‘The river will slow them and protect our flanks for a time. We shall put our hardest men on those edges, Bors and Balin, the honour is yours if you will accept it. I will take my riders, and as many horses as we can muster, and ride about their flank before they can deploy their numbers. I’ll come about their rear and attack, so that we pin them between our forces, fighting them in front and rear. My force will be smaller, but large and savage enough to create panic in their lines and allow us to break their shield wall.’
‘Aye, I will fight where the fight is hardest. Their shirkers will be in the rear ranks,’ growled Bors, nodding slowly as Arthur’s plan formed a picture in his mind. ‘The lovers of war, the killers, will be in the front ranks trading blows with me, you Balin, and you Ector. The braver the man, the closer to the front he fights. Those men in the rear want to kill, but only when the lines break, when one side flees, and the battle descends into a slaughter. They want to hack into fleeing men’s backs and tell warped stories of their glory and bravery to their grandchildren as though they fought like Lleu Llaw of legend. They will break first, and when men start to fold, it spreads through an army like a pox through a brothel.’
‘But we must ask one band of men to perform a brave deed, one from which they might not return,’ Arthur said, and fixed each man with a dread stare. ‘We must pin the Saxon centre in the river. A troop of our spearmen must advance into the river and engage the enemy line whilst the rest retreat to the bank. On the bank, my men will hold their centre using their own tactics, the shield wall. If one brave force can engage them in the water and, with that most dangerous of tasks, enrage them enough to make the Saxons charge the bank in fury, we can pin them on the bank. Then I can ride around their flank whilst they focus on the desperate fight on ground of our choosing, not theirs.’
‘Their champions will be in the centre,’ said Ector, his voice cold. ‘Their king will fight there beneath his banner. That is where the fighting will be fiercest, where their pride and their gods won’t allow them to take a backwards step.’
‘Which is why that is where we shall draw them in, and where we must hold them. So, we must find a group of men willing to die, who can fight like starving wolves and entice them up the bank so that we can hold them there.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Ector. ‘I’ll hold the bastards and kill their champions, and I won’t hear of any other man taking that honour. They took my girl, and she’s probably dead now, or worse. So, I’ll advance into those waters, and I’ll rip their stinking hearts out, and dam the river Glein with their corpses.’
23
Arthur and the army marched to the river Glein on a morning where eldritch light seeped from a cold, pale sky, and a mist like steam sat low upon dew-soaked fields. Men trudged in tired silence, heads fogged from lack of sleep after a night spent fearing the battle to come. The river appeared as the sun crept from its slumber, a slow-flowing, rippling streak cutting through a level, grass-covered plane. Boasting and battle songs had filled yesterday’s march, along with talk of brotherhood and oaths to slay the hated Saxon invaders. The night before the battle, however, had been grimly quiet, camped beneath the stars in rain-sodden fields where men’s minds churned over the vast Saxon force awaiting them, outnumbering them two to one. This was a fight not just for their own lives, but for their wives, children, land and future.
The river, swelled by heavy rainfall, rose high upon its green banks, but scouts reported the waters were still only thigh high at their deepest point, and that the Saxons waited for them across the banks with an army beyond imagination. Countless campfires, men, spears, shields and seax blades waiting to crush the men of Gododdin, enslave its people and make it a Saxon kingdom. Arthur rode ahead of the army with Balin, Ector, Kai, Malegant, Idnerth, Bors, Owain and Gawain to examine the battlefield where the Saxons waited to destroy the army of Britain.
Sloping hummocks rose to the north and south-west, but the Saxons camped on wide fields of wild heather and grasses shorn short by cattle. The river’s banks were shallow, without reeds, trees or gorse, which suited Arthur’s plan. Had the banks been high, it would have impeded the mock retreat and allowed the Saxons to cut down his spearmen as they ran up the bank to re-from before the water’s edge. Ector stared grimly at the landscape, chewing on his beard as he looked upon the place where he must stand and hold the mighty Saxon centre and buy time for the rest of the Britons to retreat and hold them long enough for Arthur to ride around the enemy flank.
Arthur had avoided his foster father the night before. Ector and Kai spent the evening together, father and son lamenting their lost sister and daughter, talking of the fight to come, and what Kai must do should Ector perish. Arthur spent the night alone, running a whetstone along Excalibur’s blade and allowing the battle to play out in his mind. He thought of every possible outcome, trap, tactic and trick. Arthur thought about a British rout and how to stem it, and a Saxon rout and how to exploit it. He worried about Ector not holding, or the Saxons attacking too quickly and crushing Ector’s centre, or the Saxons spotting his flanking manoeuvre and countering it before Arthur could strike. It had been a long, sleepless night, and now it was time to fight.
‘There are so many of them,’ Kai said, his voice quiet as though he spoke to himself.
‘Stick to the plan. We hit them in front and rear, split them, and crush them,’ said Arthur with a confidence he did not feel.
Owain shook his head. ‘I march to war following a boy’s battle plan. How has it come to this?’
Arthur ignored the barb, because their forces advanced into the plane and a war horn sounded from the Saxon camp, drifting long and sonorous through the mist. Three riders waited on the far bank: the Saxon leaders come to have the customary exchange of insults before battle.
‘Let’s see who we’re fighting and what the bastards have got to say,’ said Bors, and they all led their mounts to the river to meet their enemies.
‘Ida and his sons,’ said Balin of the Two Swords.
‘Where is Octha?’ asked Arthur, also recognising Ida and his sons, Ibissa and Theodric, from Dun Guaroy. He had no time to consider that concern, because Ida nudged his horse into the river’s flow. The king of Bernicia rode a magnificent black mare, wore a coat of shining chain mail and carried a stone sceptre in his right fist. He hunched upon the horse’s back, bent by age, and his long white hair hung loose down his back. Ida’s was a hard weather-beaten face, as cracked and lined as the hull of an old ship.
