The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (48 page)

‘We must leave King Maelchon for the time being.’ Eremon’s voice was admirably calm. Yet he didn’t feel it; by Hawen’s breath and balls, he didn’t feel it. ‘We cannot spare the warriors at this delicate stage. But the time will come, soon.’

Fergus muttered a curse, dipping the base of a spear-point into the fire-pot of birch tar. But after a warning glance from Conaire the youth sat back with a silent scowl, setting the sticky tang of the point into its pale ash shaft.

Thank the gods that Lorn preferred a fire with his own men on the other side of camp, Eremon thought sourly, for if
he
was here they would never hear the end of it. Irritated by the lengthening silence, he took a more normal breath and glanced around at his men with a raised eyebrow. ‘Speaking of this delicate stage, are we all clear about what we have to do? Do you have your supplies ready?’ Immediately, Colum and Fergus nodded.

Eremon, in large part to assuage the potent brew of guilt, hurt and rage that was fermenting in his gut, was leading the first attack on the Roman army. For the oncoming column had now reached the narrowest neck of land, the point where the eastern hills came closest to the sea – a place not too far from their hidden glen.

‘Rori?’ Eremon’s eye now fixed on his youngest warrior, as he recognized the embarrassment still painted on Rori’s freckled cheeks.

Rori held up an arrow. ‘I am going with the Caereni archers tonight, my lord.’ His smile was tentative. ‘I have food and water packed.’

‘Good.’ Eremon grinned at him. ‘That is quite enough glory for now, eh? Remember that you get to strike the first blow, Rori, before we get anywhere near!’

It had been Conaire’s suggestion, carefully thought out, to give this first attack to the archers, not the swordsmen. Eremon would follow with his troop of warriors, but they would remain in reserve, as Nectan’s men cut the horses out from under the Roman cavalry and officers. The Albans hoped this would not only make retreat harder, but also instill panic into the rest of the Roman ranks, for fear was a potent weapon that worked outside the range of a blade.

Suddenly, Conaire’s eyes flickered upwards, and Eremon turned to see one of the Caereni archers standing on the edge of the pool of firelight. ‘My lord.’ The little man went down on one knee, his head bent in the usual deference these strange, half-wild people showed Eremon.

‘Yes?’ Eremon’s mind scrambled for a name; the Caereni men all looked similar with sloe eyes and raven-black hair. Yet then he remembered it was Nectan’s brother, left in command in his absence. ‘Yes, Domech?’

‘Our people will sacrifice to the Goddess, the Great Mother, this night. As Her consort, the King Stag, you must come and eat of the deer’s heart and be marked with his blood. Then She can protect you in the forest.’

Eremon sensed his men’s bemused reactions, although Rori and Fergus stiffened at the implicit demand in the man’s words.

Smiling to himself, Eremon agreed immediately, and rose to gather his weapons. He straddled two worlds now, as he was sometimes reminded, and suddenly a snatch of the sweet wildness he had felt that night in the stone circle floated up inside him: the fire and the leaping shadows; the antlers heavy on his brow. Perhaps this sacrifice would help him to focus once more, to be clean.

‘When the moon rests on that peak there, I will return,’ he told his men, pointing with a spear. ‘Be ready for me then.’

Lucius Antonius Saturninus, the legate of the Twentieth Valeria Victrix legion, watched the sun creeping over the low wooded rise that lay between his army and the northern sea.

Behind him there was a series of twangs and slaps as his slaves unpegged his leather tent and dropped it to the ground to begin folding and rolling. Around him in the half-dark, narrow vale in which they’d camped, the legionaries and auxiliaries quickened their preparations for departure. Hundreds of fires winked out one by one, extinguished by sand; cookpots clanked as they were packed on to bed rolls; buckles chinked as armour was donned and weapons fastened. The mass mutters and movement of nearly 5,000 men sounded like a high wind over the trees of a vast forest.

Sniffing the damp, salt-tanged air, Lucius climbed the few steps to the top of the wooded rise, pushing through the tangled screen of gorse to see the sea. It seemed calm today. Lucius sighed and edged his way around the knoll to face back towards the mountains. He only wished he was so calm.

