The Druid King (43 page)

“You would have been a worthy successor were it not my destiny to be the last Arch Druid,” Guttuatr tells him.

“The last Arch Druid?”

“I too have stood at the Tree of Knowledge and seen the story of my life from beginning to end. If not with perfect clarity. Until now.”

“And what have you seen?”

“Myself in this Arch Druid’s robe,” says Guttuatr. “And then just the robe marching on into the Land of Legend. With no one inside it.”

The moving shapes in the forest have come forward so that Vercingetorix can see that they are druids, past and present, as numerous as the trees.

“The Great Wheel turns,” says Guttuatr, and the druids of the forest begin to fade, their myriad faces becoming smoke, becoming fog that blows away with the passing breeze, until nothing remains but their robes. “And so the druids that were must depart to make way for the druid that must be.”

And then Guttuatr too begins to dissolve within his robe, into the night, into the air, becoming one with the mists of time.

“The druid that must be?” whispers Vercingetorix.

“You, upon whose brow I will place the Crown of Brenn when we meet again in the Land of Legend,” says Guttuatr.

He takes a step into the forest; he turns and looks back one last time. “The first and the last. The one and the only.” And he hands to Vercingetorix the staff of his office.

And then nothing remains but his final words and Vercingetorix holding a scepter crowned with a fallen star.

“The Druid King.”

XIX

A FOREST CLIMBS the gentle southern slope of a high ridge, fringing the crestline like the beard stubble of a giant. Below the crestline, the northern slope is a steep and rocky cliff tumbling to a broad grassy valley far below.

The Arch Druid Guttuatr stands just within the cover of the trees edging the forest, invisible from the valley floor, viewing the world of strife from just beyond it. To either side of him are Nividio, Salgax, Gwyndo, and Polgar, and behind them, a multitude of druids stretching back into the shadowy groves of the forest, into the mists of the Land of Legend.

Across the valley is another ridge. This one, adorned with scattered copses of trees, rises much more gently. To the north beyond it, a series of hills and valleys roll like the waves of a wind-whipped sea toward a horizon where black thunderheads are beginning to build.

A huge Roman army advances through the valley from the east, filling it with armored and helmeted men marching in square formations. The shadows of fast-moving clouds and the sunny gaps between them alternately deepen the hue of their helmets and armor and flash brilliant highlights from them, a disorderly natural pattern moving from north to south across the unnaturally perfect pattern of marching infantry squares. The only horsemen to be seen are a few officers accompanied by standard-bearers and small personal-guard units and trumpeters.

Most conspicuous among them and riding just behind the first rank of squares is the only man in the entire army wearing a bright crimson cloak.

“And so it begins,” says Guttuatr.

“And so it ends,” says the druid Nividio.

Vercingetorix had led his army out of Bibracte with Rhia bearing his bear standard at his right hand as always. But this was only the standard of the Arverni, not of Gaul. The only standard that Gaul entire might have was the scepter of the Arch Druid, which Guttuatr had passed into his hands. So this standard he had held aloft himself before the army of Gaul as it rode forth under its plethora of tribal emblems.

But now he lashed the staff crowned with the fallen star to his saddle and drew his sword, for, seeing the distant glints of sunlight off the shields and armor of the Romans marching toward him, he knew that the battle was about to begin.

And while the black clouds building toward the north seemed like an ill omen in the mind of the man of knowledge, the man of action found himself welcoming the impending decisive clash of arms.

Whether Caesar was offering this open battle and he was accepting, or the reverse, mattered not, for at long last the feints and strategies had finally come down to two great armies settling matters by simple force of arms.

His glad Gallic heart told Vercingetorix that this was as it should be. Here he was, riding in the front and center of a great wave of happy warriors, with Rhia at his right hand and Litivak at his left.

And now, amidst the metallic glimmerings of the front ranks of the Roman infantry, he could make out a bright crimson patch that must be the cloak of Caesar, and he felt a certain kinship with his enemy. Were they not brothers of the sword in this moment? Two opposing generals acknowledging the brotherhood that only they could share, by offering and accepting honorable and open battle.

As if Caesar were hearing his thoughts, a passing sunbeam at the other end of the valley flashed off a sword upraised as if in salute, a trumpet sounded, and as one man, the entire Roman army changed gait and broke into a trot toward him, a daunting yet also thrilling spectacle.

Vercingetorix raised his own sword, as much in salute as in signal, and brought his horse up into a full gallop. The carnaxes sounded, and, shouting battle cries, waving swords, lances, axes, laughing, screaming, grinning, the army of Gaul rode joyfully forward to meet its destiny.

