‘What does Merlin want?’ Arthur stuttered the words, which tumbled from his mouth without him thinking. Her words shocked him. The finality of them, the surety about which she spoke of the Saxons’ intentions, gave them an air of certainty which rocked Arthur. He had always thought of the Saxons as raiders, as temporary, violent men who would eventually be defeated and leave forever.
‘Redemption,’ she hissed, and leaned into Arthur, the sun catching in her dark eyes with a twinkle. ‘He wants to make amends for the Great War that was lost and the part he played in that. He wants the return of the old gods and the old kingdoms, and he wants to rid the land of Saxons. Merlin wants much, young warrior, perhaps too much. He likes you, but beware that favour, for Merlin is a dangerous man. His gods are all but dead, there are few druids left on this island, there are more in Ireland, but few here. The nailed god is powerful and drives your old gods beneath his heel, but he is a weak god. He asks too much of his followers, and makes men shun war, death and the old ways. And that is why you will lose, young warrior, because your new god is weak and the Saxon gods drive them on to glorious slaughter, they demand it, and the rewards for Saxons who die in battle are an eternity of feasting, battle and resurrection. How can you defeat that with your nailed god?’
‘What then of Dun Guaroy?’
‘You are wise to shun such talk.’ Nimue took a long pull at the ale skin, but kept her eyes fixed on Arthur’s. ‘For what difference can you make in a war between gods? Bebbanburg, as the Saxons call it, is a timber fortress upon a high crag. There are but two approaches, one from the sea, and the other up a slope towards where wall and gate are still under construction. What you seek is inside there, warrior, and you should make your attack before the high walls are complete, for then that place will be impregnable.’
‘The princess and the prince are inside the walls?’
‘They too are inside.’ She cackled at the double meaning of her twisting words which confused Arthur. ‘Ida has a hall and other buildings inside the walls. The Saxons built their feasting hall before they built the walls, so confident are they that you Britons could never march so far into their lands and attack the fortress before it is finished. Ida does not fear your people, young warrior, he scoffs at your warriors, whores your women, and uses the hollowed skull of a dead king as a drinking cup.’
‘And what of Octha?’
‘So many questions, young warrior.’ Her eyes drank him in, flickering to the bronze disc at his neck and then staring deep into his soul. Her gaze made him hot. Sweat broke out on his brow and back and he shifted uncomfortably. ‘Let this be the last. Octha is that most dangerous of men, come fresh across the sea with three thousand men who followed his promise of glory, land, women and reputation. He will carve himself out a kingdom or die trying. Octha is hard and ruthless, a champion in battle. He owes his men a debt, and that debt is your lands, your women, your children, and everything you hold dear. You should fear Octha, young warrior, like you fear the demons in the night. For he means to end your world.’
Balin barked the order to march, and men groaned as they rose from where they sat upon the ground. A Gododdin let out the largest belch Arthur had ever heard, and all thirty of Bors’ men fell about laughing. Arthur nodded thanks to Nimue, he could have talked to her all day of the things she knew, and he hadn’t yet asked her of the Saxon gods, of Ireland, and what she augured for the fate of Britain. He rose from his crouch, and Nimue rose with him, mirroring his movements whilst keeping her deep eyes locked to his. She moved like a hunting cat and Arthur stepped away from her, but as he moved, her hand shot out snake fast and grabbed his wrist. Arthur tried to yank his arm away, but Nimue’s grip was as strong as a boar’s bite. Her mouth turned in on itself, shifting into a flat, lipless slit as she forced his hand over. Nimue placed her own palm upon his and stared at his hand, tracing the lines upon his palm with her warm fingers. Her eyes glittered, and she smiled mirthlessly.
‘What is it you want, Arthur, son of nowhere and no one?’ Nimue said, and laughed as she released his hand and Arthur stumbled backwards. He left Nimue and returned to Kai, unable to shake Nimue from his thoughts. There was power in the volva. He felt it just being close to her. Arthur glanced at his hand, wondering what it was she had seen there, and decided that he was better off not knowing.
‘What did the gwyllion say to you?’ asked Kai, using the old word for a witch, as he hefted his spear for the march. ‘You look as white as a fetch.’
Arthur swallowed and shrugged as though the conversation had been nothing at all. ‘She speaks nonsense, the desperate talk of a captured woman trying to prove her value.’
