M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon (27 page)

‘Come to me, little boy,’ the man sneered, beckoning with his left hand so that Arthur saw the axe dangling from a long thong looped around the wrist. ‘Show me how much manhood you have.’ The Saxon swung the axe into his hand. ‘My sweetheart here will bring you dreams of peace and rest.’

‘You talk too much,’ Arthur replied, but his bravado was marred by the squeak in his breaking voice. His eyes darted over the huge man. The Saxon’s face held no fear of the beardless youth before him.

The warrior laughed. Germanus had warned Arthur early in his training that most warriors used insults to unsettle their opponents and break their concentration, and that he would soon be among the walking dead if he responded by losing his temper. Ignoring the taunt, Arthur fell into the fighting crouch that the arms master had literally beaten into him with the flat of his blade.

The Saxon made a feint designed to force Arthur to overreach himself to counter it, the axe in his left hand cocked and ready to separate Arthur’s head from his shoulders with minimal effort. But Germanus had made Arthur practise counter-moves so often that the response was second nature to him. With his feet planted firmly on the rough ground, he stepped backward to thwart the huge man’s feint, leaving his adversary with two choices. The warrior could either advance towards Arthur or he too could step back, a move which would force the younger man to come towards him.

The Saxon’s choice was never in doubt and the cold part of Arthur’s brain anticipated it. Arthur was obviously an immature youth, so the warrior sensed fear in his backward step and advanced in a rush. One of Germanus’s maxims flashed through Arthur’s head. ‘Make big men smaller,’ the arms master had told him. ‘Cut him off at the knees, and you’ll bring him down to your level.’ Arthur already stood over six feet in his bare feet, but his adversary was at least six inches taller and twice his weight.

Arthur stepped elegantly to one side and bent at the knee. The warrior’s axe passed harmlessly over his head and the Dragon Knife found its mark, slicing through flesh and muscle and across the bone of the Saxon’s leg.

With a howl of rage, the Saxon fell to his knees, blood spurting from what was essentially a trivial wound. With the speed of a striking snake, he lashed out instinctively with his sword, but Arthur was very fast. With a spin on his left foot that a dancer would have envied, he evaded the blow and positioned himself almost at the Saxon’s back. The warrior had over-extended himself, and Arthur was able to avoid his enemy’s boiled leather cuirass and stab with all his strength into his unarmoured side.

His sword slid under the Saxon’s armpit and sweetly between the ribs, collapsing a lung in its passage and cutting the great vein leading to the heart. The years of practice on a straw-filled manikin finally bore fruit, and Arthur silently thanked Germanus for the hours of effort that made his actions second nature.

The Saxon collapsed like a felled tree, blood pouring from both his mouth and the wound. As Arthur stepped aside, sweeping his long curls away from his face, another Saxon appeared out of the darkness. Arthur reacted instinctively, raising his sword and taking the full force of an overhead axe blow on the blade. The weight of the attack drove the boy to his knees and he felt his weapon shiver in his hand before it snapped into two pieces.

He tossed the ruined sword hilt aside as the Saxon drew back for the killing blow. Faster than he would have thought possible, Arthur fell to the ground and rolled, careless of the blood from the first Saxon which was fouling the earth. Miraculously, the Dragon Knife found its way into his right hand and he drove upward with all his might, impaling the Saxon on the blade through the unprotected genitals, for few soldiers anticipate a blow from beneath.

The knife was almost wrenched from Arthur’s hand by the Saxon’s paroxysms of pain, but he kept his grip on it and stabbed again from his back, using both hands as he aimed for the great artery in his adversary’s thigh. Then, drenched in the dying man’s blood, which spurted out like a fountain, Arthur clambered to his feet, appropriating the Saxon’s sword as he rose.

Around him, the struggle was desperate. Armed only with staves and pikes, the stretcher bearers had joined the fray, led by the freckle-faced, youthful warrior and his four companions who were on guard duty. Although the stretcher bearers equalled the enemy numbers, the British men were untrained farm workers whose talents lay in their brawn rather than their fighting skills. The Saxon warriors carved through them as if they were made of straw and the night was soon alive with screams and prayers and the moans of the dying.

