Shadowland (3 page)

Wolves normally stayed clear of people, and rarely
attacked, especially at this time of year when there was still plenty of game.
Their appearance this close to the village, was unusual to say the least. As
the breeze changed, the biggest wolf’s head swung towards them and bared its
teeth, its eyes flashing silver in the low moonlight as it gave a low growl.

‘Usher,’ whispered Cal, but Usher didn’t answer as he fumbled
for his sling and searched for the stone he had found earlier. Too late to take
a duck, but maybe it had been meant for a wolf instead. The wolf took a couple
of steps forward as its two companions glanced across to see what had disturbed
it, and then, without warning, a fourth wolf brushed through the bushes to join
them from the darkness. Its arrival drew the attention of the others as it
began licking at the muzzle of the big leader in a show of subservience. A
moment later, the big wolf growled a stop and turned its attention back to the
boys, but they had already slipped away.

‘Keep moving,’ Usher urged, pushing Cal on into the gloom.

‘Are they after us?’

‘Well, if they’re not then they will be soon. We
have to make our way around to the village. They won’t dare follow us in
there.’ Behind them a wolf howled, breaking the silence of the night; a second
howl joined it moments later and then a third. Abandoning all pretence at
stealth, the boys set off through the darkness with the sounds of pursuit not
far behind. Branches whipped and tore at them as they ran almost blindly;
straining their eyes for some sign of a way through the shapes and shadows that
loomed ahead of them. They stumbled on, tripping and falling over unseen bushes
and bounced into trees, holding their arms up as they tried to protect their
faces.

‘They’re catching up to us,’ shouted Cal, his voice both
panicked and laboured from the exertion. ‘I can hear them getting closer!’

‘Here, climb.’
 
Usher grabbed his friend and pushed him towards the shadowy form of a
large tree, its branches barely visible but at least one hanging low enough to
clamber up onto. Cal
pulled himself up as Usher waited impatiently. ‘Hurry!’ he urged, and then
followed quickly, the moment there was room. The wolves’ excited cries sounded
close behind as they caught sight of their prey. Ahead of him, Cal was having trouble
moving up to the next branch.

‘For the Spirit’s sake, hurry, they’re coming!’ He
pushed alongside Cal
in an effort to get higher and had just managed to move up to the second branch,
when there was an excited growl and then pain flared in his leg. He screamed as
the wolf bit, and held on. It didn’t have a good hold, but good enough for
Usher to keep shrieking and for the wolf’s huge weight to drag him back down to
the branch below. The wolf growled and began to twist and swing, it’s legs
kicking as it tried to dislodge its prey’s hold on the tree. With another cry,
Usher felt his grip on the branch slip and then felt Cal’s hand seize his arm.

‘Pull yourself up... quick!’

‘I can’t
...
’
he let out another scream, his breath coming in sobs and gasps as he struggled
to hold on. ‘It’s got me, Cal.
I can’t... ’

‘Kick it!’
yelled
Cal,
desperately trying to haul his friend to safety. There were several jerks as
Usher kicked with his free leg and the wolf swung. Then came a high-pitched
yelp as he managed to land a solid kick on the wolf’s snout and it dropped away
whining.

In the darkness, Usher scuttled up out of reach. He
couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt, but could feel that his leggings were torn
and when he glanced down, could see a dark stain of sticky, wet blood, flowing
down his leg. Below them, the wolves scrabbled at the tree in frustration,
whimpering and occasionally growling softly.

‘We have to get higher,’ urged Usher, feeling above
for another branch. They made their way upwards and as they did, the leaves
thinned, the light improving slightly, and in the highest branches with the
tree swaying under their weight, the night sky finally opened up to them. They
could see the village. Too far away to call for help but still not much more
than a stone’s throw distant. People were strolling about and the glow of
cooking fires cast a warm light between the huts where chickens pecked at the
ground and a goat was calling plaintively for its kid; it all looked so
inviting.

Usher shivered and tried to get more comfortable.
‘We might be here for a while. I think those wolves are still down there.’
He peered below through the shadows. There was nothing
to see in the darkness, but he could still sense the movements.
He glanced across at Cal. ‘Thanks for helping
me. If you hadn’t pulled me up, that wolf would have gotten me for sure.’

Cal
smiled at him and nodded,
then stared into the village. Old Jonkey, the hunter, had finished his day and
was coming home on the southern path. His bow was over his shoulder, a string
of three fat ducks hung at his side. His hunting dog, an old flea-bitten hound
that had long seen its better years accompanied him, its tongue lolling
happily. The pair stopped to talk to someone the boys couldn’t see and Jonkey
handed over one of the ducks in exchange for a reed basket of vegetables.

‘Jonkey!’ shouted first Cal, and then Usher, trying to get the old
hunter’s attention. ‘Jonkey, up here …
Jonkey!’
but the old man didn’t as much as glance in their direction. With the various
noises coming from closer in the village, it was obvious he couldn’t hear them.
They watched for a while as he chatted, then saw him turn abruptly as something
caught his attention, then something strange happened. He dropped the ducks to
the ground, brought up his bow and shot an arrow into the darkness of the
trees. A moment later, as he was stringing another arrow, he fell to the ground
clutching at his stomach with the old hound standing over him barking angrily
into the darkness.

Usher and Cal gazed transfixed as shadowy figures
crept out of the forest into the light of the nearest fires. Warriors wearing
rough leather kilts and loose-fitting shawls, their faces shadowed in a
distinctive way that every village boy knew from fireside accounts to be
painted blue.

‘They’re Picts,’
hissed Usher, through clenched teeth, ‘but what are they doing here in the
village, so far south?’

