Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Shaken and disturbed by my own logic, I could not believe my friends, for all their own strong-mindedness, had thought this matter through in its entirety, and I told myself that someone, most probably me, had to do just that: examine the entire problem judiciously and logically, and then convince all of them of their error. I could see no alternative, although I knew I faced a thankless task. Survival—our own survival—depended on their being wrong. And so I rode in silence, and I was deeply troubled.

We had ridden for about a mile when I became aware that Ambrose, slightly ahead of me, had stopped and now stood upright in his stirrups, head cocked to the side, listening. I stopped my own mount and listened, too, but I could hear nothing. I had had ample evidence on this journey, however, that my brother's hearing was far more acute than my own, so I was ready when he put his fingers to his lips and waved us off the path. I kicked Germanicus forward and kept close as Ambrose spurred his horse through the bushes and up a slight rise that was crowned by a clump of large trees, their boles concealed by heavy brush. I reined in beside him and looked in the direction he was watching.

"What did you hear?"

"People coming towards us. More than a few. Listen."

I strained my ears for long moments, then finally heard the noises that had alerted him: voices, now below us, approaching along the path.

"We're pretty exposed up here, don't you think?"

"Come, we'll tether the horses behind the hilltop, out of sight, and then go forward again and find a place to watch from." As we swung down from our saddles, the sounds were already much closer, individual voices audible in the buzz of quiet conversation.

"Ach, too late," he said. "They'll be past here by the time we come back." He was looking around as he spoke, and suddenly he pulled the Pendragon longbow he had "adopted" from the saddle of his pack-horse. "Leave the horses and bring your bow, but take off your helmet and carry it. We'll watch from over there!" He nodded towards a trio of large trees some distance to our left; then, pulling a bowstring from his scrip, he quickly strung his bow and snatched a quiver of arrows that hung by the pack saddle while I did the same, and within moments we were crouching side by side between the two largest trees. Below us, less than thirty paces from where we crouched, a long line of men emerged from the forest, all of them armed and armoured, wearing conical helmets, some of which had horns, walking in a double file along the path. Ambrose slipped back, keeping his head low, and crossed to where I crouched.

"Now those," he whispered, "are Saxons."

As he said the words, one of the men in the lead stopped abruptly, holding up one arm so that the line of men behind him came to a halt, their voices dying away rapidly. For a space of heartbeats I thought he must have heard Ambrose's whisper, but he immediately began to speak to his people, his voice urgent and minatory. I glanced at Ambrose, but he shook his head at me, frowning with concentration as he listened to what was being said below. Whatever it was, it was briefly stated. Two men immediately moved up ahead of the leader and vanished along the pathway. Moments later, the train moved forward again, proceeding now in silence. We watched them leave, and I counted twenty-four of them, including the two who had gone ahead of the main party. When the sounds of their passage had diminished, I turned to Ambrose, who was still frowning.

"What was that about? Did you understand him?"

"Aye, I did," he replied, his face grim. His eyes moved restlessly from side to side, looking from where the Saxons had disappeared along the track, to the point at which they had come into view. Finally, my impatience took over.

"Well? What did he say?"

Now his eyes moved to me. "He told them they must be quiet from here on, to achieve surprise. Then he sent two scouts on ahead to make sure no one on the road would be able to raise an alarm."

It took me several moments to absorb what he had said.

"You mean they're going to attack that farm? The Saxon farm?"

"Any time now," he answered. "The Anglian farm. I told you, they're a different people, a different race altogether; an enemy race."

"Good God!" I had a vision, immediate and stark, of that tall, fair young mother being raped, her husband and her young sons lying dead around her, and my mind went back to the sight of young Arthur's nurse, Turga, when I had first seen her, witless with despair, demented eyes gazing sightlessly at the dead baby in front of her.

"We have to raise an alarm!"

Ambrose glanced at me again. "How? It's too late now. We're behind them. To sound any kind of warning we would have to be ahead of them, between them and the farm."

"Damnation! There must be something we can do," I retorted, but he was right and I had seen the truth of it as soon as he had said the words. The forest grew too densely here on either side to allow us to make any kind of speedy progress away from the path, even on horseback.

"There may be." His voice was curt. "I have one idea and I think it may be insane. Come, quickly!" He had snatched up his helmet and now turned, running towards the horses. I was close behind him as he reached them, but he was already mounted by the time I began to unhitch my reins.

"Quick," he snapped. "Leave the pack animals. We have no time."

I swung myself up into the saddle and then saw that he was standing in his stirrups. He had unstrung his bow and was shrugging off his cloak and wrapping it around his bow stave and quiver.

"Do the same as I'm doing."

Mystified, but making no attempt to argue, I slipped down from my saddle again and quickly unstrung my bow, then used the string to tie the bundle made by my bow stave and quiver wrapped in my cloak as securely as I could before slinging it, as he had, from my saddle horn.

"Right," he said as I remounted. "Make sure your helmet's tight on your head. Fasten your chin strap. And you'll need that." He was pointing to my iron flail, which hung at its usual place by my right knee from the hook mounted on my saddle. I reached for it and gripped its leather-bound wooden handle tightly, feeling the weight of the heavy iron ball at the end of its chain. Ambrose had unslung his long cavalry sword and now he kicked his horse hard, angling it downhill to regain the path. I spurred Germanicus hard.

"What's the plan?" I called as I gained his side. Our horses were already stretching to a full gallop, their shod hooves making surprisingly little noise on the pathway, cushioned by a thick carpet of leaves sodden by the previous day's rain.

"The first part is straightforward," he called back. "Surprise backed up by impetus. We couldn't leave the path—they won't be able to, either. So we'll catch them from behind, if we're fast enough, and smash through them. The people at the farm should hear the commotion and be able to prepare themselves. At least they won't be taken completely unawares."

"What if we don't catch them on the path?" I was bent forward now, head down to avoid the twigs and branches flailing at my head and face.

"Then we charge at them wherever we do find them, but in either case we ride clear through them and out the other side. Don't stop."

"Why not?" We were making no attempt to be quiet.

"That's the second part— aha!"

We had caught up with the rear part of the Saxon column, and I saw the surprise and fright on the faces that turned towards us in consternation. One fellow had time to throw up his shield and raise his sword, but then Germanicus was upon him, smashing the shield with his great shoulder and hurling the fellow aside, into his nearest companion and directly into the path of Ambrose's charging horse.