Ravens of Avalon (48 page)

The first files had been sighted just after dawn, and by noon the Britons had formed up to meet them where the meadows sloped down to the mudsands, a bare half-mile across the water. Veterans from the Durotrige and Silure wars waited with men from all over Mona, and in front of them the Druids, the white robes of the priests mixed with the priestesses’ dark blue.

Now and again someone would peer toward the point, where they had stationed a lad with good eyes. Even so, the sound of his horn was a shock after waiting so long. Lhiannon gave herself a mental shake. Eventually all things, good or evil, ended. Had she thought they would sit here like some army out of legend until they all turned to stone?

Now she could make out movement at the far edge of the water. Ardanos was moving down the line of Druids. If there had been clouds, they might have tried to raise a storm against the Romans, but for a week now, Mona had enjoyed blue skies. Lhiannon sipped from her water flask, holding the liquid in her mouth before swallowing.

Ardanos stood with closed eyes, staff outstretched toward the invisible barrier. Against one man, or a few, it would hold, but not against the massed will of thousands. Dark shapes moved on the water as the Romans’ l anding craft began to put out from shore. The Arch-Druid turned.

“Sweetly, now, my dear ones,” he murmured. “Sing now as the Children of Lyr sing beneath the waves, and raise the wall of sound!”

And softly, as he had commanded, the first vibrations rolled from thirty throats. Breathing slowly and easily, Lhiannon let the sound flow, and as the rhythm was established began to shape it with words and will.

It was an ancient spell, so old the words’ precise meanings were unclear. Only the sense behind them remained. From voice to water the vibration was passing … water shivering, shimmering … particles shifting, lifting as they reached the barrier to rise in a sorcerous mist that curled and curdled across the water in shapes of terror.

Lost in sound, Lhiannon sensed the Roman ships lose way and drift helpless on the tide. She noted without comprehension the sun’s slow slide toward the west. But beyond the barrier the Druids were raising she could feel the pulsing pressure of another will.

As the day faded the Druids’ strength lessened, and that opposition grew stronger. Lhiannon tried to sing louder as first one, then another voice stilled. It was almost dark now. One by one, the remaining Druids fell silent. With a low cry Coventa collapsed against her. Lhiannon’s breath caught and abruptly her own voice stopped. A moment later the last male voices cut off. She blinked, and saw one of the warriors catch Ar-danos as he swayed.

Red light flared as someone got the piled logs aflame. The glow showed her the slumped forms of the Druids and the warriors with drawn swords behind them. Wavelets caught the light in red glints as if blood already flowed. She heard a drumbeat. Through the thinning mist the prows of the Roman boats were beginning to emerge.

Druids staggered toward the shelter of the trees. Lhiannon gulped water and got her arm around Coventa. She was weary to her marrow, but that did not matter now.

“Coventa, get up, girl! Remember your training! Breathe!” Was she speaking to Coventa or to herself?

She handed her water flask to the other woman and took up two of the torches from the heap by the fire, handed them off to Belina and Brenna, and got more. Of the dozen priestesses, only nine remained standing. They would have to be enough.
The Romans fear our priestesses—let them see us, and be afraid!

She plunged her torches into the fire and held them high. Helve bared her teeth in a smile and together they led the others forward to stand in front of the warriors in a widely spaced line.

The drumbeat faltered as the men in the first boats caught sight of the dark-robed priestesses. But the pressure of the multitudes behind pushed them forward. Lhiannon could see faces now within the gleaming helms. Behind the priestesses Ardanos had gotten the remaining Druids together and in a hoarse voice was calling down curses upon the enemy. Her own throat was raw, but she no longer needed to sing, only to scream …

As the first prows grounded on the mudflats the priestesses rushed forward, ullulating like the furies the Romans feared. The first Romans who jumped out of the boats recoiled, shouting as they sank into the mud. But some canny commander had anticipated the problem and in another moment they were slapping boards on the soft ground. The next men off faced the flurry of Celtic javelins with braced feet and raised shields. In close ranks they began to move forward and as others pressed in behind them the boats in which they had come pushed off and started back across the strait for more.

As the first legionaries reached solid ground the Britons rushed forward to meet them.

“Lhiannon! Helve! Flee!” Ardanos’s voice rose above the din. “Now it is work for swords!”

Lhiannon cast her flaming torches at the nearest foes and ran.

he stink of burning buildings lay heavy on the air. Boudica had smelled it once or twice before when the thatching of a roundhouse caught fire—a heavy, acrid smell quite unlike the scent of clean logs. She had ordered the attack at dawn, when the townsfolk, tired of waiting for the Britons to make their move, should be less alert, but they might as well have slept in—there had been little resistance.

She stood now in the atrium of the big building that had housed the city offices and the governor when he was in town. Afternoon light showed her a mass of broken tile, blackened plaster, and smoking beams. The bodies of the servants who had been left to defend them lay among the ruins. Fragments of scorched parchment fluttered in the wind. But the garden where the governor’s wife had entertained her was untouched, and the goddess on her plinth still watched with a secret smile.

A warrior put a rope around the statue to pull it down and she waved him away.
“As one goddess to another, I thank you …”
said the Voice within.

Tascio picked his way through the debris, making an obeisance as he saw her there. “Lady, Bituitos says to come—”

Smoke rose now all over the city. Boudica hoped that the men were remembering to search the buildings for weapons and foodstuffs before settng them afire. They needed no encouragement to pick up any ornaments or jewelry that they found. The streets were littered with abandoned boxes and debris from the burning, with the occasional body, some not quite dead.

She felt little sympathy. As they marched south she had heard a hundred tales of Roman injustice and brutality to rival her own. This was a city of over two thousand. The only surprise was that there were not more bodies on the ground. Of course Celtic slaves and servants had been fleeing ever since the Iceni showed up on their doorstep—many of them had joined the horde, but the Romans and foreign slaves should have been here. She wondered where they had gone.

