Warrior of the West (2 page)

‘I travel along my own road, Cerdic, and my path follows that of Gawayne and the High King,’ Gaheris said patiently. ‘My father may be my liege and my tribal lord, but he has decided on an alliance of his own choosing. Like you, I wait here in the open and will parley with these Saxon animals - for I obey the orders of the High King and I follow the loyalties of my brother, Prince Gawayne.’

‘Give the lad a rest, Cerdic,’ one of the other warriors interjected. ‘Gawayne has been killing those fools who ally themselves with King Lot up and down the mountains for years. Fair is as fair does!’

The warrior who spoke was a bastard Roman, born in the lands to the north of Aquae Sulis in settlements that were close to the Saxon hive in the old Roman forts, so Cerdic bit off an acerbic retort. But the other envoys lowered their eyes so that Gaheris would not see the distrust that lurked in the lines of their faces.

A horse shied violently, and the startled men tugged on their reins to prevent their own horses from following suit.

‘Can’t you control that sodding animal, Ulf?’ Cerdic snapped, his nerves taut with the strain of waiting.

‘Someone, or something, approaches,’ Ulf warned, his eyes darting from side to side in alarm. ‘My mare always knows.’

The captain of the escort rolled his brown eyes as Ulf ’s horse shied again, sending pebbles rolling and clattering.

‘Keep the beast quiet then, so we can hear for ourselves.’

An eerie silence descended.

A hawk circled high above the ridge line, its wings spread wide as it hovered on the wind. Even the crows in the ancient oak trees were silent and waiting. The whole world seemed to be still, except for the gelid air that the men heaved into their straining lungs.

Through the strange blood of his mother, Gaheris felt the weight of his approaching death come upon him like dark, implacable wings. He was not afraid, precisely, but his senses were heightened as if his body knew that it would soon cease to breathe and think.

Then, as if they had sprung from the aching, icy earth, the Saxons, dozens of warriors, armed and eager for combat, appeared before them on the open ground. These men were the children and grandchildren of the warriors led by Vortimer and Hengist, shaggy barbarians who had been brutally decimated into near extinction by the forces of Uther Pendragon and his fearsome son. They had been born on British soil in one of the few bastions of the west that the Saxons had been able to hold, and their hatred for all things Celt knew no limits.

Greasy, oiled hair was bound with silver and bronze wire, and clothing that was once brightly dyed was now dun with dirt and hard use. Although their bodies were comely and heavily muscled, their furs and leathers made them look like hulking creatures born out of nightmares. The Roman crossed himself, and several warriors of the guard clutched stone amulets and muttered prayers. In response, Ulf began to draw his sword out of its sheath, and the hiss of sharp, well-oiled metal was shocking and loud, but Cerdic raised one hand to still the warrior’s instinctive response. He lifted the flag of truce so that it could be clearly seen by the Saxons.

Wheeling, Cerdic waved the banner again, shouting in Celt, Saxon and Latin that this meeting was to broker a truce, but the Saxons were oblivious to everything this flag meant. They loathed the very air that Celts breathed. Cerdic carried the words of Artor, but the message was as arid to Saxons as dry leaves in the northern wind. Approaching in a loping, mile-devouring run, the Saxons surrounded the Celts in a ring of steel and, even for warriors on horseback, there would be no easy way out of this circle of death.

One huge man, well over six feet four inches in height, moved casually to face Cerdic’s horse and, with blinding speed, buried his axe in the brain of the animal. As he expertly twisted the blade free, and the horse collapsed at his feet, the Saxon snatched up the white banner, spat on it, and then trampled it into the bloody earth.

Cerdic struggled to rise, but one leg was trapped beneath the body of his stallion. The men-at-arms wheeled their horses and tried to free their weapons, but the Saxons thrust spears at the undefended chests of Artor’s emissaries. Cursing, Cerdic’s warriors dropped their hands, for they were outnumbered, ten to one.

The Saxon leader was fair-complexioned, as were most of his race, but his hair was greased to the colour of old honey and his nails were black with grime. Gaheris registered all these small details as if he was caught in a nightmare, but he was preternaturally calm.

