Clash of Iron (35 page)

“I—” she said.

She felt a poke, then a claw pierce the muscle between her shoulder blades. It pushed in deep.

“I can feel your spine,” Pomax whispered in her ear. “If I push just a little deeper and wiggle it, you will never move your arms or legs again. Nod if you understand. Carefully, mind. It’s very delicate in there.”

Lowa nodded, slowly. The spike in her back was so agonising that she couldn’t let her breath out. Just as consciousness was slipping away, Pomax withdrew.

Lowa breathed out, sucked in air, then wept. She could not help herself.

“They say you’re clever, so you might have worked it out already. You say anything, you get my nails. Nod if you understand.”

Lowa wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. She stared stonily ahead. Pomax bounded around, squatted in front of her kneeling frame and gripped one of her hands in her own claw-free right hand. “Nod if you understand,” she said. Her face was so close that Lowa could smell that she’d had honey for breakfast.

Lowa sucked in saliva to spit at her. Pomax leant back with whip-crack speed and pinched into Lowa’s arm below her left elbow. Lowa gasped.

“My nails,” said Pomax, “are touching between the two bones of your forearm. Now, let’s push a bit deeper. Oh, look, they’re sticking out either side. I said look!”

Lowa looked. Pomax shifted her arm around so that she could see both sides.

“See?”

Lowa saw the blood-soaked points of Pomax’s claws poking out of her arm. She nodded, her mind so pain- and horror-filled that she couldn’t do anything else.

“Now, what would happen if I pulled my nails towards your hand, splitting these bones apart?”

Lowa had never been tortured before. She’d previously believed that she’d be able to withstand anything by somehow channelling the pain or shutting her mind off to it. Now she knew otherwise. The torture had only just begun and already she’d have done or given anything to make it stop.

“No,” she managed.

“What?” asked Pomax.

“Please.”

“You don’t want me to split your bones apart?”

“Please don’t.”

Pomax looked down at Lowa’s held arm, then up at her eyes.

“Are you going to spit at me?”

Lowa shook her head.

“Are you going to speak?”

“No,”

“That was speaking.” Pomax pulled her claws through flesh towards Lowa’s hand, just a finger’s breath. Lowa heard an animalistic scream and realised it was her own. “So, are you going to speak?”

Lowa shook her head.

“Are you going to kneel here like a good girl?”

Lowa nodded.

“Oh, Lowa, the mighty warrior queen from the south. I’m going to enjoy my days with you.” The massive woman stood and walked round behind Lowa. Lowa knelt in silence for what seemed like an age, knowing that the northern warrior queen was just behind her. Her shoulder and her back felt like they had red-hot bolts hammered through them, but the pain in her wrist was worse. She suspected that the damage there was permanent.

I really should have brought my army, she thought.

After what seemed like an age, a quiet voice made her jump.

“Stay here,” said Pomax. “Do not move and do not speak. I’ll know if you have and I’ll hurt you again. We’ve done shoulder, back and arm. What’s next? Something … private? Or something vital. Oh, I do hope you talk so we can find out.”

The queen of Maidun stayed quiet as the queen of the Murkans walked away.

Movement was returning to the fingers of Lowa’s left hand when Pomax returned carrying Grummog in a padded shoulder harness, followed by his retinue. Pomax took the king from her back and placed him carefully on the throne. None of them acknowledged Lowa or even looked at her. She stayed quiet. They sat and chatted as if Lowa wasn’t there until their first visitor arrived. She was a minor tribal chief whom Grummog had summoned. He demanded troops for his southward marching army.

“Have you not heard about Lowa’s Two Hundred?” said the chief. “And the rest of her army? Amazingly well trained, they say. Oh no, I don’t want to send my people to fight her, it would be sending them to their very deaths! She annihilated the poor Dumnonians less than half a moon after she killed Zadar. And Lowa’s got a magic bow! If she shoots it and says your name, that arrow will find your heart no matter where you hide. How can we fight that?”

Lowa was desperate to say something along the lines of “quite right, keep your people at home or they’ll all die”, but even though Pomax hadn’t so much as glanced at her, she could feel that she was coiled, ready to run over and inflict some new, appalling damage.

“Do you mean this Lowa?” asked Grummog, pointing at his captive.

“Is that her?” The chief was wide-eyed.

“It is.”

“How did you capture her?”

