Jack Whyte - Uther

"That man has important tidings," Uther said, almost to himself. "Were they less so, he would be kinder to himself. Let's hope he brings word of Lagan Longhead's coming." He turned to one of his aides. "Take an extra horse and go and meet him, then bring him here to me as quickly as you can. He won't want to ride, won't know how, but tie him into the saddle if you must."

Another shout came from behind him, but this one was more distant, coming down the hill from above, from the tree-covered summit at his back.

"Go now." Uther waved the aide away on his task and turned immediately to gaze up towards the hilltop. The trees up there were small and bushy, mainly hawthorn and hazel, but they provided very effective concealment from below. Uther scanned the entire hillside as far as he could see, but nothing seemed to be moving up there, despite the fact that there were a hundred of his own bowmen among the trees.

Then he saw a sudden Hash of movement and a man came bounding down the hillside, leaping hugely and carrying his long Pendragon bow above his head in one hand while he clutched his arrow quiver tightly beneath his other arm. It was a man called Brock, whom Uther had known all his life. He reached the plateau and came running to where Uther and the others sat waiting for him, but there he had to pause for breath, gulping air into his lungs. Finally he shook his head and pulled himself erect, his voice unsteady with effort.

"We're being attacked up there, Uther. Hundreds strong, coming up the hillside from the back. We need more arrows."

Uther turned immediately to another of his aides. "See to it, Spartek, quickly. Two squads of men, each with two bundles of arrows. Get them up there immediately." He looked then to where Huw Strongarm stood listening. "Huw, I need you to detach a hundred more of your bowmen to reinforce the men up there. Take fifty from each flank and move them up to the summit as quickly as you can. If there are hundreds attacking us up there, as Brock says, the people we sent up are sorely pressed."

Huw turned and moved quickly away, speaking hurriedly with his own deputy commander before they split up and headed down the hill, one to each side.

Uther spoke to Brock again. "Hundreds, you said?"

"Aye. Hundreds of them. Outlanders, they are, Uther. Real Outlanders. Black faces, some of them. And they've got bows, Wicked little things, strangely bent but strong."

"Where have they come from, do you know?"

"No, but I know where they're trying to get to, and that's the top of this hill. If they reach there, it'll be because we'll all be dead, and they'll be coming down about your ears, so I'd better be getting back."

Uther nodded. "Good man, and tell your mates up there another hundred bows are on their way to share the fight with them. Go now, and may the gods protect you. But send back word to me as soon as you can see how many are coming against you up there."

As Brock turned away, Uther spoke again to Dedalus. "Ded, form another unit of your men and get them up there, too, quick as you can. Take fifty from each of the three groups in reserve down below. We might not need them, but we've no way of knowing what the situation is on the other side of the summit. I don't know who these black-faced whoresons are or where they came from, but we can't afford to run the risk of losing the summit and having an enemy above us."

"Right." Dedalus summoned three runners and rapped out commands to all of them, sending them down the hill at the run. Then he turned and gazed up towards the summit above them, within easy bowshot. "How many armies does this gutter-spawned whoreson have, Uther?"

"Too many. What happened to that messenger from the south?"

Dedalus pointed with one raised arm. "Here he comes now." Together, he and Uther watched the newcomer approach them.

wide-eyed with apprehension as he clung tightly to the horn of his tall mount's saddle. The fellow made no attempt to hide his relief on sliding down to the ground, where he nodded to Uther, almost but not quite making a gesture of acknowledgment and submission. Uther smiled slightly, a mere tugging at one corner of his mouth, and nodded.

"We saw you coming and guessed you had important tidings. Were we right?"

The man nodded. "Aye, King Uther, you were. Ill tidings, though. You won't like them."

"Let me be the judge of that. What have you?"

"An army, lord, coming up from the southeast, three, perhaps four hours distant."

"Whose army? We are expecting allies, an army of Cornish clansmen risen in revolt against Lot's tyranny. This might be them."

The man scowled, and Uther remembered his name was the same as the Whistler's, Garreth.

"I didn't see them myself, King Uther, but from what I was told by those who did see them, they're no Cornishmen. These are Outlanders, differently dressed and armoured than any clansmen from these parts. They march in formation, I was told, and they bear the banner of the Boar."

"Damnation!" The boar was Lot's own symbol, and Uther felt anger and frustration welling up in him. "How many are they, do you know?"

"Thousands strong is the word I heard. The man who brought it was almost dead from running. He said their strength was beyond counting, but that they had been found last night by the lights of their campfires, and they were on the march by dawn. Three leagues behind him, he said they were, and he was the sixth runner in the chain. I'm the seventh, and I left him almost a full league behind me."

"You ran a whole league? Three miles?"

"Aye, or most of it. Had to stop twice to rest. There should have been another man waiting halfway to take over from me, but I couldn't find him, so I waited as long as I could to catch my breath and then ran on."

"Good man!" Uther reached out, showing the man none of his anger, and gripped him by the shoulder. "Get you up on that horse again and go to the quartermaster's wagons below. Eat and drink. You've earned a rest."

He swung away then and lowered his voice to speak to Dedalus, whose face was blank, showing nothing of his thoughts.

"Four leagues. Twelve miles. They'll be here by noon."

"It's less than that. They've been moving since the first runner set out, so they've probably covered several miles already. Say they're nine, perhaps ten miles away. But if there are thousands of the whoresons they won't be moving very quickly, unless they send a faster moving force ahead of their main army. But why would they do that? They don't know we're here."

"We don't know that, not with certainty. I said just moments ago that those others down there, the Ersemen, were waiting for something. It could be that they've already made contact with these newcomers, probably the same way we have, using scouts and runners. If that's the case, we're in dire straits." Uther turned back to the messenger, who had refused to mount the horse again and was just beginning to move away on foot.

"Garreth! The route you took to come here, was it the only one you could have taken?"

The man frowned, thinking before he answered, then shook his head. "I think so. It's a long valley, straight and narrow, and I had to stick to the path along the centre. No other place to go. No gaps in the hills . . . none that would offer an easy crossing, anyway. Long straight lines of hills on both sides. So yes, I'd say I came the only way I could from where I was to here."

"My thanks. Go now."

"What are you thinking, Uther?" Dedalus's voice was low- pitched, close to Uther's shoulder.

"About what to do, what else? A long, narrow valley, he said, a league long, with no way out."

"Aye, but we can't block it, not with that Erse mob at our back."

"No, but we have three hours, perhaps four, and as you said, the Ersemen have little stomach for facing our cavalry. We could hit them now, the way we did before—scatter them and send them running north, their tails between their legs."