Gemini Thunder (16 page)

‘There are no guarantees in this business, but I can try.’

‘Could you kindly see if it can be arranged,’ said the king quietly. ‘I ought to at least try to prevent further slaughter.’

King Alfred wishes to hold talks with Guthrum.

Does he now? We will ask if King Guthrum wants to talk to Alfred.

There won’t be any sneaky tricks this time, no axes or bears. I will be there to ensure it.

Will you? How utterly devious of you, and so will both of us. We have spoken to Guthrum. He wants to know what Alfred wants to talk about.

It was my idea that they talk. King Alfred wants to try and prevent more unnecessary slaughter.

Oh, does he? That won’t impress Guthrum; he likes slaughter as do all Viking.

Another battle like the last one and you won’t have enough men left to fight.

Neither will you. We have spoken to King Guthrum again. He is particularly keen to meet you, veneficus. He has not forgotten the seven hundred warriors you killed in Winchester.

I will be there with King Alfred and Edward de Gaini, his battle leader.

Then we will be there with King Guthrum and Ove Thorsten, his regional chieftain.

No animals, no weapons.

We agree.

Alfred’s three-man party rode out slowly on horseback. Picking their way carefully through the torn and twisted bodies of warriors and bears, they neared the middle ground between the two armies where Guthrum, Ove Thorsten, and the twins awaited. Neither side carried a white flag; this was a meeting of equals.

‘They do not have any arms or animals,’ murmured Twilight as they approached the Viking party.

The twins were, no doubt, assuring Guthrum and Thorsten of the same. They were also mounted.

Both parties paused a few yards apart, and there was silence as they studied each other. For Guthrum and Thorsten, Alfred and de Gaini, this was the first time they had been close enough to actually see the faces of their enemy leaders.

Neither side was surprised. The swarthy, heavily tattooed faces of the Viking command remained inscrutable as they studied the equally inscrutable but pale and unmarked faces of the Celtic king and his battle leader. Full-growth, blond facial hair studied wispy beards. Twilight remained completely motionless, his coal black eyes glowing faintly as he studied the mental processes of the Viking jarl and his tough-looking chieftain. Before they set off he’d put a block on Alfred and de Gaini’s minds so that they could not be read by the twins. He was pleased, at first, to see that the twins had not thought to do the same with Guthrum or Thorsten, although having quickly scanned both the invader minds and finding they were completely devoid of anything other than an intense hatred for those in front of them and everything they represented, he could see that there was no real need for the twins to block them. No deep, dark thought processes there, no clever stratagem for winning the battle, just a pure, undiluted, and vitriolic hatred for Celts and a burning desire to kill them allied to an allegiance to their Norse gods.

Guthrum’s face displayed undiluted loathing as he fixed bloodshot eyes on Twilight. His horse moved skittishly, and he dug his heels into it cruelly and hauled on the reins to keep it still.

The twins giggled.

‘Well, we’re here,’ they said simultaneously.

Edward de Gaini spoke, indicating Alfred on his left. ‘This is King Alfred of Wessex.’

Alfred nodded. ‘And I am Edward de Gaini, the king’s battle leader.’

Guthrum’s eyes blazed. He pointed at Twilight and a guttural stream of Norse curses issued from his mouth. The twins were about to translate when Twilight’s mouth opened and he answered with an identical but longer stream of guttural Norse curses. Identical in language but as Norse curses go, Twilight’s had more than the edge in quality, penetration, and descriptive power. Guthrum’s red eyes almost popped out of his head. He again opened his mouth to explode more berserker hatred, but then a strange thing happened.

His horse bucked him off.

