The Saxons were dead or dying, but Rhys and Dunod were dead, Huell suffered wounds, and Merin rolled in the undergrowth clutching at a bloody gash in his stomach. The battle calm left Arthur as quickly as it came. It was as though he awoke from a dream. Suddenly he felt a pain in his face and shoulder where before there had been none. His hands were wet with blood and death had come to the woodland. Huell staggered to his feet, bleeding from multiple cuts on his arms and legs.
‘You are a warrior now, bastard,’ Huell snarled. ‘Oh, you’re a savage one. Found yourself, have you? I can see it in your eyes, boy, you are a killer. Maybe I was wrong about you.’
Kai crashed into Arthur and draped an arm around his shoulders. ‘You killed the enemy today, brother. You are part of the war band now. Father will be proud.’
Arthur nodded and tried to smile. He had done it; he had killed and received praise from cruel Huell. The thing Ector had raised him to do, trained him to do, what Arthur had always wanted to do. But the achievement left him numb as the injured wailed and the dead lay soiled in the undergrowth, their bowels voided to leave the copse stinking of shit and blood. Arthur suddenly bent over and vomited into the leaf mulch. He wasn’t sure if it was from the thrill of battle or the horror of taking a man’s life.
‘It will feel bad for a while, that you have taken a man’s life. But it will pass. You have earned your death ring now, and more than one.’ Kai ruffled Arthur’s hair and grinned.
Arthur forced a smile. To look upon the torn and bloody bodies was gut-wrenching, fearsome because of the nature of their injuries and how close Arthur himself had come to suffering such blow. But he didn’t feel bad for the slain. There was no guilt for the lives he had taken. It was life or death, just as Ector had said it would be. Arthur felt no pity for the men he had killed. They had come to Britain for war and had found their destiny. If they were not prepared to lose their lives, they should have stayed in their own lands and left his people in peace.
‘Take anything valuable,’ Huell ordered. ‘Weapons, silver, food. Anything we can use.’
Cynfan and Nyfed tended to Merin. They propped him up against a tree and helped him take a sip of ale from a skin. He coughed and pulled his hands away from his stomach to reveal a terrible wound, purple coils visible beneath the bloody ruin of his tunic. Merin wept, and Nyfed held his hand to comfort the dying warrior.
‘One of them got away,’ said Kadored, emerging from the forest dripping with sweat. ‘I chased him, but he was too swift. He’s disappeared over the hills.’
‘A pox on these Saxon whoresons,’ said Huell. ‘They’ll be after us now. We’d better be gone from here soon.’
Merin died moments later, and Nyfed said a prayer over his corpse. There was no time to bury the bodies or provide any sort of send-off worthy of a dead warrior. Huell wanted to march through the night. If they stayed in the copse, they could awake to an army of Saxons descending on them, for they did not know how far the fleeing Saxon must run to find his countrymen. The Saxon war band was most likely a group of scouts, Arthur thought, ranging ahead of the Saxon army to scout the countryside and search for signs of the enemy, safe ways to march, places to camp and find supplies. But news of their slaughter would bring more Saxon spears searching for the Rheged men, and they must be as far away from the copse as possible.
Arthur took a hard-baked leather breastplate from a Saxon he had killed, along with a seax. Arthur strapped on the belt that came with it, and he placed the seax sheath at the small of his back. The seax sheath rested sideways so that he could quickly whip its antler hilt free and be ready to fight.
‘We should find the horses,’ said Kai, as they gathered weapons and silver from the dead. The horses had bolted at the sound of battle and the smell of blood.
‘It will take too long,’ said Huell, using a strip of cloth cut from a dead man’s tunic to bind the cuts on his arm. ‘Besides, they are too easy to track and will be heard for miles. We march on foot. There are only seven of us now, and half of us carry wounds.’
So seven warriors left the copse as darkness fell. Each man now carried spear, shield, knife and seax. They took skins of strong-tasting ale from the Saxons, and some scraps of hacksilver found in leather pouches tied beneath dead men’s armpits. Arthur took a black cloak with fur around its neck and hood and followed Huell out into the wilderness. He was a warrior. Men had died under his knife, but Arthur’s head swam with confusion. He had expected to feel guilt and sadness for taking another man’s life, but all he felt was alive, and pride at living up to Ector’s expectations.
6
Seven warriors left the woodland, half marching and half running eastwards with the mountains at their backs. No stars shone that night, and the sliver of moon showed itself sparingly beneath dense cloud cover. It was late spring, and a chill wind came from the south to sting their fingers, ears and noses, and Arthur pulled his fur hood close about him. He carried a heavy Saxon shield upon his back, much larger than the shields his own people fought with. The shield, made of linden wood riveted to an iron boss and ringed with iron, would protect Arthur from chin to shin if he crouched behind it with his spear. He carried his spear in his right hand and wore his long knife at his belt and the seax at the small of his back.
