The War at the Edge of the World (25 page)

Up the exposed slope, scrabbling for handholds as it steep­ened, he did not look back. He gained the ridge, and began to run. In the darkness he had no sense of direction, but he could see the smoke and the distant hearth fires of the fort up on the hilltop and kept them behind him. Further along the ridge he dropped down onto the far slope, running in bounding leaps between the tummocks and the thrusting thorn bushes. The ground levelled again and grew wet and soft beneath him, and he was running and stumbling across a boggy valley. Coarse grasses grabbed and swiped at his ankles, and he could see nothing in front of him, only the dim flank of the hills to his right. The wet ground sucked and hissed with every step.

Now he heard the dogs barking away down the valley, the cries of the hunters as they rode in pursuit. How long could a man on foot outrace trained hunting hounds and horsemen? He dared not look back, and flung himself onwards. Something tripped him and he fell face-first into damp earth and black water, but clawed his way up and ran again. He could feel the strength leaking from him like blood flowing from a wound.

He began to climb again, the ground drier and more solid underfoot. Above him, through the mist, he could see a rocky hillcrest lined with trees like the bristles on a hog’s back. Every drawn breath punched at his lungs, and he stared only at the ground immediately ahead of him, trying to force himself on, trying not to think about the beasts racing after him. The sword in his hand was soft iron, the blade blunted and bent where he had used it to pull himself up the slope. It was little more than a metal club now, but it was the only weapon he had. Grabbing at the brambles and thorn bushes, he dragged himself towards the rocks. The mist thinned here, and he could see the bulge of the land, the bare slopes of the moors. He came to a patch of level ground below a wall of exposed rock, black twisted trees hanging over the brink, and turned at bay.

There were two dogs after him, huge grey beasts galloping up the slope. A single rider he could see, some way behind them coming up out of the mist. Castus tried to straighten the blade of his sword against a rock; then he pulled off his leather cape and wrapped it tightly around his left arm.

The first dog was already bounding over the lip of the level ground. It was almost the size of a man, with powerful legs to spring and powerful jaws that could rip out a victim’s throat with one bite. Castus planted his back against the rock. The dog snarled and then crouched back to leap. Castus threw himself forward, feinting with his bound left arm, and as the animal sprang forward he dodged sideways and swung the sword. The flat of the blade smacked against the hound’s snout, breaking its jaw.

The second dog was already springing: Castus turned just in time and the heavy body struck his shoulder, claws gripping the leather cape that wrapped his arm. He shoved against it, keeping on his feet, and for a moment he heard the jaws crunch close to his neck, felt the rank rotten meat-breath filling his face; then he punched low and level with his sword. The dull blade grated against the animal’s hairy ribs, and he struck again and again as the claws mauled at his shoulder. Then he shoved again, knocking the animal back off him. A wheeling stroke with the sword, and he heard the snap of bone and the spatter of blood.

Already the horseman was surging up the last slope towards him, cloak swinging behind him, spear raised in his fist. Castus stamped down on the neck of the wounded hound, scrambled across the level and dropped down onto the stony slope below a thicket of thorn bushes. He heard the pony blowing hard as it cantered up onto the level, the harsh grunts of the rider urging it on. He raised his head a little and saw them standing above him, the rider bare-chested under his cloak, spike-haired, craning from the animal’s back and staring into the darkness. The pony shied as it scented the blood of the dogs, and the rider kicked at it and pulled the rope reins. Around the lip of the level ground they came, until they were almost directly above where Castus lay, only the thorny scrub between them.

Come on
, Castus prayed silently.
Don’t stop there. Don’t wait for the others
. Already he could hear the cries and whoops of other riders down in the valley, the bray of hunting horns. He shrugged his left hand free of the cape and closed his fingers around a fist-sized rock. The horseman above him had no horn, but turned and shouted, waving his arm. His voice was swallowed by the mist.