The Picts began moving amongst the huts, breaking
the calm of the night with howling war cries as they threw burning torches onto
thatched roofs, driving the confused occupants shrieking outside, where they
were cut down without thought or mercy.
The
fires spread quickly and the screams of the terrified villagers rose to join
with the bloodlust-howls of the attacking warriors. It quickly deteriorated
into a scene from some awful fevered nightmare.

‘We have to get down there,’ cried Cal, hysteria edging his voice. ‘Those are
our families!’ He glanced below into the darkness, trying to decide if the
wolves had gone but sounds of movement frustrated any question of descent. He
grabbed at Usher’s arm and began to sob.

‘Usher, why are Picts attacking into the Weald? Surely,
there must be a Roman villa to sack. Why an Iceni village? We have nothing!’

To sit in the tree, only able to watch their friends
and family driven from their huts and murdered, was more than the boys could
bear, but bear it they had to, as below them,
the wolves began to howl confirming they were still trapped.
  

They watched as a young woman ran from a burning hut,
her hair smoking from the intense heat, a baby clutched to her chest wrapped in
a soft woollen fold. The woman was screaming hysterically, her baby wailing at
being torn so rudely from its crib. As she ran, trying to find escape between
the huts, t
wo Picts saw her and gave
chase. Leaping around her, they hooted with glee as she continued to shriek in
anguish, seeking desperately for some way to escape.
With her baby clutched
tightly, she kicked out, catching one of the Picts a glancing blow to the leg,
which only increased their delight, then she tried to dash past. The closest
Pict caught and spun her round.
 
Both
were shrieking, the woman in fear for her baby, which flew from her arms, and
the Pict in excitement for the sport.
Without
warning, a spear took the Pict holding her throwing him back in a spray of
blood. As he fell, the woman scrambled for her baby, picked it up, and dashed
out of sight. The second Pict ignored the woman and ran towards the attackers
that neither Usher nor Cal could see.

The round thatched huts of the village were burning
fiercely now, flames and glowing embers clawing up at the cold night sky,
dancing like great fire spirits celebrating their release from the depths of
the earth.
The roar of the blaze swept
through the village and began to spread into parts of the surrounding forest,
illuminating every detail of the massacre and the warriors that delivered it.

Tears slid down Usher’s cheeks, blurring his vision,
but he wiped them away with a desperate need to witness every detail. The image
of the Picts, screaming in an ecstasy of bloodletting as they chased down each
fleeing villager would be, forever imprinted upon his mind.

A central figure directed the violence with a calm
detached air from the back of a horse, almost as if he were overseeing the
summer harvest rather than the annihilation of a people. He was dressed
differently from the others, in black leather with a dark fur cloak draped
across his shoulders. The horse tossed it’s head and one of its forelegs
scrapped at the ground as if bored while the rider regarded the carnage around
him through the protection of a conical helmet with burnished side plates and
nasal guard.

Cal
noticed him first and
quickly pointed him out to Usher. They screamed out threats and curses, but of
course, the rider couldn’t hear anything above the noise of the slaughter surrounding
him. After a while, they stopped and lapsed into silence, watching in awful
fascination as the warrior took the nose guard and lifted his helmet in one
swift motion to consider the activity about him. It gave them their first
opportunity to look upon the face of their enemy.

Everything about the rider appeared black. He had
long black hair, gathered at the side of his head in a warriors’ knot, eyes
that were merely dark hollows within the shadows of his skull, and more black
hair upon his upper lip that he now stroked and teased while directing his men
at their deadly harvest. Even the rider’s horse was black, and appeared blessed
by the same disregard for mindless violence as its rider. It stood unflinching
while flames licked close to its haunches.

Turning in the saddle, the rider snapped out an order
in the strange Pict tongue, directing three warriors towards the west of the
village where he had seen something. To the observers in the tree it appeared
he would not be satisfied until the whole village had been destroyed, picking
off each running figure as they fled for the trees. Each figure a person that
was a friend, neighbour or family member to Usher and Cal.

The beams of the huts were giving way. Loud cracks
and crashes rendered the air, sending embers and sparks high into the night sky
in great sparkling clouds as what was left of the roofs collapsed and the walls
caved in.

Then in one glorious moment, the boy’s spirits rose
as three village men and one of the women came into view swinging swords and
spears before them. As a group, they began beating back several of the
attackers, however, the stand was short-lived. When the rider in the centre saw
the threat, he simply directed more men to come in and attack the defenders
from behind and they were swiftly butchered.

The longhouse was now the only building still
standing. It was the largest hut, the meeting hall of the village council, and
the home of Elder Tom
Torney
. It’s thatch was still
blazing fiercely, and parts had dropped down setting the interior alight, the
flames reaching out through the small shuttered windows and past Tom Tourney
who now lay dead in the open doorway.

The Picts gathered around their leader’s horse and
roared their approval as the great central beam of the house finally gave way
and the whole building collapsed in on itself.

Their task complete, the black warrior led his party
out of the village by the southern path, herding a small group of wailing
children ahead of them, leaving only the smoking deathly remains of the empty
village to the spirits of the night.

The
boys watched as the group strode out of sight. They heard their laughter echo
through the forest as the Picts celebrated their venture, not realising they
had left the cold heart of vengeance behind them seething in the heights of an
old oak tree.

The remainder of their night passed sitting in
silence; cold, uncomfortable and deeply shocked by what they had witnessed.
Tears of sorrow, frustration and a deep sadness aided their survival, coupled
with a burning anger and need for revenge.

Tentatively lowering themselves from the tree in the
pre-dawn glow, the wolves had gone and the boys soon found their path. Walking
into the village was like re-entering a nightmare. As dawn first painted the
sky to the east with fingers of orange light, Usher and Calvador sought out the
burnt husks of their family homes and wept.