The Saxon Might, page 27
part #3 of The Song of Ash Series
“I see now why you wouldn’t want to ever leave this place,” I say.
“How many of them are there?” asks Betula. She’s just as transfixed by the ponies as I am. She reaches out her one hand to stroke the mare on the forehead, but the pony brays and walks off in a dignified sulk.
“Nobody knows,” replies Eadgith. “These moors stretch beyond Clausent, maybe all the way to Sorbiodun. There could well be thousands of them.”
“Have you backed any of them yet?” I ask.
“A few. But not her,” Eadgith nods at the chestnut mare.
“I will tame her,” I say.
Betula laughs. “When did you become a horse-tamer?”
“I haven’t. But I’ve seen it done — how hard can it be?”
“It takes years to learn the skill. And even a trained tamer would need weeks to break a wild beast like her.”
“I will tame her,” I repeat. It is a foolish boast. I’ve only ever ridden horses a few times in my life. I have no idea how to approach a feral beast. But from the moment I saw her, I’ve felt a strange connection to the flaxen-haired mare.
“Just don’t go calling her ‘Rhedwyn’,” whispers Eadgith, reading my mind again.
“I… wasn’t going to.”
“Of course you weren’t. Her name is Frige — at least that’s what Haegel called her, when he first tried to back her. It seems she’s destined to break all men’s hearts.”
“And who’s Haegel?”
An old man, bent in half, approaches the pony enclosure from the direction of the village; he’s wearing a grey hooded cloak and supports himself with a long, straight staff of ash wood.
“That’ll be me,” he says with a broad grin. “Haegel of Hléseg,” he introduces himself with a bow. “My family built the first house in this marsh,” he adds, pointing to a substantial hut in the middle of the village.
“Doesn’t that make you the elder here?”
He scratches his head. “I suppose so. I never paid much attention to these matters. I hear old Eadwin didn’t make it to Cantiaca?” he asks Eadgith. “I told him it was too dangerous for someone his age.”
“You know how he insisted, Haegel,” says Eadgith. “And now you’re the eldest that remains. This is Gesith Aeric, he arrived yesterday from the East,” she adds.
“I gathered as much. Admiring my horses, I see.”
“They are magnificent beasts,” I say.
“And gentle, too. Unless you want to ride them, that is.”
He clicks his tongue and the flaxen mare trots over to the fence. He pats her on the nose and gives her half an apple.
“We hoped she would foal this spring,” he says, growing serious. “But the attack scared her and she miscarried.”
“You were attacked even here?”
I look around. The village of Meon, named after the river on the banks of which it stands, is at least ten households strong, and surrounded by a shallow ditch and a wooden fence. It seems unlikely that any small band of roaming roughs would ever try to attack it.
“Frige and a few others were kept in a camp in the northern moors. It was the second place to be burned down.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, both to him and to the mare.
“We have other foals coming,” says Haegel. “If there are no more of these… attacks.”
“We’re here to see to that,” I say and point to my men, lined along the enclosure’s fence. Haegel nods politely, but I can see he’s surprised and disappointed there are only six of us. I can see he expected an entire war band would be sent to deal with whoever caused his favourite mare to lose a foal.
“Show us what happened here,” says Eadgith.
He gazes north. “It’s best if we go to Tova’s place. It’s about a mile up the river. It’s where everything started.”
“They kept the goats here. The whole place stank like a giant’s arsehole. But they made good cheese.”
Haegel closes the small, charred door. A futile gesture, since the house has no roof and only one wall still intact. The rest of the farmstead, including a smokery and a small grain store, is all burned to the ground. The only thing left standing is the stone chimney of the smoking hut.
“Dunn said the attackers haven’t taken anything,” I say. “How do you know, if everything’s burned down?”
Haegel reaches into his cloak and takes out a small silver trinket, carved in the shape of a horse’s head. “Tova wore this brooch — it was her only treasure — she brought it with her from the Old Country. She still had it on her.”
