Saxon: The Book of Dreams (Saxon 1) (39 page)

So, despite the blazing sunshine, I wore an iron helmet over a felt skull cap. The metal plates of a brunia protected my body. Thick, padded gauntlets covered my hands and forearms. Only my legs
felt vulnerable. I sweltered in the searing heat and the perspiration ran down my body until my saddle was slippery with sweat. Like the troopers riding with me, I knew there would be no time to
don our war gear when the Vascons chose to launch their assault.

It was the trooper just behind me who first spotted the danger. He gave a sharp cry of alarm and pointed up to our right. I swivelled in the saddle and looked up the steep slope of the mountain.
The Vascons had struck early, well before we reached the gorge. The mountainside was sprouting men, a hundred or more. They had been lying in wait, concealed among the rocks. Now they rose from the
ground and began to descend, leaping and slithering. As they advanced they raised a war cry, the most chilling sound I had heard. It was a terrible wolfish howl, mournful and without pity.

There was momentary panic along our line. The drovers struck out with their long whips. Troopers cursed as they swung their shields off their backs and slid their arms through the straps.
Everyone grabbed for their weapons. Hroudland was bellowing at us to close ranks and keep moving and face the danger.

The Vascons had another surprise for us. We had expected their first attack to come as a hail of sling stones and arrows. But we had misjudged their ferocity. There was a clatter of slingstones,
though only a few. At the same time a couple of dozen arrows fell among us without doing much harm, though a wounded horse screamed. It was the reckless savagery of the Vascon charge that was
dismaying. They came seething down the hill in a surge of raw hatred and hostility. They were determined to engage us hand to hand. At that moment I knew for certain that it was not the
wali’s ransom that drew them on but the burning desire to exact retribution for the destruction we had inflicted on their city.

Their leading warriors had concealed themselves within a few yards of the track. They sprang up from the ground and lunged at our horses’ bellies with daggers and short swords. Few
succeeded in reaching their targets. Our troopers spitted them on their lances. Their iron sword blades cut down through muscle and bone, severing outstretched hands and limbs. The Vascons wore no
armour. They were dressed in jackets of wolfskin and leggings of coarse cloth, and they took fearful losses. The man who had selected my gelding as his victim scuttled out of the roadside ambush
and came straight at me like a scorpion, dagger raised. I swung my sword at him and the well-balanced Ingelrii blade made an effortless arc. The razor edge lopped off the man’s dagger hand as
easily as a woodsman prunes a small branch. The Vascon reeled away, leaving a smear of blood behind him.

There was a confusion of shouting and the clash of steel from where Gerin was in charge of the vanguard. Near me the trooper who had first seen the Vascon ambush was swearing steadily as he
tried to wield his sword and at the same time bring his mount under control. The howls of the Vascons and the smell of blood had panicked the animal. It was skittering from side to side, trying to
bolt, hooves scrabbling on the rocky surface of the road. The trooper was roaring angrily and, unbalanced, he failed to connect as he cut at a Vascon lunging at him with a spear. The point of the
weapon gouged a deep gash in the horse’s hindquarters before the trooper recovered himself enough to make a backhanded sword swing and hack the man to the ground. Out of the corner of my eye
I saw a lad dart past me. He could not have been more than ten years old. He headed for the nearest ox cart and had a small knife in his hand. Before I realized what he was doing, he stabbed the
blade into a full water bladder that hung from the side of the cart. Quick as a weasel, he dived under the cart and escaped. Behind him a jet of fresh water sprang from the punctured water bag and
splashed to the ground.

All the while the oxen plodded on. Heads held low, they ignored the chaos of battle. Their huge dark eyes were intent on the road immediately ahead of their hooves. Long, glistening strings of
drool hung from their muzzles. They toiled forward against the slope, goaded by their frightened drovers.

Gerin was managing to keep the road clear ahead of us. Whenever numbers of Vascons blocked the path, his Frankish lancers formed up and charged. They swept aside the men on foot, killing or
wounding those who were too slow to run back up the hillside. Then the troopers reined in, turned and trotted back to resume their station in the vanguard. Each charge left a handful of Vascon
corpses on the ground.