A pack of grim-faced Trinovantes trotted by. As they passed a building that was still whole, a man in a Roman tunic appeared in the doorway with two scared slaves brandishing clubs behind him. He had a sword, while the Trinovantes were armed only with hoes and pitchforks, but fear was no match for fury. With a feral cry the Britons were on him, and in moments Roman and slaves alike went down. She could see the attackers’ arms rising and falling long after the cries had ceased. When they stopped at last, the Trinovante leader had a sword.

Laughing, the men entered the house, and a few moments later a woman screamed. Boudica suppressed a shudder, but she knew better than to try and stop them. Did she even wish to? Romans had raped her daughters. Let their women suffer now. As she turned away, a flicker of movement in a doorway caught her eye. She shouted, lifting her shield as half a dozen armed men burst into the road between her and her escort.

“Ho, a gladiatrix!” called one, leaping toward her as the other two turned to engage Tascio and the other men.

That was what the Roman soldier had called Rigana.

A surge of fury rent away Boudica’s awareness and the Morrigan flowed in, drawing her sword in one smooth sweep that knocked the man’s blade from his hand. The laughter hardly had time to change to fear before the sword whirled around and back across and took off his head.

As She leaped forward to fall upon the others, the sound that burst from Her throat was halfway between a shout of rage and a raven’s cry. She took one man with a thrust through the back and used Her shield to shove another onto Tascio’s blade. By this time his companions had brought the others down.

They stood, breathing hard, listening to distant shouts and a moan as the last of their assailants died. Slowly, as if she were rising up through deep water, Boudica came to herself. Her arm trembled like a bowstring after the arrow has gone. Her blade dripped red.
Thank you …
she thought numbly, bending to wipe off the blood on the tunic of one of the men she had killed, and felt the approval of the goddess within. Tas-cio and the others were staring at her with wide eyes. She did not feel like explaining that the week of training had strengthened her muscles, but it was the goddess who had used them.

“Good work,” she said steadily. “Now let us be moving on …”

They dodged as burning debris from another house showered down, and came out into a crossroads. Men had got ropes around the great bronze statue of the emperor Claudius on a horse that stood there. Having met the emperor, Boudica doubted that he had ever ridden such a horse in his life, certainly not in full parade armor. Everything about this image but the protruding ears was another Roman lie. She smiled in grim satisfaction as men began to heave on the lines. The piece was solidly built, but no match for their rage, especially after they found a smith to knock free the bolts that held it to the pedestal.

Boudica jumped back as the thing crashed down. Screeching triumphantly, someone swung an ax, and in another moment they had gotten the severed head on a pole, still surveying the scene with a gentle frown. As they admired it, Tascio came around a corner, saw her, and grinned.

“We’ve found them,” he cried. “The soldiers and the rest of the people have holed up in the Temple of Claudius. It’s going to take a while to winkle them out—the thing is made of stone.”

“Secure the rest of the city,” she answered him. “Let them sit there and stew for another day, hoping the legions will come to save them … and imagining what will happen if no one does,” she said, baring her teeth in a smile.

TWENTY
-
FIVE

ys Deru was burning. Flames billowed skyward, filling the sky with lurid light, as if the fires had consumed the stars. Below, sparks moved across the meadows as legionaries with torches scoured the land. Their commander had sent several detachments out to form a perimeter and work inward, driving fugitives before them as men might drive game.

Lhiannon lay in a hollow beneath a thorn hedge where a badger’s burrow had fallen in. From time to time she heard cries and knew another fugitive had been found. Sometimes it was a woman, and then the screams continued. As long as night lasted her dark robes would hide her—it would be another matter when the sun rose. It was all very well for Ardanos to tell her to save herself, she thought grimly. If he had wanted her to stay safe, he should not have allowed her to stay at all.

But there might be no safety for a Druid priestess anywhere on Mona. The Romans went about their work in an appallingly methodical way. When they had finished scouring the area around Lys Deru, no doubt they would search the island. By now they must know what it meant when a woman bore a blue crescent on her brow. The tattoo would mark her as a priestess even if she got rid of the blue robe.

Sweet Goddess, watch over Caillean,
she prayed.
If I cannot return to Eriu to claim her, keep her safe—keep her free!
She would have thrown herself back into the fray and sought a quick ending if it had not been for the child.

She had seen Cunitor struck down as she fled the shore, and glimpsed Brenna being dragged away. It seemed unlikely that Ardanos could have survived. So many men and women she had known were dead, and if she had not liked them all, they still compelled her loyalty. But it would be time enough to feel guilt for having survived them if she lived to see another dawn.

She heard the tramp of hobnailed sandals and a mutter of Latin and grew even more still.
I am night … I am shadow …
she thought, slowing her breathing, fighting to quiet her soul.
You see nothing here— move on …

She heard two sets of footsteps, and a regular whisper and thump she could not identify. Closer they came. Through the grass stems she glimpsed a metallic gleam and knew it for a spearpoint an instant before it stabbed past her head.

Even Druid training could not prevent a gasp. One of the Romans swore and turned, and in the next moment a hare burst from the hedge and leaped across the grass. The other man laughed, and the pair moved on.

Holy Andraste!
thought Lhiannon, remembering the goddess and totem of Boudica’s clan.
If I survive this, I owe you an offering!

It was a long time before she dared to move again. When she raised her head at last, the fires of Lys Deru were burning low. But a little to the east new flames were rising. With a sinking heart she realized that they had set fire to the Sacred Grove. For some reason the sight of the burning trees pierced her heart with a pain she had not yet allowed herself to feel for her fellow men. Weeping silently, she watched the flames and waited for the dawn.