Though he believed he had lied when he had promised to lead them into the jaws of death with a battle song in his heart, now that the time had come he found, to his own joy, that it had become true. There that song was, in the pounding of thousands of hooves, the pounding of his blood, in the cries and screams and yells of his comrades, even in the tramping of Roman feet now close enough to hear.

“For Gaul!”
he screamed, waving his sword in celebration of the pure, simple pleasure of it.

“Gaul! Gaul! Gaul!”
he cried in blissful abandon.

From the vantage of Guttuatr and the druids, all that can be seen is the distant and motionless rear of the Roman army and a cloud of dust arising in the west.

But the far-off ringing of metal on metal, the screams of horses and men in pain, the thumping of feet and hooves, the battle cries and grunts of anguish, the grim chorus of the world of strife, comes echoing back toward them like the surging of a distant sea.

Javelins slip past shields. Swords gash necks, slice arms from shoulders, rip out guts, open spurting arteries, reveal glistening bone. Axes cleave through helmets to crack open skulls. Horses rear and throw their riders, trample legionnaires, trample fallen Gauls, trample fallen horses. There is a grace to it that stills the thought that slows the mind, setting Vercingetorix beyond fear or remorse, making everything he does— slash a face, ward away a javelin with his shield, rear his horse to bring a Roman down—seem as if it is happening so slowly that he stands aside watching it flow through him.

At last Vercingetorix hears a shout over the battle din:
“They’re
retreating!”
As he presses his horse forward, he sees that, yes, the line of Roman shields and spears is marching backward, slowly, grudgingly, behind a rain of javelins, fighting doggedly for every bit of ground, but being forced back eastward by his army’s assault.

Now the druids can clearly see the Roman army, and it is moving east, back down the valley toward them, the rear echelons marching away from the fray at a measured pace, their backs to the battle.

“Look, Guttuatr, our warriors are pushing them back!” exclaims Salgax.

“We’re breaking the army of Rome!” Gwyndo cries with undruidly relish.

“So it would seem,” the Arch Druid says dispassionately. And that does more to quell the martial enthusiasm than any word of reproach might.

From within the body of the retreating Roman army, Vercingetorix hears the mournful blare of a horn like the lowing of a mortally wounded ox. It is answered by more of the same, as if an entire herd of oxen has come to understand that it is being driven to slaughter.

It is a terrible sound, and it seems to strike terror into the hearts of the Romans, as a wave of motion spreads from the unseen rear of their army to the front. The Gauls greet it with an enormous cheer that reverberates through the valley, and together they become the purest note of the sweetest music he has ever heard—the sound of victory.

The line of Romans before him is staggering back as fast as it can, burdened by shields, armor, and spears—trotting, almost running, backward like a panicked porcupine attempting to cover its retreat behind a palisade of steel quills.

“Gaul! Gaul! Gaul!”
Vercingetorix screams in ecstasy, and, heedless of all else—the flying javelins, the bristling swords, the cries of pain—he raises his sword high above his head, rears his horse, and plunges deeper into the maelstrom, into the midst of the crumbling Roman army, with no need to look back to know that his victorious warriors in their tens of thousands ride triumphantly into the Land of Legend behind him.

“Gaul is free!” exclaims Salgax.

“Rome is defeated!” cries Gwyndo.

“So it would seem,” says the Arch Druid Guttuatr, and there is hope in his voice as he utters those four words.

In the valley below, the Roman army is streaming past them in full retreat, rank after rank, square after square of Roman infantry with their backs to their enemies, with their backs to the warriors of Gaul.

Running away.

Now the former front line of the Roman army, become a desperate rearguard, is coming into view as it battles the onrushing Gauls while trying to retreat backward. Between the backward-marching rearguard and the routed main body of the Roman forces there rides a single man, following his retreating men at an eerily serene canter, a bright crimson cloak trailing like a jauntily inappropriate banner behind him.

“Caesar,” says Gwyndo, as if that were necessary.

As he passes directly beneath the druids, he pauses and seems to gaze right up at them.

“Does he see us?”

“How can he?”

But it seems that he does, for, far below, Caesar raises his sword aloft as if in salute.

“He’s saluting us!”

“Why would Caesar ever do that?”

“He would not,” answers the Arch Druid.

The distant figure in the crimson cloak brings down his sword. Five high-pitched trumpet notes sound as he rides past them, and then five more as the Roman rearguard passes.