‘They’re out of their minds!’ Berenger yelled across to me. He was on the far side of the cart, riding escort. He had seen little action yet because the Vascons had launched
their ambush from our right.

‘Hroudland ought to send a messenger to summon help from the main army,’ I shouted back. ‘This is just the first attack.’

Berenger laughed aloud and I heard a note of battle frenzy in his response.

‘Not a chance! The count is much too proud. We can fight our way past this rabble.’

I glanced over my shoulder. The Vascons were concentrating their attack on the rear of our little column. Hroudland and the rear guard were engaged against a grey-clad mob of the enemy. Eggihard
and Anselm were mounted on tall, powerful horses so they were very visible. They had been reluctant to take orders from Hroudland, but in battle they were proving fearsome. Both men were using
their long swords with deadly effect, slashing and thrusting, forcing back the attackers. A few yards away, Hroudland sat on his roan, roaring encouragement to his troopers as they drove off the
Vascons.

It was impossible to tell how long the fury of the initial assault lasted. Eventually the Vascons saw how effectively we resisted and they began to withdraw, though only for a few yards up the
mountainside where they were safe from our cavalry. There they kept pace with us, moving across the slope as our column crept forward.

To my surprise Hroudland took advantage of the lull in the fighting to ride up and congratulate me. His face under the rim of his helmet was running with sweat, and his eyes were bright.

‘Well done, Patch!’ he exclaimed. ‘You and your men held our flank.’

‘The enemy are only biding their time,’ I answered.

‘Then we’ll drive them off again and again until they learn that they can’t defeat well-trained cavalry,’ he assured me.

‘We’re not yet at the place Godomar thought suited for an ambush,’ I reminded him.

Hroudland was not to be put off.

‘Then that’s their mistake. They’ve thrown away the advantage of surprise.’

‘Maybe the Vascons are planning to delay us or to wear us down,’ I objected.

Hroudland drew his eyebrows together in a scowl. He did not like his judgement to be questioned.

‘What makes you such an expert soldier, Patch?’ he demanded, his congratulatory tone suddenly gone.

‘One of their lads slipped through our defence earlier. He put a hole in that waterskin over there,’ I said and nodded to where the punctured waterskin hung limp from the side of the
cart.

Hroudland shrugged.

‘So we’ll be thirsty for a while,’ he said, though I noted that his eyes flicked towards the other carts. Several of their waterskins were also dangling empty.

I lowered my voice so that no one else could hear.

‘The next water source is the far side of the summit ridge.’

Hroudland recovered his poise.

‘Then all the more incentive to fight our way there,’ he retorted.

While we had been speaking the column had advanced perhaps a hundred paces. I wondered how many more hours it would be until we were out of danger.

*

The Vascons attacked us twice more before the sun was directly overhead. Each time we succeeded in driving them off though we lost a dozen horses, lamed or disembowelled. Their
riders now walked or, if they had been wounded, they rode on the carts. We had not suffered a single death and I began to think that Hroudland was right; we would manage to force our way along the
road until we were safely over the pass.

Two miles later everything changed.

Gerin rode back past me, his face grim. He was on his way to report to Hroudland. I was close enough to overhear him say to the count, ‘We’re in sight of the ravine now. It looks
very narrow. A dangerous place.’ There was a short pause, and then Gerin added, almost apologetically, ‘We could always leave the carts behind. We still have enough horses to carry
everyone to safety if they double up. I’m confident we could slip through.’

Hroudland’s answer was delivered in a harsh whisper.

‘I thought I made it clear: I have no intention of abandoning the treasure we have won. Have the enemy blocked the roadway?’

‘Apparently not, though there’s a bend in the road and I can’t see the full length of the ravine,’ said Gerin.

‘Then the passage lies ahead, and we take it,’ Hroudland confirmed.

‘I will do my best, my lord. But I fear that is what the enemy want us to do,’ Gerin said. He spoke in a flat, resigned tone in contrast to his usual air of steely competence.

He returned past me, looking distracted and chewing his lip. I had a queasy feeling that he was right. We were doing what the Vascons had planned for us. Only Hroudland’s absolute
self-confidence kept driving us forward.

