Warriors of Camlann (23 page)

‘It belonged to Ambrosius. It will terrify the Aenglisc and may well preserve your beauty. Go with God, Lady Ursa, and all the hopes of Britannia.' He smiled almost wistfully and was gone. She rode slowly to what would become the front of the Sarmatian force, next to Cynfach. Brother Frontalis was busy blessing the men. His sonorous voice giving comfort was the only sound that could be heard above the noise of last minute weapon and kit adjustments. Fantastic. She was not only leading the best horsemen in Britannia down a slope of suicidal steepness but she was also hampered by a vast shield slung across her back while her vision was restricted by some mask. When Frontalis came to her and said, ‘Bless you, my child,' her ‘Amen' had never been more heartfelt. It was time.

Ursula waited with her contingent of Cataphracts behind her at the newly created south gate. More than two hundred and fifty Sarmatians would ride behind her in the main charge, followed by similar numbers of light cavalry and infantry. Larcius would lead the smallest contingent of one hundred men from the east gate, Cynfach would lead one hundred and fifty Sarmatians from the west gate. All waited on Ursula's signal. It felt suddenly too hot in the layers of padding necessary to prevent the chafing of her mail. Sweat trickled uncomfortably down her nose within her mask, making her whole face itch. Of course it was impossible to scratch. She clutched her horse more firmly with her knees and adjusted her weight. The waiting was unbearable. She checked that her sword could still move freely in its sheath and wiped the sweat off her hands, the better to hold her kontos. She heard the standard bearer with his scarlet and gold draco make similar preparations
beside her. He was also wearing a full face mask of burnished bronze, which had the advantage of disguising the wearer's terror from the enemy. She could hear Braveheart's rapid breathing at her side. He too was readying himself. The lituus sounded and infantrymen started to drag away the makeshift crossbeams supporting the hastily constructed gates. It was a complicated business to get them open. Everything had been done so quickly that nothing worked as smoothly or as silently as it might – everything creaked and grated and banged. Ursula feared that the advantage of surprise would be lost. The Aenglisc must now know that something was going on. She prayed they would not have time to organise themselves and seize the initiative. There was another blast of the trumpet and the large barrel-shaped casks that had contained supplies were arranged in a row in front of the heavy cavalry. They had been coated in foul-smelling pitch. God, how she wished this was over. Her bowels felt weak and her heart hammered wildly to no rhythm but that of fear.

‘Steady, Ursula. Not yet. Wait for the barrels to be fired. Arturus says don't forget – raise the shield. Raise the shield!'

It was a good job Dan's calming voice spoke to her mind. She was not sure she could have heard anything else over the loud drumming of her own pulse. She felt sick and faint and far too hot. She needed to shout to the men when she heard the signal, but she had no
saliva left. The shield! She had nearly forgotten the shield. What the hell did she do with her spear if she had to hold the shield? Conscious of her role as hero/leader she tried to make her movements deliberate rather than panicky. She thought about the relaxed way that King Meirchion of Rheged had moved effortlessly in the saddle, thought about her old comrade Kai's confident demeanour. She did her best to copy them, to look relaxed and in control as she casually transferred the kontos, the long, fragile-looking but lethal spear, to her left hand and balanced the shaft on her booted foot. It was a difficult task as the spear was of such a length that it could not easily be moved across the back of her mount. Then she unstrapped Arturus's shield, which was hooked by a long leather thong over her right shoulder. That too was awkward as her movement was somewhat restricted by her armour and though the shield itself was light the heavy iron central shield boss made it unwieldy to manoeuvre. Her undershirt was damp with sweat. She was frightened that the slender shaft of the kontos would quiver with her nerves. That would not look good. She forced herself to breathe, she had forgotten about breathing. It helped.

There was another short single blast of the lituus. Someone ignited the barrels and kicked away the wooden chocks that kept them from rolling down the precipitous slope. There was the crackle of yellow flame
as the barrels suddenly blazed. There was a stench of acrid fumes and burning pitch. Black smoke made Ursula's eyes smart and stream so that for a moment her vision blurred and then she saw the barrels roll away from view through a distorting haze of smoke, tears, and rippling air. Men coughed behind her. Braveheart growled and she heard the standard bearer mutter a muffled oath.