The Saxon pointed to Ulf and two other warriors in the guard at random. With a jerk of his head, the brute indicated that the rest of the troop should move to his right and dismount. Gaheris was surprised. The Celts stood with their horses’ reins held loosely in their hands, but the Saxons had presented no threat to the animals so far. He had not expected the Saxons to appreciate horses for their usefulness. For all their wild and brutal appearance, perhaps these hulking warriors would still allow Artor’s emissaries to go free.

‘I am Glamdring Ironfist, the Thane of Caer Fyrddin. I reject your pitiful flag of truce, as I reject all those horse lords who fought against Katigern Oakheart.’

Gaheris stared at the white flag of truce, ripped haphazardly across its length and muddy from the Saxon’s feet, and he was reminded that no mercy had been shown to Cerdic’s horse, now only so much meat that would be smoked for food during the next winter.

Then the leader of the Saxons grinned widely - and made the universally understood action of throat-cutting.

The Celtic warriors on the right were slain before they could defend themselves, and death came slowly to them as their bodies were hacked and stabbed to prolong their suffering. The men bled to death in front of the envoys, while begging for help with mute, bewildered eyes.

The terrified horses were led away from the bodies and then slaughtered, but at least the beasts merited clean, killing blows. Several Saxons immediately applied themselves to the task of carving horseflesh into slabs of bloody meat for easy transport.

These Saxons are truly barbarians, Gaheris thought with odd, calm detachment as he assessed the carnage. They will never learn.

He shook his head in confusion at the knowledge that his father, King Lot, had allied himself with the savage Saxon invaders rather than pursue his original dream of achieving power within the Celtic tribes. Gaheris knew that wild things could never be trusted, and he could only conclude that his father had been a fool - and a fool he would always remain.

Glamdring cleaned his axe of blood and brain matter on a fold of his woollen cloak. The blade was well-oiled and very sharp.

He pointed a huge finger at Gaheris.

‘You! You are the son of King Lot, a man who is a friend to the Saxon peoples. You have my permission to ride away to join your father. The fate of these others will convey my message to your High King.’

Glamdring’s last words were so scornful that they cut through Gaheris’s passive calm and released him from its thrall. He forced himself to breathe normally, and once again he felt like a man.

‘I don’t wish to die, Glamdring Ironfist, but I have sworn an oath - a blood oath - that I will serve no king but Artor, he to whom the gods have given the sword and crown of Uther Pendragon. Even if I wished to save my life, I cannot do so. Nay! I will not do so!’

He looked directly into the cynical, smouldering eyes of Glamdring.

‘Do as you choose, Glamdring,’ he said to the Saxon. ‘My death will bring you no advantage, but it might bring you much harm - for I am defenceless.’

Glamdring Ironfist returned the open gaze of the boy, who was barely beyond his first blooding.

‘Well spoken, lad. You have my permission to die like a man as you wish - but I will kill you last for your impertinence.’

Then Glamdring’s axe flashed and Cerdic’s head rolled over the scree to rest beside a small rock. The Saxon ignored the fountain of blood that pulsed from Cerdic’s throat and soaked him from the knees down. The fetid reek of voided bowels and hot urine almost choked Gaheris, but he found he could not look away from the grisly sight.

He willed his face to be still and to remain devoid of fear.

‘This man carried the standard, so at least he had the balls to be singled out as leader. We are not unduly cruel to those enemies who show courage.’ Glamdring leered knowingly. ‘Now, who among you wants to be next to die?’

The Saxon leader obviously intended to make the Celtic warriors suffer as they awaited their fate.

Suddenly, the Roman envoy moved. Against all the rules of the truce, and less trusting than his companions, he had secreted a knife in his boot. With a sudden lunge, he managed to put out the eye of a burly Saxon who had failed to take the slight man seriously.

The Roman died quickly from a devastating sword thrust that split him from groin to breastbone. As the man died in the hot stink of his own entrails, Gaheris wished he could remember the warrior’s name.

Three other envoys were hacked to pieces, slowly and deliberately, so that the Saxons could choose when to grant the welcome boon of death. Only Ulf, two other Celtic warriors, and Gaheris now remained standing on the bloody earth.