He should have been. He commanded the largest army sent into northern Alba so far, a mixed force drawn from his own Twentieth legion, consisting of a detachment of elite legionary foot soldiers, supplemented by auxiliary infantry and cavalry drawn from the conquered peoples of the Empire. Yet it had been ten days since the army left the safety of the Venicones lands between Forth and Tay, and still they’d seen no sign of the people who were said to cluster on these fertile east-coast plains. They had come across smaller duns, and sacked and torched them, yet they had been deserted of defenders.

His
primus pilus
, the leading centurion, was uneasy, and that made Lucius uneasy. Yet Agricola’s orders, before he boarded the ship to take him south, had been explicit. The army was to keep advancing until it reached the point where the north-east plain opened out to its fullest extent. It was then to seek out the main tribal duns and subdue them with artillery, specifically, the Caledonii king’s seat of power. Or, if faced in the open by a significant force, it was to give battle.

It sounded simple, and yet there was a problem. The populace had fled. There was no one to fight, which, among these fierce barbarians, was unheard of.

So Lucius had gone on, but with increasing unease. And as they went north, the hills and the broken glens that spread from them gradually drew closer to the east coast, forcing the army into a narrow marching order that left it strung out for a league. The auxiliary cavalry was in the front, the baggage and artillery next, then the elite legionaries on foot and finally more auxiliary infantry guarding the rear. Lucius was anxious about marching in such a narrow column – he preferred open country when he could use the cavalry to guard the flanks properly – but there was no choice.

And it wasn’t just practicalities that pricked at him, it was the land itself.

The line of mountains to their left, with their dark flanks and roiling cloud-crowns, the unnatural silence of the valleys, the absence of cooking fires, and, worst of all, the utter lack of any resistance were conspiring to make him afraid.

And though the soldiers tried to laugh at the aged skulls hung in clusters from the oak groves, and strange symbols scrawled in blood on house walls, and lines of raw, staked-out skins, the Alban druids had done their work well. Lucius heard the increasing mutters of the young tribunes around him, as well as the experienced centurions, and saw the swift, fearful glances sent over hunched shoulders. These damned barbarians were attacking their resolve and courage without dealing a single blow!

What Lucius wanted, with increasing desperation, was to come across a great force of savages spread out on the plain before them, shrieking their war cries. Lucius would understand what to do then, knew the attack formations and strategies that would ensure victory. But this desertion was worse than resistance, for there was no way on the gods’ earth that the barbarians had given up. Lucius just couldn’t believe that, not after those vicious fort raids.

Eventually, Lucius came down the slope to commence armouring, standing still with his arms out as a slave tightened the straps of his cuirass and knelt to fasten his greaves around his calves. Another slave then led his horse to him. As Lucius swung into the saddle, he fixed his eyes on the eagle emblem of the legion, borne proudly by the standard bearer standing to his left. Its bronze wings spread fiercely, gleaming in the sun’s first rays, as did the discs on the standards of the
maniple
regiments, held up by each unit’s signifer officer so the men could fall into rank behind.

Yet far above the flowing stream of bold crimson shields, iron helmets and lance tips, Lucius could also glimpse the Alban hills that lay between the army and the higher mountains. The native colours were subdued compared to the red tiles and blue sky of Roman lands. This Alban sunrise was flaming, but the wind-scoured trees and open heaths were all dull greens and purples and umbers, the hollows still steeped in cold shadow. Between the open tracts of heath were dark wedges of close-clustered trees, huddled along the banks of the many small streams that cut the plain into ribbons.

Lucius had put the remnants of his faith in that open land, and his scouts. There was no chance that a rebel army could creep up on them unawares. His men had been watching that land constantly, and the hills above.

The sun was high enough now to stretch the combined shadow of Lucius and his horse on the ground, its tip trembling as his helmet plume waved in the cool breeze. The shadow was that of a giant, a beast with long legs and a huge head, and Lucius smiled at it to bolster his spirits. With their superior weapons and tactics his men surely
were
giants compared to the savages of this land. He must remember that.

