Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

Relieved that there seemed to be no immediate danger, Ambrose left at once to return and escort Ludmilla, who would, he knew, be concerned about what had been happening, and Donuil accompanied him to rejoin Shelagh for the same reasons. The rest of us, Dedalus, Rufio and I, entered the fort together and went looking for Derek, our ears and minds filled with overheard snatches of conversation and conjectures describing the storm, wrecked galleys and drowned men.

We found Derek up on the western wall overlooking the harbour, and as I mounted the stairs I saw Longinus standing with him, bent forward as he peered down from the battlements. I was surprised to see that there were relatively few defenders up there, but before I could say anything Derek nodded to us and pointed with his thumb in the direction of the wharf beyond the wall.

"The gods were looking after us last night. Look over there."

There have been times in my life when my mind has been swamped and confounded by overwhelming impressions. One of those moments came upon me when I crossed to look down from the battlements into the harbour beneath. What I saw remains with me in images that rear behind my eyes, defying me then and ever since to find words to describe it.

Chaos and madness and unbridled destruction: half and more of the long, seaward-pointing pier of thick oak trunks and planks splintered to ruin, shattered and ruptured amid a nightmarish confusion of sunken, upended and overturned galleys scattered the length and breadth of the harbour; barnacled bottoms pointed skyward, yawing sluggishly in the dying current; shattered keels, broken masts and spars; drifting, torn and severed ropes and frayed, unravelled cables; drowned, bobbing bodies twisting in scores; swirling, scummy broken water, heaving and surging; gleaming, glistening piles and heaps of seaweed everywhere, torn from its roots and cast up by raging waves on to the wharf road along the bottom of the wall; corpses littering the shore and sprawled at the base of the wall where they had been thrown by the same waves' fury; other men scurrying among these, carrying bared blades, looking for signs of life to snuff out; everywhere the signs of overwhelming tragedy and the awful, blasting power of nature's unrestrained rage. And oars everywhere, littering the surface of the sea like impossibly straight, leafless branches, while on the straight upstanding stern of one sundered galley, a scattering of arrows stood in the wood of the planking, the only evidence among the carnage, save for the scurrying scavengers beneath, that men had been involved in dealing death here.

Incapable of speech, I fumbled at my helmet straps and bared my head. Derek stood watching me, saying nothing. Finally, I found something to do. I began to count the shattered galleys. I lost count at fourteen and blew out a deep, sharp breath.

"How many wrecked, do you know?"

He shrugged. "We counted twenty, but there could be more."

"God! And so many bodies. There must be a hundred there, still in the water."

"Aye, but they're the light ones. Those who were wearing armour sank and stayed down."

"Sweet Jesus! What happened? I mean, I know it was the storm, but what could have possessed their leader to allow his boats so close inshore in such conditions? He should have ridden the thing out, safe out at sea."

"Greed possessed him, and a hunger for vengeance. They thought the storm was over, and sought to surprise us in the aftermath. There was a time, last night, when the wind fell and the storm abated and it seemed for a long time to have blown over. We all thought so. It had been raging for the entire day, by then."

I nodded at his words. "Aye, we thought so, too, up in our fort. The wind died down and stillness fell and all was calm for several hours."

Derek was barely listening to me, his eyes staring out to where the low island in the bay interposed itself between the town and the open sea. When he spoke again his voice was low, as though he spoke for his own ears alone.

"It seems now, when I look back on it, as though we were becalmed for a while in a gap between two storms, and when it had moved over and beyond us, the second storm resumed more fiercely than the first had been at its worst. I have never known winds such as those. We lost two men from off the walls here, plucked up and away and blown down into the courtyard. No one can recall such a thing ever happening before." He snorted and spat wetly. "Anyway, thank all the gods, the commander of these people, whoever he might have been, judged the danger past, exactly as we did. He moved inshore in the darkness, preparing to attack us with the dawn, and when the storm returned the high tides took his fleet and dashed it to splinters here." He stepped forward to the wall and leaned out, bracing his hands on the stone parapet. "As I said, I don't know yet how many keels were lost, and we may never know, but I think we need fear little more from the Sons of Condran. Two disastrous visits in succession should destroy their taste for sacking Ravenglass."

He turned now to look closely at me for the first time since my arrival. "You, my friend, are drenched, and blue with cold, and I have been up here all day, since before dawn. Let us go and find a fire somewhere. I doubt your good-brother Connor will arrive today. Born sailor that he is, he probably held his fleet in shelter over there, in the lee of Man."

I looked to where he pointed, and though I could see nothing, I knew he meant the large island that hulked out there beyond the shores of Britain. Though I was no sailor, I had to agree. It seemed the proper thing that Connor, seeing the storm approaching from the west, would have assessed the risks and chosen to seek shelter there on Man, safe in the shadow of the island.

I sighed and cast one last long look around the death- filled bay below and then I turned away, looking down into the town. There stood the two boys, Arthur and Bedwyr, staring up at me, in their own little island of stillness among the throngs bustling around them. Derek had begun to move away and I stopped him, catching at his sleeve. He stopped and half turned, watching curiously as I crooked my index finger and beckoned to the two boys to come up. They turned to each other with incredulous grins visible even from where I stood, and then they began running towards the nearest stairs.

"What are you doing?" Derek's tone was filled with disapproval. "You think this is a sight for boys?"

"No," I responded, watching the boys' heads as they came bounding up the steps. "Not for mere boys. But for future warriors and leaders of men there is a lesson to be learned from this, I think."

Derek grunted disapprovingly but held his peace thereafter. When the boys arrived by my side I took each of them by the shoulder with one hand.

"Listen to me now, both of you. You have it in your hearts to ride to war some day, to fight and to win glory, is that not so?"

"Yes, Cay, when we are old enough," Arthur said, his eyes wide. Bedwyr merely nodded, too full of excitement to say anything.

I nodded, frowning at them. "Aye, when you are old enough." I crouched to kneel on one knee, bringing my eyes level with theirs. "Well, it may be that you will never believe this until you see it for yourselves, but there are some sights that no man ever grows old enough to countenance without pain and fear, and one of them lies now beneath us, there on the outside of the wall. I have decided you should see it. Come now and look."

I led them to the parapet and stood between them, still holding each of them by the shoulder, and I felt the stiffness that came over them as soon as they had seen and begun to absorb what lay down there. I knew it was cruel to do such a thing to them, but it really could not have been better, from my unique point of view as teacher and guide. Even faced with death on such a scale, they were yet distanced from it here on the wall top. Blood and wounds and carnage they could see, but broadly, from afar, washed and diluted by the sea and lacking detail. The glistening entrails and spilled body fluids were too far off to mark, and the foul smells of violent death would yet remain unknown to them for this time, at least. Even so, the spectacle changed and chastened them forever, in the space of brief moments, dispelling for all time the high, laughing excitement of the glory-hungry boy in each of them. When they had seen, and looked their fill, I turned them to me and spoke to them again, aware of the pallor of their cheeks and the tearful distress that filled their eyes.