The pony moved forward again, hooves kicking loose stones down over the lip and through the twisted branches to where Castus lay. He waited, flat on his back, breath held tight in his chest, until the Pictish rider had moved across the level ground above him. Then he tossed the rock out into the darkness down the slope, and heard it thud and crackle through the scrub. At once the rider cried out and urged his mount forward, down over the lip of the level ground and past the thorn bush towards the dark slope where the rock had fallen.

With his head turned to his shoulder Castus could see the pony kicking down over the lip, its hooves almost close enough to reach out and touch. He stayed lying still until the animal had almost passed him. Then he rolled up off the ground with the sword in his hand. In one forward lunge he seized the rider’s hanging cloak and dragged him backwards, striking up with the blade of his sword. The rider only managed a single strangled gasp before he tumbled off the pony with the blunt tip of the blade jabbing hard into his kidney. He fell heavily, the cloak flipping over his head, and Castus slammed the sword down over the top of his skull and then flung the bent blade aside. The pony had carried on down the slope a short way, but it tried to rear back as Castus bounded out of the darkness. He paused to snatch up the leather cape and the fallen man’s spear, then he caught the pony’s bridle, dragged its head down and managed to vault up onto its back.

The rider was on his feet again, bleeding from the head, reeling on the slope. Castus pulled back on the reins, turning the pony and kicking at its flanks. As the rider staggered closer, blinded and yelling, he stabbed the man in the chest with his own spear and then booted him down.

‘
Yah
!’ he said through his teeth, screwing the pony’s head round and directing it at the crest of the ridge to his right. ‘
Yah! Come on!
’ He kicked his heels into the animal’s flank again, but the pony was terrified, backing and shying. He could hear the pursuing riders coming up the valley behind him, their cries gaining volume as the mist thinned. The pony had no saddle, and Castus felt himself sliding on the coarse blanket across its back. He pulled up his aching legs and slapped the pony’s flank with the shaft of the spear. Still it refused to advance – rather it was trying to turn on the slope and gallop back into the valley.
This
, Castus thought,
is why I was never a cavalryman
…

‘Have it your way then.’

He pulled the hood of the leather cape back over his head, swung the pony round and let out the reins. The animal leaped at once, and Castus locked his thighs tight around its flanks and leaned back as it plunged down the slope, hoping that in the gloom he could pass as a Pict. The mist rose around them, and he could see the forms of the other riders coming up from his right. He swung the spear flat, gesturing away to one side; then he kicked at the pony again and let it carry him on across the head of the valley.

The riders cried out in triumph, their dogs bounding along beside them as they cut left up the slope away from him. Hardly daring to believe that his deception had worked, Castus drew in the reins, turning the pony as gently as he could and urging it upwards away from the hunting pack. He kept his head down, hunching against the pony’s braided mane as the land rose again beneath him. Back on the far slope he could hear the shouts and yells of the hunters: they had found the butchered dogs, he guessed, and their speared comrade.

‘
Come on
,’ he was whispering, ‘
come on
,’ shunting against the pony’s spine, and this time the animal responded to his commands. They gained the ridge, dropped down the far side, and then the mist swept over them and the sounds of the hunt died suddenly into the silent dark.

All night he rode, across the bare hills and the boggy moors, splashing through streams and skirting tangled woodlands. The mist receded as he moved away from the estuary, and between the clouds he saw the moon just past full. At times, when he dismounted to rest his legs and let the pony drink water or crop at the tough spiky grass, he tried to work out the direction he was travelling. Southwards, roughly, he guessed. Now and then he thought he heard the sound of dogs, or the distant horns of the hunters, but he saw nobody. By the time the moon sank and the sky lightened to the east, the shore of a vast body of water lay ahead of him, the far side still lost in night. He secured the pony to a low tree, lay in the grass at the waterside and slept.

Bright sunlight woke him, and he opened his eyes to a clear blue sky. It was soon after dawn, and the lake was ice blue to the black mountains on the far shore. Castus dragged himself to his feet. He felt skinned all over, his bones bruised, his shoulder aching with the welts where the dog had clawed him. Stumbling across the shingle at the edge of the lake, he plunged his face and arms into the cold water.