And then there is a rumble of thunder, though the black clouds that have been approaching are still not overhead and there has been no lightning.

The thunder does not ebb, but becomes a continuous rolling, pounding rumble, growing louder and louder.

An enormous wave of horsemen breaks over the opposite ridge at a thunderous gallop, a front at least half as wide as the army of Gauls, and pours down the descending slope into the valley.

The Teutons are a fearsome sight.

Most wear helmets adorned with the horns of cattle or the antlers of deer, some with brass eagle-wings, a few with human ribs or femurs. Many of their leather shields are embellished with human skulls, whole or in pieces. They wield spears, swords, axes, lances, javelins. Most have long, unkempt hair, though some have greased it into extravagant crests with fat. Some wear earrings, some are crudely tattooed, some both. Perhaps the fourth part of the Teuton horses bear two riders, the one behind armed with a long spear or an equally long trident.

They scream as they reach the Gauls on the valley floor and tear into their flank, bowling over horses, smashing skulls, piercing bellies, slicing throats.
They scream and howl, and many of them have achieved such a perfect battle rage that their mouths slobber as they howl, much of the foaming drool pinkened with the blood of their unheedingly bitten tongues and lips.

Vercingetorix fought now for simple survival. This was no graceful dance. There were only Teutons, and the world was full of them.

The shock of their sudden charge had immediately shattered his army into hundreds of small groups. There were no lines, and this was no true battle but thousands upon thousands of individual combats, each of which could last only seconds in such a melee of horsemen packed so closely together.

A blood-spewing Teuton stinking of rancid fat came at him with a spear whose point grazed his arm. Vercingetorix leaned over in his saddle to duck beneath it, and brought up the point of his sword into the Teuton’s throat as something heavy thumped hard up against his back. As he righted himself, he saw three Teutons surrounding Rhia and struck one across the back of the neck with the edge of his sword as Rhia slipped the point of hers through a leather jerkin and into the belly of another.

What happened to the third, he didn’t see, for there was a howl and a stench behind him, and he turned just in time to block an ax blow with his shield, sending a wave of pain down his left arm, as he reared his horse high enough to be able to kick its wielder, then stab him in his exposed throat as he screamed in agony.

It was impossible for Caesar to see what was happening from his limited vantage point east of the battle, but he could well imagine the bloody carnage as he gave the order for his army to halt, turn, hold position, and prepare to advance west.

The Teutons had always been a fractious lot, and even more so since he had driven them out of Gaul. The best he had been able to do was hire about fifteen thousand of them by agreeing to pay an uncouth mercenary chieftain named Ragar half of far too much on delivery and let him do the hiring. This had meant that the Gauls had outnumbered his Teuton “cavalry,” and in a straightforward battle probably would have held the advantage. But the sudden and unexpected mass attack on their flank would have taken care of that, and now the Teutons were probably slaughtering them.

Of course, the Gauls were no doubt slaughtering their fair share of Teutons too, and in the best outcome, they would all do a decent job of slaughtering each other, leaving his legions to mop up the surviving Gauls easily and persuade the surviving Teutons that the other side of the Rhine would be an ever so much more congenial place to count their money and lick their wounds.

High above the battle, the druids observe in still silence, only their ashen faces within the cowls of their robes betraying their dismay. Below, in the world of strife, the distant figures of Gauls and Teutons suffer, kill, die, but from here they are like two armies of ants, intermingled and indistinguishable from each other, the thousands of individual struggles lost in the seething maelstrom.

“Who is winning?” says Salgax, breaking the silence.

“Winning?” says Nividio. “Down there? The usual victors, of course—the crows and the buzzards, the rats and the worms.”

“Were we wrong to have meddled in the world of strife?” mutters Salgax.

“So it would seem,” says Guttuatr, and he sighs. “We raised up a boy to be a druid, but destiny called him to be a king.”

“A druid king . . .”

Blood ran down his arm as he smashed his shield into the face of a Teuton, breaking his nose with a sickening crunch. Vercingetorix reared his horse to escape the thrust of a spear, wheeled around as a Teuton with a lance in his back charged clumsily by, looked up to swat away a javelin with his sword, and by chance saw—

By chance?

Saw?

Did he really see the white robe of a druid at the margin of the forest atop the far ridgeline?

A robe that might even be empty.

Waiting to be filled.

And if this is a sign, it is meant for him. And if it is not, he will make it so.Vercingetorix sheathes his sword and unties the Arch Druid’s staff, entrusted to him, from his saddle.