“My people will kill…” was as far as she got before Pomax was on her, all five of her claws through her shirt and into her left breast. Pomax was saying something but Lowa couldn’t hear it. She closed her eyes and screamed.

When she could see again, she looked up and saw Pomax back in her seat next to Grummog. Both were smiling happily at her. By the appalled look on everybody else’s faces, particularly the chief’s, her agony had not been a pretty thing. Waves of pain still throbbed through her. She was certain she was going to vomit for a long nauseous moment, but she managed to hold it.

“I’m sorry, Lowa,” asked Grummog, “did you have something to say?”

Lowa stayed quiet.

“You may answer,” said Pomax.

“You heard her,” said Grummog. “Can you give me any reason why this chief shouldn’t send her tribe south to take on your weakened little army?”

“No,” she said, “I have nothing to say.”

“Oh good,” said Grummog. “It’s nicer that way.”

More chiefs came throughout the day to hear Grummog’s demands for troops. All were reluctant until their attention was drawn to the captive Lowa, then each agreed to supply the number Grummog wanted. For the rest of the day, Lowa only spoke when Grummog asked her to and Pomax gave her permission, and every time she said what she knew they’d want to hear. Pomax didn’t hurt her again and Lowa found herself feeling gratitude towards the woman. That’s how madness begins, she thought.

“A
ll right, let’s go,” said Dug, swinging his hammer over his shoulder and heading for the paddock where his horse had lived a hitherto idle life. He had a horse because he could afford one and people who could afford a horse were meant to have a horse, but Spring had never seen him ride it.

She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. All she’d said was that Lowa was captured. She’d prepared a speech about why he should rescue her. She was even planning to tell him about their magic link to each other if she needed to. As it was, she hadn’t even got off her horse and he was already persuaded.

“Don’t you need to pack up anything? Or do you need to—” she leant down from her horse, looked about to check no bandits were eavesdropping and whispered “—hide your riches?”

“They’re already hidden, and I’ve got my hammer, so…”

“OK. Just try this, though. Take my hand.” Dug did so. She closed her eyes.
Take us to Maidun Castle
, she said in her mind. She opened her eyes. They were still by the paddock, the only difference was that Dug was looking at her as if he thought she was even odder than usual. She closed her eyes again.
Come on, Danu, Bel, Branwin, Sobek or whoever it is, take us to Maidun
. She tried picturing the exact spot on the Eyrie where she wanted them to be. Nothing happened.
Bring Lowa to us here. Make her appear right here, in this paddock, oh wonderful and powerful gods, use the magic that lives in Dug and me to bring her here from Mallam
.

She looked up, into the paddock. Dug’s horse looked back at her, with a similar expression to Dug’s.

“Oh well. Come on, let’s ride,” she said.

“What were you doing?” Dug asked.

“Praying,” she said. He looked surprised, but didn’t question her further. She was frustrated. She was convinced that her magic was linked to Dug. So she’d assumed that now she was with him and she knew about the link, she’d be able to draw on and control powerful magic. Apparently not. So perhaps it wasn’t linked to Dug? She felt silly for thinking it was, and decided not to tell him her theory until she was certain.

She did tell him as they rode about the death of Miller and the others, about Lowa’s captivity and how they were going to burn her in the wicker woman, and about the army invited from Eroo by the perfidious Dumnonians. She told him about her escape and how magic had transported her from the cliff, how she’d been able to live underwater without breathing, and about how she’d finally surfaced in a woodland pool.

To her surprise, Dug didn’t question her story, just insisted that they should get the entire army from Maidun and free Lowa from the Murkans by force. She told him that Lowa hadn’t taken the army north in the first place because it was needed in Maidun. Lowa didn’t trust the Dumnonians – and had been right not to, they’d found out – so the army had to stay in case the Dumnonians flooded into Maidun the moment they saw that its defences were down. If they took the army north now, they’d probably come back to find Bruxon laughing at them from the walls of a captured Maidun Castle. Besides, she said, they had a better chance of rescuing Lowa by stealth and, what’s more, Grummog would stick her in the wicker woman the moment he saw the Maidun army coming over the hill.

Finally he was convinced, but then he insisted that they go straight to the Murkan base at Mallam. So Spring had to persuade him, no, first they had to go to Maidun, to warn Mal and Nita, who’d been left holding the hillfort, about the army from Eroo and the Dumnonian treachery.