‘Ring the alarm bell,’ Arthur bellowed with a voice that broke in his mingled rage and fear. ‘Ring the damned bell.’ Someone in the hospital tent must have heard, because a bell began to toll with the desperate peal of muscles jerking frantically on the end of the rope. Suddenly, Arthur realised that Bran’s tent had been set alight and the ruddy glow was illuminating the desperate conflict, giving him his first clear view of the entire scene. Good, he thought as he countered a vicious underhand sword cut aimed at his belly. Bedwyr will see and he’ll come to our rescue.

Germanus was fighting a brace of Saxons with the concentration and strength of an automaton. His blade was sweeping in wide arcs that kept the enemy warriors at bay while his shield protected him from the wicked axe blows that had cut the stretcher bearers to pieces. Three of the guard had already fallen, including the freckled youth, but the remaining two protected Germanus’s back, forming an effective triangle of iron that prevented most of the attacking force from reaching the hospital. The stretcher bearers had fallen, but they had slowed down and blunted the determined advance of the Saxons. Their deaths had not been an entire waste.

Nor were the healers totally helpless. Several of the enemy had bypassed the main struggle with Germanus and entered the nearest hospital tent with drawn swords. Now one of them suddenly reeled out of the tent into the night, his chest sliced open by a small knife. He was bleeding from a number of small wounds, and ineffectively trying to draw the weapon out of his breastbone with flailing hands. Arthur quickly finished him off with the Dragon Knife. A shaking, bandaged Briton followed him out of the tent, his body leaking blood from wounds that had reopened in the struggle. Armed with a surgeon’s scalpel, the man wore the maniacal grin of a patriot still anxious to strike a blow at his enemy, even while in his extremity. Arthur helped him to lie down on the ground before he fell, and then turned to enter the hospital tent.

Pushing through the loose entry flap, Arthur came to an abrupt halt, for several women with sword cuts lay moaning on the bloodstained canvas floor. The warrior who had inflicted the damage was almost invisible under a heaving mass of nurses who had sworn to tend the sick and cause no harm. Arthur watched aghast as one woman screamed in triumph and held up a single blue eyeball in a blood-stained fist. Her long nails were thick with the man’s blood from the cuts they had inflicted on him, and her face was vicious with the gleam of crazed revenge.

Then he felt a sting across the forearm, followed immediately by a crushing blow which felled him to one knee. As he rolled away from the Saxon who had attacked him from behind, he realised his right arm was broken. Thanking the gods that Germanus had taught him to use both hands in combat, he cast aside the stolen sword and sprang to his feet to meet the Saxon’s second rush, the Dragon Knife in his left hand. Just as he reached him the Saxon stumbled, and in that moment’s vulnerability Arthur slashed at his throat. The Saxon dropped like a stone, spurting arterial blood.

Arthur glanced down at the body, still twitching on the canvas floor, and saw a small dart-shaped object sticking out of the man’s thigh. Either a healer or one of the women had thrown a surgical tool at him when they realised that Arthur was in imminent danger.

I’d be dead now if someone hadn’t thrown that knife, Arthur thought, for the blow knocked the Saxon off balance. I never saw him coming, so I’ll need to develop that fighter’s extra sense that Germanus keeps talking about. I’ll be fucking useless as a warrior without it.

Even though he didn’t say it out loud, Arthur took heart and pleasure from the word, for it made him feel manly. But he knew his mother would have cuffed his ear for the curse, as would Father Lorcan, a man who swore like an ignorant savage at every available opportunity, his calling notwithstanding.

With a quick, muttered thanks to Fortuna and her caprices, Arthur left the tent and settled back into the fighting crouch which was now second nature. His right arm throbbed with a steady ache and screamed with outrage if he moved it, so he thrust his hand carefully into his iron-studded tunic to support it before parrying a savage thrust from a slightly smaller Saxon. Reckless with the thrill of battle, he grinned madly, although his knees were weak from loss of blood and he felt light headed. If he was destined to perish on this damned hill, he was grimly determined to take as many Saxons with him as possible.

Feigning an all-too-real weakness which caused the Saxon to rush at him and come within reach of the hungry Dragon Knife, Arthur sliced at the warrior’s face and saw it open and bloom like a strange, red flower. One hand holding his chin together and blood trickling down over his throat, the man charged again, maddened with pain and rage, so Arthur slashed again, opening the hapless warrior’s face from the eyebrow to the throat, almost losing his grip on the Dragon Knife in the process. Then, as if by magic, the reeling Saxon disappeared under the hooves of a war horse and was swept out of Arthur’s sight. And so, anti-climactically, the small battle at the top of the hill was over.

