Clash of Iron (51 page)

“How will that help?” Mal asked.

“It will give you time to retreat from there on the beach to here on the hill,” Maggot waved his jingling arms, pointing out to the coast, then back to the ground at their feet, “with both Eroo and Dumnonian armies following. By then, Lowa will be on her way with the Murkans in tow.”

“How will that help?” Mal repeated

“Why, then you’ll all be on a hill surrounded by three armies, each of which would destroy Maidun and deliver Britain to the Romans. Could there be a lovelier place to be?”

“And how does that help?” Mal repeated.

“I never said it would help.” Maggot turned on his heel with a jingle of jewellery and jangled out of the hillfort. He was gone before either of them thought to stop him.

P
omax powered her way through Maidun troops like a short-tempered fisherwoman wading ashore through surf after being told told that her husband is making love to another woman in their hut. She splintered shields with her blade, broke legs with heavy-booted kicks and slashed throats to ribbons with her claw nailed hand. Maidun troops, including some Warriors, took her on solo and in groups. All were left broken in her wake. A few managed to slow her briefly, but none could stop her from her goal, which seemed to be, worryingly for the goal concerned, a young chariot driver named Spring.

She fired arrow after arrow at the giant woman, but all missed. You’d think, she thought, with someone the size of Pomax, that it would be harder to fire an arrow and not hit her. But all her arrows, which would usually skewer a squirrel at a hundred paces, flew wide. So Pomax must be protected by some kind of magic, Spring thought. Annoying. She tried to draw on her own powers to send an arrow through Pomax’s magic shield, but none came. She tried to imbue some energy into the Maidun troops who were falling around Pomax by the dozen. No good. She tried aiming slightly off, to see if the arrow-disrupting magic might correct the course, but her shot sailed exactly where she’d aimed it and through the neck of a nearby Murkan.

Pomax kept coming, too fast and too strong to be stopped. Spring finally hit her, on the head, but the arrow ricocheted up off her helmet. The queen of the Murkans ripped off the last of her attackers’ faces and ran straight at Spring, light on her feet despite the weight of her ringmail.

Spring chose an armour-piercing arrow and aimed it for her chest. At the last moment, it swerved away from Pomax as if hit by an invisible hand, soared across the battlefield and into the arm a Maidun man who’d had his other arm sliced off by Pomax.

Big badger’s shits, thought Spring. She looked for Dug. He was forty paces away, hammer out now, smashing away at Murkan troops in an attempt to re-establish the shield wall. He was needed there. She’d have to deal with Pomax herself or die trying. She put her bow back in its holder on the chariot, screwed her face up, clenched her fists and concentrated on the image of Pomax exploding in a shower of blood and guts.

She opened her eyes. Pomax was walking towards her, smiling. No other living people, Maidun or Murkan, were immediately to hand. Spring breathed out and took her sword from its scabbard. Pomax jammed her own sword into the side of a dead horse, took her whip from her waist and flexed her talons.

C
hamanca spat. “What do you mean ‘no oars’?”

“We can read the wind,” said Vastivias. “We’ve been doing it for millennia. We are always back in port before a breeze fails or becomes too great for our boats. We have neither the need nor the space for oars.”

Chamanca pictured herself flying at him and sinking her teeth into his neck. “And today?” she asked.

“Something dark is afoot. This wind comes every year at this time and it lasts. It’s called Faithful Blow. An ungodly ritual has caused this calm.” Vastivias shook his head.

“Or a godly one?” Chamanca suggested.

“You’re right. It must be the work of some foul Roman deity. Toutatis would never favour such an indecent scheme. I shall ask him to smite this unwelcome Roman god and bring the wind back to his domain.”

Chamanca left Vastivias shouting at the sky and walked back along the deck to Carden. They watched as the crew from two Roman craft climbed into two others. These two overloaded ships rowed either side of the nearest Fenn-Nodens boat, clamped on to it with hooked ropes and boarded. There was shouting, the clash of iron and screaming. Gravely outnumbered and outskilled, the Armoricans didn’t stand a chance. Soon the Gaulish crew were all dead or swimming and the Romans were on their way to the next. Similar mini-massacres were taking place all over the bay. The Romans waited until one Gaulish ship drifted away from the rest, then rowed in for the kill. By concentrating their complements into fewer vessels, the Roman boats had become overloaded, gunwales a hand’s breadth from the water, but on the dead calm sea it didn’t matter.

