‘I saw that much.’
‘They were tracking the Saxons from the hills,’ said Arthur in a flat tone, arching his eyebrow at Kai, who spoke as though Merlin had appeared in a puff of smoke and conjured Balin and his black-cloaked warriors from the earth itself. ‘Though who Balin is, and what Merlin is doing with him, I do not know.’
‘My hand,’ said Huell wistfully, staring at his stump. ‘What will I do now?’
‘You have survived and must carry on. Learn to fight with your other hand.’
Huell stared at Arthur, surprised at his harshness. ‘You should have let me die on that beach. I am not the man I was. I cannot return to Caer Ligualid like this.’
‘Tell us of Balin?’ asked Kai, changing the subject and trying to snap Huell out of his melancholy. A warrior approached with warm cloaks, and two plucked birds for the three men to cook and eat. Arthur thanked him, and Kai draped a heavy woollen cloak about Huell’s shoulders as Arthur placed the spitted birds over their fire.
‘Balin was a lord of Bernicia,’ said Huell, pulling the cloak closer about his shoulders with his good hand and staring into the flames. ‘He was a cousin to the old king and owned rich lands in Bernicia. He had a brother, Balan, but as so many in those dark days did, Balin fell afoul of Vortigern’s treachery.’
Huell leaned into the fire so that it illuminated the planes of his face, and Arthur and Kai leaned in with him, keen to hear the story of Balin and his lost lands.
‘Balin’s is a tale of woe.’ Huell whispered so that the black cloaks could not hear. ‘Balin was a champion to the king of Bernicia, just as Ector is to King Urien. That fox upon their shields was their sigil, just as ours is the bear of Rheged. Deira shared a border with Bernicia and that is where Balin’s, and all our sorrows, began. Vortigern was brother to the king of Deira and hungered for its throne. To kill his brother the king and usurp its throne, Vortigern brought ships filled with fearsome Saxon warriors across the narrow sea. He knew them, for Vortigern had fought in Frankia and beyond for the Romans and brought the Saxons back with him from his forays across the sea. Those first Saxons were Roman mercenaries, bucellari, and Vortigern brought them home to Britain to win a throne from his older brother, the king of Deira. Once Vortigern killed his brother and stole the throne, King Letan Luyddoc of Gododdin, our King Urien, and Uther of Dumnonia, rose against Vortigern, expecting to put the usurper down quickly. But Vortigern brought more Saxons to our shores to swell his ranks, and their leaders were Hengist and Horsa, names you have heard of and fear.’
‘Horsa, who is now king in Kent?’ asked Kai.
‘The same. Vortigern fought back against the kings of Britain and so unfolded the Great War. Vortigern let his wild Saxons loose upon Bernicia, which they sacked mercilessly. They killed its king and all his family. The invaders put the lush lands of Bernicia to the sword, ravaging and burning them, and turned fair Bernicia into the front line of that war which so shook our island. Balin fought for his king and became a warrior of great renown. But his brother envied Balin’s reputation and coveted Balin’s fine lands, and so Balan joined with Vortigern. Whilst Balin was away fighting, Balan raided his home, a Roman villa with orchards, fresh streams and rich fields. Balin’s own brother raped and killed his wife and butchered his children. He laid waste Balin’s lands and when a truce was called at the end of the Great War, Balan retreated deep into Lloegyr to hide from Balin’s wrath, and no Briton has seen him since.’
‘His own brother?’ said Kai incredulously.
‘His own brother. So, Balin searches for Balan with a heart full of hate, vengeance and grief. Balin and these few men here must be the last of Bernicia’s army, the last remnants of a dead king and his slaughtered people.’
‘So, they fight and kill the Saxons where they can.’
‘Aye, and forever entreat the other kings of Britain to help them recover what was lost.’