The enemy left us alone for the time it took us to reach the point where the road narrowed to no more than four or five paces width, just before entering the ravine itself. To the right was a
low cliff, not more than fifteen feet high. To the left a steep broken slope covered with rocks and small loose stones extended all the way up to the mountain ridge. I noticed the troopers casting
worried glances from side to side. We were roasting in the summer heat and my mouth was dry. I summoned up some saliva and swallowed in an attempt to moisten my throat.

Two of Gerin’s troopers accompanied by Godomar broke away from the vanguard and went forward at a trot, presumably to scout the passage. They were gone for several minutes. When they
returned and delivered their report, Gerin rose in his stirrups, turned and called back to the drovers behind him, ‘Close up! Keep moving! The road is partially blocked by a barrier of
boulders at the far end. My men will clear the way for you.’

We continued forward, our little column more compact now as we reduced the distance between each cart. The narrowness of the roadway obliged the flanking cavalrymen to close in. My knee was
almost touching the wooden wheel of the nearest cart.

‘Maybe we’ve reached the boundary of their territory,’ Berenger called across to me. He nodded toward the Vascons on the hillside who had been keeping pace with us. They had
halted, and were standing and watching us leave.

‘Or they know that there’s a relief force on its way back from the main army,’ I said hopefully, though I did not believe it. There was something unnerving about the way the
Vascons were holding themselves in check.

As Gerin and the vanguard entered the ravine, I paid close attention to the top of the low cliff to our right. I was expecting to see Vascon slingers or archers appear there at any moment.

I was looking in the wrong direction.

After the first of our carts entered the ravine, I heard a gasp. It came from a wounded trooper riding on the cart next to me. He was looking up the long, steep slope to our left. I followed his
gaze. It was as if the mountainside was sloughing off its grey skin. The entire slope was alive and moving. Grey-clad men, hundreds of them, covered its surface and they were swarming down towards
us. They were not hurrying, but picking their way purposefully among the boulders, converging on the roadway. They held spears and swords, and they moved with deadly earnest.

My guts turned to water as, behind us, the massed wolf-like howl we heard when the Vascons first attacked rose again. I swung round. The men who had been tracking us had now descended into the
roadway. They were blocking any attempt at retreat.

‘Face left! Keep moving!’ Hroudland was bellowing. Most of us were still gaping at the sheer number of fighting men the Vascons had assembled.

Berenger was dumbfounded.

‘Some of them must be the men I saw yesterday. But where did all the others spring from?’

He had drawn his sword and now he looked down at the weapon in wonder as if he knew that it would be useless in the face of such overwhelming odds. Behind me I heard Eggihard’s voice,
railing at Hroudland, shouting that he should have sent to Carolus earlier and asked for reinforcements from the main army. Even the oxen sensed that something had changed. The squealing of the
wheels fell silent as they came to a gradual halt and stood meekly. We were halfway into the entrance to the ravine.

Hroudland changed his instructions.

‘Stand! Form a defensive line. Shift the carts to make a barricade!’ he roared.

But it was impossible. The road was too narrow. The drovers did not have enough space to turn and manoeuvre their beasts. The carts remained where they were, one behind the other. The Vascons
had pushed us into the ravine like forcing a cork into the neck of a bottle.

Gerin squeezed his way past me.

‘It’ll take more than an hour to clear away enough boulders from their barrier,’ he reported to Hroudland.

Anselm, the count of the palace, was within earshot. He was sweating heavily, his fleshy face scarlet under his helmet and his fine chainmail covered in dust.

‘Is there enough of a gap for a rider to get through?’ he demanded savagely. His stallion, trained to battle, was tossing its head and pawing the ground nervously.

When Gerin hesitated with his reply, Anselm bawled to one of the troopers nearby.

‘You there! Change horses with me and get through to the main army. Tell them to send help!’

He slid down from his own horse, handed over the reins, and a moment later the man was galloping into the ravine on his fresh mount.

Hroudland had no time to react to this challenge to his authority. Our men were milling about in confusion. The close-packed carts were making it difficult to form up in a defensive line. He
rode in among the troopers, pushing and shoving them into some sort of order. I glanced across at Berenger. He was sitting still, his eyes fixed on Hroudland, waiting to carry out his commands. I
realized that Berenger would follow the count whatever happened, his faith unshakeable.