Balin’s scouts returned as the afternoon drew long, and Arthur could taste salt on a brisk wind from the east. As the sun dipped, they reached sand dunes thick with coarse grass and heather, and Arthur laid eyes upon Dun Guaroy for the first time. Sharp timber stakes rose like monster’s teeth atop a humpbacked crag in a wide tidal bay. The crag loomed, dark and foreboding in the distance with sharp cliffs and sheer sides leading down to the rolling grey sea and a sloping, grass-covered hillside on the landward side. A bleakly wicked wooden hall topped the crag, all sharp edges and threat. So far across the bay, its thatch was a dark brown, and there were gaps in the wooden palisade where men swarmed like ants across the pale rocks, working to complete Ida’s fortress on a place where once Britons had lived. The new fortifications were jagged and sharp, like blades buried into the rock and pointing to the sky in defiance of the men from whom the Saxons had ripped the land. Gulls swooped over the dunes, gliding on the breeze, and the smell of the sea was thick in the air.
‘Dun Guaroy,’ said Balin with a sniff. ‘And if the sight of the fortress isn’t enough to curdle your blood, then behold the army of Octha.’ Balin pointed a spear to the flatlands beyond the high fort, which no man had noticed, so transfixed were they by Ida’s stronghold. There, on scrubland thick with short, rough grass and shallow hills, were a mass of leather tents and timber lean-tos set into holes in the ground. Countless campfires coughed smoke into a darkening sky, and Arthur gasped at the sheer vastness of Octha’s warriors. He could not count the tents and hovels. Shadows of men moved in the smoke, tiny figures at that distance but as many as fleas on a filthy hound. Their camp was ten times larger than Caer Ligualid, and Arthur shuddered at the force required to fight and defeat so many Saxon warriors.
‘Gods preserve us,’ said Bors, his mouth agape. ‘How can we approach the crag with such a force arrayed before us?’
‘The tide will go out after sundown,’ said Balin. ‘The ebb goes far, and the wet sand will stretch from where we are now to the foot of Dun Guaroy.’
Bors clapped his massive hands and rubbed them together. ‘So, we can cross at night, scale the rocks and get in through the gaps in the unfinished walls,’ he said and clapped Balin on the shoulder. ‘Turns out you men of Bernicia aren’t completely useless after all.’ Bors laughed so hard at his own jest that every man, even Balin’s men, laughed along with him.
They settled down in the brush to wait for nightfall. There could be no fires and so Arthur huddled with his cloak gathered close about him against the wind which had grown chill as the sun fell beyond the western hills. Octha’s horde was too vast to count, but Arthur believed their number could easily be the three thousand men Nimue spoke of. It was not a force come to Britain to hold Lloegyr for Ida, Horsa and the other Saxon leaders, it was a force come to conquer and Arthur feared for his people. He wondered how many men Rheged could muster to defend itself, but he had no guess. Ector spoke of hides, or farms, and how each hide must provide one fighting man if called upon by King Urien, but never of the actual numbers. Even if Rheged could summon three thousand men, which Arthur doubted, only a few of those were actual warriors. Only men like Ector, who kept a professional war band, and the king himself had warriors whose sole purpose was to train and prepare for war. They were the men who gathered tithes from the folk in the fields and farms, the men who marched to deal with raiders and men who broke the king’s peace. Ector and Urien kept the warriors fed and clothed from the surplus gathered from the folk in Urien’s kingdom. That render was the price of the people’s safety. The rest of the warriors Rheged could muster were farmers and simple folk, and as Arthur stared across the bay at the Saxon camp alight with countless campfires, he wondered how many farmers it would take to kill one Saxon warrior.
Dun Guaroy glowed from fires within its palisade, and as the sun disappeared, a half-moon crept from behind sweeping clouds. The warriors watched the tide retreat and leave rippling wet sand which glistened in the wan moonlight. Merlin strode through the huddled warriors, his amber-topped staff held before him like a beacon. He called for Balin and Bors, and Arthur was surprised to hear his name called also by the old druid. Kai stared at him open-mouthed, and Arthur shrugged. He did not know why Merlin called for him. He didn’t want to keep the druid or the leaders waiting, so Arthur scampered across the heather to join the three men who ambled over the dunes towards the retreating tide.
‘It will soon be time,’ said Balin, staring out across the bay.
