John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

The victory he won that day was never sung in the odes and chronicles of the wise, he brooded. It was he who had dared to strike the Ishmaelites, and turn back the invading horde. It was he who had spared the lands the wrath of Islam, though his name was never sung.

But he cared not for glory. He did not fight for the quarrelsome northmen of Neustria and Austrasia. He did not fight for Christendom, nor for popes clinging to the Holy See in Italy, nor for any notion that his was a culture and a way of life that must surely be preserved. Quite the contrary. The existence his people endured in the dark age that had befallen the West after Rome fell, was far inferior to the splendid and opulent reach of the Umayyad empire. No, Odo fought only for his honor, his family, his brothers and sons, and the land he would stubbornly defend against all comers, Aquitaine.

His victory had won him a measure of peace, but soon the contentious lords of Neustria had ended their quarrel with the ascension of the Bastard Charles as Mayor of the Palace. Now they came to his land, thinking to bring it under their thumb as well, and though Odo was better endowed with brawn than wit, he nonetheless could see in these incursions the harbinger of his own doom. How could he stand watch on his southern borders, wary of the Moors, while his strength was also drawn into conflict with Neustria to the north?

So it was that he schemed to make a truce, in the manner in which warring kingdoms so often reached accommodation. While the Caliph in Hispania sat in the opulence of Cordoba, his far flung Emirs were headstrong, much like Odo himself. To one of these men, Manuza, he gave his daughter in marriage, unmindful of the lamentations of priests, saints and clerics who condemned the marriage as an unholy alliance with the minions of Satan. It may have been such, but Odo was only concerned with his own wellbeing, and that of his family. The marriage promised to neutralize his foe to the south, and more, to create a new alliance in the middle ground between Neustria and Hispania. But when Abdul Rahman came to the Caliphate in Cordoba, he soon plotted to unweave the fabric of Odo’s cloth, and the loose twine which he pulled upon was Manuza.

In the year 731, when the upstart usurper Charles came to Odo’s lands to subdue him, the brawny chieftain rightfully called upon his in-laws to the south to come to his aid, but Manuza was said to be taken with a fit, fearful of the power and guile of Abdul Rahman, and in short order, Manuza was dead.

Odo stood alone against the assembled might of Charles, who had come in anger, bent on breaking Odo’s alliance with the Moors. In this Abdul Rahman was his unknowing ally. By striking down Manuza, Odo was isolated and defeated by Charles. He was soon a gelded and embittered warlord who suffered the humiliation of being forced to kneel before the Neustrian Mayor, and ignominiously pledge his fealty.

So it was that his strength was bled white by Charles, though Odo festered and chafed at the reins the Mayor had bridled him with. He remained a willful and unruly beast, secretly plotting to regain his independence and find yet another way to free himself from Charles domination.

The following summer, however, Odo’s greatest nemesis returned, only this time the Saracen horde took the westernmost passes over the mountains, surprising Odo, who had gathered his army to watch the eastern passes, and the Road to Toulouse, where Manuza had once held them safe as his ally and father-in-law. Through Bayonne they came, then up through Dax to Bordeaux. It was here, again on the River Garonne, that Odo sought to stay their advance. Years ago, he had righteously spilled the blood of the Saracens where this same river flowed east to Toulouse. Now he sought to hold the line again here in the west at Bordeaux, only this time the foe he faced was beyond his strength to impede.

Abdul Rahman had come with a mighty host. All the Emirs of Andalus had joined with him, and his hardened legion of swarthy Saracens swept all before them. Odo formed his men on the banks of the river, their shieldwall at the water’s edge where the enemy sought to cross. He fought as Charles had done when he bested Odo the previous year. So Odo, weakened and with no means of matching the marvelous Moorish cavalry, had stood like an anvil on the River Garonne, and he was hammered to near death by the fierce might of Abdul Rahman. So great was the slaughter of his loyals, that the river was said to run red with the blood of Odo’s men for days after, and none could count the dead.

Barely escaping, with only his chosen comitatus guards at hand, Odo fled to a low hill overlooking Bordeaux, his eye and ears bloodied by the hacking swords of his enemy. There, wounded but alive, he listened to the wail of Bordeaux as it burned in the night, and he wept.

It was a miracle that Odo escaped at all that night. Unhorsed, with few retainers left to guard him, he made his way on foot through the dusky woods, hoping to confound pursuit by hiding himself in the forest. A pack of wolves took up the scent of his blood, and they stalked him warily as he labored up the hill and into a glen where he came upon a small farm site.

There, tethered to a post, he found an old plow horse, a pale stallion that was near the end of life, as Odo was himself. The horse shied away when Odo came, smelling blood and fear. But Odo sang to him, noting the dark circle around the horse’s eye. “Thine eye is bruised and blackened as is mine, he whispered. And we are both old warriors, long past our prime.”

Odo stroked the short cropped mane of the horse, feeling the strength that still burgeoned in the horses shoulders. “Oh no,” he whispered. “You were never meant for the harness and plow. It was yours to run and roam free!” He untethered the horse, calming the beast as he made ready to mount.

“Carry me this night,” he breathed. “I beg of you, for these legs can run no further…”

Odo did not know it then, but the horse he had found was once a young and willful beast, even as he was, and was the very steed Maeve had come upon, 27 long years ago, at a small farm on the road between Heristal and Leodium. Kuhaylan had bolted off into the night when Maeve had dismounted quickly, slapping his hind quarters in farewell. He had run free, for many years thereafter until, in time, he had been caught and harnessed by men again, and driven into service as a war horse. Over the years he had seen many battles, and heard the deep throated cries of many riders, the din of swords falling on many helms. Yet, like all old warriors, he grew weary, his strength slowly ebbing away, and he was put out to pasture, fated to spend the remainder of his days as an old plow horse. Yet this night he was a warrior once again. This night his nostrils flared wide with the smell of fresh blood, and he heard again the jangle of sword and iron studded leather; felt the firm, steady pressure of Odo’s greaves in his flanks.

So it was that Odo was able to make his way north through his family lands, riding on the old Roman road that led to Poitiers. He had little doubt that the Saracen horde would soon be at his back. I was a fool, he thought. I should never have given battle in the manner of Charles.

Yet it was north to the Franks that he rode now, for he had no choice but to throw himself upon the mercy of Charles the Bastard, and beg him to bring his men at arms to the battle that would surely decide the fate of every kingdom and fiefdom in all these lands.

Odo rode north in the night, as fast as Kuhaylan could take him. As he went, a few men gathered to his side, joining the elite core of his comitatus , and word was sent out before him that great peril was riding at his heels. Messengers reached Charles, again warring with rival Frisian lords to the east, intent on bringing all under his heel.