‘Get ready, Ursula. You're OK. Arturus says NOW! Raise the shield! GO!'

Dan's voice was clear within her mind and Ursula raised the shield with its triumphant golden cross high over her head and yelled, ‘Ride!'

Suddenly, her fear was gone. She cried out a Combrogi war cry and rode. She could do this; she
would
do this. It did not matter that she could hardly see, what with the smoke, the burning heat and the limitations of the mask. She had five hundred men behind her and she would lead them well!

Dan watched Ursula closely. It was hard to recognise his schoolmate in the proud figure, gleaming with gold and silver mail. Her face was lost completely behind the bland serenity of her golden mask and only the odd stray blonde hair escaping the golden helmet identified her as Ursula. It was only when he saw her raise the shield, the gold cross on white ground, the shield of Arturus, that he realised that this anonymity was the point. Arturus
had set her up. He wanted the Aenglisc to think Ursula was the High King and War Duke himself.

‘You bastard, Arturus, how could you? You want the Aenglisc to think Ursula is you. Don't you?'

Arturus turned to look at Dan with a grim expression.

‘Without me the Combrogi will die, Gawain. I win battles – remember that. Ursula is good. I'm not too proud to admit she's a better fighter and a better rider than I am. She stands a better chance of coming out of this alive than I would. She will inspire the troops with her heroism. I could not do a better job than she will. Meanwhile, if anything goes wrong, I'm still here, and no one else, Gawain,
no one else
, can save the Combrogi but me.'

Arturus did not even look shame faced. Dan was at a loss. He had to find out how the battle was progressing. He made a decision.

‘Bryn! I need to watch over Braveheart and Ursula. Watch over me, please.'

He thrust Bedewyr's second sword at Bryn, the one Ursula insisted he should carry, then sat down among the foot soldiers still defending the battlements. He had made a decision and by will alone he succeeded where he and Taliesin together had once failed. He sent his consciousness out, like the avatar of a Hindu god he had learned about in Religious Studies. He was a bird – a dove flying above the Aenglisc, seeing from a higher
vantage point what they saw, and it was truly terrifying.

The sides of the wooden hill fort had been all but destroyed and on three sides burning barrels streamed comet tails of fire through the unprepared Aenglisc camp. The Aenglisc were no cowards, and they gathered their wits and weapons faster than Dan would have thought possible. Their leaders pulled sick men from their beds as their possessions burned under the crackling flames. Ursula's horse leapt the burning barrels. She was a golden goddess on an armoured horse, screaming fury, as her pale hair streamed behind her. She showed no fear as she charged, holding her long spear and stabbing at anyone who did not get out of her way. The standard bearer's open-mouthed red draco whistled an eerie unearthly shriek. As the Sarmatian Cataphracts charged in their blood-red lacquered armour, their bronze and their silver mail, they either jumped the flaming barrels or charged between them, emerging through the flames like riders from hell. The thunderous thudding of their horses' hooves on the charred grass was enough to terrify. They galloped forward in close formation, no more than a metre or two apart. No foot soldier could stand in their way. The Aenglisc were sick and taken by surprise – they did not have the training or the skills to make a defensive formation against such cavalry. Dan vividly remembered the shield wall demonstrated at the re-enactment he'd
seen with Ursula before they entered the Veil for the first time. These Aenglisc had no time to make such a wall and he was sure it would have been futile anyway, the cavalry charge was a roaring tide of massed muscle-power pounding forward, crushing everything in its path.