Struggling to his feet he shook off the attentions of the twins, who had dismounted to help him, put his head back, and let out a thunderous bellow of rage. The chieftain rings around his crown rattled, the tattoo-covered veins on his dirt-encrusted neck and face stood out like cords of ten-twist jute, and he clenched and unclenched his big hands in a demonstration of frustrated rage, the likes of which none of the Celts had ever seen before. Then he kicked the horse viciously under its belly, with which it took off and galloped toward the Celtic lines. Bellowing curses at the rapidly retreating animal, Guthrum snatched the reins of Go-uan’s horse and with the clumsiness of a seafarer mounted it. If that animal had so much as twitched he would have throttled it with his bare hands.

Alfred, de Gaini, and Twilight sat quietly through this demonstration of violent-tempered behaviour, each thinking just how much the leader magnified the savage, brutal, berserker characteristics of his men. As he watched the display of bellowing fury, Twilight was sorely tempted to rid this turning earth of the demented Guthrum there and then and worry about the twins afterward, but it would have to wait another day as they were honour-bound under a truce arranged by him. The twins would probably get in a retaliatory strike at Alfred before he could deal with them, so he waited.

His turn would come.

King Arthur cleared his throat.

‘We would like some time to remove our dead from the battlefield,’ he said in a neutral voice.

The twins translated Alfred’s English for the benefit of Guthrum and Ove Thorsten.

Still obviously seething, Guthrum couldn’t bring himself to respond. Ove Thorsten growled a reply.

‘How long would you like?’ asked the twins.

‘The rest of today should suffice,’ said de Gaini. ‘It would also give you time to remove your warriors and, perhaps, bears.’

Go-ian translated for Guthrum and Thorsten. This set Guthrum off on another tirade of virulent bellowing. When he had finished Twilight translated.

‘He says that they have so many Celtic heads that taking them back home in their longboats, as is their custom, will be difficult. So he has ordered each Viking warrior to fashion his own amulet pole, carve a middle section of skull bone from each head he takes, cut a small Norse rune to
Tyr
on it, and put it over the pole. These poles are also beginning to get heavy, but there will be many more amulets to come and many more full poles. He is also waiting for the time when each of us, particularly me, adorns one of these poles.’

King Arthur looked at de Gaini and then Twilight, then spoke softly but with intense venom to the twins.

‘There is nothing to be gained here. This wrathful slaughterer doesn’t have the merest spark of human morality. All he is capable of seeing is mindless gore.’ He looked directly at Guthrum and pointed his index finger at the glowering face. ‘Tell him also that one day soon I will leave his poisonous, dirty, hideously ugly corpse on the field of battle as carrion for the ravens.’

As the twins translated, Guthrum, with every last sinew straining, opened his mouth to start bellowing again.

And for the second time was bucked off his horse.

As the Celtic party wheeled and began to slowly trot back to their lines, the bellowing, horse kicking, and twin punching began in earnest behind them.

As Desmond said when he’d been captured, one day this particularly violent Viking would explode in a storm of malevolent bile. ‘Were you responsible for Guthrum falling from his horse?’ asked Desmond later. ‘And if so, why didn’t the twins stop it?’

‘Removing air from a windbag is a great leveller,’ answered Twilight obliquely, ‘and yes, the twins did try to stop it, but they spread their power between Guthrum, Thorsten, and themselves. I only used a little power on the minds of Alfred and de Gaini, and had plenty to spare for getting through the defences of those two.’

‘Edward de Gaini told me you and Guthrum exchanged . . . er . . . pleasantries in the Norse tongue.’

Twilight chuckled.

‘That’s one way of putting it, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Obscenities and invective would be nearer the truth.’

‘What did he call you?’

‘Let me see now . . . ‘ Twilight suddenly rattled off a stream of unintelligible Norse.

‘That’s not fair! What does it all mean?’

‘I am a poison-wielding dung beetle with a dirty village whore for a mother, a mire-wraith for a father, and a spite-witch for a wife. My children are the spawn of slime worms, my acquaintances decomposed maggots, and all my ancestry came out the back end of a rat. Within days we will all be dead, along with all the other cowardly blood sacks who call themselves Celts. His glorious warriors will stack our worthless bodies into a pile of headless flesh and then set it on fire. When the bonfire of our worthless flesh has turned to ashes, they will urinate them into a putrid bog where nothing will ever grow again.’