‘But why do the kings not unite and lead their armies to recapture Bernicia, Deira, Kent and the rest of Lloegyr?’ asked Arthur. The Saxons ruled in Lloegyr, which comprised old Deira, Bernicia and Kent, and had brought vast hordes of warriors across the sea from their homelands. But if each kingdom in Britain united and brought all of their warriors to Lloegyr, then surely, they would outnumber the Saxons and drive them back into the sea.
‘Uther is the Pendragon, the king of kings, but so many men died, and there was such horror in the Great War that he and the other kings haven’t had the stomach to start a new war. Even when the Pendragon called the kingdoms to arms in the Great War, not all brought their warriors. The men of Powys, Gwynedd, Demetia and more did not come. So, Balin fights on alone with what few warriors he has left. We are not one people. The Britain Merlin, Uther, Urien and others talk of is a dream, we are an island of small kingdoms, each one raids the other for cattle, timber, land and slaves and there are blood feuds stretching back to the dark days when Rome left. Without the empire and its legions, the strongest ruled and weakest suffered and died. The men of Demetia will not fight alongside the men of Rheged or Gwent, whom they hate as much as Balin hates the Saxons. So, you see, Arthur, the world is not as simple as it seems by Ector’s hearth in the safety and warmth of Caer Ligualid.’
‘And what of Merlin?’ asked Kai.
‘What of him?’
‘Why is he here? Why was he banished? How old is he? The stories say that he was old and grey bearded at the time of the Great War, and that was before we were born.’
‘Those are questions for men greater than I, Kai ap Ector. You should ask your father about those days of long ago. I did not fight in the Great War; it was before my time. But Ector was in the thick of it, and I would not talk of the druid behind his back.’ Huell glanced at his stump and with his left hand made the sign to ward off evil.
‘Merlin and Balin will join our quest for Princess Guinevere,’ said Kai, smiling as though he expected Huell to be pleased.
Huell sniffed and raised his stump. ‘This entire journey is cursed, if you ask me. Stumbling across Saxons like that in the forest, a princess and her ship captured by Saxons, all our men killed and me unmanned. Then we find Merlin and Balin in the middle of Lloegyr. There are other forces at work here, lads, believe me. We will be fortunate to survive this, or unfortunate in my case. What kind of life remains for me now?’
With that, Huell sat back, swathed in his cloak, and would say no more. Arthur and Kai ate fresh meat and drank ale, and they talked in whispered voices about all the things they had seen since leaving the Bear Fort and remembered the men of their company who had died. Kai was excited, talking as though they had already achieved deeds worthy of reputation and song, but Arthur brooded. All they had done was escape death by the skin of their teeth. The Saxon way of fighting had shocked him, how they formed a wall of shields and used their axes with blades shaped like a man’s beard to pull down the Britons’ shields, and then hacked at their faces and legs with their seaxes and spears. It was a new way of fighting, different to how the Britons fought with their smaller shields, where battle was more about individual prowess and glory.
Arthur wondered how the Romans had fought. What was it they knew that allowed them to conquer the world, a world which men said stretched far across the narrow sea beyond where Armorica and Frankia lay? He settled down and wondered at such things until his eyes became heavy. Why did the Romans who could build such wonders, and who had brought their laws and their legions to make Britain a glorious place of wealth and peace, leave it so quickly and, in their wake, left a land of rotting wood and thatch, of tribes and wars and suffering? No man had minted a coin since the Romans left, nor made a building of dressed stone or a straight, well-surfaced road. If the Romans were so powerful, what could have forced their withdrawal?
Arthur’s thought cage wrestled over the deep matters which had never entered his mind until he had left the Bear Fort. Until the quest began, his life had been simple. Now that he had experienced war, Arthur felt as though a cloak had been lifted from his eyes, enabling him to see and think more clearly. He wondered if there were answers out there to the myriad questions he had and was sure that there were. The Saxon shield Arthur had carried for a time, though heavier than a Briton shield, felt easier to fight with. Just like Ector’s description of how the parts of a spear could all be used for attack, the shield functioned in the same way. Its iron boss and rim could smash a man’s nose and skull, its linden-wood boards catch an enemy weapon and rip it from his grasp. A wall of shields, each overlapping, and then the second rank overlapping the top edges, would present an unassailable wall to an enemy. Who would charge a wall of wood and iron bristling with spears, swords, axes and knives? His head buzzed like a kicked beehive with such thoughts, and there were more questions than answers in the discoveries he had made. Arthur tried to store his thoughts away, believing they were useful, but unsure what to do with them.