He rode through the day, hardly daring to stop and rest, keeping well clear of inhabited places. The pony carried him westwards through the hill country, then across into the deep wooded valley of a rushing river. Castus looked down through the trees and saw the white haze of a waterfall, the torrent spray­ing between high rocks. He found wild blackberries growing along the valley side, and ate until he was sick of the taste and the sweetness.

Towards evening the valley curved south, and Castus saw the broad silver loops of a wider river, with gulls circling in the last light of the sun. Squinting, he remembered this landscape: in the middle distance was the dark line of the road he had followed with his men on their last march to the Pictish meeting ground. The wall of Antoninus was only a few miles to the south. He slept in the bushes above the muddy riverbank, and at dawn stripped off his clothes and held them bunched above his head as he swam beside the pony, kicking and thrashing across a bend of the river until he staggered up on the far shore.

There were warbands moving on the road. Castus saw one of them as he made his way from the riverbank: twenty or thirty warriors with spears and pack animals. But they were a mile in advance, and did not look back as he rode, crouching low, over the flat ground towards the road.

A mile further across the plain, a vast number of crows were circling over a thicket of woods. Castus dropped down off the pony and secured the reins. He walked, legs numb. As he moved around the edge of the thicket the smell came to him, and his stomach tightened with dread. Dead flesh, old slaughter. Around the last tangled branches of the thicket, he saw the open ground beside the road, and the single stripped tree with its harvest of rotting heads.

He walked closer, feeling his empty guts beginning to heave. The heads were blackened, pecked and gouged by birds. But he made out the face of Culchianus, the features of Timotheus. Then he could look no more, and turned away with a low anguished groan. His shoulder buckled and he pressed his clenched fists to his head. Sickened anger boiled inside him, and a terrible wrenching despair that brought him close to tears. He forced himself to turn and look again, burn the terrible image into his mind.
Remember this
, he told himself.

Away from the road, he moved up into the reaching moor­lands to the west. Across foot-sucking bogs and heather-covered hillsides, rushing streams and spills of dry scree, he traced his way southwards until he made out the overgrown ridge of the old wall of Antoninus. At the mouth of a valley beyond another slow stream, he saw the line of the ridge knot and curl, weathered stone showing through the grass and moss, and rode his pony through a gateway in the long-abandoned fortification.

A little further up the valley he came to a small settlement, just three humped huts with a wicker fence around a yard and some animal pens. The men in the yard did not look like Picts, and Castus kept his spear pointing to the ground as he rode closer.

They gathered at the gate as he approached, and a woman came out of the largest hut behind them. Castus halted, dis­mounted. The smell of woodsmoke and cooking food reached him. None of the people were armed, and they watched him warily. He considered how he must look to them: big and bruised, stubble-bearded, with fresh scars on his face and arms. He was riding a Pictish pony, and wearing a Pictish cape. It occurred to him that he could probably walk right in and take whatever he wanted, and they would not try to stop him.

He stuck the spear in the ground, trying to smile without baring his teeth.
I don’t want to harm you
, he wanted to tell them.
I’ve killed about six men in the last few days, but I won’t kill you if you let me
. He raised his hand and mimed eating, and the woman backed away and hurried inside the hut. One of the men opened the gate and gestured towards a log, worn by much sitting.

Castus eased himself down onto the log, keeping his eyes on the men until the woman returned with a wooden bowl of barley porridge and a cup of water; then he ate fast, unable to hold himself back. He grinned and nodded, and set the bowl down. Vast contentment washed through him. He heard the sounds of cattle, and for a moment remembered something from his childhood: the dairy behind his father’s workshop, and drinking warm milk from a ladle.

The woman pressed her palms together and laid the side of her head upon them.
Sleep
. She pointed towards one of the smaller huts with the question in her eyes. Evening was coming on, the light mellow and granular now, but Castus stood up and shook his head. He wished he had something to give in exchange for the food, and thought of Marcellinus’ seal ring, still concealed in the toe of his boot. But that would be worthless to them, and if any Roman ever found it they would suffer. He pressed his palm to his chest, over his heart, and backed away, and all of them smiled.