Desmond’s eyes had grown larger with each sentence.

‘What a mouthful. What was your reply?’

‘I replied in kind. It’s the only way that a sub-human disease like Guthrum will ever understand anything.’

Twilight again rattled off a stream of unintelligible Norse. This time it was longer.

‘I said that I had looked deep into his soul and could only find void. It was as barren as a desert wind. The same with his heart, nothing there but cowardice and fright. His vaunted Viking fighting skills were nil, a complete pretence that would be shown for its incompetence the moment he took to the battlefield, which as a coward he would never do. His entire presence was a sham hiding behind the bellowing of fifty stuck pigs, and none of the gods whose images he was covered in acknowledged his presence on earth. He was a nonentity, nothing he was purported to be, a shell of nonexistence, a fickle-faced avoider who hid behind the deeds of others, a timid, repulsive, repellent cowerer taking refuge in arrogance, an apostate whose devotions were false, a nonbeliever always trying to convince others of his sanctity, a cold and unwelcome deviate in his own Norse deities, a yellow-belly, misfit, and a dribbler hiding behind and protected by a culture he was incapable of following . . . and his men knew it, his gods knew it, his woman knew it, his family all knew it, and, worst of all, we knew it.’

Desmond’s mouth had dropped open in total astonishment well before Twilight finished.

‘No wonder he fell from his horse,’ he said eventually with a shake of the head. ‘You attacked him in his own language, right where it hurt, the founding stone of his elitism, the warrior, deity, brotherhood, courage bit.’

‘I was very taken with the idea of removing him permanently,’ said Twilight. ‘For various reasons I didn’t, but it was close for a moment or two.’

‘What do you think the twins have done with Sir Valiant and Scroopy?’ asked Desmond, changing the subject. ‘Now I’ve got the bears back it would be nice to have those two as well.’

‘Killed or left alone on Steep Holm,’ replied the miracle-maker.

‘Can we check?’

‘Yes. We can go there now.’

Desmond was already reaching for Twilight’s hand.

A series of quick raids by the Viking at the weakened points in the Celtic lines, followed by another full-frontal, eyeballs-out howling attack, soon saw the defenders giving ground until Edward de Gaini was forced to call the retreat. As Twilight and the twins exchanged many thunderbolts, Celts scattered in small groups far and wide and headed west as fast as their horses or legs would carry them. The swarming Viking warriors took over Chippingham and prepared for a great celebration. King Alfred of Wessex had lost the battle of Chippingham as well as Winchester and the lives of nearly nine thousand men.

Guthrum now ruled Wessex.

Before the rout, King Alfred had issued an order to his remaining commanders to be passed down to every man. In the event of the Celts being overpowered by the Viking, each soldier was to make for his home or a place of known sanctuary, bury his weapons, and lie low. Winter was coming. By the spring of the following year, Alfred would gather together another army and rise up again to strike back at the invader.

Gode of Combe, along with the remnants of the troop she had arrived with, was sent back to her father to warn him of the imminent arrival of the invader. With these men as his escort he was to move west immediately, regardless of his health. She would then rejoin Alfred to begin the long process of rebuilding his army.

The rallying point was to be Tintagel Castle in Kernow. The fight back would begin there in the spring. Wessex had lost the battle but not the war; they would return stronger and wiser.

Gode and Desmond parted; the troubadour would stay with his animals and Twilight.

Which, once more, included Sir Valiant and Lord Scroop, whom Twilight had transformed back from Steep Holm. They had not been killed by the twins.

With a small escort party of soldiers under the command of a new cohort leader, Samuel Southee, and alongside Edward de Gaini, King Alfred rode hard to the west. Southee, who had earned a reputation at Winchester and Chippingham as a brave and resourceful fighter, had the added advantage of being born and raised in the middle of the Summerland Levels, an area he knew well and to where they were now heading.