Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

Ambrose glanced at me quizzically. "You have things you wish to tell me, too?"

"I do, and perhaps we should deal with that first. My information is less urgent than yours, I suspect, but I think it is important. I'll keep it brief." I then launched into the tale of my interference in the affairs of Nero Niger and his Appius clan, and detailed my thoughts on how we might be able to develop a network of useful alliances with the common people around places like Corinium.

Ambrose listened carefully, and when I had finished speaking he nodded, his expression thoughtful. He then began firing rapid questions at me, all of them concerned with the implementation of my less than lucid plan and the methods I had conceived for making it a reality. I had the answers, incomplete and tentative as they were, at my fingertips, and he weighed each of them judiciously, sometimes reshaping or realigning the thrust of them but not once dismissing anything out of hand.

Within a remarkably short while, working in easy, intuitive harmony, we had transformed my original, optimistic suggestions into a concrete and feasible campaign plan. We would put the proposal to the Council at the next meeting, and put the campaign into effect as soon as possible thereafter.

"Good," Ambrose said then, after we had both sat for a while in silence, pleased with what we had achieved. "Anything else?"

I shook my head. "No, that was all I had. Now what's going on in Cambria, and have you had any word of Vortigern?"

"No, no word of Vortigern, and too much word of Cambria. We're ready to go, you know. As soon as you're prepared. Within the week, if possible."

'To Cambria? In what kind of force?"

"One third. The First Legion—sounds grand, doesn't it? But what else could we call our groups? They're half the size of a legion—"

"I know, but probably three times as powerful. I've heard all about them from Benedict and the others. Tell me about this new Scouting Force you've organized."

For some time, Ambrose had been concerned about an inefficiency in the use of Camulod's fighting resources. Our entire way of life in Camulod was built around the breeding of horses for our cavalry, and our heavy cavalry mounts were our greatest pride. But not all of the enormous number of horses that we bred were large enough to meet our criteria for service. Camulodian cavalry was heavy cavalry, the only force of its kind in Britain, perhaps in the world, and only the largest animals could be strong enough to bear the weight of our heavily armoured troopers. That requirement had left us, over the years, with a large reserve of smaller but otherwise magnificent animals for which we had no purpose, apart from putting them to work in the fields, and the finest of those creatures, my brother had long thought, were going to waste.

Ambrose was aware of our peculiar disdain in Camulod for the light, skirmishing cavalry the Romans had used throughout their history. Primarily mounted archers with short, puny bows, Roman cavalry, in our eyes, had been useless except in the role for which it had been developed: providing a mobile defensive screen for the cumbersome legions while they were forming up in their battle order. But Ambrose had not been born and raised in Camulod, so he did not share that disdain. He was perceptive enough to realize that under certain conditions, such as heavy rain and muddy terrain, lighter—and therefore speedier—cavalry might be extremely effective. He put his findings into effect and created a new branch of Camulodian cavalry—on smaller mounts, with stirrupped saddles and with lighter armour and weapons—and called it a Scouting Force, thereby avoiding the pejorative "light cavalry."

"They're brilliant troops, Cay—hard hitting and unbelievably mobile. But most of all they're fast, and they can go to places where the heavy cavalry can't go. The heavy troopers require space and dry, level land to do their best fighting. When they have all of those, as you know, they are invincible and terrifying. Unfortunately, we seldom find all three together. The Scouts, though, can go anywhere. They can fight on level ground and they can charge uphill and down because their horses are lighter in every respect. They travel farther and faster, too, and yet tactically, fighting in formation, they're almost as awe inspiring as the heavy cavalry."

"Sounds excellent. You have them organized in the same way as the regular troopers, I presume."

"Of course. Anything else would be madness. The only difference is in the weight of the horses, and the proportional weight and weaponry of the armed riders. Their primary weapon is the light spear we designed after the one your Erse friend sent from Athol's kingdom."

Years earlier, while visiting Athol Mac Iain in Eire, I had worked with a smith called Maddan on a design for a new cavalry spear, loosely based on the long spears used by the Scots for hunting boars. Much later, when he felt he had perfected it, Maddan sent it to Camulod aboard one of Connor's ships, as a gift, and Ambrose had appropriated it in my absence. It was far lighter and less cumbersome than its size and shape suggested it would be, owing to the construction of the shaft. It had a slender, lethal head welded to a thin iron rod that stretched the entire length of the weapon. The shaft was built around the rod, a laminated cladding of tough, dried, feather light wattle—the same reeds used in house building in Eire, and in shield making by the Saxons—fastened securely along its length with tightly wound bindings of soaked, stretched deer hide that dried out iron hard. The result was a spear that was light, almost flexible and incredibly strong—a perfect weapon for a mounted man.

I was reminded then that I had not yet told Ambrose the sad news that Connor had brought. I watched his expression carefully as I spoke. "You do know that Athol is dead, don't you? Brander is the new king." Clearly he had not heard.

"Strange," he muttered. "You would think the news would have reached us before now, if he died that long ago. The death of a king is noteworthy, cause for much talk."

"Aye, but Athol's new holdings are far north of here, and newly won. And they are islands. The people have been winter bound. No means existed for the tidings to travel to Mediobogdum, or even to Ravenglass."

I went on to ask him about the biremes supposedly being used by Ironhair's armies. Ambrose nodded, looking grim. "Aye, he has them, two of the whoresons. I haven't seen them, but I've heard all about them. They're the biggest ships ever seen in these seas, I'm told, and they carry enormous numbers of men and great quantities of stores. Roman navy biremes, here in Britain, fighting for Ironhair! They have an army of oarsmen, but each of them also carries its own army Of warriors! And then, in addition to all that, they ferry levies for Ironhair in the bellies of the things. Apparently they have huge cargo holds, built right into the bodies of the ships themselves, and they carry their own cranes to load them and unload them."

"Aye, well that's nothing new—the cranes, I mean. Connor's galleys have the same device, although probably much smaller. Where did they come from, these ships?"

Ambrose shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea. The vessel you told me about, the one you saw on your way to Eire, is the only thing of that type I've ever heard of, and I've never been able to imagine what that looked like. The thought of two of them, and the possibility that there might be even more, confounds me. God knows where Ironhair found the things. "

"Well, Brother, wherever he found them, they were for sale or for hire, and now they're here, ferrying his vermin into Cambria. What about Carthac, is he still alive?"

That brought a grunt of disgust. "Aye, he is, still alive and still demented. He'll always be demented, but I'm beginning to fear he'll always be alive, too. He seems to be unkillable. God knows many have tried. I've heard two different reports of close shot Pendragon arrows being deflected from his armour. "