Dan heard one of the Aenglisc cry, ‘
Waelcyrige!
' as they saw Ursula riding through the flames and smoke, and ran. Though running would have been the rational thing to do, few of the Aenglisc did it. They flung spears and throwing axes at their enemies and when that failed they tried to attack with sword and seax, but the advantage lay with the mounted men, with the heavy hooves of the horses who trampled men underfoot, with the spear thrusts of the experienced cavalry, and the arrows of the Sarmatian rearguard. Dan wanted to flee from the pain, the fear, and the horror that gathered all around him like the green mist of Rhonwen's conjuring. He had to see that Ursula was safe. The battle scene was chaotic and Dan struggled to identify Ursula below him. Then he found her stabbing and thrusting with her sword, attacked from several directions at once. She had discarded her face-mask, somehow she'd slid it up so that it rested over the top of her helmet like an impassive second face. Her own face formed another mask – of determined aggression, stained with soot and splattered with gore. She was in danger of being unhorsed as her trained mount reared and stamped, cracking limbs
and shattering bones, while by her side Braveheart leapt and tore, wild-eyed and blood-crazed. Dan did not dare distract her as she fought for her life. Then Cynfach, having successfully led the western charge, joined the main battle and fought his way to Ursula's side. He dispatched her chief attacker with a spear through the spine and she was out of danger, surrounded now by more of the Cataphracts. She raised the now sullied, bloodied shield in the air to let her men know that she lived still, and then the killing continued. There had been well over one thousand Aenglisc in the field and yet though Dan flew high and wide over the whole area he saw scarcely any still standing. Elsewhere the light cavalry under Cerdic finished off what the Sarmatians had begun. Behind them the infantry killed any survivors with brutal efficiency, slashing throats and plundering the dead. Arturus's war machine had done its work.

Dan turned away from the carnage, grateful that his avatar bird did not perceive emotion with the same intensity as his true self. Overhead he saw a merlin fly, a frail and insubstantial form – and knew it to be Taliesin. He was probably searching for Rhonwen. It was time Dan returned to himself, to his own body, his own perceptions and the horror of the aftermath of battle, the losses, and the stink of death.

Ursula became gradually aware that there was no one left to kill. The battleground was strewn with the bleeding, the dying and the dead. She turned to Cynfach.

‘I think we've won.'

He nodded grimly, exhaustion vying with triumph in his face.

Ursula thought someone should say something. As far as she could tell the Sarmatians were unhurt. There must be casualties but when she looked back there were still several hundred mounted men behind her, still broadly in a column formation.

‘Help me up!'

She could not stand in her stirrups – neither the Celts nor the Sarmatians knew of them. Her only recourse was to stand on her mount and wave Arturus's shield high in the air as a signal of their triumph. It was still very early. Ursula estimated that the whole battle had
taken less than an hour. Battle seemed too grand a word for it; it had been more like a massacre.

Arturus's force cheered wildly at the raised shield, but Ursula had no words of triumph or praise that she could add – that was for Arturus. She dismounted and hung the stained shield over the pommel of the saddle. She ripped off the heavy, golden helmet and face-mask and secured them to her saddle too. They were splattered with soot and flecks of things she'd rather not identify. Her heart was still pounding and she felt breathless. She stuck the bloodied kontos into the ground with such force that it quivered. There were things under her horse's hooves she did not want to see.

‘Cynfach, take control till the High King comes, I need some clean air. Oh, and thank you.' She managed a weak smile, ‘I would have had it, if you hadn't ridden to rescue me.'

Cynfach still looked stunned, though whether by the ease of the victory or the carnage all round them, she did not want to know. His smile was warm and genuine.

‘Your courage inspired us all, Lady Ursa, if I had not been prepared to lay down my life to save yours, my men would never have forgiven me.'

She could not think of a suitable reply to that, so merely nodded and began to walk away. She had to get away from the smell, the charred, burnt smell that was the fire's last endowment; the smell of blood and
slaughter and the lingering scent of sickness.

‘Dan?'
She sought him out, knowing that he would understand.

‘Ursula, you are safe!'

Dan's mental voice sounded weary and strained, what it must have been like to experience the suffering of all those dying Aenglisc did not bear thinking about.

‘Ursula, wait for me. Taliesin saw Rhonwen leave the battlefield. There's a chance that she might—'
He dare not even finish the thought. He dare not hope that Rhonwen might try to escape the best way she knew how.

Ursula did as she was told and stopped walking. Everything felt unreal. She recalled the soft jolt of impact as her spear had skewered an Aengliscman. She could still feel the reverberation of it up her arm and in her memory. Such things were better not remembered. Braveheart bounded to her side and butted her affectionately with his head. She patted the matted hair of his skull absently. It was far worse than she could have imagined. She wanted to go home.