They ran through heath, cloying bog and splashed through shallow rivers, all the time throwing nervous glances over their shoulders in search of any pursuing Saxon forces. Arthur’s face grew tight as the cut across his cheek clotted, and his shoulder screamed with fiery pain. There had been no time to wash or stitch the wounds in the woodland, but Arthur knew he would need to clean the wounds before the rot set in, and Nyfed carried a bone needle and gut thread in a pouch at his belt for such work.
‘He can’t carry on like this,’ said Kai, who loped along next to Arthur. Kai jutted his chin towards Huell’s broad back, and the warrior stumbled once, righted himself for a few more steps and then veered to his right before Serwil caught him and kept Huell on his feet.
‘He has to,’ said Arthur. ‘We must be as far from the copse as possible before the sun comes up.’
‘We should have buried Rhys, Merin and Dunod so that they can pass to heaven.’
‘I’m sure God will understand.’
A red glow lit distant clouds before the sun came up, and Arthur could taste salt on the wind as the war band stopped to rest beside a thicket which separated two tilled fields. Huell closed his eyes tight and pressed a hand to the small of his back. The hand came away bloody. Huell caught Arthur watching him and shook his head slightly, silently warning Arthur not to tell the rest of the warriors that he bore a serious wound beneath his mail. They finished what remained in their ale skins and consumed the last of their food. Arthur chewed on a piece of Saxon sausage taken from the dead, heavy with garlic and onion, and Kadored broke up a loaf of bread and shared a piece with each man.
‘I can smell the sea,’ Nyfed said. He took the bow from his back and rested it against the thicket. ‘We should reach the coast soon.’
‘Then to find this bloody princess before we’re all killed,’ grumbled Cynfan, dabbing his finger gingerly at a gash on his thigh.
‘Maybe we should turn back,’ said Serwil, and then looked offended as the others frowned at him. ‘What? I’m only saying what you are all thinking. We have all taken wounds. Three of our brothers are dead. We don’t even know this princess or her king. Let’s get back home whilst we still can.’
‘We go on,’ said Huell through gritted teeth. ‘We follow orders.’
‘Even if we march to our deaths? Our spears are better served fighting Saxons with Ector than dying here for nothing.’
‘We are oathsworn to Urien and Ector. Part of that oath is to follow his commands even if it means our deaths. I’ll thrash the next man who questions that. We find Guinevere or we die.’
They rose slowly, creaking and groaning as the sun came up to warm Arthur’s face. In the darkness, he hadn’t realised how pale Huell had become. Sweat greased his skin, and the big man suddenly looked gaunt beneath his thick beard. Farmland turned to coarse grass, and the hills fell away to where gulls cawed, and a grey sea rolled beneath a bright spring sky. Kai laughed for joy as they clambered over high dunes and slid down white sand on to a beach which stretched away north in a wide sweep. The tide was out, leaving dark sand beyond the waterline where seabirds pecked and dug for worms and shellfish.
‘Now to find a fishing village and news of Octha and his army,’ said Huell. He limped along the sand, using his spear to brace his weight. Every man in the band saw his discomfort, but no one commented on it for fear of Huell’s wrath. Their pace slowed to match his, and Kai pointed to a small boat bobbing in the surf at the beach’s north end. Fishermen prepared for a day’s work, and the war band marched towards them, hopeful of news or at least some direction for their quest. All Arthur knew was that they were deep in Lloegyr, in Saxon lands which had once been the proud kingdom of Bernicia. They did not know where Octha and his army landed or marched, only that the Saxon King Ida had a stronghold on a high crag which had once been Dun Guaroy, close to Lindisfarne Island.
A small man in ragged tunic and trews rolled up above his knees waded into the shallows. He worked at a fishing net, untangling a wicker basket from its folds and whistling a tune as the tide lapped at his small fishing boat.
‘You there,’ Huell barked. The fisherman turned, and wrinkles creased his sun-darkened face. He gaped at the war band, looked at his boat and then at their gleaming spear points.
‘Please, lord,’ the man said, lisping the words in a mouth containing a few stubs of brown teeth. ‘I’m just a simple man.’
‘Are there Saxons here?’ Huell asked.
‘Yes, lord. Have been since my father’s time. These lands belong to Imma.’
‘Who is Imma?’
‘A Saxon, lord, who serves Ida of Bebbanburg.’
‘Bebbanburg?’
‘Dun Guaroy in our tongue, lord.’
