Saxon Dawn (Wolf Brethren) (5 page)

The sheepdog went down on all fours and watched the small flock. I raced forwards, towards the fort with my two brothers close behind. We could hear screams and the clash of weapons.  There could be but one explanation; the Angles had come and, they were attacking our homes. I crouched as I crested the rise before the northern ditches. I could just see over the top and then I saw mail shirts.  It was the Angles and they had breached the wall.  The wolves were once again in my home.

I turned to my brothers.  “Our home is being attacked and we must save our family.” It says much for them that they just nodded, biting back on their lips but gripping their weapons with determination. “We must be careful. We will climb to the top of the north wall. Aelle, you will stay at the bottom.” He looked ready to argue. I held up my hand.  “They will come for us when we attack them and I want you and your sling shot ready to strike every warrior who appears on the wall behind us.” He nodded. That was the first time I had led warriors into a fray and the skills appeared to come instinctively to me.  If a warrior knows why he is doing something then he will fight better.  So it was with my brothers. “I do not know what we will see,, Raibeart but you must be ready to loose and keep on loosing until I tell you to run back to Aelle.”

“I will not let you down Lann.”

“I never thought you would.  Now let us go!”

We climbed the steep wall.  I had steeled myself for anything but what I saw almost made me cry in anger. The Angles had killed many of those inside already.
Their bodies lay in untidy heaps throughout the settlement. I could see a knot of people with my parents and some three other men fighting twenty Angles and it was clear that the Angles were winning. Monca and my mother had the shields the boys had used and were striking with our small axes while my father fought manfully against two mailed warriors.  I could see that it would only be a matter of time before all was lost. “We must get closer. Aelle, stay there!”

We slid down the slope.  When we were a hundred paces away I notched an arrow. 
“Raibeart, wait until we are closer.” I paused and loosed an arrow. It struck a warrior in the back and he fell. The rest stopped for a moment and we were suddenly twenty paces closer. I loosed again as did Raibeart and three more times we loosed; the arrows were coming as though we were not doing anything.  It was hard to see whom we struck for over half of them raced towards us.  There were eight of them but I had seen that they only had swords and axes.  We could still outrange them.  “Run like the wind, Raibeart!” We laboured up the mound but I knew that the Angles would be slower.  “Turn and loose one more.”We both turned and loosed.  We could not miss our targets for they were but twenty paces from us and two warriors fell with arrows sticking from their foreheads.  We slid down the bank to land at the bottom of the ditch.  As we scrambled to the other side the six warriors stood on the top. Aelle was accurate and his stone struck one firmly on the forehead. We reached the top of the other bank and turned.  My breath was coming in short spurts but I had to concentrate.  Aelle struck a second warrior and then Raibeart and I loosed two more arrows and two more warriors fell this time struck in the legs.  When Aelle hit his third warrior there was but one left and he was at the bottom of the ditch.  Our two arrows struck home and he fell dead.

“Come brothers.  We will help our parents.” I paused to grab the dead warrior’s sword.  As we climbed the bank two of the wounded warriors tried to crawl
towards us.  Raibeart loosed at less than four paces and the arrow went through his throat to embed itself in the earth bank and I thrust my newly acquired sword through the groin of the second.

When we reached the top of the bank I saw that my father was fighting two men and there was a ring of bodies around him.  I scream
ed, “No!” and raced towards him; I could see that he was wounded already. I heard the panting breath of my brothers as I raced the last fifty paces.  We had no arrows left but Aelle and my brother took out their slings and one of the warriors was hit twice by their stones. We were too late for my father for the huge warrior he was fighting stabbed him in the side when he slipped on the blood soaked grass. He had started to turn to face me but my arm was already swinging the long sword behind me and the blade sliced through his neck with such force that his head flew into the air, a surprised expression fixed forever on his face.

I knelt down next to my father.  He was barely breathing.  He opened his eyes and smiled at me. “Thank you my sons.  I
can go to my ancestors knowing that you truly are warriors.”

“Do
not talk father we will heal you.”

He pulled his arm away from his stomach to reveal that the sword had sliced him open.  His entrails were clearly visible.
He gave a wry smile, “I am dying and you, Lann son of Hogan, must protect your brothers and fight on against these pirates and murderers.  Swear it.”

“I so swear!”

He closed his eyes and I thought that he was dead. His voice was thin and raspy as he said.  “Bury me with my wives and then leave this place.  You must hide. Find the hidden house on the way to the fort.” I looked perplexed and he gave me the familiar smile I knew so well. “It was your grandfather’s home and your mother and I hid there from the slavers.  It is safe and you can find sanctuary.  It is my last gift…”With a sigh, he died.

I turned and saw the tear filled faces of my brothers. “We have no time for tears we have a job to do.”

I went into the hut and brought out the spades. We dug three holes each one as deep as my legs.  When they were done we reverently picked up the body of my father and laid him in the middle one.  I placed his sword on his chest with his hands folded about it and then placed his shield upon his face. We placed my mother and my sister on his right. We put her dagger across her chest and Raibaert’s shield upon her face.  We did the same with Monca and her daughter.  Then we covered their bodies with the soil and found stones to cover them.

We stood together, bound by love and grief. “Sucellos, take these people and watch over them until our time to join them is nigh.  We swear that we will not rest until they have been avenged.  We so swear.” My brothers repeated the oath and we stood in silence.

Our next task was even more grisly.  We owed it to our neighbours to dispose of their bodies too.  It would not do to let the animals despoil their resting place.  We could not bury them all so we put them into the largest hut; placing families together and then we piled all their belongings with them and set fire to them. The flames rose high into the evening sky.  I suddenly worried that there might be other Angles nearby and they would see it but I was beyond caring. If they came they would find three angry, vengeful warriors.