Chamanca pulled Carden away from the watching Gauls and said quietly: “Two options. Stay here, wait for the Romans and kill as many as we can before they kill us, or swim to shore and live.” Several crews on the Gaulish boats nearer to shore were already abandoning ship. Romans with swords were rushing down cliffs and along the beach to meet them.

Carden smiled. “I can’t swim. So I’ve got one option. Or is that no options? If you’ve got two options and take away one, you’re left with zero options. But two minus one is one … That’s always confused me.”

“You can’t swim at all? Or do you mean you haven’t swum in a while? You don’t forget. And it isn’t difficult. Maybe you can learn now?”

“Nope. Used to go in the sea as a kid, but never swam. Tried it a couple of times since and sank. Heavy bones, I guess. And heavy penis, of course. Not to mention massive balls.”

“I see…” said Chamanca.

The Roman flagship and another ship almost as large, both overladen with legionaries, were heading for theirs.

“Well, I guess I don’t have any options either.” Chamanca took her sling out of her pocket and looked for the nearest bag of stones.

S
pring dropped on to her stomach under the whip’s lash. She felt it rip the air over her head. She popped up into a crouch, sword flashing at Pomax’s knee. Go low, that’s how you deal with the big, top-armoured ones.

Pomax whacked the sword away. Her whip hand shot up in a fist, caught Spring’s chin and flung her staggering backwards.

Magic! shouted Spring internally. She needed magic. Why couldn’t she find any magic? Dug was just over there! Why couldn’t he see what was happening?

The whip cracked again and snapped around her sword arm. She tossed the sword to her other hand, but Pomax jerked the whip at the same moment. Spring’s hand clasped air and the sword fell. Pomax pulled. The girl tried to pull back, but the best she could do was stay on her feet as the huge Warrior reeled her in.

“Hello again,” said Pomax in her abrasive accent, closing her clawed fist around Spring’s neck and lifting her off the ground. Her feet kicked air and her head clouded. Pomax started to squeeze. “I’m going to kill you up close this time, make sure of the job.”

Spring wanted to tell her what a silly voice she had, but she couldn’t talk. It felt like her eyes were trying to bulge out of her head and everything was very bright all of a sudden.

They closed the gap in the shield wall, but not before many Murkans had swept through it, so Dug was ensnarled in the constant attack and defence of a thick mêlée. A slingstone bounced off his helmet. He ducked a sword swipe, thrust his hammer-point two-handed into a Murkan’s face, smashed a shoulder blade with the return stroke. He was glad to have his hammer.

As he dodged, tripped and dispatched another Murkan, something made Dug turn as surely as if someone had shouted his name. In between clashing weapons and roaring fighters, a hundred paces away Pomax had Spring by the neck, holding her a pace off the ground.

Dug roared and ran, shouldering someone, Maidun or Murkan he had no idea, out of the way. Something gripped his legs and he tripped, landing on a dying man who choked out a weakly protesting “ooof”. The Murkan who’d brought him down had his legs pinned. His hammer was caught underneath him. As he struggled to free it, another Murkan rushed out of the confusion, sword flashing towards his exposed neck. Dug rolled. The sword smashed into his helmet. The shouts and clangs of battle became suddenly louder, then quieter and his vision fuzzed. He knew the next sword strike could be only heartbeats away. He shook his head, tensing all the muscles he could tense, as if that would help.

Lowa saw Pomax lift Spring. She raised her bow, reached into her quiver, slotted her arrow, aimed and was knocked from her horse by a leaping Murkan. Falling, she drew her sword and drove it into the Murkan’s side. She landed hard, sprang up and looked about. Where was her fucking bow? Pomax was holding Spring higher. The girl’s kicks were weakening. A large Murkan charged at her, screaming, spear first. Lowa danced aside on to one foot, bounced back on to the other and sliced her attacker’s neck open. Two more were immediately on her. These were more skilled. She parried. Desperate to get to Spring, she rushed, dived in too soon and paid for it with a cut to the bicep. She calmed herself, blocked two more spear thrusts, then two more, and looked for an opening. None came.