A troop of cavalry swept across the hilltop, their swords glimmering in the moonlight as they cut down the remaining Saxons. Bedwyr was in the van of the charge and could see his foster-son through the slits in his helmet as the boy swung the Dragon Knife around his head in a glittering circle. Arthur’s face was as pale as newly bleached linen, and his hair was a wild nimbus around his head and shoulders.

The lad has turned into a man, Bedwyr thought. How will my Elayne feel now that her chick has grown into an eagle? But Bedwyr knew the answer already, for it is easier to stop the wind or the rain than it is to gainsay the nature of a young man. When Arthur’s voice broke and his beard grew, Elayne’s boy would be gone. And, if this momentary glimpse was any indication, he’d be off with the warriors.

In the aftermath of the attack on the British field hospital, Arthur was alternately lauded and castigated for his reckless bravery. White with reaction, Ector was far harsher in his treatment of Arthur than he had originally intended. ‘You were foolish enough to face fully armed Saxons without a helmet, Arthur? Are your wits lacking? From what Germanus saw during the melee, your sword broke, you didn’t consider using a shield and you didn’t buckle your armour. Well? What excuses do you have for your execrable behaviour?’

‘But there wasn’t time. I had to . . .’

‘Had to what? Didn’t you consider for one moment that it would have saved many lives if you had alerted the guard? Instead, you took action without anticipating the results. Someone should have brought the warning to us at once, for we had a whole army at the foot of the hill. I’ve seen you run, Arthur, and for a great lump of a lad you’re as fleet as the wind. You could have alerted the cavalry long before they heard the watch bell and saw my father’s tent burning. How many stretcher bearers died because you wanted a piece of the glory?’

Even Bedwyr blanched a little at the harshness of the criticism, but the Arden Knife could see how much Ector had been rattled by Arthur’s brush with death. He actually loves my boy, Bedwyr thought. He really does. It’s not just a pose for political expediency.

‘I didn’t have time, Lord Ector. The Saxons were upon us before we knew they were there, and we only had a few armed men to protect the healers. I never thought . . .’

‘You’re right there, boy. You didn’t think! Do you believe you can be replaced? Well, you can’t! It takes generations to grow a man of your promise, and who knows what might happen in the future? If my father and I should die in battle, you’re meant to become the fucking regent! My mother can’t rule in Aeddan’s place and my grandmother’s too old. Who will protect my three-year-old son? Who will protect his sisters and his mother? So when will you face the fact that you are thirteen years of age – and your safety is of paramount importance to the future of the tribes?’

Against his will, Arthur felt tears begin to prickle at the corners of his eyes and he was terrified that he would cry. Such shame would be impossible to bear, so he steeled himself to listen to Ector’s insults, and told himself that he had earned every harsh word.

‘I’m sorry, Lord Ector,’ he replied steadily. ‘But I was trying to do the right thing. How can anyone think of everything in the heat of a battle?’

‘Welcome to the world of the leader and the warrior,’ Ector snapped. ‘That’s what I must do, and that’s what my father Bran does. It’s what Bedwyr does. You
must
, as King Artor was known to say, get over the heavy ground as lightly as you can. You put yourself at risk, and your actions prolonged the battle.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Arthur brushed his eyes with his good hand. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll work harder and I’ll try to learn everything I need to know. I’m sorry!’

‘Enough, Ector,’ Bran interrupted roughly. ‘The boy has apologised.’ Everyone present was surprised, because Bran rarely took Arthur’s part, having a natural distrust of the youth because of his birth. ‘The boy has admitted his fault like a man, as he should, but in his favour he alerted those warriors on the hilltop to the presence of danger, else the Saxons would have killed everyone up there before the watch realised the threat to the healers. He has never faced an attack in the darkness, and he had no idea how to respond. He might have put himself at risk, but you can’t put old heads on young shoulders. The boy did his best.’

Ector ground his teeth, but then opened his clenched fists and visibly forced himself to relax. He even managed a slight grin. A little embarrassed by his emotional outburst, he reached towards the distressed boy, who was obviously on the point of weeping, and took him into his arms in a rough, comradely hug.