As Arthur and Kai lay down to sleep, Arthur listened to the black-cloaked warriors talk. They spoke, like all warriors did, of their deeds, of the dead and of old fights. They spoke of women they had loved and lost. One man sang a sad song, and the warriors stamped their boots in approval when he finished. Balin sat away from his men, running a whetstone along the length of his swords, first one and then the other. The other black-cloaked warriors left Balin alone, and Arthur could only wonder at the rage inside a man who had lost his family to his brother’s betrayal. Balin’s men spoke of the hate they bore the Saxons, the warriors who had come from across the sea to steal their homeland away from them. The black cloaks spoke in memory of brave men who had died in the ceaseless war against the invader and drank to the memory of those fallen warriors. It stirred Arthur’s heart to hear the men talk so, and he began to understand the hate they must bear against the invaders who had taken everything from them. He felt immersed in their world. Arthur had killed in battle and fought against Saxons who wanted to kill him. He had met Merlin, and Balin of the Two Swords, and as his eyes closed and sleep came, Arthur wondered what fresh wonders lay ahead of him.
10
Balin led twenty warriors out of the cave in a column of bristling spears, shields and shining helmets. Some of the black cloaks even carried the broad-bladed Saxon axes which Arthur had seen used so effectively by the enemy in battle. Merlin marched at the head of the column beside Balin, his white cloak flowing behind him, his long pack upon his back, and a broad-brimmed hat perched on his head. His amber-topped staff beat marching time on the ground, and they marched north from the cave’s hidden safety into the rolling hills of Lloegyr, the lost lands which had once been the kingdom of Bernicia.
Arthur and Kai marched in the column’s centre, and injured Huell sullenly rode his Saxon mare behind them. The sky broiled with dark clouds and a warm wind from the south, but no rain fell upon the war band. Gaunt-faced slaves stared at the warriors who traipsed through their master’s fields. Men and women in tattered jerkins, with their hair cut brutally short to keep out the lice, busily spread dung across their lord’s fields.
The first sign of the enemy came after Balin’s men followed a broad river which came down from the mountains in a fast-flowing torrent through reed-banked meanders. The war band marched alongside the river until Balin led them up a gently sloped hill where they looked down upon a sprawling valley. A collection of huts and dwellings gathered about a babbling ford in the river where it slashed through the valley basin. Well-worn cattle paths to and from the river marked the ford, and Arthur stared down at the buildings which were subtly but clearly different to the buildings at Caer Ligualid, the Bear Fort and any of the other Briton settlements he had visited. The buildings in this valley were dug into the ground, high-gabled constructs of timber planking and pointed thatch, with side buildings tacked on to the side for pigs or goats. There were no smoke holes in the thatch, and smoke seeped through the rooftops as though the buildings inside were on fire. There were a dozen dwellings on the near side of the ford, and the place had no ditch, bank or stockade to protect it.
‘This place used to belong to a man named Gwrien,’ said Balin, standing tall on the hilltop with his shield slung across his back and his two swords set within it so that a hilt poked across each of his shoulders. ‘He had a farm there, with a wife, a son, and a daughter who married a lad from the next valley. Their home is gone now, burned and replaced by these Saxon hovels. I do not know what became of Gwrien and his family.’ The warriors joined Balin and made a long line across the hilltop facing the Saxon settlement. Arthur and Kai joined them.
‘I knew Gwrien,’ said a black cloak with a bushy black beard. ‘My niece married his cousin.’