A thunder of hooves and Nita galloped by, sword chopping into the back of a Murkan neck as she passed. The other, seeing Lowa distracted, thrust at her. Lowa twisted away, brought her sword around in an arc and clanged it into the spearman’s iron wrist guard. He barged his shoulder into her. Knocked back, she tripped over his dead friend, fell over, then rolled to avoid his thrust. The spear head gouged into the earth next to her. She chopped through the shaft, leapt to her feet and thrust her blade through the Murkan’s ringmail. He fell.

She looked for Spring and saw Nita leaping from her horse on to Pomax’s shoulders. Pomax dropped Spring, swung her hand back over her own head, gripped Nita by her chest armour and pulled her over her head. Nita’s legs and arms waved as Pomax turned her sideways across her chest, squeezed her and snapped her back as if she was breaking a branch.

Lowa heard a tearing crack as spine and sinew ripped. Pomax dropped the broken woman, looked Lowa in the eye then stamped down on Nita’s head with her iron boot. Once, twice, three times.

Spring climbed to her feet and leapt at Pomax. The big woman grabbed at her, but Spring twisted in the air and jammed her sword up and into the underside of Pomax’s chin.

Lowa found her bow and ran over. Spring was bent double, coughing and struggling to breathe. Pomax was on her back, gulping weakly, fishy eyes looking sightlessly at the sky. Blood pumped out of her neck around Spring’s sword hilt. The point of the sword stuck out from the top of Pomax’s head like a decorative iron feather. Nita was lying next to her, body twisted, head mashed into a shining, splintered mess.

“W
e should attack now.” Bruxon was sure he was right. He stood at the head of a Dumnonian army that massively outnumbered Maidun’s. Yes, a smaller Maidun force had beaten a larger Dumnonian one not long before and the Maidun army had been training obsessively ever since, but that previous victory had been down to Samalur’s bad tactics and the Maidun cavalry. Samalur was long dead, the Maidun cavalry were somewhere else. Surely they’d be able to devastate the Maidun infantry in a matter of minutes?

“We told Manfrax that we’d let Eroo do all the fighting,” said Maggot. “Now, we could cross Manfrax, of course we could do that, but it would be pretty much the same as planting your sword hilt-first in the ground, climbing a tree and jumping arse-first on to it.”

Bruxon winced at the vulgar image. “Manfrax will land on a beach thick with hostile, well-drilled troops. No matter Eroo’s number or their ferociousness, that will cost them dearly. Maidun still believes that we’re their ally so we could surprise them now and Eroo could land unopposed. I swore to help Manfrax.”

“You think you’d be helping Manfrax by killing his enemies? Why do you think it is that Eroo have come here? They love fighting and they’ve run out of challenging opposition back home. Wiping out Maidun before Manfrax lands would be like helping a hungry man by eating his supper for him before he gets back to his hut. I’ve got a pretty massive imagination, but I bet that if you fought his battle for him, Manfrax would kill you in way that’s way, way outside my mind’s creative efforts. And, given the blood shake that you shook, he’d have every right to. No, no, I’d avoid the nastiest death in history and stick to your agreement like a puppy sticking to her mum. Follow the Eroo army, build its camps, supply its food. Fight Maidun if Manfrax asks you to, but only then.”

“You have a point, but all sense says we should attack. What if Manfrax loses half his army and blames me for it?”

“If Manfrax complains, repeat the terms of the blood shake. He can’t deny those. We all know ’em and they’re clear. And, if you want a slightly grubbier motive, it will be no bad thing if Maidun roughs up Eroo a little. When Maidun is dead and laid out for the birds, what would be better? A fully intact Eroo standing over her corpse and looking around for the next fight, or a bruised, bloodied Eroo tottering away, looking for a bucket to be sick in and a place to sit for a while?”

Bruxon looked along the beach at the Maidun infantry. From that distance they did look like a pitifully small force. To the west, Eroo ships stretched as far as there was sea.

“All right then,” he said. “We hold firm.”

M
al looked north from Frogshold. There was no sign of Lowa, Nita and the chariots and cavalry. A sudden worry about Nita flared into his mind, but he dismissed it. He’d told her he’d rather she wasn’t in the army, and she’d told him that she’d rather he wasn’t either and that he wasn’t to worry about her. If something happened, it happened. Worrying the whole time just made him and everyone around him miserable. She’d told him that she never worried about him, but he knew that wasn’t true.