“Five people lived here,” adds Eadgith. “Two of them children. They were all found in a pile by the smokery.”
“We found the goats out on the bracken moor,” adds Haegel. “Frightened out of their wits, but untouched otherwise, just like the ponies after the second attack.”
I crouch down by the smokery chimney and root through the charred rubble. There’s an air of menace around this place that I last felt in the destroyed village of the Gewisse refugees in Masuna’s country. Whoever did it, wanted to send a message — but if so, why were they so cryptic?
“And there were no signs left? No tribal markings, no… crosses?”
“Crosses?” Eadgith frowns. “No, nothing like that.”
“How did they all die? Were they burned?”
“Sword cuts and spear stabs,” says Haegel. “All of them. Just like in the other two farms.”
“Swords — are you sure?”
Haegel smiles bitterly. “I was with Hengist in Frisia. I have seen enough corpses to know what killed these ones. Now, whether it was a seax or one of the wealh swords, I couldn’t tell you, but it sure wasn’t an axe that slit poor Tova’s throat.”
I stand up. This doesn’t make sense. Swords are not the usual weapons of bandits. If these are trained warriors — or even soldiers — why not simply wipe out all the villages in the valley? On our way here I studied the sparse Iutish settlements scattered along the River Meon. There are no warriors here. They have no weapons, other than farming tools and knives. They wouldn’t stand a chance against any sort of organised attack. The entire colony could be destroyed within a day.
Somebody wanted to make sure we got the message.
“Who else lives around here?” I ask.
“The nearest wealh village is three miles east, by the sea,” replies Haegel, pointing with his twisted staff. “Good, peaceful folk. Sometimes we do a little trade. A few scattered farmsteads here and there. It’s moor and marsh every other way, until Clausent.”
I paint a vague map of the area in my mind. “Three miles — isn’t that towards Adurn?”
“About halfway there.” Haegel nods.
“Ever had any trouble with Aelle’s Saxons?”
“They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them.”
“Until now,” I murmur.
“What’s that?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious? It had to be them.”
“No,” says Eadgith, firmly. “We’d know.”
“Know — how?”
“I’ve had sentries posted around Adurn from the day we landed on Wecta,” she says. “I never trusted the Saxons, and there’s a whole war band of them locked up at that fortress. In fact, they’ve been strangely quiet this past couple of months.”
“I noticed something was odd,” I say. “I tried to lease a boat off of them coming here.” I scratch my chin. “I wonder if —”
I stop, as I spot a column of thick black smoke rising over the wooded hill to the east.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“That’s Spring Farm!” cries Haegel. “Saba’s house! It’s only on the other side of the ridge.”
“Eadgith, go back to the Meon, see if they’re all safe there.”
“I’ll gather the men,” she says. “We’ll meet you up there.”
“No time. Wait for us on the ridge. Hiréd, to me!” I shout an order, and launch in pursuit, with my six men in tow.
The ridge is steeper than I expected, and by the time we climb down the other side, I fear we might be too late. I tell the men to let out battle yells as we approach, hoping to frighten the attackers away. I can see through the gaps in the trees that the farmhouse is already fully ablaze, the thick thatched roof burning like a well-oiled torch.
“Look for survivors,” I tell Betula once it’s clear that whoever assaulted the farm is already gone. It seems our loud arrival worked — the farm is not as thoroughly destroyed as Tova’s place; only the farmhouse is damaged, the outhouses are all intact.
“There’s something here,” calls one of my warriors from the other side of the burning house. I rush to him. He stands before the trampled remains of what looks like a dog kennel. A small creature is crawling and whimpering inside.
“It’s just a dog,” I say. “Keep searching —”
“No, wait,” Betula pushes me away and stoops down to the kennel. “Help me with that board.”
I tear out a plank from the rubble to reveal what’s hidden within: a small girl, five or six years old, curled up in the dark hole. She cries out and hides her face in her hands.