My two brothers suddenly found the emotion too much for them and I saw quivering lips.  They had managed to perform the grisly tasks easily enough but now they were left alone and my promise to my father suddenly became a burden I could not avoid. “The Angles we slew may be part of a larger band; we cannot stay here and Wolf and the flock will need us.” I saw the relief on their faces that a decision had been made. I glanced around the stronghold which had been my home for fourteen years.  We would never see it again. “Take whatever you need from our hut
and then I will burn it.  We will then burn all the huts.” My last decision was made out of spite.  I knew the Angles would come and I did not want them to benefit from our work and then I had another idea.  My spirit hardened with resolve.

I went into the hut and retrieved my wolf skin.  I found father’s and brought it out.  I picked up my shield from where it had fallen. “There is father’s wolf skin cloak if you want it.”
I held it to the two of them.

Aelle nodded kindly.  “He was your father Raibeart and it will fi
t you better.” I was gratified that my two brothers got on so well without any arguments.

“If you wish anything from the Angles then take it.” They looked shocked. “They are well armed and armoured.  Much as I hate to take what is theirs it is better than what we have.” I shrugged. “It is up to you.”

I had my sword, and although my brothers knew it not, I also had a mail shirt but I had no helm. I went to all the bodies and searched until I found one which fitted.  I noticed that the owner had a leather cap beneath and I took that. I saw that Aelle and Raibeart had taken a shield apiece and Raibeart was struggling to remove a mail shirt from an already stiffening body.  I helped him to remove it and he donned it.  It was slightly too big but he would grow into it. I found a short sword which I gave to Aelle and while I did so Raibeart found his own. “Put all the other weapons into our hut and then fire it and the others.”

“What will you do brother?”

“I will leave a message for the Angles.”

My brothers raced away and I performed my grisly task. The hardest one was the first but I was helped when I remembered what they had taken from me, my family.  By the time I had finished I was cold and numb.  There were no feelings left. I sought the spears which both sides had used and had placed them in a circle in the middle when the last hut was fired.

I had just finished leaving my message when Aelle let out a gasp of horror.  He looked at the twenty heads arrayed on spears in a circle; I had just found the nearest twenty warriors and it seemed an appropriate number.  The others I left where they lay as a reminder to our enemies that there were still Britons ready to fight them. My two brothers looked at me, I suspect seeing a different person from the one who had taught them the bow. “They will now know that someone survived and that they were defeated.  Today we do as father had wished, we go to war with the Angles.

I had taken food before we left the hut and, when we reached the flock and Wolf, we just collapsed
on the ground and ate.  Wolf sensed something was amiss and nuzzled into me licking my hand gently. Raibeart and Aelle slept beneath father’s cloak and I drifted through the nightmares of dead Roman soldiers and decapitated Angles.

When I woke I was resolved.  Wolf wandered over and licked my face and I looked at my two brothers who were still sleeping. They were,
now, whether they wished it or not men and warriors.  They had killed their first men and those Angles would not be their last. We could no longer be farmers and so we would become hunters; hunters of the invaders. I would trade the sheep; we could not tend to them and we would barter them for something useful. There was a village south of us called Aelfere close to the Roman road.  Men there did trade with those who used the road.  I knew that it was perilously close to the Roman fort which I knew to be held by the Angles but I hoped that we would be able to discover news of where the enemy were.

“Come on lazy bones.  We have many miles to walk.”

As we trudged down the road, with Wolf herding the sheep Raibeart quizzed me about our future. I reminded him of father’s last words.  “We will find the house or the house of father’s grandfather after we have traded the sheep and then we will become warriors and fight the enemy.”

Raibeart looked doubtfully at his brother and
me.  “Three swords against the Angles? Have you taken leave of your senses Lann?”

“Yesterday we bested twenty
warriors with a sling and two bows.” I cocked my head to one side. “What do you think?”

He suddenly grinned and punched Aelle playfully on the arm.  “Yes we will become warriors; and the Angles will come to fear us!”

We saw the village nestled close to a river. I picked out four of the better sheep and said to Aelle, “You and Wolf guard these and our belongings.  Raibeart, take off your mail and shield.  Give them to your brother. We will return soon.” I pointed to a small wood.  “Take the sheep there and wait for us.”

He looked seriously at me, “I shall brother and I will not let anything happen to our flock!” He might not have been o
f our blood but he was as close to the two of us as if we had shared the same womb.

Aelfere
was a prosperous place and there were many Angles there but they appeared not to be warriors but traders and farmers. On the outskirts, about half a mile from the village was a farm with a wall and fences. The farm dog yapped a warning to us and we halted as the farmer approached. He looked admiringly at the sheep.  They were a healthy flock for we had tended to them well and looked after them. He assumed we were Angles for he spoke to us in their language.  Thanks to Aelle and Monca I could speak the cursed words.

“A fine flock.
  Where are you taking them?”

“To
Aelfere to trade.”

A cunning look appeared in his eye and he sh
ook his head. “There are many thieves in the town you would not get a good price.”

I knew his game and I played along with it. Whatever we could get for the sheep would be better than abandoning them to the wolves. “Would you have something to trade for them?”

“I might.  Bring them into my enclosure and we will talk.” He opened the gate and Raibeart drove the sheep in. “What do you wish to trade them for?”

I looked around the farm which looked prosperous and was made of stone.  From the looks of the stonework the farm had been built from old Roman stones stolen from one of their forts. I heard a neigh and knew he had horses. “You have horses?”

“I have horses. Come and see.”