‘Nimue says the wall facing towards us is incomplete,’ said Merlin. He spoke quickly as though he was in a rush to impart this most important of news. ‘You can cross the tidal flats in darkness, climb the crag and slip in through the gaps in the palisade. There will be guards there. Ida keeps a force of fifty men inside the stronghold. Guinevere and Gawain will be in Ida’s hall or held close to it. So, search there. And please, Lord Bors, go quietly. If the guards are woken or an alarm is raised, they will let no one leave that place alive.’
‘I can be as quiet as a mouse’s fart if I need to,’ said Bors, jutting his bushy-bearded chin out in indignation.
‘Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Now. I must leave you this very night to travel east.’
‘You are leaving us?’ asked Bors incredulously.
‘Just as we are about to attempt this most dangerous of tasks?’ said Balin. He fixed Merlin with a fearsome stare. ‘If there ever was a time where we need your magic, this is it, Merlin.’
‘Magic?’ Merlin waved his long fingers. ‘I have cast a spell of good fortune across you all, and I will work a spell of concealment as you make your way across the bay. Beyond that, there is little I can do, anyway. It is stealth and blades you need inside Dun Guaroy, not a stumbling old goat like me.’
‘The men won’t like it, Merlin,’ said Bors. ‘They’d be happier knowing a druid was at their side when they climb that rock with an army on their flank and a guard of Ida’s picked champions inside.’
‘They have you and Balin and that should be enough to give any warrior confidence. Also, Arthur is with you.’ Merlin paused, and Balin and Bors stared at Arthur like he was a lump of cow shit on the bottom of their boots. ‘Arthur is a son of no kingdom, but a son of Britain. The land is his father, and the wind is his mother.’
‘I am a Rheged man, lord,’ Arthur stuttered, unable to meet Bors or Balin’s hard stares.
‘You are a man of Britain, Arthur, not Rheged. Nimue and I augured your future last night in the guts of a dog fox, and you are the one I have been waiting for. The one who must take up the sword.’
‘Me? What sword?’ Arthur took a step back, the conversation had changed too quickly, and Merlin’s words were an unwanted surprise.
‘This sword.’ Merlin delved into his pack and pulled out a sword in a black leather scabbard. He drew the sword and held the blade aloft. There were markings on its silvery-grey blade and the hilt was wrapped in soft leather. The pommel was a ball of steel with a dragon carved into its centre. ‘Caledfwlch, the sword of Ambrosius Aurelianus.’
‘Excalibur!’ whispered Balin and reached for the blade before Merlin shot him an angry frown.
‘Yes, Excalibur is its name, but Caledfwlch was the name given to the blade by Neit, god of war, when the sword was forged in the distant mists of time. I gave this blade to Ambrosius during the Great War. With it, he was to crush the Saxons and drive them from our shores. Now, I give its power to you, Arthur ap Nowhere.’
‘Please, Lord Merlin, I can’t,’ said Arthur, taking three backward steps. ‘You are mistaken. I cannot wield such a sword. Give it to Balin, or Bors, or Ector. Ector is the champion of Britain.’
‘He’s just a boy,’ said Balin. ‘How can you entrust such a blade to him? Have you gone mad?’
‘I have seen it, Balin of the Two Swords, as has Nimue,’ shouted Merlin, his eyes bright and fearsome. ‘Arthur is the one to take up the sword of our ancestors.’
‘That witch has you under her dark seidr. I won’t allow it. Our fate is at stake, Merlin. You were not here when Bernicia burned, when my family died, when my children were gutted like fish. Ambrosius did not save us then, and the boy cannot do it now.’
‘Careful, Balin of the Two Swords,’ growled Merlin, and he seemed to grow two feet in the darkness, his voice loud and rumbling. Arthur closed his eyes, wishing he was anywhere but there. ‘Ambrosius was the brother of Uther Pendragon, and he led our armies well in the Great War. He it was who slew Hengist and brought us peace, albeit at great cost. We would have defeated the Saxons if not for…’
‘For your meddling!’ Balin said through clenched teeth. ‘You it was who drew out Gorlois of Kernow so that Uther could steal his wife away. We were one until then, and then we were nothing. That disarray amongst the kingdoms united in a fragile alliance under the Pendragon shattered us. Then, in the night of the long knives, Horsa the Saxon slew King Gwyrangon of Kent, and Vortigern himself disappeared. We lost all lands east of Watling Street. Bernicia, Deira, Kent, all lost. You disappeared into exile on Ynys Môn, Ambrosius’ peace meant the surrender of half our kingdom! Now, you would have me follow a beardless boy into battle against that?’ Balin pointed across the bay at Octha’s horde.