Eventually he saw sense. They trotted along in silence for a while. Spring would have liked to have gone faster, but Dug’s horse was neighing and bubbling and making all manner of bizarre sounds, complaining about this unwelcome, weighty call on its services. If they went any faster, Spring was sure the animal would either lie down or die.

Despite the circumstances, she was happy to be back with Dug. Although they hadn’t been on horseback at the time, Spring was reminded of that first day they’d met, and walked through the woods, holding hands. They’d spotted animal shapes in the clouds. She felt a surge of affection for the big man. The most important thing, she realised, more important than stopping the Romans, more important than protecting the land from the army of Eroo, was that Dug came through it all unscathed, because he was the best person who had ever lived and she loved him.

So why, she wondered, had she just persuaded him into the incredibly dangerous task of rescuing Lowa from Mallam? Because, she realised with a little jolt, Lowa was nearly as important to her as Dug. Besides, now she knew her magic was linked to him, surely she’d be able to protect him and surely, between them, they had a better chance of rescuing Lowa than anybody else?

“Will you tell me the story of the war against the halfmen, please?” she asked as they crested a hill and a new view opened up, huge and green. They were still a good way from Maidun.

“You’re too old for stories now,” Dug said. “And, anyway, I’ve told you that one before.”

“How about the story of the flood then?” Spring smiled her most winning smile. “Please?”

“Well, it is a good one.”

“Especially your version.”

“My version is the true version.”

“That’s why it’s so good.”

“Hmm. All right then. Many years ago, when the last halfman was not long dead, the gods disagreed over some long-forgotten bollocks and went to war…”

Spring smiled and relaxed. Dug’s voice was like a warm blanket and a bowl of stew at the end of a cold day.

C
aesar sent his cavalry to harry the disorderly retreat of the Gauls, ordering its commanders to kill as many of the enemy as possible without putting themselves in any danger. If, for example, there was a group of Gaulish children and a group of warriors, they were to draw the warriors away, circle back and slaughter the children.

Ragnall watched the horses trot out of the camp. When he’d heard their orders, he’d been surprised and disappointed. Surely orders to kill children could not be honourable? But he thought it through and was consoled. Caesar’s goal to bring the enlightenment of Roman culture to the poor ignoramuses of the world was noble, and if more tribes were terrified of him and his army’s cruelties, more would capitulate without a fight, and in total, fewer people, including children, would die. So his apparently inhuman orders were actually saving Gaulish lives. Issuing commands that could be used against him by his enemies back home, and seen by historians as unnecessarily ruthless, showed a commitment to the cause that went way beyond personal glory. Ragnall’s disappointment morphed in to fierce pride.

He returned to the capacious leather headquarters tent and found Caesar dictating his diary. He was describing Galba as a proud warrior king, brave and intelligent, who had nevertheless been outmanoeuvred by his superior Roman mind.

Ragnall raised his eyebrows at the dissembling, but realised immediately there must be a good reason for it. However, Caesar had spotted his expression.

“What troubles you, brave new Roman?” said the general.

“Nothing,” said Ragnall.

“No, there is something, I can see. Tell Caesar what it is. Quickly now.”

Ragnall hesitated. What did Caesar want? The man was complicated. He could be inviting the challenge and keen to explain, or he could be in a bad mood and looking for someone to punish.

“Come on, come on.”

Ragnall took a breath. “You never met Galba,” he said. “And she’s a woman – a queen – not a king.”

Caesar smiled. Ragnall sighed in relief as the general lifted a hand in an oration pose and began to lecture: “There are two things that you must understand if you are to be a successful Roman, young Ragnall. The first is something that I have told you before. A general must have the constant, regularly refreshed support of the Senate, the Tribunate, and, most importantly, the citizens. Where are these people? In Rome. Where do I intend to spend the majority of the foreseeable future? Not in Rome. So what can I do? How might I achieve the always accreting admiration that I need for my goals in the field when I am not there myself to flatter and display? I will tell you. With mechanisms that operate in my absence. Some of these mechanisms are previous generosities and favours, some are people. Another is the steady flow of wealth back to the city. One, possibly the single greatest mechanism, is my campaign journal. This true account of our manoeuvres tells Rome’s citizens, and the citizens of her Empire, that each decision Caesar makes is justified, that his means never outweigh his ends, and that he treats the enemy, if we should call him that, with respect and honour. The savage demands our help, we show the savage the benefits of Roman life. At no point do we infringe the dignity of the savage.”