‘Come to surrender, dogs?’ Ida said in the Britons’ tongue. Ibissa chuckled, hulking with golden hair and bright blue eyes astride a bay gelding.
‘Withdraw from Gododdin and swear an oath never to return,’ said Gawain, shouting across the river’s gentle sigh. ‘And there is no need to fight today.’
‘I want to fight today, so do my men. We shall kill your men and piss on their dead corpses. I want to flay the flesh from your bones, Prince Gawain, and take your mother as my bed slave. I will carry your father’s head as a war trophy, whore your wives and daughters, and sell your sons into slavery.’
‘Then it must be war,’ said Gawain, and he turned his mount and cantered back towards his men.
‘Octha is too scared to fight us?’ asked Arthur.
Ida sneered. ‘You are fools. Octha is in the south making his own kingdom. Did you think to find him here?’
Arthur fought to hide the surprise and fear from his face. If Octha was in the south, he could attack Elmet, Dumnonia, Gwynned or Gwent and there was nothing Arthur and his army could do about it. Octha could bring his massive army against an isolated kingdom and crush it with overwhelming numbers. ‘We came here to kill Saxon warriors but are disappointed to find only an old man with a grey beard, his two stripling pups, and an army of sheep-shagging whoresons,’ said Arthur, and Ida grinned.
‘To battle then, turds. You shall all serve me in the afterlife. Your souls are mine until the end of days.’
‘You will die without a blade in your hand, and your soul shall scream in the depths of the underworld,’ Balin roared, trotting his horse across the riverbank and pointing at Ida and his sons. ‘You shall regret the day you came to these shores.’
Ida laughed, a dry, cackling, humourless laugh, turned his horse lazily and rode away with his sons trailing him. Another war horn blared from their lines and warriors came from the mist, spear points bristling and voices shouting curses at the Britons.
‘Octha has struck somewhere else,’ said Malegant, his long face suddenly pale with fear for his people.
‘But Ida can only muster two thousand warriors without him,’ snarled Balin. ‘So, let’s kill the bastards, and then march to find and fight Octha.’
They rode back to the massing ranks, but Arthur wasn’t so sure about Balin’s guess on Ida’s numbers. It was impossible to say from across the river how many warriors Ida brought to fight, but Arthur thought it at least matched Octha’s three thousand. It was too late to worry about Octha now. Ida had invaded Gododdin and must be stopped. Arthur ordered his force of riders to him as the spearmen formed up before the riverbank. Arthur had his own riders, and another seventy horses gathered from the men of Gododdin and Rheged so that he would make his ride around the enemy with close to one hundred horsemen, each rider a spearman who understood their task, hardy warriors ready to fight and die against the hated enemy.
Nimue and Kadvuz the druid capered before the army, chanting and casting dark spells against the Saxons, and imbuing the Britons with the gods’ favour. They held aloft strange charms, painted skulls, animal skeletons and a giant bone which can only have belonged to some giant beast long gone from the world. They spat and sang, and all the time Kadvuz’s dogs whined and barked at the Saxon war dogs, who growled and barked in return from somewhere within the massing Saxon horde. Ector gathered his spearmen in the centre, opposite Ida’s ragged battle standard of an eagle’s wing on a high pole. That was where Ida’s picked champions would fight, the big men, the lovers of war who Ida hoped would break the Britons’ line and send them into rout and defeat.
Arthur slid from his horse and gave the reins to Hywel with a promise to return soon. He jogged across the grass, soil heavy from rain, pushing his way through the men until he reached Ector. Arthur laid a hand upon his shoulder and the big man turned and smiled sadly at him.
‘It’s time, son,’ Ector said. His bald head shone beneath the morning sun, and he towered above his men, who shared around skins of mead, seeking courage in the warming drink.
‘Spear-father, I…’ Arthur began, but struggled to find the words he wanted to say. Warriors gathered close about, tightening straps, testing spear points and hefting shields.
‘It’s all right, Arthur.’ A warm smile split Ector’s broad face. ‘I’m proud of you, lad. I have always treated you as my son, and you have done well. You have met kings, princes, champions and princesses. You have travelled the breadth of our country, and Merlin, I think, set you on that path so that you could march across Britain and become recognised amongst the great men of our people. Merlin has given you awe and power, weaving your legend throughout the kingdom, so use it wisely.’
‘Was Igraine pregnant when you brought her north from Dumnonia?’ Arthur blurted out. The thought had festered in his thought cage since he had met Uther Pendragon, and he had to ask his foster father the truth of his birth.
‘She was.’ Ector placed a heavy hand on Arthur’s shoulder. ‘I knew this question would come one day.’
‘Is Igraine my mother, and Uther…’
Ector shook his head. ‘Merlin would have folk believe that’s the case. To build your legend and make you into a man men should follow. He wants to unite us, to restore Britain to our people, and he knows that the kings and warriors are more likely to follow a man of noble birth, but one with loyalties to no kingdom. But I’m sorry, Arthur. Igraine’s baby died. She gave birth at Caer Ligualid. It was a boy, but he died not an hour after he was born. She married Urien the following week and never recovered from that loss. Merlin brought you to me after Igraine’s wedding. He said you were an orphan, a child of nowhere who needed care, and so I took you in. But you are not Uther’s son. Merlin wanted you raised in secret, so that he could claim you were the Pendragon’s son once you reached manhood. But Merlin went into exile, and Uther lived on, and Merlin’s plan drifted away like smoke on a windy day.’