The men had at last formed up, and Lucius raised his gloved hand as a trumpet cleaved the air with the order to depart. With his other officers, surrounded by their own personal guard, Lucius moved out behind the auxiliary cavalry, casting a glance back at his men.

As they streamed out of the vale, the strengthening dawn glittered over the army as if it were a great, many-legged insect; armoured with hard, polished iron plates, bristling with the teeth of javelins, rumbling with the tread of heavy feet. Each part moved together, each man could react to his officer’s orders as if he were part of one beast. His fears dampened by a surge of pride, Lucius turned his attention forward.

They were at the narrowest part of the plain now, the scouts said. Not far to the north the line of the mountains angled back the other way, and the great north-east plain would spread out before them. Then they would no longer be hemmed in so close to the coast.

That thought lent an eagerness to the angle of Lucius’s seat, and his horse responded by quickening its step.

It was still morning when they came to the river crossing Lucius had decided to avoid the previous night. The shallow pool at the ford was already churned by the passage of many hooves when his own horse picked its way down into the swirling water.

Lucius was leaning down, closely watching his stallion’s step across the slippery river cobbles when his reverie was shattered by a whinny. Clutching the reins, Lucius jerked his head up, his eyes locked with disbelief on a horse that lurched its way up the bank and collapsed on its forequarters, its rider flung to the muddy ground.

Then chaos erupted all around him, with piteous cries and horses stumbling and falling. On the solid ground behind, the baggage and artillery carts rumbled to a halt, and there were shouts and whip cracks as the drivers tried to make their beasts retreat. Dazed, Lucius barely registered the whining all around him, like angry bees, until his prefect cursed and crowded his horse close, nudging Lucius through the water and up the bank.

‘Archers!’ the prefect cried. From the woods!’

‘How…?’ Lucius began, before his own horse suddenly reared up, nearly unseating him, and he felt the impact shudder through his own body when an arrow found the stallion’s chest.

Then Lucius had no time to listen to the screams of horses or terrorized men, as his body hit the ground with a blow that took his breath away. His cheek pressed into the mud, Lucius could only stare as one of his tribunes was crushed by his falling horse, his face twisting into a rictus of agony, as death rained from the skies above.

Eremon watched from a knoll that rose above a stream fringed by alders and willows. His heart pounded relentlessly, from fear and excitement, and with sheer admiration for Nectan’s archers. All of them, including his men, had gone without sleep and food for three days now, as they crawled in stages out over the plain. They’d travelled only by night, keeping to the patches of trees where they could, the fierce hatred of the Caereni for those who attacked the Sacred Isle immuring them to cold, hunger and damp.

After three days the little men lay safely hidden, spread out in mires and woods and gullies on a narrow front, and the Romans did not even know they were there. With their clothing and their way of moving as if one with the trees and swamps, the Caereni were invisible to the Roman scouts.

This will be the last time we have the element of total surprise
, Eremon realized. He tried to keep himself perfectly still, though he and his own men lay further back than the line of attack. Yet the midges were biting fiercely in the damp dawn shadows, and he worked a hand up now to scratch his nostril. His whole face itched terribly, from the dried stag blood with which the Caereni had marked him, and from the cracking river mud that smeared their naked torsos from head to trousers, to make them blend in with the land. Unfortunately, Eremon had missed his earlobes, and it was to these fleshy parts that the midges were applying themselves with vigour.

Beside him, Conaire’s eyes were glowing white in his mud-smeared face, but he didn’t speak. Instead, they both listened to the shrieks of horses and angry yells of men, interrupted by the sound of confused splashing. For a moment, Eremon allowed himself some sorrow for the horses, but men on horseback could chase foot warriors and ride them down. There was no choice.

Then he caught a slight movement in the trees, and in a moment three archers trotted out to the base of the knoll. Jerking his head at Conaire, Eremon scrambled down the steep slopes to join Fergus and Colum, who waited there on guard.

One of the archers paused as they came up, grinning and wiping sweat from his brow, and only then did Eremon notice that this one was taller and ganglier than the others. He hadn’t recognized Rori, for the youth’s flaming hair had been completely caked with mud to hide its colour.