to lie at mine. We piled over them everything that was loose or movable; charred beams, half-burned thatch, even
the peats from the stack; anything that might serve to keep off the wolves and the scavenging mountain hare. Irach’s father we left until the last, and he was still unburied when the little
hunter came back and set to work quietly beside us. Some of the Companions drew away from him in a kind of horror, and here and there men echoed the Sign of the Horns. But he had only done as the
custom of his people demanded, and the act had been performed in love. When the last body had been covered over, he drew the mourning lines on his cheeks and forehead with spittle and gray ash, and
scratched his breast and arms with the point of his dagger until they bled, and then turned to us with a great and gentle pride, like a host on his threshold. ‘It is in my heart that the
Saxon Wolves will have left little behind, but all and anything that remains here is yours, and you are most welcome.’

But indeed the stouter-stomached among us had already begun hunting through the ruins in search of anything the Saxons had overlooked. There were few of us, I think, who would have cared to rout
through a village of the Little Dark People in the ordinary way; but it was as though the Saxons had laid all open to the sky and the wind, and left behind nothing but the piteous wreck of human
life; and maybe those of us who hunted through the ruins of Irach’s village that day lost forever the sharpest edge of the fear that the people of the sunshine must always feel for the people
of the dark.

The few beer pots were empty, and the grain pits had been emptied of the little barley that would have been left in them at this time of year, all save one that they must have overlooked in
their desperate haste. The grain inside it was poor wizened stuff, but better than nothing. We scooped it into the grainskins across the backs of the pack ponies; the men and women who had grown
and harvested it would not be hungry for its lack, and it would help us to avenge them. We cut more meat from the carcasses of the cattle on which the flies were already beginning to settle as the
smoke grew thinner. Then there was no more to do. Myself, I cut the three branches of hawthorn and laid them across where the gateway had been, and sprinkled them with salt and a little of the wine
that we carried with us for the cleansing of wounds.

Then we came away, some with a great silence upon us, some cursing, some harshly merry; and left the place under its haze of still faintly rising smoke. Our guide, with the death cuts on his
arms and breast still bleeding, rode beside me on his shaggy pony; and as he rode, he made a little dark moaning mouth-music that sounded as though it had been wandering like a homeless wind before
ever the hills first reared toward the stars, and made the hair creep on the back of my neck.

Next day, through the gap between two tawny breasts of the hills, we caught our first glimpse of the wide blue lands that ran to Eburacum. And so at last we struggled down out of the mountains
that were the roof ridge of Britain, into lowland country again. Our pace was slowing by that time. We knew it, and pushed on without mercy for ourselves or the horses. If we could fling ourselves
between Eburacum and the Saxon remnant, if we could even come at them before they had had time to complete their defense, it would mean one sharp and bloody battle, and an end; once they were
secure behind walls, there must follow all the long-drawn heart-rotting business of a siege; and with the North already smoldering ready to flare into flame at any moment, we could not, God knew
that we could not, spare the time for a siege.

But as we left the highlands and came down into the dale country that lay green with woods under the gray and russet of the fells, a thing began to happen that acted on us like a draught of rye
spirit on a man far spent. Out of nowhere, as it seemed, out of the hidden villages and the dark dale forests, men began to gather to the Red Dragon. The Brigantes had always been a wild proud lot;
they had never fallen fully into Roman ways, but the Saxon yoke, it seemed, was still more unendurable; and as news of our march swept through the heather, so they came, one or two well-to-do
landowners whose farms so far had escaped the Sea Wolves, each carrying Roman weapons in good condition and with a small band of household and farm servants behind them; escaped thralls scarred
with their shackles, warriors still free, with the woad-stained war shields that their tribe had carried against the Legions in the far-off days. They joined us on the march and fell in, loping
among our foot, or on their fiery little ponies; during the brief night halts they came to our campfire, proud as stags and with the light of battle already in their eyes, saying simply and
directly as men speak in the wild places, ‘My Lord Artos, I am Guern, or Talore, or Cunofarinus son of Rathmail. I come with you in this thing.’

Toward evening of the last day’s march but one, we came upon a small burned-out farm with the fire still glowing dully under the charred thatch and gray ash, and everywhere about the
place, the traces of a great company having been there. Irach ran about sniffing houndwise into all things, then came back to me, rubbing his hands on his wolfskin kilt. ‘Not half a day since
they passed this way. Here they gathered themselves into one host again. Let my Lord the Bear make haste.’

I called up Bedwyr and Cei, and told them. ‘We shall push on with all speed while the daylight lasts; after dark we halt for an hour to eat and water the horses and let them roll. Then we
shall push on again through the night, and we shall leave the foot to follow as swiftly as they may. The last lap of the race grows hot, my heroes!’

And so, save for that one break, we pushed forward through the darkness without halt, pressing the weary horses on across the softly rolling countryside, following again the metaled road; and
next noon, almost within sight of Eburacum, we came up with the Saxon rear guard.

chapter eleven

I
T WAS A RAGGED AND RUNNING FIGHT; A FIGHT THAT SPLIT
and reformed and scattered away across the green levels among the sallows and the hazel thickets
in a score of lesser fights, and bunched together again, drawing always back toward the gray walls of Eburacum that I began to see in the nearing distance. Slowly, slowly the gate towers rose
higher and more formidable while the shadows lengthened from struggling men and white curled hawthorn scrub. I had hoped almost until then to thrust in between the Saxons and their stronghold and
throw them back; but far spent as my men and horses were, and lacking all knowledge of how many of the Sea Wolves had been left to garrison the old legionary fortress, I dared not hazard them in
such a position now. Instead, I took the alternative risk, charging forward to drive in amongst the enemy so close that there would be no space in which to secure the gates against us. We drove
them as dogs drive sheep – not that there was much of the sheep about these men; they were valiant fighters, and fell back before our rushes steadily and with no sign of rout. Indeed they
were steadier now than at any moment since they broke on the Deva road; shields up and swords biting, leaving their dead to lie in the track of the retreat without a glance.