The air was still, as if the whole, slate-grey earth held its breath. Gaheris stared intently at Ulf, who was trying hard to stand nonchalantly and display the fearless arrogance of a Celtic cavalry officer. Bloodstained, and with his fingers trembling and one knee twitching despite his best efforts, Ulf embodied what was most noble in a Celt, and Gaheris was oddly comforted. This was not reckless, brainless courage. Ulf represented the ordinary man who was faced with an extraordinary situation, and he had mastered his terror when most men would have wept or voided their bladders.

Now that his fate was sealed, Gaheris saw the Celt and Saxon races so clearly that he was surprised he hadn’t realized the purpose of Artor’s long wars years earlier.

‘Whatever you do to these men will change nothing, Glamdring. Surely even a barbarian can give credence to the words of a man who is about to die. I can smell your death upon you, and it will be worse for you than for these brave men, for you don’t know Lord Artor. You judge him by the standards set by my father, King Lot, and by Artor’s father, Uther Pendragon. Artor is not an ordinary man, and he will exact the worst punishment upon you that he can devise . . . and my lord is a master of imagination. You will wish that you had listened to my warnings when you hear your children scream and burn.’

Glamdring’s face reddened slightly beneath his grimy skin, but Gaheris relentlessly goaded the Saxon, hoping for a quick and painless ending. He stared at the sky, where the hawk still circled, oblivious to the human raptors below him. Gaheris, turned his frank green eyes towards his executioner.

‘I have the same gift of sight as my aunt, Morgan, so I can read your death clearly in your eyes. Artor would have had the sense to keep the horses alive, and he would have fought fire with fire. Artor wouldn’t stoop to kill the defenceless and sully his honour by slaying unarmed envoys. Even Lot will be sickened when he hears of your cowardly murders.’

‘Lot is a fat fool,’ Glamdring blustered. ‘And your Morgan is a whore.’ In his rage, the Saxon’s fingers gripped his axe so tightly that his knuckles were ridges of white bone.

Gaheris smiled with a young man’s bravado, and the contempt of a prince.

‘Those insults are the only truths that you have spoken on this bloodsoaked day. You are a condemned man, Glamdring, because, like most Saxons, you’ll never learn.’

Glamdring gave a great cry of rage, swung his axe above his head and struck Gaheris on the shoulder, cutting deeply into his breast.

Even as the prince fell, choking on a sudden rush of blood into his mouth, Gaheris managed the ghost of a chuckle.

‘Never learn . . . never . . . change.’

Then Glamdring struck off the boy’s head with a vicious blow to the neck.

The shale and gravel were thick with congealing blood. At sword point, Ulf and the other two survivors were forced to collect the six heads of their masters, place them reverently in their leather provision sacks, and then string them round their necks. At any moment, the warriors expected to be hacked to pieces, and their nerves were stretched to screaming point.

Glamdring looked scornfully at the three shaken Celts who were bowed over by their hellish burdens. Then he delivered his message to Artor.

Ulf was forced to repeat the message three times until each phrase was perfect. Sickened, the cavalryman knew that he was doomed to live.

‘Now, run away, little dogs, and tell your master that Ironfist is waiting. Tell him also that the bodies of his men will have no burial. Their souls will wander in the void forever, as will all Celts who dare to set foot on Saxon soil.’

And, to his shame, Ulf fled, closely pursued by his companions. Their despair knew no bounds because, by random chance, they lived when better men had died. They hadn’t struck a single blow to save their masters from death, so honour demanded that they should also perish. But stronger than terror or shame was their oath to the High King. Artor must receive Glamdring’s message if the Saxons were to be punished for their crimes against the helpless. Ulf must bear witness to what he had seen and heard, although desperation coiled in his belly so that he vomited until his throat was raw.

Although his cloak and tunic stiffened with blood and serum, and the two leather bags thudded wetly against his sides, still he ran until he could no longer move without weeping.

Eventually, the three survivors found their way to a Celtic settlement and begged horses to speed their journey. They did not stop to eat, or to clean their bodies of the blood that had seeped from the heads of Artor’s ambassadors, until they finally reached Cadbury Tor and their long and ghastly task was completed.