‘Sound the carnyx,’ said Balin. A warrior dropped what Arthur had thought was a spear but was, in fact, a long bronze tube the size and shape of a spear shaft. Another warrior took a leather sack from his back and pulled out a magnificent bronze wolf’s head, its mouth agape and snarling. They fixed the wolf’s head onto the bronze tube, and a burly warrior lifted the entire long construction above his head. He set his lips to the bottom of the tube and blew. Arthur started at the sound, and Kai grabbed his arm in shock. The carnyx blared fearsomely, undulating and high-pitched like the scream of a mystical beast. The sound filled the valley, and it imbued Balin’s men with war-fury as they unslung their shields and readied their spears. Folk came from the Saxon dwellings to see what kind of monster could make such a stomach-churning sound. A line of warriors emerged, men in tunics and wrapped leggings with flaxen hair. They carried large Saxon shields, spears and axes, and Arthur counted fifteen men.
‘Kill them all,’ Balin bellowed at his men. ‘They stole these lands and killed our people. Kill them all and burn their stinking hovels to the ground.’
‘All but one,’ Merlin yelled, shaking his rune staff. ‘Keep one for me, keep one alive for me!’
Balin’s usually calm face was now contorted into a rictus of hate. He drew his two swords from across each shoulder and let out a furious roar, almost as terrifying as the call of the carnyx. Balin charged down the hillside, and his men followed behind him like a spear with Balin at the point. They spread out like a flock of birds on the wing, and Arthur and Kai followed with weapons in hand. The Saxons made their shield wall and Arthur’s stomach clenched as he raced down the hillside, uncertain about attacking a settlement which seemed so peaceful but caught up in the black cloaks’ vengeful fury.
‘For Bernicia!’ the black cloaks called as they charged, and Kai took up their war cry, spear in one hand and a shield in the other. Arthur carried his seax and his long knife, for he had no shield. There had been only one spare at the cave, and Kai took it. Shrieking and cries of anguish from the buildings beyond the Saxon shields mixed with the din of the charge. The terrible sound came from howling women and children who saw a war band of armed, furious warriors charging at them, slashing through their peaceful day like a knife through flesh.
Balin did not break stride as he approached the line of shields. Where Arthur saw only an impossible obstacle, Balin charged fearlessly for the enemy centre. There was no delay in the attack, no time required for Balin’s men to find their courage or become drunk with ale before the charge, as was often the case with Ector’s warriors. It seemed the black cloaks must crash against that solid wall like the tide against rocks, smashed and ruined against impossible hardness. But at the last possible moment, when it seemed he would shatter upon the Saxon shields, Balin leapt into the air. He jumped like a spring lamb, high into the air, and crashed into the top of the Saxon shields and the men behind them with unstoppable force. It was breathtaking. Arthur had never seen such bravery or daring before, and as Balin disappeared behind the enemy shield wall, Arthur thought Balin must surely die. The black cloaks followed their leader, pouring into the hole he created in the shield wall like rats. They formed a wedge and punched into the gap, driving through the enemy, a vicious wedge of iron, leather and wood.
Steel blades rang together, iron crunched into wooden shields, men roared their belligerence and screamed in terror as the war band came together in a terrible crash. Arthur slammed his shoulder into an enemy shield and narrowly avoided a spear point aimed at his face. He danced backwards, expecting the seax which came snaking out beneath the enemy shield rim. Arthur had learned his lesson in his last fight with the Saxons, so he kept his shoulder pressed against the shield, but his groin was well away from the seax bite beneath it. Kai crashed his shield into the next man and shrieked as a spear slashed the edge of his upper arm. Arthur shoved with his shoulder, and when he felt the Saxon push back, he suddenly released the pressure so that the Saxon stumbled forward a pace. The enemy instinctively dropped his shield by a handsbreadth in case he fell, and Arthur glimpsed his blond bearded face, pockmarked and red nosed, and he slashed his knife at it, slicing through lips, teeth and skin. The Saxon fell back, and Arthur rolled across his shield to follow Balin’s men towards the gap.