There were only two or three hundred left when they gained the gate, and we crashed after them so close that the triumphant forefront Companions were already mingled with Octa’s house
carls, and the Red Dragon of Britain and the white horsetail standards of the Saxons flying almost as one. I could hear already above the yelling of my own lads, the bridge timbers ringing hollow
under Arian’s hooves; I could see the folk within, women and old men and boys beside the warriors of the garrison, poised to draw their fellows in and hold the gate – and drive it to
against us when the last Saxon was inside. And if they succeeded in that, it meant death to our own forefront, who would also be inside, cut off from all help of their comrades.

I had chosen to take the hideous gamble, but now as I saw the dark jaws of the gateway and the enemy swarms about it, I knew for an instant the sick helplessness of the hunter who sees his
hounds running over a cliff. Too late to draw back now, too late to do anything but set our teeth and drive forward, sweep the Saxons away and keep the gates open by the thrust of our own
charge ...

I raised the war cry: ‘Yr Widdfa! Yr Widdfa!’ and settled lower into the saddle, and drove my heel again and again into Arian’s sweating flank, flinging him forward among the
enemy spears. ‘Keep close! For God’s sake keep close! Keep the gates back!’ Beside me, Prosper was sounding the charge, and behind me the Companions sprang forward. But already as
the defenders leapt to the aid of their reeling comrades, others had flung themselves yelling at the huge bronze-sheathed timbers of the gate ...

We were in the shadow of the gate arch. A flung spear took Irach’s pony in the breast, and the poor brute went down headlong, shrieking as it fell, while Irach himself leapt clear. The
horse behind it swung aside, snorting in terror, and for an instant our whole forefront was checked and flung into confusion. The check lasted only for the shortest breath, for a racing heartbeat
of time, but it would have been enough ... And then in that last black moment of our charge when everything seemed lost, the marvel happened – so swiftly that in the instant of its beginning it
was in full fierce flood. Sudden chaos roared up among the defenders, wild figures were springing in from the rear, from the flanks, dropping out of nowhere as it seemed, into the midst of those
who sought to close the gates; men, and women too, gaunt and savage, their tatters flying, thrall rings about their necks, with poles and matchets and butchers’ cleavers in their hands. They
flung themselves against the valves of the gates to keep them open. All hell had broken loose and was swirling about me in the dark cavern of the gate arch; the shouting and screaming rose and
gathered into a solid whirlpool of sound and was sucked up and lost in great hoarse triumphant cheering that might have been the cheering of damned souls. Again I heard myself raise the war cry:
‘Yr Widdfa!
Yr Widdfa!
’ It was caught up into a rolling roar behind me, and as it were upon a great wave of that cheering, we were crashing through upon that valiant rear guard,
riding them down and sweeping them away as a sudden spate sweeps away all things in its path, while behind us the strong gate still strained and shuddered to and fro. Irach was running like a hound
at my stirrup. We were crashing through the dark tunnel of the gate arch, deaf with the hollow thunder of our horses’ hooves under the groined roof, through a reeling, howling, wild-eyed mob
that was fighting itself now rather than us; and beyond the struggling Saxon rear guard, the straight main street of Eburacum opened, empty of life, before us.

On that moment, even above the dazing roar of battle, I heard the high, wolfish, blood-stirring howl of the Dark People’s war cry, and Irach streaked forward, running with his dagger at
the seething mass of warriors. He can have had no thought of breaking through, he was following again the custom of his own people who believe that victory must be bought with deliberate and
willing sacrifice. And in that belief he flung himself upon the enemy spears. Truly the little man had eaten his father’s courage – or maybe he had enough of his own.

‘Come on, lads!’ I shouted. ‘To me! Follow Irach! Follow me! Follow me home!’ And the hunting horn took up the call; ahead of me, with his few remaining house carls about
him, I saw the giant figure of Octa Hengestson, his golden hair matted with blood from a scalp wound, and the chain mail of his breast and shoulders stained brown with it, as though with rust. He
had lost his shield, or cast it aside. I urged Arian toward him, and with a high defiant yell he leapt to meet me; and as he swung up his sword I saw for an instant his eyes that seemed to burn
with a gray-green flame. I took him with the sword point in the strong curve of the throat above the golden collar. Blood spurted out, and I saw his eyes widen as though in surprise; and he crashed
backward among his house carls without a sound.

After that, the heart went from them, and they began to give way more quickly.

Someone had fired the thatch of a Saxon hovel and before the fresh evening wind the flames were spreading as wisps of blazing straw drifted from one roof to another; smoke began to hang over the
broad street that was narrowed now by garbage piles spread half across it; the high white basilica that stood like a cliff above the huddled rook’s-nest bothies of the Barbarians was dimmed
in drifting smoke, and the acrid smitch of it caught at our throats. Men with unlikely weapons in their hands and thrall rings about their necks were running beside me, all among the horses of the
Companions ... And then the Sea Wolves broke and streamed back, and the thing was no longer a battle but a hunt.