“It’s alright,” Betula reaches to calm her down. The girl yelps and tries to hide even deeper into the hole. “We’re here to help.”
“Her parents,” I ask the men. “Where are they?”
One of them looks to the burning house in dismay.
“No — they’re here,” shouts another. I leave Betula with the whimpering girl, and join him at the cabbage patch. Among the young green shoots lies a man — the girl’s father, no doubt — face down in the dirt, his hands thrown apart, and a throwing axe in his back. His wife is pinned to a nearby cherry tree by a javelin. She’s still holding an adze in a tightly clenched hand. There’s blood on the blade.
I kneel down to examine the dead man and the weapon in his back. He’s only been dead a few minutes. The blood is cooling quickly in the spring air. I pull the axe out.
“This is Saxon work,” I say.
Something here doesn’t add up. Nothing about this attack resembles what Haegel told us about the previous ones. I stand up and look around. The cabbage is trampled all around us. There must have been a dozen men here. Their trail, splattered with blood of the man injured by the woman’s adze, is easy to follow.
“Betula!” I cry. “Take the girl and go back to Eadgith — and meet us at Meon!”
“Meon? We’re not going after the bastards who did this?”
“We are — they’re heading for Haegel’s village. I just hope we’re not too late this time.”
The first two huts on the outskirts of the village are already on fire — though the second one is merely smouldering on the corner; the attackers didn’t bother to raze it properly before assaulting the village itself.
Out by the pony enclosure, old Haegel is fending off three attackers all on his own, whirling his ash staff like a spear, with the skill of a seasoned veteran. The rest of the enemy band pushes at the village fence, trying to force their way through a narrow opening. The men and women of the village are waving farming tools and kitchen utensils, except Eadgith, who is slashing at the attackers with her seax. One of the bandits lies dead on the other side of the shallow ditch, but so do two of the defenders, and it’s clear that any second now the attackers will push through and destroy the rest of the village.
I gesture at my men to stay quiet as we rush to Eadgith’s rescue. Only when we’re within a javelin’s throw, do I let out a war cry. The attackers turn around in confusion. Just as I suspected, they’re all Saxons. They don’t belong to any war band — they wear long tunics, and no armour, except simple helmets. Only two of them have swords, the rest hack their way through the handful of Iutes with axes and spears.
I struggle to think why they’re attacking the village in the first place. Their heart is not in the fight. I slay one of the two swordsmen with a fortunate first thrust before he manages to raise a weapon to parry. Another warrior soon falls to my men’s blows. There are still more of them than us and the villagers combined, but for the moment, they’re uncertain whether they should flee or fight on.
“Eafa, Penda, leave that old man and help us!” shouts the surviving second swordsman, clearly the leader of the band. He urges his men to stand against us. “There’s only five of them!” he cries. “Deal with them first, then we’ll deal with the villagers.”
The tide of battle turns swiftly. With the three warriors charging at us from the pony enclosure, it is we who are now trapped between two groups of enemies. There are no orders I could give my Hiréd; all they can do is fight, to the best of their abilities, and hope that’s enough to defeat the Saxons. We have training on our side; they have numbers. I can’t count on the help of the villagers — they’re already tired of the fighting, and most have pulled back from the fence to rest. Eadgith leads a few of them in an attempt to break through to us, but one of the Iutes falls with a spear through his stomach, and the rest are forced back.
I’m struck by the hopelessness of my situation. I have survived great battles; I have led entire armies; I fought in wars that will forever be retold in song; and now I am to die on this plot of midge-infested marshland, defending some tiny village nobody’s heard of, at the hands of a handful of nameless Saxons…
Isn’t this what you wanted? To end it all, no matter how…
I shake my head to silence the grim voice inside my mind. I parry a spear and thrust again, cutting through leather and meat on my opponent’s arm. He yelps and drops the weapon. A mistake that marks him as an inexperienced warrior; I follow through with a diagonal slash, slicing him from heart to chin. His blood draws a red arc in the air. Don’t think, just fight, I tell myself. If more of the Saxons are as green as this boy, we can still win this. One of my men pulls back, with a wound to his side. He, too, didn’t think he’d die in this place — but the wound is shallow, and he soon returns to the brawl with renewed strength. Another Saxon throws his arms in the air and falls on his back with a woeful cry.
I reach the Saxon chief. Sword clashes against sword. He’s no Brutus, or Wortimer; he lacks skill and finesse with the seax, slashing and waving it around like an axe. I would overpower him with ease, but he leaps back and hides behind one of his men. He’s a better commander than a fighter: he orders his men to change formation, and some of them do so. It’s a poor show, but it’s enough to cut us off from both sides. I glimpse Eadgith’s red hair again, leaping in the gaps between the warriors, but there’s no chance for her and the villagers to reach us, so I yell at her to stop before she hurts herself.
I groan, annoyed at how long this is taking. I grab a dropped spear and push through, but the Saxon line holds even as another of their rank drops to the ground. The spear gets entangled in the limbs of one of the attackers and the shaft breaks. I use it as a club and whack a nearby Saxon on the head, stunning him and throwing his helmet off. One of my men finishes him off with a blow to the neck. We still hold, but barely. I dream of a shield; we left ours on Wecta, not imagining we’d need them today. If we had shields, we’d make short work of these Saxons…
I hear a whirling, whistling flutter of an axe flying in the air. I duck, instinctively, but the axe flies past me and lands straight in the chest of the Saxon chieftain. His men watch in astonishment as their leader staggers back, the impact pushing him away by several steps, and he falls. This is too much for them; the panic finally sets in. The Saxons howl and push us out of their way, fleeing towards the forest line. I scan the field to our north and spot Betula, a second throwing axe in her only hand, looking for another target. The little girl is hiding behind her, clutching on to Betula’s tunic.
I order my men to halt the pursuit — we don’t know if there aren’t more enemies hiding in the wood — and crouch down by the fallen Saxon chief.
“Why did you attack us?” I cry at him. “What have we done to you?”
He splutters and spits blood in my face.
“You… reap… what you… sow… Iute…”
His face twists in pain one last time and he gurgles his last breath.
I help Eadgith pick up a dead Iute’s body and put it by the wall of the village hall with the others. They will be buried in a peat field by the forest, together with the fallen Saxons, as soon as old Haegel performs the necessary rites. There is no time for ceremony, with the spring sun beaming hot from the afternoon sky.
It was pure fortune that Eadgith returned to the village just when her sentries came with news of a Saxon war band on the move from Adurn. If she’d arrived any earlier, she’d have taken all the capable defenders with her, leaving Meon to the mercy of the attackers.
“It seems your suspicions were right,” says Eadgith. “It was the Saxons all along. I don’t know how they kept getting past my sentries…”
“It’s because it wasn’t them before.”
“What do you mean?”
“The pattern of the attack, the weapons used… Everything was different today. Something else happened here — and I’m going to find out what.”
I drop the body on the ground and wince. I touch my aching side. My tunic is cut, but there’s no blood.
“You’re wounded?” asks Eadgith.
“Just a bruise — but in a bad place. I don’t even know when that happened.” I stare at the dead bodies, rubbing the bruise. It’s in almost exactly the same spot where Brutus’s spatha cut me at Eobbasfleot. “We could all be lying here now.”
“It was close.” She nods.
“Too close.” I look up. “Why did you insist only I come? We’d all be dead if I hadn’t taken my men with me.”
“I didn’t think we’d need an entire band of Hengist’s best warriors. We couldn’t even afford to feed and shelter you all here. Besides, it’s not like I don’t have any fighting men at my disposal.”
“And where are they now?” I look around.
“On Wecta.” She laughs, bitterly. “I know. I never said I was a good chieftain.”
